Thai Red Curry with Oyster Mushrooms

Oyster mushrooms have a firm texture and are brilliant at absorbing other flavourings which is perhaps why they are used so widely in Asian cooking. This curry is based on an authentic Thai recipe, but takes the shortcut of using a ready-made curry paste – now widely available in most larger supermarkets along with other Thai ingredients such a lime leaves, fish sauce and birdseye chillies. If you can’t find the required ingredients in your local shops, you may need to forage further afield in an Asian supermarket – and if you do, you should take the opportunity to grab some morning glory (also known as water spinach or Thai watercress, or across Southeast Asia as kankong or in China as ong choi). This spinach-like vegetable has a delicious flavour and succulent, crunchy stems that add a nice texture to the curry – but if you can’t find it just use baby spinach leaves.

This makes enough for two people with boiled rice (sticky, fragrant jasmine rice would be perfect), but will feed more if part of a larger selection of dishes.