Thai Peanut Chicken Curry

There are few things I love more than peanut sauce. Seriously. It goes great on pretty much everything -- noodles, rice, chicken, shrimp, veggies, etc! Up until now, I'd been relying on the peanut sauce in a bottle from the store.  Sure, it's easy and convenient, but it's also not the same as a truly fresh.

I was really intrigued when I came across this recipe at Closet Cooking for Thai Peanut Chicken Noodle Soup, and it had been in my list to try for a while. I shared it with Dave, and while he's not a huge fan of soups, he does love curries.  So with a little tweaking, we were ready to experiment with this dish and turn it into something of our own.

We have a winner! It turned out so tasty and delicious, definitely a success.  The best part was I was able to make it completely gluten free! I'm experimenting with eliminating gluten from my diet (more on that later), and this was really easy to adapt. We substituted noodles for a bed of rice, and switched out soy sauce for gluten-free soy sauce. Who knew there was wheat in normal soy sauce?! We also sped up the cooking time by buying a pre-sliced mushrooms and pre-roasted chicken at the store, shredding the breast meat, and adding it at the end.

Thai Peanut Chicken Curry

(Adapted from Closet Cooking: Thai Peanut Chicken Noodle Soup)

Ingredients:

2 tbs olive oil

1/4 c. red curry paste

1 (14oz) can light coconut milk

2 c. chicken broth 

1 c. sweet potato, butternut squash, or yams, peeled and diced

1/3 c. peanut butter

1/4 c. lime juice

2 tbs gluten-free soy sauce

2 tbs brown sugar

1/2 tsp turmeric

1 pkg pre-sliced brown mushrooms

1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced

1 rotisserie chicken, breast meat shredded

2 c. brown basmati rice (prepared in rice cooker)

Garnish

1/4 c. chopped peanuts

2 green onions, sliced

2 c. bean sprouts (optional)

1/4 c. cilantro, chopped (optional)

lime wedge (optional)

1) In a large pot, heat the red curry paste with olive oil over medium high heat until fragrant, about 1-2 mins.  Be careful, it will start to splatter.

2) Add the coconut milk, chicken broth, butternut squash, peanut butter, lime juice, soy sauce, brown sugar and turmeric to the pot. Bring the contents to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.

3) When the butternut squash is tender to be pierced by a fork (about 10-15 mins depending on the size), add the sliced mushrooms to the pot.

5) Once the squash is completely cooked, add the sliced bell pepper.

4) Continue simmering until mixture has reduced and thickened to your preference.

5) Turn the heat to low and mix in the shredded chicken meat. Once the meat is hot, the dish is ready to serve!

6) Serve over a bed of brown basmati rice and garnish with green onions and chopped peanuts.



A few notes from the first time making this -- we only used 1 c. of chicken broth and let it reduce a bit too much so we weren't left with as much liquid at the end as I would of liked. As a result, we didn't add all of the chicken meat that we shredded.  I will definitely increase the amount of chicken broth next time.  The dish also had a really nice creamy flavor, but not as much heat as Dave would of liked. Next time I'll experiment with adding some sliced red chiles to the pot and have some for garnish as well.

Now we get to battle out who gets the left-over serving for lunch today! :)  Enjoy!