Vietnamese Chicken Curry Recipe (Cà Ri Gà) - Hungry Huy (2024)

FAQs

What is the difference between Thai curry and Vietnamese curry? ›

Vietnamese curry relies on pre-made curry powder or curry oil, while Thai curry utilizes fresh or dried curry pastes made from a combination of ingredients like chili peppers, garlic, lemongrass, and shrimp paste.

Cà ri gà, a Vietnamese chicken curry, is full of chicken, lemongrass, and sweet potatoes. When simmered in coconut milk and topped with chopped cilantro, they merge to become pure magic in this recipe.

The easiest way to fix a bland and tasteless curry is by adding spices like red chili powder, cumin, coriander, garam masala, curry leaves and turmeric. Just make a quick tempering and pour over the curry to give it a nice punch of spices and herbs.

Use wheat flour, rice flour, or coconut flour plus a fat (like ghee, olive oil, or coconut oil) in equal amounts. Cook both ingredients for a few minutes to cook out the raw flour taste, then add your curry ingredients. Once the whole curry dish comes to a boil, the sauce will thicken.

Distinctive Food Profiles

In contrast, Vietnamese cuisine focuses on lighter, healthier options. Despite these differences, they share some commonalities with other Asian foods, such as using rice or noodles as a base, minimal dairy, fresh ginger, and chili sauce as a garnish or dip.

Spices including curries were also introduced to Vietnam by Malay and Indian traders. Though not common in the north, cà ri is a quite popular dish in central and southern Vietnam. The most common form is chicken curry, and to a lesser extent, goat curry.

Pho might be Vietnam's most famous dish but bun cha is the top choice when it comes to lunchtime in the capital. Just look for the clouds of meaty smoke after 11 a.m. when street-side restaurants start grilling up small patties of seasoned pork and slices of marinated pork belly over a charcoal fire.

Vietnamese food is characterized by the use of fresh herbs, such as mint, cilantro, basil, and lemongrass, along with spices like star anise, cinnamon, and ginger. These ingredients provide a refreshing and lively flavor profile that makes the cuisine stand out.

Pho is the national dish of Vietnam and is sold everywhere from nice restaurants to street corners where grandmothers set up makeshift kitchens. For this version, all of the components—noodles, beef brisket broth, herbs, chiles—are served separately.

What vegetables go in curry? ›

The curry base is made with onions, tomatoes, ginger, garlic, red chilli powder and garam masala. I prefer to go with potatoes, carrots, peas, green beans, cauliflower, corn and bell peppers. Though you can use other veggies like baby corn, sweet potato and broccoli, the curry will have different flavors.

Tomato puree/ paste

Adding tomato puree is probably the most common method of thickening curry sauces. Simply add the tomato puree during the cooking process rather than adding it at the end. This will help to thicken your curry or pasta sauce from the beginning, speeding up the cooking time.

Bring to the boil, lower to a simmer and cook on a gentle heat uncovered for 25-30 mins or until rich and slightly reduced.

For a rich and creamy curry, coconut milk or cream can be a fantastic thickening agent. They not only add creaminess but also a delightful tropical flavour. Simply pour in some coconut milk or cream and let it simmer until your sauce reaches the desired consistency.

The cooking process reduces the flavor of dried spices, so it's best to wait until you're almost finished with the heat before adding to your mix. Season to taste: Tomato-based curries can benefit from a little sugar to take away the acidity and a pinch of salt can also balance the dish.

The Vietnamese cooking process consists of boiling, steaming, deep-frying, and stir-frying. Thai dishes use more base ingredients. There is a large emphasis on the use of coconut milk and shrimp paste. The Thai cooking process is usually achieved through stir-frying, grilling, tossing, and deep-frying.

A choice of balance over spice

Even the spicier Vietnamese dishes don't tend to be that spicy compared with that of Thai cuisine or other dishes.

However, Thai and Vietnamese have no direct connection at all. They belong to different language families and are spoken in different parts of the world. They also have different writing systems. But they have some similarities that can make people think that they are related to each other.

The differences in their food dishes is the use of leaf vegetables and raw herbs. If you had to generalize, Vietnamese cuisine has herbs and leaf vegetables eaten raw. These vegetables include basil, mint, sprouts, cilantro, and green onion. Thai cuisine generally has vegetables stir fried or boiled.