Sah-wah-dee khrap!

Now if you know that saying, you would be right thinking that is ‘hello!’ in Thai!

Yes, welcome to one of my themed weeks! As part of my new year resolutions, I said I would do themed weeks of the countries that I will be visiting on my 2012 travels in order to gain a better understanding of  To kick things off, where no better than the first port of call in South East Asia…the land of smiles…Thailand!

Yesterday, I thought about how I could kick it off and seeing as my housemates would be in (what?! All 3 of us staying in on a Friday Night?!), it was my turn to cook and so, I decided to rustle up a Thai dish for all of us to enjoy.

And what did I cook?

Thai Green Chicken Curry!

It’s a relatively easy dish to cook and eating this light and scrummy gorgeous food will certainly have you rubbing your belly at the end with a huge smile ear to ear!

Obviously, the thai dish I will cook will not be up to the standards of the thai dishes back in Thailand and hopefully that will be rectified as I hope to undertake a Thai cooking course in Chiang Mai later on this year and feed my willing guinea pigs again!

But here’s my attempt and if you would like to follow my recipe, that by all means do!

The Ingredients you will need are:

225g new potatoes, cut into chunks

100g green beans (mangetouts can replace) halved

1 tbsp of sunflower oil (or veg oil)

1 garlic clove, chopped

4 tsp of thai green curry paste (I cheated at this, I really should know how to make curry paste by scratch)

400ml coconut milk (you can find them in cans)

2 tsp of Thai fish sauce (in this dish I think fish sauce makes a difference so I would say 5 tsp!)

1 tsp caster sugar

450g boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite sized chunks

Fresh Coriander – put in as much as you like

Lemon Juice

And remember to boil some rice. If you want to be healthy, I’d reccommend brown rice.

So there’s your ingredients. Put on an apron and get ready, set….start cooking!

1. Put the potatoes in a pan of boiling water and cook for 5 minutes. Throw in the beans and cook for a further 3 minutes, by which time both should be just tender but not too soft. Drain and put to one side. Pu the rice in another pan of boiling water.

2. In a wok or large frying pan, heat the oil until very hot, then drop in the garlic and cook until golden. Spoon in the curry paste and stir around for a few seconds to begin to cook the spices and release all the flavours. Next, pour in the coconut milk and let it come to a bubble.

3. Stir in the fish sauce (be plentiful, fish sauce makes the difference), and sugar, then the pieces of chicken. Turn the heat down to a simmer and cook, covered, for about 8 minutes until the chicken is cooked.

4. Tip in the potatoes and beans and let them warm through in the hot coconut milk, then add a lovely citrussy flavour by stirring in the lemon juice and add in the coriander. Leave them briefly on the heat and as soon the rice is finished, serve both immediately!

As I finished cooking, I served immediately to my very willing and excitable housemates, Hiten and Louise.

Both licking their lips, they pounced on the food with gusto and made appreciative and mildly erotic moans. Knowing they didn’t collapse on the floor gurning with possible food poisoning, I dipped my spoon in the dish and tasted…my god it was amazing! Thais certainly raise the culinary standards in cooking!

Between the 3 of us, we scraped the pans clean. I don’t think they realised the dish was meant to be served for 6 people, but we all had second helpings. It was that good. I asked Louise and Hiten what they thought:

Louise: The sauce is absolutely amazing. I didn’t realise that the fish sauce could sort it out. I like the fish sauce, I hate anchovies but this fish sauce is good…but it smells of blue cheese. But oh god, this is easily one of the best dishes ever. It’s filling but I’m not bloated!

Later on, she wrote on facebook to express my culinary god like status – ‘OMG , I think i’ve just eaten the best meal i’ve ever had -thai green curry cooked by Ed -ta very much!’

Hiten: (after being unavailable for comment as he was still munching on the food) Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! Oi! Louise! You can’t say that! Yeah I like this. You’re cooking it again! Very tasty and just right!

Well what did I think? It was just right spice for me and I know thais out there like their food extremely spicy so I better prepare for that. But other than that, I think the fish sauce makes all the difference and despite not being a fan of coconut normally, I love the milk. I’ll certainly be cooking this again!

So there endth my thai lesson of the day!

By the way, if you’ve noticed, Hiten and I are not sharing the same t-shirt. We are wearing our own t-shirts, that are the same….we’re not that close….we’re Super Twins!

What thai dishes have you cooked?