Filipino Chicken Curry

The ER had a good stretch this week — three shifts, all manageable, the kind of shifts where you help people and they get better and you go home feeling like the job makes sense. A sprained ankle on a hiker. An asthma attack managed and resolved. A elderly woman with a UTI who called me "dear" and held my hand while we waited for her labs and told me about her husband who died ten years ago and how she still makes his coffee every morning. I didn't tell her I understand. I held her hand and let the understanding pass between us through the grip.

I'm two and a half years into the ER since returning from leave. The boundaries hold. The therapy continues — weekly, steady, the check-in that keeps the system calibrated. Dr. Reeves and I talk less about the floor now and more about the present — about Jason, about the blog, about the future I'm starting to see, hazy and distant but visible, like mountains through fog. What do I want? Where am I going? The questions are different from "how do you survive?" which is the question that defined the first year. Now the question is: how do you live?

I made chicken curry this week — the Filipino version, mild and coconut-rich, the kind that Lourdes makes on weeknights when the day has been long and the kitchen needs to produce something warm and simple. Chicken thighs, potatoes, carrots, the McCormick curry powder that Lourdes refuses to use but I secretly like, coconut milk poured in like liquid silk. The curry simmers while I sit at the table and exist in the quiet of a kitchen that smells like coconut and turmeric and the particular peace of a woman who has learned to be still.

Stillness was impossible two years ago. Stillness meant the floor. Stillness meant paralysis, the body's refusal to move, the mind's refusal to function. Now stillness means something different — it means sitting, deliberately, with a cup of tea, while the curry simmers and the evening light fills the apartment and the world outside is not an emergency. Stillness is a skill I've learned. It's the hardest thing the therapy taught me: how to be still without being stuck.

The curry was gentle. The chicken was tender. I ate it with rice and the stillness was comfortable and the comfortable was real and the real was enough. How do you live? Like this. With curry and stillness and the specific gratitude of a woman who once couldn't sit still without falling and now sits on purpose, peacefully, with turmeric on her fingers.

This is the curry I made that evening — the one that simmered while I sat at the table learning how to be still on purpose. It’s Lourdes-inspired but mine now, with the McCormick curry powder she’d judge me for and the coconut milk poured in slow. If your week has been long and your kitchen needs to give you something warm and simple and quiet, this is the one.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 40 minutes | Total Time: 55 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

2 lbs bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 medium yellow onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, minced
2 tablespoons McCormick curry powder
1 can (13.5 oz) full-fat coconut milk
1 cup chicken broth
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
2 medium carrots, peeled and sliced into 1/2-inch rounds
1 red bell pepper, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 tablespoon sugar
Salt and black pepper to taste
Steamed white rice, for serving

Instructions

Season the chicken. Pat chicken thighs dry and season generously with salt, pepper, and 1 tablespoon of the curry powder. Set aside.
Brown the chicken. Heat vegetable oil in a large Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed pot over medium-high heat. Sear chicken thighs skin-side down for 4–5 minutes until golden. Flip and sear another 2 minutes. Remove and set aside on a plate.
Build the base. Reduce heat to medium. Add onion to the pot and cook in the rendered fat for 3–4 minutes until softened. Add garlic and ginger and cook 1 minute until fragrant. Stir in the remaining 1 tablespoon curry powder and cook 30 seconds.
Add the liquids. Pour in the coconut milk and chicken broth, stirring to scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Stir in fish sauce, soy sauce, and sugar.
Simmer with vegetables. Return the chicken thighs to the pot, nestling them into the liquid. Add potatoes and carrots around the chicken. Bring to a gentle boil, then reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 25 minutes.
Add the bell pepper. Uncover, add the red bell pepper, and simmer uncovered for another 10 minutes until the potatoes are fork-tender, the chicken is cooked through (165°F), and the sauce has thickened slightly.
Adjust and serve. Taste and adjust seasoning with salt, pepper, or additional fish sauce as needed. Serve hot over steamed white rice.

Nutrition (per serving)

Filipino Chicken Curry — Stillness in a Simmering Pot