Thai Red Seafood Curry

Yesterday was a fun day. It was cooking with friends day. 

As usual my kitchen was afterwards a mess but I didn't mind. We were cooking Thai Red Seafood Curry. And everyone was helping with cutting vegetables, stirring the food on the stove and setting up the table. In my opinion you have the best conversations while cooking with friends. And you definitely laugh the most in a kitchen. Cooking with friends is a guarantee for having a good time because it is so creative.

Even though I have recipes and follow them as a guideline I always improvise while cooking at home. And I love to try new ideas given by my friends. As a result the dishes always taste a bit different from the last time I cooked them.

Last night we started off with the rice because it has the longest cooking time. For the four of us we cooked 200g red rice with 1 teaspoon of salt in lots of water. We decided on red rice as it is always grainy and has a nice nutty taste. Besides the fact that the nutrition value is slightly better than that of white rice.

While I cleaned and cut 100g carrots, 70g leek, 100g bell pepper (any colour or mixed colours) and 70g zucchini into slices Nicky heated 2 tablespoons cold pressed sesame oil with 50g Thai Red Curry paste in a big pot. Once the curry paste was well mixed with the oil she added 400g coconut milk to it and heated it up to boiling point. We than added the vegetables and 70g green peas and cooked it for 20 minutes with the lid on the pot. After 15 minutes we added 150g cleaned prawns, 150g fish fillet (cut in bite size pieces) and 150g squid rings. Just put the seafood on top of the curry and put the lid back on. This way it doesn't get over cooked.

In the meantime we diced 2 tomatoes, 150g cucumber, 100g bell pepper and a mid size onion for the side salad. For the dressing I mixed 1 ½ tablespoons virgin olive oil with 1 teaspoon mustard, 4-5 tablespoons of red wine vinegar, 4 tablespoons of warm water, a pinch of salt and lots of freshly ground black pepper. Add the vegetables to the dressing and give it a good stir. Let it set for a few minutes to bring out all the flavours.

While Nicky and I were busy with the vegetables and curry Prem was busy cutting half a cucumber, 2 oranges and 2 lemons into slices for our Pimms & Lemonade. To the fruits he added about ½ litre of Pimms and 1 ½ litres of ice cold Sprite.

After setting up the table we spend the next few hours indulging in food and conversations and lots of laughter. Over it all we completely forgot to take pictures of our feast so you have to excuse us... this time no picture.

Enjoy and have fun in the kitchen!

Love

Carola


PS: a bit later... but here the picture :-)