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1
Place a wok over medium heat and pour in the thick coconut cream, leaving it undisturbed so the water cooks off and the fat separates cleanly — stirring at this stage emulsifies the cream back together and the crack will not happen. Watch for the oily, slightly curdled look with golden patches forming at the edges; that is the cracked state you need before anything else goes in.
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2
Add 3 tablespoons of green curry paste to the cracked fat and fry, stirring constantly, for 2–3 minutes, so the paste fries in separated fat rather than simmering in liquid — only fat-frying drives off the raw character and merges the individual notes into a single, deep aromatic. This is where the dish lives or dies: at the start the lemongrass is sharp and the shrimp paste is pungent and individually identifiable; at the correct end point those notes have merged, the paste has darkened slightly, and the raw smell is entirely gone. If a bitter, acrid note enters, the paste has gone too far.
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3
Add the chicken pieces and stir to coat them thoroughly in the fried paste, so every surface picks up the aromatic base before any liquid is added and dilutes it. Turn the pieces for 2 minutes until the paste has visibly begun to adhere to the chicken.
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4
Pour in the thin coconut milk and bring to a simmer, then add the halved Thai eggplants (makeua khao) so they cook gently in the seasoned liquid rather than sitting in raw milk. Simmer for 10 minutes — the eggplants should be just tender when pierced but still carry slight resistance at the centre.
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5
Add the pea eggplants (makeua phiang) and the torn kaffir lime leaves now, later than the larger eggplants, so they hold their shape and keep the faint bitterness that balances the coconut's sweetness. Continue simmering for 3 minutes.
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6
Season with fish sauce and palm sugar, then taste and adjust — the finished curry should carry the paste's full aromatic range simultaneously: citrus-bright from the lemongrass and kaffir lime, resinous-warm from the galangal, mellow-deep from the shrimp paste, hot from the chilli. If the coconut milk reads as the primary flavour rather than the medium carrying the aromatics, the paste was under-fried or under-measured.
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7
Remove the wok from heat and fold in the torn horapa leaves and fresh red chilli slices at the last moment, so their volatile fragrance stays in the dish rather than cooking off into the air within 30 seconds over flame. Do not return the wok to heat; serve immediately.