Sawaddee ka welcome back to hot thai kitchen today we're back in bangkok at my house and we're going
to make a dish that CNN GO ranked as the number one most delicious food in the world we're making
massaman curry i usually give you a translation of the name of the dish for cooking but massaman
is actually its name that can't be translated any further massaman is a dish that comes from
the south of Thailand and the South has a large population of ties with of Malay ancestry so the
food naturally is influenced largely by the Malay culture so the curry today we're making is going
to be a little more similar to that of an Indian curry than say a red or green curry so let's get
started and I can talk a little more about that we are starting with coconut milk that one cup
of coconut milk that have actually reduced until it's broken broken meaning the oil the coconut
oil has separated out and you can see there's thin layers of oil floating on top now for details on
the scientific explanation as to how and why that happens you can refer to my green curry part one
episode where I explained in detail so one cup of coconut milk in there I usually use the type
that comes from a carton like this if you use the kind that's from a can it generally doesn't work
very well they treat it to prevent separation which kind of works against us in this purpose
so if you don't have the carton of coconut milk you can cheat by sauteing the curry paste well
what we're going to do is we're in sought a the curry paste you can by sauteing it in vegetable
oil and add a little bit of coconut milk into it so it's coming it's heating up so you see the oil
is bubbling nicely we're going to go in with 50 grams of the curry paste and we're going to
saute it until it's nice and aromatic now massaman curry paste in addition to the basic curry paste
ingredients has a lot of Indian spices such as cloves cinnamon cardamom nutmeg mace sometimes
bay leaves are used in there so things like that so it's quite a unique curry in that sense so
we're going to saute this curry paste until it loosens up so that it comes loose enough so at
this point I'm going to add my chicken I've got two hindquarters going in right now hindquarters
meaning to peas the thighs and two pieces of drumstick and just gonna pop it quickly in
the curry paste is to get it nice and covered be careful that you don't let the curry paste
burn and once it's nice and cover I'm going to transfer it into a pot you don't have to you
can start everything in in a pot it's just that the pot that I'm using is kind of spin and the
coconut milk tends to burn when you cook it for a long time so that's just my circumstances here
like that and I'm going to deglaze the rest of this with coconut milk and pour that into the pot
as well as I said if you do all this with a pot do any less dishes it just works better for me
thanks all that stuff fault
and carefully forward
okay and now we're going to let it cook on let it simmer slowly for about 45 minutes but before we
do that you want to make sure that the liquid there's enough liquid in there so I'm going to
add a little bit of water because it's going to reduce over time and I want to make sure there's
enough liquid in there so no real measurements here because every pot will be different so you
may or may not need water and you may need more than me okay so that's going to go in there and
then now we're going to be all our seasoning first of all our salt element of salt fish
sauce about a tablespoon and we're just doing the preliminary seasoning here we're going to do a
final adjustment at the end we want to make sure that the chicken has enough seasoning to cook in
so that they absorb all the flavors properly this is tamarind juice I made this from pulp
but you can also use the stuff from the jar that you buy at the store I'm going to use about two
tablespoons in here if you use this stuff from the jar you're going to need a little bit less
because it's usually more concentrated but if you get the stuff that's in the kind of block
in my satay and peanut sauce episode part two I explained how to turn that into a juice like
I have here and lastly an element of sweet two tablespoons of chopped palm sugar you can use
regular sugar brown sugar of you if you don't have palm sugar but palm sugar really adds a nice nice
flavor to it so let that simmer don't worry about the sugar melting that will happen eventually so
let that cook for a total about 45 minutes until the chicken becomes fork tender and just keep an
eye on it and make sure the liquid hasn't dried up and you know move it around a little bit so
the chicken doesn't stick to the bottom sometimes that can happen depending on your pot so I'm gonna
let that cook and I'm gonna talk a little bit about what we're doing here what we're doing
here is called braising let me talk to you about meat cooking technique generally when you cook
meat you've got two options fast or slow the fast way is when you cook the meat quickly just enough
so that it's cooked and safe to eat but the meat is still juicy and tender this is good for first
tender cuts of meat like chicken breast fish pork loin or steaks in which case you can even choose
your doneness the second way is the slow way and that's when you cook it so long that the meat
fibers start to break down and become fork tender and that's great for tougher cuts of meats such as
beef chuck like for stew ribs or dark meat chicken like we're doing right now as well as lamb shank
and things like that so when you do that in liquid it's called braising which is what we're doing now
with our with our less and like curry and if you do anything in between the fast and the slow way
the your meat will become tough and chewy and dry and nobody wants to eat that so we're about 20
minutes into the cooking process and we're going to add our vegetables so that they finish cooking
at the same time I've got here some potatoes that I've cut into about an inch and a half chunks
always soak your potatoes in water if you're not going to use it otherwise they turn black if
you're not going to use it right away that is now we you have a choice also of using sweet potatoes
in the South they like to use sweet potatoes but any potatoes will do like russet Kennebec
or Yukon Gold whatever you prefer a choice would be I wouldn't use yams that buy sweet potatoes and
talking ones with a yellow flesh those are really good too in this and then I have one small yellow
onion that I cut into pieces about this big you can use half of a big one if you want you can
add more it's not a definite measurement now I wanted to talk about the choices of protein here
you see in Thailand a lot of muscle made with chicken and beef and sometimes goat and lamb
never pork because Malay the Malay culture is a largely Muslim culture so food is never really
made with pork but if you want to you can but you it's just not something that you find in Thailand
so now we've added the vegetables and we're going to let it cook for another 20 to 25 minutes or so
until the chicken and the potatoes are done and we'll come back and final check and see
so our potato is done because I can easily put our fork through and the
chicken is also fork tender so I'm going to turn this off
okay I'm going to turn it off and do a final taste check always always taste
your food at the end I know a lot of people who don't like to taste food
and then they wonder why it's not good so always do a double check at the end
it dates a little more sugar it's a little short on sweet so about another tablespoon
and salt and acid is good so I'm just gonna leave it just like that
I might add actually a little bit more fish sauce because once you sweeten something up
it can sort of hide the saltiness a little bit so I'm just about a little bit of fish sauce
and then our final ingredient and elements of crunch peanuts just roasted peanuts and you
can skip this if you have an allergy but it adds a nice touch to the end
and your onions you want it to be soft and completely sweet almost melts in your mouth
for the sugar to melt now Muslim unlike any other stood tall weighs better the next day
because it gives it some time to for the flavors to penetrate deep into each other
and for things to mingle and so this is a great dish for you to make an advance for
a party or for you to make an advance for a busy weeknight that you know is
coming up so I'm going to dish this let's give it one more taste just to make sure
a little more fish stuff
tribe user fees are in it this is now you're going to see that there's a layer of red oil
floating on top that is exactly what you're looking for in Thai curries if you don't
see a layer of oil floating on top it's not a correctly made curry that oil is the coconut
oil that we rendered from the very beginning when we reduce that cup of coconut milk and so
it adds a nice sheen nice color to it and we didn't add any excess oil it's the oil
that's already exist in the coconut milk itself so that's all for today here's our muscle month
chicken thank you for tuning in and I'll see you next time for your next delicious