I've been having lots of greens lately

Yea I'm on a green roll - green curry after my avocado pesto recipe hehe.

My green curry consists of blending fresh parsley with onion, garlic and ginger into a green pungent paste before cooking. I didn't want to use green chilies because I have a guy here who can't really take too much heat *snorts* :P

I have to say that this green curry was inspired by the green curry I had at this excellent Thai restaurant called ChuChai, in Montreal. Eating at Chuchai's is like eating art. Chef Lily has research Thai food artistry from Thailand, Taiwan, Hong Kong and San Francisco and is definitely someone who knows how to present her native cuisine with flair and with flavor. I will be posting about my experience there shortly.

I think I forgot to mention that ChuChai serves vegetarian/vegan food only... :) Although many meat eaters are going to go 'Eww....vegetarian food', let me just say that you won't miss meat eating here..;)

Anyway, my green curry was inspired by Chef Lily's Thai green curry "chicken". The aroma and flavors are just.....Beautiful. It's perhaps the best tasting green curry I had in a while, better than Yellow Light in Penang circa 1997-98, Malaysia ( I know Yellow Light doesn't serve quality as it did before these days for some reason :/ ). Using my taste buds and intuition, I created an almost similar green curry. Not exactly the same but my partner said it was very close :)

Let me share the recipe with you:

Thai Green Curry (add chicken or whatever meat you desire)

Green curry paste:
2 large green onion
4 garlic cloves
1 inch knob of ginger
1 large bunch of green parsley (about 3 cups worth)
100-150ml water

The rest of the ingredients:
3 tablespoons oil
3 cloves
4 cardamom
1 star of anise
1 stick cinnamon
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 stalk of thai basil leaves
1 stalk of lemongrass, chopped
1 cup of coconut milk
half a red pepper, sliced
1 medium sized potato, cut into chunks
a handful of long beans, cut into 1.5 inch length
1 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
1 teaspoon sugar (or to taste)
* it should be balanced, so add 1:1 for salt and sugar.

Kaffir lime leaves, sliced thinly

500 grams chicken thighs/breast, cut into 1/2 inch slices (you can use mock meat too)

Method:
1. Grind the green curry paste ingredients until fine. Set aside until read to use.
2. Heat pan with oil under medium heat. Once heated, saute cardamom, clove, anise and cinnamon to flavor oil for about 2 minutes.
3. Add your green curry paste and turmeric powder in and saute further for another 5-10 minutes or until the paste is fried well or until you see oil surfacing around the corner. You can now pour your coconut milk in.
4. Let the mixture come to a simmer and with a slated spoon, scoop the cinnamon, cloves, cardamom and anise out. It's done its job, so you can throw it away.
5. While the coconut mixture comes to a boil, add your thai basil leaves and lemongrass in with your chicken pieces and vegetables. Let it come to a boil and then turn down the heat to low and let the green curry simmer for about 15-20 minutes. On the last 5 minutes, add your kaffir lime leaves in.

Serve with white rice :)

P.S. I used vegetarian "chicken" for this recipe. Betcha thought it was REAL chicken, didn'tcha? :P