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Pineapple red curry

Pineapple Red Curry

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Prep Time 1 hour
Cook Time 1 hour
Total Time 2 hours
Course: Main Course
Cuisine: Thai
Ingredients Equipment Method

Ingredients
  

Curry Paste
  • 10 medium-sized, spicy, dried, red chili peppers more or fewer to taste
  • 5 large, mild, dried, red chili peppers add more if making not spicy
  • 2 strips kaffir lime zest, ~½"x1" sub regular lime, if necessary
  • 15 cloves Thai garlic, unpeeled
  • 3 coriander roots (can sub
  • 1 inch fresh galangal root if unavailable sub ginger and/or finger root
  • 2 slices turmeric about 1"x¼"x⅛" each
  • 1 shoot lemongrass just the purple inside part
  • 1 tsp Thai cumin seeds
  • 1 tsp coriander seeds
  • 1 cup shallots, peeled a generous cup; if you must sub, make it a sweet onion
Curry
  • 1 lb waxy white or yellow potato
  • 1 lb orange, yellow, or white sweet potato
  • 1 lb tropical pumpkin sub kabocha, if necessary
  • 1 lb pineapple the small, Chiang Rai variety is nice
  • 1½ red bell pepper
  • ½ cup dry, split soy beans - soaked overnight we're making soy milk, or sub one-ingredient packaged soy milk
  • salt-free veggie broth or water optional
  • 1 handful Thai basil can sub holy basil
  • 3 leaves kaffir limes

Equipment

  • 1 Mortar and Pestle (or high speed blender)
  • 1 Charcoal stove (or not)
  • 1 Clay pot for use with the charcoal stove (or, you know, just a stainless steel pot on a regular stove)
  • 1 Big spoon made of coconut shells (or similar)
  • Cheese cloth (unless you buy the soy milk)
  • 1 Chef's or cleaver knife (that's good for smashing *and* chopping)

Method
 

Curry Paste - Traditional Pounding Method
  1. Pound the spices into a powder, set aside.
  2. Chop the peppers and kaffir lime zest as small as you can. Pound; pound; pound.
  3. Smash and chop the garlic, leaving the cancer-fighting-skins on. Pound; pound; pound. The peppers should start to look like paste.
  4. Continue adding your finely diced (or smashed and diced, in the case of the lemongrass) curry paste ingredients in the order listed. Pounding until each ingredient is well incorporated before adding the next one.
  5. Pro tip: if your mortar is too small, start working in batches when you get to the shallots. They are adding the bulk of the moisture and will be the thing that rehydrates the peppers (fully) and spices.
  6. When it looks like curry paste, you're done. Congratulations. Set aside so it can rest.
Soy Milk
  1. By hand - Soak the split soy beans over night. Take a tablespoon or so at a time and pound them in the mortar and pestle, adding water as you go and straining batches through a cheese cloth. You're going for 2 cups of thick milk, or 4 cups thin.
  2. By blender - Okay cheater - pop your soy beans in the blender with 4 cups of water and strain through cheesecloth. I haven't yet done it this way (cause my Blendtec is in storage, so my ratios are guesses.
  3. Aim for a concentration reminiscent of Westsoy soy milk. But DO NOT drink raw soy milk; at this stage judge the thickness only with your eyes, not your tongue.
Curry
  1. If your vegetables are unwaxed, leave the skins on. Yes, the pumpkin too. Otherwise peel the veggies.
  2. Chop the potato, sweet potato, and pumpkin into similarly sized cubes. Your call, it'll only impact how long it takes to cook, but I prefer 1-1½" cubes.
  3. Chop the red peppers into 1½" squares. And the pineapple similarly.
  4. Pick and roughly chop the Thai basil; chiffonade the kaffir lime leaves.
  5. Bring a little soy milk to boil and add the curry paste; let it come back to a boil, stirring frequently.
  6. Then add in the potatoes, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin with enough soy milk to almost cover. Let it boil until the veggies are 80% cooked.
  7. NOTE - The goal is to have the potatoes steam/cook while the sauce thickens down to a curry-like consistency, so don't start with too much soy milk. You can always add more later. If you think it's getting too rich, add water or salt-free vegetable broth instead of more soy milk. The ratio is really a judgement call based on how thick your soy milk came out. Just remember your homemade soy milk is raw, so you can't add it at the very end; it needs to cook.
  8. Add the peppers and pineapple. Cook until the potatoes are done.
  9. Take off the heat and add the Thai basil and kaffir lime leaves, stir to combine. Let rest 10-15 minutes so the sauce has time to thicken a little more thanks to the potato starch.