When everyone around the table declares this is the best Thai Green Chicken Curry that they have ever eaten you know you have hit recipe gold. This chef experience Thai cooking class on Koh Samui was a wonderful holiday bonus.

Making Easy Thai Green Chicken Curry

After the noisy Thai cooking class, there was a strange silence in the group at Intercontinental Koh Samui Resort as we greedily tucked into the meal that moments before had just been ingredients. It was good, very good – a rich mix of spicy coconut sauce around tender chicken and chunks of eggplant.

Five of us, a mixed bag of culinary skills, attempted the recipe under Chef Teo’s watchful eye. He taught us how to chop vegetables Thai style and develop the flavours according to taste. The results spoke for themselves, and while I would love to claim it was because of my expert cooking style, I think the freshly milked coconut and organic chicken straight from the market can take much of the credit.

This chef experience Thai cooking class starts with a Thai market tour. Photo: Kerry Heaney

This chef experience Thai cooking class starts at the market

The first step for any cooking project is to purchase the ingredients, so Chef Teo gathered us up for a short van ride to the local village market where tables of fresh produce awaited selection.

The market is busy in the morning as people pop in for breakfast or to buy their lunch for later. All the produce is freshly picked, processed or cooked because according to the chef, the locals won’t buy it any other way.

Low tech but effective fly control at the Thai food market. Photo: Kerry Heaney

Thai market tour on Koh Samui

Fresh meat sits out in the open on a layer of ice to keep it chilled while fans tied with shredded plastic bags whirl overhead to keep flies away. It’s low tech but effective solution.

Chef found an organic chicken, a yellow coloured bird which contrasted sharply with the pale white chicken beside it, and declared it perfect for our easy Thai Green Chicken Curry

“This is local,” says Chef Teo, “and just killed this morning otherwise no one would buy it. These birds get more exercise and are leaner, but the flavour is much better.”

Surrounding the chicken were other bird parts including feet, livers and an oval of coagulated blood. I didn’t know chickens had that much blood!

Around the corner, there were small plastic bags filled with freshly made Thai Green Curry paste.  Chef grabbed one of these too!

Chef inspects the daily catch before buying. Photo: Kerry Heaney

Organic food is expensive anywhere

Even though this was a market in Thailand, the price was not low. Chef paid about $30 AUS for the bird, which is similar to what I have paid for organic chicken from a market at Noosa.

At the fishmonger’s stall, Chef Teo inspected the large, locally caught calamari to ensure they were firm, not soft. Soft calamari is not as fresh. The vibrant red fish, giant prawns and bugs that also piled into the bag were destined for our dinner.

While the chef was busy buying Thai Green Curry ingredients, I spotted my favourite Asian fruit, mangosteen.  This luscious fruit is nothing like a mango, but more like a segmented lychee with soft sweet-sour flesh segments around a seed.  You peel off the hard purple shell to reveal the fruit inside.

Found my favourite fruit – mangosteen!

Chef experience Thai Cooking class

The Intercontinental Koh Samui Resort offers a chef experience Thai cooking class for guests to learn Thai cooking techniques in the hotel’s kitchen, finishing with lunch in Amber Restaurant.

There were two dishes on the menu, a Thai Beef Salad and Thai Green Curry. There was too much onion in the salad for me but the curry, well that took five people to another level. Here is the recipe.

Easy Thai green chicken curry in blue and white bowl
Yield: serves 4

EASY THAI GREEN CHICKEN CURRY

Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 35 minutes

When everyone around the table declares this is the best Thai Green Chicken Curry that they have ever eaten you know you have hit recipe gold. The recipe comes from a chef experience cooking class at Intercontinental Koh Samui, Thailand.

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons vegetable cooking oil
  • 40 g green curry paste – buy the best you can find
  • 200ml coconut cream
  • 200ml chicken stock
  • 4 kaffir lime leaves – remove the leaf stem, and slice leaves finely – young, soft leaves work best.
  • 400 gm eggplant --If you can get small oval Asian eggplants, use them cut into wedges, otherwise cube regular eggplant as a substitute.
  • 80g small green eggplants -These Thai eggplants are about the size of a walnut. If you can’t find them just add more of the other eggplant
  • 200ml coconut milk
  • 40g palm sugar
  • 8 teaspoons fish sauce
  • 600g chopped chicken
  • 2 large red chilli chopped into slices (reserve some for a garnish)
  • 20 g sweet basil leaves – sliced

Instructions

  1. Heat the oil to hot and fry off the curry paste. Stir for two minutes and then add the coconut cream. Stir while simmering for another few minutes.
  2. Add the coconut milk, kaffir lime leaves, eggplants, palm sugar and fish sauce. Allow to simmer until the eggplants are cooked.
  3. Turn up the heat until boiling, add the chicken, basil leaves and chilli.  Boil for a few minutes until chicken is cooked, remove from heat and serve.

