One exception is Thai food: despite the gloriously saucy nature of a green curry, there is something inherently summery about the combination of lime juice, coconut milk, and fresh herbs, which means you COULD eat it while sitting in front of a log fire in the middle of a snowstorm, but you WOULD also happily dig in during a mid-July heatwave, especially if you just happened to have a nice chilled sauvignon blanc or a crisp IPA just lying around waiting for an excuse to be consumed.
This recipe comes from an old and dog-eared issue of the British magazine Good Food (October 2002, no less), which I recently dug into. I was in the middle of a once-per-millenium purge, and went through all my old cooking magazines, clipping all the recipes I had never tried but might one day want to, and then organized them by category into a folder. I know, I now seem like one of those weird, and simultaneously annoying, organized people who sort their closet by color and keep their CDs in alphabetical order. I am not, and never will be. Although I confess, I get so much pleasure out of my new recipe folder, that I can see the attraction. Unfortunately however, there are apparently only 24 hours in a day, and we are supposed to sleep for at least some of them. And besides, if I were one of those weird organized people, I would rob my children of the job of having to sift through decades of worthless 'stuff' after my demise, whilst sighing at each other and cursing their mother's hoarding tendencies. Seems to me, that is a rite of passage, of which I would be wrong to rob the little darlings.
Still, at least my brief foray into the land of methodical storage and purging of rubbish has allowed me to discover recipes such as this one. I had to tweak it a little - the idea of fish sauce scares me, I admit. It is like chicken and chicken nuggets - just what bits of the fish do they stuff in there?! So I replaced the fish sauce in the original with soy sauce. If you are fishy, as well as saucy, then you can of course substitute the same quantity of fish sauce in the ingredients list below. I also clearly do not qualify as a true Thai aficionado, since I do not own any Kaffir lime leaves, and would not know where to purchase them. To give a bit of lime zing to the sauce, I therefore used lime zest. If you want to be faithful to the original, substitute 6 kaffir lime leaves for the lime zest listed below. And I added some green beans, partly because otherwise they were going to decay at the bottom of my fridge, and partly because I at least strive to be a nutritionally-responsible parent, and a one-dish meal ought to have some vegetables in it!
Chicken with Lemongrass and Coconut
Serves 4
2 x 400ml cans coconut milk
2 TBSP soy sauce
3 cm (1.5") piece of ginger, finely chopped/grated
2 lemongrass stalks, finely sliced OR 2-3 TBSP lemongrass paste if you can't find fresh
1 TBSP fresh lime zest
1/2-1 fresh red chili, finely chopped
2 tsp light muscovado/light brown sugar
500g/1lb 2oz boneless, skinless chicken breast, cubed
10 oz fresh green beans, chopped into 1" lengths
2 TBSP fresh lime juice
good handful of fresh basil and cilantro/coriander, roughly chopped
jasmine rice to serve
1. Tip coconut milk, soy sauce, ginger, lemongrass, lime zest, chili and sugar into a large saucepan and bring to a gentle simmer. Cook uncovered at a relaxed bubble for 5 minutes.
2. Add chicken and green beans, cover and simmer for 15 minutes, until chicken is tender.
3. Stir in the lime juice, then scatter over the herbs before serving over rice in bowls.
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