You Drive Me Curr(az)y

I just can't sleep. I'm so excited, I'm in to deep.

Yes Britney, I share this feeling you have for boys with a feeling for some curry chicken. But curry is an endless category, with so many types. The word curry doesn't really mean much, just that is something prepared in a sauce, typically with lots of spices. But for purposes of this, we're just talking about a kind of Thai curry, with some spicy curry paste and sweet coconut milk.

I set out to find my favorite go-to method for making a curry chicken. Chicken over rice is something that can be so simple but so satisfying, with white rice soaking up the flavor of the sauce. You can eat this for lunch, dinner, or at 2am after a night out. White sauce? Red sauce? You name it, chicken over rice is tough to beat.

After extensive reading and trying of different curry pastes, I decided on my favorite brand from a can, Maesri. The flavor and cheap cost of this paste in a can make it unbeatable. You might not find these cans everywhere, but plenty of supermarkets have them, and if not you can order them off Amazon. If you feel like taking the time to make your own curry paste please do, but this is a more than reasonable substitute. You really don't have to add much besides a can of coconut milk and you have a great mix. Maesri makes several kinds, so I decided to try the yellow, green, and red varieties. These are curries that I saw a lot of traveling in Southeast Asia and have wanted to find a way to re-create in spirit.


                                                                              Yellow

                                                                               Green

Red

After several Sunday afternoon curry making explorations, I found the yellow to be the one I couldn't stop eating, with the best balance of flavor and spice. Red was great, but the spice seemed to overpower the rest. The green paste, while still spicy, had more of a herbal/earthy flavor that I didn't find worked as well with the coconut milk. But the yellow fit perfectly with everything else and had a richness about it that the others lacked.

For all 3, I followed the same recipe. I marinated chicken thighs in some basic seasonings that I thought would complement and increase the flavor of the curry paste. I made this chicken alongside white rice and stir fried vegetables with a soy/rice wine/sesame oil sauce. Below is the recipe I used, with the variation being the curry paste each time.

For the Marinade:
- 2 lbs. Chicken thighs
- 1 lime
- 3 Tbsp. fish sauce
- 3 Tbsp. soy sauce
- 1 Tbsp. rice wine
- 2 Tbsp. chili garlic paste
- 2 Tbsp. curry powder
- Chopped scallions
- Salt & Pepper

For the veggies:
- Whatever you want in your veggie mix. But here's what I usedL
- Garlic/Ginger/Scallions
- String bean
- Snap peas
- Red bell pepper
- Brocolli

Veggie sauce:
- Soy sauce
- Rice wine
- Sesame oil
- Sriracha


 

1. Marinate chopped chicken thighs in sauce for 1-2 hours, or however long you have.

2. Brown chicken in wok or heavy pan. Remove the chicken and add about half can of curry paste to hot pan. Stir for a minute so that it doesn't burn. Add in full can of coconut milk and put chicken back in. Get this to a simmer and add more curry paste as you go, depending on how much flavor/spice you want. Cook this for another 5-10 minutes for the coconut milk to slightly thicken.

                                      Yellow                                                                   Green

Red

3. Remove chicken and cook vegetables. Start with garli, ginger, and scallions for a minute before adding in veggies. Sprinkle in salt and cover. (NOTE: adding a little salt before covering helps keep your veggies GREEN. We like green veggies, so try this.)

4. Get some white rice on your plate and let it rain curry chicken on down. You will have plenty of curry coconut milk sauce to soak up with your rice, so be liberal.

Yellow

 

Green

Red