Friday, July 20, 2007

EMWK Green Curry Chicken


The day before my dear friend Rosie left for the airport, we cleared out the bags of fresh green chilies (there's no fresh red chilies at our local asian store and they were out of little bird's eye red chilies when we were there), shallots and galangal in the fridge by making a quick rempah of spices to last me for a month (at least).

Rosie is one of my many friends (I am guilty too) who doesn't measure her ingredients, and with her swift movements between the sink and the fridge, I had just time enough to watch the ingredients get rinsed, chopped, and popped into the food processor before I could grab a piece of paper or estimate on the quantity of the ingredients. I guess part of the fun for me will be trying to replicate her recipe later. I saw garlic, shallots, fresh green chilies, galangal, fresh ginger and seasonings fly around in the Crusinart and I'm sure there are more ingredients in there that I missed. All this while we were talking about a totally non-food related topic with me on auto-pilot responses as I am trying to catch up with her in my kitchen!Watching her move about the kitchen, lovingly preparing the paste and spending time hovering over the stove, stirring the paste for a hour while it was cooking in oil (she said that will help the paste keep longer and we froze part of it) gave me a vision of what it would be like to have a nice big sister. So I promptly knighted her my big SISTA with a glass of her favorite Red!

This morning, as I looked into the fridge and saw her green chili paste, I decided to make a green curry with chicken breasts. So I whipped up a green curry chicken with a special ingredient that would please my caucasian friends who are coming for dinner. You probably guessed from the photograph that I added fresh blueberries. They were calling out to me from the fridge and begging me to include them for dinner. So I did! I heated a large pot with vegetable oil, and threw in a couple of star anise, cinnamon and then added 8 chicken breasts. After it's cooked, I added about 1/2 cup of green chili paste and green beans. Cook for another 5-10 mins. The coconut milk goes in with the vegetables (red bell peppers, onions, basil and cilantro) for 5 mins and add blueberries for the final stage of cooking. I served with coconut rice, home-made mango chutney, and a fresh green salad on the side.
Note: The green curry was hot and spicy even after the coconut milk was added in this dish, and the blueberries added a nice, sweet relief to the heat. I love the added flavors of the blueberries too and I look forward to adding it to my curries next time! I also served the hot, spicy curry sauce on the side for any of more adventurous friends to ladle onto their rice.

While I'm on the subject of green curries, I want to give a shout-out to my fellow blogers Melting Wok and Little Corner of Mine who also made some great green curry that I can't wait to try out their methods and shortcuts soon!

7 comments:

Big Boys Oven said...

I am so lazy to make the green curry paste.... I usually pick them out of the cabinet. heheehe...

Little Corner of Mine said...

Looks delish V! :) I'm surprise your caucasion friends can take the heat because it's quite spicy.

p/s: You should have asked her to pen down the agaration recipe for you lah! ;)

Anonymous said...

For a few months now, I have not found fresh red chili in my local asian store too :( ..The same store used to have them but recently, I don't see them anymore. I wonder if it's a "season" thingy ? ;p

So hungry now...

East Meets West Kitchen said...

Big Boys Oven,
Nothing wrong with ready-made green curry paste when you find one that suit your taste.

Thanks C! Don't forget that my 'heat' tolerance is much lower than yours, and the mango chutney and a couple of ice cold beers did the trick for my friends. And sometimes it's much easier to observe than get recipes, right?

Hi Tigerfish,
Good question! Maybe so. Haha! Your fish soup made me hungry too!

wonda said...

Blueberries in curry? Innovative! Never tried it before. Blueberries are quite expensive here.

Anonymous said...

Very nice. Blueberry? First time I've heard of it. Are they very sour or just mere sourish? :)

Anonymous said...

I like the blueberries in the green curry too.