Week 2:Yellow curry, cucumber relish, and papaya salad

For the curry there is an easy, everyday version, and a make your own paste version. MaePloy curry paste is quite good.

for the yellow chicken curry:
1.5 lb chicken
3 medium potatoes
1 can coconut milk
2-3 T yellow curry paste
fish sauce
pinch sugar
lime juice (or tamarind concentrate)

Boil and peel potatoes. Cut chicken into bite-size pieces. In a large pot or pan start cooking the curry paste over medium heat in a little bit of oil. When it starts to sizzle add about 3-4 T coconut milk and stir--it should have a pasty consistency. Raise heat to medium-high. Add chicken and spread over bottom of pan. Cook for about 4 minutes, then add the rest of the coconut milk and potatoes. Add 1 T fish sauce, a pinch of sugar, and juice of half a lime. Stir, then taste sauce and adjust to your taste--add more curry paste or chilis for more heat, sugar for sweetness, lime/tamarind for sourness, and fish sauce for saltiness. Cook until chicken is cooked through. Serve with jasmine rice, lime wedges, chilis, and herbs like cilantro or basil. You can also add/substitute vegetables for the potatoes--green beans work well. Just add raw at the same time potatoes are called for.

for the rice:
cook 1 cup jasmine rice with 1.5 cups water. Bring to a boil in lidded pot, when at a boil turn to low and cook 20 minutes.

for the cucumber relish:
this is an actual recipe from David Thompson's "thai food", thoe cookbook that seems authentically Thai and interesting to me, a white lady from Iowa. I uses a high ratio of cucumbers to dressing and omitted the chilli to make this the cooling dish in case others were too hot to handle.

cucumber (2, peeled and sliced, or 3)
2 T vinegar (rice? white? whatever?)
3 T sugar
4 T water
pinch salt
4 shallots, finely sliced
2 T julienned ginger
1 thai chilli
1 T cilantro

combine vinegar, sugar wather and salt in small saucepan and bring to ta boil. Remove when sugar is dissolved. Mix with remaining ingredients.

For the green papaya salad (som dtam):

3 cloves garlic
pinch salt
4-6b chillies
2 T dried shrimp
1 T roasted, chopped peanuts
1 slice lime
4 cherry tomatoes
2/3 cups beans, cut in 1 cm lengths
2 cups shredded (peeled) green papaya (or green mango)
2 t palm sugar (or sugar)
1 T lime juice
1 T tamarind waer
1-2 T fish sauce
fried shallots

Pound garlic and salt and chilli in a mortar and pestle. Add peanuts and dried prawns. Add papaya shreds and pound.

Add remaining ingredients and mix. Add additional chilli, lime, fish sauce, sugar to balance hot/sour/salty/sweet taste.