I’ve made this with beef and it was good, but not as good as chicken or the vegan version. I mean to try a pork version sometime soon. The base recipe has peanut butter, but I have notes for a peanut-free version.
Chicken or Vegan Massaman Curry
Base Vegetables and Seasonings (common to both recipes)
- A 15oz can of diced or crushed tomatoes
- 1 Tbsp tamari (or soy sauce)
- 1½ Tbsp packed brown sugar
- 1 can coconut milk*, divided
- 1 lb carrot, peeled and coarsely diced
- 1 lb red potatoes, coarsely diced
- 1 stalk lemon grass [If you can’t get this, it’s not critical]
Chicken Ingredients
- 4 lb chicken thighs or leq quarters, skinned and coarsely diced.
- 1 can (~16 oz) low-sodium chicken broth
- 2 tbsp fish sauce
Vegan ingredients
- 1 lb butternut or acorn squash flesh
- 1 can chickpeas (garbanzo)
- 1 can vegetable stock
- 4 Tbsp Ocean’s Halo seaweed based vegan “fish” sauce
- 2 lb cauliflower, cut into florets [reserved]
Aromatics
- 1½ Tbsp coconut oil [or other vegetable oil]
- 1 lb onion, finely chopped
- salt and pepper
- ½ Tbsp minced garlic (3 cloves)
- 11½ Tbsp finely grated ginger
- 2 tsp red curry paste (or green curry paste for milder palates)
Added an hour from serving
- 1 red (or yellow or orange) bell pepper, vanes and seeds removed, cut into pieces about 1/2" across.
Added ten minutes from serving
- 1 cup crunchy peanut butter [see instructions for to substitute with chickpeas/garbanzos]
- Reserved coconut milk
- 3 Tbsp Sriracha
- Salt and pepper to taste
Serve with
- 2 lb Jasmine rice, cooked (start when adding the pepper)
- 2 bunches cilantro, chopped
- Sriracha
Directions
- Reserving half of the coconut milk and all of the cauliflower if vegan, put the base vegetables and seasonings and the chicken or vegan ingredients into a crock pot or stove top pot of at least 7qt capacity per recipe and put on high heat.
- Heat the coconut oil in a skillet over medium high heat. Add the onion, and season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally until slightly softened, about 6 minutes. Add the remaining aromatics and cook stirring constantly until fragrant, about 60-120 seconds. Add to the stew ingredients and stir in. Reduce heat to a simmer. This will hake anywhere from 2 to 5 hours depending on how heavy a simmer you set. The longest will likely be the potatoes or chicken; these should be nearly cooked before adding the peppers.
- If doing the vegan version, when the potatoes are about half done, add the cauliflower and stir in.
- Add the bell peppers and stir in when the potatoes are an hour from being properly cooked. At this point start prepping the rice and cilantro.
- About ten minutes from serving, remove the lemon grass. Combine the reserved coconut milk, peanut butter, and sriracha and heat until warmed through mix into the stew thoroughy, and heat ten more minutes. Salt and pepper to taste. For peanut allergies, replace 1 cup of peanut butter with half a can of chickpeas (garbanzos) blended to a paste.
- Yield: 12 regular servings, probably 8 for FRC.
Serve
Serve the curry over Jasmine rice, and sprinkle with cilantro. Serve with Sriracha for those who want a spicier experience.
Note
- Shake the coconut milk thoroughly before opening because the solids settle in storage.
Tonight after work: the simple and secret truths about jambalaya. Clickbait, guilty. Truth, Forsooth.
Jambalaya
The simple truth about jambalaya is that it’s really just gumbo with the rice cooked in, served more as a pilaf than a soup, often with the roux left out. Some people make their jambalaya and gumbo differently, but in my experience, good jambalaya would make gumbo with more water and the rice separate, and good gumbo with less water and the rice cooked in will make good jambalaya. The bottom line is you want a bit more than twice the free liquid than you add rice, by volume, and stir frequently to prevent sticking and burning.
Anyway, here’s my “No Cook Friday” Jambalaya, which makes 72+ generous church fundraiser size servings, perhaps 50 during build season when supplemented with some french bread and a green salad. I broke this up into three nights of prep (2 hrs each) and one morning or afternoon of cooking (4 hours) Of course, smaller batches can use smaller cookware; I trust that CD readers cam divide or multiply a recipe. This recipe is definitely more involved than my family sized gumbo recipe from 2020/2021 because I wanted to go over the top with it.
Ingredients
- 6 lb yellow (or white) onions
- 6 large bell peppers
- 1 stalk celery (a bunch, not a rib!)
- 15 lb whole chicken thighs (with skin and bone)
- About 6 large to 10 small bay leaves
- 10 lb firm, preferably smoked sausage
- ½ cup canola or other vegetable oil
- smoked meat stock (or pork or poultry stock with liquid smoke?)
