Saturday, January 22, 2011

Slow-Cooked Thai Green Curry Chicken

Gourmet Gibbs is BACK! I wish that I could tell you that I’ve been traveling the world, gathering new recipes from near and far, but the truth is I’ve been a big fat lazy slug. However, I’ve still needed to eat, and I still know how to use my camera, and I’m ready to share with you, my dear 27 readers, more recipes of delicious goodness.
Since I’ve been away for such a long time, I thought we should do a recipe that cooks for a long time – SLOW Cooked Chicken. (It’s tasty, and simple, but not really what I was anticipating, I’m just warning you now.)

I had a package of chicken thighs and legs in my freezer (who doesn’t?), and they were begging to be cooked, and I had never cooked such cuts of chicken – so I wanted to experiment. I also had a jar of Trader Joes “Thai Green Curry Simmer Sauce” that I’ve been wanting to try – so I made this up.
Pre-heat your oven to 275 degrees (you want to cook this long and slow – so don’t over heat the oven). You can cook this quicker if need be, but just plan on setting your Dutch oven for a full day slow-low-cook. Chop an onion and some celery
and a couple cloves of garlic.

If your legs and thighs are not already skinless (well – not YOUR legs and thighs, but the chicken’s legs and thighs), then peel off the skin (and discard). In your fabulous Dutch oven (yes, I’ve already told you this is a MUST-HAVE kitchen pot), sauté, in a little butter and olive oil, chopped onions, garlic and celery.

Arrange the skinned chicken legs and thighs on top of the sautéed veggies, and season with salt, pepper, cumin, turmeric, curry – whatever seasonings you want to use.





Next, pour the simmer sauce over the chicken – covering the chicken entirely. Cover with the lid, and put in the oven for 8 hours or so. Go have cocktails and visit with friends and just ignore your Dutch oven.





When you come home – take the Dutch oven out of the cooking oven, remove the lid, let it sit for 10 – 15 minutes, then take a fork and pull the meat away from the bones (just tap your fork against the meat and the bone will fall off – otherwise, you have not followed the cooking instructions!), and remove the bones from the pot.


Moosh the meat around in the sauce, and serve on you favorite serving base – I used noodles, but you could opt for rice, or risotto, or orzo, or toast, or just glob it on tortillas, or send a comment and tell Gourmet Gibbs what you used as your serving base.
Be careful of the kitty that wants to lick the butter used on the noodles!