I wrote about how I was gifted a pumpkin at a farmers market. Well, a girl can’t live on pumpkin smoothies alone, try as she might. And I didn’t try very hard. So I ended up with half a pumpkin to cook. And that, dear reader, called for pumpkin stew. but I don’t really like your average pumpkins stew. Every restaurant has squash soup on their menu right now. Mostly butternut, and mostly a lot of cream. I wanted some zing. And that meant soy sauce and/or fish sauce with lime, coconut milk, chili and something savoury. I had a bunch of messy mackerel, so that’s what I went with, basing the cooking method of the fish on a chowder in Selengut’s sustainable seafood cookbook “Good Fish.” So first I made the curry and then I poached the fish in it. The mackerel lost some of its bitterness and lent an earthiness to the salty, sweet, sour stew. In essence, it was wonderfully Thai – it was balanced.
Thai Pumpkin Curry
adapted from this recipe on About.com
- 1 sweet potato, chopped into chunks (2-3 cups – about 3/4″ to 1″ cubes)
- 3-4 cups peeled pumpkin or squash, chopped into similarly sized chunks
- 1 tbsp sunflower oil, or other high-heat oil
- 2-3 kaffir lime leaves (available fresh or frozen at Asian stores. Or use the zest of 1 lime)
- handful fresh coriander for garnish
- 1 lb skinless, filleted mackerel in 1/2″ or 3/4″ cubes (or other sustainable white-fleshed fish – Pacific halibut, lake pickerel or walleye, black cod if you’re splurging), optional (vegetarians add cooked chickpeas if you want, or roasted cashews)
- 1/4 cup coconut milkCurry Sauce
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 thumb-size piece galangal or ginger, roughly sliced
- 1 1/2 tsp ground coriander
- 2 tsp ground cumin
- 1/2 tsp turmeric
- 1/3 cup coconut milk
- 1 tbsp soy sauce (gluten-free diets)
- 1 fresh red chili, sliced (1/2 tsp dried crushed chili). Keeping the chili in slices instead of dicing will make it less hot.
- 1/2 tsp chili powder or cayenne (optional)
- 1 1/2 tbsp lime juice, or more to taste
- 2 tbsp fish sauce (or 3 tbsp soy sauce – wheat-free for gluten-free people)
- 1 tsp sugar (for balance. Don’t skip it, but you can use palm sugar or coconut sugar, or even a rich honey if you want)
Preparation:
- Place all curry sauce ingredients in food processor or blender. Blend. Or mash in a mortar and pestle, but you’ll need a big one. Transfer to a large bowl.
- Chop the pumpkin and sweet potato.
- Heat sunflower oil in a large skillet or wok, heat over medium-high heat, then add curry sauce. Stir-fry 30 seconds then add 1/2 cup water and kaffir lime leaves.
- Bring to a boil and add pumpkin and sweet potato. Bring back to a boil, cover, and reduce heat to medium-low heat (just hot enough to keep curry simmering) and cook until pumpkin is tender (about 8-10 minutes), stirring occasionally.
- Poke vegetables with a fork to see if they’re done. The fork should go in easily.
- Taste-test your curry: Add more soy sauce or fish sauce for salt until desired flavor is reached. Add more sugar if you’d like your curry sweeter. If too sweet or too salty for your taste, add fresh lime juice or more zest. Add more chili for spicy heat.
- Add mackerel pieces and turn off heat. Leave pot on hot burner for 5 minutes. Check fish for done-ness. It should be opaque but not chewy and tough.
- Transfer the curry into a serving dish, or into individual bowls. Drizzle over 1/4 cup coconut milk (or serve in individual bowls with a few tsp of coconut milk each), and top with a final sprinkling of fresh coriander and a little more fresh red chili if you happen to have it handy and like heat (and pretty garnishes). Serve with Jasmine rice and a slice of lime if you’ve got it.
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