Food with good intentions - Farang Green Curry

Kaffir lime leaves are an important part of a green curry paste,

and can be grown outside even in Canterbury.

Last Sunday I went to a one day meditation retreat in Christchurch. It was led by Ajahn Chandako, the abbott of the Vimutti Buddhist Monastery (which is just south of Auckland). The theme of the retreat was 'Stability in the Heart'. This is something that many Cantabrians have needed to cultivate since the ground started being so unstable.

As well as sitting and walking in silence, and listening to a very helpful talk on the theme of the retreat (my favourite line - “You get to unshakeable peace by being at peace with being shaken.”) we also shared a vegetarian potluck lunch. There was a tempting array of different kinds of hot rice, with flavourings, rice salads, mixed vegetable salads, and a range of fresh and cooked chutneys and relishes.

Before we started eating Ajahn Chandako talked about the intentions with which the food was made and shared, and how important that was both to the quality of the food and to our appreciation of it. With these words in mind I ate my meal slowly, and thought about how good it tasted because of the care people had put into preparing it. They had intended the dishes they made to both nourish and please the people who ate them.

Most of the people on the retreat I had never seen before, and will probably never see again. Yet I know by eating their food that everyone who brought a dish to the retreat made it with good intentions, and each one will have her or his own back story of making and perhaps even growing food at home to nourish others. As some of the people on the retreat were of Thai or Sri Lankan origin, their back stories and the food they make at home will be very different from mine. Yet wholesome intentions produce wholesome food, regardless of whether it is curry, rice and chutneys or the leek and cheese flan with roast potatoes and green salad that I made for dinner the other night.(Whereas food that is made just to make money - think fast food chains - is not wholesome in intent or quality.)

For my own contribution to the potluck lunch I decided to try making a Thai green curry, putting together a couple of recipes I found on the Web and improvising mightily because the main green ingredients in the proper Thai version (coriander and basil leaves) just don't grow in my garden at this time of year. I thought I would see if rocket and Japanese brassica (komatsuna, mizuna) leaves would do instead, with a few nasturtium leaves and some laksa leaves (also known as Vietnamese mint or Polygonum odoratum). The laksa leaves grow in a pot in my glasshouse, along with the lemon grass which is essential to a green curry paste, and it was there that I also found a couple of small (but plenty hot) green chillis. My other exotic ingredient from the garden (or glasshouse) was kaffir lime leaves. I have had a kaffir lime bush growing in a large pot in a frost-free part of the garden for several years. It doesn't thrive the way it would in Thailand, but with enough water it produces lots of deliciously-scented leaves.

I thought the finished curry was very tasty, but decided that I couldn't really call it a Thai curry since I used non-traditional ingredients. So I have called it a farang curry – farang is the Thai word for foreigner. My intentions in creating the recipe were good – you be the judge of how good the result was.

FARANG GREEN CURRY

Ingredients – for the Curry Paste

2 t coriander seeds

½ t cumin seeds

½ t black peppercorns

2-3 stalks lemon grass, finely chopped

2-3 kaffir lime leaves, finely chopped (or zest and juice of 1 lime)

3 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped

a piece of fresh ginger (thumb-sized) peeled and finely chopped

2-4 finely chopped fresh green chillis (to taste)

1 ½ cups spicy green leaves

e.g. Japanese brassicas (mizuna, komatsuna, etc.) and rocket, coriander and/or basil if available,

and optional small amounts of laksa leaf, nasturtium leaf and other green leaves, coarsely chopped

1 small onion, finely chopped

2 T shoyu or tamari

1 t brown sugar

1 T peanut oil

½ t salt

Method – for the Curry Paste

Grind the seeds and peppercorns in a grinder or mortar until half ground.

Add the lemongrass, lime leaves, garlic and chillis, and grind everything to a fine paste.

Put the green leaves, onion, shoyu, peanut oil and salt in a blender or food processor;

add the paste and stir in.

Whizz everything until it is a green paste.

Ingredients – for the curry

3-4 cups seasonal vegetables, cut in small pieces and cooked in 1 ½ cups water until just tender

(save the cooking water)

(In autumn and winter use a selection of cauliflower or broccoli divided into florets, finely sliced carrots, a sliced leek, and squash, pumpkin and/or kumara cut into in small cubes;

in spring and summer use sliced zucchini, whole sugarsnap peas, sliced green beans, sliced asparagus, cubed eggplant, cubed squash)

OR

3 cups vegetables and 1 cup firm tofu, cut into cubes

2 T oil, for frying

4 tablespoons cashew nuts (optional)

1 400ml can coconut milk

½ cup vegetable stock (cooking water from the vegetables)

1 whole kaffir lime leaf

Method - for the curry

In a large wok or frying pan, fry the cashew nuts (if using) in the oil, until golden brown.

(If you have a red or orange capiscum handy, it can be sliced and fried after the nuts.)

Add the curry paste and fry it, stirring, for 1-2 minutes.

Add the cooked vegetables and roll them in the curry paste.

Lastly, add the coconut milk, vegetable stock and kaffir lime leaf, and simmer the curry gently for 5 minutes until it is hot. Do not let it boil, or the coconut milk will curdle. If more liquid is needed, add extra vegetable cooking water.

To serve, sprinkle with roughly-chopped basil or coriander leaves, if available.