Geng Gari Gai

I ate this recently in Busaba Eathai and it was lovely so we thought we’d try making it ourselves. Stephen made the paste on Wednesday night and we cooked it together last night.

This is the recipe from David Thompson’s “Thai Food”:

200g chicken thighs
4 medium potaotes (we used some new potatoes that were lurking in the bottom of the fridge)
4 cups coconut milk (we didn’t use quite that much)
2 cups coconut cream (we didn’t use it because we didn’t have any)
1 tablespoon palm sugar (we used about a teaspoon of golden caster sugar)
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1/2 cup deep fried shallots (we didn’t use them)

Marinade

1 tablespoon chopped ginger
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
pinch of salt
1/2 cup coconut cream (we used coconut milk)

Paste

6-10 dried chillis, soaked and drained (we used seven)
Large pinch of salt
1 tablespoon chopped turmeric
4 tablespoons chopped red shallot
3 tablespoons chopped garlic
1 coriander root (we didn’t have any)
1 teaspoon white peppercorns
1 tablespoon coriander seeds, roasted (we increased this to make up for the lack of coriander root)
A little grated nutmeg

The cooking method was really complicated and there seemed to be gaps in the process and unnecessary steps so we did our own thing.

We started off by simmering the potatoes in some coconut milk before adding the marinated chicken (which had been resting in coconut milk overnight, as per the recipe) and vegetables. We fried off the paste in a separate pan for about five minutes before adding the sugar and fish sauce and cooking for a further minute or so. We then combined the whole lot and cooked it on a high heat for a further five minutes.

It was a great success and it doesn’t really need any refinement which is unusual for the first attempt at a dish. The addition of coconut cream would have made it thicker but it didn’t really need it. I enjoyed it more than the restaurant version actually.