Thai Green Chicken, A Rant Against Supermarket Chicken And Decent (And Not So Decent) Blades

Keith’s Far Flung Floyd also provided tonight’s supper– eaten while watching the mighty Reading get their first away win of the season against the other Premship newbies Sheffield Utd . It was a ‘simple’ green chicken curry – which is simple once you’ve amassed all the gubbins and blended the paste in a basic liquidiser (usual suspects- lemon grass, onion, coriander leaf , garlic, ginger, green chilli but also a bit of ground cumin and, according to Keith, shrimp paste). Thing is, despite loving Thai and Asian cooking, me and the shrimp paste I bought from the excellent Wing Yip don’t get on, so I substituted shrimp paste with a bit of fish sauce . Anyway, I have come to conclusion that a) supermarket chicken breast portions are, frankly, insipid b) thighs and drumsticks are far more interesting and c) free range/organic portions taste better but costs a bloomin’ fortune when bought individually. So, my solution, armed with a new solid wood chopping board from those good people at Debenhams and a chef’s meat cleaver bought from a great shop in Manchester’s china town (£9.00 for the steel, £10 for the chopping board), is to buy a free range whole chicken from M&S for around £7.00 (it’s not just food you know…. Well, ok it is but isn’t it amazing how a million pound ad budget can seep into your psyche?) and then take a crash course in basic butchery. After ‘careful’ cutting had descended into brutal hacking, the overall result was two decent sized breast portions and about 500g of chicken ‘bits’ acquired from various joints. The bones, skin and remaining carcass (raw) went into a large pan to make a ‘white’ stock (with celery, leek, tomato, peppercorns, bay, onion, cloves and a bit of fresh parsley – brought to boil then simmered for about 2 hours – then strain, put in the fridge, freeze or whatever ), with the carved breasts and half the chicken debris hitting the freezer in plastic food bags. The other 250g of chicken was cut small, briefly browned in nut oil before the green curry paste, some chillies, fish sauce, brown sugar, 25mil of coconut milk and basil leaves were added – and after about 7 minutes of glasses fogging steam and stirring it was ready. Plain basmati rice was on the go as well, and it all came together just in time for the MOTD opening titles. Having, in a very Likely Lads way, tried to avoid hearing the football scores all day (including undertaking a potentially life threatening sprint across the lounge to grab the remote just after the BBC1 Saturday night news anchor said “and now…sport”) is was fantastic to tuck into a decent chicken Thai curry with a big glass of Cotes Du Rhone Villages and see the Mighty Royals win. And to all you Blades – it should have been 3.