Thai curry

 A Journey of Thousand steps begins with a small step - Lao Tzu

Paraphrased into cooking

Every recipe starts with a single ingredient.

Today all I knew, when I started making the curry was that it was going to be Tofu curry. I also knew that I would be using up the ground groundnut/peanut powder in it. In the first place, the peanut powder came to be, because I added it late in the sabudana vada  game. There was some left over. 

At this point, it was only going to be Tofu curry with peanut powder. while the onions were sweating it out with the crushed peanuts, I realised a gravy was stirring up. I gave my little one a chance to cut up the tofu - the only vegetable that she can cut because it is soft. In a karate chop, she wielded some gross cuts to the Tofu which ended up as good chunks. 

When the Tofu chunks joined the party, it looked done. This is where I would call it a day. Infact, Tofu was the chosen candidate for a day like this. With 3 more such Tofu boxes left from the Costco's packaging, expiring on Dec 22nd, at the rate of one a week, there is no way that we wont finish them. Its not everyday that we have time for elaborate dishes. There are going to be days where we want to make something quick. Or not.

Then, I started adding some water to the curry, seeing that it could take some boiling. At this point, there was a vision of spicy red pepper flakes. It was high in the cabinet, with spouse magic, it landed into the curry. I realised what the curry longed to be, again relying on the special spouse magic, specifically, memory of its existence as well as the geolocation of it, there was dried lemongrass in my hands. I crushed it a bit into the curry. 

Now the curry too was up for adventure. Powdered curry leaves powder turned the yellow curry to green. In went more water. Some reasons for it. It felt salty, so I knew I would have to correct that. I recalled how the gravies look at restaurants. Thick liquids. It had some give. After a quick boil, here is a curry that came to being because the crushed peanut powder was ready.