Green Curry With Chicken

I’ve been in love with Green Curry ever since I had it at Brown Sugar Café in Boston. It was an interesting day. I took a three hour lunch and saw a girl that I’d fell in love with in college. She’d never wanted to love me back, but I felt like this was a turning point – we were finally in the same city and both single … I realized after this lunch that I was a chump, and she was never going to fuck me.

The happy part to the story was that I discovered Green Curry, and after a Halloween party at her place few months later, started dating her hotter friend (with smaller boobs – the other girl had great boobs). I’ve since tried just about every curry there is out there and have settled on green as my favorite. I think the balance of the sweet, spicy, and tart let it top my list. I wanted to work a recipe into the blog repertoire a while ago, but I was in transition and didn’t have a place to cook. This week, I’m ending that and getting started with one recipe a week.

I needed to start with a base, so I looked up some Green Curry Recipes out there and found this one. Don’t bother clicking, because I got everything you need on this page. It called for:

2 cans Evaporated milk, low fat
1 liter Chicken stock
1 can Straw mushrooms washed, drained
1 can Mixed stir fry vegetables washed, drained
1 medium Broccoli seperated into florets, stalks removed
3 teaspoons Green curry paste
3 tablespoon Laksa paste
1 teaspoon Ginger, minced
1/2 teaspoon Coconut essence
600 grams Chicken breast sliced thinly

Anytime anyone uses grams as a unit of measurement, I cannot help but think of weed. Who the fuck knows what 600 grams looks like? All I know is if you had that much weed, you’d either need a humidor or a posse like Snoop Dogg’s so it didn’t go dry on you. That’s a lot of weed. On the other hand, it’s really not so much chicken.

And can you even buy stir fry vegetables in a can? I bet those are crisp and fresh. What the hell is this recipe writer thinking? I should have known this guy was a loser before I started following his directions. Then I decided that these were “Straw Mushrooms:”

Clearly, Google image search begs to differ on that interpretation. Someone else messed that up, so I don’t feel too bad about my faux pas. I decided that I was going to throw in some Chinese Eggplant as a part of my stir fry vegetable medley:

I don’t remember what kind of Peppers those are, but they’re not super hot. I also decided on Chinese Long Beans, which would serve more as a side, and Broccoli, because the recipe asked for it, and I, unlike our 41st president, love it.

The vegetables were put on the back burner while I made the curry. These are the ingredients:

Chicken Stock

Evaporated Milk and Green Curry Paste

Condensed Milk and Coconut Cream

And ginger – The ginger was pictured previously, but didn’t come in a can. The coconut cream sounded too good to pass up, and I’d had condensed milk on my mind since a girl I’d been email flirting with sent me this link. The condensed milk was also going to add a thickness that I desired. Laksa is a soup, and I wanted this to be more of a sauce.

I mixed all that together and simmered, then it was time to get the vegetables and chicken going. I started to follow the directions on the other recipe and threw the broccoli into a few ladlefuls of curry to steam. I covered it and checked back.

Looking pretty good. I gave it a few more minutes to finish steaming and removed the lid again:

It was ruined. I’d burned the milk and it separated from the rest of the mixture. I threw out the congealed milk and the sticky, caked broccoli. This would just not do. If you’re making this, steam the vegetables separately, or watch the steaming of the vegetables more carefully. It’s possible to steam the vegetables in the curry; I just didn’t pull it off here, so I kept the curry warm and sautéed the vegetables alone. My bad as a chef here.

The Jasmine rice finished, went into the mold, and I tore off some basil, plated the long beans and drenched the vegetables in Green Curry. Look at this gorgeousness:

There is no substitute for Thai Basil. Some recipes say “If you can’t find thai basil, use fresh basil and mint.” It’s just not the same. How sexy is that combination, though? Basil and mint – flavorful. If you’re trying to describe a flavor, and you’re describing it “Ehhh, it’s like a basil-mint mix,” that’s just completely effin’ sweet right there.

For the record, I could eat this straight. I wish they made salads out of thai basil. Ooooh, that’s my next recipe idea! Thai Basil Caprese Salad. I just made that shit up just now. I know you want it. Need to figure out if mutz is going to stand up to the flavors of the Thai Basil … can’t use olive oil either … Hmmm … I need to think about this for a second, but it will come to me.

Back to the subject at hand … do I need a lightbox or WHAT? That looks pretty damn delightful even in the crappy afternoon light I took this shot in. My kitchen where I live now is just about the shittiest studio I could have hoped for, but it’s a kitchen; it lets me cook.

One thing that I wanted to note: I made rice, green curry, broccoli, and eggs for breakfast on Sunday. Surprisingly VERY GOOD! We figured they might charge $15 for something like this at Stanton Social for brunch. I decided I was happier to stay in and try something interesting. So, if you have any extra curry left over from your Saturday Night dinner party, you can always serve a sexy brunch with the same ingredients.

Here’s the recipe:

Green Curry with Chicken – Serves 8

Curry:

1 Liter of Chicken Broth
10 ounce can of evaporated milk
6 ounce can of sweetened condensed milk
19 ounce can of coconut cream
8 ounces of green curry paste
1/2 ounce freshly grated ginger

Complements and Garnishes:

1 Tablespoon of Peanut Oil
8 sprigs of Thai basil
4 pounds of Chicken Thigh/Breast meat
2 Chinese Eggplants
3 Hot Peppers like the ones in the picture
2 pounds of Chinese Long Beans
2 cloves garlic
One and a half heads of broccoli
10 ounces of Straw Mushrooms (this kind, not this kind)
2 cups Jasmine rice

Directions:

Wash and cook the rice.

Mix all ingredients in the curry but the ginger in a large pot and cook on medium heat for ten minutes. Put the ginger in and cook on low heat for another 15 minutes. Stir occasionally.

In a wok, brown the chicken over high heat. Take 1/2 a tablespoon of peanut oil and one clove of garlic, sautée together with Chinese Long Beans. Dice the eggplant and peppers, seperate the crowns of the broccoli, throw in the mushrooms, and sautée with the other half tablespoon of peanut oil, covering the mix and steaming to your desired firmness.

Plate the long beans. Mold the rice in a small cup, flip upside down and plate away from the long beans. Mix the chicken, sauteed vegetables, and some of the green curry together and plate next to the rice. Cover the rice, chicken, and vegetables with green curry. Place sprig of Thai Basil atop the rice. Serve.

My guests loved it, or they were just saying that they loved it. It was a bit sweeter and spicier than the curries I’ve had before, but I like it that way.

Now I just need to find someone with great boobs to share it with.