Vegetarian Thai Red Curry

Living in England helped me develop an appreciation for curries and I am always on the look-out for new recipes. The following Thai curry was super easy to make and just as good as a dish you might get in any restaurant. The recipe is from BBC Good Food but given what I had in my kitchen, I made a few substitutions/exceptions. Instead of jasmine rice I used rice noodles, and I substituted jalepenos for red chillies. I also skipped the snap peas and mushrooms but I think this dish is quite versatile and any vegetables you want to skip or add should be fine. Also, the original recipe tells you how to make red curry paste from scratch but I simply substituted store bought to save time. Hopefully you enjoy this one as much as I did!

Ingredients:
3-4 tablespoons red curry paste
200g firm tofu , cubed
4-5 tbsp soy sauce
juice 3 limes
2 red chillies, 1 finely chopped, 1 sliced into rounds
2 tbsp vegetable oil
400ml can reduced-fat coconut milk
1 courgette , chopped into chunks
1 small aubergine , chopped into chunks
½ red pepper , deseeded and chopped into chunks
140g mushrooms , halved
40g sugar snap peas
20g pack basil , leaves picked
1 tsp brown sugar
jasmine rice, to serve

Directions:
1. Marinate the tofu in 2 tbsp soy sauce, juice 1 lime and the chopped chilli.
2. Heat half the oil in a large pan. Add 3-4 tbsp paste and fry for 2 mins. Stir in the coconut milk with 100ml water, the courgette, aubergine and pepper and cook for 10 mins until almost tender.
2.Drain the tofu, pat dry, then fry in the remaining oil in a small pan until golden.
3.Add the mushrooms, sugar snaps and most of the basil to the curry, then season with the sugar, remaining lime juice and soy sauce. Cook for 4 mins until the mushrooms are tender, then add the tofu and heat through. Scatter with sliced chilli and basil and serve with jasmine rice.