{"id":20200,"date":"2018-05-27T20:42:24","date_gmt":"2018-05-27T18:42:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/?p=20200"},"modified":"2018-05-27T20:48:25","modified_gmt":"2018-05-27T18:48:25","slug":"thai-curry-paste-asparagus-rice-noodles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/?p=20200","title":{"rendered":"Thai Curry Paste, Asparagus, Rice Noodles"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nLeftover homemade curry paste, several asparagus spears, some chicken breast and a delicious 15-minute lunch for one was ready! If I had to wash and cook rice, it would take much longer, but for such quick meal occasions – and for when I’m fed up with rice – I always keep rice noodles, which simply soak while I prepare the rest. I even didn’t need to bother about fresh Thai herbs because I also happen to have some home grown sweet basil (my first experiment with a hydroponic system from seed stage!).\u00a0It’s maybe not a traditional Thai dish, but I hope I can call this dish at least Thai-inspired. Anyway, genuine or not, this super quick lunch was deliciously fresh and perfect for a warm spring day.<\/p>\n

TIPS: For this recipe I’ve used homemade “aromatic” curry paste<\/a>, following (and slightly changing) the recipe from Thai Food by Thompson<\/a>, the best Thai cookery book one can dream of. Making one’s own curry paste takes maybe ten minutes, it keeps for about a week and I even freeze it in individual meal portions (even though it’s discouraged by David Thompson), so if you have access to all the necessary ingredients I encourage you to make your own paste at least once. You will see how big the difference in flavours will be and you will realise how much you can tweak the ingredient’s amounts to suit your taste… Obviously, in this recipe you can use any Thai curry paste you have.<\/p>\n

Thai sweet basil (horapha; don’t mix it up with another Thai “holy” basil : graprao\/kaphrao, which has a stronger peppery aroma) has a very special anise-like flavour and can be bought in big bunches in Thai and Vietnamese grocery shops or, potted, in gardening shops. Unfortunately, it doesn’t freeze well and there’s no sense in drying it either because it loses its strong typical aroma. If you like it and cannot buy, I advise growing it because the seeds are available in many online sources (and in many shops too), it sprouts easily and grows quickly, even indoors. If you don’t have Thai basil, you can add some coriander for a fresh touch.<\/p>\n

You can replace the chicken with any other meat or tofu.<\/p>\n

Preparation: about 15 minutes (if you already have the paste)<\/em><\/p>\n

Ingredients (serves one for a full meal without any side dishes):<\/em><\/p>\n

5 heaped tablespoons curry paste (I’ve used aromatic curry paste<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n

5 tablespoons coconut milk or stock or water<\/em><\/p>\n

5 green or violet asparagus spears<\/em><\/p>\n

1 small or 1\/2 big chicken breast, skinned<\/em><\/p>\n

1 tablespoon coconut – or other – oil<\/em><\/p>\n

fish sauce (Thai or Vietnamese), to taste<\/em><\/p>\n

10-12 leaves Thai sweet basil (horapha)<\/em><\/p>\n

60 g flat thick Thai rice noodles<\/em><\/p>\n

Prepare a big bowl or pan. Slide the noodles into the pan, cover with boiling water, put a lid on the pan and put aside until you finish the rest of cooking.<\/p>\n

Cut off the tough lower parts of asparagus spears, throw them away. Cut up the rest into bite-sized pieces and divide into thicker pieces and thinner pieces (this way you can make sure both remain crunchy).<\/p>\n

Cut the chicken breast into thin strips or bite-sized cubes.<\/p>\n

Heat some oil in a pan.<\/p>\n

Stir-fry the curry paste for about 30 seconds, add the coconut milk and after 10-20 seconds, the chicken.When the chicken is about 3\/4 done, add the thicker parts of the asparagus spears.<\/p>\n

Stir-fry all that for about 2 minutes. Now add the thinner parts of asparagus, 2 tablespoons of fish sauce and stir-fry for about one more minute.<\/p>\n

Take off from the heat, add the Thai basil leaves and give all that a good stir.<\/p>\n

Drain the noodles, mix well with the sauce and serve.<\/p>\n

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Leftover homemade curry paste, several asparagus spears, some chicken breast and a delicious 15-minute lunch for one was ready! If I had to wash and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20211,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[185,131,25],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20200"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20200"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20218,"href":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20200\/revisions\/20218"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}