Name: Diane Cu’s Vietnamese Curry
Yield: Serves 4
Cuisine: Vietnamese
Ingredients: ¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro; 1 quart/1 liter water; 3 medium shallots, roughly chopped; 3 tablespoons vegetable oil (if using skin-on chicken thighs, use 1 tablespoon oil); Warm baguettes, rice noodles, or steamed jasmine rice, for serving; 2 large carrots, peeled, cut into 1-inch/2.5-centimeter pieces; 2 pounds/900 grams bone-in, skin-on chicken drumsticks or thighs; Chopped fresh Thai bird chiles (optional); 2 tablespoons curry powder 3 large lemongrass stalks, white parts only (root ends, dry green tops, and any bruised exterior leaves discarded), cut into 2-inch/5-centimeter pieces and smashed with the back of a chef’s knife; 3 medium potatoes, cut into 1-inch/2.5-centimeter pieces; 2 scallions, thinly sliced; 1 teaspoon sugar; Kosher salt to taste; 2 tablespoons cornstarch whisked into 2 tablespoons water (optional); Freshly cracked black pepper to taste; 1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger; 4 garlic cloves, minced; 2 tablespoons fish sauce

Preparation info

Serves
4

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

From Scratch

By Michael Ruhlman

Published 2019

About

Diane Cu’s family fled Saigon in 1975 when she was a child, and the family was raised in the Los Angeles area. Diane went on to become one half of the White on Rice Couple, with her husband, Todd Porter. Together they travel the world, teach photography and videography, blog about it, and write and photograph beautiful cookbooks. I really like and admire their work.

I asked if Diane could create a recipe that represented her Vietnamese childhood, and she sent this adaptation of her