Spicy vegan Thai curry

Like Chinese dishes, curry is one of the most popular dishes in Japan. There are a variety of retort pouch curry available in supermarkets. In larger supermarkets and import food stores, you can even find some Indian and Thai curry in addition to Japanese-style curry. Though I have introduced Indian curry such as Chana Masala in this blog, I had never eaten Thai curry until recently. I once thought that Thai green curry was a kind of vegetarian curry. So, I was very disappointed to find “chicken” among its ingredients. There are some Thai restaurants in Hamamatsu, but I have never visited them because it seems to difficult to find substantial vegetarian/vegan dishes.

The day before yesterday, I wrote about the vegan retort sauce of Mapo Doufu released by KaRuNa in April. At the same time, they also released “Vege Spicy Thai Curry.” Luckily, I found it in the same store BIO Atsumi and could finally taste Thai curry. The package resembled that of the Mapo sauce.

It was easier to prepare than Mapo Doufu as you only need to warm up the pouch in boiling water for 5 minutes and pour into a dish. At first, I was a little disappointed as I could see only a chunk of soy protein.

But it also contained some big pieces of bamboo shoot.

This was my first time in my life to eat Thai curry, and I thought it was very interesting that curry could contain bamboo shoot. I had never eaten such curry before. In addition to bamboo shoot, it contained soy protein chunks, mushroom, celery and was flavored with coconut milk, canola oil, soy sauce, spices, salt, curry powder, etc. Even though it contained coconut milk that might have added a mild flavor, the curry was quite spicy, but not as spicy as Mapo Doufu I ate previously. While eating, I somehow remembered curry soup with cabbage served in elementary school lunch. Though I liked the school lunch, this Thai curry was much tastier with coconut milk, bamboo shoot, and soy protein chunks. Celery was also good to have in soup.

KaRuNa’s “Instant Vegan” series have just two products “Vege Mapo Sauce” and “Vege Spicy Thai Curry”. I hope they will expand the lineup so that we can increasingly enjoy vegan versions of popular Asian dishes at home.