Thai beef (or chicken) red curry

gianni66

I will try a Thai recipe tonight... a beef (or chicken) red curry in coconout milk with Thai basil, it should be not so difficult, but the difficulty will be to find some ingredients like the "fish sauce". I'm not so sure that the little shops in the Bengali community here in Rome will have it, but there are also a couple of Chinese food markets in which I will try.
Thai food is really delicious, I love it! Maybe Indian one is better for the smell and its particular "sensuality", but the Thai food is really delicate and fragrant (something similar maybe is the Kerala cooking style which I tried recently thanks to the great suggestions of Jyotirmoy!).
I will let you know tomorrow...

Here is the recipe:

3 cups water
3-5 sprigs Thai basil
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1/2 lb eggplant
1 tablespoon red curry paste
1 cup coconut milk
1 chicken breast

Cut up the chicken into bite size pieces. If you have this dish in Thailand, you will see that the chicken comes with bones. All parts such as legs and thighs can be used. The bones make the curry more flavorful.
Pour half of the coconut milk into a large pot, over low to medium low heat. Add the red curry paste. Break up the paste and mix it with coconut milk. Stir constantly. Lower the heat if it splatters too much. Add chicken when you see red oil bubbling on top. Stir and coat chicken with curry sauce. Add the eggplant when chicken starts to turn white. Add the rest of the coconut milk and water and the fish sauce. Let it boil until all the eggplant pieces turn dark and tender. The longer you boil the curry, the thicker the curry becomes because the eggplant disintegrates and thickens the sauce. Add the basil leaves just before you serve and make sure the leaves are submerged quickly in the curry to preserve the color.
Serve hot with rice or rice noodles.

gianni66

I did it!! Greart dish, real Thai taste!
Just a couple of comments:
1. the fish sauce is VERY salted already, you didn't need to add any additional salt to the meat. I did it before testing, and I had to correct everything adding extra sugar to kill the salt eccess!
2. I couldn't find Thai basil and eggplant, I used the normal Italian ones; maybe the eggplants are very different, but they were completely melted during the cooking (in Thai restaurants I often find the Thai eggplants still solid).
Adding some white parfumed rice it was a delicious dinner!
Gianni