Red Curry - Seebee Style

Love the coconut milk curry. Love it. In general, I find "red" my favorite at the Thai joints I've been to, so naturally, I had to try to make it better myself at home.

Been making this for several years now, and I'm now confident I can beat anyplace's red curry in this city. I'm not a braggart, it's not my style. I'm just telling you that I can make a product that will knock your socks off, and it really ain't hard to do. I was a little tentative to try at first, but after doctoring up this and that, I can now say it really is a cinch. If you've never given it a try at home, don't delay any longer. A few tries and you'll get the hang, and then start tweakin it to what you want. Here's what works for me...

Ducks/row


More ducks. From left: about a tsp of lime leaf, a tbs of a volcanically hot jalapeno, and about 1/4 cup of leek.

Normally I'd use onion, but the csa box had leek in it this week.

The paste:
Some sautee it in the coconut cream from the can, I use a mixture of veg oil, a splash of sesame oil and hot chili oil. 1/2 can of the maesri paste for 1 can of coconut milk. The rest of the paste goes into the freezer for use in a stir fry, or fried rice - perhaps as a base for a marinade for some bbq chicken... The paste gets sizzled for a few minutes here. Not browned, just sauteed to loosen up and release its flavors.


After a few minutes, the leek, jalapeno, and lime leaf are added:


This'll go for another few minutes for the leek, jalapeno to soften up. Once it's nice and soft - (again, not browned) Then the garlic, ginger, aleppo, galangal, chili garlic sauce, and toasted onion powder get tossed in:


This'll go for another few minutes for the garlic/ginger to release their flavor into the fold. Looks like a gross party prop, doesn't it? At this point, your whole household should know what's for dinner, and if you have a good vent, your neighbors on each side, two houses away, will know you're cookin something good too:


Next, a dotting of Oyster sauce. Unconventional? I don't care. Think about it. It's like reg vs decaf, diet vs real sugar. No contest if you ask me. It adds mouthfeel and beefs up the flavor. Not a lot - this is prolly a tbs and a half. This adds richness, and enhances the savoriness. Also at this point I'll add a few drops of ponzu, and lower sodium soy:


After a few more min, in goes the coconut milk + the juice of half of a good lime and averything is mixed well. It's brought too a low, low, simmer while I'm prepping the chicken and chopping cilantro. This is done to meld flavors, and to reduce the curry a little bit. About two minutes:


My first choice for this is thighs. I'll use breast if it's on super sale, but thighs are always better in my book. A lot of the recipes I see say to boil the chicken in the curry. If boiled chicken is your thing, then huzzah to you. I use a very slow simmer - like a poach. Chicken stays juicy. IMO, common sense prevails:



I usually make this with seared mushrooms. They were too expensive yesterday, AND my csa box had a few nice zucchinis. A lot of recipies say to use various veggies like green/red peppers, and to also boil them along with the meat. I'm not a fan of boiled veggies for the most part, so I always prepare the veggies I plan on using seperately - normally a quick sear in a very hot pan, then I add them to the curry just before serving. I'd rather have crisp veggies. If boiled is your thing - then go with it:


For something on the side, I like Trader Joe's "Coconut Curry" or "Lemongrass" Chicken Sticks. You toss em in the oven and a few min later, you have crunchy little deals for contrast to your curry. I didn't feel like running to the basement freezer for them, and also, I had half a bag of Trader Joe's mini chicken cilantro won tons in the freezer upstairs, and a hot pan from the zuchini. Problem solved:


Plated:

Tangy, savory, spicy, layered heat that pops at first, then mellows out to a nice warmth while you chew. If you stop eating, then it gets hotter. That's where the wontons com in. The rice and sauce is a fine meal in itself, the juicy chicken, and crunchy zuchini are almost like a bonus. And yes, that's the unmistakable essence of lime leaf in there. I'd sprinkle some slivers on the top, but I keep mine frozen, and it kinda changes the taste, IMO. It's more concentrated than fresh, and I think it overpowers too much after frozen to eat straight.

