This we developed ‘in-house’ – we love curry, we love chicken gizzards, and some form of homemade Thai curry paste is always in the fridge.. Depending on the type and strength of curry paste and the accompanying vegetables you choose the results will be different, but I am sure all will be interesting and enjoyable. Gizzards are also often replaced by chicken hearts (some even prefer this option), or shrimp, almost equally tasty. Naturally, all chicken and seafood stuff must be preprocessed (cooked? Steamed?) before being inserted into the sauce..
So:
for 2-3 diners we use
- 500-600 g of fresh chicken gizzards – one could likely use frozen, thawed and cleaned ones as well..
- stock making veggies of choice – I use a carrot, small parsley root, leak, a piece of celeriac, one leaf of savoury cabbage if I happen to have it.. But do go with your usual way
- Bay leaf, some peppercorns, salt to flavour the stock
- one 400 ml can of coconut milk
- a spoon or two of curry paste – I use what I have, most of the time it would be massaman or panang, but I am sure any ready-made curry could do just as well. In our experience, to achieve the desired level of ‘hot’, for 400 ml coconut milk we need a whole jar of the commercially available paste (112g?)
Homemade paste would probably be better, but, beggars cannot be choosers..
- vegetables: we often use fresh zucchini and eggplant – Chinese or the fat normal one.
- lemongrass – option
- cilantro – option
- rice or rice noodles to serve with the curry.
Prepare the gizzards
I use a pressure cooker, as the gizzards require much time to process.
- Drop clean gizzards into the pot, add a pinch of salt, peppercorns, bay leaf and some water (just enough to cover the meat), close the lid and process (bring to boil, let simmer some 20-25 minutes, turn off the heat)
- Some 10-15 minutes later open the lid, drop in the stock veggies, clean the lid, close.
- Bring to boil, let simmer some 10-15 minutes, turn off the heat
- Some 10-15 minutes later open.
- Strain the content.
- Stock can be used as a base for a future soup – secure as usual (freeze?).
- When cooler, retrieve the meat, separate veggies, to discard or to use elsewhere.
In regular pot method just cook (covered) the gizzards with spices and vegetables until cooked through and soft.
- (a) Strain the content.
- (a) Stock can be used as a base for a future soup – secure as usual (freeze?).
- (a) When cooler, retrieve the meat, separate veggies, to discard or to use elsewhere.
Prepare the curry
If you wish you could steam or seal the veggies in hot olive oil ahead of time; I am giving here the simplest yet quite acceptable method of cooking all together in the coconut milk.
- heat up coconut milk in a largish saucepan.
- into hot milk mix the curry paste until smooth.
- Add other ingredients (gizzards, veggies etc)
- Let the lot simmer until all cooked and sauce thickened a little.
- Adjust spices (salt?).
- Serve with cilantro (or without), over rice or noodles.
