Vietnamese coconut chicken & sweet potato curry

Posted by petra08 on December 8, 2014 · 4 Comments 

Sometimes when I want to buy something it comes in a fairly large quantity. This time I had a big bunch of lemon grass. I had bought it for a green Thai curry but I had way more than I needed and I didn’t want to let any of them go to waste. I found this recipe, it sounded delicious but I knew straight away that it wasn’t going to be a looker but the flavours seemed good. I did change quite a lot, added and detracted but was very happy with the result.

The lovely and talented Juhls, The Not So Creative Cook (she really is creative actually!) had done a similar dish not long ago, you can see it here. I used the two recipes for inspiration. Like Juhls, the first time I came across fish sauce in a recipe I did give it a sniff and was almost put off it for life! How something that tastes so good can smell quite so awful is beyond me but it works!

 

I served it with rice, I have to admit white as I did ask beforehand. Slightly sticky and flavoured with a hint of coconut oil for additional flavour.

 

Vietnamese coconut chicken & sweet potato curry 

preparation time 10 minutes 

cooking time 30 minutes 

serves 4

Ingredients

• 8 de boned and skinned chicken thighs
• 1 onion
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 1 tbsp demerara sugar
• 2 tbsp grated ginger
• 1 red chilli
• 1/2 red pepper
• 2 spring onions/scallions
• 1 sweet potato
• 4 stalks of lemon grass
• 1 tbsp cumin seeds
• 3 tbsp soy sauce
• 4 tbsp fish sauce
• 1 can of light coconut milk
• 1 tbsp oil
• black pepper to taste

Trim the chicken thighs, you can of course use breast if you prefer and slice. By slicing them the curry will cook quicker.

Slice the onion, grate the ginger and crush the garlic. Use only the inner  part of the lemon grass and slice it very thinly. Slice the chilli  and peel and cube the sweet potato and the red pepper.

 

 

 

Heat the oil and cook the onion and garlic until translucent, don’t brown it. Add the cumin seeds and let cook for a few minutes.

 

 

Add the coconut milk, chopped lemon grass, the chilli, the red pepper, grated ginger, sugar and the sweet potato. Last add the fish sauce and soy sauce and let simmer until the sweet potato is cooked through and the chicken is done, 15-20 minutes. You won’t need any additional salt but taste with black pepper. Scatter over the sliced spring onions and serve with rice.

 

Sometimes when you take pictures of food there can be just a few shades of brown. This dish was very brown but it tasted so good it was impossible not to go for seconds, that fish sauce really worked it’s magic.

 

 

This is a quick and easy curry, I will buy extra lemon stalks again for this curry, it is a perfect week night meal.

 

 

 

 

Filed under Allotment/Veg, Chicken, Chilli, Garlic, Ginger, Main course, Meat, Onion, Pepper, Recipe, Rice, Spring onion · Tagged with chicken curry, fish sauce, lemon grass, sweet potato, Vietnamese coconut curry, Vietnamese curry