Jungle curry chicken recipe

Jungle curry or kaeng pa in Thai is a traditional hot curry without coconut milk that is still popular today. Also believe it is an origin of most Thai curries.

It is not sure which one of the curries like red curry, green curry, yellow curry, or massaman curry is the best. However, most of them use coconut milk as the base. In the days before Thais have used coconut milk in cooking, there was a curry without coconut milk called kaeng pa in Thai (jungle curry), believing it was the original version of most Thai curries, had been very popular. This hot curry was commonly made with meats like chicken, pork or fish cooked together with curry paste and a couple types of vegetables, such as baby corns, Thai round eggplants, long beans, pumpkin etc., in water. Vegetables like colorful chili peppers (generally used red, green, or orange cayenne peppers), a couple strings of green peppercorns, and sweet or holy basil leaves were normally added in the final step to both add colorful feature and enhance flavor.

Nowadays, some Thai home cooks prefer to cook the curry paste in a little amount of oil first in order to bring out wonderful scents and flavors from each spice and herb added before doing the remaining steps.

Ingredients

• 300 g chicken, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 2 tbsp red curry paste
• 2 tbsp fish sauce
• 1 tsp sugar (use palm sugar if available)
• 5 Thai round eggplants, quartered
• ¼ cup long bean, cut into 1-inch lengths
• 5 baby corns, halved lengthwise and then halved crosswise into quarters
• 1 each fresh red and orange cayenne pepper, sliced diagonally and thinly
• 5 strings fresh unripe green peppercorns
• 3 citrus leaves (use kaffir lime leaves if available), midribs removed, torn into pieces
• 1 handful sweet or holy basil leaves
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• water

Direction 

1. In a wok (or a saucepan), heat up oil over low-medium heat. Once it is hot, add red curry paste and stir-fry until fragrant.
2. Add chicken and sauté to coat well.
3. Add water to just cover the chicken and then bring to a boil.
4. Once it is ready, season to taste as needed with fish sauce and sugar. Bring to a gentle boil and cook until chicken is fully done and tender.
5. Bring to a boil. Once it is ready, add eggplants, long beans and baby corns and cook until done.
6. Add cayenne peppers, green peppercorns and citrus leaves and stir little to mix. Then, add basil leaves and press to soak. remove from heat.
7. to serve, spoon into a designed bowl. Serve garnished with sliced chili peppers and basil leaves.