- 1 cup minced garlic
- 1½ cups Herbes de Provence
- Water (amount TBD)
- Salt to taste
- 8 lb long grain white rice
Special/unusual equipment
- A 12+ qt stockpot (You can skip this if you have a LOT of room in your refrigerator)./
- A 30+ qt stockpot
- A jambalaya paddle or other large sturdy spoon able to stir that large stockpot full of rice and other goodies.
Night 1 Directions
- Chop the trinity (onion, celery, bell pepper), not particularly fine nor coarse, maybe ½" pieces. Mix and store in a 2 or 2½ gallon zipper food storage bag; refrigerate. [I use knife and board; you can cut the time way back with a food processor with a coarse shredder blade.]
Night 2 directions
- Skin the chicken thighs.
- Put the skins in a cast iron dutch oven or large skillet and put on medium high heat.
- Put the meat & bone in a 12+ qt stock pot, add the bay leaves, and cover with water, and put on high heat.
- Slice or dice the sausage, ¼" slices or ¾" dices. Store in another large zipper bag in the refrigerator.
- Render the skins until they’re rather crispy. Feel free to serve the cracklins at home with a bit of salt. [Hot fresh cooked cracklins leave the stuff you can buy speechless, pwned, and generally humiliated.) Reserve the fat and oill for night 3.
- Slightly undercook the chicken; we’ll finish later. Remove the bay leaves, Allow to cool a bit, and refrigerate in the stock pot (you’ll use it again tomorrow). [If you want some of your team to feel special like Andy Baker, keep the bay eaves in. I’ll try to find that video.]
Night 3 Directions
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Skim the fat from the smalls stock pot with the chicken and add to that rendered from the skins.
-
Heat the small stock pot to warm, enough to liquefy the stock/broth, but not too hot to handle, perhaps 100°F to 110°F and remove from heat.
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Put the big stock pot on the stove (2 burners if that works out), add the canola oil, and get it hot enough for pan frying.
-
Add the sausage.
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While remember to stir the sausage every 3 to 5 minutes, scoop the chicken thighs out of the small stock pot, separate the meat from the bones, discard the bones, and chop the meat into pieces about the same size as the sausage.
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When the sausage is cooked or mostly cooked, scoop it out of the stock pot into a large bowl, perhaps the same one with the chicken; they’ll go back in together.
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Add the chicken fat (both skins and meat) to the stock pot with the oil the sausage cooked in [this is key for flavor!] and set to medium high heat.
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When the oil/fat is hot, add the trinity (onion, celery, bell pepper), garlic, and herbs. Cook, stirring regularly, until the volume is halved.
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Add the chicken and sausage to the large stock pot.
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Key step: Measure or at least estimate the volume of stock/broth in the small pot, and the smoked meat stock. Measuring as you go, add enough water to cover everything. Bring to a boil cook at a high simmer, stirring regularly but covered in between, for about 30 minutes.
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If day 3 and 4 are separated, allow mixture to cool to a fever, and refrigerate. Start day 5 by bringing the contents back to a boil over high heat.
Day 4 Instructions
- Add water so that the total liquid is 36 cups (4½ gallons). You HAVE been keeping track, right?
- Add salt to taste, a bit salty because we will be adding rice later.
- Bring to a boil, then add the rice. Stir regularly with a paddle or large sturdy spoon. Or a small skillet it that’s all you can find to do the job.
- As the rice approaches being cooked (likely 15 -18 minutes), add water if needed to keep the jambalaya moist, probably about 2 quarts, but it could be more or less. When the rice is cooked, remove from heat.
- If you are ready to serve, proceed! If not, a covered roasting pan or chafing disk is great for keeping it warm without overcooking.
Weird International Jamabalaya Story
My father’s family never made jambalaya, so I learned about it in my teens. I didn’t make it myself until I’d been cooking gumbo for a decade or two. But I have a great international jambalaya story from long before I ever cooked any. My US NAVY job sent Kevin and me (both from southeast Louisiana) [and two others] to Toulon France ca 1993 for two weeks on a scientific military data exchange. Most days, we ate in the base cafeteria, and the food was great and the coffee even better. On the first Friday, Jean Michel offered to take us into town, to a homey lunch place. Kevin and I were all in, Chris and Gerald opted out; their loss. We were seated outside the restaurant with a panoramic view of the Gulf of Lyon. The chalkboard board of fare caught both Kevin’s and my eyes; the special of the day was Poisson Roti. Neither of us had studied French growing up, and were a generation too young to learn Cajun French due to a state ban of it in schools, but from growing up in Southeast Louisiana at the time and having good memories, we both recognized that the name meant “Fish Rice”. That made all kinds of sense to us as food, so we asked Jean Michel about it. His description sounded good, but it was clear he couldn’t find the right word. When it came, and we’d each taken a bite, Kevin and I said practically it unison “It’s seafood jambalaya”. It turns out that Don E had made jambalaya on an oceanographic trip he’d done on a French Ship. And Jean Michelle had been on the trip. And I was at the time commuting to work when at home with Don E. It was beyond any doubt that that trip, between Ratatouille and Poisson Roti, that Herbes de Provence entered by culinary lexicon, and why it’s in my gumbo and jambalaya, and a bunch more dishes besides.
