No need to wash all those pans, now you can cook a delicious Thai Curry in your Steam Oven with the rice and vegetables at the same time! Well you do end up with 3 steamer trays to wash but they really only need a rinse out in hot soapy water.
Sometimes I try to make my red Thai paste but that is more time consuming. This is a quick mid-week version. Traditionally Thai people put pineapple and cherry tomatoes in this dish and that is fantastic, particularly with duck but for mid-week I often cook this with whatever I have in the fridge at the time. Tonight is kumara and green beans but if you can manage to get some Thai basil it certainly makes the dish so much better. I didn’t have any tonight, the garnish is Vietnamese mint just for colour.
Serves 4-6
Ingredients:
1½ cups jasmine rice, washed
2 cups water
600g chicken thigh fillet, trimmed of any fat and cubed
3 generous tablespoons of Thai Red Curry Paste (I used 1/2 x 195g jar of Ayam Red Curry Paste) OR to taste
2 tablespoons of palm sugar, grated
1 tsp of fish sauce
4 very finely sliced kaffir lime leaves with the stems removed
140ml can coconut cream
1 medium size kumara thinly sliced then cut into bite size pieces
handful of green beans, trimmed
few cherry tomatoes cut in half
Fresh Thai basil or coriander to serve
Method:
- Mix the Red Thai Paste, sugar and fish sauce into chicken and let it marinate for a few minutes while you put on the rice and kumara.
- Place rice and water into a solid stainless steel tray on the bottom level of the steamer, at the same time peel and cut kumara and place in the small perforated tray on the top level. Steam both uncovered 100°C for 6 minutes.
- Remove kumara and set aside.
- Now add the chicken to the middle level and cook uncovered for 8 more minutes 100°C. Leave the rice, it will continue to cook.
- Remove the chicken and stir in the coconut cream. It will be quite runny. If you like you could thicken it with 1tsp cornflour mixed with 1tablespoon of water and mix in well before it goes back into the steamer.
- Add the beans on top of the cooked kumara and put it back into the top level. You now have the rice on the bottom, the chicken in the middle and the vegetables on the top. Cook for another 2 minutes at the same 100% power.
- Stir in vegetables and thai basil or coriander and serve with the fluffed steamed rice.
Trudy
Can this be easily adapted to vegetarian with tofu?
Hi David,
Yes but I would cook the sauce on the cooktop so that the curry paste gets cooked, add the coconut milk, a firm tofu and vegetables at the end. Simmer until the vegetables are just cooked. If you want to use a Steam Oven you can still cook the rice and vegetables in there, add tofu for 2 minutes and then just fold through the sauce.
Thanks for your comment – I will do some vegetarian recipes soon!