Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Mild Thai Chicken Curry

I have very little experience coooking Asian food, but lately I have really developed a taste for Thai food, particularly curries and pad thai. This is a mild Thai chicken curry that I modified from a recipe I originally found on epicurious, and it's very easy to make.

Ingredients:
1 14-oz can of coconut milk
1/2 T of red curry paste
1/2 red pepper, sliced into 1/3 in wide strips
1/2-1 small head of broccoli, chopped
1 T brown sugar
1 T fish sauce
1/2 lb. cooked chicken, cut up into bite size pieces.
1 cup rice, prepared according to package directions (with water and butter)

Directions: Cook curry paste and coconut milk in a skillet over medium low heat for a couple of minutes. Add vegetables, brown sugar, and fish sauce and cook for 5 minutes. Add (cooked) chicken, mix together and cook for a couple more minutes. Serve over rice. Makes 3-4 servings.
This recipe is very mild. I don't have much of a taste for spicy food, and even I found myself wishing it were spicier. If I made it again I would probably use an entire tablespoon of curry paste. Even as is, however, the recipe certainly has flavor. This recipe is also easy to modify - the original recipe called for onion and red pepper, but I substituted broccoli to fit my tastes. It would also be easy to cook the chicken in the skillet with the coconut milk, if it's added at the beginning. I would imagine it would also be easy to substitute a different kind of meat. The core of the recipe is of course the coconut milk and curry paste, and the brown sugar and fish sauce give it a Thai flavor. Epicurious commentators suggested adding some garlic or peanut butter, so I might try that the next time I make it.
A note on the Thai ingredients - I was able to find all of them in the International aisle of my local grocery store, but if they're not available in the general grocery store they can be found at an Asian supermarket.

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