Vietnamese Chicken Curry Recipe (Cà Ri Gà)

I can’t believe it has been so long since I’ve last shared a recipe here, but I haven’t stopped eating–here’s Instagram proof!. About 14 months ago I got my first non-self-employed job, so Hungry Huy has been a bit neglected.

I started to cook at home a lot less, which meant eating out more. It’s quite a bit more expensive to eat out and usually not as healthy (fun though!), but I’ve decided to reel it in a bit and start cooking more often.

This week, I wanted to share with you a recipe for Vietnamese chicken curry, or cà ri gà. Although there is some waiting involved with the marinade and extra care taken with the root vegetables, this curry recipe is fairly easy to make. This is, yet another recipe, that I have been lucky enough to grow up eating as a child.

The word “curry” makes me think FLAVOR. Whether its Vietnamese, Indian, Thai, Japanese (<— this one’s insane–it’s almost like gravy), I can be sure that curry is going to taste pretty intense, and have a great aroma.

You can use any cut of chicken you like for this Vietnamese curry recipe, however getting one with bones gives the chicken some size or bulk so it isn’t bullied around by the potatoes and carrots. Use wings, thighs, drumsticks, or even whole or half chickens. Just use a cleaver to split large pieces into about 3″ ones so they are uniform and finish cooking at the same time.

Using a cut of chicken here with skin will taste better and add fat so you can brown these in the pan without using any additional oil.

We’ll be deep frying the potatoes and the carrots, so that they form a skin on the outside and don’t disintegrate into the curry during cooking over stirring the pot. Deep frying them also par-cooks it so they don’t need to stew as long in the broth.

Lemongrass is super tough and woody, and it’s fairly cheap to buy in bunches. Just cut these down to keep in the freezer bags. They store quite well.

The vibrant yellow color from this curry is enhanced with coconut milk! Don’t add this until the end though, to keep the color from getting all murky. If you can’t hang with, or are allergic to coconut, some people like to sub in half & half or milk for this. It obviously tastes a little bit different, but for the Vietnamese flare, stick with coconut.

This curry goes well with a fresh loaf of bread. Those french style baguettes you find at Vietnamese bakeries are perfect for this–kind of airy but still crusty. If you don’t happen to be around any Vietnamese baguette shops, any crusty baguette will do. I enjoy eating this with rice too, but I don’t think you’ll find any restaurants serving it that way!