Vietnamese Chicken Curry

Vietnamese Chicken Curry is one of my absolute favorite things to eat. Why? Well, it's VIETNAMESE. It's CHICKEN THIGHS, with ginger, garlic, lemongrass and coconut milk, melded into a STEW -three of my absolute favorite things in the world of food. This is one of those things that is a bit exotic (unless you are Vietnamese and/or, like my kids, who are not the teeniest bit Vietnamese, have been eating it most of your life), yet the main ingredients are the familiarly comforting stew trinity of chicken, carrots and potatoes. It's a snap to put together, once you have the basic Vietnamese ingredients in your kitchen. Fish sauce and the canned coconut milk will store almost indefinitely, and lemongrass can be frozen, either whole or sliced, making it relatively easy to have the ingredients stored away for this.

Vietnamese Chicken Curry

In large Ziploc bag, place 6 chicken thighs (or a whole pieced chicken, or use rabbit or duck instead, if that's what you have, or prefer)

Add to bag and smoosh around a bit:

1-2 inch piece of ginger, peeled and chopped small

2 stalks lemongrass, white part only sliced thin

5 garlic cloves, minced

2 t. curry powder

1/2 t. each salt, black pepper and dried chili flakes

Leave to marinade 1 hour.

Fry in 1/4-1/2 inch hot oil, 2 lbs potatoes, peeled and cut into 2 inch chunks, until browned a bit. Remove potatoes. Drain all but 1-2 T. oil and add chicken (or what you are using) along with spices from the bag. Fry till browned on all sides.

Add:

3-5 carrots, peeled and cut into chunks

fried potato chunks

14 oz. can lite coconut milk

14 oz. can chicken broth (or water plus 1 t. salt)

2-3 bay leaves

2 T. fish sauce

1 t. sugar

1/2 t. dried mint

Simmer 30-60 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook a pot of rice.

To serve, add 1/2-1 c. minced cilantro leaves (I didn't have any, and didn't want to make a special trip to the store to buy some, so I left them out this time, and it was just fine) and juice of 1 lime (or lemon). Serve stew in bowls over rice, adding more crushed chili flakes, cilantro, or lime wedges, if desired. And this reheats beautifully, which is just one more thing to love about it.