Hairy Bikers' Thai chicken and coconut curry recipe

A beautiful, delicately spiced, light curry that all the family will love.

This Thai chicken and coconut curry recipe is from the Biker's reincarnation as the Hairy Dieters. After a couple of health scares, Si and Dave decided to cut their calorie intake. During that time, they lost three stone each in three months, and this is one of our favourite of their healthy recipes. The main lesson they preach is that if you want to lose weight and keep it off, you have to still be eating delicious, tempting food packed with flavour. You just need to reduce the calories. And that's what they've done here. This four-person curry has just 283 calories per portion. As the boys say, it's mint.

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp sunflower oil
• 3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into thin slices
• 1 large red pepper, deseeded and cut into thin strips
• 1 large yellow pepper, deseeded and cut into thin strips
• 400ml can of half-fat coconut milk
• 250ml cold water, plus 2 tbsp
• 2 heaped tbsp Thai green or red curry paste
• 6 dried or fresh kaffir lime leaves
• 4 tsp nam pla (Thai fish sauce)
• 1 tsp caster sugar
• 150g mangetout peas, trimmed
• 2 tbsp cornflour small handful of fresh coriander, roughly torn
• Small handful of fresh basil leaves, roughly torn

Method

1. Heat the oil in a large non-stick saucepan, frying pan or wok. Stir-fry the chicken and peppers for 1 minute.
2. Pour over the coconut milk and add the 250ml of water, curry paste, lime leaves, fish sauce and caster sugar.  Bring to a gentle simmer and cook for 5 minutes, stirring regularly.
3. Add the mangetout and return to a simmer. Mix the cornflour with the remaining 2 tablespoons of cold water and stir into the pan.  Cook for another 2–3 minutes until the vegetables are tender and the spiced coconut milk has thickened, stirring frequently.
4. Serve the curry in deep bowls, scattered with fresh coriander or basil if using (and don't eat the lime leaves.)

Tips for making this Thai chicken and coconut curry:

Red or green curry paste? It depends how hot you like your curry. Red paste is made from dried red chillies and tends to be hotter. Green paste is made from fresh green chillies and coriander, so it's usually milder. Check the packaging of the paste you're using though, as they do vary.

For a restaurant-style presentation, serve your rice in a small mound. Simply, press the freshly boiled rice firmly into a small pudding basin mould or tea cup that you’ve oiled lightly and flip upside down directly onto the plate. 

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