Nutty red Thai curry

One of my favourite cuisines is Thai food. It's a balance of flavors: salty, sweet, pungent, sour, and sometimes spicy. The best is when you make fresh curry paste on your own. Typically, red curry paste has dried shrimp in it, but in this version, the shrimp never made it in.

Nutty red Thai curry with tofu

To make the fresh curry paste, lemongrass, ginger, garlic, kaffir lime leaves, raw sugar, tamarind, Braggs Amino acids, Fresno chilies, shallots, lime juice, apple cider vinegar, cumin, coriander, tomato paste and fennel seeds (I know it's a laundry list of ingredients!) were blended together.

And the delectable curry started off with some coconut oil, red onions, carrots, cauliflower, firm tofu, asparagus, vegetable stock, and finishing with coconut milk. Allow all curry to simmer a bit so the flavors begin to meld together. The curry was garnished with a mixture of roasted almonds, sliced coconut, cashews and fresh chopped cilantro. And with some steamed brown rice, you couldn't ask for a better pairing.