Vegetarian Thai Red Curry

          Another cuisine that I like is the Thai Cuisine, though, being a vegetarian, I can taste only very few dishes, I love their Red Curry, Green Curry and Pad Thai. We can make these curries at home, we get readymade Red Curry and Green Curry Paste, but, for today I have made the red curry paste from scratch. Apart from the spices that we use in the Indian kitchen, there are a few ingredients that are unique to this curry, lemon grass, galangal, kafir lime leaves and basil leaves. I got the lemon grass and basil leaves, but was unlucky with the galangal and kafir lime leaves, but I replaced them with ginger and grated lemon zest respectively. The curry turned out awesome and tasted very good with plain rice..

Need To Have

• Green Beans - 11/2" pieces, 1/2 cup
• Carrots - 11/2" pieces, 1/2 cup
• Zucchini - 1 small, diced
• Red Pepper/Capsicum - 1/2, diced
• Yellow Pepper/Capsicum - 1/2, diced
• Button Mushrooms - 7 medium, sliced
• Green Brinjals/Eggplants - 2 small, sliced
• Baby Corn - 6, sliced 
• Garlic - 3 small cloves, chopped
• Coconut Milk - 200 ml
• Tofu - 1 cup
• Fresh Basil - 1/2 cup, chopped
• Palm Sugar - 1 teaspoon
• Lemon Juice - 1 tablespoon
• Soy Sauce - 1 tablespoon
• Lemon Zest - from 2 small lemons
• Thai Chilly/ Bird's Eye Chilly - 1 sliced

For The Red Curry Paste

• Chopped Shallots - 1/4 cup
• Garlic - 5 small cloves
• Ginger - 1" piece
• Dried Red Chillies - 5
• White Pepper Powder - 1/2 teaspoon
• Red Chilly Powder - 1/4 teaspoon
• Coriander Powder - 1 teaspoon
• Cumin Seeds - 1/2 teaspoon
• Lemon Grass - 1/4 cup
• Coriander Leaves Stems - about 1/4 cup

Method

          Grind together all the ingredients given for the Red Curry Paste.

          Toast the tofu pieces in a little oil, remove and keep.

           Cook together the yellow and red peppers, zucchini, brinjals, carrots, baby corn and green beans, when they are just cooked, add the mushrooms and cook for a minute or two and remove.

          Heat some oil, add the chopped garlic and saute till they turn golden, then add the red curry paste and saute for 2 to 3 minutes.

          Add the lemon zest and mix for till the mixture becomes dry and you get a nice aroma.

          Add the cooked vegetables and about 11/2 cup of water, cook for a minute.

          Add the coconut milk, bring it to a slow boil, add the tofu pieces, followed by the palm sugar, soy sauce and basil leaves. Finally add the bird's eye chilly and remove.

Note
We can add broccoli and yellow squash too.
I have used extra firm tofu.
We can use less spicy chillies like byadgi chillies, that way, we'll use more chillies and that gives a nice color to the curry.
Don't overcook the vegetables.
I have used coconut milk that comes in tetrapaks.
My curry was medium spicy, if you want it more spicy, you can grind the bird's eye chilly also and add.