Thai Red Curry Recipe

Thailand is famous for their lightly prepared dishes with strong aromatic and spicy foods. One of the best known dish is Thai red curry.

Thai Curry was invented due to the cooking influence of India and Portugal. The curry taste is from India and the spicy flavor is from Portugal.There are many types of Thai curry but the most popular is Red and Green Curry.

Green Curry is made from fresh young green chilies while Red Curry is made from bigger red chilies which are not as hot as green curries.

This recipe will guide you how to make a savory with gentle heat Thai Red Curry. It’s easy to prepare and cook, perfect for home cooks who want to make a quick and easy meal.

Step 1: Prepare All Ingredients

• First you need a skinless, boneless chicken breast, you may purchase chicken breast in your local grocery store already deboned, skin removed and cleaned from veins or you may purchase a whole chicken breast and ask your butcher to debone and clean it or you may do it yourself at your home, you can use the bone to make chicken stock, no parts of the chicken is wasted if you know how to work on them.
• For the other ingredients, you can buy coconut milk freshly squeezed out of a grated coconut meat or you may buy it ready to use canned or in a milk carton.
• Basil should be fresh, you may use Thai basil as indicated in the recipe but if not available you may use sweet basil instead.
• Red curry paste can be bought in your local groceries.
• For  ginger and garlic paste I use a sharkskin grater tool or you may use a lemon zester tool to grate them into paste. Use fresh whole lime then grate it with a lemon zester to obtain 1 tsp of lime zest.
• Brown sugar, fish sauce, olive oil and chili peppers are available in your local grocery store.
• Cut the chili peppers diagonally, a thumb size peeled ginger cut into matchsticks and an extra basil, this will serve as a garnish when the dish is ready.
• Seasonings (Salt and Black Pepper) is optional, red curry paste and fish sauce has already enough seasoning taste but you may add salt and pepper if necessary or the taste is lacking.
• Once all ingredients are ready you may now begin by cutting the chicken breast into small cubes.

Step 2: Begin Cooking

• Take a large pan then place it over medium heat, pour olive oil in the pan let it heat for a while then add garlic and ginger paste. Let garlic and ginger paste sizzle for a while about a minute until it turns into light brown then add coconut milk.

• Bring the coconut milk to boil, once it boils reduce the heat to low just simmering, keep the coconut milk stirring to avoid burning, keep stirring for a while until oil rise to the surface.

• Add into the pan the red curry paste, chicken breast, and lime zest then mix them until the paste is completely deluded into coconut milk, let it simmer until the chicken breast is fully cooked for about 12 min.
• You can add a tsp of lemon juice if you want your curry to be more tangy.
• You may cover the pan to make the cooking process of the chicken breast faster or you may let it uncovered.

• Season the curry with black pepper if necessary then add fish sauce and brown sugar into the sauce. Stir the curry for a while, then taste it if it needs more salt or not.

• If the taste is not quite salty enough, you may add salt, if it needs more black pepper you may add more. if the taste is fine for you then you can proceed adding basil.

• Turn off the heat, then add the basil, its best to add basil at last moment of cooking cause prolonged cooking basil results in evaporation of the essential oils that are present in the basil leaves you don’t want to waste good flavoring oils.
• After that stir the curry to evenly distribute the flavor of the basil.

Step 3: Arrange the Thai curry

• Remove the curry from the pan, pour it in your serving bowl then sprinkle on top the ginger matchsticks, diagonally cut red chili and the extra fresh basil leaves. You may add a whole dry or fresh chili on top for additional garnish.

• Pair it with freshly cooked jasmine rice to fully enjoy this Asian food called Thai Red curry.
• You may use pork or duck on this recipe, just make sure that you fully cook the meat into a tender texture. If you use pork after you saute the ginger and garlic paste you may add water or stock then boil the pork, reduce the liquid to ½ cup then you may add the coconut milk and continue the cooking process.. If you use duck breast keep the skin on, fry the duck skin side down first in olive oil, then remove it from the pan and add the ginger and garlic paste then continue the cooking process.