Thai Yellow Curry Roast Chicken

If you like the aromatic flavours of Thai cuisine, you would love this dish which was inspired by Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella's tempting Thai Red Curry Roast Chicken.  You can use store-bought paste if you wish but I prefer to make my own with fresh ingredients.  This dish is quite mild but you can ramp up the spiciness to suit your own taste.  The thing about curry paste is, if you change the ingredients you will get a different flavour and colour.  The lack of dried chillies in the paste would not give you red curry paste. And increasing the portion of turmeric will give you yellow curry paste. This is my version of yellow curry paste.

Ingredients:

2 kg chicken drumsticks

10 cherry tomatoes (optional)

coriander leaves for garnishing

Curry paste:
30g fresh coriander roots

1 stalk lemongrass, sliced

35g galangal, sliced

20g turmeric, sliced

100g onions, sliced

20g garlic

5 bird's eye chillies

3 - 4 kaffir lime leaves, finely shredded

30g roasted peanuts

1 tbsp grated palm sugar
zest of 1 lime

3 tbsp lime juice

3 tbsp fish sauce

200g coconut milk

1 tbsp olive oil

salt, to taste

• Scrape the fibrous outer layer from the coriander roots, then soak them in water to remove grit.  Drain and chop finely.  
• In a mortar and pestle, pound coriander roots, lemon grass, galangal, tumeric, onion, garlic, chillies, kaffir lime leaves, roasted peanuts and palm sugar into a fine paste.   
• Transfer paste into a large mixing bowl.  Add in lime juie, fish sauce, coconut milk, oil and salt; mix well.
• Wash chicken drumsticks and pat dry with kitchen towels.  Score underneath the skin by making two slits on the meat with a sharp knife.
• Coat the chicken drumsticks with the pounded paste and marinate for at least 3 hours or overnight in the refrigerator.
• Arrange chicken drumsticks in a baking tray and pour all the marinade over the chicken.  Scatter cherry tomatoes over the chicken.  
• Roast in a preheated oven at 220 deg C for about 45 minutes, basting halfway through with the paste.
• Sprinkle coriander leaves over the chicken.

This post is linked to the event Little Thumbs Up (April 2015 Event:  Chicken) organised by Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids and Doreen of My Little Favourite DIY and hosted by Diana of The Domestic Goddess Wannabe