Yellow Thai Chicken Curry

The yellow chicken curry, or “Gang Ka-ree Gai” is deliciously fragrant, mild and hardly spicy. I propose here a recipe of curry paste made “house”. Of course, you can also make this recipe with a ready-made yellow curry paste, but you have to admit that the effort you put into making the paste yourself is well worth it!

Recipe for 6 people:

For the curry paste yellow:

-9 dried red peppers of 10cm (the bigger they are the less strong they are!)

-half a teaspoon of salt

2 tablespoons fresh ginger, minced

-2 teaspoons of freshly chopped galangal (picture of galangal below!)

-4 small chopped shallots

-4 cloves of garlic, chopped

-4 tablespoons of curry powder

-4 teaspoons of turmeric powder

For the curry:

-4 tablespoons of oil

-1 onion

-one liter of coconut milk

-half a liter of coconut cream (for cooking)

-six tablespoons of yellow curry paste

-6 skinless, boneless chicken thighs (only the top, not the thigh!)

-1 large potato cut into cubes

-6 Thai eggplants cut into quarters (also pictured below)

-4 teaspoons of brown sugar

-8 teaspoons of fish sauce (nuoc nam)

Preparation of the yellow curry paste:

Here is a big dried red pepper. It is in fact much less strong than the small ones. Don’t worry about the amount used!

Start by soaking the dried chilies in hot water for 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, take the opportunity to chop the other ingredients, the galangal, ginger, shallots and garlic.

Here is a picture of galanga. It is quite similar to ginger but the taste is almost like a resinous tree, a bit like a fir tree.

Clean the peppers, remove the seeds and the tail. Wipe well then put in a mortar with the salt. Start crushing. A lot of elbow grease will be needed to get rid of these peppers. You can start this step in a mini blender, or electric coffee grinder. The rest of the curry too, but the result will be better in the mortar. Especially the blender will have difficulty in grinding a small amount of ingredients, and the blade may torunate when empty.

Once the chili is crushed, add the ginger and galanga. Continue to crush briskly.

Continue with the shallots and garlic.

Finally, add the turmeric and curry powders.

Continue to crush until you have a smooth paste.

For the curry:

Heat the oil in a wok or other large pot. Add the onion, cut into coarse cubes, and cook them just to make them fragrant.

Add the curry paste and mix well. Let it fry for a few minutes, keeping an eye on it so it doesn’t burn!

At this point, add the cream and coconut milk. Let it boil while mixing well. Then add the cubed potato.

Then add the Thai eggplants. Here is a picture of it. Just wash them, remove the tail and cut them in 4!

Add them to the curry.

Cut chicken thighs into pieces, making sure there are no small cartilages, bones or skin! The top of the thigh is much better than the white, which in my opinion is much too dry. The top of the thigh remains very tender and resists to a little longer cooking!

When the curry has cooked for 15 minutes with the eggplant, add the chicken. When it is cooked, add the nuoc nam and the sugar. Boil to a creamy consistency.