Green Thai Curry
Recipe by lunatikfringe Uploaded by Drimble Wedge
As a disclaimer, my cooking skills are quite limited and methods used are a tad unconventional. Follow at your own risk :P
Ive been so sick of making pasta (make it often because its easy) and I have been on a huge asian food kick ever since I discovered this great little Thai restaurant near me. Every week I have been ordering out on a Friday night. Yesterday however, I felt like making something myself and did a little research on what is involved with some of the dishes I like.
The result was this link: http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Easy-and-Tasty-Thai-Curry
I was surprised at how easy it was to make. Not any more difficult than my usual spaghetti with homemade sauce. Being that my local grocer has an Asian food aisle, it was settled. However, I remembered a Green Thai Curry dish I had on a trip to San Francisco that involved eggplant. So my goal was to take the easy curry recipe and kick it up a bit with some added ingredients.
Using the ingredients from the above recipe, I added a yellow pepper, cilantro, basil, shiitake mushrooms, and eggplant.
I began by starting the rice and then prepped the curry ingredients while the rice cooked. Jasmine rice is the type of rice you want for this dish. Decide how many people are eating. 1 cup of rice can feed 1-2 people depending on appetite. It takes 1 and 3/4 cups of water to cook 1 cup of rice. Due to the massive amounts of ingredients I had, I made a whole box (3 cups) of rice.
Put water in a pot, add a pinch of salt and bring to a boil. Then add rice and stir. Bring back up to a boil, then cover and lower heat to simmer. Set timer for 15 minutes.
Now prep the veggies and chicken. I purchased thin sliced chicken cutlet and cut into small strips. Peppers, onion, and mushrooms were cut into thin strips (as opposed to cubed like the recipe says), cilantro minced, basil lightly chopped, and eggplant cubed.
NOTE: I didn't use all of the eggplant, onion, or peppers. About a cup of peppers and onion, half a cup of cilantro, basil, and mushrooms.
Once that is done, we move on to the curry sauce. I used 3 cans of coconut milk, and one 6.8 oz jar of green thai curry paste. WARNING: This was not spicy enough. It was good, but needed a stronger ratio of curry paste to coconut milk. Mix this in your deep sided pan/pot and bring to a boil.
Once mixed and boiling, you can begin to add ingredients. Add the chicken and eggplant first. WARNING: The eggplant will take the longest to cook and floats in the sauce, so be sure to give extra attention for even cooking. Once the chicken is cooked through, add the other ingredients and stir often.
Notice my messy stovetop. I had curry everywhere by the end of it all due to my clumsy nature.
It will take about 20-30 minutes for everything to cook. The rice will finish first, but just turn the heat off and let it sit. It will stay hot. I suggest taking a piece of chicken and eggplant out and cutting into them to ensure they are cooked properly. The eggplant should be very soft, almost mushy. Serve the curry on top of the rice.
Yes I suck at plating too :P
I was really amazed at how well this worked out. The flavor and texture were almost better than the restaurant that I like.
I did hit a couple of snags however. The first was the spice factor I mentioned earlier. This can be remedied by adding more curry paste to taste. The second was I added the eggplant in with the rest of the veggies. By the time the eggplant had cooked, the peppers were quite mushy. You want a soft outside, yet firm inside to the peppers. Hence put the eggplant in first to ensure it cooks well enough before your veggies are mush.
All in all though, it was an excellent first try at Green Thai Curry. Your comments are welcome as I will be making this and similar dishes more often.
