Cambodian Chicken Curry with Lemongrass and Coconut Milk

This dish, although it's a curry, is not at all like Thai or Indian curries. It's not hot. It's a little tart and quite enjoyable. 

4 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1  4-inch finger of ginger, roughly chopped
2 large shallots, chopped
The bulb ends of 4 fresh lemongrass stalks, peeled and sliced thinly
1 1/2 Tablespoons rice vinegar
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon freshly grated lime zest
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
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oil
6 boneless chicken breasts or ten thighs
1 cup chicken broth
1 cup coconut milk
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 teaspoon packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon lime juice

Hot rice for serving
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Combine the ingredients from the top part of the list in your food processor. The original recipe says you can do it the traditional way with mortar and pestle... Not me, not in this life!! Holy Cow! It took me a good ten minutes of pureeing this into a paste in the food processor. By hand it might take one whole day! 

Run the processor intermittently scraping down the solids and running it again, until it's almost like a paste. It will look fibrous, that's okay. You just don't want it to look chunky. 

Heat oil in skillet until hot, then add spice mixture. Cook, stirring about a minute or two until the aroma is noticeable. 

Add the chicken, cook, turning often until lightly browned. This might take 5 minutes or so, depending on the size of your skillet and how you rotate everything to brown. 

Stir in broth and the rest of the ingredients (except lime juice), scraping up any browned bits in the pan into the sauce. Bring to a simmer, cover and cook for ten minutes over low heat. 

Just before serving, stir in the lime juice. 

Serve immediately over hot rice. Jasmine Rice is suggested, since it goes with the Cambodian theme, but regular white rice will be good. 

   

Gather all your ingredients.

Grate the zest off your fresh lime.

Put all the spice ingredients into the food processor. I should have cut them a bit smaller. It took WAY too long to pulverize everything.

OK, after about week (just kidding)... it's a pasty consistency.

Add spice to hot oil in skillet.

Cook stirring till it's heated well and smells divine.

Add your chicken. I prefer to cut mine up. You could leave the pieces whole, but boneless.

Stir until chicken is all cooked and browned a bit. It won't get crispy, don't look for THAT browned.

Add broth...

Coconut milk...

Fish sauce and Spices...

Add everything but the lime juice.

Stir it up nicely.

And cover to simmer about ten minutes.

After simmering, add the lime juice. Stir it in and serve right away.

Doesn't that look delicious? It really is!!

A nice salad on the side completes the meal.