This is Mark Wiens with eating Thai food dot com and today I'm going to make a recipe for
gaeng keow wan gai, which is green curry with chicken, and magic of this dish lies within
the kung gang, which is the curry paste, this big blob of green stuff, that's the stuff
we're looking for today and this is the flavor that will give us the deliciousness of the
green curry we're about to cook.
Let's go over the ingredients real fast.
You'll need about a quarter of a chicken chopped up, or if you want, two chicken breasts will
work fine as well.
You'll need twelve Thai round eggplants, five non-hot spur chillies, three to four stems
of Thai sweet basil, six to eight kaffir lime leaves, around six cups of coconut milk, I'll
be using fresh but you can easily buy it in a can, four heaping tablespoons of thai green
curry paste, since I'm in Thailand I'll be using fresh curry paste, but you can easily
find it in a bottle or package.
You'll also need about a half a tablespoon of fermented shrimp paste which is also available
in a can, two teaspoons of sugar and one teaspoon of salt.
The first thing you need to do in cut the chicken.
If you're using a chicken leg, you'll have to chop it with a big knife, but if you're
using chicken breasts, you'll just need to slice them up into the bite sized pieces.
Wash all twelve of the eggplants and cut them into quarters.
Add all your ingredients to a plate, but keep them separate as you'll be adding them at
different times.
Then chop the five spur chillies into slivers.
The next step is to pluck all the leaves off three to four stems of Thai sweet basil and
put them aside.
Roughly cut six to eight kaffir lime leaves, you can even just crumple up them with your
hands.
Start by pouring five cups of coconut milk into a medium sized pot and put it on medium
heat.
When the coconut milk is still heating up, stir in around four tablespoons of Thai green
curry paste.
Make sure it all dissolves into the coconut milk.
Then stir in half of a tablespoon of fermented shrimp paste.
Allow the mixture to get very hot.
But just before it comes to a boil add the eight kaffir lime leaves and then put in all
the chopped pieces of chicken.
Be sure to put them in carefully so they don't splash all over the place.
Stir the curry for a few seconds and then just let it sit for about three minutes until
it comes to a rolling boil.
After the curry boils, give it a quick stir and then leave it again for one more minute.
Then you need to add all the eggplant to the curry.
Stir it for about thirty seconds.
If the curry becomes too thick, add another half to full cup of coconut milk.
You want the consistency to be somewhere in-between a watery soup and a gravy.
After stirring it up, add two teaspoons of sugar followed by one teaspoon of salt.
This is also the time to taste the curry and see if it needs any more curry paste for flavor
or salt.
If the flavor is not strong enough, go ahead and add another spoon of green curry paste.
Make sure the green curry is well mixed and then boil it for about five minutes while
occasionally giving it a quick stir.
The final step is to add the sliced spur chillies and the sweet basil into the curry and immediately
turn off the heat.
The existing heat from the coconut milk will cook the sweet basil long enough so it still
remains fragrant.
Give the curry a quick stir and it's ready to be served.
Like most Thai curries, make sure you eat this Thai green chicken curry with a plate
of rice!