Tasty Tuesday: Thai Curry

I love Thai food! I will take any opportunity to go out for Thai food that I can get.  Because of this obsession I have tried a couple curry recipes and have never been satisfied; until now.  Luckily my mother-in-law has a friend from India, Nita, who was kind enough to teach me some good cooking techniques and renewed my desire to try a new approach to making a curry dish. So with five curry recipes and the awesome techniques I learned from Nita I created a curry dish that has satisfied my craving.  This is only the beginning of my experimenting and I imagine I will come up with an even better recipe in a couple of months. But here is what I have come up with so far….

Ingredients:

2 cups uncooked Jasmine Rice

1.5 lbs chicken cut into bite sized pieces

Curry powder (enough to coat the chicken)

1 onion diced

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp whole coriander

1 cinnamon stick

2 T olive oil

1 T butter

1 red or green bell pepper

4 cloves minced garlic

2 tsp fresh grated ginger

1 cup fresh pineapple diced

1 cup sliced carrots

Sauce:

2 cans coconut milk

1 bottle Thai curry paste

 2 T fish oil (I didn't have fish oil so I substituted soy sauce, but I would not recommend this)

¼ cup brown sugar

Salt and pepper to taste

I ended up not putting the peanut butter in, it may fit better in a dish without pineapple.

Notice cumin seeds, whole coriander and a cinnamon stick.  Apparently the spices hold more flavor when they are not ground.

Begin by coating the chicken with the curry powder and set it aside. Cook the rice according to package directions (Word of caution: the package directions for my jasmine rice said to add salt, I doubled the serving so I doubled the salt, that was a MISTAKE, it was WAY too salty!).  Heat the butter and 1 T oil in a large skillet on med-hi heat. Add onions, cumin seeds, whole coriander, and cinnamon.  Sauté for about three minutes and then add bell peppers and sauté for 3 more minutes.  Add garlic and ginger and cook 30 secs to 1 min (Special tip: my friend Nita highly recommended using a lot of garlic, 4 cloves is twice as much as any recipe I came across but I really do think it made a difference).  Push the onions and peppers to the outside of the pan and throw the chicken in the center, cook until chicken is white on both sides but not cooked through.

While the chicken is cooking combine all of the sauce ingredients in a separate bowl. When the chicken is done add the sauce, carrots, and pineapple.  Heat to a boil and then simmer for about 20 minutes, covered.  Serve over rice and die from satisfaction!