Coconut Curry Chicken
A golden, fragrant braise that makes the apartment smell like a Thai kitchen from the hallway. It is a jar of paste stirred into a can of coconut milk with chicken thighs pushed under the surface, then forgotten in the oven for an hour. There is no chopping worth the name and no moment where anything can go wrong on a stove.
- Cost for two
- $24
- Active time
- 20 min
- Done ahead
- 56%
- 1 hr 30 min before 7:30
- Hands off at
- 7:00
- T-30
Allergens: Fish (fish sauce — use soy sauce instead, which then adds soy and usually wheat) · Check the curry paste label; some brands contain shellfish (shrimp paste). Thai Kitchen's does not, at the time of writing — read the jar·Serves: 2 (with leftovers)·Oven: 350°F
Gear: One pot with a lid that can go in the oven (any metal pot with metal handles — a Dutch oven is ideal but a 3-quart saucepan works; fallback: an 8×8 baking dish covered tightly with foil), one pot with a lid for rice (fallback: two microwave jasmine-rice pouches), a fork, a phone timer, and a probe thermometer ($12) for the chicken.
Start at 5:30. Hands off from 7:00. Stove mode follows the clock while you cook.
The 7:30 Timeline
Read it bottom-up if you like; cook it top-down.
Done before she arrives
Aisle order
Shopping list
Produce
Red bell pepper
1
Cilantro
1 bunch
Limes
2
Meat & Seafood
Boneless, skinless chicken thighs
about 6 thighs
1½ lb
Pantry & Canned
Thai Kitchen red curry paste
4 oz, international aisle — you use 3 tablespoons
1 jar
Full-fat coconut milk
13.5 oz — not "lite," not the carton in the milk aisle
1 can
Fish sauce
international aisle; soy sauce works if the fish sauce smell scares you at the shelf
1 bottle
Jasmine rice
you use 1 cup
1 bag
Pantry (you probably have these)
Salt, pepper, olive oil
At the stove
Method
- 1
Rinse 1 cup of jasmine rice in the rice pot under the tap, swirling with your fingers, until the water runs mostly clear. Pour off the water.
- 2
Add 1½ cups fresh water and a pinch of salt. Lid on. High heat until steam escapes around the lid.
- 3
Turn the heat to the lowest your stove goes and set a 12-minute timer. Do not lift the lid.
- 4
When the timer goes, turn the burner off and leave the lid on. The rice finishes itself and stays warm for an hour.
- 5
Pull the stem out of the bell pepper, shake the seeds into the trash, and tear or cut it into strips about as wide as your thumb. Set 6 strips aside on a saucer; they go on raw at the end for crunch and color.
- 6
Pull the cilantro leaves off the bunch in clumps. Stems are fine to include. Put the leaves on the saucer with the pepper strips.
- 7
Cut one lime into 4 wedges, add them to the saucer, cover it with plastic, and refrigerate.
- 8
Shake the can of coconut milk hard for 10 seconds — the thick part separates in the can. Open it and pour all of it into the braise pot.
- 9
Add 3 tablespoons red curry paste and 1 tablespoon fish sauce. Stir with a fork, pressing the paste against the side of the pot, until the sauce is one even orange color with no red lumps.
- 10
Pat the chicken thighs dry with paper towels. Lay them in the sauce and push each one under the surface with the fork.
- 11
Scatter the remaining pepper strips on top. Squeeze the second lime over everything. Lid on. Refrigerate until 6:50.
- 12
At 6:50, turn the oven to 350°F and take the pot out of the fridge.
- 13
At 7:00, put the pot on the middle rack with the lid on. Set a 60-minute timer.
- 14
At the timer, turn the oven off and leave the pot inside with the lid on. It holds for 20 minutes without changing.
- 15
At 8:08, take the pot out with oven mitts. Check doneness (below). Stir once with the fork so the sauce coats the chicken.
- 16
Spoon rice into one side of each bowl, ladle chicken and sauce beside it, and finish with the raw pepper strips, a fistful of cilantro, and a lime wedge on the rim.
Is it done?
The check that needs no experience
Thermometer: probe the thickest thigh in the middle. 165°F. After 60 minutes in liquid at 350°F it will read well over that, which is correct for thighs. No thermometer: lift one thigh onto a plate and pull it apart with two forks. It should shred easily and be pale all the way through, with no pink and no translucent patches. If it resists the forks or shows pink, lid back on, oven back on at 350°F, 10 more minutes.
The #1 way to screw it up
You lift the lid at 8:08 and the sauce is thin and watery instead of thick and golden — the chicken let go of a lot of liquid, and some brands of coconut milk are thinner than others.
Recovery
Lid off, oven back to 400°F, pot back in for 10 minutes uncovered. No stirring. The top reduces and the sauce tightens. Serve at 8:20; she is still on her drink and the starter. If you do not want to wait, spoon the chicken over the rice with a slotted spoon and add only a little of the sauce — the flavor is all there; it is the thickness that was missing.
- Too spicy for the room (paste brands vary)
- squeeze a second lime wedge over each bowl, add more rice, and if you own sugar, stir ½ teaspoon into the pot. Sugar and acid both turn the heat down.
- Rice turned into a solid block
- fluff it with a fork, add a tablespoon of water, and microwave 90 seconds under a damp paper towel. Or open the backup pouches.
The reveal
Plating
Use two wide, shallow bowls and pack a scoop of rice against one side of each so it stands up rather than spreading out. Ladle three thighs with plenty of sauce into the open side of the bowl, letting the sauce run just up to the rice. Lay three raw pepper strips across the chicken, drop a loose fistful of cilantro leaves on top, and hook a lime wedge on the rim — the three colors on top are the entire difference between "curry" and "dinner."
Vegetarian swap
One large sweet potato cut into 2-inch chunks (no peeling) and one 15-oz can of chickpeas, drained, in the same coconut-curry sauce with soy sauce instead of fish sauce. Same pot, same 350°F oven, 45 minutes covered instead of 60, in at 7:15. Sweet potato in red curry is a real dish that people order on purpose, and the bowl looks the same.
What to pour
- Wine
- an off-dry Riesling — Chateau Ste. Michelle Riesling (the regular one, not the "Dry"), about $9. A little sweetness against the chili is the classic move.
- Beer
- Singha, or any light lager, very cold.
- No alcohol
- ginger beer (Reed's or Fever-Tree) over ice with a lime wedge.
Take this to the supermarket.
The First Bulletproof Dinner as a PDF, with the timelines. Free.