Notes

I made this at home and found my very dark brown palm sugar turned the curry brown, not green.  Also, the green curry paste I bought was not as strong as the one I used in Thailand. Next time I will use more.

I substituted normal eggplant (the purple shiny one) and the dish was still great.  Next time I might add a few green beans just for some extra colour.

Despite the changes, it was still pronounced delicious by K2 so I am pleased by the results.

Happy cooking!

Nutrition Information:

Yield:

4

Serving Size:

1

Amount Per Serving: Calories: 1286Total Fat: 64gSaturated Fat: 31gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 25gCholesterol: 193mgSodium: 2476mgCarbohydrates: 125gNet Carbohydrates: 125gFiber: 19gSugar: 69gSugar Alcohols: 69gProtein: 64g

Where is Intercontinental Koh Samui Resort?

I travelled from Brisbane, Australia to Bangkok with AirAsia.   The newish flight route takes just over eight hours and leaves Brisbane at 12.50 pm and arrives at 7.10 Bangkok time.  This is too late to get a connecting flight to Koh Samui but offers a great opportunity to explore Bangkok.  I recommend adding a Value Pack to your airfare which gives you the choice to select the airline’s Quiet Zone.

The night in Bangkok was spent at the award-winning Indigo Wireless Hotel, a contemporary high-rise boutique hotel in the Lumphini embassy neighbourhood.  The high-end rooms feature quirky retro décor and come with free-wifi, rainfall showers. My corner room had a balcony and wrap-around views of Bangkok.  Rates start at $200 per night.

The next day I boarded a Bangkok Air flight to Koh Samui followed by a 40-minute drive to the upscale and award-winning Intercontinental Koh Samui Resort set along Taling Ngam Bay on the Gulf of Thailand. The views from the resort across the famous Five Islands and Angthong National Park are superb.

The Thai Cooking Class is one of the many activities offered at the resort.  You can also go searching for pink dolphins (true) or relax at the spa, which I did, but that’s another story.

I stayed in one of the resort’s Classic Rooms in the main building. A spacious 67 square metres, it included a very private balcony where a morning observation of the fabulous views was mandatory.  Rates here start at $542 per night.

More adventures in Thailand

Disclaimer: Eat drink and be Kerry was a guest of AirAsia, Indigo Wireless Hotel and Intercontinental Koh Samui Resort.

 

Easy Thai Green Chicken Curry just for one

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons vegetable cooking oil
  • 10 g green curry paste – buy the best you can find
  • 50ml coconut cream
  • 50ml chicken stock
  • 2 kaffir lime leaves – remove the leaf stem, and slice leaves finely – young, soft leaves work best.
  • 100 gm eggplant *
  • 20g small green eggplants **
  • 50ml coconut milk
  • 10g palm sugar
  • 2 teaspoons fish sauce
  • 150g chopped chicken
  • 1 large red chilli chopped into slices (reserve some for a garnish)
  • 5 g sweet basil leaves – sliced

* If you can get small oval Asian eggplants, use them cut into wedges, otherwise cube regular eggplant as a substitute.

** These Thai eggplants are about the size of a walnut. If you can’t find them just add more of the other eggplant.

Method

  1. Heat the oil to hot and fry off the curry paste. Stir for two minutes and then add the coconut cream. Stir while simmering for another few minutes.
  2. Add the coconut milk, kaffir lime leaves, eggplants, palm sugar and fish sauce. Allow to simmer until the eggplants are cooked.
  3. Turn up the heat until boiling, add the chicken, basil leaves and chilli.  Boil for a few minutes until chicken is cooked, remove from heat and serve.

To serve

It is quite a runny curry, so place it in a bowl to serve. Top with a few basil leaves and some slices of chilli.

You may like to accompany the curry with some boiled rice, although this is not a traditional accompaniment in Thailand, according to Chef.

NOTE:  I made this at home and found my very dark brown palm sugar turned the curry brown, not green.  Also the green curry paste I bought was not as strong as the one I used in Thailand. Next time I will use more.

I substituted normal eggplant (the purple shiny one) and the dish was still great.  Next time I might add a few green beans just for some extra colour.

Despite the changes it was still pronounced delicious by K2 so I am pleased by the results.

Happy cooking!