whoyoucallingmf: Lol it shows the curry paste at the beginning of the gif. This was made to promote that paste.
MyGFisAButt: Oh, normally I defend the recipes on here for people being way too judgmental, but oh boy. I’m preparing for this one.
jackwanders: Nice try, marketing department for whatever company makes that curry paste…
GWHITJR3: Is that pre-made Thai curry paste/sauce…?
small_root: Howtodrawanowl.jpg
rigby86: Lol. No.
krys2015: So simmered those potatoes for 10 maybe 15 mins… yea those are either precooked or raw…
Gunkspargle: This reminds me of the time my FIL gave my husband a chili recipe that was specifically described as “from scratch”. Halfway down the list of ingredients was a can of chili.
Roughly126Badgers: How in the world are those potatoes supposed to be anywhere near cooked? Also, why is this a commercial for curry paste?
Brouw3r: Recipe: follow instructions on packet
StainedBedsheet: I saw the salt and pepper with no follow-up and decided to keep watching out of curiosity. I was not expecting the massive uppercut that was the reveal of that paste
WeDriftEternal: What Thai curry paste is that? I’ve never seen one come out that color, looks more like Japanese curry blocks… actually I suspect this is japanese curry blocks and they just got it wrong on the video as this is served Japanese style anyways
sistadmin: I use coconut milk, yellow curry powder and golden raisins (or a drizzle of honey) instead of water and paste, usually. I am a fan of those little green or red Thai curry jars though.
Haagen76: Besides this being and advertisement…
At the beginning there’s too much chicken in that pot (pot is another problem) at once. As a result you wind up boiling instead of sauteing.
Rovden: I mean all the griping about the curry paste, just gonna say there was a time where college me who said he didn’t know how to cook would be ran off from even that. Especially in how a few of the good ones have little English on them.
I mean hell, I have tried to do curry powder and can never get the right consistency I get out of the pastes.
I get if the site is filled with nothing but premade stuff it’s annoying but sometimes the newbies just need to see how it looks on the simple front.
PEbeling: So you cook chicken in carrots and pineapple and then add curry paste and peas?
Not really a recipe.
thekaz: Hey, I get it, some people might be just starting to learn how to cook. I also get that, as a novice cook, someone might be intimidated by making their own curry blend. For that reason, I understand why someone would use store bought curry paste.
My problem with this recipe is the complete lack of thought put into the rest of the recipe, and that the gif shows a lot of bad habits that would be bad for novice cooks. With a little more thought and effort put in, this could have been a lot better. Let’s start at the top.
Starting with the choice of the type of chicken. I understand that some people like light meat, and other people like dark meat. If you don’t have a preference, then I would recommend dark meat. Dark meat is not only more flavorful, it also contains more fat and connective tissue. That connective tissue breaks down and adds body to things like soups, stews, and you guessed it, curries. The extra fat helps protect the meat from drying out when overcooking. This means that (up to a point) dark meat gets better when cooked longer, making it more tolerant. White meat, on the other hand, has a tendency to get stringy and dry fairly quickly when overcooked.
The gif only browns one side of the chicken. The biggest benefit of cooking the chicken before everything else is to produce colors and flavors via the maillard reaction, which is what makes the tasty brown parts of the meat. I would brown both sides of the meat before taking it out of the pot.
Next, the veggies. They dump all the veggies in the pot all at once. This would work if the pot were big enough and all the vegetables benefit from a quick saute. Spoiler alert, neither of these are true. The pot is way too small to saute everything all at once and the potatoes and carrots don’t really benefit from a quick saute.
I would do the onions first, just until they turn translucent. This causes them to sweeten slightly, and it removes the raw onion flavor from them. Boiling them straight away, like in the gif, achieves neither of these. The carrots, if cut differently, would benefit from a saute, but since we’re making a curry, the large chunks are fine and do not benefit from a saute. The potatoes wouldn’t benefit from a saute no matter how you slice it, so they should go in later, with the carrots.
Once the onions are translucent, I would add a the paste. This is a pretty big departure from the gif, but there’s a good reason for this. Curry spices taste better if they’re slightly cooked, especially in a little bit of oil. This only adds a minute or two to the whole process, but can transform your dish from tasting like a bland store-bought meal to a home cooked meal made with thought and care. Make sure to stir the paste continually to prevent burning.
