Salmon with Red Thai Curry Sauce & Thai Black Rice

Well, that was a loooonggggg week! Apologies for not blogging more this week, but working 70 hours a week leaves little time for fun things like cooking and blogging. But, I have a peace offering - the recipe for the most wonderful thai curry sauce you've ever tasted. Serve on some broiled salmon with thai black rice and you've got yourself and exotic and delicious meal! Note that thai black rice seems to take significantly longer to cook than regular white rice, so if you're in a rush, stick with jasmine or basmati rice that don't take quite as long to cook. :)

Salmon with Red Thai Curry Sauce & Thai Black Rice
Recipe minimally adapted from No More Secrets

Ingredients:

• 4 fillets fresh wild salmon
• kosher salt
• thai seasoning
• sesame seed oil
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 1/2 inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and minced
• 5 tbsp grapeseed oil
• 2 tsp ground coriander
• 1/4 - 1/2 tbsp fresh, hot curry powder (if you're using grocery store curry powder, use 1 tbsp)
• 4 tbsp red thai curry paste
• 1 tbsp paprika
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 1 - 14oz can coconut milk
• 4 tbsp tomato paste
• 2 tbsp tamari sauce
• 1 1/2 tbsp dark brown sugar, packed
• thai black rice, cooked according to package directions

Method:

1. First make the red thai curry sauce - saute the garlic and the ginger with the 5 tbsp oil in a medium saucepan. Add coriander, curry powder, thai red curry paste, paprika and cumin, one at a time, stirring well between additions to allow the fragrance to develop.
2. Whisk in the coconut milk, tomato paste, tamari and brown sugar. Bring to a boil and transfer to a jar. It will keep refrigerated for up to three days.
3. To cook the salmon, preheat your oven to 375F. Line a baking tray with foil and place salmon, skin side down on the prepared baking tray. Sprinkle generously with thai seasoning and kosher salt. Drizzle with a bit of sesame oil. Bake in preheated oven for 12 - 15 minutes or until salmon is cooked through.
4. Serve salmon on a bed of black rice, drizzled with thai red curry sauce and sprinkled with fresh cilantro leaves.

This is restaurant quality food that you can serve up at home - on a budget!! Gotta love that right? Hope you enjoy this! I think the key is to use good, fresh salmon and high quality spices (especially the curry paste and curry powder). I get my curry powder from a wonderful woman in my home town - she toasts and grinds her own blend of curry powder and sells it - all of the proceeds go back to India to great charitable causes there. This curry powder is some of the hottest and most flavourful curry I've ever tasted and a little goes a long way. If you're using "regular" curry powder from the grocery store, be sure to use at least double what I've quoted above as you will need that much to get anywhere near the flavour I got from my "special" curry powder.

This post has been linked up with Fusion Fridays over at Jennifer Cooks! Hop on over there and check out what other delicious goodies fellow bloggers have been making this week. :)

Happy Cooking my Friends! Hope you have a most wonderful weeked. :)

Kabobs: Thai Coconut Curry Pork Kabobs & Satay Chicken

I've never made kabobs before. Don't get me wrong - I like a good kabob, and I've tried a few of the recipes before, but I've never actually gone to the effort of actually cutting up the meat and threading it onto skewers. I'm torn about whether I would go through with the effort again. It was kind of neat, but I'm not that excited about eating off a skewer - I'm find with little chunks of meat that I can just eat with a fork. So you can decide what you want to do with these recipes - you can cut the meat up, marinate and then cook, or thread it onto skewers and cook it that way!!

We'll go easy on the blabbing today because I have two recipes to share with you!! Hope you enjoy.

Pork Skewers with Thai Coconut Curry Sauce
Recipe from the Guy Can't Cook by Cinda Chavich

Ingredients:

• one 398ml can light coconut milk
• 2 tsp hot asian chili paste
• 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
• 2 tbsp oyster sauce
• 2 tsp curry powder
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 pork tenderloin (about 500g), cut into long, thin strips

Method:

1. In a food processor or blender, combine the coconut milk, chilipaste, cilantro, oyster sauce, curry powder, brown sugar, and garlic. Whirl until pureed.
2. Place the pork strips in a ziploc bag and add half of the marinade. Marinate the pork in the refrigerator for several hours. Cover the remaining marinade and refrigerate.
3. Thread pork, accordion-style onto wooden skewers. Grill pork over medium-high heat for 8 minutes, turning several times, until its just cooked. Be sure to soak your wooden/ bamboo skewers in water for at least 30 minutes prior to cooking so they don't burn on the grill.
4. Meanwhile, put the reserved marinade into a small pot and boil for 10 minutes to thicken. Brush some of the curry sauce over the pork as it comes off the grill. Serve the pork skewers over basmati rice, drizzled with the remaining curry sauce and sprinkled with more fresh cilantro.