Another thing. You'll note that no palm sugar was used. I think added sweetness ruins coconut milk curries. I much prefer them savory than sweet. And yes, like most stewy/curry/gravy dishes, it's even better the next day.

Lunch is going to be great today.

Thanks for this post, seebee! I love curries and have been wanting to try to make one at home. Your description and photos make a very good primer.

Katie - for Thai curries involving paste and coconut milk, It helped me to put it in the perspective of this:

Almost everyone "doctors up" a jar of pasta sauce, or a can of baked beans. Same principle.

For this Maesri Red Curry paste, I just re-introduce some fresh flavors (mostly garlic, ginger, onion, lime leaf, lime juice) to freshen it up. The results I get are better than most Thai places in Chicagoland (that I've been to) and guess what? The yield is far greater than a standard order at a restaurant (as you'd expect.)

Fantastic post! Good inspiration for dinner tonight. Thanks, seebee! --Joy

I could eat that soffrito with a spoon, and smile all the while my palate was burning to a cinder. Looks great.

Looks tasty, seebee! Looking forward to more recipes from you!

Curry makes a great weeknight meal. If I'm in a hurry, I use maesri curry paste. If I'm in less of a hurry, I augment the paste with a little chopped ginger or galanga (I keep some frozen), lemongrass, shallots, garlic, etc. pounded in a morter. If I have lots of time, I just make the paste. I feel like curry is so flexible, I never have two batches that are exactly the same.
Here's a recent curry with 'augmented' paste (red curry with chicken, sweet potatoes, red onion topped with cashews and toasted coconut)

I made a sort of Semi-Ho red curry duck last night.

The non-homemade part was half a roasted duck from Hong Kee on Argyle.



I made the coconut milk and curry paste. I love my new mortar.



Finished curry





Served with Hitachino (got the idea from Next--goes great with Thai)

Interesting. where do you get lime leaf?

Nice post thaiobsessed. I love picking up roasted birds from Argyle to use in Thai recipes.

toria wrote:Interesting. where do you get lime leaf?

The leaves you can see in the picture are Thai basil (though I did put Makrut lime leaves in there).
I get the lime leaves (and the basil for that matter, when I'm running low in the garden) at Golden Pacific, though I'm working on a new source...

AlekH wrote:Nice post thaiobsessed. I love picking up roasted birds from Argyle to use in Thai recipes.

Thanks AlekH...This was a first for me (well, using the duck). I also noticed a sign for free range chickens at Hong Kee, though they didn't have them when I was there. I may pick one up to make a Thai chicken salad this weekend.

After blowing some dust off this thread, I read through it for some inspiration for last night's chicken curry. I might make a request of Seebee to list out what the "ducks" are in the first photo...

I let the Maesri red curry bloom in hot oil, then added some minced garlic and ginger. My dot of oyster sauce as recommended by Seebee became more of a blob so I had to scrape some away. (It was stuck in the bottle so I whacked it a bit. Bad idea.) I added a sprinkle or two of fish sauce to really stink up the house, then incorporated the coconut milk and about 2/3 cup of chicken stock. Chunks of sweet potato and chicken thigh pieces went in to simmer and it was finished with some fabulous spinach from our CSA.

This was our first go with Maesri curry and it was good. I appreciate the tips in this thread.

The GP wrote: I might make a request of Seebee to list out what the "ducks" are in the first photo...

Foreground: Maesri tin, and ground galangal

Left to right in the back:
Oyster Sauce
Dried Aleppo Pepper flakes on top of
Coconut Milk can
Soy Sauce (prolly lower sodium)
Hot Chili Oil
Ponzu
Sesame Oil
Toasted Onion Powder on top of
Minced Ginger
Minced Garlic
Ground Cumin on top of
Chili Garlic Sauce

Thanks, Seebee!