Thai Green Chicken Curry

This New Year’s Eve was a big family and friends celebration and so we decided on making it a curry night. While I made a usual Korma favourite, my mum made her Thai Green Chicken Curry which always goes down well. While stuck at their home in the snow, my mum made it again and this is what she sent me…

I always enjoy making a Thai Green Curry and did just that for New Year’s Eve when we had eighteen friends for a meal to celebrate the New Year 2010. They all helped out by bringing starters, puddings, cheese etc. and another friend brought an Indian curry to go with this and the Korma too. I’ve used the same recipe since 1998 when my daughter returned from her year and a half stay in Australia. She and her housemates used to make this as an easy meal and fed friends as well. She always used vegetables to add flavour and another dimension to the curry but I’ve noticed that some cooks only use meat or shellfish. If you are a vegetarian the meat and shellfish can just be left out.

I normally make my own green curry paste with lemongrass, chillies, garlic, ginger etc (and nearly everyone has their own recipe). Today I’m stuck at home with the snow so I used a good green paste from a jar. I hope you find it easy to make and enjoyable to eat.

(Printable Recipe)

Serves 4

Ingredients:
5 Chicken thighs or breasts – cut into bite-size pieces
Thai green curry paste - homemade or from a jar
Green vegetables – I use a combination of beans, mange-tout, green pepper, asparagus or whatever is around.
1 x 400ml coconut milk
1-2tbsp Fish sauce
½-1tbsp unrefined caster sugar
Chopped coriander
Jasmine or long-grain rice

1 Put a little oil in a wok and cook the chicken until lightly browned, removed from pan.

2 Heat the wok until very hot and add 1 heaped tsp of green curry paste and cook for a minute.

3 Return the chicken to the pan and coat with the paste, stirring all the time.

4 Then add the coconut milk and cook on a low heat for 15 minutes until the mixture begins to thicken a little.

5 Add the fish sauce and sugar to your taste, finally adding the green vegetables.

6 Cook for 5 minutes until the vegetable and hot but still have a bite (it may depend how you like your vegetable as to how long you cook them).

Serve with chopped coriander and Jasmine rice.
If using ordinary rice squeeze some lime juice over the cooked rice and fork through before serving.

NB the curry can be made in advance or even the day before, and kept in the fridge, so long as it is heated through properly before serving.

Enjoy!

Thai Green Prawn Curry

Love Thai food? Why not try this delicious Thai Green Prawn Curry. Having recently blogged about several Indian curries, I wanted to try something a bit different and just as tasty. This recipe is an amalgamation of several recipes I have found on the internet and from the back of the curry paste jar itself.

It is very easy to cook and a suprisingly light meal too compared to other curries.

(Printable Recipe)

Serves 2

Ingredients:
2 tbsp Thai Green Curry Paste
400ml Can Coconut Milk
2 tsp Sugar
400g bag Tiger Prawns
100g baby Spinach Leaves or Stir Fry vegetables
Juice of 1 Lime
1 tbsp Thai Fish Sauce

1 Heat 1tbsp of oil in a saucepan and add 2-3 tablespoons of the curry paste and stir in.

2 Add the coconut milk and sugar to the paste, stir in and bring to the boil.

3 Turn down the heat slightly and simmer the curry for 5-7 minutes to reduce the consistency.

3 Add the prawns and stir for 3-5 minutes.

4 Then add the lime juice and fish sauce and let it simmer for a few more minutes.

4 Add some spinach or stir fry vegetables to the curry and cook it through until it has wilted.

Serve with Thai sticky rice.

Enjoy!

For a vegetarian alternative, replace the prawns with 2 peeled sweet potatoes.

Green & Red Tomato Chutney

It’s halfway through October and with a lack of sunshine I still had approx. 30 green tomatoes on my plant outside. Now with the first frosts at the tail end of the year about to happen, I didnt want them to go to waste so decided to have a go at another chutney after making my Spicy Green Tomato Chutney last month.

I found another great recipe that looked delicious as well perfect for my needs, as I wanted something less spicy this time.

I only had 8ozs of green tomatoes from my plant, so added 8ozs of red tomatoes to make up the pound in weight.

As with my last chutney, this didnt require any finesse to make, but was great fun and the smells around the kitchen were amazing. While it was cooling, we were already tucking into it with some cheese as it looked so good. The best bit is that it tastes as good as it looks.

This is definately one recipe I will be making again if I am left with a glut of green tomatoes next year!

(Printable Recipe)

Ingredients:
1 lb Tomatoes - green, red - or a mix of either
1 lb Cooking Apples - peeled and cored
1 lb Demerara Sugar
1/2 lb Onions - peeled
1/2 lb Sultanas
1 pt Malt Vinegar
1 level tbsp Salt
2 tbsp Flour
1/2 tbsp Ground Ginger
1 tsp Mustard Powder

1 Roughly dice and chop the tomatoes, apples and onions and put them all in a good heavy based pan, mixing it well.

2 Add 3/4 pint of vinegar, the sultanas and the salt, bring to the boil and simmer until it turns into a pulp, stirring frequently – Approx 20-30 mins.

3 Add the demerara sugar, stirring in to dissolve, then bring it all gently back to the boil and then continue simmering gently for a few minutes.

4 Then mix the flour, mustard and ground ginger with the rest of the vinegar together in a small bowl.

5 Add in the above mixture, stirring it well to stop it from sticking to the pan.

6 Bring it all gently to the boil again, and stir until it starts to thicken (for about 5-10 mins).

7 Spoon into sterilised jars and enjoy either after standing for a while to let the flavours develop or immediately if you are impatient like me.

Enjoy with anything savoury!

Spicy Green Tomato Chutney

Now, having nearly given up with my small tomato plant ever ending up bearing me red fruit before the first frosts of the year (which will be upon us soon), I decided to pick about half of the large green tomatoes (1lb worth) to make a recipe that was suggested to me on the UK Food Bloggers site – Green Tomato Chutney.

I found so many that were so overly complicated and some that required soaking things in vinegar for days at a time. Being too impatient, I wanted to find a recipe that would allow me to prepare it all from my cupboard in next to no time and allow me to get cooking straight away!

The following recipe was perfect – it didnt require the finesse of a Michelin Starred Chef to make and the addition of the spices sounded great.

An hour later after starting to cook and I was already trying some on a cracker with some cheese while it was cooling and it tasted great.

I’m glad I didnt let my tomatoes go to ruin and now know I can make this excellent chutney any year again when we dont have a sunny summer!!

See also: Green & Red Tomato Chutney

1 lb Green Tomatoes
1 lb Red Onions
1/2 lb Sultanas
1/2 lb Brown Sugar
2 tbsp Salt
1 tsp Cayenne Pepper
1 tsp Ground Green Cardamom
500ml Malt Vinegar

1 Chop everything up – there is no need for a perfection, and put it in a good heavy based pan, mixing it well.

2 Bring it to the boil and then turn down the heat , simmer for about an hour until it is all reduced to a thick pulp.

3 Spoon into sterilised jars and enjoy either after standing for a while to let the flavours develop or immediately if you are impatient like me.

Enjoy with anything savoury!

If you make this recipe, please come back and let me know!