This dish from southern Thailand uses coconut milk to produce a thick creamy curry. Musaman takes around two hours to cook correctly. There are many curry pastes on the market but Maesri is a consistent tasting brand. Like “stews”, it is ready when the potatoes are soft when prodded with a fork. The quantities in this recipe are for four people and you can keep it gently simmering for quite some time till all the guests arrive. Serve in a large bowl in the center of the table and eat with steamed jasmine rice.
| Ingredients | serves 4 |
| Chicken fillet cubed | 500 gm |
| Musaman curry paste | 60 gm |
| Coconut milk | 600 ml (tinned) |
| Potato (quartered) | 250 gm |
| Onion roughly chopped | 200 gm |
| Roasted peanut | 100 gm |
| Fish sauce | 50 ml |
| Sugar | 4 dspns |
| Tamarind water | 50 ml |
| Oil | 50 ml |
| Water | 200 ml |
| Peanut paste | 1 dspn |
Cooking Method
Cut chicken into 3 cm cubes and stew very gently for one hour. In a big pot fry the curry paste with the oil for two minutes over medium flame. Add onion, stewed chicken, coconut milk, potatoes, peanuts, water and peanut paste. Stir, bring to the boil then cook slowly over a medium heat for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally to stop burning. Now add the fish sauce, tamarind water and sugar and simmer gently over a low heat. Serve with rice.
