Green Curry Chicken

If you are looking for huge complex flavors in a simple to prepare dish, curries are a great place to start. Here is a taste of the green curry that I made. I used a canned green curry paste as my base and its primary ingredients are ground green chiles, shallots, ginger, garlic, and lemongrass. The heat of this dish can be altered to taste based on the amount of curry paste you wish to add. We prefer ours a little spicy so we use a ratio of 4 teaspoons of curry paste to 1 can of coconut milk.

My ingredients were sliced chicken breast, red onion, red, orange, yellow, and green bell pepper, baby eggplants, Thai eggplants, lemongrass, ginger, garlic, kaffir lime leaves, cilantro, Thai basil, lime, green curry paste, chicken broth, and coconut milk. Perhaps the hardest to find ingredient in the list is the lime leaves but they are worth a trip to an Asian supermarket. They have an intense citrusy lime aroma that is hard to compare.

I started by simply stir frying all the vegetables in a very hot wok until they began to soften. Then a couple teaspoons of the curry paste and all the other aromatics such as lemongrass, garlic, ginger, and kaffir lime leaves go into the wok. Heating the curry paste up with the vegetables will give it a chance warm up and bloom its flavor a little bit.

Next we add the chicken broth, coconut milk, basil and cilantro. Once this mixture comes to a simmer we add the sliced chicken breast allow it to poach in the liquid until it is done. The lemongrass stalks can be removed from the mixture and a fresh sprinkle of basil and cilantro can be tossed in to finish the dish. I served it with lime wedges and a fresh scoop of rice from the rice cooker.

Pad See Ew

Last weekend I took a trip to the Asian supermarket. I found some great ingredients that will keep me cooking for a while. I brought home some Chinese broccoli, baby bok choy, Thai eggplants, Thai basil, lemongrass, baby purple eggplants, fresh bamboo shoots, fresh bean sprouts, fresh rice noodles, green and red curry pastes, coconut milk, garlic-chili sauce, and dark sweet soy sauce.

I decided the first dish I would put together would be Pad See Ew. Literally translated it means "fried with soy sauce." It is a stir fried rice noodle dish that is popular both as street vendor food in Thailand, and as a traditional Thai restaurant staple here in the United States. The basic ingredients are fresh sheets of rice noodles, Chinese broccoli, garlic, eggs, dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, and chicken or pork. It is a process similar to making fried rice. It can be made all at the same time in your wok or in a series of steps. I prefer to cook each ingredient separately at first and set it aside as I go so that I can make sure each is cooked the way I want it.

<---I start making the sauce by sauteing garlic in toasted sesame oil. To that I add a few tablespoons each of light and dark soy sauce, and oyster sauce. I bring it to a boil and then taste for seasoning. I usually add about a tablespoon of sugar to lighten up the taste a little bit.

The chicken, Chinese broccoli, and rice noodles take their turns getting stir fried in sesame oil.

Once the chicken, Chinese broccoli, and rice noodles have been stir fried we can assemble the dish. Everything gets tossed back into the hot wok along with the sauce. I make a opening in the bottom of the wok to add an egg. The egg gets scrambled in the wok and mixed in with the rest of the ingredients. You have to work everything together as fast as you can as the noodles will begin to soak up the sauce and the mixture will begin to thicken up quickly.
Here is the finished product. It is served with traditional Thai condiments such as sriracha (ground chili and garlic sauce).

Sushi Feast

Saturday night Trisha and I attended a multi-course Asian themed dinner party with three other couples. My contributions were a large sushi platter and a seared sesame crusted tuna appetizer that was served over a spicy Asian vegetable slaw with a blood orange reduction.

We Are Making Sushi...

My fish was special ordered from Dirk at Dirk's Fish on Clybourn in Chicago. My order was shipped out Fedex next day Thursday night and I received in on Friday afternoon. We ordered salmon, red snapper, and two types of tuna. Dirk always does a great job of getting you what you need. I just tell him what I am making, and how many people I need to serve, and he takes care of the rest. Dirk also carries a full selection of any other types of seafood you could be looking for. The fish arrived boxed and packaged within a heavy styrofoam cooler with freezer packs.

<--The fish came trimmed and ready to use.

Cooling the rice before adding the traditional seasoning mixture of rice vinegar, sugar, and salt -->

Tools of the trade-->

Rolling an inside-out California roll
I made a wide assortment of sushi. Pictured are traditional nigiri with tuna, salmon, and red snapper. The rolls consisted of spicy tuna, salmon, California, and inside-out California. I also made a few decorative square rolls (pictured) but they do require a little extra effort. I added a "barrier garnish" to separate the raw sushi from the California rolls, because I was not sure if everybody would be up to trying the raw fish. Of course the tray was served with the traditional accompaniments of soy sauce and wasabi. I am happy to report that we had several people try raw sushi for the first time! Everybody said that it was some of the freshest and best tasting fish they have ever had in their lives.

Seared Tuna with Spicy Asian Slaw and Blood Orange Reduction
For our first appetizer I made seared sesame crusted tuna with a spicy Asian slaw.

I started by making the slaw. It was a mix of finely shredded napa cabbage, red savory, carrots, red onion, bean sprouts, and red peppers. The dressing was a vinaigrette style made with rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, red pepper flakes, and sesame seeds.

I made a finishing sauce for the tuna out of the juice of blood oranges. I took the juice of several blood oranges, lime zest, and a few teaspoons of sugar and reduced it by about half over medium heat on the stove. In another saucepan I sauteed ginger and garlic in toasted sesame seed oil until the garlic just started to brown. I de-glazed the pan with a little sauvignon blanc and soy sauce. I then combined the two pans into one and let it simmer until it reached a slightly thicker consistency.

For the tuna, I used the same fresh sushi grade tuna that I used to make the nigiri and sushi rolls with. I started by quickly marinating the tuna in the same vinaigrette used for the slaw, and then crusting it with toasted sesame seeds. It was then quickly seared on both sides on a hot griddle. We removed the tuna from the griddle while the inside was still perfectly rare. I served the tuna family style over the Asian slaw with a light drizzle of the blood orange reduction.




The Rest of the Story...
What really made the dinner lots of fun was that other guests also contributed with their own great dishes as well. Here are details of our other courses.

Egg Drop Soup

Traditional freshly made egg drop soup garnished with green onions.

Pot Stickers with Plum Sauce and Chinese Mustard

Wonton wrapped pork dumplings that are fried and then perfectly steamed.

Beef with Cashews and Snow Peas

Thinly sliced beef sauteed with garlic, ginger, hoisin sauce, cashews and snow peas. This was outstanding. For many of us it was the first time we have had the combination of beef with cashews and it went together well.

We finished off the evening with a refreshing homemade lychee nut ice cream and fortune cookies. Everyone enjoyed themselves so much at the dinner that we are already trying to decide what our next theme will be!