Thai green chicken curry

 

This is my favourite chicken recipe, and if I see it on a menu in a restaurant I will go for it. I slightly adapted this recipe (ingredient amounts) from Jamie Oliver’s Fragrant green chicken curry in ‘The Naked Chef’ (1999: 122-123). I love this homemade green curry paste. It is great with vegetables for a vegetarian dish, or with prawns. I now prepare it in larger batch, enough to make 4 recipes, and freeze it. This saves me a lot of time when cooking.

The quantities here serve 2. This Thai green chicken curry is ready in 45 minutes or so.

Ingredients

• 2 spring onions, chopped
• 1 green chilli, deseeded and roughly chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
• 1 teaspoon fresh ginger root peeled and roughly chopped
• 1 handful of fresh coriander leaves, chopped
• 1 handful of fresh basil leaves, chopped
• ½ teaspoon of coriander seeds, crushed
• 5 dried kaffir lime leaves, soaked in hot water for 10 minutes and drained
• 1 lemongrass stalk, chopped
• Juice of half a freshly squeezed lemon
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 2 skinless and boneless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 1 cup of coconut milk (either store-bought, or homemade coconut milk)
• Salt
• Pepper

Preparation

Prepare the green curry paste: put the spring onions, green chilli, garlic, ginger, coriander and basil leaves, coriander seeds, kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, lemon juice and 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a food processor and blend to get a green paste.

Heat 1 tablespoons of olive oil in a wok or skillet over high heat, and cook the chicken until slightly golden. Add the green paste, and cook for a few minutes for the green paste to thicken. Then stir in the coconut milk, bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 8 minutes until the chicken is cooked through. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve!