Criminally Simple Thai Green Curry Chicken

Hello boys and girls!

Welcome to cooking with Varun! You know how most people say, 'I want to eat something good!', and when you ask what they want, they infuriatingly say, 'I don't know.. But I want to eat something good!'. And as you're counting to 10 to keep from exploding, they say something completely irrational like, 'I want Thai food. But I don't want to go out!'. Well, take a deep breath and unclench those fingers. Slowly open your eyes and relax. Varun has an answer! 

The more faithful of my readers will remember us starting off cooking with a paste. While this isn't always the best idea, it does have it merits on occasion. To put it in more cliched terms, 'There's no point reinventing the wheel!', or, 'Work smarter, not harder!', which both basically mean, don't get worked up and slave for hours over something you can get of equal or better quality with only a fraction of the effort! And for Thai food, with a perfectly wonderful selection of Thai pastes available at most supermarkets, I strongly suggest you give them a shot before writing them off as 'unauthentic'.

Having said that, don't mistake me telling you to adopt the paste as being the same as adopting the recipe on the back of the bottle because that's where I draw the line. As somebody who has made the mistake of following the bottle recipe and discovering it was woefully inadequate, I have my own take on the recipe that even after making it countless times, has never resulted in an unhappy eater.

For my Criminally Simple Thai Green Curry Chicken, you will need the following:

Chicken	300 gms (boneless)
Mushrooms	4-5 large
Green/red pepper	1/2
Green chillies	6
Spinach	250 gms
Thai green curry paste	1 bottle
Lemongrass paste	1 tsp (for a stronger flavour)
Coconut milk	1 tin (400 ml)
Salt	to taste
Cornflour	1-2 tbsp
Oil

Prep:

1. Wash and cube the chicken.
2. Grab a bowl.
3. Drop in the chicken.
4. Sprinkle on the cornflour until the chicken is nicely coated.
5. Sprinkle in some salt.
6. Slice the mushrooms.
7. Cube the green pepper.
8. Vertically slice the chillies.
9. Open the tin of coconut milk.

Method:

1. Turn on the gas.
2. Bung a frying pan on.
3. Splash in some oil.
4. Wait one minute until the oil heats up.
5. Slide in the chicken a few pieces at a time.
6. Shallow fry until golden.
7. Fish out of the pan and place on a paper towel to absorb the excess oil.
8. Repeat until all the pieces are fried.
9. Bung a bigger pan on.
10. Splash in some oil.
11. Count to 20.
12. Toss in the chillies.
13. Pop open the bottle of Thai paste.
14. Tip in all the contents. (Yes, I know the back says 1/3rd. The back is wrong. And stupid.)
15. Glob in the lemongrass paste.
16. Fry for a couple of minutes.
17. Add in the mushrooms.
18. Cook for a minute.
19. Pour in the coconut milk.
20. Mix well.
21. Bring to a simmer.
22. Pop in the pepper and the chicken.
23. Simmer for a few minutes.
24. Add salt to taste.
25. Add in the spinach. (Don't let the daunting pile scare you, once it starts to cook, it will shrivel up and the pile will reduce to a quarter of the size.)
26. Slap a lid on for a couple of minutes.
27. Take lid off.
28. Simmer for 2-3 minutes.
29. Turn the gas off.
30. Serve with rice.
31. Stuff face.
32. Bask in the glory of your successfully executed dish.

Tip: I've used green curry paste, you can use red or yellow or massaman curry paste or whichever you want! Also, if you can't be bothered, don't fry the chicken, drop it in before the mushrooms and cook for a few minutes and then continue as normal.

And remember, overeating is a myth. A full tummy is a happy tummy!