Pineapple Coconut Chicken Curry
Jan 06
Pineapple Coconut Chicken Curry is one of my new favorite dishes, and I made it sans recipe! That’s impressive because I’ve also never made curry before. So it’s not authentic of anything fancy shmancy, but it has flavor. I can’t wait to experiment with more curries.
Keep in mind that since I didn’t follow a recipe or write down exactly what I did, this may come out slightly differently. So don’t blame me, you were warned. For the record I have made it twice now and it was delicious both times.
A Chocolate Covered To-Do List
Pineapple Coconut Chicken Curry
Serves 3-4
2 cups brown rice
3 cups water
1 pound chicken, cubed and cooked
14 ounce can coconut milk, 1/2 cup reserved (not the light variety, you need the cream)
14 ounce can pineapple chunks
3-5 teaspoons Muchi curry powder (found at PCC or Whole Foods, you could substitute other curry powders/pastes too)
1-2 cups chopped green veggies (I use broccoli and green beans, green peas are also tasty)
1/2 teaspoon salt
Salt and pepper for rice
Red pepper flakes
1. Put rice and water in a pot, bring to a boil and then simmer with a lid on for 20 minutes. Turn the heat off and leaved the lid on for another 10 minutes. You could also use a rice cooker.
2. While the rice is cooking, put cooked chicken, pineapple (juice and all), coconut (cream too), curry powder, and salt in a wok or deep frying pan. The amount of curry powder is flexible, depending on how much spice you want. I reccommend adding at least 3 teaspoons. Let it all simmer for 5 minutes.
3. Add the vegetables and simmer for another 5 minutes. You can also add as much of the red pepper as you would like at this point depending on your taste.
4. At this point I like to add a little cornstarch (2 teaspoons mixed with a little cold water) because I like a little thicker sauce but I don’t like to take the time to reduce it. Just don’t add too much or you won’t have any sauce to seep into the rice.
5. Mix the reserved 1/2 cup coconut into the rice and a little salt and pepper. Serve the curry over the rice.
Other additions: unsweetened coconut flakes and bell peppers added at Step 3.
See? Not too hard. Feel free to tweak the heck out of it, and let me know what changes you make or could suggest. I want to make this a perfect, easy, go-to recipe.
To make this a more frugal recipe, buy coconut milk and curry powder at an Asian grocery. Asian products are really overpriced in most grocery stores.
Go, go, go!
Nicely done! Cooking is one part recipe & 5 parts inspiration, yours is shinning through :)
2 sugestions: try frying the curry powder in a bit of the coconut cream before adding chx & veggies. This will deepen the curry flavor.
A topping of chopped fresh cilantro will make your dish really shine, mayb even some crushed peanuts (be sure to use dry roasted unsalted)
Keep on cookin’!!
Thanks for the suggestions! I even had cilantro in the fridge and some dry peanuts. Ah well, next time. I’m eager to try frying the curry powder with the cream, I’m really looking for that deeper flavor. Thanks again.