Wednesday, December 30, 2009

THAI GREEN CHICKEN CURRY


Let’s make a Thai Green Chicken Curry today. And we will make our own green curry paste. You can buy delicious Thai curry pastes, it is true. But we will make ours from scratch. It is not difficult. And it will be rewarding.

Ingredients:

Thai Green Paste:

1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
12 black peppercorns
12 small dried shrimp or 1 teaspoon shrimp paste
20 Thai green chillies
2 shallots
1 lemon grass stalk
3 kaffir lime leaves
Some grated kaffir rind
2 garlic cloves
1 tablespoon chopped fresh galangal (or ginger, if you cannot get galangal)
½ teaspoon salt
½ tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Chicken Curry:

1 big chicken breast
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
½ chopped onion
½ cup cubed squash
½ cup chopped green pepper
1 chopped carrot
1 cup chopped mushrooms
1 tomato
1 teaspoon fish sauce
½ cup coconut milk
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 teaspoon chopped cilantro

First we will make our green paste. We will take the cumin and the coriander seeds and we will dry-roast them in a pan. Be careful, do not burn the seeds. Once this is done, put them in a mortar and grind them along with the peppercorns and the dried shrimp.
Prepare the green chillies. You will have to remove the seeds and chop them a bit. Now we will start mixing all the green paste ingredients in a blender. We will chop the shallots and lemon grass and then we will put them in the blender. We will do the same with the kaffir lime leaves, the galangal and the garlic. We will add the grated kaffir rind. Now we can blend a little. After this, we will add the rest of the ingredients for our paste: the green chillies, the mix with cumin, coriander, dried shrimp and peppercorns. We will blend again and then we will add some sugar, some salt to taste and some vegetable oil. We have to use the oil to get a delicious green paste, so use it to get the paste to your taste. And with this we will have our green paste.
Now we will start with the curry. We will cut the chicken the way we want, cubes, strips, it is up to you. We will prepare the vegetables too.
Then, in a wok, we will heat the vegetable oil. Once it the oil is hot, we will start cooking our ingredients. First, the onion, the carrot and the green pepper. A couple of minutes later we will add the chicken to the wok. Stir continuously, that is always a good idea. You can add some extra garlic and galangal (or ginger) now. We have these ingredients in the paste but it would be good to add some more.
We will add now the fish sauce. And then we will add the mushrooms and the squash. A minute later we will add the green paste, two or three tablespoons, to your taste. We will stir and mix everything and then we will add the tomato cut in little pieces.
Now is when we can add the coconut milk. We will cook our curry very gently now. It is the time to add the lime juice and the chopped cilantro.
We can add some other ingredients. For example we can add some peanuts and bamboo shoots. Do this when u add the chicken to the wok. A good touch is adding some basil, Thai basil if you can get it. Add it when you add the fresh cilantro. We will have our Thai Green Chicken Curry ready now. You just have to serve it with some Thai Jasmine rice. And enjoy your Thai Green Chicken Curry cooked with your own Thai Green Paste!

No comments:

Post a Comment