It was this summer that Gob, a Thai intern who worked in the office from June to September, created a curry madness in the office. Turns out Gob, this is not his real name, this is his nickname, I will refrain from mentioning his real name for he is so attached to Gob he actually introduces himself as so. Once, I dared calling him by his real name, and he made it clear to me that if I chose to refer to him as that, I would join the club of 'people Gob doesn't like', yes he refers to Gob on the third person. If you haven't figured it out already, Gob was quite a character, quite a cook as well, of everything Thai, exclusively Thai, and, (lucky for me) he could recite recipes on cue. That's how I learned to make curry. The Thursday before summer break, We had a little potluck at the office, and along with the curry tasting came the recipe. A following came too, and for a few of us, curry is still a weekly indulgence.
Now this is where I am going, curry is by all means an indulgence, sure it is spicy, sure it can squeeze a few tears out of you, but health wise it seems pretty innocent right? WRONG. Two words: COCONUT MILK. (Check out the new addition to the blog! Nutrition Facts!). Coconut Milk is the equivalent of tropical mayonnaise! It's PURE fat! And not the good, make-your-hair-shiny avocado-like-fat, the bad kind! the lard kind. The saturated kind! I was talking to Lisa, another curry groupie, about this today. She actually looked up the nutritional info of coconut milk and was appalled with what she saw. She also helped inspire, along with Eduardo, the new 'eat-your-dinner' nutrition facts label. Which means I'll be crunching numbers to bring you the nutritional information of the recipes we post. After discussing the un-benefits of coconut milk, I thought I could come up with a version of curry that used the least amount of coconut milk, without compromising the flavor. I must admit it is pretty close, minus the guilt feelings. Before, I didn't usually use the BIG can of coconut milk the recipe called for, but I still used about 3/4 of a cup, which we now know what amounts too in terms of fat and calories.
I say, leave the full fat curry for special occasions, and try the heart happy version, for weeknights. Leave out the fish sauce for a heart happier version, the sodium content in fish sauce is sky high!
R E C I P E
1 tablespoon of olive oil
2 tablespoons of red or green curry paste (green is spicier than red)
1 boneless skinless chicken breast cubed
1 medium eggplant sliced
1 medium zucchini sliced
1/2 cup of water
2 tablespoons of fish sauce
1/4 cup of coconut milk
5 basil leaves (I like to use both cilantro and basil, but that's up to you)
1 lime
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1. Heat a wok or a big pot. Add the oil. When it starts to smoke, add the chicken and the curry paste. Keep moving it, you don't want it to stick.
2. Before the chicken starts to brown, add the water and stir to dilute the curry paste.
3. Add the sliced vegetables.
4. Cover. Let it sweat now. Move every now and then. Careful with the eggplant. You don't want to break it.
5. After a couple of minutes, add the fish sauce. Add more water if it looks like it's drying out. There should about a cup of liquid from the veggies.
6. When the vegetables are ready, add the coconut milk. Cover. Cook for about one minute, only to bring it up to temperature. This is the trick! The more you cook it, the more it looses its flavor. By just heating it you can get maximum taste with the least amount of milk.
7. Squeeze half the lime in the broth. Add the herbs. Serve over rice with a wedge of lime.
