Fragrant and rich chicken curry.

Serves 4. You'd think it takes work, but in practice it's fairly parallelizable.

Ingredients

• Stew

  • 500g potatoes, cut into chunks (if possible, new potatoes, and leave the skin on)
  • 250g green beans, trimmed and halved
  • 4-5 cloves garlic, chopped
  • 2 red chillies, chopped
  • 4-8 tsp Thai green curry paste
  • 400ml can coconut milk
  • 2 tsp Thai fish sauce
  • 1 tsp brown sugar
  • 500g boneless skinless chicken (breast/thigh), cut into bite-sized pieces
  • zest of 1 lime, grated
  • handful of basil leaves
  • sunflower oil
  • rice to serve

• Other

  • wok or large frying pan, with cover

Method

• Put potatoes in a pan of boiling water and cook for 5 minutes. Throw in the beans and cook for a further 3 minutes. At this time, both should be tender but not too soft. Drain and put to one side.
• Heat oil in a wok until very hot, and drop in the garlic and "cook" until golden. Here "cooking" means they'll burn to cinders in seconds, so better be quick. Stir in the curry paste and stir it around for a few more seconds, then pour in the coconut milk and let it come to a bubble.
• Stir in the fish sauce and sugar, half of the chopped chillies, then the chicken. Turn the heat down to a simmer and cook covered for about 8 minutes (or until the chicken is cooked).
• Add the potatoes and beans and let them warm through, then add the grated lime zest.
• Finally, add the basil leaves and stir once, then serve on rice. Garnish with the remaining chillies.

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