Thai Pineapple Yellow Curry

I LOVE ASIAN FOOD!  If you've perused my other posts, or if you've ever eaten out with me more than once, you can't miss this fact.  It just feels like home to me.

I have several Thai restaurants that I love, each of them for different reasons (or actually dishes).  One of them makes a delicious yellow pineapple curry.  It's a little sweet, has plenty of heat (without burning off your taste buds) and make the most satisfying meal!

Here is my attempt at copying it.  I came really close and this is really easy to make.

2 Medium sized Chicken Breasts (sliced as thinly as you can)
One yellow onion (cut into 1 or 11/2 inch chunks)1 Cup of Bamboo shoots (or one can, I think they're all the same size)
Half of a yellow Bell Pepper (cut into 1 inch chunks)
Half of a red Bell Pepper (cut into 1 inch chunks

2 cans of coconut milk
2 Tbs Oil
2 Tbs Thai Yellow Curry Paste
1 Tbs. Soy Sauce
2 Tbs brown sugar (Palm if you have it, but who keeps that on hand?)
3-4 Kaffir Lime leaves (I know who keeps these either?  Go to your local Asian food store and ask for them.  They are usually kept in the freezer or refrigerator section)
1 tsp. of Lemon grass powder (also at the Asian food store)
Juice of two limes
1 Cup of pineapple chunks
1 Cup of frozen peas
8 large leaves of basil, chiffonade (or cut into ribbons)
Salt to taste

Start out this recipe by preparing all of your ingredients.  This dish goes pretty quickly, and it's important not to overcook the vegetables in this dish.  If you have all of your items washed, cut, measure and lined up, you will find that you are much more successful.

Start with your chicken:  I find it easier to get a really nice thin slice on the chicken meat if I cut it when it is slightly frozen still.  It's not so squirmy that way and tends to stay in one place easier and enables you to get a nice thin slice.  It's also important to get thin uniform slices, as your cooking time on the chicken is dependent on it.  One of the secrets to a good curry is to have tender moist chicken, and the technique I describe later is important to this dish.

Cut the remaining items and place in separate bowls for one by one addition to the pan.

In a large saute pan (or wok) over high heat, combine the oil, curry paste and Kaffir lime leaves.  Stir fry until the paste is starting to bubble and become fragrant.  It's ok if it doesn't actually bubble, you just want to make sure to toast all of the spices in the curry paste and open up their flavor a bit.  As soon as you can smell a pungent aroma of curry and lime, you are ready for the next step.

Stir in the onion and let cook for one minute.  Add the two cans of coconut milk and bring to a simmer.  Add your bell peppers, and all of the seasonings.  Stir well and bring back to a boil.  Stir in the chicken and the remaining ingredients (except the pineapple, peas and basil).  Cook until the chicken is cooked through.  This will not take long, as the chicken will cook fairly fast, depending on how thin you cut the meat.  Once the chicken is cooked, turn off the heat and stir in the pineapple, peas and basil.

Check the flavor your curry and adjust the seasonings.  If you like it a little sweeter, you might want to add more sugar.  If you like it saltier, add more soy or salt.  If it tastes dull and heavy, add more lime.

Serve over steamed white rice and enjoy!

There are a lot of ingredients you can put in this dish.  Just remember that the more ingredients you add, the more sauce you will need to make.  If you simply substitute ingredients (I.E. baby corn instead of bamboo shoots) you should be fine with the recipe as is.
Some good additions are: baby corn, potato chunks, snow peas.

P.S.  I'll add pics to this later.