Getting to Five a Day

Thai Green Curry with Chicken
and Many Vegetables

There is a small list of things I usually order when I go to a Thai restaurant. The rotation includes pad see ew, some sort of basil and chili stir fry with chicken or shrimp or vegetables, and more rarely, pad thai, spring rolls, or chicken satay. If I order a curry, it is almost always Panang curry. Until yesterday, I had never had green curry!

For this green curry, I followed a recipe in Real Thai, but cut the meat by 1/3 and nearly doubled the vegetables.

Below is a plate of some of the vegetables. Clockwise, there are grape tomatoes, green beans, kaffir lime leaf, Chinese eggplant, and Thai basil. I also added strips of bell pepper and 1 red chee fah chili at the end.


I set the ingredients out on the stove. This made it easier to get everything into the pot.

Here is the finished curry:

The recipe is easy to follow and results in a flavorful, vegetable-rich dish. I think I'll be making more of this curry as the farmer's market starts to have summer squash, green beans, and other vegetables. I ate the green curry for dinner two days in a row and I think it tasted even better the second day. After the eggplant has sat in the curry for awhile, it gets very soft and really absorbs the flavors. Another upside of this curry, at least for some, is that it is not overly spicy.

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Recipes Adapted from Real Thai by Nancie McDermott.

Green Curry with Chicken and Vegetables

2 chicken thighs cut into bit-sized strips
1/2 cup coconut cream
1/4 cup green curry paste (see below)
3 cups coconut milk
1 1/2 cups diced eggplant
about 20 green beans, cut into bite-sized pieces
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 cup basil leaves
3 red chee fah chilies or 9 long, thin red pepper strips
1 cup cherry or grape tomatoes, cut in half
12 fresh kaffir lime leaves

Warm the coconut cream over medium heat until it boils gently. Adjust the heat to maintain a gentle boil and cook 6 to 9 minutes, stirring occasionally. When you see tiny pools of oil glistening on the surface, add the curry paste and stir to dissolve into the coconut cream. Cook for 1 to 2 more minutes, until the curry paste has a pleasing aroma.

Add the chicken and stir to coat the pieces so they are all coated, about 1 to 2 minutes. Cook for about 2 minutes more. Increase the heat and add the coconut milk, eggplant, green beans, fish sauce, and sugar. Stir well and then add 6 of the lime leaves. Adjust the heat to maintain a gentle boil and cook 8 to 10 minutes.

When the chicken and vegetables are about done, add the tomatoes. After about one minute, remove from the heat and add the basil leaves, peppers, and remaining 6 lime leaves.

You can serve the curry over rice or noodles.

Green Curry Paste

1 tablespoon coriander
1 teaspoon cumin
5 peppercorns, freshly ground
3 stalks of lemongrass, edible parts minced
1/4 cup cilantro roots or leaves and stems
1 tablespoon ginger
1 teaspoon fresh lime peel
3 tablespoons chopped garlic
2 tablespoons coarsely chopped garlic
1/2 cup fresh kii noo chilies (Thai chilies)
1 teaspoon shrimp paste

The traditional way to make the curry paste is to use a a mortar and pestle to pound the ingredients together. This results in a moist fragrant paste. As with the red curry a made two weeks ago, I threw everything into the food processor. The recipe makes quite a bit, so I froze the extra in an ice tray to use later.

Skimping on Condiments.

Kao Soi
Chiang Mai Noodles with Curry Sauce

This is a mild curried dish from Northern Thailand that uses fresh egg noodles. It is typically served with lime, shallots, a bit of fried noodles, green onion, pickled cabbage, and chili oil. As you will see, I really skimped on the condiments, but it still turned out well if only because of the great noodles. I think I could eat them bare. Here is the package of the fresh noodles, which I bought from a Chinese grocery store in Chinatown:


First I made the curry in the dutch oven, which works great for saucy things. I boiled coconut cream, then dissolved a tablespoon of my red curry paste from the freezer and turmeric and continued the boil. Then the a pound of chicken goes in (I used thighs). After about two minutes, I added coconut milk, fish sauce, regular soy and dark sweet soy.


After 10 mines it was done. I should have added lime juice to the curry, but instead garnished with a lime. I sprinkled some shallots on top too.

My verdict: make this again, maybe with shrimp, and if I am going to skimp on condiments, at least make the chili oil.

The recipe above is found in:
Real Thai by Nancie McDermott.

You Don't Need Sriracha Sauce with This One.

Red Curry Paste &
Country-Style Curry (Baeng Bah)


Red Curry Paste

A lot of people think that curry is a spice, but it is actually just a mixture of spices. Country-style curry and a lot of the other Thai dishes use red curry paste for flavoring, so that is what I made first. I used a recipe from Real Thai (McDermott) and cheated by using a food processor instead of a mortar and pestle.

The curry paste contained dried red chilies (note to self: do not touch any part of face after touching chilis - painful!), peppercorns, coriander seed, cumin, lemongrass, cilantro, ginger (or galangal), lime peel, garlic, shallot, shrimp paste, and salt.

The recipe made about a cup of curry paste which should last for many dishes as most calling for the paste use only 2 - 3 tablespoons. It lasts for a month in the fridge, but I think I might try to parcel it out and freeze it.

Baeng Bah
(Country-Style Curry)

This is easy to make once you have curry paste on hand and it is lighter than other curries because it does not use coconut milk as a base. You have to saute the paste in vegetable oil for a few minutes, then add the chicken pieces (I used a mix of breast and leg meat, but next time will only use dark meat as it turned out much better). After a few more minutes, you add water and bring to a boil. Next go in the sugar, fish sauce, and vegetables.

For vegetables, I used Thai eggplant, on the left, and green beans. Thai eggplant is officially my new favorite eggplant. It is so pretty and its skin is tender when cooked.


After the vegetables are just about cooked, in go the basil and peppers (chi fah chilies, as in the picture below, or just a regular red pepper) . At the last moment, I tasted and because of the immense heat decided against the chi fah chilies and went for the bell pepper. The chi fahchilies actually aren't all that spicy --not like the little dried chilis that went into the curry paste-- but I was becoming concerned that I might make the dish inedible if I added anymore spice at all.


The finished curry was light, flavorful, and really spicy--borderline too spicy--but I am looking forward to eating it for lunch today with rice.


The recipes above are found in:
Real Thai by Nancie McDermott.

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Link of the day: A great article about Sriracha from the NY Times.

"The lure of Asian authenticity is part of the appeal. Some American consumers believe sriracha (properly pronounced SIR-rotch-ah) to be a Thai sauce. Others think it is Vietnamese. The truth is that sriracha, as manufactured by Huy Fong Foods, may be best understood as an American sauce, a polyglot purée with roots in different places and peoples."