Forget Red or Green: Try White Curry Instead
by Marc Matsumoto on Jan 31, 2012
Red and green curry are popular Thai dishes, but you might be surprised that this spicy dish comes in a third variation.
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Curry is known for its vibrant flavors, with colors that span the spectrum from yellow to green to red. But before a recent trip to Singapore, Id never heard of a white curry. It was at a restaurant called Candlenut Kitchen, that I realized this spicy stew could also be white.
Called YeYes Curry, Chef Malcolm Lee cooks up his take on a recipe passed down from his great-grandmother. With tender chunks of chicken enveloped in a rich white curry it was divine. While the rest of the meal was fantastic, something about the delicious improbability of a white curry stuck with me. After making a batch of Beef Rendang last week, I had a bunch of herbs left over and decided to come up with my own take on this deceptively colorless dish.
While neutral in color, this curry will tingle your senses with a full array of light colored aromatics and spices such as garlic, ginger, galangal and lemongrass. It has a similar flavor profile to Thai green curry, but what it lacks in color, it makes up for with a rich velvety texture and creamy flavor.
Kaffir lime leaves, galangal and lemongrass arent the easiest to find, but try Googling for a Thai grocery store in your nearest big city. All three keep well in the freezer so I tend to buy a lot and freeze what I dont use.
I included some peeled eggplant and enoki mushrooms in this curry, but after thinking about it a little more, there are a ton of white vegetables out there like white asparagus, cauliflower, and potatoes. You can also substitute chicken thighs for the pork, which will cut the cooking time in half. Because of the low quantity of fat and collagen in chicken breast meat, its not a good choice for stews like this as it will get dry and tough by the time the curry is done.
Marc Matsumoto is a culinary consultant and recipe repairman who shares his passion for good food through his website norecipes.com. For Marc, food is a life long journey of exploration, discovery and experimentation and he shares his escapades through his blog in the hopes that he inspires others to find their own culinary adventures. Marcs been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today, and has made multiple appearances on NPR and the Food Network.