Thai Pumpkin And Chicken Curry

I was curious about this Virgin Coconut Oil and all the fuss for some time now. There were shows and information spreading around about this 'healthy coconut oil' which is derived from Fresh Coconut instead of it's dried form, Copra which is a RBD Coconut Oil (RBD stands for refined, bleached and deodorized). I finally found some brands available at an organic counter. I chose a smaller bottle to start with as I don't know how it will taste or how good it's heat tolerance in cooking as claimed by many. Also, it's said that Virgin Coconut Oil has medicinal and beauty values ranging for human usage to your faithful pets!

Guessed what? I'm hooked! :-P I was surprised by the quality of this Virgin Coconut Oil... After I cooked with the oil, the sweet coconut aroma was still there and less smoky too when it's subjected to very high heat. I'm thinking of replacing recipes using butter with Virgin Coconut Oil (like coconut in cookies) instead as suggested by Toni Fiore of Totally Vegetarian fame. Then I got this idea of replacing recipe using coconut milk with evaporated milk and Virgin Coconut Oil. The evaporated milk to give a creamy look and Virgin Coconut Oil for the coconut aroma... LOL. I'm not sure about other foodies opinions about this replacement as not all recipes are suitable and I still feel that nothing beats the original taste of fresh coconut milk... well, once awhile it's no harm. Everything should be taken in moderation, right?

If you are interested to make your own Virgin Coconut Oil, you can look into Milyn and Peter Christopher's blog, Homemadestyle and Virgin Coconut Oil.Com.

Back to the recipe, here's a recipe I used my left overs from recent cooking. I also added extra Bird's Eye Chillies at the end of the cooking to give that extra kick of wake-me-up and for my chilli-crazy brother who visited me so early in the morning on Friday :-|

Serve with steamed rice and chillies!

Thai Pumpkin and Chicken Curry

Serves 2-4

1 small Pumpkin (any suitable pumpkin, about 500 g - 700g)

500 g Boneless Chicken Thighs - cut into bite-sized pieces

½ cup Thai Basil - firmly packed & chiffonade

To be blended into paste:

2 nos Shallots - chopped coarsely

3 cloves garlic - chopped coarsely

3 Tbl Thai Red Curry Paste

2 Tbl Water

300 ml Fresh Coconut Milk (canned or packed can be use)

2 Tbl Fish Sauce (Nam pla)

1 nos Lime (½ Lemon) - extract the juice only

2 tsp Palm sugar or Light Brown Sugar

3 Tbl Virgin Coconut Oil or Cooking Oil of your choice

Method:

1. Prepare the pumpkin; halved, seeded, peeled and cut into bite-sized chunks. Washed and drain well.

2. For the curry base: In a blender, add in the garlic, shallots, Thai Curry Paste and water. Process until smooth.

3. In another small bowl, combine the coconut milk, fish sauce, lime juice and sugar. Stir until the sugar dissolves.

4. Heat up a pot or deep pan over medium heat. Add in 2 Tbl of cooking oil. Shallow fry the chicken meat until light brown (half cooked). Remove and transfer the chicken pieces into a bowl or plate. Set aside.

5. Return the pot/pan to the heat and add the remaining oil. Add the curry paste and stir until fragrant (be careful the paste will caused the oil to splatter).

6. Add in the chicken meat and pumpkin. Mix well with the paste mixture.

7. Stir in the coconut milk mixture and bring to boil.

8. Reduce the heat to low and simmer until the pumpkin is tender and chicken meat is cooked throughout.

9. Ladle into a bowl and garnish with Thai Basil. Serve with steamed Jasmine Rice or your favourite rice.

Note:

If you're health conscious, you can use evaporated milk instead of coconut milk. What I did before was to use Virgin Coconut Oil to cook the curry paste. Then I add in evaporated milk. This gives you the fragrant coconut flavour and creamy gravy. You can adjust the hotness of Curry Paste to your liking if you prefer.

Enjoy!

