Recently, I discovered that I really like Thai food and I can train myself to take the level of spiciness involved in a mild-medium Thai dish. Most restaurants in Edmonton are willing to sacrifice some authenticity for the comfort of your taste buds and crying is a socially-acceptable reaction in most of them, so I am doing quite ok with the eating-out experience. But I just wanted to create some Thai-like food for days when I am not willing to hurt myself -either physically or psychologically-, and here's my creation:

Lemon-Grass Chicken for Babies

3 chicken breasts, cut into pieces
1/2 medium white onion, diced
2 tsp fresh ginger, cut into small pieces
2 cloves of garlic,minced
5 sticks of lemon grass
1 small carrot, cut into small pieces
1 cup sugar-snap peas, each cut in half
1/2 cup canned baby corn
Salt
Cayenne pepper, if you insist on being hard-core

In a medium frying pan, fry the chicken and onions for about 3 min, mix in minced garlic and ginger, cook for another 3 min, add in the carrots, stir and cover. Cook until the chicken breasts look white and the onions are soft. Cut away the hard ends of the lemon grass, and peel the hard outside layer. Cut the remaining parts into about 3cm long pieces and bruise them with a tenderizer (or end of a knife, or any other hard object you fancy). Stir the lemongrass into the frying pan, cook until all the ingredients are almost completely cooked,and finally, add in the baby corn and peas, salt (cayenne pepper) to taste cook for another 2-3min. I really like the flavour of lemongrass, but I must warn you that in this recipe, the flavor is not subtle at all, so if you prefer a subtle taste, you might want to reduce the amount to 3 or 4 sticks. I also like everything really softly-cooked, except for the peas, which I like a little crunchy. If you prefer them softer, you might want to drop them in a little earlier. Another nice addition could be roasted almonds, which I planned to include while making this, but forgot to add :)

I put the lemongrass chicken on some coconut rice. I simply buy some coconut milk and replace half of the normal amount of water I use when making rice with the coconut milk, it gives a perfect result. Needless to say, try to buy the heavy coconut milk for the best taste :) Also, I prefer to use long-grain rice rather than sticky rice for this, as the coconut milk already makes it pretty sticky in the end.

Enjoy!