CNN Best 50 foods - number 1 Massaman Curry

Somewhere, somehow, I came across this lovely article - 50 best foods in the world. Essentially CNN travel have published what they think the most delicious foods in the ENTIRE world are and ranked them.

A very bold move, one might say...

Now, not surprisingly this has created no small amount of conjecture, with taste been somewhat subjective (WHY is buttered popcorn in there; I do not care for popcorn on little bit). In fact, it sparked so much debate that CNN ended up having to start a facebook poll to give the public their say, kinda like a reader's choice.

Personally, I don't think there is any need for debate. The number one food was nailed a long time ago.

Now, personally, I do think I can trust the opinion of all these people, so Gemma and I have decided the only way to truly solve this debate is to cook and eat the all of the meals on the original list. Now, it is limited to full meals, so I don't have to force popcorn down my gullet, nor do we have to waste our time making chocolate, ice cream, or ham. First up we decided on Thai Massaman Curry; ranked No. 1. Gemma found a recipe on at About Foods and away we went!

An idea of what we were aiming for (except we used chicken).

The ingredients we had to find a listed below: 

• 1/2 to 1 pound chicken breast
• 1-2 medium potatoes, cut into chunks
• 1 14 ounce (400 ml) can coconut milk
• 1 small red pepper, thinly sliced
• 1 medium tomato, sliced
•  vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup onion, sliced
• 1 thumb-piece ginger, grated
• 4-5 cloves garlic
• 1 red chili, sliced, OR 1/2 to 3/4 tsp. chili flakes/cayenne pepper
• 1/2 cup good-tasting chicken stock
• 2-3 Tbsp. frozen/bottled prepared lemongrass
• 3 bay leaves
• 1 tsp. turmeric
• 1/4 cup chopped unsalted dry-roasted cashews
• 1 tsp. ground coriander
• 1 tsp. whole cumin seed
• 1/2 tsp. white pepper
• 1/8 tsp. cardamon
• 1 tsp. tamarind
• 3/4 tsp. shrimp paste
• 2 Tbsp. fish sauce
• 1 brown sugar

 

Our ingredients!

The ingredients did not go to plan; Gemma couldn't find lemongrass, shrimp paste, or tamarind paste. When I found out I immediately made her drive me to the store; I mean honestly, thai food without lemongrass and shrimp paste is just food. We couldn't get tamarind paste and ended up using lemon juice instead (we didn't have lime juice either). After that we created the 'sauce' by combining the stock plus the following: lemongrass, bay leaves, turmeric, chopped cashews, ground coriander, whole cumin seed, white pepper, cardamon, lemon juice), shrimp paste, fish sauce, and sugar. we added this to onion, ginger, garlic and chili that had been stir fried for a few minutes.

YUMMY!

The chicken was thrown in and the while thing left to simmer for 30 minutes and then added the capsicum and tomato. Simmered for another 10 minutes and viola - awesomeness was created.

We also made some rice which I threw some turmeric into because yellow rice is clearly better than normal rice.

The final addition was some naan bread and beer. Visually. You can make your own judgements in the photo below. But I don't eat with my eyes - I can say that perhaps starting with massaman curry was a mistake because, DAMN, it's going to be hard to top this. It was one of the best meals I've ever had.

The leftovers lasted until lunchtime the next day. Personally I thought we showed incredible self restraint.