Thai rice with spiced cashews

It's time for the final post for The VegHog's Cheap Eats Week. I have thoroughly enjoyed being a cheapskate for a week and it has been nice to have a theme week again after a while. I hope that I was able to give a couple of tips how to cook economically and I thank you for all your comments.

In the beginning of the week I promised you one recipe from the cookbook for budget vegetarian cooking Veggienomics by Nicola Graimes. This is a recipe for a Thai rice with spiced cashews (p. 80) and I'm posting here my slightly altered version. I just had to add spice infused coconut cream, as it made such a lovely addition to this. I guess this recipe only becomes cheaper, if you already have some of the sauces and spices in your basic larder.

I halved or reduced the ingredient amounts a little, as was only cooking for two.

Ingredients

Thai rice

200 g Thai jasmine rice

1 tbsp vegetable oil

2 spring onions

1 pak choi

1 lemongrass stalk

1 red chilli

3 garlic cloves

Fresh ginger (similar amount to garlic)

1 tbsp soy sauce

Juice of ½ lime

½ tsp palm sugar

Fresh Thai basil leaves

Cook the rice. It will be added to the pan later for frying, so it can cool down in the meanwhile.

Chop the spring onions and pak choi. Chop the lemongrass, chilli, garlic and ginger finely.

Start cooking the chilli, garlic, ginger and lemongrass in oil.

After they have softened add the spring onions and pak choi. Only stir fry these briefly and then add the rice and soy sauce, lime juice, palm sugar and fresh Thai basil.

Spiced cashews

50 g cashew nuts

1 tsp soy sauce

1 tsp toasted sesame oil

½ tsp ground cumin

¼ tsp chilli flakes

Sprinkle of lime zest

Pinch of black pepper

Pinch of salt

Pinch of palm sugar

Toast the cashews in the oven until browned slightly.

Mix the dry ingredients for the coating and then add the lime zest, soy sauce and sesame oil.

Coat the cashews with the spice mix and return to the oven for a few minutes.

Serve the cashews with the rice.

I made my own addition, a coconut cream sauce with Thai spices, on the side by using a little of the garlic, ginger, chilli, lemongrass, Thai basil and spring onion chopped for the rice and letting it slowly simmer and infuse with the flavours. In the end I poured it onto the rice.

Have a nice week!

Your VegHog