Vietnamese Curry (Ca Ri Ga)

Ca ri is the Vietnamese word for cu-rry. Ga is chicken. Easy to remember right?

Ingredients:

• 1 whole chicken cut up into parts and pieces
• Lots of minced garlic
• Minced lemongrass and whole bruised lemongrass stalks
• 1 diced onion
• Sliced shallots (2)
• Peeled potatoes cut into thirds or quarters(we like the yellow ones)
• Peeled carrots cut into 1.5 – 2 inch segments
• Fish sauce
• Black pepper
• Salt
• Sugar
• Paprika
• Tumeric
• Mushroom seasoning or chicken bouillon
• Ca Ri An Do seasoning packet from your local Asian ingredient dealer
• 1 can of coconut water or coconut RICO (coconut soda)
• 1 carton of chicken stock
• 3 cans of coconut milk or coconut cream

Steps:

1. Marinate your chopped up whole chicken (you can do this ahead for a few hours or overnight):
   • 3 tbs oil
   • 1/4 cup fish sauce
   • 1 tbs salt
   • 2 tbs sugar
   • 2 tsp black pepper
   • 1 tbs paprika
   • 3/4 of the bag of your ‘ca ri an do’ or ~ 1/4 cup (no worries, there shouldn’t be salt in this)
   • 2 tbs tumeric
   • handful of minced garlic
   • diced whole onion
   • minced lemongrass (optional)
2. Heat up some oil in your stockpot/dutch oven and saute some sliced shallots. After about 2 minutes of sweating add minced garlic.
3. Before your garlic turns golden brown, add all your chicken and saute until you have some nice brown carmalized bits on the bottom of the pot.
4. Add your coconut water/coconut soda and using a spatula help lift up some of those carmalized bits and stir the chicken around.
5. Add your bruised lemongrass stocks, your chicken stock, and 3 cans of coconut milk or cream, and an additional 2-3 cans of water.
6. When this almost comes to a boil, drop in your potatoes. After 10 minutes, add your carrots.
7. Season to taste!

If it’s just hubby, kiddo, and I eating this, I actually remove the chicken from the pot when its cooked to my liking, cool it down, and store it in the fridge. Some people like their chicken to be really desecrated and soft, but I like mine just cooked haha. Every time we eat curry, we just take some pieces of chicken and heat it up with the potatoes and carrots :).

This Vietnamese curry goes best with Vietnamese banh mi. Vietnamese banh mi is french influenced from when they came over to Vietnam way back then. The outside is super crusty crunchy, and the inside is light and fluffy. Soaking this bread in this curry is one of my favorite childhood memories. So delicious!

Ooh, and my southern Vietnamese born husband likes this with a side of sea salt smashed with thai chilis.

Bon Appetite Homies!