Green chicken curry
March 5th, 2008 at 9:50 pm by Patrick
I’m lying here flattened by a cold, so decided it was time to catch up on my food posts. Last weekend (and I mean all weekend) I tried my first Thai curry. This time I used David Thompson’s Thai Cuisine, which Helen lent me. It’s an Australian cookbook that unnervingly uses American-sounding cups, tablespoons and teaspoons… except I’m convinced these are not identical to our measures. So I used Su-mei Yu as a corrective comparison.
Thai curries are essentially pastes fried in coconut cream. I cracked a few coconuts, extracted the flesh, ground it up in food processor with some water, and then strained the results through cheesecloth. After refrigeration, it separates into a thin liquid (coconut milk) and a thick one (coconut cream). You take this cream and then “crack” it again by simmering it until the water boils off, at which point it separates into coconut solids and coconut oil. The oil is the frying medium for the curry paste.
Since, as usual, I was pursuing purism, I created the curry paste from scrach as well. This involves pounding 20 separate ingredients in a Thai mortar and pestle. It’s an up-and-down pound, not a rotating grind (the latter produces a coarse paste). You pound the first ingredient until it becomes pulp, then add the next one, and so on. The most recalcitrant were the kaffir lime zest and the shallots – I thought they’d never subsume into the paste.
from left to right, bottom row (the order in which they were added): garlic, salt, coriander root, roasted and ground cumin and coriander seeds, turmeric; then from left to right, top row: green chilis, galangal, lemongrass, kaffir lime zest, red shallots, white peppercorns, and shrimp paste
Once you’ve performed the twin, and mighty, tasks, of extracting sufficient coconut cream and preparing the paste, the rest is child’s play. You fry the paste in the cream, then add the chicken (and in this case, red bell pepper) and the coconut millk extracted earlier, simmer till done, then scatter Thai basil, some freshly chopped chilis and torn kaffir lime leaves on top. I’m going to try red curry next – it’s got more ingredients in the paste.
