Cooking Mama :: Curry Ga (Chicken Curry)

Our family has a lot of parties. We like to party. Most of our parties center around food and this past weekend, I had the honor of contributing a dish to my maternal grandfather's Gio. I'm not exactly sure of the official definition of Gio (pronunced "Zoooooooohhhh") but from my 25 years of attending them, I've come to the conclusion that it is a causal party where you eat double your body weight in Vietnamese food, get teased by your cousins and run around with kids. Somewhere in there, a Disney movie is playing in the background while we burn incense. If anyone else has a better definition, let me know. ANYHOO - my mom showed me how to cook Vietnamese Chicken Curry. You can eat it with rice or with bread. I prefer bread.

Ingredients

• 3 lbs chicken on the bone (mix of white and dark meat)
• 2 tablespoons madras curry powder
• 3 carrots, peeled and chopped large pieces
• 1 large potato, peeled and chopped into large pieces
• 1 white onion, quartered
  
• 4 tablespoons coconut milk
• 2 teaspoons ground lemongrass (buy it pre-grounded at Asian Markets)
  
• 6 chopped garlic cloves
• 2 bay leaves
  
• salt and pepper

Flavor the Bird :: Wash the chicken and pat dry. Marinate the chicken with the garlic, curry powder and salt and pepper. Let it sit for at least 10 minutes. In the meantime, prep the veggies. It's best to keep all the pieces about the same size so they cook at the same rate.






Sear the Bird :: In a large pot, sear the chicken on medium high heat in a little bit of olive oil. You don't need to worry about cooking the meat, just sear the outside to seal in the juices. If you have too much meat, you can sear the meat in batches in a large skillet, then transfer to a pot.






Drown the Bird :: When all the pieces have been browned, cover the meat with water and add the veggies and bay leaf. Bring the water to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for about 45 minutes. Salt and pepper the broth to taste.

Turn off the heat and add the coconut milk. Stir it in well. If you want to thicken up the sauce, you can add some cornstarch but make sure to dissolve the cornstarch in water before you add it. It does a weird clumpy thing otherwise.


Eat the Bird :: Stupid Blogger won't let me turn this photo sideways, so sorry for the headache. This is my plate from the gio. As you can see, I got a little bit of everything with the curry in the red bowl. It was a hit and we didn't have any leftover to take home, which is a good sign.