Recipe - Chicken Curry With Bamboo Shoots

4 fl Coconut cream
2 tablespoon Vegetable oil
1 Garlic clove finely chopped
1 tablespoon Red curry paste
2 tablespoon Fish sauce
1 teaspoon Sugar
6 ounce Boneless chicken breasts
4 fl Chicken stock
2 Kaffir lime leaves,roughly
chopped
4 ounce Bamboo shoots, cut into
slivers
20 Fresh holy basil leaves

METHOD: Gently heat the coconut cream in a small pan but do not let it
boil. In a wok or frying pan heat the oil and fry the garlic until golden
brown. Add the curry paste and stir well. Pour in the warmed coconut cream
and stir until it begins to reduce and thicken.

Add the fish sauce and sugar and stir. Add the chicken and cook, stirring
constantly, until the meat is opaque. Add the stock, stir and cook for one
to two min utes or until the chicken is cooked through.

Stir in the lime leaves, then add the bamboo shoots and basil leaves. Stir,
cook gently for a final minute and turn into a serving dish.

(Serves 4 as part of a meal) Source: Hugo Arnold, EVENING STANDARD Friday
21st October 1994

Hugo Arnold's Commentary Follows.

THAI food seems to have erupted into British life over the past few years,
particularly in pubs, where many have ditched sausages and chips for Nam
Tok, Tom Yam Gung or Grat Doo Moo Nueng Dow Jeow the latter being Thai
spare ribs. Alongside this explosion runs the increasing availability of
the ingredients necessary to produce these dishes lemon grass, kaffir
lime, galangal and a few cookery books to explain the process.

Vatcharin Bhumichitr wants us not only to cook Thai food, but to understand
it. His latest book, Vatch's Thai Cookbook (Pavilion 17.99), groups recipes
and writings under different ingredient headings. This approach, he hopes,
will enable readers to appreciate the subtleties and origins of this
intrinsically delicate cuisine. Mr Bhumichitr owns Chiang Mai, a Thai
restaurant in Soho that serves up the sort of food I remember eating in
Bangkok light, delicate, spicy and well balanced an aspect frequently
misunderstood, but well explained in this title. His book is full of
similar recipes. Most are remarkably quick to cook, and ideal for that
Thursday evening when you don't really have time to cook a stew or
casserole. Today's recipe is from the bamboo shoots section of the book.

From Gemini's MASSIVE MealMaster collection at www.synapse.com/~gemini