Another Not-So-Successful Attempt At Making Thai Food

Try as I might, I cannot get a Thai curry to turn out right in my kitchen. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but there has to be something amiss. I've tried multiple different recipes, a couple different curry pastes, light coconut milk and regular coconut milk. I've tried a couple recipes from America's Test Kitchen/Cook's Illustrated recipes and even they didn't turn out quite right. What I'm looking for in a good curry is bright, complex flavor and mine keep falling flat. My most recent attempt was no exception.

I was really craving some good curry, so I bothered the internet with my problems and searched for a Thai red curry recipe. This is the one I tried. When my sisters and I went out for Thai food in Pittsburgh, we had an amazing red chicken curry with pineapple and red peppers. I was hoping that this one might come close to that one. Terribly disappointing. There was no flavor. At all. One would think that with all those different flavors combined, there would be some kind of complex flavor to it. There wasn't.

So I tried to doctor it a bit. I added a jalapeno to try to increase the heat to no avail. It was a fairly mild pepper. Therefore, I added a good bit of sriracha and that really kicked up the heat. I added more cilantro and a bit of mint hoping to brighten the flavor. That helped a bit, but not enough to make it as delicious as I wanted it. I added salt and pepper. Still really flat. By this time, I was pretty hungry so I decided to let it wait for another day. I served myself some of the flat curry over jasmine rice and lamented my bad culinary luck while I ate my late lunch. Perhaps I'll mess with it some more tomorrow.

Eric, my husband and guinea pig, suggested that I try a yellow curry. He didn't have the traumatic experiences (I may be exaggerating just a bit) with yellow curry that I had as a young child and he actually likes that stuff. (gross!!) I will never and I mean NEVER make yellow curry. I can't even handle the smell of it. So as much as I love my husband, he'll have to get his yellow curry from someone else.

So, if anyone out there in Internet Land has a wonderful Thai curry recipe, please, Please, PLEASE send it my way.