Food & Wine
Veggie stir-fry with coconut red curry sauce
There are no hard and fast rules here. Feel free to choose your favourite rainbow-mix of ingredients; just be sure to add more robust vegies such as cauliflower and carrot early, and delicate ones like snow peas in the last minute or so of cooking. The other trick to a good stir-fry is to make sure your vegies are dry before adding them to the hot pan, otherwise they’ll steam and lose their fresh, crisp texture. Serve with steamed brown rice or noodles for a quick mid-week meal.
Serves: 4
Ingredients:
- 2 teaspoons rice bran oil
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
- 1/2 cauliflower, cut into bite-sized florets
- 1 carrot, julienned or very thinly sliced
- 1 head of broccoli, cut into bite-sized florets
- 6–8 cups delicate greens (such as wombok cabbage or bok choy), cut into 3 cm pieces
- 1/2 red capsicum, seeded and cut into thick slices
- 1 teaspoon finely grated fresh ginger
- zest of 1/2 lemon
- 200 g snow peas or sugar snap peas
- 1 teaspoon rice wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar
- 1/3 cup roughly chopped coriander (optional)
- 4 kaffir lime leaves, very finely shredded, to garnish (optional)
- 1 lemon or lime, cut into wedges, to serve
For the red curry sauce
- 1 tablespoon vegan red curry paste
- 1 cup coconut milk
- 1/2 cup vegetable stock (or water)
- 4–6 kaffir lime leaves, very finely shredded
- Juice of 1 lemon
Method:
- To make the red curry sauce, warm a heavy-based saucepan over medium heat, then add the curry paste. Let it fry, stirring occasionally, for one minute, before adding 1/2 cup of the coconut milk. Stir well, then let the mixture simmer and reduce for about five minutes, stirring occasionally to make sure it doesn’t stick.
- Add the remaining coconut milk, the stock and lime leaves, and mix well. Reduce the heat to a low simmer and let the sauce bubble away and thicken while you prepare the vegies.
- Just before you are ready to serve, stir in the lemon juice.
- Heat a wok over medium–high heat. When it is hot, add the rice bran and sesame oils. Add the cauliflower and carrot and cook for about two minutes, stirring constantly to make sure the cauliflower florets cook evenly. Now add the broccoli and continue to stir.
- When the broccoli, carrot and cauliflower are tender, but not too soft, add the cabbage or bok choy, capsicum, ginger, lemon zest and snow peas.
- Toss well to combine, and fry for a mere minute or two, until the cabbage is just wilted and the peas have turned bright green, but still retain a bit of bite.
- Immediately remove from the heat and sprinkle with the vinegar.
- Serve with steamed brown rice or noodles, drizzled with the red curry sauce, sprinkled with chopped coriander and shredded lime leaves, with a lemon or lime wedge on the side.