I have never seen a Thai curry recipe for Westerners where you get the authentic Thai curry appearance of a thin layer of coconut oil on top of the coconut milk... how does one do that? All the thai curries I make just end up with a whitish, uniform color, but I followed the recipe to the letter. I found this excerpt:

Coconut milk is the base of most Thai curries. Contrary to western ideas of working with cream, to make the curry sauce, coconut cream is first reduced over fairly high heat to break down the cream and allow the oil to separate. The curry paste is then added and fried in the coconut oil until all the herb and spice flavors are released and blended before the rest of the coconut milk is added to make the sauce. Finished Thai curries will have a thin layer of oil floating on top of the sauce. This oil picks up the color of the curries – bright red for red curry, glistening green for green curry, and so on – giving them a lovely appearance rather than a dull, whitish sameness. The color serves as a reminder of their true nature – spicy hot from red and green chillies and not creamy and bland.

I'm not sure what this all means, but it seems to be what I'm talking about. Any help?

You need to split the oil from the cream. It works better with fresh coconut milk, ie, that which has been obtained by squeezing fresh grated coconut through the juice to produce the coconut milk.If you are using the boxed variety then make sure to shake the contents first.

Pour the coconut milk into a wok or pan and bring almost to the boil fairly quickly and then reduce the heat.

Let the coconut milk simmer and reduce.

Once it's thickened and reduced by about 1/3 increase the heat until the oil separates from the milk and then reduce the heat. Do not boil the milk.

Then add your spices and infuse until the flavor is taken up by the milk.

Then add your meat/seafood/poultry followed by whatever vegetables you are adding; potato, aubergines, carrot, etc., ensuring to add the ones that take the longest time to cook first.

Once the oil has split you can add extra water to provide more volume for your curry contents and reduce this away until you have a consistency that suits.

Enjoy

First you need to separate the thicker cream from the milk. If you're using canned coconut milk, don't shake the can - open it carefully and spoon a few spoonfuls from the top. With fresh coconut milk I find it easiest to tip it into a bowl and leave it in the fridge. Then the cream can be spooned from the top quite easily.

Now put a few spoonfuls (about 50-75 ml) into a wok or pan and boil over a medium heat. After a few minutes the cream will "crack" and the oil separate out. If as it's reducing it starts to go brown around the edges, give it a stir.

Now you can fry the curry paste in the cracked cream until it's fragrant.

Add the rest of the coconut milk after that.

Agreed on the above. Btw, if you want a no fuss easy to make thai curry, I highly recommend the Roi Thai brand combined curry / coconut. I will no go back to buying seperate pastes and coco milk again!! Found it next to the regular coconut milk at jusco, green curry, masaman, geng som. All good

So basically if I just boil the coconut milk for a while at some point, the oil will separate from it? I've done that many times before and never got it to separate out clearly like that

Svenn: you need to start with taking the cream portion of the container (which is at the top). Don't shake up the coconut container before use.

The creamy portion should come out first_this is what you want. Get that heating up in the pan (keep the watery portion in the container for later). Add in your paste. It will begin to bubble and seperate. Once you see it become oily on top add in your meat and fry it in this for a bit. Keep the temp hot. Add in any vegetables (the one's take longer to cook first_potato, garlic for massaman or eggplant for example.)

Once that has fried for a bit then add in the remaining coconut water in the container. Bring it to a boil then reduce the temp to simmer. Cover and let it cook for awhile. Stir once and awhile.

If you think its becoming too thick add some water.

If I have some veggies that I want to remain firmish, I add them in last. (Onion)

Before you shut it off, give it a taste and add in sugar or fish sauce to your liking.