A Thai recipe from Madhur Jaffrey’s ” Ultimate Curry Bible”. In Thailand they would use long beans but as these may be hard to find french beans or other similar green beans are used here.
Ingredients
- 450-675 g boneless duck breasts
- 400 ml can coconut milk left undisturbed for 3 hours or so
- 5 tbsps thai green curry paste
- 1-2 tbsps fish sauce or to taste
- 2 tsps thick tamarind paste or lemon juice
- 1 tsp palm sugar or brown sugar
- 25 french or green beans trimmed and halved
- 4 fresh kaffir lime leaves or 1 tsp lime or lemon zest
- 15-20 sweet or ordinary basil leaves
- a handful fresh bean sprouts topped and tailed
- 2 hot red and green birds eye chillies cut in fine rounds (optional).
Servings:
Instructions
- Put a non stick lidded frying pan on a low heat. Place the duck breasts skin side down in the pan and let them slowly render their fat. Now and then turn the breasts on their side, holding with tongs, to draw out any protruding fat. This process may take 25 minutes and the skin side of the breast will have browned.
- Brown the opposite side of the breasts for a minute then remove and set aside on a plate until they have cooled. Cut crosswise into 3 mm thick slices. Remove all but 2 tablespoons of the duck fat from the pan and keep for other uses.
- Carefully open the can of coconut milk and remove 4 tbsps of the thick cream from the top. Stir the remaining contents of the can well and set aside.
- Place the pan back over a medium heat and when the fat is hot add the thick coconut cream together with the green curry paste. Stir and fry until the oil separates and the paste is lightly browned.
- Reduce the heat to low and stir in the fish sauce, tamarind, sugar, the remaining coconut milk, the duck slices and 475 ml water. Cover and simmer on a very low heat for about 75 minutes until the duck is tender.
- Check for a balance of flavours adding more fish sauce, tamarind or sugar if needed. Stir in the green beans and simmer very gently for 2 minutes.
- Just before serving tear or shred the lime leaves and stir into the curry with the basil leaves. Garnish with the bean sprouts and the chilli slices if desired.
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