Sawaddee ka welcome to hot Thai kitchen my name is Pai I'm a culinary student right here in San Francisco
and purebred Thai wanna race no I'm here show you how to make not just any Thai food I'm
talking about those real unadulterated version it's some seriously strong flavors if you want
to know what that's like with me hi everybody thanks for tuning in again to hot Thai kitchen
now today we're going to make a dish that is very popular in the Western world and also a personal
comfort food of mine it's green curry or what we call gang kyo one now gang means curry kyo
means green and one means sweet so it literally translates to sweet green curry even though it's
not any sweeter than any other curries at all so with today we're gonna make it with some chicken
and some succulent Thai eggplant it's gonna be served in a way that you've probably never seen
before alright so let's get going what I have here in this pot is one cup of coconut milk
that I've reduced over medium heat for about 10 to 15 minutes until it breaks now this is
what it looks like now there's a thin layer of clear oil floating on top and you see it's no
longer homogenious right and let me explain to you what that what that is scientifically
coconut milk is an emulsion now we all know oil and water don't mix but they can and when they
do it's called an emulsion and coconut milk is a kind of an emulsion of coconut oil that is
suspended in little droplets suspend it in water and some solids which include some protein and
other substances and when we heat this adult emulsion to a certain extent the oil is going
to be destabilized and breaks away and starts to float on top being lighter than water and
that is exactly what we are looking for in our curry making all right so I put my coconut milk
back on heat and it's now boiling okay and we're going to use the oil that we just render from
the coconut milk to sautee our curry paste now I have here about quarter of cup of green curry cake
and break up the lump it's gonna batter a little bit which is okay all right so break it up and
we're gonna let that saute so that the heat activates all the herbs and spices so that
they really reach their full flavor potential in the curry so we're gonna let that cook for a
little bit we'll turn the heat down so it doesn't matter everywhere now we could make a green green
curry paste ourselves but I bought a premade one and here's why the ingredients that go into the
currents are very difficult to find outside of Thailand and if you can find them the flavor
profile the potency is different so to really stay true to the authenticity of the flavor
you're better off doing this buying the pre-made ones and besides even in Thailand most families
don't buy don't make their own curry paste they go to the market and they buy them fresh from
the market because it's very labor-intensive to make all right now I know it's done because I can
smell it from here all right after that stuff what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take kaffir lime leaves
which is quite easily found outside of Thailand I'm gonna twist them and Bruce them a little bit
break the cells release the flavor and put that in and it's really going to add that citrusy note
that's gonna brighten up the flavor and it's gonna cut the creaminess of the curry and it's
gonna be a really really nice snap to that I'm gonna add about a cup and a half of coconut milk
okay and let that come back to a boil and also but I have a cup of water all right now the reason why
I added water is because in Thailand when we make curry we make the coconut milk ourselves now when
you make coconut milk what you do is you take a coconut you grate just the meat and then you
squeeze it through and the first press of coconut milk puts a thick rich creamy part is called
quackety or literally translates to the head of the coconut milk and that's what we use to reduce
and render the oil and saute the curry paste in the beginning now we take that pulp that's already
been squeezed add a little bit more water squeeze it through again that second press is called the
tail of the coconut milk or Hannity and it'll be very I'd be more diluted and that's what we use to
make up the rest of the volume of the curry so to mimic that second press we add a little bit
more water because when you buy coconut milk this is going always going to be first press so just
add a little more water and you're good to go now a word on coconut milk what I use is a brand that
comes in a carton like this because one there's no preservatives in it it's 100% coconut milk and it
smells and tastes quite close not the same to the freshly made one secondly and most importantly the
other variety that comes in a can like this not only do they add sodium metabisulfite eccentric
acid which turns the flavor not so good they also impulsive homogenized the coconut milk and that
stabilized the emulsion and prevents it from breaking which for our purposes we want it to
break so if you can find the carton version please do and it tastes so much better and it works so
much better but if you can't find it you can use the canned version just instead of cooking the
coconut milk down letting it break to saute the current curry paste in some vegetable oil and then
add all the coconut milk at once all right now the coconut milk has come to a boil and so to this
we're going to happen some time Flint now what is Thai eggplant eggplant is this little guy here or
this big guy here they come in a whole variety of sizes now the firm they taste kind of like
an eggplant the inside looks like an eggplant but it's a lot firmer it's got a what I would describe
as the a greener flavor so for the little ones just cut them in quarters and for the big ones
just you we want to make sure that they're the same size so this one I'm gonna cut it into eight
now when you deal with circular things cut off a flat surface rest it on the flat surface so you're
safe so it doesn't roll on you okay and I'm gonna cut this into eight so it's roughly the same size
now if you cut this ahead of time which I did for the rest of this make sure you soak it in
some lemon or lime water because otherwise they'll turn black the same way bananas turn black they
can oxidize by Austin alright so we're gonna add this to our curry it has come to a beautiful boil