Wood Fired Smoked Thai Green Chicken Curry
'Kaeng Khieu Wan Kai' fusion.
As featured on my podcast
If you like Thai food - then I would imagine you have had this dish. I bet however you have never had it quite like this.
This dish is very special to me. I have been making it since I was got engaged to my lovely wife - at the time of writing... 30 years ago! Making this has wonderful memories of this period of our lives.
Fast forward to 2022. While in the middle of preparing for Season 2 of my Wood Fired Oven podcast, I decided to super boost this recipe. Time to give it the wood fired oven fusion treatment.
It is entirely possible to smoke food in your wood fired oven. I use pellets or wood chips placed in small smoking tubes - take a listen to my podcast episode on this Live cook to hear more about how I set it up. I smoked a whole chicken and then added it to the dish after the rich coconut based sauce was almost finished. The sauce cannot be rushed. You will be extracting coconut 'milk' from desiccated coconut - it is so worth the extra time involved. Done right it is a thing of beauty. Rich and complex in flavour - nothing like your Thai takeaways around the corner.
Serves 6-8
Wood Fired Oven
Low heat - for smoking - 120 deg C (about 250 F) initially. Once the smoking has been down, light a small fire and gently increase heat to Medium heat up to about 200 Deg C (390F)
As you will be smoking the chicken whole, this is best done with retained heat from the day before. Start smoking when the temperate has dropped to about 120 Deg C. See smoking setup details here: xxx
Ingredients
- 1 large whole chicken
- 4-6 cups of coconut milk*
- 4 tablespoons fresh green curry paste**
- 3-4 small lemon or lime leaves
- 1 teaspoon salt - preferable smoked salt (you can make this in your wood fired oven)
- 2 tablespoons fish sauce - more if you really like it
- 1 tablespoon of chopped green chillies
- Handful of chopped coriander leaves.
Instructions
xxx pg 301
Pro Tips
*You should make your own coconut milk for this recipe. Check out my easy guide here on how to make it. Do not use coconut milk from a can.
**Make you own green curry paste. Check out my easy guide here on how to make a very authentic version. Do not, I repeat DO NOT use a commercially produced paste in a jar. They are very very different!
These two pro tips take this dish to the pro level. If you omit these steps - you will make a very mundane version. Trust me, don't think - just do!
