Thai Curry

After we saw a chef make a Thai curry at Coast Day, Brian and I decided to make our own variation. Brian doesn't like shrimp, so we tried this with both chicken and beef. It is a good spicy meal to make, but does require a few harder-to-find ingredients. I ordered these from a quick online market when I couldn't find them at my local store. Brian recommends that you not lick your fingers after touching the curry paste.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon + 2 teaspoon vegetable oil, divided

2 pounds beef or chicken strips

salt

1 pinch sugar

1 pinch crushed red pepper flakes

1 cup sliced onion

1 tablespoon Thai greet curry paste

1 (14-oz) can coconut milk

1 cup chicken broth

3 tablespoons Thai fish sauce

2 teaspoons brown sugar

1 cup petite-cut diced tomatoes

6 cups hot, cooked jasmine rice

Combine 2 teaspoons oils with beef/chicken and season lightly with salt, sugar, and red pepper flakes.

Heat a skillet over medium-high heat. Cook meat in skillet until browned, in two batches if necessary.

Heat remaining tablespoon of oil in now empty skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion; stir fry until soft and beginning to brown, about 4 minutes. Reduce heat to medium. Add curry paste, stir about 1 minute. Add coconut milk, broth, fish sauce, and sugar; bring to a simmer. Add tomatoes and simmer 2 minutes. Add meat and cook another minute. Serve over hot, cooked jasmine rice.

Coast Day 2008!

On Oct. 5, we embarked on our first (annual) Coast Day adventure. Coast Day is sponsored by the University of Delaware, but is located in the southern part of the state at the Lewes (pronounced Lewis) campus. Since my husband is a ph.d. student in marine biosciences, we went down to check out just what the day was all about. We had originally thought we may move to Lewes, before he was sure of what professor he would be working with. It is a very charming coastal town, with lots of (tax-free) shopping.

Coast Day was a much larger event than I had expected. We followed most of the other visitors and went toward the boats first. There were many boats at dock, and were open for free tours. Brian and I toured the boat pictured below, which is a recreation of a colonial boat that now takes tourists on boating adventures.

Next, we visited the touch tanks, where you could touch many of the marine species found in this area, such as horseshoe crabs, rays, sharks, and other fish.
After this, we passed many other exhibits on the way to watch a local chef demonstrate how to make a Thai Shrimp Curry Dish. It was very interesting to watch a live cooking demo, and of course Brian was most interested in tasting the food. A posting of our own variation of this dish will be coming soon.
We then avoided the boat show (too tempting for Brian) and hit up the food court. We participated in the "Chowder Challenge," voting for our favorite of two clam chowders. The tasty recipe winner can be found on the above website (does anyone know where to buy Clam Stock?). We then also shared a tasty Crab Cake (to fully integrate into coastal society).

After this, we wondered through the exhibit areas. Brian recognized a lot of the research displays, and some of the people working the displays. After soaking in just about all of the Coast Day festivities we could, we cheered on a crab in the crab race tent, and found our way back to our car, toured southern Delaware a little bit more, and headed back up to Newark (stopping at our favorite fresh food stand on the way up).