One-Pot Thai Chicken Curry

Name: One-Pot Thai Chicken Curry
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 1 h
Total time: 1 h 10 min
Yield: Serves 6 to 8
Cuisine: Thai
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon olive oil; 1 onion, sliced; kosher salt; 8 bone-in, skin on chicken thighs or drumsticks or a combination of both; 2 teaspoons turmeric; 2 teaspoons curry powder; 1 to 3 tablespoons Thai red curry paste (see notes above); 3 to 4 plum tomatoes, chopped; 1 can unsweetened coconut milk; 1 tablespoon fish sauce; 2 teaspoons brown sugar; 1/2 cup cilantro, roughly chopped, or more or less to taste; 3 to 5 ounces spinach, optional; cooked Jasmine or Basmati rice (or any rice you like)

September 22, 2019

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Are you still browning chicken?

When I was first learning to cook, browning meat prior to braising it, is what all of my favorite cookbooks taught. It’s also what I learned from the chef, Thien Ngo, I worked for at Fork. Before Thien braised anything — chicken, brisket, short ribs — he always began by browning the meat first.

But browning, as far as I can tell, serves only one good purpose: to remove excess fat, thereby ensuring the sauce, in the end, won’t taste unpleasantly fatty. For a braise, browning is not a step that produces crispy skin. And while it creates an appealing color and, in turn, flavor, these two outcomes can be achieved without actually going through the tedious process of browning.

How? In the oven.

Two years ago I made Diana Henry’s Moroccan Chicken and Rice with Harissa and Dates, a recipe that calls for essentially chucking everything into a pan at once and throwing it in the oven. There’s no preliminary browning, and it works: the end product being crispy skin and fall-off-the-bone meat.

I’ve stopped browning chicken ever since, and I’ve been revisiting my favorite braises in the meantime, giving them the chuck-in-the-oven treatment. This one-pan chicken with sherry vinegar sauce is a favorite, and here’s another one: one-pan Thai chicken curry with spinach.

It uses all of the same flavorings as Thien’s Thai chicken curry, but the method is different, simpler.

One-Pan Thai Chicken Curry How-To

Sauté an onion.
Add turmeric, curry powder, and Thai red curry paste.
Add tomatoes, coconut milk, brown sugar, fish sauce, and water.
Add chicken, transfer to the oven and cook for 1 hour.
Out of the oven, add a heap of spinach, stir, and serve over rice.

After an hour in the oven, the chicken skins are browned, and the meat has absorbed all the flavors of the sauce. The sauce is plentiful, making rice or some sort of flatbread essential.

A final note regarding not browning: As noted above, browning meat does remove excess fat. If, prior to cooking, you notice your chicken thighs or drumsticks are particularly fatty, trim the excess fat/overhanging skin. This step usually is enough to ensure the final sauce doesn’t taste too fatty, but if, in the end, you still find the sauce tasting too rich, you can skim excess fat, which will pool to the surface.

PS: Curried Lentils with Kale & Coconut Milk

PPS: Chopped Thai Satay Salad with Peanut-Ginger Dressing