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Yay, we’ve launched! This is crazy! And I’m so nervous, but still super excited about this new chapter.
You know what else excites me? Thai food. I fell in love with Thai food when I lived in New York. There’s this really amazing restaurant, Frankly Thai, around the corner from where my in-laws live in Franklin Square, NY. My husband and I will still sneak out to Frankly Thai on a date night every so often when we visit, but we’ve never taken the boys. As anyone with allergies knows, eating out at restaurants is… complicated.
We tend to eat at home because of Ben’s allergies. It’s probably for the best because eating at home is a great way to save money and eat healthy. However, let’s be honest–there are some days that I just don’t feel like cooking or don’t want to eat leftovers again. So yes, we get take out. However, unless I know for sure that a certain food doesn’t have any of the allergens we are avoiding, we don’t give any of our takeout to Ben.
Yes, we can ask about allergens, and when we have to eat out at a restaurant we do, but sometimes a language barrier makes it difficult to know with certainty whether a food avoids all of the allergens on our no-no list. And particularly with Asian cuisines, we have to worry about peanuts and eggs, like in the delicious Thai street food Pad Thai which has both but is oh-so-yummy.
Now, Ben has gotten to the point in his toddlerhood that he notices when the food he gets is different from the food everyone else gets to eat, and it breaks my heart to see him excluded. So we have done 2 things to compensate for this. 1. We make Ben-safe food look like the food that everyone else is eating. For example, if we’ve gotten Chinese food, I’ll serve him wheat free chicken nuggets drizzled in duck sauce over white rice. Don’t knock it–it works. And 2. We get creative in the kitchen. Which leads us to this gem I’ll share with you today: Thai Red Curry Tilapia.
And how does one start this red curry tilapia? It’s made by a Cuban American, so we start with a sofrito. Freshly chopped onion, bell pepper, and garlic sauteed in coconut oil (yes, we switched it up, but you could also do it with olive oil). This recipe also uses red curry paste, which you could get in the Asian section of your local grocery store. I use Thai Kitchen red curry paste. This recipe also uses a can of full fat coconut milk (also available from Thai Kitchen). You could find that in the same section, or sometimes in the baking section of the grocery store.
Now, obviously if you have a fish allergy / don’t like fish / don’t want fish, don’t use tilapia. Chicken could work in this recipe, or if vegetarian, try a can of rinsed and drained garbanzos. Or tofu. As with most curries, you can put pretty much any protein in there.
It’s creamy, and coconutty, and delicious. It’s also a super easy, one pot stew (although I do make white rice separately). And it satisfies our Thai food cravings without compromising Ben’s safety. I have a few of these “fusion” recipes, and this one is one of my favorites. Hope you enjoy it too!
Red Curry Tilapia
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp Coconut Oil (or olive oil)
- 1 Bell Pepper chopped
- 1 Onion (yellow) minced
- 3 cloves Garlic minced
- 2 tsp Salt
- ¼ tsp Ground Black Pepper
- 2 tbsp Red Curry Paste
- 15 oz Coconut Milk (can)
- 2 tbsp Brown Sugar
- 4 Tilapia fillets
Instructions
- Heat oil over medium high heat in a large pot or dutch oven.
- Add bell pepper, onion, garlic, salt, and black pepper and stir. Cook until onion becomes translucent, about 4 minutes.
- Drop heat to medium heat, add red curry paste, and stir.
- Add coconut milk and sugar, and stir until well incorporated.
- Place tilapia filets into stew and spoon some stew over them until the filets are covered.
- Let tilapia filets cook until they have turned white and flake easily with a fork. I break my tilapia filets up into small chunks which are easier for my children to eat.
- Once the fish is cooked, serve warm over white rice.
Can this be done with frozen tilapia?