Thai Kitchen Curry Challenge – Review & Giveaway

I’ve always enjoyed making – and eating! – curries, and I recently had the opportunity to participate in a fun “Curry Challenge” from Thai Kitchen. They heard that I had never made Thai food before, so they mailed me a Curry Challenge cooking kit, full of ingredients and a recipe for Red Curry Chicken that is meant to be as easy as it is good. So how challenging was this Curry Challenge? I’ve documented my whole experience to share with you – and Thai Kitchen would also like to give two lucky Contest Corner readers a Thai Kitchen Cookbook, so read on!

Last night marked the beginning of my foray into Thai cooking. I’ve always enjoyed eating at Thai restaurants, but hadn’t prepared Thai food myself, so I was excited to try this. All of the ingredients I used are pictured above, so it was pretty straightforward. Usually when I make curry, it involves a lot of potato peeling, carrot chopping, onion dicing and so forth, so I liked the simplicity of the ingredients.

This is the recipe that was included in my kit:

Red Curry Chicken

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes

1 can (14 ounces) Thai Kitchen Coconut Milk, divided
2 tablespoons Thai Kitchen Red Curry Paste
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast
1/4 cup chopped fresh Thai basil
2 tablespoons Thai Kitchen Premium Fish Sauce

1. Bring 1/2 of the coconut milk to simmer in large skillet on medium heat. Stir in curry paste until well blended. Add remaining coconut milk and sugar; bring to boil. Reduce heat to low; simmer 5 minutes.
2. Stir in chicken. Cook 3 to 5 minutes or until chicken is heated through. Stir in basil and fish sauce.
3. Serve with cooked Thai Kitchen Jasmine Rice. Garnish with additional basil and red chile slices, if desired. Makes 4 servings.

I started off by preparing the chicken breasts. I cooked them on a pan coated in coconut oil, since I thought that would compliment the other coconut flavorings in the dish.

As the chicken cooked, I chopped the basil. The recipe called for Thai basil, which I couldn’t find at my supermarket; so I substituted it for regular basil, which seemed to work just fine.

After the chicken was cooked, I chopped it into small pieces. The recipe didn’t mention if the chicken should be diced or not, but I decided it would be better that way.

The package of chicken was over 2 pounds, so I measured out 1 pound for the recipe and stuck the rest in a ziploc bag. During the coming week, I’ll toss the cooked chicken into tortillas with avocado and cheese for a yummy quesadilla, and mix it up with mayo and a hardboiled egg as a topping for salads and sandwiches. I love cooking up a big batch of food on the weekend – it makes the workweek so much easier!

As I chopped up the chicken, I also started the water boiling for the rice and began simmering the coconut milk.

I didn’t have a big enough skillet, so I used a stockpot instead!

I wasn’t sure about the best way to coordinate the cooking time of the rice and curry – when I’m making dinner, I find the timing to be the most challenging aspect – so I started boiling the water at the same time that I began simmering the coconut milk. This worked out perfectly; all the food was ready to serve at the same time.

Dinner time!

Everything turned out perfectly – the curry was really good and got rave reviews from Jai. A word of warning to the meek: this curry does pack a spicy punch, so if you have mild-mannered taste buds like me, you might want to add less curry paste. I had to be careful not to get too much of the curry sauce on my plate, since it was so hot; Jai, on the other hand, enjoyed the spiciness.

I really enjoyed making this, and I would make it again. Realistically, this takes longer than 35 minutes to make, and there was a fair bit to keep track of as I simmered the curry and prepared the rice; but it was really nice to have most of the ingredients pre-prepared, and not spend an hour peeling potatoes. I thought this was a straightforward, yummy recipe, and I had fun making it – not too bad for my first time making Thai food!

Win it!

Did this recipe pique your interest in trying Thai cooking for yourself? Two lucky Contest Corner readers will win a Thai Kitchen Cookbook! Here’s how to enter:

1. For your first entry, check out Thai Kitchen’s Real Asian Made Simple. Then come back here and leave a comment telling me what recipe you’d like to try!

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