(Something Resembling) Red Thai Chicken Curry

Mmm.  Thai food must be one of the world's greatest inventions.  Today was a "cook some curry at work" day for my lunch.

Finished curry with rice

Ingredients
Before listing these, I should note that I do not like measuring things properly.  As such, most of these numbers are estimates based on what I happened to dump into the cooking bowls.

Caldo, fish sauce, coconut milk, curry paste, garlic, and ginger

• rice (about 1.5 cups dry) -- today it was Calrose
• 1 chicken breast, cubed
• 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 1 inch piece of ginger, chopped -- more would have been good, but the flavors just wouldn't meld in the microwave
• 1 tsp (or cube) chicken bouillon -- "Caldo con sobre de pollo" was what I had handy
• 1/2 eggplant in roughly 1/2 to 3/4 inch cubes
• 2 or 3 medium mushrooms, coarsely sliced
• 1/2 can (about 2.5 ounces) sliced bamboo shoots, sliced up a bit
• 1 can (about 5 ounces) sliced water chestnuts, sliced up a bit
• 4 tsp red curry paste
• 1 can (around 13 oz) coconut milk
• 4-5 tsp Thai fish sauce 

Mushrooms, eggplant, bamboo shoots, and water chestnuts

Sticky rice. For non-sticky rice, add less water and avoid stirring.

Directions for rice

1. Put dry rice in bowl with a lid
2. Add about 2.5 cups water.
3. Cover and microwave on high for about 5 minutes
4. Stir and microwave on about 40% power for 9 to 12 minutes.  Cook until the water is absorbed.

Raw chicken with onions, garlic, "Caldo", and ginger

Directions for curry

1. Put chicken in bowl with a lid
2. Add chopped onion, garlic, ginger.
3. Add chicken bouillon; add 1/2 cup water if your chicken breast did not have water added (mine did).
4. Cook about 8 minutes on 60% power, stirring occasionally.
5. Add curry paste and stir well
6. Cook about 1 minute on high
7. Add coconut milk
8. Cook another minute on high
9. Add fish sauce (don't spill this, the smell won't go away)
10. Add eggplant, mushrooms, bamboo, water chestnuts



Adding curry paste to cooked chicken.  I used this much plus a little more.






Cooked chicken with curry paste










11. Stir and cook about 6 to 7 minutes on high, stirring occasionally

Fully cooked with vegetables

How did it turn out?
It was quite edible today.  I would have preferred a spicier curry paste, or potentially adding some spicy peppers.

How much did it cost?
If I add up everything I used, I find that I used about $7.75 worth of ingredients.  The bulk of that cost was the coconut milk ($2.30 per can, but you can find it cheaper at an Asian market), chicken (about $1.25 in my bulk pack), and curry paste (I used about $1.10 worth, but cheaper and better options are available).  The vegetables are fairly cheap, having used about $0.70 worth of eggplant, $0.45 for the mushrooms, $0.65 for bamboo shoots (you should be able to get them for cheaper than $1.29 per can), and $0.65 for water chestnuts.  The other ingredients are more difficult to measure, so I estimated less than $0.10 each for the remaining ingredients.

While the total may look expensive, it really did make a lot of curry.  You could easily get four to six servings out of this.  I shared with two people at work and still had enough left for a couple of late lunches.

What would I do differently in a real kitchen?
If I had a real stove top, I could cook the garlic, ginger, and onions better (with a little oil) to bring a more smooth flavor.  One thing that would really have made this dish good is to add kieffer lime leaves.  It would only take 2 or 3 leaves, but the fresh flavor it would bring could well make it worth the trip to your Asian market.

The coconut milk that I bought had some additives.  It doesn't thicken quite like the less shelf stable cans.


Can I substitute ingredients?
I'll always say yes to this.  Here is what I think could be substituted for an equally delicious curry:

• Water chestnuts:  Try some jicama for a delicious crunch, with the added benefit of less salt.  You could also use a few small potatoes, but you'll need to cook them just until you can easily pierce them with a fork.  I suspect that this would need to be added about 1/4 of the way through the final cooking stage to avoid making a potato mash.
• Chicken bouillon: Use a bit of chicken stock (avoid making it too runny), or in a pinch go for a small amount of a powdered soup packet.
• Chicken: Go for some thin slices of beef.
• Eggplant: Cauliflower is excellent in curry.  It tends to go soggy, so I like to add it almost half-way through the cooking process.

 Anything else I could add?
Sure.  Besides the kieffer lime leaves (drool inducing), you could try:

• bell peppers
• spicy peppers
• fresh lemon grass (again, back to your Asian market)
• Any of the ingredients listed in the substitutions above

Further comments
It is worth noting that the particular curry paste I used here was overly expensive for the amount of curry you can make.  If you look around, you can probably find a small tub of much stronger (both flavor-wise and heat) stuff for less money.  I used about 1/3 of the jar for this.