This one was definitely my favorite - I just can't resist a yummy thai curry sauce (actually, pretty much any thai food is irresistable to me).

Satay Sticks with Peanut Sauce
Recipe from the Guy Can't Cook by Cinda Chavich

Ingredients:

• 1 lb boneless, sinless chicken, pork, or lamb, cut into thin strips
• Marinade:
• 1/4 cup kecap manis (sweet indonesian soy sauce)
• 1 tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 tsp honey
• Peanut Sauce
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup natural peanut butter
• 1 tbsp kecap manis
• 1/4 cup chicken broth or water
• 1 tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice
• 1/2 tsp asian chili paste

Method:

1. In a large ziploc bag, combine the meat with the marinade ingredients. Seal and marinate in the refrigerator overnight.
2. Drain the marinated meat and thread onto skewers. Grill over medium-high heat until browned on all sides, about 10 minutes in total.
3. To make the sauce, whisk the garlic, peanut butter, kecap manis, chicken broth, lime juice, and chili paste together in a small bowl.
4. Set the sauce in the center of a round platter, and arrange the skewers like spokes around the edges if you are feeling artistic & fancy.

Both of these recipes are quite simple, just be sure you allow time for the meat to marinade because that's where the flavour comes from. You could probably bake the kabobs in the oven too if your weather conditions don't allow you to grill outside. :) Bake on a fairly high heat and broil a little at the end to get a little bit of browning on the meat.

Happy Cooking my Friends!

Similkameen Valley Wine Trip

My birthday was in May and my husband decided that instead of buying me a present as per the usual tradition, he was going to plan a trip for me. Just a small weekend getaway! So he planned a little trip to the Similkameen Valley, which is prime vineyard country. We stayed in the quaint little town of Keremeos. It was a really nice trip and I was plesantly surprised with the quality of the food and the caliber of the wineries we visited. I will post about the wineries later… for now, I’m just going to post about some of the food.

On Saturday afternoon, we wandered over to Sanderson farm market, who we had heard sold awesome pakoras and samosas. The pakoras were far from the best I’ve ever had – I found them a bit tough and lacking flavour. The samosas however were AMAZING! I am pretty sure they were the best samosas I’ve ever had. They were just veggie samosas, but the spices were so perfectly balanced and the filling was amazing! The outer shell of the samosa was crisp and delicious! They could have used a bit more heat, but I guess in the market they’re catering to, they probably don’t get a lot of people requesting spicier ethnic food!

At the farm we also purchased some lovely cherries! They were so juicy and sweet! I think cherries are one of my favorite fruits.

That afternoon we went for a scenic drive – we took a back road that my husband found on google earth and proceeded to 4x4 over the mountain to Oliver, BC rather than take the highway like everyone else does. Luckily for us, we have a nice big truck that didn’t have any trouble getting over the mountain. While it was a very bumpy ride, it was also a very pretty ride and it gave us the chance to do some wildlife viewing. In Oliver we took in a couple of wineries then drove back through Osoyoos to Keremeos. It was a really nice drive with lovely weather.
For dinner that night we went to Benja Thai in Keremeos. I had my doubts about eating Thai food in a small town, but I read a few very good reviews to calm my nerves. Honestly, I had NOTHING to worry about. The food was fantastic! Here are a few pictures of the menu items we ordered:

We started with the Por Pia Todd (vegetable spring rolls):

For our meal we ordered two other dishes and rice. The first dish was Panang Curry with chicken. It was declicious – spicy and flavourful (sorry for the quality of this photo – husband was in a hurry to eat and didn’t let me get a good shot, but I wasn’t really mad about it, because honestly I was in a hurry to eat this delicious food too):

Now I cannot remember what the last dish was called… it may have been Pad Priew Waan (we ordered it with pork), but this could be the wrong name! Either way it was delicious and flavourful too and very spicy! Loved it.

For dessert I ordered thai coffee. It was declicious, sweet and creamy. I looked up a recipe later and it is made up of really strong coffee (about ¾ of the glass), lots of ice, and sweetened condensed milk. Sounds gross, but actually really lovely. I didn’t take any pictures, but it also looked very pretty – coffee stays at the bottom of the glass while the creamy mixture at the top floats without mixing much with the coffee. Stir before consuming!

Overall it was a fantastic weekend! I should also mention the bakery in Keremeos – while I didn’t take any pictures of the goods, I should have because they were fantastic. We had breakfast there one morning – we both had lemon-cheese turnovers. They were amazing! The people who run the bakery are also very kind. I forgot my purse and they put it behind the counter and had it ready for me when I realized I had left it behind! The bakery was called the Crowsnest Bakery and was owned by one of our favorite vineyards of the weekend – Crowsnest Vineyards! Annnddd they had a brand new espresso machine delivered to the bakery while we were eating our breakfast – so I would imagine that by now, they are selling lattes and cappuccinos! Yum! If you ever get the chance, do stop in – its worth it!