June 17, 2007

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Recipe: Thai Curry

Its a shame that Thai food is generally so expensive when one goes out for it, because some of the staples of Thai food are generally pretty cheap. I worked in a Thai restaurant as a chef for two years, and one of the biggest problems I had with translating the recipes to the home was the lack of a quality wok and an industrial gas stove. A lot of Thai dishes require a large dynamic range of heat. Sometimes you need extremely high heat for a short period of time, sometimes you need gentle heat for a long time, and other times you need high heat for a long time. Making curry is one of those times. Since the amount of heat you apply to it is relatively constant, it is easy to make at home without having to worry too much about heat control.

“I balanced all, brought all to mind, the years to come seemed waste of breath, a waste of breath the years behind, in balance with this life, this death.”

--William Butler Yeats, An Irish Airman Forsees His Death

The other big thing in Thai food, besides heat control, is balance. Those two principles are not unique to Thai cooking; in fact, they're pretty important in everything one cooks. But in Thai food you are generally dealing with many powerful flavors at once, and if you're not careful, all of the flavors will fight each other for control, and your entire dish will come out tasting like sectarian violence in Iraq. Again, curry is pretty simple and easy to balance because theres not too much going on.


I try my best to achieve emptiness. I hold firmly to stillness. The myriad creatures rise together And I watch them return. The myriad things flourish And each returns to its root. Returning to the root is silence. Silence is returning to being. Returning to being is knowing the constant. Knowing the constant is enlightenment. Acting without knowing The constant is harmful. Acting while knowing The constant is balance. Balance leads to nobility, Nobility to what is above, What is above to the Way, The Way to the eternal. To the end of life There is no danger. --Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

Another reason that the theme of balance applies so well to Thai food is that since its Asian, you can make it seem more exotic by busting out with a bunch of Tao Te Ching type shit. Do not fear death. There will always be curry.

Red Curry

Serves 6. Cooking time: 20 min.

The ingredients:

  • 4 cans of coconut milk (higher fat content makes for creamier curry)
  • 2 chicken breasts
  • 1 can of Maesri brand red curry paste
  • 5 Tbsp. sugar
  • 2.5 Tbsp. salt
  • 1 small can of bamboo shoots
  • 1 bell pepper
  • 2 large carrots
  • 1 can of chunk pineapple
  • crushed red pepper (for heat)
  • jasmine rice

The algorithm:
First cook a big pot of the jasmine rice in a rice cooker. Try to have a little less than twice as much water as rice (by volume) to get the right consistency. Dump all of the coconut milk into a big pot and set the heat to medium. Put in 3 large tablespoons of curry paste and mix it around a bit. The paste will dissolve more as the whole thing heats up. Slice the chicken breast into bite sized, very thin slices and put it in the curry. Turn the heat up to high. Add the salt and the sugar. Cook for about 5 minutes, and add the bamboo chutes, carrots and bell pepper (sliced into bite sized pieces). Remember to drain and rinse the bamboo first, and slice the carrots on an angle to make the slices long. Bring the whole thing to a boil and keep it moving. Continue to "cook it down" until it thickens up a bit. Add the pineapple and cook for a couple more minutes. Add red pepper to desired heat level.

Posted by Chris Santoro at June 17, 2007 7:27 AM | Comments (1) | EatFoo 1.0 Posts


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You didn't use fish sauce? I find it impossible to make good Thai curry without fish sauce.

Posted by: Megan at June 24, 2007 8:30 PM

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