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Rich's Thai Fish

A spicy, coconut milk based stew with veggies, poaching fish at the end, and pouring it over bed of white rice.

Another name could be: "How to raid the pantry and create a gourmet meal."

You can add any veggies that you like or use canned veggies like bamboo shoots, baby corn, water chestnuts.

Ingredients (mostly to taste)

• 1 can coconut milk
• 3 tablespoons curry paste (or curry powder, or mix of spices that you like)
• 3 - 4 cloves garlic, diced up fine
• 1 whole medium onion, diced up fine
• 1 handful fresh basil, coarsely chopped
• 2 peppers, sliced in good sized pieces (red/green/yellow- your choice)
• 1/2 onion, sliced in good sized pieces
• 1 fish - I prefer wolf fish, cusk, pout, hake - these fish are less likely to flake apart
• white rice (sticky is better)
• olive oil (cover the bottom of the wok/frying pan lightly)

1. Start cooking the rice according to instructions. Rice takes 25 minutes to cook, so when you're done with the rice, everything else is ready too.

2. Heat up the oil and garlic and diced onions in the pan. Start with a cool pan as this will flavor the oil more. As they soften, add the curry paste or spices. Cooking them will really bring out the flavors. This should take about 7 minutes or so.

3. Add the peppers and onion slices. Sauté for a couple of minutes. Add ½ of the basil and sauté 1 minute. Add the coconut milk and stir all together. Bring almost to a boil. Add fish. Poach for about 10-15 minutes. Add rest of basil and take off of heat. Rice is done. Lay a layer of rice on each plate and spoon mixture on top of it all.

The colors of the dish should be fantastic. Ideally, serve on a plain colored plate. You can top with more basil on top of everything if you want. For wine, think white and a little spicy. For beer, think Italian (Moretti's) or Japanese (Sapporo).