I am a fan of curries, but am limited in what I will make at home. The permeation of Indian curries into my clothes and apartment are a real turn-off despite the taste; the smell can linger for days. So if I want a good Indian curry, that’s a reason to go out. However, Thai curries don’t present this problem, so I’m more than willing to cook them at home.
This dish is extraordinarily easy to make. (Recipe here.) If you can chop something, boil it, and make sure it doesn’t boil over, that’s about 90% of the work necessary. Typically, Thai curry with chicken is just chicken and potatoes; however, the flexibility of Thai food makes it quite easy to add other things. Take pad thai, for example. Use chicken? Use shrimp? Use both! No peanuts? Use cashews. You can get away with substitutions or adding a lot of things not in the formal recipe.
The same flexibility holds true for this recipe. I had a handful of Brussels sprouts left, so I decided to boil them separately and add them at the end of cooking. It added some color to a tasty, but typically bland-looking meal, and gave me an easy serving of vegetables without having to make a side salad. The sprouts also didn’t muck with the taste of the curry.
Accompanied with jasmine rice, this is a very filling meal. Just a note on the rice maker: these things are essential for pretty much any kitchen. They making cooking rice quick and easy, and there’s no danger of burning or having pots boil over. Of course, if you’re trying to make flavored rice or Persian tadig, you can’t do it with a rice cooker like this since additives can quickly gum up the inside. The rice cooker does pretty much one thing, and does it well.
