The mandatory inclusion of seafood-related treats such as fish sauce, oyster sauce, and shrimp paste often make eating in Southeast Asia a little difficult for a veggie (to say the least). And it's not something worth trying to trick yourself into believing you can get around, either. Here is an example conversation a vegetarian might have with restaurant waitstaff:
"...but I'm vegetarian. I can't have oyster sauce."
"...it's not meat, it's oyster sauce! It's vegetarian!"
and so forth. You learn to simply find vegetarian establishments, basically, and there are a fair few in the major cities. The word "vegetarian" seems to have annexed so many different meanings that it's hard to know what's up from down, so I don't take anyone's word for it anymore when I'm in this region.
Instead I just feel sorry for myself while on holiday, and save up all my annoyances to come home and make veggie versions of the dishes I gave a miss while away. Next time I won't be so defeatist about it.
Vegan Thai Penang Curry
- Directions/Method
- First, prepare your eyes for the death they will experience from coming within 200 metres of cut shallots. Once you have got past this first hurdle, feel free to make a paste out of the first ingredients in the list. My preference is in hiring a slave to do this part of the job, but a blending utensil of some sort is also acceptable. Pestle and mortar is for brave souls only. I warned you.
- Heat a wok with a relatively liberal amount of oil (at least a couple of tablespoons) and fry up the fake chicken pieces or tofu until nice and brown. Shove over to one side of the wok and in the other half of the wok fry the paste, in some more oil if necessary.
- After a couple of minutes mix the fake chicken and paste together. Add the vegetable stock (a homemade stock is recommended). Stir until all ingredients are mixed and then add the coconut milk. Add salt, to taste.
- Chop your greens up and chuck 'em in with the rest of the lot to simmer for about ten minutes. Serve warm, over rice.
It looks delicious.. even I am not a vegetarian.. I will try this.. thank you for posting this..
You're an idiot if you claim oyster sauce is vegetarian...wtf? "vegetarians" that eat fish sauce etc are pescatarian. Get your facts right.
Yeah I know what you mean. I think we take for granted the understanding a little more in this part of the world though! But it's definitely getting easier...
Don't insult people when you are wrong! The author says It's not vegetarian! Learn to infer-the part of the conversation where ut says there is no meat so it is vegetarian is said by an unknowledgable waiter.
Just finished chowing it down, delicious!! Had to reduce the stock for a while, was looking a bit like a soup for a while...
Thanks, glad you liked it! I'll have to re-test it again to check on the consistency issue...
As someone whose not vegetarian but just trying to cut down on the meat: what ingredients did you use instead of oyster sauce, if one wants to recreate it using that instead? In any case, I'm off to the shop - looking forward to use this recipe as-written!
There are vegetarian alternatives to oyster sauce, which are usually marked as vegetarian stir fry sauce or vegetarian mushroom oyster sauce. They can be used as a replacement in any recipe calling for oyster sauce. I am actually just about to publish a more up to date and authentic penang curry recipe, if you give it a week or two 🙂 I wrote this recipe before spending much time in Southeast Asia so while it's good it's different to what you might expect from a penang curry.
I reserve the right to improve malicious and trollish comments.