Summer cookbook: Jimmy Barnes’s Thai chicken green curry

Thai food makes me feel relaxed and calm. Everyone who knows me knows that if you had me locked up on death row, you would definitely want to calm me the hell down.

Jimmy and Jane Barnes's last meal? Thai chicken green curry.

If I were on death row, my last meal would have to be a big one – a Thai feast consisting of many courses. If I could drag it out it might even take weeks. Both eating and breathing are very important to me so I would need to take my time.

The main reason I would pick Thai food is that for the last 40 or more years Thai food has been my favourite – the food that makes me feel relaxed and calm.

Everyone who knows me knows that if you had me locked up on death row, you would definitely want to calm me the hell down.

My association with Thai food started at a chance meeting at ANU in Canberra way back in 1979.

It was on the 22nd of November and a tour I was on with my band Cold Chisel had rolled into Canberra for one big show.

Touring was like being in a circus in those days, and when I look back I can see my life was like a high-wire act. I lived on the edge and it could have all come crashing down at any moment.

I was young, and even though I was playing in a rock ’n’ roll band I was relatively naive. I hadn’t eaten in many restaurants growing up so despite travelling the country to new towns every day my palate was very basic. Meat and potatoes were about as far as I could stretch.

But on that fateful day I met the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. My Jane. Since then we have been together through thick and thin. I must say that since Jane introduced me to Thai food, there hasn’t been a lot of thin times. Jane changed my world in so many ways but today we are only talking about food.

Maybe I can tell you more about her another time. Not only is Jane a remarkable woman but she is also a remarkable cook. She has, over the last 40 years, shared her world with me.

If any of you know Jane, you will know that food is a major part of her world. Jane and I have been on the road searching the world for the best food we can find and most of those roads seem to lead us back to Thailand.

My last meal would have to consist of a hot Thai green chicken curry, made with Jane’s homemade paste and coconut milk. When Jane makes the curry for me, she adds 100 small bush chillies. Not to overwhelm me, but to add to the depth of flavour. I have watched newcomers to Thai food recoil in fear at the sight of so many chillies in one pot.

Fresh Thai basil tossed in at the end of the process adds another burst of serious flavour to this wonderful dish. It is complex and deep with character, and it packs a punch, but once tasted it will change your life too. I sometimes wake in the middle of the night thinking about her green curry. Normally because I had eaten too much of it before I went to bed. I would have it with a serve of fluffy jasmine rice.

The Thais need rice with everything. It is what potatoes are to the Scots, only more fragrant and light. Of course I would have to have a Thai omelette on the side.

My kids call this crazy egg because that’s what it looks like as it cooks. Thai omelettes are made with fresh, country, free-range eggs and fish sauce with a dash of water. Fried in oil so hot that the egg bursts into life as it hits the hot the pan.

I would finish my meal with the dessert of the gods. A large serve Thai sticky rice with sweet but firm Thai mango and slightly salty but always sweet coconut sauce.

Then as long as I got to see my beautiful Jane before they killed me, I would slip away with a smile on my face. But I know my ghost would roam the corridors of the jail at night after the lights went out.

Moaning and rattling chains, searching for the fridge and the leftover curry Jane surely would have kept for me.

Thai chicken green curry

Jane’s homemade paste is key to the recipe, seen in Where The River Bends.

Serves: 6

I always brine my chicken for at least four hours, but overnight is best. It makes the chicken plump, juicy and tasty when cooked. Anything you like the taste of can go into the brine mixture, as long as it suits the final dish. If you like a milder curry, use less curry paste. A lot of people think that nam pla (fish sauce) is used in all Thai cooking, but we use it more like salt at the table, adding it to our plates of food.

Ingredients

● 1 whole chicken

● 3 garlic cloves, crushed

● 3 coriander roots, cleaned and crushed

● 1 bay leaf

● dash soy sauce

● dash lemon juice

Curry

● 400ml coconut milk

● 400ml coconut cream

● 1–2 tablespoons green curry paste

● 1 teaspoon chicken stock powder

● 225g can sliced bamboo shoots, drained

● 100g pea eggplants

● 250g baby eggplants, cut into quarters

● 1 bunch Thai basil, leaves picked

● 20 whole small bush chillies

● 10 pieces soft young coconut flesh

● Palm sugar, to taste

● 10 makrut lime leaves, very finely sliced

● Steamed jasmine rice, to serve

Method

Cut the chicken into 2 legs, 2 wings and 2 thighs, and cut the breasts off the carcass. Set the carcass aside for making stock (or freeze to make stock on another day).

Brine the chicken, adding the garlic, coriander roots, bay leaf, soy sauce and lemon juice to the brining liquid. Drain well and pat dry before using.

To make the curry, combine the coconut milk and cream in a large saucepan or wok and bring to the boil over medium heat.

Add the green curry paste and chicken stock powder. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring now and again, until reduced slightly.

Add all the chicken pieces except for the breast. Cook for 20 minutes. Slice the breast meat, add to the pan and cook for a further 10 minutes.

Stir in the bamboo shoots and leave bubbling away for 10 minutes. Add the eggplants and half the basil leaves. Cook for a further 10 minutes then turn off the heat. You can add the chillies and coconut flesh now.

Make sure you taste the sauce as you go along. If it’s too hot, just add a little palm sugar to balance it out; if it needs to be saltier, just add salt.

Stir in the lime leaves. Transfer to a serving bowl and scatter with the remaining basil leaves.

Serve with rice.

Cook’s notes: Look for young coconut flesh (sliced, sometimes frozen) and bush chillies at Asian grocery stores. You may find fresh bamboo shoots too. Makrut lime leaves used to be known as kaffir lime leaves.

Jimmy Barnes is the heart and soul of Australian rock ’n’ roll. He has 19 No.1 albums, more than the Beatles, and he has sold more records in Australia than any other local artist. For more than 40 years he has delivered some of our most intense and iconic live performances, both as a solo performer and as frontman for the legendary Cold Chisel, leading to his induction into the ARIA Hall of Fame – twice. He is truly in a league of his own. In addition to his phenomenal music career, Barnes also has written three No.1 bestselling books, with his acclaimed memoirs Working Class Boy and Working Class Man winning back-to-back ABIA Awards in 2017 and 2018. Never one to slow down, Barnes released two new titles in 2021 – a second children’s book, Rosie the Rhinoceros, and a cookbook with his wife, Jane, titled Where the River Bends. Blue Christmas, Barnes’s first Christmas album, is out now