Once you can smell the curry spices, we add broth. For this, I think chicken broth would go nicely. Note that we add the broth before adding the potatoes and the carrots. We prefer broth over water since water adds no flavor. I would definitely go with low sodium broth, since we don’t know how salty the curry paste is, and it’s easier to add salt than to remove it.
To help ensure that the curry paste doesn’t clump up, it might be wise to add the broth in two installments. First add a little broth to the pan and focus on thinning out the curry paste. Once it’s smooth, you’re free to add the rest.
The gif skips a step in the process – deglazing the pan. You’ll notice that, after they take the chicken out, there’s a bunch of brown stuff stuck to the bottom. Now, if you follow their recipe, that brown stuff turns into dark brown stuff that you have to wash later. However, if you deglaze the pan by adding some liquid and scraping the bottom with a wooden spoon, you save yourself from scrubbing and add flavor to your dish. The browned bits are not burnt garbage but rather caramelized flavorful chicken juices that we want in our curry.
Next, as others have mentioned, the carrots and potatoes will definitely not cook through in 15 minutes, unless you’re using a pressure cooker (the gif does not). If you’re in a rush, you could microwave them to give yourself a head start. Personally, I would roast them ahead of time in a 400F oven while preparing everything else. This would add layers of flavor to the curry.
Now, if we’re following my advice, the chicken’s been browned on both sides. Since they’re cut in fairly smallish chunks, they’re cooked through. The onion’s been sauteed, the potatoes and carrots have been roasted.
We still cook them together in the broth for 10 minutes, but not at the rolling boil that they show in the gif. We want it to be gently simmering, with bubbles leisurely breaking the surface. The point is not to re-cook everything, but to let the flavors meld together. This makes your curry taste like everything belongs together.
I have no issues with the peas. Adding them after the 10 min cooking process is a good idea. People are complaining about peas in their thai curry, but this isn’t a Thai curry. It’s a British curry, inspired by Chinese curries. Since this is a fusion food and “authenticity” is out the window, peas are fine by me.
Finally, they skipped the last and most important step. This is the step that takes your food from “hey this is ok I guess” to “wow this tastes really good!” Taste for seasoning. Sometimes, you’ll notice you need more salt. Other times, maybe it needs a bit more heat. Black pepper wouldn’t really be appropriate for this dish, but maybe some white pepper or cayenne would be appropriate. Maybe you’re in the mood for something with a bit more cumin or coriander, and you just so happen to have a little extra in the back of the cabinet. This last minute adjustment can really be a game changer.
I know this ended up getting really long, but I think that with these small adjustments, you could make a meal you can be proud of. Mostly, I just hope that you understand that even the simplest meal can be improved dramatically by simply employing a few basic techniques.
Bandittx: SALT 👏 AND 👏 PEPPER 👏 ARE 👏 NOT 👏 SEASONING
hczaman: That’s not how my mom makes it bro..
muppetress: One of the worst recipe gifs I have ever seen.
Penmerton: Really not understanding the comments & downvotes on this one, this is how millions of japanese people prepare curry every day. [These 2 nice japanese ladies](https://youtu.be/7emvnX9RT1A?t=44) even explain that it’s more traditional to use the boxed curry than to make it from scratch.
335i_fanatic: Looks good
Thowzand: This does not belong on this sub. This is literally “how to follow the directions on the back of a curry box.”
cpldeja: You lost me with those peas.
Berrrrrrrrrt_the_A10: Any curry paste or sauce blocks, and this looks like more of a japanese style curry, to me.
the_ammar: HI GUYS. THIS IS A RICE AND CURRY DISH BUT LETS PUT CHOPSTICKS IN THE SHOT COZ ALL CHING CHONG ASIAN FOOD
TheDarkRabbit: So….. follow instructions on the packet.
Got it.
galpin: “ How to cook chicken, veggies, then add a store sauce, add water, simmer, serve!”
Ach3ck: Yayeet
dogsofwikihow: This is Japanese curry. They make it in blocks that dissolve and thicken up the same way that this paste does. Please respect my kare raisu
duaneap: What exactly makes a curry where you’re from? Cos just throwing curry paste in wouldn’t cut it in my fam.
bellagootch: You had me all ready to do this until you put evil gross peas in it 😂
FernandoRevolver686: Sounds good. I will try that. Thank you.