Recipe Help

[bucknaway]

Today I am going to try to make Green Curry Chicken (Thai Style)...

Anyone have a recipe they enjoy? Keep in mind that I am in the USA and do not have access to some thai ingredients...

[IEB2004-old]

Madame PaтАЩs Chicken Curry / Keaw Wan Kai (Blue Elephant Cookbook)
(Makes 1 serving)

1 cup fresh coriander (cilantro) leaves
3 tbsp vegetable oil
1 ┬╜ tbsp green curry paste
pinch freshly ground coriander (cilantro) seeds
pinch freshly ground cumin seeds
370 ml / 13 fl oz coconut milk
1 boned and skinned chicken breast, sliced into bite-size pieces
2 green aubergines (eggplant), quartered
1 Sprig pea aubergines (eggplant)
1 tsp sugar
1 ┬╜ tbsp fish sauce
2 kaffir lime leaves, torn in half
6 Thai basil leaves
┬╜ fresh red chili, thinly sliced

To Garnish:
2 tsp cream of coconut milk
Fresh Thai basil for sprinkling

In a mortar, pound the fresh coriander (cilantro) leaves.

Heat the oil in a wok, or saucepan, until very hot. Add the pounded coriander leaves and fry for 1 minute. Add the curry paste, coriander (cilantro) and cumin, and stir-fry for about 2 minutes until an aroma develops. Lower the heat and add the coconut milk a little at a time. Allow it to simmer for about 2 minutes, then add the chicken and cook until cooked through.

Add the green aubergines (eggplant) and pea aubergines (eggplant), sugar fish sauce, gaffer lime, basil leaves and chili. Simmer for 5 minutes. Transfer the curry to a clay pot, or tureen, float the cream of coconut milk on top and sprinkle with the Thai basil.

You won't need vegetable oil for this. (A real Thai cook will never use it in making green curry and most other curries). All it needs is to pour a small portion (3-4 tablespoons) of thick coconut milk (and I mean thick, not thin - if the coconut milk is too think it will not work) into a saucepan, heat it till it starts to boil then add green curry paste. Stir coccnut milk and curry paste untill the currey paste dissolves. Turn down the gas, let green curry sauce simmer until it produces oil by itself.

Coconut mlik itself is oily, naturally. Low heat will transform it into oil.

[bucknaway]

Thanks! I will go to the store and get my supplies :)

I'm hopeless with preparing meals. I can scramble eggs, but when it comes to a Greek salad I can remember only the first two steps
1 Find Greek man
2 Scrape fetta cheese from under his foreskin
...

[Jetsam]

maybe you have this brand over there, Thai Kitchen it's really good stuf , and they have everything you need for thai food.

http://www.almostvegan.com/archives/images/thaikitchen-sml.gif

[TrongpaiExpat]

IMHO I would not feed a stray soi dog "Thai Kitchen" brand anything. I much prefer Maesri brand curry paste. Thai Kitchen coconut milk is OK, but Chaudoc is half the price at an Asian grocery store.

Maesri come in huge cans and I have seen it shoveled out on large pans at Thai markets and sold per scoop on waxed paper. Most Asian grocery stors in US have it in little cans.

Several years ago there was a small, excellent Thai restaraunt in my town (alas enough sophisticated palates here in the corn belt did not exist to allow this place to thrive as it should have)

I used to get an appetizer that was (to the best of my memory) a spinach leaf upon which lay a shrimp, some chopped peanuts, toasted coconut, some sort of chili and....?????

It was an amazing concoction that was designed to "light up" each of the taste zones on the tongue (bitter, sweet, salty etc.)

Does this sound familiar to anyone? I would love to make and serve this dish - but back in the halcyon when I could go to the restaraunt anytime I wished I didn't comit the name to memory

thanks in advance

I am in the USA and do not have access to some thai ingredients...

I used to live in both Toronto and in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and in both cases I could find things i never thought possible, you just have to know where to look. I suggest going to a thai restaurant and asking them which local grocers have what you may need. Seriously, there were many things I thought would be hard to find that were right there in the local asian supermarket, and the little things like the brand of fish sauce is different, too. Go exploring, even in the northeast you have access.

And amazingly, in San Francisco where I live now, one can even find Durian.

[elephantspike]

even in the northeast you have access.

Absolutely. I live in a town of less than 100,000 people in the far northeast corner of the USA, and we have about 12 asian markets with such ingredients. The big supermarket chains all have Thai Kitchen as well.

I used to get an appetizer that was (to the best of my memory) a spinach leaf upon which lay a shrimp, some chopped peanuts, toasted coconut, some sort of chili and....?????

It was an amazing concoction that was designed to "light up" each of the taste zones on the tongue (bitter, sweet, salty etc.)

Does this sound familiar to anyone?

This appetizer is called Meing-Cum. Traditionally it uses tiny dried shrimps of which smell farnangs may find awful. So I think that the restaurant changed the recipe for fresh shrimps to accomodate farangs taste.

Also it does not use spinach leaf, but uses either Piper aurantuacum (Variegatum) leaf (as shown in picture below ) or Erythrina variegata (coral tree) leaf. I guess these 2 leaves won't be available in the US.

This appetizer is rarely served in restaurants, even in Thailand, these days. I have seen only a very few Bangkok restaurants that still do. Some local markets also still sell this.

The most important part of this appetizer is its sauce. The whole thing can be good or bad is dependent on the sauce.

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e307/chuckwow/muengkam.jpg

http://www.khonmuang.com/tt2.htm

this is a chance to push my favorite Thai cookbook which has some of the most amazing recipes I've ever encountered..but I get someone else to cook them :( nothing as common as green curry-my favorite)

David Thompson is an Aussie chef who has become one of the most aclaimed throughout Thailand and is now an adviser to the Royal Family: he has colected many old Thai recipes that were only ever passed down through generations of families and were exclusive to the Thai ruling classes..now available to all plebs like moi and you :
http://upload3.postimage.org/42830/158008462101_AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg (http://upload3.postimage.org/42830/photo_hosting.html)

[Dodger]

chuckwow...

They serve that wonderful appetizer at Vientianne Restaurant on Walking Street. Their recipe replaces shrimp with small pieces of barbequed pork which is fabulous. They also use small pieces of mango and red chillies. I never could remember the name of that dish...but Meing Cum doesn't jump to mind.

Thai Cum...

Yes, Dodger....as I said above...


The most important part of this appetizer is its sauce. The whole thing can be good or bad is dependent on the sauce.

There does exist Mieng-Lao also. I have heard of it but have never seen it. I guess it is juicy, tasty and delicious too.

Thanks chuckwow and dodger for the input - it gives me a direction to start searching

we do have a good Asian market in town, so they might be amenable to helping me find less common ingredients

I agree that they probably used larger, boiled shrimp over the dried variety to appease the tastes of the hoosier savages - plus they could charge a lot more for the dish that way.

Ironically - this restaraunt was pretty pricey for the area - extravagantly so when compared to the prices I read about in the Thai giudebooks.

Lard Prik anyone?