curry noodles

My favorite aunt-in-law spied a photo of curry noodles on my Flickr account a couple of weeks ago, sovaldi and has since been persuading me to post the recipe. She likes curry. A lot. Since I don’t want to cause irreparable damage to our relationship, I figured it’d be best to get this recipe up post haste.

I adapted these curry noodles from (you guessed it!) Super Natural Cooking. It calls for slightly more red curry paste than I can handle, and I substituted regular curry powder for Tumeric because it’s what was in the pantry, and beef stock for vegetable stock because what can I say? I love the beef. I also cannot find wide Asian-style noodles that are whole wheat or whole grain, so I went with Soba noodles because at least they’re made from buckwheat. I didn’t substitute anything for the tofu because I love the way it soaks up the curry broth here, but this dish would work equally well with chicken, shellfish or beef. Lastly, I added sliced orange bell pepper for color and opted for adding a little more stock so that I could cook the noodles right in the curry broth for more flavor.

So, without further ado, curry noodle recipe after the jump!

Curry Noodles
1 tbsp. flavorless oil
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 red or orange bell pepper, thinly sliced

1 tsp. Thai red curry paste
12 oz. exta-firm tofu cut into bite-sized pieces

2.5 cups beef stock (or chicken or vegetable, depending on your taste)
1 can of Coconut Milk (I used Lite)
1.5 tbsp. curry powder

1 package Soba Noodles

Juice of 1 lime

1 shallot, very thinly sliced
1 handful of cashews (or peanuts)
1 cup chopped, loosely packed cilantro

Heat the oil in a large pot. Add the onions and pepers and saute until slightly soft (about 2-3 minutes). Then, add the curry paste and half a cup of the stock and break break up the paste until it dissolves into the stock. Add the tofu and coat with any liquid in the pan. Let this simmer for a minute.

Add the remainder of the stock, the can of coconut milk and the curry powder and bring to a slight boil. This is the time to add the Soba noodles, reduce the temperature to medium-low and cover for about 5 – 8 minutes. Taste the noodles to make sure they are cooked through, but still al dente. Once the noodles reach your desired consistency, remove them from the heat and stir in the lime juice.

Heap the noodles into a bowl, ladle some curry broth over them and top with a large pinch of cilantro, some chopped cashews and a pinch of slivered shallots.