Thai Chicken Green Curry: The Easy 1-2-3 Way

I thought it was time to do some change to the look of the blog. I am a total amateur in this department so change basically translates into choosing a different template from the options Blogger.com has been kind of enough lay out for people like me. Why Green? Well the inspiration came from the latest cooking experiment for last night, a easy short cut Thai Chicken Green Curry. Recently I learned how to transform a word or a set of words into a link to a particular page. Simply press ctrl-shift-a and add the URL in the pop up window that comes up. Ok I sound really amateur but there must be a few people out there in the same point on the learning curve as me! I did use my newly acquired knowledge in my last blog entry. So you can now click on the links I talk about and just head straight there!

Enough said. Lets move on to the main topic of today, that of Thai Green Curry. My mother in law had recently requested me to put together a compilation of Thai recipes in Bengali for her to carry to New Zealand. Basically because my sis-in-law during her pregnancy has developed a craving for Thai food and mom-in-law thought why not woo her with some of the cooking herself! Of course it is better to use tried and tested recipes in the compilation so the past couple of days on and off it has been Thai food for dinner at my house.

I found this recipe from the about.com site (see last post for the links). I have tweaked it somewhat to suite my taste and the stuff in my fridge. The end result was quite satisfying. The whole thing took like 40 minutes to finish up (From prep time to serve time) and of that I think I needed only half the time to actually physically be in the kitchen. This is great for someone who is not too confident about cooking. This dish uses very little oil. Though coconut milk is fattening but since the dish is very flavorful, small servings go a long way!

Easy Thai Green Curry Chicken
Serves 4-6

For Green Curry Sauce:
Coconut milk - 1 can
Onion - small size 1 cut into pieces
Green Chili - 1 to 3 cut into pieces
Coriander Leaf/Cilantro - 1 cup (loosely packed with some stems)
Garlic - 3 cloves chopped
Ginger/Galangal - 1 thumb size (chopped)
Ground Coriander - 1/2 tablespoon
Lemon Grass - 2 tablespoons (white parts only finely chopped)
Brown Sugar - 1 teaspoon
Soy Sauce - 1 teaspoon
Fish Sauce - 3 tablespoons
Lime Juice - 1 tablespoons

Other Ingredients:
Chicken - 1 medium size chopped or 2 breast piece chopped
Capsicum (bell peppers) - 2 to 3 chopped into bite size pieces (red/green/yellow)
Eggplant (optional) - 1 chopped into bite size pieces
Button Mushroom (optional) - 1/2 cup sliced
Lemon Grass - 2 stalks (white and green parts) sliced into 3" pieces
Fresh Basil - 1 cup (loosely packed). I used bottled chopped basil so used 2 tablespoons
Vegetable Oil - 1 1/2 teaspoon

1. Mix all the green sauce ingredients and blend them into a smooth puree. Set aside.

2. Heat a wok and pour the oil. Add the chopped meat, lemon grass, mushroom and eggplant (if using). Stir fry for 2 minutes. Add the sauce and simmer covered for 5 minutes.

3. Add the capsicum and continue to cook for another 5 - 8 minutes until the chicken is cooked through and the eggplant (if using) is soft.

4. Mix in the basil leaf and continue to simmer for another 2 minutes.

5. Serve hot over steamed rice.

Enjoy!!!