2012 Cooking Club Week 2: Burmese/North Thai Chicken Curry

I picked this recipe because its my favourite Thai/Burmese style curry for a few years now.
Im inspired to make it regularly and never tire of it. What makes it special for me is its slow cooked whole chicken thighs which impart an amazing flavour from the juices which is far superior to using stock and chicken fillet/breasts.
The Burmese influences are the onions and ginger typical to Burmese cooking. The original curry paste used is Kua curry paste, I have given the recipe below if you want to make it yourself. Any shop bought thai curry paste will suffice and give great results so its not necessary to make the paste.
Note: in the pictures I used basil, this was just an experiment and it didn’t work!


Burmese/North Thai Chicken curry
(serves 2-3 people)
2tbs Vegetable oil
6 chicken thighs (preferable free range)
2 onions finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic finely chopped
2-3 tbs of any Thai curry paste
5cm piece of ginger finely chopped
1/2tsp salt
400ml coconut milk
400ml of water
2tbs lime juice
2tsp of palm sugar
2tbs fish sauce
2 types of Asian veg chopped

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees.
Add 2tbs of oil to an oven proof pot and heat up to a medium heat on the stove top.
Add the garlic, ginger, onion, salt, curry paste and sauté for 5mins.
Then add the coconut milk, 200ml of water and stir them in well.
Add the chicken thighs and bring to the boil.
Put the lid on the pot and transfer it to the preheated oven. Cook in the oven for minimum 1 hour but preferably 2 hours. Remove the pot from the oven and stir lightly every 30mins and ensure there is enough liquid in the pot and it doesn’t go to dry(add a little water if its going dry). Add the asian veg to the pot 20mins before the end of the cooking time
When the chicken is cooked remove the pot from the oven and take out the chicken thighs onto a plate(take care to keep all the juices in the pot, give the chicken thighs a little squeeze as you are picking them out). The meat should be falling off the bone so remove all the good edible meat from the thighs and put it back into the pot.
Sometimes there will be excess oil from the chicken floating on top and the sauce will look separated. At this stage you can stir the mix, spoon off the excess oil and add water if its too dry.
Put the chicken bones and remains into another pot, add 200ml of water and bring to the boil. Stir the pot well for 2 minutes to release all the juices from the chicken remains and then strain the liquid back into the main pot. Squeeze the chicken remains against the sieve to get as much of the juices out as possible.
Bring the main pot to the boil and stir in the lime, palm sugar and fish sauce. Simmer for 5mins, it should be ready now but check the consistency, it should be like a standard thai curry so add water if necessary. it should taste delicate, light and sumptuous, serve with boiled or pilau rice.

Kua curry paste
15 dried red chillies
1tsp salt
20g of shallots
50g of garlic
1tbs finely chopped ginger
4 stalks of lemongrass
1ts finely chopped kaffir lime peel or leaves
1tbs white peppercorns
1tbs ground turmeric

Grind all ingredients with a mortar and pestle or in a blender to a paste consistency.