Guess Who’s Back, Back Again (Hint, It’s 80p)
Hello loyal, patient Endless Simmer readers who come to this blog just for 80p. It’s been a while, to say the least, since I have put fingers to keys. Fear not though, my cooking prowess has not jumped by leaps and bounds in the past few months. But I thought I would take a moment and write about this dish that I have made 3-4 times now. Being an average cook, when I end up with something on a plate that looks like that, I just act like I’ve been there before and smile…then blog about it.
Two things are essential to this dish, Thai Curry Paste and Coconut Milk. Beyond that, you can add pretty much whatever you like. I usually dump in chicken and a veggie or two (this time green beans from the farmer’s market). But back to the beginning: this paste can be found at almost any supermarket, especially an Asian market. The brand I usually buy is called Maesri, but I’m no expert, I’m sure they’re all about as good.
To start with, spoon a couple of tablespoons of the paste into a large pan and add about a cup of coconut milk. Let that come to a boil. In the meantime, dice some chicken and prepare whichever veggies you want. Then, just throw those ingredients into the mix. Since the milk tends to boil off, you probably will need to add some more, especially if you don’t like really spicy food. In fact, this was the mistake I made last night. I let the dish boil for too long and it came out really really really spicy.
So buyer beware, this is not a paste for the timid. If you don’t like spicy fare, I would just reduce the amount of paste.
Finally, this dish just calls out for rice, which brings me to my last point: rice cookers. For so long, Gansie and I have suffered while cooking rice the old fashioned way, and honestly I think it made us avoid making the stuff. For such a little grain, it sure is stubborn. You need to right amount of water, the right temperature, you can’t open the lid to look, and you definitely can’t stir to check the water level. So even though I feel like rice cookers might be considered cheating, I don’t really care. Making rice sucks, and rice cookers (thank you Aroma) make it not suck. So there.
so we used the rice cooker. and theres two ways to cook brown rice. one way takes an HOUR AND 40 MINUTES and another way takes 40 min. 80P chose the 40 min method, but does anyone know the real difference in taste, texture, over all results, when using the long method?
Using a rice cooker can’t possibly be considered cheating! Rice cookers are standard equipment in Asian kitchens, so in my opinion, it’s not cheating any more than it would be cheating to use an electric stove to boil water for pasta. I dearly love my rice cooker, and use it several times a week. No clue about the brown rice, though. We stick to jasmine and basmati around here.
I make Thai curry like this, using the same Maesri curry paste. It’s been one of my fall-back quick dinners for years, so I’ve got a few suggestions.
My husband and child don’t like food as spicy as I do, so I will use less curry paste than I would if I was cooking for myself alone. I amp up the flavor by adding extra fish sauce, and if I have fresh basil, I’ll throw in a few torn leaves. If the sauce gets too thick, it can be thinned with water or broth, or even cow’s milk for the non-lactose-impaired.
I keep a jar in the fridge filled with chopped Thai bird chiles and fish sauce, and I use a few spoonfuls at the table to spice up my own portion of curry.
Curry is a great “whatever’s in the fridge” dish — I’ve made it with all kinds of proteins and vegetables, some of them very non-Thai-traditional. I horrified a Thai friend of mine when I told her I put chunks of sweet potato in curry… but it was good!
no way is a rice cooker cheating, and you can make anything grain based in it and it pretty much comes out perfect. i use mine for mujadrah a LOT.
ps – you created a monster, ’cause nobody wanna eat cupcakes no more, they want curry or chopped liver 😉
ok that would make way more sense if you knew i made mujadrah with millet instead of rice. erica OUT!
80 p. Nice pics, plate and good looking food
keep up the good work it’s not just gansie’s kitchen
cooker works nice too. Who cleaned???