I recently added a small chilli garden out the front of the house. One of the small plants I bought was loaded up with yellow chillies, so I decided to relieve the plant of its chillies and make a yellow curry chicken.
Starting with the dry spice mix - the usual suspects including cumin and coriander seeds.
When making the curry paste I find that its best to begin breaking down the ingredients in the mortar and pestle. I don't have the stamina or patience to grind the ingredients to a paste, but on the other hand putting ingredients straight into a food processor doesn't seem to do the job. The ingredients are chopped rather than crushed. Anything fibrous - particularly the lemongrass - stays fibrous with that approach.
So... with each ingredient I chop it up, give it a good whack...
...then it all goes in the food processor...
Lemongrass, fresh turmeric, shallots, garlic etc.
There was quite a bit of paste in the end. Enough for a couple of meals, though I couldn't resist using the whole lot in one curry for the extra flavour. There wasn't a lot of heat in the chillies (which I de-seeded) - so it was family friendly.
Fry off the paste, then add coconut milk and a few kaffir lime leaves for added flavour. Cook the paste in the coconut milk for a little while.
Add chicken legs and slow cook so they become tender. Cooking on the bone adds extra flavour to the meat as well.
I added carrot first as it takes a little while to cook through.
Then finally snow peas. These don't take long to cook. I prefer if they're slightly undercooked so you still get a little bit of crunch.
Season the curry with the usual sweet / sour / salt. In this case palm sugar / lime juice / fish sauce. Get some jasmine rice ready in advance and dinner is served.
