Sukhumvit Wok ... Thai green curry paste goes hakka

Don't you love it when you get an idea for a dish, improvise on the way and end up with something lip smacking at the end of it?

Well here's the story of Sukhumvit Wok, which I named after the busy central district of Bangkok where we had a lovely holiday a few years back. And some great food.

I bought a pack of green Thai curry the other day from Pali Market at Bandra (Rs 30, 0.6 USD). Both K and I are big fans of Thai green curry. I toyed with the idea of something different with it rather than adding coconut milk and make a curry out of it. I toyed with the idea of making a hakka style noodle out of it. A different take and good for those who, for some strange reason, don't like the nectar of the Gods, coconut milk.

I then decided to go the whole hog and went to the market and picked up Thai ingredient such as Thai Brinjals (very pungent and I earlier though they were chillies), bird chillies and basil.

It all came to me as I began cooking. I merged Thai ingredients with the Chinese hakka genre of cooking. The end result was another Karmakar Original.

Ingredients:

• 250 g finely chopped boneless chicken (leg cut). Could be substituted with prawns, tofu or mushrooms
• Thai Green Curry paste (its ingredients include shrimp paste so vegetarians excuse)

• A pack of noodles - boiled and strained in thrice the amount of water. Put the noodles in boiling water and take it out in two minutes the moment it begun to soften a wee bit. Hold it under running cold water to ensure that the noodles stay separate. It's important that this doesn't become soft as we wouldn't be using too much of oil. Plus a girl once walked out on me because my noodles turned out soft. I got it right after that and she has not stormed out since then
• An egg
• A handful of Thai Brinjals, plucked from the stems and 4,5 finely chopped basil leaves and 6 bird (red) chillies slit into half. Thai brinjals are tiny little green balls available in most malls in Mumbai and local markets such as Pali Market. For some reason, local restaurants or even five stars, don't add it to their green curries, though it is de rigeur in Thailand

• Two tea spoons of vinegar, lime juice
• Salt and pepper
• 3 table spoons olive oil

Process: ten - fifteen minutes

• Heat the olive oil in a non stick pan
• Add the curry paste. It could splatter, take care
• Once it darkens, add the chicken and stir
• Once the chicken cooks (turns from pink to yellow, about 5 minutes), break the egg and drop it on the chicken. Stir as the egg coats the chicken and hardens
• Add the brinjal, chillies and basil leave, stir
• Add the noodles on top of the meat and then slowly tuck the noodles into the meat so that the dry paste and meat permeates the boiled noodles
• Add salt and pepper and lime juice, stir and garnish with some chopped basil leaves and split bird chillies
• A bit of fish oil would be a lovely finishing touch but we were out of it

I loved it !!!!

One could argue that the Thai curry paste was not home made but thinking of the mix counts for something I am sure