Recipe Chicken massaman curry

medtran49

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We have made this several times, though not recently, and really like it. I'll have to look back for a picture. It freezes very well. Also, it can be made vegan by substituting tofu for the chicken and gluten-free tamari for the fish sauce, vegetable broth for chicken stock.

Ingredients
3 Tbsp vegetable or canola oil
2-3 Tbsp Massaman curry paste, purchased or homemade (vegan option below)
3 boneless/skinkess chicken thighs, cut into bite size chunks (tofu for vegan)
2 inch piece of ginger peeled and julienned
1-1/2 cups coconut milk
3/4 cup chicken stock (vege stock for vegan)
2 sweet potatoes, cut into 1 inch cubes
2 onions, cut into 1 inch chunks
3 Tbsp fish sauce (gluten free tamari for vegan)
1/4 tsp salt
2 Tbsp palm sugar or 1 Tbsp light brown sugar
4 Tbsp tamarind paste, high quality without seeds and bits, or make your own by buying fresh tamarind pods, peel, soak in water and rub paste off, then drain
4 Tbsp roasted unsalted peanuts or cashews
Ripe avocado, bite size chunks (optional)

Serve over basmati or jasmine rice

Instructions

Start cooking the rice, you will need 4-6 servings depending on serving sizes.

In a good size saucepan, add oil, add curry paste and stir until aromatic. Add chicken and sear until lightly browned, 2 minutes. Stir in half of the coconut milk, bring to a boil and let simmer for 3-4 minutes or until thickened. Stir in remaining coconut milk and again simmer until thickened. Add the chicken stock, sweet potatoes, onions and ginger. Simmer for 15 minutes, covered, stirring occasionally. Stir in fish sauce, sugar, salt, tamarind paste and peanuts. Simmer for 10 minutes. It should be a very thick soup consistency. Add stock if needed. Stir in avocado chunks if using. Serve over the rice.

If you are planning on freezing, add avocado to individual bowls as it will be mushy after freezing.
 
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I was kind of surprised no one had put up a curry, which is why I entered this one. It's easy and quick tomake unlike some of the curries we've made. Craig has a red lentil/cauliflower curry he's made a couple of times as well that's vegan/vegetarian.

Looked today to try and find a picture but I couldn't. Guess the last time we made this was before we regularly took pictures of our dinners. I did discover, however, that I made a couple of CHANGES TO THE RECIPE last time I made it. Substituted cashews for the peanuts and stirred in chunks of ripe avocado right before we served. But, the avo cannot be frozen so would have to just be in the individual bowls if you plan to freeze remainder.
 
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Just a quick tip, if your recipe calls for unsalted nuts and you can't find them, you can always wash the excess salt off the nuts, blot them dry, then pop them in the oven at 200-250 F for several minutes, stirring a couple of times, until they are dried out and nice and toasty.
 
I really like the sound of this and it is quite different to anything I have made before.
 
Just a word of caution for anyone wanting to make this curry either vegan or vegetarian, the are four ingredients that will need substitutions
  • Massaman curry paste, (contains shrimp paste)
  • chicken thighs
  • Chicken stock
  • Fish sauce
For those wanting to make the Massaman curry paste, I would recommend that you follow the instructions on this site . To make a vegetarian/vegan version, I can only suggest you omit the shrimp paste. There isn't really anything that I know of that would work as a substitution. You may need to replace the volume of paste with water/oil to get the correct consistency.
 
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We are having this tonight. I couldn't find the Massaman curry paste at first so thought I was going to have to make it. Fortunately, while I was looking up the recipe, Craig found it. However, I did notice there were vegetarian versions of the curry paste recipes in our True Thai cookbook. So, vegetarian/vegan Massaman curry paste.

3 oz dried California chiles
2 cardamom pods, husked
1-1/4 tsp whole cumin seeds
1-1/2 Tbsp whole coriander seed
3 Tbsp creamy peanut butter
1/4 tsp whole black peppercorns
2 whole cloves
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 large stalk lemon grass, tough outer leaves discarded, lower stalk trimmed to 3 inches and finely minced
1 Tbsp finely chopped fresh ginger
1/4 cup chopped garlic
1/3 cup chopped shallots.

Stem and seed chiles. Remove any tough ribs. Chop coarsely. Cover with hot water and soak for 30 minutes.

In a small skillet, combine the coriander, cardamom and cumin seeds, and toast over medium heat for 3-5 minutes until aromatic. Transfer spices to small bowl and cool.

Add the cooled roasted spices to a spice grinder along with peppercorns and cloves. Grind to a powder. Add cinnamon.

On a cutting board, combine ginger and lemon grass and chop even finer. Add to a food processor or use a large mortar and pestle. Also add ground spices. Pound or process until well combined.

Add garlic and shallots and process or pound until finely crushed.

Drain the chiles and reserve about 1/2 cup soaking liquid. Add chiles and peanut butter and process or pound, adding some of the reserved liquid as needed to aid in processing/grinding to form a paste.

Store in refrigerator up to a month, in freezer up to 3 months.

The author of the book replaces the shrimp paste with peanut butter in all of his curry paste recipes to make them vegetarian/vegan.
 
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Shrimp paste goes in mine, cooked out as it stinks, but you get authentic taste, plus kaffir leaves and coriander/cilantro roots plus leaf for garnishing. I make a green red and yellow curry paste.

Russ
 
Shrimp paste goes in mine, cooked out as it stinks, but you get authentic taste, plus kaffir leaves and coriander/cilantro roots plus leaf for garnishing. I make a green red and yellow curry paste.

Russ
We use shrimp paste as well for ours, but, as noted, the above curry paste was for vegan/vegetarians, who cannot use shrimp paste.
 
If you want to make NON-vegetarian massaman curry paste, omit the peanut butter in the recipe I posted above, post #7, and use 1-1/2 tsp shrimp paste neatly wrapped in a packet of double layer of aluminum foil.

Then, after you toast the spices and remove them, place the foil packet in the skillet and cook over medium heat for 5 minutes, turning packet 2 or 3 times. Remove the packet and allow to cool.

Add the shrimp paste to the food processor with the garlic and shallots.

Follow the recipe as written above other than the changes in this post.
 
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I found on a site a paste you can get over the net. Maesri is highly recommended. My daughter will order it but in meantime I'll make from scratch.

Russ
 
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