Quest for a better coconut curry….

Thanks to Adham, Barb, and my husband’s fondness for Thai food, I’ve been working on a couple coconut curry recipes. The dilemma is this: traditionally-made curries with coconut milk are sky high in fat and calories (though we’ve discussed that coconut fat might not be as bad for you as other saturated fats). But choosing “light” coconut milk, while lower in fat, can result in an increased tendency for the sauce to curdle. And that’s just plain gross.

I’ve made curries with light coconut milk, yogurt and low fat cows milk and they always curdled to some degree. We always ate it anyway, but I really wanted to improve upon my strategy and get a nice creamy sauce for once!

Extensive internet research led me to a few suggestions, as I was determined to make a nice creamy curry without all the fat. First, cooking your coconut milk over high heat is a nono. You must keep it over a very low flame, as I read, and never let it boil. Also, stirring it continuously helps. It seems that fat prevents curdling (figures) in both dairy milk and coconut milk recipes, so I decided to simmer the curry paste in a teaspoon of olive oil right at the get-go. You know, so maybe the fat molecules would insulate the spices, so they wouldn’t ruin the coconut milk upon addition…. it sounds goofy I realize. I also read that a bit of cornstarch would prevent curdling, but I did not do this. Last tactic up my sleeve, I’ve rescued some curdling milk recipes before with a dash of baking soda (to neutralize the acid) so I had the box and teaspoon ready in case it started to curdle. I was ready to get this show on the road.

ThaiKitchenRedCurryPaste

The process went like this: start by simmering 1.5 tablespoons curry powder in 1 tsp olive oil over low flame for 5 minutes, then adding fish sauce and splenda (or sugar, your preference). Add vegetables and cook until they are about halfway done (5-8 minutes more), then turn the flame as low as you can possibly manage, add whatever meat or shrimp you are using, pick up the pan so it cools off somewhat, and pour in coconut milk. Stir like your life depends on it for 10 minutes. Do not pass GO, collect $200, answer the door, or stop to blow your nose.

It worked fabulously! The sauce never boiled or even simmered, but the shrimp (trial 1) and beef (trial 2) were thoroughly cooked. The mixture just steamed the whole time I was stirring it, which is enough I guess to reduce somewhat and cook the protein. I also used two different curry pastes, one was Matsaman curry in a pouch that came from the Asian market, the other was Thai Kitchen red curry paste in a jar. The coconut milk both times was Asian Gourmet Lite Coconut milk, in case anyone out there wants to try with exactly the same ingredients.

So all I can say is for me it worked using the light milk, but I was also prepared to go for the full fat stuff and use less of it, making up the difference in vegetable or chicken broth. I still might try it in the future, who knows, it might be even better. But this stuff was darn good, even after almost a week of Thai food, we’re both still enjoying it immensely.

matsaman curry