This past Sunday, Hungry Bear and I had friends over for Sunday Nite Dinner. We wanted to make a simple, one-pot cooking dish. Hungry Bear suggested one of her favorite meals, Thai green curry with chicken. It's been awhile since we made green curry, so it sounded good.

Over the years, we have experimented with various green curry recipes, but we haven't been completely satisfied with any of them, particularly the green curry paste. This time around, we tried a curry recipe by Kasma Loha-unchit, who teaches Thai cooking classes in the Bay Area. We used Kasma's recipe for the green curry paste and followed most of the directions from her easy green curry with pork recipe.

Obviously, we substituted chicken for the pork, but we also made a few other changes to the recipe. The modifications were...

1. Increased the amount of meat - we used 2 lbs of skinless chicken thighs with bones, instead of 1 lb. Our friends are big carnivores, so this step is always necessary.
2. Added chicken stock - the stock is used for two reasons. First, it lightens up the coconut milk curry. But more importantly, the stock is used to braise the chicken thighs. I'm a big fan of braised meat, especially when the meat falls off the bone. We followed Kasma's directions to prepare the coconut milk and paste mixture, then added the chicken thighs and enough stock to almost cover the chicken (approximately 1 cup).
3. Increased the cooking/braising time - we simmered the chicken in the coconut, curry paste and chicken stock for approximately an hour, until the chicken meat almost fell off the bone.
4. Added more ingredients - we also added straw mushrooms, bamboo shoots and sweet petite peas. The extra ingredients were added to the pot with the eggplant.

The end result was delicious green curry with braised chicken server over jasmine rice. Everyone had at least two servings! We were extremely happy with the curry paste recipe and our green curry tasted very authentic. The braised chicken was fork tender and is much superior to the pieces of chicken used in most recipes. The cooking time is longer to braise the chicken thighs, but it's definitely worth the wait. We did save some time by not having to cut pieces of chicken.

For dessert, Hungry Bear and I made thick and chewy chocolate chunk cookies and had our friends make their own ice cream sandwiches with vanilla and chocolate ice cream. It was quite decadent. I felt like a glutton, but I loved every bite of my ice cream sammy. I plan on writing a follow-up post to discuss the dessert in the full detail it deserves.

Dinner was excellent and it was fun hanging out with our friends. Next time, to make the curry more flavorful, we will marinate the chicken thighs in some green curry paste and a little fish sauce. Additionally, I want to brown the chicken prior to adding it to the braising liquid. I can almost taste it now, and can't wait to make green curry with braised chicken again!

SNDsters: Jane, Mark, Howie, Hungry Bear, Chuck

[tags]thai, green, curry, braised, chicken, eggplant, curry paste, chilies, spicy, authentic[/tags]