Chiang Mai Curry ‹ Glitter Spice

At the end of last year, Derika and I spent two weeks traveling through Thailand. During that time we spent a few days in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and Krabi, taking cooking classes in each city. The food scene in Thailand really blew my mind and I was glad that we took the time to take a cooking class in each location. Out of all of the things that we learned to make, my favorite dish was a Chiang Mai Curry that we made at the Four Season Cooking School in Chiang Mai.

Ok, so the open air atmosphere of the cooking school was amazing and I was a bit hungry, but lets just put all of that aside. This dish had everything that I could ever want in a Thai dish. It was a warm, spicy, thick flavorful curry soup with veggies, tofu, fresh noodles, and all of this magicness was garnished with crunchy noodles, cilantro and green onions. Soooooo AMAZING, I was basically in curry heaven. If I could be a Thai food dish I would be Chiang Mai Curry. That is how much I love this dish. Thankfully, the cooking school sent us home with their recipe so that I can make this amazing dish whenever my little heart desires.

Once we got home I was faced with the challenge of finding all of the ingredients locally in order to recreate this dish. Lucky for me I can easily head to Chinatown in NYC and find all types of fun ethnic oddities to cook with. However, I know that all of you don’t have an amazing ethnic market near by, so I headed to Whole Foods Market first to see what I could come up with. In the end I made a couple of compromises, but I was able to get everything to make this dish. WINNING!

Here are some of the things that I changed. I have yet to make my own red curry paste (that adventure will be happening soon), but I did find this amazing curry paste at Whole Foods Market for about five dollars and I love it. This curry definitely saved me some time and cut out having to search for all of the ingredients to make the curry paste. For the noodles I found some fresh ramen noodles in the refrigerated section that worked perfectly. For 3 people I picked up two packages and we had more than enough noodles. Fresh noodles really work best here, but if you are gluten-free or vegan, I am sure you could use store bought dried ramen noodles that are diet appropriate in the soup. You might just have to omit putting the fried noodles on top of this dish. Other than that I was able to follow the recipe. As a side note, I did end up making some changes based on my own preferences, but nothing major though. I hope you enjoy this mind-blowing soup as much as I do.

Ingredients

Serves 4

1 Brick Extra Firm Tofu or Protein of Choice
Fresh Egg Noodles, the amount of noodles is based off your own personal preference. Just make sure you have enough to put in the soup and then enough to fry and put on top as a garnish.
1/2 C Vegetable Oil
2 TBS Red Curry Paste
2 Tsp. Yellow Curry Powder, mild or medium
2 Cans Coconut Milk, full fat
2 C Vegetable Stock
3 TBS Tamari or Fish Sauce
2 TBS Palm Sugar Paste
2 C Vegetables of Choice (I used a combo of broccoli, yellow onion, sweet potato and green beans)
Cilantro

Optional Toppings

Lime, wedged
Green Onion, thinly sliced
Shallots, thinly sliced
Chili Oil

Directions

Prepare your tofu or protein of choice. Cut into bite size pieces and set aside.
Heat the wok with the vegetable oil, and then deep-fry a handful of the fresh uncooked egg noodles for the garnish. Just fry them until they start to harden. They can go from ok to burnt in a hot second, so watch them closely. Set noodles aside on a paper towel to drain ( Sorry for the terrible picture below, it is hard to fry and photograph at the same time).
Blanch the remainder of the egg noodles in boiling water and place in individual soup bowls with some cilantro and cooked tofu.
Remove the oil from the wok and wipe the wok clean. Lightly sauté the veggies in the lightly oiled wok for 2-3 minutes to take the crispness out of the veggies. Set aside.
Wipe the wok clean with a paper towel. Heat the wok and add a ladle of coconut milk and stir until coconut milk boils.
Add red curry paste and mix the red curry with the coconut milk, then add the yellow curry powder. Mix well.
Add the lightly sautéed veggies, the rest of the coconut milk and the vegetable broth. Bring to a boil.
Add the tamari and the palm sugar paste. Stir and reduce the heat of the gas to a simmer. Keep cooking the soup for 7-10 minutes, so that the flavors have a moment to mingle.
Ladle the curry soup on top of all of the goodies that are hanging out in the soup bowls.
Garnish with crispy noodles, green onions and shallots. Serve with a side of chili oil and lime.