sharing plate, easy recipe, large plate
Seb Holmes
roast dinner, chicken, red curry, Thai curry, curry, coconut, palm sugar, fish sauce, spicy, Thai basil, cook thai
2 Comments
sharing plate, easy recipe, large plate
Seb Holmes
roast dinner, chicken, red curry, Thai curry, curry, coconut, palm sugar, fish sauce, spicy, Thai basil, cook thai
2 Comments
This one has been a strong favourite from customers since even the pop-up days ofFarang, the whole roast chicken screams ‘roast dinner’, when marinated in a spicy red curry it screams even louder‘Farang’. Sharing food and enjoying the experience ‘family style’ is how it’s done in Thailand and this dish is built to share so get stuck in. I’ve always used baby chicken in therestaurantto make this as they are perfect for sharing between two, however it works deliciously with larger chickens if you adjust the cooking times to suit. It’s a simple way to infuse the whole chicken with the flavours of the red curry. Serve this carved up in front of friends or family with bowls of rice and no one will be disappointed. Like in this recipe, you can cook the chicken straight away however for a fuller flavour, leave the chicken marinating in red curry paste overnight before roasting.
Serves 2 / GF
Ingredients
1 baby chicken, roughly 250-300g
200g, red curry paste (for best results make it yourself,
recipe in my book ‘Cook Thai’ )
1 tablespoon palm sugar
50g, prawns (shells, heads removed and de-veined, minced using a meat cleaver, keep the heads and prawns to one side)
20g, baby corn, sliced into thin roll-cuts
2, long red chillies, sliced into roll cuts
2, long green chillies, sliced into roll cuts
20g, green beans, topped and tailed, cut into 2cm long chunks
400ml, prawn stock, the recipe tells you how to make this using the prawn heads
150ml, coconut oil, crack (vegetable oil can be used instead but is not as tasty)
500ml, thick coconut cream
2 tablespoons, wild ginger, krachai,
peeled and thinly sliced (regular ginger will work too)
10g, Thai basil, picked
10g, coriander, washed and picked
2-3 tablespoons, fish sauce, to taste
1 teaspoon, sea salt
Method
Firstly, get all the prawn heads that you collected and add them to 500ml of water. Bring this to the boil and then turn down to a simmer, make sure to skim the scum off the surface of the water, simmer for 20 minutes and then strain to produce a light prawn stock. Meanwhile heat the coconut oil in a wok, when bubbling, add the red curry paste and keep stirring and scraping regularly until paste begins to split like scrambled eggs. You will also notice that the smell of the ingredients changes from the raw smell of all the individual ingredients, to a fragrant, combined, singular flavour. I find as you cook out curry pastes you can smell each ingredient cooking at different times, I assume this is based on the water content of each vegetable cooking at different rates, eventually the smell becomes one which is a clear sign that it is ready. At this point add the palm sugar and continue to scrape and cook for a further minute until the paste has darkened slightly, then add 2 tablespoons of fish sauce and allow to cook into the paste for one minute, don’t add too much as it is strong and you can always add, but never take away.
Now it’s time to let the curry out. Add 200ml of the prawn stock and 300ml of the coconut cream. Now remove half of this curry paste and allow to cool, once cool coat the chicken in the seasoned and cooked curry paste thoroughly, at this stage you can leave the chicken to marinate for a few hours, ideally overnight or you can cook straight away. Pre-heat an oven to 200 degrees centigrade and proceed to roast the chicken in a roasting tray, covered with tin foil at first for 35-40 minutes until the skin is bubbling and steaming and the curry paste marinade has become slightly charred and smells delicious. Next remove the tin foil and return to the oven for a further 10 minutes to crisp the skin, then remove from the oven and rest. Make sure to check that the juices are running clear and that the chicken is hot throughout before removing from the oven. Once cooked, remove from the oven and allow to rest for 10 minutes before serving.
In the meantime, return to the rest of the cooked-out curry paste. Bring this back to a simmer and then add the green beans and baby corn. Stir to combine and then cover and bring to a simmer, cook out for around five minutes until all vegetables are cooked. At this point the curry would have thickened a little, so finish off the remaining prawn stock and coconut cream and add the minced prawns. Cook out for 3 minutes until all prawns are pink in colour and cooked throughout. Next add Thai basil, green and red chilli roll-cuts, fish sauce to taste and sliced krachai, then fold these ingredients in and serve immediately. The curry should be spicy, creamy, aromatic, sweet, fishy and salty all at the same time, adjust in the direction that suits you.
Serve the chicken whole with the prawn and vegetable curry over the top and if you like, a few sprigs of Thai basil on top for decoration, serve with steamed jasmine rice.
Thanks for reading and I hope you like the recipe, please do let me know your comments if you cook it up, (unless you don’t like it of course,in which case you can bugger off).
Hopefully I’ll see you inFarangsoon for a bite.
Cheers,
Seb Holmes
Head chef & founder of Farang London restaurant. Cookbook author of ‘Cook Thai’ & ‘Thai in 7’. Chief curry paste basher and co-founder of Payst London.
