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Mainland Southeast Asia · Volume 41, The Coconut and the Court

Gaeng khiao wan

Thailand

Gaeng khiao wan, green curry with a glossy split of coconut oil across its surface: a shallow bowl of a rich, deep green curry, chicken pieces and small green aubergines just visible beneath its surface, distinct pools of pale coconut oil sitting glossily on top.

An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.

Time
45 minutes
Researched
8 sources cited
Reviewed
Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
Cooked
Not yet cooked and reported

The dish most people call ancient is, in its modern form, barely a century old. Thai food history traces green curry's roots to an Ayutthaya era, coconut milk free plain aromatic broth, closer to a clear soup than a rich curry, with the coconut milk and fresh green chilli version now recognised developed specifically during the reign of Rama VI or Rama VII, roughly 1908 to 1925. The fresh, rather than dried, chillies give the dish both its colour and, per Thai sources, its name: wan, sweet, describing the mellowing effect of coconut cream and palm sugar against the chilli's heat, not any literal sweetness in the dish itself.

As tradition built it

Serves 4. About 45 minutes.

Ingredients

Method

  1. Heat the coconut cream alone until it visibly separates and the oil rises. See Rung 2.
  2. Fry the curry paste directly in this separated fat until fragrant.
  3. Add the chicken and coat it thoroughly in the fried paste.
  4. Add the thinner coconut milk and stock to loosen the curry to its final consistency.
  5. Add the aubergines last, to keep their texture and colour, and simmer briefly.
  6. Finish with palm sugar, fish sauce, kaffir lime leaf and torn sweet basil.

Notes

The wide range given for curry paste, 45 to 70g per 200g of chicken, reflects genuine recipe to recipe variation in Thai sourcing rather than an error; this chapter gives the range rather than a false single figure.

What a modern chef changes

The cracking technique given its full attention.

Rung 2

Method

  1. Never skip the cream cracking stage. This is the single highest leverage fix for a thin, watery curry, and it needs no equipment, only the discipline not to rush it.
  2. Add the basil only in the final seconds, off the heat, so its anise note stays bright rather than stewed flat.
  3. Hold the aubergine briefly in acidulated water before it goes in, a small step that keeps its colour clean through the final simmer.
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