Chicken In Creamy Tomato Sauce

There's this little tiny ingredient that I used in this recipe that stirred hot debate in my country 4 years ago, much to my amusement and maybe to foodies abroad as well. This little itsy, bitsy ingredient had been used worldwide in cookies, bread, cakes, spice mixes and curries but illegal in some countries! You and I ate this 'secret' ingredient food in stollen, bagel, mohn, challah, Korma, Mutton Posto, Japanese's Shichimi Togarashi, medicinal purposes (yes, you saw it correctly!) and in artist's paints (surprised, surprised!) I'm refering to kaskas or khashkhash, paparounospori, pavot somnifère, haşhaş tohumu, etc... or better simply known as poppy seeds!

Don't panic and thinking of boycotting your favourite Indian, Indian Muslim or Middle Eastern restaurants or stop using on your traditional baking goods. Poppy seeds that come from ripe seeds contain no narcotic chemicals and it's safe to consume as its alkaloid content is very low (about 50 parts per million.)It's the dried latex from the unripe seed pods that opium is derived. You need to consume 1 kg or more of poppy seeds to get high and the taste is very bitter in large quantities but morphine could still be detected in the urine after such heavy consumption. There's no experiments to date to prove poppy seed consumption could lead to addiction :-P What about Coca-cola or Coke? There are interesting topics about poppy seeds, its' history and culinary uses in Chow.com, the nutrition content of the seeds in Indianet and the Encyclopedia of Spices by The Epicentre.

As for me, I love Indian and Middle Eastern cuisines because of the combination of spices and herbs that made their food so addictive! Back to this recipe I wanted to share ;-P I used the Asian white poppy seed variety which is smaller, creamier and nutty than its Western Blue Poppy Seeds. You can use which ever available locally in your area. The purpose of the poppy seeds in this recipe is to thicken the gravy or sauce.

Chicken in Creamy Tomato Gravy

Serves 4-6 servings

1 tbl Cooking oil

1.5 kg Chicken meat - washed and cut to pieces (I used chicken thighs)

2 nos Onion - medium size, sliced into rings

1/2 tsp Ground Cloves

1 tsp Tumeric Powder

2 tsp Garam Masala

3 tsp Chilli Powder

To be blended until smooth with 2 tbl Coconut Milk:

4 cloves Garlic

1 tbl Fresh Ginger - finely chopped

1 tbl Poppy Seeds

2 tsp Fennel Seeds

3 pods Cardamom - smashed and reserved the black seeds

150 ml Coconut Milk - fresh 1st-pressed thick coconut from 1 coconut

1 pc Star Anise

1 pc Cinnamon Stick

4 nos Large Tomatoes - roughly chopped

1-2 nos Limes - quartered

Method:

1. Pat dry the chicken meat before frying.

2. Heat the oil in a large frying pan/pot. When it's hot, add in the chicken pieces slowly in batches into the pan. Cook for 5-10 minutes or until browned. Remove and keep aside in another plate. Continue to fry the rest of the chicken.

*When it's finished, remove some of the oil from the pan (the extra oil came from the chicken skin/fat) but use enough oil for the next step.

3. While the pot/pan is still hot, add in onions and stir-fry until golden in color. Stir in the grounded cloves, tumeric, garam masala and chilli powder. Stir for 1 minute and add in the pre-fried chicken pieces.

4. Add in the blended spice mixture, remaining of Coconut milk, star anise, cinnamon stick, chopped tomatoes and water. Give the chicken and spices a good stir so that the meat is well coated.

5. Cover the pot/pan and simmer in medium heat for 30-45 minutes or until the meat is tender and the gravy thickens to your preference. Serve with some quartered limes at the side with steamed rice and plain yogurt. You can even add some vegetables like cucumber, onions, okra, achar or pickles.

Notes:

As the pots or pans use are different with individuals, the gravy may take longer to thicken. Since the chicken meat produced more liquid into the gravy, you need to adjust the time accordingly.

You can use packed or tinned coconut milk if you can't find fresh pressed coconut milk.

If you don't have grounded cloves, you can pound/grind about 1 tbl of cloves until fine. Scoop the powdered cloves into the required measurement and leveled the top.

