With all the people bringing us food, last night was my first real opportunity to cook for the family. We always tend to have some frozen chicken breasts, green curry paste, and coconut milk on hand, so I decided to do a chicken curry.

Since my father had taken us grocery shopping, I'd taken advantage of his largesse to pick up some plantains, a member of the banana family that are terrible raw, but have a great texture and flavor when cooked. Let me tell you, those plantains are tough to peel. I definitely recommend reading up on it before you take on the recipe.

I didn't originally plan to use peanut butter, but I used a bit too much curry spice and I didn't want to just make the recipe sickly sweet, so I threw in some peanut butter to help lower the heat while thickening the curry.

You'll need:

2 boneless chicken breasts
2 cans of coconut milk
2 healthily rounded soup spoons of green curry paste (I used Mae Ploy, which is in all the Asian Foods aisles up here - even Wal-Mart)
1 can of chicken broth (14 oz)
1 large onion
1 lime
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/3 cup shelled roasted peanuts
2 green plantains
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon curry powder
2 pinches salt

Cut the chicken breast into bite-size chunks and put them in a bowl. Zest the lime over the chicken, then squeeze its juice on the chicken. Add the curry powder and salt and mix it together. Set aside to marinate for 15-20 minutes while you cut your onion and get the meal going.

Cut the onion up chunky style. Heat the oil in a large covered skillet. Add the curry paste and onions, breaking up the chunks and softening the onions, getting them coated with the curry paste and oil. Add the chicken, removing it from the marinating bowl with a slotted spoon. Sautee the chicken lightly in the onions, oil and curry paste. Add the coconut milk, chicken broth, and reserved marinade, and bring to a boil.

When the mixture is boiling, add the brown sugar and stir in. Lower the heat and cover.

Peel the plantains and cut into bite-size chunks. Add the plantains and return the mixture to a boil. Cover and let simmer 20 minutes.

After the 20 minutes, stir in the peanut butter, then stir in the peanuts, lower the heat to a low setting, cover again, and let go for 5 minutes to let the flavors meld.

I served this over a Thai sticky rice (a.k.a. sweet rice or glutinous rice). I didn't have time to soak it overnight, so I put 1.5 cups rice in a round pyrex casserole dish and covered it in boiling water up to around an inch above the rice, letting that soak and cool for an hour. I dumped off the excess water, rinsed it, then covered it in cool water up to around 1/4 inch above the rice. I covered that in plastic wrap and nuked it on high for around 8.5 minutes. When I took it out, the top of the rice was slightly dry, but not crunchy. I fluffed it with a fork, mixing it up, then patted it down and re-covered it, letting it sit for 5 to 10 minutes. What was left may not have been perfect Thai sticky rice, but it was great under the curry.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 1st, 2008 at 3:43 pm and is filed under Cooking & Recipes, Home Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.