Thai Red Curry Chicken (Gaeng Gai)

I've noticed a trend so far on my recipes - either a bunch of meat, or Thai food.  Well, today it's a meaty Thai food recipe.  Don't worry, one day soon we will break out of this trend.  Last night's dinner was my Thai Red Curry Chicken, known in parts that know these things as "Gaeng Gai", where "Gai" means chicken, and "Gaeng" means either 'curry' or 'freaking awesome', depending on which dictionary you use.  It's a very easy recipe if you have about 3 weird ingredients, all of which can be found routinely at asian grocery stores.  If you don't have an asian grocery store nearby, I recommend importfood.com, which seems to have the right assortment of foods, though I can't vouch for their freshness.

With that questionably useful tip, let me jump right into the recipe.  And at last, this one can't be attributed to another author, because I have made it dozens of times, and I've been tweaking both the ingredients and the instructions to get something I'm most pleased with.  It's still not perfect, but it's pretty close for home-cooked Thai food.

First, a word on ingredients.  In this recipe, I use Thai eggplants whenever possible, which are green globes about the size of a golf ball.  Next up, the red curry paste.  There are some standard curry pastes available both in asian grocers and now in most regular grocery stores.  I use Maesri brand red curry paste for this, although I have recently gotten my hands on some excellent imported curry paste I acquired at an asian grocery store, found in their freezer section.  Feel free to ask around, but Maesri does a pretty good job.  Next, the Thai basil.  This looks a little like basil, but with smaller, less rippled leaves.  There is also a plant called holy basil, which has more purple-colored leaves.  I like them both for this dish - they both add a licorice flavor to the basil backbone, with a hint of mint on the Thai basil side.  I happen to grow Thai basil specifically for this recipe, but it's fairly easy to come across one or both of these in the asian grocery store.  Finally, the kaffir lime leaves.  If you can find them fresh, good job!  However, you are much more likely to find these in the freezer section, in small bags.  Try looking in the smaller grocery stores - this is a somewhat hard to find item, and while not essential to the dish, it does add a tart citrus flavor to the sauce.



Thai eggplants.  Try to find them at an asian grocer, but substitute regular eggplant if you really have to



Red curry paste.  This brand is good, and easy to find.  Look for the little old lady on the side - that's always a good sign



Kaffir lime leaves.  From importfood.com - they have all of the Thai ingredients listed, if you can't find any at the store

 

 

Think about this recipe as a stew - that's all it is.  Saute your meat, throw in the liquid and vegetables, and simmer for a while.  It's very easy, and tastes just like what you'd get at a restaurant.  Very impressive results.

 

Thai Red Curry Chicken (Gaeng Gai)

Serves 2-3

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 10-15 minutes

• 1-2 tbsp cooking oil (I use canola)
• 2 tbsp red curry paste, more if you prefer more spicy
• 2 cups coconut milk (go for the full fat version, it does make a difference)
• 4 Kaffir lime leaves, shredded (optional, but I like the taste)
• 1½ tbsp brown sugar (use palm sugar if you would like something more authentic)
• 1½ tbsp Thai fish sauce
• 1 pound sliced chicken breast (or lean pork, or shrimp, or tofu...)
• 4-5 pea eggplants, quartered (substitute regular eggplant in 1" cubes if you can't find)
• 1 bell (less preferred) or poblano (more preferred) pepper, sliced into thin strips
• 1 small red chili, sliced (optional)
• 1 can Bamboo shoots
• 2 tbsp fresh Thai, holy, or standard basil leaves
  
  
  

Heat the oil in a wok. Add the curry paste and stir-fry for about one minute, but before it starts sticking to the wok.   WARNING: THIS MAY FILL YOUR KITCHEN WITH PUNGENT CHILE FUMES, SO TURN ON YOUR HOOD FAN AND OPEN WINDOWS!!!  If you start coughing, all is lost - you just get more worked up, and then cough even more.  You might consider drinking water... or giving up and ordering in.  No?  Good, you are a truly dedicated cook.  Throw in the chicken and quickly stir-fry to cook the surfaces of the meat and turn them white, but not necessarily all the way through.  This will infuse the chicken with the curry flavor while still allowing for them to finish cooking in the sauce, and prevent excess boiling of the coconut milk (most recipes have you just simmer the raw meat in the milk / sauce), which breaks it down too much and loses some of its fresh taste.

 



The setup.  Not a ton of things to prep this time

  

Stir-frying the chicken in the red curry paste.  Don't overcook, or else it will wring out the moisture and end up tough and dry

Now add the coconut milk, kaffir lime leaves, fish sauce and sugar.  Bring the coconut milk just to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer. Add eggplants and whatever peppers you're using.  Simmer for about 10-15 minutes, until eggplants are tender.  Add bamboo shoots towards end of the cooking time - they just need to be warmed up, and won't add anything to the overall flavor.  Kill the heat, then add the basil leaves, tossing to coat.  Serve with steamed rice. 



The full mix after it's been simmering for a few minutes.  Keep things moving so you get all of the eggplant cooked.  A lid would have helped.




The final product, served over rice.  Tastes like restaurant food, but made by you on the cheap



Ramble alert!!  I will add a caveat - I'm still not sold on when to put in the eggplant to make sure it cooks through without damaging the coconut milk.  The step for stir-frying the meat with the curry paste came from a coworker's Thai girlfriend, who told me not to overcook (or even boil) the coconut milk.  To avoid this, I once tried blanching the cut up eggplant by boiling it for 2 minutes and then dunking it in ice water, to cook it mostly through and avoid having to boil the whole stew for too long, damaging the coconut milk flavors.  However, this didn't work so well - the eggplant had very little taste when boiled in water.  Another recipe I saw called for boiling the eggplant in coconut milk, then adding it to the stew for the last few minutes.  This also seems like a decent plan, except it's the same damaging effect on the coconut milk.  So in the end, I would just recommend the original recipe posted above, and be careful not to bring the liquid to a rolling boil.  Just keep it at a simmer, or else you will both damage the sauce and make the meat tough.