A Satay Saturday!

I think N and I have made it known that after Indian food, Thai and Italian are our favorite cuisines. Actually I'm proud of the fact that I converted N into liking Thai, just like she talked me into this whole food blog deal ;) Thai food stands out as unique, flavorful and quite nutritious at the same time. It offers terrific variety for vegetarians. And the amount of spiciness and 'hotness' could be varied to suit our taste-buds.

We have already posted a Green Thai curry which was more or less an improv based on the ingredients we had. But one fine day, N and I went to a bookstore called Borders and found this book on clearance. Its called Sauces, dips and salsas and is published by Bay Books. It has an eclectic collection of recipes from across the world. One of them being this wonderful Satay sauce. We modified the recipe and made it vegetarian, since the original one asked for shrimp paste, to suit us . Here's how it came out.

Ingredients:

1 medium onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup broccoli cuts
1/2 cup carrot, julienned
1/4 cup edamame
1/4 cup snap peas
1/4 cup shiitake mushrooms
1/4 cup water chestnuts
1/4 cup green onions
1/4 cup red bell pepper
1 tbsp chilli oil
1 tbsp cooking oil
1 clove finely chopped garlic
3-4 dried crushed red chillies
1/2 cup coconut milk
Salt to taste
1 cup water
1 tsp toasted sesame seeds for garnishing

1. Heat cooking oil in a pan. Add the garlic.

2. Add the onions and the green onions before the garlic turns brown. Saute until onions are transparent and light brown.

3. Add the vegetables followed by chilli oil.

4. Add the salt, crushed red chillies, peanut butter and water. Bring it to a boil.

5. Add the coconut milk. Garnish with toasted sesame seeds. Serve with steamed or fried rice. We had ours with spring onion fried rice.

The curry tasted delicious, and we strongly recommend chilli oil. It adds a distinct, unmistakable 'Asian' flavor to the whole preparation. The choice of veggies is entirely up to you so you could decorate this curry YOUR way :)