Thai Chicken Curry

Okay -- so I'm going to give you the recipe as published on www.thaitable.com, and then I'll explain what I did differently, which was quite a bit. If you ever make this, you can decide what changes you want to make.

Ingredients:
1 chicken breast
1 cup coconut milk
1 tablespoon red curry paste
1/2 lb eggplant
2 tablespoons fish sauce
3 cups water
4-5 kaffir lime leaves
3-5 sprigs Thai basil

Directions:
Cut eggplant into bite-size pieces. Wash basil leaves. Cut uncooked chicken into bite-size pieces.

Pour half of the coconut milk into large pot over low to medium-low heat. Add curry paste. Break up paste and mix with coconut milk, stirring constantly. Low heat if there is too much splattering. Add uncooked chicken and coat with curry sauce. Add eggplant when chicken starts to turn white. Add rest of coconut milk, water, and fish sauce. Let it boil until eggplant pieces turn dark and tender. Pull center stem off of lime leaves and add them to curry. Add basil leaves just before you serve and make sure leaves are submerged quickly to preserve the color.

Serve hot with rice or rice noodles.

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So here's what I did differently.

1. Ingredient changes: the grocery store didn't have eggplant, so I used bell pepper and mushroom. I didn't use lime leaves, although I did buy a regular lime and and squeezed some of the lime juice into the pot. I also used regular basil.

2. I cooked the pre-cooked the chicken. The thought of all the ingredients stewing together with the raw chicken kind of grossed me out. With that said, I don't think the cooked chicken absorbed the flavor of the curry as well as raw chicken would have. Your call.

3. I added a lot less water -- maybe only 1-2 cups. I would add water cautiously, adding less at first and then more if you want the curry thinner.

4. I added some sugar because I'm used to thai curry being sweet.

To be clear, this recipe is not quite as good as restaurant curry, but it's an easy and good alternative to make at home!