
Burmese Chicken Curry
Servings 5 pint jars
Ingredients
- 5 regular mouth pint jars sanitized, with lids and rings
- 2 1/2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs or breasts, cut into bite-size pieces
- 2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp turmeric
- 1 tbsp paprika
- 1 medium yellow onion quartered
- 2 shallots
- 1 (1 inch) piece peeled fresh ginger
- 6 cloves garlic
- 16 oz unsweetened coconut milk (see note on safety)
- 16 oz chicken stock or water
- 1/3 cup vegetable oil
- 1 tbsp lime juice
- 2 tbsp fish sauce
- 1/2 tsp chili powder or cayenne
- 1 tbsp curry powder preferably Madras
- 1/2 tsp garam masala
- 2 tbsp red curry paste (optional)
- 1 tbsp lemongrass (optional)
Instructions
Marinate the chicken
- Mix the paprika, turmeric, and salt together with the chicken
- Set aside to marinate
Combine the onion base into a paste
- In the food processor, add the onion, shallot, ginger, and garlic
- Process to a paste in the food processor
Cook the onion base
- Heat the vegetable oil in a medium stock pot over medium heat
- Add the paste and cook until the onions have released their moisture, about 10-15 minutes, adding additional oil and scraping the pan as necessary
Bringing it all together
- Add the chicken and sauté until fragrant
- Add the coconut milk and bring to a boil
- Add the remaining ingredients
- Reduce heat and simmer
Canning the Burmese Curry
- Add canning rack to the instant pot and fill with ~2 inches of water
- Set up the five pint jars near the cooking area with their lids and rings handy
- In the bottom of each jar, place one of the bay leaves
- Distribute the curry evenly among the pint jars
- Wipe the rims of the jars clean as necessary
- Apply lids and screw the bands to finger tightness on the jars
- Using the jar lifter, lower the jars in to the instant pot
- Secure the lid of the instant pot and make sure the pressure valve is set
- Program the instant pot to cook under high pressure for 1 hour and 10 minutes, and make sure to disable the Keep Warm setting
Wrapping up the process
- After the instant pot has finished cooking, be sure to let it come down to ambient pressure using the natural release cycle, do not try to do the quick release cycle as this can cause liquid to be forced out of the jars and potentially break the seals
- Once the instant pot is safe to open, open it and use the jar lifter to pull the jars out and place on a towel too dry and cool down
- If the rings on the jars are loose, they can be finger tightened again, carefully
- Leave the jars to cool, you should hear the lids popping as the pressure creates a seal on the jars
- After the jars have cooled, the rings can be removed and the jars are now shelf-stable and safe to store in a pantry to be eaten later
- If any jar failed to seal, it is safe to either eat immediately or reprocess in the instant pot, though you may need to replace the lid since it did not seal properly
Notes
Regular mouth jars:
Normally regular or wide mouth mason jars are interchangeable, and the only consideration is how many jars will fit in the instant pot (5 regular mouth, 4 wide mouth). Since in this recipe the yield is 5 jars, I recommend using regular mouth pint jars.
Coconut milk safety:
There are no tested recipes for canning coconut milk since it low acid and has high fat content. Since the coconut milk is diluted in this recipe, and we add back in acid with the lime juice, I use a light coconut milk and can the recipe with the coconut milk included. However, this is not recommended and if you do this you do so at your own risk. The safest approach is to can the recipe without the coconut milk and add in coconut milk upon serving.




















