It's really annoying to read down a recipe that looks and sounds wonderful and find some cockamamie ingredient you might be able to find in NYC or LA or overseas but certainly not where everybody else lives. Most of those recipes are written by people in NYC or LA or frequent travelers and all suffer from a form of chefitis.
One thing I question is substituting 5 jalapenos for 1 habanero. Jalapenos are for flavor but don't give a lot of heat. I'd suggest 3 jalapenos and 3 serranos, the serranos giving you the heat. Or if you can't find serranos, 3 yellow hots.
Another sub they didn't think of is the one for water chestnuts. I dislike the ones in the can, they always taste strongly of the can. If I can't find them fresh, I substitute jicama. Water chestnuts have crunch but not a huge amount of flavor, something the jicama does well. You can also use kohlrabi if the dish would benefit from a cabbage flavor.
Also for mirin, a very sweet Japanese rice wine, you can use dry sherry and sugar.
Sadly, the substitute for coconut milk was missing. My guess is that it was water, shredded coconut, oil of some type, maybe some sugar, then follow directions, but we'll never know.
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