Anne Morgan Don’t expect a bright green sauce from Delia Smith’s Thai green curry. She cut right back on the chillies, so her homemade paste is milder and paler than the ones used in Thailand. It feeds 4 to 6, with cooked chicken simmered briefly in coconut milk and the paste, then finished with lime leaves and Thai basil.
The recipe is in the Stars of the East chapter of her Winter Collection (1995). She says it was inspired by the Oriental’s cookery school in Bangkok.
Ready-cooked chicken from the supermarket keeps the work down, and you can make the paste well ahead. The one unusual step is frying the thick coconut cream in a dry wok until it splits. It looks curdled and even crackles, but that’s how the oil comes out.
What you get is tender shreds of chicken in a rich, creamy sauce with a warm kick from the chillies. Fine strips of lime leaf, red chilli and torn Thai basil go on at the very end, so they stay bright.
Delia Smith’s Thai Green Curry with Chicken
Course: DinnerCuisine: ThaiDifficulty: Medium4-6
servings45
minutes20
minutes290
kcalHer own green curry paste, whizzed in a processor, then cooked into split coconut cream with fish sauce, palm sugar and green peppercorns.
Ingredients
- For the curry:
450g (1lb) cooked chicken, sliced into shreds
600ml (1½ tins) coconut milk
- For the green curry paste:
8 green bird’s eye chillies, left whole
1 lemon grass stalk, thinly sliced and soaked for 30 minutes in 2 tablespoons lime juice
1 rounded teaspoon kaffir lime peel, pared and thinly shredded
7 thin slices galangal (Thai ginger)
1 heaped teaspoon chopped coriander stalks
½ teaspoon roasted ground cumin
½ teaspoon roasted ground coriander
3 cloves garlic
5 Thai shallots, peeled (or ordinary shallots)
1 teaspoon shrimp paste
- For the finished sauce:
3-4 dessertspoons Thai fish sauce
1 teaspoon palm sugar
3 dessertspoons fresh green peppercorns (or green peppercorns in brine)
7 kaffir lime leaves
½ mild red chilli, deseeded and cut into very thin shreds
25g (1oz) Thai basil leaves
Directions
- Paste: Put all the paste ingredients in a food processor, including the lime juice from the lemon grass. Whizz to a coarse paste, stopping once or twice to push it back down onto the blades.
- Coconut: Stand the tins of coconut milk upside down, then open them. You’ll see thick cream and thin milk. Pour the milk into one bowl and the cream into another.
- Fry the cream: Heat a dry wok over a very high heat until it’s really hot. Add three-quarters of the coconut cream and fry it, stirring all the time, until it splits and the oil seeps out.
- Paste and milk: Stir in the curry paste. Add three-quarters of the coconut milk a little at a time, keeping the heat high and stirring so it reduces slightly and doesn’t stick.
- Chicken: Stir in the fish sauce and palm sugar, then add the chicken and peppercorns. Simmer for 4 to 5 minutes, until the chicken is hot all the way through.
- Lime leaves: Just before serving, stack the lime leaves, roll them up tightly and slice them into very fine shreds.
- Serve: Stir in the lime leaves, red chilli and torn basil leaves, then serve with Thai fragrant rice.
Notes
- You'll have some coconut milk and cream left over. Her own tip is to freeze them for another day.
- The bird's eye chillies are very hot, so wash your hands well after handling them and keep them away from your eyes, my own tip.
FAQs
Can I make Thai green chicken curry with raw chicken?
Yes, though her recipe uses cooked chicken, unlike her Thai chicken with lime and coconut, which starts with raw breast. Her How to Cheat book says cooked chicken is what’s used in Thailand, but raw works too.
For this card, I’d slice 450g of raw breast or thigh thinly and simmer it in the sauce for about 10 minutes. Then cut a piece open to check there’s no pink, or look for 75°C on a probe. That timing is my own.
What if I can’t find the Thai ingredients?
Most of them have easy swaps. Her Winter Collection says light brown sugar can replace palm sugar, and normal shallots work instead of Thai ones. Green peppercorns in brine are fine too.
Galangal is a cousin of ginger, she explains, so I’d use the same amount of root ginger if you can’t get it. Shrimp paste smells strong in the jar, but she says a little gives the real Thai flavour, so try to keep it in.
Can I make the green curry paste ahead?
Yes, her recipe says it can be made well ahead. A food processor does all the work, while in Thailand it’s pounded by hand in a pestle and mortar.
Keep it in a covered jar in the fridge and use it within 3 days. You can also freeze it for up to a month, my own guide. Then the curry itself takes only about 20 minutes.
How do I make her quick Thai chicken curry?
There’s a 20-minute version in How to Cheat at Cooking, and it serves 2 with jasmine rice. You need 2 ready-cooked chicken breasts in bite-size pieces and 2 small tins (165ml each) of light coconut milk.
For the paste, take 1 heaped teaspoon of cumin seeds, 1 dessertspoon of coriander seeds, 1 onion, 3 garlic cloves and 12 blanched almonds. You also need 1 dessertspoon of shredded lime leaves and 2 piri piri chillies, both from a jar.
Toast the crushed seeds in a hot pan for 1 minute, then whizz the rest with a little salt until very fine. Fry it all in 1 dessertspoon of oil for 2 minutes. Next, stir in the chicken and coconut milk and cook gently, without a lid, for 20 minutes.
What is her Thai creamed coconut chicken?
Like her creamy chicken curry, it’s another dish of hers made with cooked chicken, from How to Cook Book One, and it serves 4. Instead of a green paste, it uses turmeric, 4 red chillies, lemon grass and 400ml of coconut milk.
Toast coriander seeds, cumin and cardamom, then fry 2 sliced onions and garlic for 8 to 9 minutes. Stir in the spices, turmeric, chillies and lemon grass, add the coconut milk and lime juice, and simmer for 10 minutes. Add strips of cooked chicken for 10 minutes more and serve it on her Thai green rice.
