This dish was inspired by a dish I had Thai restaurant I visited once. They had a vegetarian tasting menu that changes seasonally and it was such an unique experience because the food was amazing! One of the exotic dishes I tried there was pumpkin curry served on a bed of banana leaves. The chucks of pumpkin still had the outer skin on it so I could see it was a green pumpkin. So when I got home I googled what it was and discovered kabocha squash which is dark green on the outside but tastes sweeter than a pumpkin, a bit similar to a sweet potato. Surprisingly my local grocery store had it. I experimented making this recipe two different ways and this is what I've come up with. You can throw in whatever other vegetables you want, I liked using a bell pepper but green beans would work as well. You could also add chickpeas for more protein. I wanted authentic Thai flavor but couldn't find Thai basil (so I used regular basil) and found working with fresh lemongrass was a bit challenging. I served this on top of Jasmine rice.
Ingredients:
1 Kabocha Squash
1 Bell Pepper
1 cup of coconut milk
2 tablespoons of red curry paste
1 onion
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 lime
Jasmine Rice
lemongrass (optional)
fresh cilantro, mint, or basil (season to your liking)
pepper
- Preheat oven to 400F.
- Cut the squash in half, remove the seeds, and bake face down for 30 minutes.
- In the meantime remove the outer tough layers of the stalk of lemongrass, cut off the end and top third and discard. Chop the remaining lemongrass.
- Place lemongrass in a food processor to grind it up. This step is important because otherwise the sliced pieces will be hard to eat.
- Chop the onion, garlic, and bell pepper. Saute in a large pot with the lemongrass heated with oil.
- Add the curry paste to the onion mixture.
- Remove the squash from the oven, chop the squash into bite size chunks and discard of the skin.
- Add coconut milk and and squash to pot. When the sauce comes to a boil, reduce to a simmer for about 8 minutes.
- Remove from heat and squeeze lime into the curry. Season with pepper. Top with your choice of cilantro and mint leaves or fresh basil.
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