Use quality cardamoms - discard any browned or dried seeds or pods.

Lastly, if you still unsure about the poppy seeds, you can use grounded Cashew Nuts, Pine Nuts or Candlenuts as thickening agent for this recipe :-P

I'm also sending this recipe to the event, ' Think Spice... Think Twice: Mastic Gum and Fennel Seeds' by Ivy of Kopiaste... to Greek Hospitality who is hosting this month's Think Spice, created by Sunita of Sunita's World.

Enjoy!

Curry Chicken in Kaffir Lime Leaves

Firstly, I wanted to thank Nihal, the Mediterranean Turkish Cook for passing me this wonderful Lemonade Award that really cheered me up after a long bout of wheezings, coughings, sore throats and sleepless nights for the last few weeks! Çok, çok teşekküler, Nihal for this Lemonade Award! Also, what a coincidence that I was cooking another family recipe that I love so much from my mom that shared the same Citrus family as this lemony award!

I'm referring to this frequent cooked Kaffir Lime Curry Chicken in Southeast Asian homes where there were several versions from different countries even available online. This fragrant curry actually doesn't have kaffir lime juice in it but its evergreen fragrant leaves! Kaffir lime itself has very little juice compared to other Limes. Besides as culinary use, it plays very important part in local beliefs. In this recipe, I preferred the curry thicker or 'dry' as the local called it and to maximise the fragrant leaves, I julienned the kaffir lime leaves finely with a very sharp knife more than required and mixed into the curry instead of whole leaves as the norm. Traditionally, my mom would use an Indian terracotta pot to cook this curry but you can use your normal heavy pot. It's only slight difference in taste (though the terracotta gives out better taste.) Here's my version adapted from my mom's... :-D

Curry Chicken with Kaffir Lime Leaves

Serves 4-6 persons

600 g - 800 g Whole Chicken or your favourite Chicken parts (thighs, drumsticks, etc)

To be pounded finely:

8 shallots

1 stalk Lemongrass - use only the white portion

4 pips Garlic

6 dried chillies

5 fresh red chillies

3 cm fresh Tumeric

Thumb-sized Galangal

10 pcs Kaffir Lime leaves

4 pieces Tamarind Slices

2-3 Tbl Cooking Oil

250 ml Fresh Thick Coconut Milk

Some water

Method:

1. Clean the chicken and cut into pieces. I preferred to remove the skin before cooking. If you don't bother, you can leave it on and remove skin later.

2. Smash the galangal with the back of a knife or you can use a pestle and mortar if you have it.

3. Soak dried chillies in warm water for 15 minutes or until soften.

4. Pound the shallots, garlic, fresh chillies, tumeric and dried chillies until fine. You can use a blender if it's more convenient.

5. Wash the Kaffir Lime leaves and cut off the hard middle stems. Roll the leaves up tightly and with a sharp knife, julienne the leaves finely.

6. Heat a deep pan or a wok until hot. Add the cooking oil and the pounded ingredients. Stir until fragrant.

7. Add the cut chicken pieces and stir. Make sure the chicken pieces are thoroughly coated with the spice mixture for about 5 minutes.

8. Add 1/4 cup water, tamarind pieces, galangal and the julienned kaffir lime leaves. Stir until the chicken pieces are well coated with the spices.

9. Pour in the fresh coconut milk. Stir and add salt to taste. Cover the pot or wok and turn the heat to medium, stirring occasionally. Simmer until chicken meat thoroughly cooked.

This curry is great with rice, bread, naan, chapati or even as stuffings for buns, puffs, pies...

Note: I added very little water (sometimes non at all) as the chicken meat and coconut milk already contained some liquid. If you add more water, it would take longer time for the gravy or curry to thicken. Nevertheless, if you like more gravy, you can add more water :-) This curry is best eaten the day after - if you can stand it ... :-P Don't worry about the quantity of kaffir leaves used, it's not going to make the curry bitter. If you want, you can squeeze some Key Lime juices after stop the cooking. Enjoy!