Chicken Curry

Chicken on the bone in a sauce split from coconut cream, done in half an hour.

Chicken. Not vegetarian — contains chicken, curry paste, which usually contains shrimp paste, fish sauce.

Ingredients

• 1 kg chicken thighs and drumsticks, bone in
• 200 ml coconut cream, the thick part from the top of the tin
• 200 ml coconut milk
• 3 tablespoons curry paste
• 1 onion, in petals
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 2 kaffir lime leaves, torn
• a handful of coriander, chopped

Method

1. Put the coconut CREAM alone in a dry pan over a medium heat and let it bubble for 5 minutes, stirring, until the oil separates out and pools at the edges. No cooking oil is used in this dish at all — that split-out coconut oil is what the paste is fried in.
2. Add the curry paste to the separated oil and fry it for 3 minutes until it darkens and smells cooked rather than sharp.
3. Add the chicken and turn it in the paste for 4 minutes so every piece is coated.
4. Add the coconut milk, fish sauce, sugar and lime leaves, and simmer uncovered for 25 minutes. On the bone and uncovered: the bones give the sauce body, and the reduction is the only thickening it gets.
5. Add the onion for the last 8 minutes so it keeps some bite.
6. Taste for fish sauce and sugar, then stir the coriander through off the heat.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under China · All recipes