Thai green chicken curry

There are dozens of variations on the ‘ best ‘ Thai green curry but one more isn’t going to hurt, so take a look at how I make mine. Prior to me visiting Thailand, I had never tasted a green curry because I am generally not a fan of creamy curries and sauces but after trying it for the first time, I have not looked back. The consistency of Thai curries is generally not too thick but I like to cook mine for a little longer so the sauce reduces slightly. I always use chicken thighs for my recipe to give extra depth the flavour, rather than chicken breast that can sometimes taste bland. If you are a breast only person then simply replace the thighs with 4 chicken breasts cut into large strips and reduce cooking time by half an hour.

Most supermarkets stock all of the ingredients you need but I always buy my spices and other hard to find ingredients from http://www.mattas.co.uk/. At Mattas you can but large bags of spices at least half the price of what you will pay in the supermarket plus you can get frozen Kaffir lime leaves, which do give a fresher flavour to the curry.

So, grab yourself a beer and start cooking

Ingredients

Serves 3-4

800g chicken thighs, with or without skin

2 tbs olive oil

2 lemongrass stalks

4 inch piece of fresh ginger or galangal (I prefer ginger)

2 fresh green chillies

2 medium shallots

2 cloves of garlic

1 tsp chilli powder

½ tsp cumin powder

½ tsp coriander seeds

1tbs dried Thai basil leaves

1 tbs fish sauce

1tbs palm sugar (replace with brown sugar if you cannot get palm sugar)

1 fresh lime

1 large tin of coconut milk

1 large green pepper, sliced

¾ pint chicken stock (just use ½ pint if you prefer a runnier sauce)

6 fresh kaffir lime leaves (replace with 10 dry leaves if you cannot get fresh)

Small bunch of fresh coriander

Method

1. First of all prepare your curry paste by adding the following ingredients into a blender and whizz until ingredients are fully combined and there are no large chunks:

1 chilli, garlic, roughly chopped ginger, roughly chopped shallots, chopped lemongrass, cumin, coriander seeds and half of the fresh coriander, sugar, basil leaves, chilli powder, 1 tbs of the oil and the fish sauce

2. In a large casserole dish add the oil and fry the chicken thighs until starting to brown. There will be a lot of fat and juice coming out of the thighs so take out the thighs, drain the pan and then put them back in. Don’t worry there will still be lots of juice that will come out when simmering, to give flavour to the sauce  If you are using chicken breast pieces just fry quickly for a minute or two to add some colour. I have tried basting the chicken with the paste before cooking but I always like adding some good colour and draining fat from chicken first of all.

3. Once the chicken has started to gain colour, add the sliced pepper to the pan and cook until starting to soften and gain a little colour.

4. Now, add in your curry paste and cook for a couple of minutes before adding your chicken stock and simmer 15 minutes

5. Turn down the heat and add in your coconut milk and lime leaves, stir and leave to simmer with lid for an hour. If using chicken breasts then you will only need to cook for half an hour.

6. If required, take of the lid and let some of the liquid evaporate to give a thicker sauce. Add in the juice of one lime and the remaining fresh coriander and give a little stir before serving with rice.