Food Escapades & Curry Fridays ! Massaman Curry
sorry for being a little late this late week, we started online school and I've been trying to get organized hahahahah. If you know me well you'd know I have no idea how to organize myself, so I'm trying to take the opportunity to learn a little !
Anyhow, this week's curry was Massaman curry! This marks the first time that I've decided to remake a curry, using a different recipe this time ! I got recommended the website thaifoodmaster.com by fellow reader of my curry escapades, @arghdos, and decided to give it a shot. Massaman curry was something that really shook me the first time I made it, and this was no different! It's funny how different the techniques we used in this one ended up being from the last one, but they still managed to taste very similar. Which isn't a bad thing, mind you! Still a very decadent, rich, and delicious dish that I think everyone should try. (Though a bit spicy, be careful with that. My mom was not too pleased !)
Little story time: the recipe called for charring the dried red chillies a bit before adding them to a paste, so we did that. I kid you not, for about 20 minutes after doing this, we were coughing at how spicy everything was in the room. I almost puked because of it hahahah. Fun times. (Funny how both times I made massaman I got really really spiced....). This time my dad and I decided to finally buy a decent food processor to make the paste, so it actually came out pretty smooth! I can't wait to use this processor for different recipes in the future, it's such a good feeling to finally have something that's good enough for pureeing hahah.
Overall, a great Recipe once again, that I found easier than the original one because of the techniques used being a lot less complicated. Great dish !
Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/QW5k0Th
Recipe: https://thaifoodmaster.com/preparation/curry_preparation/6679#.XojiDIhKguV
Question of the day: What Culture do you think has the best food?
Have a great day <3
Tomi, your friendly neighbourhood marshmallow~
I want to be in your family! Massaman is my favorite curry, and I've been wanting to make this recipe since it was posted. I've just been too lazy. Thank you for sharing how it went. I've taken note to reduce the heat since I'm not into super spicy foods.
It's difficult to pick a culture that has the best food. Thai is certainly ranks high because it has a lot of dishes I like, but I think I'm going to go with American food. Like I really love a lot of different foods that come from here like southern fried chicken and biscuits, Philly cheesesteaks, Texas BBQ, American Chinese, Mexican American, gumbo, red beans and rice, Chicago style pizza. and smoked salmon to name a few.
American food gets overhated.... It definitely has it's own culture (even if it is mostly INSPIRED by other stuff, but can you blame them?) and it's suuuper good, though not that great for the metabolism hahahahah
LOL, yeah you definitely gotta be careful with that. It's why most people char chilies outside if they can. You also have to be careful when blending dried chilies too, because if you breath the dust in or get it in your eyes you're in for a world of hurt!
Ooh, difficult and potentially divisive one today. :P
I would personally have to go with Japanese though, since almost every Japanese dish I have ever had has been great, I absolutely love ramen and sushi, and I even enjoy a lot of the slightly weirder stuff by Western standards (e.g. unagi, natto, etc). Cantonese is probably a close second though, because of all the amazing Dim Sum dishes that originated there (e.g. shumai, har gow, cheong fun, dahn tat, char siu bao, etc).
I do love me some sushi... was probably my favourite dish of all time for a few years, only recently being topped by curries and stews. I surprisingly haven't delved as much as I wish into the world of ramen as I would like... I do love me some creamy ramen with those really nicely textured eggs they usually have! I don't get how they get the yolk to feel that way... it really is something special hahahahah
As with most thing cooking related, J. Kenji Lopez-Alt has your back:
The Food Lab, Ramen Edition: How to Make a Marinated Soft Boiled Egg (Ajitsuke Tamago)
We gotta love Kenji! He’s been uploading so many dorky videos lately it’s amazing hahhaha
Massaman is the best. Such a great curry for people who don't think they like curries.
how big are these shallots?!
Overall, I think its a toss up between Vietnamese, Japanese, Mexican, Korean, Cantonese, Thai, and Italian. If you were protecting a bridge with this question, I'd be launched.
Thai shallots are typically grape sized, hence 20 isn't that crazy :p
Well, would you look at that! Thanks for this. :)
I'd recommend going by the amount in grams instead of the actual amount hahahah, we got a bag of like, what? 7-10 shallots? and it was already 250 grams !
ha. yeah -- I do everything by weight, for the most part.
Do thai shallots have a different profile than normal shallots?
well I did it all with regular shallots, so I couldn't tell you.... I'm sure like any other variety it would taste slightlyyy different, but probably not that big if it's easily interchangeable with regular shallots. Who knows, maybe someday we could try it out with thai shallots and see ! :P
yeah, I'm going to keep an eye out for them. They shouldn't be difficult to find locally.
My guess is that they'll be fairly similar.
you're not wrong.... this question could easily start a world war hahahahahah
Glad you liked it! Macing yourself with toasted chilli's is almost a right of passage, lol. You definitely want to crank your microwave / stove top fan to high, and don't even think about putting them into the mortar and pestle until they are cooled to room temperature. If you're using the food processor to make the paste, LEAVE THE LID ON for a good 5-10 minutes after you throw in the chilli's, will absolutely help with the fumes :p
yeah those are smart tips, my dad and I are still doofuses when it comes to stuff like that :P practice makes perfect !
So I actually made this recipe last night (inspired by you to pick it up again :)... and I still managed to mace my SO so badly she couldn't be in the kitchen, lol. Maybe I'm just a freak of nature (I got through with just some extra sniffles), or maybe pounding the paste is an Outside Encouraged activity 😛.
Either way, it's feeding into my superhero alternate identity: Onion man! He can chop fresh onions for hours, pound freshly roasted Chili's into paste,...
Also, I messed up the toasting step. On the advice of my SO (not that I disagreed at the time!), I put it in the broiler for a minute or so, which had the mace seeds start smoking hehe. I think I would've been better off in a small frying pan on the stove for all the seeds, with the fan on blast and really tight timing control of each ingredient. A quick broil still seems right for the garlic / shallot / chilli's though.
Huh I’ve never really thought of doing that on a broiler.. we usually just use this little stove top wire rack thingy (I dunno what they’re called hahahah) and it does the trick really well
I’d love to meet onion man at some point ! Maybe he can teach me how to cut up onions without crying heheheh
Out of curiosity, what did you use for bitter orange? That's another Thai ingredient that probably exists somewhere, but I've never seen it (same with coriander root). I put in roughly 1/2 a cup of orange juice and a 1/4 cup of grapefruit juice. Mostly worked, but I would go a little lighter on the orange next time!
We ended up using juice oranges instead of the regular navel ones, they have a slightly less sweet flavour to them. As for coriander root, we ended up buying plain old coriander and using the stem part of it instead of the leaves. Some coriander you can find in the stores have longer than what is expected stems, which ended up serving alright for the recipe. I dunno if that’s what it means but coriander root, but, hey, if I can’t find it in the asian market I will probably never find it anywhere else hahahah