Full cooking lesson for this dish brought to you by my Live Asian Kitchen >>

INGREDIENTS:

2kg lamb, diced

2 onions, quartered

8 cloves garlic

1 ½ Tbsps minced ginger

⅓ cup minced lemongrass

5-6 Tbsps fish or meat curry powder

2 stalks curry leaves

2 Tbsps sugar

2 Tbsps chicken powder

1 Tbsp salt

400ml coconut cream

400ml water

½ cup oil

METHOD:

1. If using a pressure cooker, cook lamb with water for 10 minutes. This will save time spent later on, simmering the lamb until tender.
2. Combine onion and garlic in food processor and blend.
3. Transfer into a pan, add curry powder, lemongrass and ginger; mix into a paste.
4. Add oil and saute until browned and oil separates.
5. Add lamb and all other ingredients. Simmer until lamb is tender, adding more water during the cooking process if needed, to prevent drying out.
6. Adjust seasoning before serving. Final consistency should be of a thick stew.

The post How to Cook Malaysian Lamb Curry first appeared on Jackie M..

Kerisik

INGREDIENT:

Block of creamed coconut

METHOD:

1. Cook the creamed coconut in a non-stick pan on low heat, stirring gently until browned.
2. Allow to cool before storing in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.

Chicken Rendang

INGREDIENTS:

2kg chicken pieces
2 onions, peeled and quartered
8 cloves garlic, peeled
¼ cup minced lemongrass
1-inch piece of ginger
3-4 Tbsps meat curry powder
500ml coconut cream
200ml water
2 Tbsps chicken powder
2 tsps sugar
Dash of fish sauce (optional)
3 Tbsps kerisik
4 Tbsps oil

METHOD:

1. Blend onion, garlic and ginger in food processor.
2. Transfer into a bowl; add curry powder and lemongrass and mix to a paste.
3. Saute in a wok until most of the moisture has evaporated, then add oil and fry until browned and oil separates.
4. Add chicken and saute another 2 minutes.
5. Add coconut cream, water, chicken powder, sugar and fish sauce.
6. Simmer, stirring regularly, until chicken is cooked through and dish is a semi-dry consistency.
7. Add kerisik and mix well; adjust seasoning before removing from heat.
8. Serve with plain or coconut-flavoured rice

The post How to Make Kerisik and Chicken Rendang first appeared on Jackie M..

I made 4 different types of curry pastes, but will only share one of the recipes here since they’re somewhat repetitive, plus you should be able to get the gist of them by watching the show (stick around to the end for my summary about the foundational ingredients to build your curry pastes on).

Meat Curry Paste Recipe (for 5kg of meat)

INGREDIENTS:

• 6 brown onions, pureed (or substitute with 350g fried shallots)
• 1/2 cup minced garlic
• 1/2 cup cooking oil
• 200g meat curry powder
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup chicken powder
• 1 ½ Tbsp salt
• ½ cup minced lemongrass
• 3 Tbps minced ginger
• 10 sprigs curry leaves

METHOD:

1. Combine all ingredients and mix to a paste in a heavy-based pan.
2. Fry until onion is browned and oil separates.
3. Allow to cool, then divide into portions and keep in refrigerator for up to 4 weeks or in freezer for up to 6 months.
4. To use, sauté 1kg meat with 1/5th paste from batch for 1-2 minutes. Add 400ml coconut cream and 200ml water and simmer covered on low heat, stirring occasionally, until meat is cooked through and tender. Add more liquid during the cooking process as required.
5. Remove and serve.

The post How to Make Homemade Curry Pastes first appeared on Jackie M..

We spent the morning following my arrival visiting a local wet market to look for ingredients we could use in our cooking segments. I wanted to film at least 3 cooking videos (we ended up doing 6) and they had to be both pork-free AND unique to Chiang Mai.

It seemed like a tall order but Chef Kamsin saved the day when we came across some snail meat at the market. Snail is common in northern Thai cooking but not so in other parts of Thailand; in this recipe, we used pre-poached and de-shelled snail meat, though traditionally they are cooked in the shell.

INGREDIENTS:

500 g Snail meat
1 L Coconut milk
100 g Red curry paste
20 g Kaffir lime leaves
20 g Betel leaves
10 g Turmeric powder
60 g Palm sugar
40 ml Soy sauce
20 ml Fish sauce

METHOD:

1. Blanch snail meat in 1 cup of boiling water. Bring to a boil until snail meat is almost cooked through, then transfer into a bowl of cold water. Strain and set aside.

2. Heat a pot over medium heat, add the red curry paste with a small amount of coconut milk and fry gently.

3. Add the kaffir lime leaves, betel leaves, fish sauce, and palm sugar. Add more coconut milk gradually and continue stirring.

4. Throw in the snail meat and bring to a boil. Simmer until snail meat is cooked.

5. Remove from heat and serve.

From what I’ve observed, the cooking style in Chiang Mai involves the kind of patient, subtle effort that is often lacking in my own kitchen (if you’ve seen me at the wok you’ll know what I mean) – the gentle stirring and simmering, the finely shredding of herbs and other ingredients etc. – it is quite compelling to watch and I learned an enormous amount just in my few days there.

(Rooted in Nature is a campaign recently launched across the kitchens of the Shangri-La Hotel Group where the menus are based around locally-sourced, sustainably farmed ingredients.)

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The post How to Cook Chiang Mai Snail Curry first appeared on Jackie M..