Thai curry has very little in common with Indian curry. I’m not even entirely sure why they share the same name in English. Indian curries generally center around turmeric, cumin, coriander, ginger, garlic, onion, chili pepper (usually dried and powdered)maybe tomato. Thai is lemongrass, galangal, garlic, shrimp paste, makrut lime leaves, cilantro root, fresh Thai chiles. The whole base is different. And something being “curried” is not really an expression. You don’t curry something (except maybe favors.) ETA: wait, I just realized I have heard of dishes as “curried something.” To me that just means putting generic “curry” spices on it.
Huh. I’ve avoided Thai curry based on my reaction to Indian, but maybe it would be safe to try it, if it doesn’t have the same suite of spices. Since I don’t know which particular spice is the likely culprit I’ve been super cautious about anything “curry”.
I might avoid Masaman curry, and Panang. Those do incorporate Indian/South Asian type flavors. But your typical “stoplight” curries should be fine. Unless turmeric is what your reactions to. There’s turmeric in yellow curry, but green is my favorite, anyway, as is red.
Do you have reactions to Middle Eastern food? That could rule out some things as cumin and coriander are pretty common there as spices.
Maybe, maybe not. If you’ve ever had as violent a reaction (short of anaphylaxis) to a food as i suffered, you’d be leery of taking a chance.
ETA: I’ve had no problem with Middle Eastern food. Makes me wonder if it’s the turmeric, but I don’t feel like experimenting upon myself.
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Heh. I live in a mostly white-bread suburb north of Boston. No restaurants like that anywhere near me. There’s Chinese and Thai places in my town, and a Japanese restaurant about a half-hour drive away. That’s it for Asian around here.
Sorry – yeah, that’s the one with peanut. I had originally written “and maybe Panang.” But it sometimes/often? does have cumin and coriander, a combination I think of as coming more from India or the Middle East. Cumin is common in American cuisine, so I doubt it’s that. Coriander seed is common enough if you eat Middle Eastern food (and the leaf is everywhere in Mexican cuisine.)
Turmeric is in American yellow mustards, so probably not turmeric. I’m betting, if it’s not just some weird coincidence that they got sick after eating South Asian food, that it’s something more like, I dunno, cardamom, which you don’t get too much of here in American food. Something more exotic. Oh, and fenugreek can apparently be cross-reactive with people who have peanut allergies, so another possibility if that’s so.
But, yeah, not something you really want to experiment with to figure out, given the reaction.
Can’t be cardamom. A local bakery makes carrdamom pastries to die for. I get one whenever they have them.
Yes. My extensive Thai cookbook “Thai Food” by David Thompson (at a whopping 673 pages) does not include those ingredients. But the Mae Ploy panang curry paste, which is made in Thailand and available here, has both cumin and coriander seed in it.
Then here’s a food author who grew up in Hat Yai, Thailand recipe. This is just from a quick Google.
Or this Thai language recipe that includes both?
I mean, Thailand has a lot of culinary variation.
Anyway, I believe we’re side-tracking here.
For Chinese, I’ve always like Sichuan-style green beans for something vegetarian. I wonder if you can get ma po tofu without the pork. It should be doable, I’d think. I’m pretty sure I’ve made a vegan version long ago. ETA: Oh, it looks like my favorite place does do it vegetarian, so it’s out there. Tons of vegetarian options there, and clearly marked with a green symbol.
Yes, I can get tofu dishes at the Thai place, I think one of the two Chinese places likely offers it.
It’s the latter half of the equation that’s more of a problem TBH. There’s lots of awesome (many shared in thread) options to cook for more vegetarian/vegan, but buying premade is tougher. My normal go to would be my wife’s favorite, the “Tasty Bites” but they’re Indian, and I’ve read enough of the thread to know that’s a risk. You mention a definite “NO” on curries, but are their other options, like Saag Paneer that you’ve tried and liked? We might find the troublesome ingredient by cross comparison of tolerable/not tolerable dishes.
I’ll add to the resounding “don’t bother” for meat emulators - some of them are enjoyable in their own right, but the dissonance between expectations and results often makes them worse by the inevitable comparison. For my wife (the vegetarian in our house) sometimes she misses the textures of things, but not the taste of meat. Her favorite is tofu, dredged or lightly battered, then pan friend. Not “nuke it until it’s done” but easier than a lot of options.
(NOTE for tofu - purchase extra firm, then freeze. Once thawed, you can drain it a lot more effectively which makes it easier to absorb liquid flavors/sauces.)
In terms of heat-and-go food, various Tex-Mex dishes are a fine choice. Green chile and cheese tamales, chile rellenos and bakes are also nice. For super easy, there’s a nice variety of vegetarian and vegan eggrolls out there as well, which is one of my wife’s go-tos. Toss them in an air fryer for a few minutes, and they’re crispy and delicious.
What Middle Eastern foods have you had? Some of of the common ones like gyros don’t have much in the way of “exotic” spices that you could encounter in Thai or Vietnamese restaurants.
I was finishing mainly for cumin and coriander, but shawarma spices will also often have cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, etc. Not all that far off something like garam masala. I have some stuff here from the Arabic market that also has cardamom, cloves, and ginger in it. See: Arabic seven spice blends.
Gyros is Greek. Though obviously part of the shawarma/döner continuum, totally different spicing.