Thai green chicken curry (Kaeng Khiao Wan) is one of my all time favourite. It's fragrant from all the typical Thai aromatics such as lemongrass, galangal, shallots and garlic, spicy from the green chillies and creamy and rich from the coconut cream. The recipe below is adapted from 'Thailand the Cookbook' by Jean-Pierre Gabriel. The hardest and most time consuming part is pounding the curry paste and so it should be as it's the soul of the entire dish. Once that's out of the way the rest is pretty quick and easy. Good news is that you can replace it with a good food processor, or make it in a larger batch and store away.
Difficulty: Medium/Hard
Time: 2hrs
Serves: 4
Ingredients
Chicken
- 1 chicken breast or 4 thigh pieces cut into bite size pieces*
- salt
- oil
Crispy Chicken Skin
- 1 large chicken skin from the breast
- salt
Green Curry Paste
- 1/2 tsp ground coriander
- 1/4 tsp ground cumin
- 1/2 tsp ground white pepper
- 4 green birds eye chillies (seeded if you want it to be less spicy)
- 4 green spur chillies seeded
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp chopped galangal
- 1 tsp chopped coriander root
- 1/2 tbsp finely chopped kaffir lime zest
- 1 lemongrass stalk finely sliced
- 2 cloves of garlic finely sliced
- 1/2 shallot finely sliced
- 2/3 tsp shrimp paste
Green Curry
- 1 2/3 cup coconut milk
- 1 tbsp fish sauce
- 1 tbsp palm sugar
- 100g thai round eggplants halved or quartered
- 4 long yard-long beans cut
Garnish
- coconut cream
- red large chilli diagonally sliced
- Thai basil leaves
* Use chicken breast if you intend to sous vide the meat and serve it separately to the sauce. Thigh makes a better cut however for cooking directly in the sauce.
Method
1. If you are serving your curry with sous vide chicken breast, start by seasoning the chicken breasts well with salt and pepper before putting them into ziplock bags with olive oil to ensure the breasts are well coated. Sous vide the chicken in a hot water bath at 62.5 degrees for 1.5 hours.
2. To make the crispy chicken skin, preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Using a small, sharp knife, lay the skins skin-side down and scrape off any excess fat and remaining meat. You should be left with just the thin skin. Lay the skins stretched out flat on a greaseproof-lined baking sheet. Sprinkle with a pinch of flaky sea salt. Lay a second sheet of greaseproof paper over the skins then weigh down with another tray. Place in the oven for 10–15 minutes, until golden brown and crisp. Place the skins on kitchen paper and sprinkle with salt.
3. Make green curry paste by combining all the ingredients in a mortar and pound it with the pestle until it turns into a smooth paste.
4. Heat up some oil in the pan over medium heat, add the curry paste and stir fry for 2 minutes until fragrant. If you are using chicken thigh pieces to cook directly in the curry, add the chicken now and brown it for another 1-2 minutes. Add the coconut milk, fish sauce, palm sugar and bring it to boil. Add the eggplants and yard-long beans and cook for another 4-5 minutes until the eggplants are cooked.
5. Serve by drizzling coconut cream on top, garnish with thinly sliced kaffir lime leaves, red chillies, crispy chicken skin and Thai basil leaves. Enjoy!
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