Recipes: Pad Prik King and Thai Basil Eggplant Curry for a Thai Feast

SPONSORED POST: This is a paid post. The Road to The Good Life chose to work with La Crema Winery for their dedication to handcrafted wines at reasonable prices. All opinions presented are my own.
 

For entertaining, I love to serve Thai food. Why? After you do all of the preparation (slicing and dicing of vegetables) it's one of the easiest cuisines to make. Also, if you don't finish your prep before guests arrive it's easy to find distinct tasks to delegate.
 

 

When I entertain I always make or prepare too much food; one of my pet peeves is having anyone leave my table hungry. It doesn't matter how many people are coming over, I almost always have enough to feed twice as many. Last Tuesday was no exception. We had leftovers of everything and never made one of the planned stirfries, the Jumping Shrimp, a specialty of the Thai restaurant I worked at.
 

 

For interactive meals where I have guests helping in the kitchen, I like serving one or two dishes that require little hands on attention and one or two hands on dishes. I place the soup and/or curry on the back burners and the stirfries on the front burners.
 

To avoid a bottleneck in our kitchen and because we have abundant counterspace, I used a slow cooker to prepare the Tom Yum soup and moved both the curry and stirfry to my stove's front burners.
 

 

The three traditional Thai dishes I chose for my Girls Night In Thai Cooking Class were ones that you're likely to see at a restaurant. (I have other recipes but they're a little more involved and don't lend themselves well to a low-key weeknight gathering or they pair better with a Pinot Noir.)

• Tom Yum Soup with Shrimp (I chose this dish over Tom Kha Soup as I didn't want the coconut milk base of the Tom Kha to dominate the Pinot Gris. I typically serve Chardonnay with Tom Kha.)
• Pad Prik King Stirfry (I chose this dish as it tastes exactly like the Pad Prik King I had the night after we'd trekked all day in the Thai mountains outside of Chiang Mai.)
• Thai Basil Green Curry with Chicken and Eggplant (I chose this dish as cubes and I served it at the first dinner we hosted as a couple June 12th 2009.)

I shared the recipe for the Tom Yum Soup with Shrimp last Thursday along with the recipe for the Vietnamese Spring Rolls we ate. While the spring rolls aren't a Thai specialty, you'll frequently see them served in Thai restaurants. The Thai restaurant I worked at served spring rolls along with cream cheese egg rolls and Chicken Satay.
 

Today I share the recipes for the Pad Prik King stirfry and the Thai Basil Eggplant curry.
 

What dishes would you serve
if you wanted your guests to help?
 

 

Pad Prik King Stirfry

Ingredients (serves 4 to 6)

• 1 Tbsp Vegetable Oil
• 1 Tbsp Pad Prik King Paste
• 1 tsp Garlic, minced
• 2 cups French green beans, 1” pieces
• 1 Tbsp Fish Sauce
• 1 tsp Golden Mountain Sauce
• 1 lb Boneless, skinless Chicken breast, sliced
• 1 oz Red bell pepper, strips
• 4 Kaffir Lime Leaves, fine julienne
• 1/4 cup Pickled Ginger Strips
• (Optional) 2 Tbsp Vegetable or Chicken stock

Instructions

1. Heat a pan or wok over medium high heat.
2. When hot, add oil.
3. Add curry paste and garlic.
4. When you can smell the curry, add French green beans and chicken.
5. In the center of the wok, blend fish sauce and Golden Mountain Thai soy sauce.
6. When blended, mix with the curry paste and green beans.
7. When green beans are slightly tender, add chicken.
8. When you can smell the chicken, add bell pepper.
9. When bell pepper is tender, add ginger and Kaffir lime leaves.
10. If stirfry is dry, add chicken stock.
11. Serve immediately over rice.

 

Thai Basil Green Curry with Chicken and Eggplant

Ingredients (serves 4 to 6)

• 2-13.5 oz cans Coconut Milk
• 8 oz Vegetable or Chicken Stock
• 1/4 cup Fish Sauce
• 2-3 Tbsp Thai Green Curry Paste
• 1 lb Boneless, skinless Chicken breast, sliced
• 2 Japanese eggplants, sliced in 1/8” rounds (leave skin on)
• 5-8 Thai Basil Leaves

 

Instructions

1. In a medium pot, warm coconut milk, fish sauce, and Thai Green curry paste.
2. When sauces are blended and the coconut milk begins to slow boil, add the chicken. Be careful not to let the coconut milk boil for too long as it will curdle.
3. Reduce heat to slow simmer. Cook covered for about 10 to 15 minutes.
4. When you can smell the chicken, add the eggplant.
5. When the eggplant is tender, add the basil leaves. Serve immediately over rice.

Bon Appetit!

Eden!
 

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My Girls Night In Thai Cooking Class and the posts leading up to it about the ingredients, the planning, and execution tips are all sponsored by La Crema Wines, as part of their Make Any Moment a Great Moment campaign. La Crema Wines are my go to choice for celebrations big or small; I know I can always count on La Crema, which is why I served their Chardonnay and Pinot Noir at our 10/10/10 wedding. Ever since 2000 when I helped a chef open a Thai restaurant and ghost wrote a Thai cookbook as part of his branding, I've been serving Pinot Gris with my Thai food. I'm excited that La Crema has added Pinot Gris to their line up this year. All opinions presented in this series are my own.
 

Credits: All layouts designed by Eden Hensley Silverstein for The Road to the Good Life. All images taken by Jessica Palopoli for The Road to the Good Life.