I totally cheated with this one, but that’s okay. Let me explain. Have you had panang curry before? It’s delicious. Much like red curry, but better. (Yes, that’s possible.) I wanted to create a vegan version for the blog for a while, I’ve never come across a commercial brand of panang curry paste, and I’m guessing that if one is out there, it probably isn’t vegan. And while I am a fan of whipping up DIY curry pastes as fun little projects when I have the time, it’s nice to know I can rely on something easy and store-bought. I always kind of wondered if I could pull it off with red curry paste, but I thought that would be cheating. Then I happened to see a comment on this recipe dealing with that very question. I took that as an invitation to go ahead and do as I pleased. What I ended up doing for my cheater’s portobello panang curry is pretty simple. Red curry + full fat coconut milk + peanut butter. And a few other seasonings to boot, but that’s pretty much it, and it was just fine by me. Tasty as heck, in fact, and yes, between all that peanutty and coconutty goodness, pretty darn rich, but so worth it. Since beef panang curry seems to be a big thing, went and included some big fat meaty portobello mushrooms in lieu of the tofu and/or mixed veggies I might normally be inclined to go with in a Thai curry. If you’re more of a tofu and veggies type of person, be my guest. This sauce would taste good on just about anything.
