Yellow Curry Chicken and Vegetables

Finally, I tackled yellow curry – one of the favorite Thai food. It’s amazingly easy to make and tasty, you should try this at home too. Because I chose the cheat version, using store bought yellow curry paste, it’s actually a very easy one pot dish to make, and clean up is a breeze.

Ingredients:

3 skinless bone in chicken thighs, cut off most meat from bone, cut into bite size pieces, save bones to add flavor. I did not do anything for this step, only because I still don’t trust my left hand enough to handle cutting meats into smaller pieces.

1 white rose potato, this is highly recommended, just for the texture in the curry. You want the potato to thicken up the curry a bit but still want to be able to enjoy the potatoes, not mashed potatoes.

1 medium to large size red potato, totally optional but I like the color added to the dish

half of a large onion or a medium one, cut into chunks

half of a green bell pepper, only because I had a half in the fridge.

1 carrot, cut into bite size pieces

2 tbsp yellow curry paste, I used a store-bought canned paste.

1 can of coconut milk, not cream, not oil

2 tsp of sugar

1 tsp of fish sauce

salt to taste

Method:

Put a medium size sauce pan on high heat, pour in half a can of coconut milk, bring to a boil and reduce heat to medium and let coconut milk bubble away. If you are lucky, the coconut milk you bought may separate to have a layer of coconut oil on top. If it doesn’t no big deal, pretend you didn’t see this from me and move on.

When the coconut milk is reducing, cut all vegetables into bite size pieces except for potatoes, to prevent them from oxidizing. Add yellow curry paste into the pan, and use a spatula to stir constantly to let yellow curry paste get toasted and well combined with the reduced coconut milk.

Add chicken pieces into the pot, bone and all, and stir until chicken pieces are well coated with curry mixture. Pour in the rest of the coconut milk and bring it to a boil. Don’t throw away the can just yet. Reduce the heat to medium and cook chicken to tender. I also threw in a bay leaf. About 15 minutes. Use this time to cut up potatoes.

Once chicken is cooked till tender, add all vegetables and the can of water to the pot, as usual, I threw in a chicken bouillon cube. Or you can add chicken broth instead. Make sure you have enough liquid to cover everything in the pot. Once it comes to a boil, reduce heat to medium to medium low and let it cook for another 10-15 minutes, lid off. That way extra liquid can evaporate and you don’t end up with super watery curry.

Stir occasionally and make sure all potatoes are submerged. Use this time to wash cutting board, knife, clean up the kitchen, or drink some coffee.

Once the potatoes are tender but not melted away yet, kill the heat, taste for seasoning. This step is crucial, this will fundamentally transform your yellow curry. I added quite a bit salt, a couple of tsp of sugar an a couple of dashes of fish sauce to achieve the final amazing taste, please don’t be fooled by the whole house of exciting curry smell when you cook it.

Serve over steamed rice, with loads and loads of potatoes and juices, you will definitely come back for more, a couple of times!