Jallie's Baked Beanz

A number of years ago, my friend, Norma, wanted some new recipes to cook for her partner Fran's cousin, who was visiting from England. Roz and her partner, Pauline, are vegetarians who eat seafood so I suggested a green curry with eggplant and shrimp or scallops.

I bought them a small can of green curry paste, some coconut milk and those little round Thai eggplants. I basically told her to follow the directions on the curry can, which called for the use of the entire can and two cups of coconut milk. She made the curry, added basil from her own garden and some other veggies. She said it smelled wonderful and couldn't wait to try it. She even invited neighbors, Chris and Russell, over for dinner.

Luckily, this green curry did not end our friendship. It was inedible. The curry was so freakin' hot (spicy), no one could eat it. They even tried to "rinse" the sauce off, but to no avail.

The disaster of Norma's experience with the green curry has always stuck with me. Last Sunday, I made a chicken curry (Gaeng Keow Wan), which was not my first attempt, but one I hadn't made in a very long time. I had been growing some Thai Basil and went to the Thai Market in Silver Spring to purchase the rest of my ingredients -- bamboo shoots, curry paste, and Thai eggplants. Remembering Norma's experience with this curry paste, I only used a teaspoon of paste for the small amount of curry I would be making.

I fried up the paste by itself for a few minutes in a pot and then added one can of coconut milk. I added about a cup and a half of chicken cut up in bite-size pieces and let it simmer until almost cooked through. I cut the tops off the eggplant, quarted them and added it to the curry along with about a half cup of bamboo shoots (I bought canned shoots cut into strips). I added about 2 tablespoons of fish sauce and a half teaspoon sugar. Once that simmered for about 10 minutes, I added a handful of Thai Basil and turned off the heat.

I had originally planned on serving this curry with noodles (kanom jeen), but recently purchased some brown rice in an attempt to eat a little healthier and cooked up the rice. If you will recall, I forgot to blog about this meal on the day I made it, so here's a pic of the rerun I had the following day:

I sauteed some yellow squash with egg as a side veggie. This curry was HOT. It was good, but was lacking something. A special "umph". I should have called my mom or my aunt to ask what I was missing. I think it was kaffir lime leaves. I should cut some leaves off my aunt's kaffir lime tree and freeze them so I'll have it on hand at all times. Another ingredient that probably would have given this curry an added dimension is a few fresh hot peppers. But the curry was already spicy.

I'm sure Miss Pim would say it was lacking curry paste made from fresh ingredients but I'm not at that point yet in my Thai cooking. So check out her recipe for a proper one...