Thai Red Curry Chicken Recipe

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This is a recipe that will surely bless your guests or family!  I took my recipe from this site, which includes several other great Thai recipes along with videos of the ladies making them.  They only have a green curry recipe, but I prefer red...so I've played around with it, and this is what I've come up with:

2 cans coconut milk
1/2 cup Thai red curry paste (can find at Asian markets)
1/2 cup fish sauce* (Asian markets)
about 1 lb of boneless chicken, sliced into thin strips
2 cans bamboo shoots
1 large red bell pepper, de-stemmed and de-seeded and sliced into 1/4" thick strips
2-3 Kaffir lime leaves, or 1 fork-full of canned Kaffir lime leaf shreds (Asian market)
1/4 cup sugar
handful of fresh Thai basil leaves or sweet basil leaves
4-5 servings jasmine rice, prepared

*the fish sauce is the salt to the dish. it's exceedingly high in sodium, and if you wish to make the dish less salty, you can simply leave some of this out and allow folks to salt their own plates to taste 

In a large saucepan, heat 1/2 can of coconut milk until boiling.  Stir in the red curry paste until blended, then add fish sauce and stir.  Add chicken, and cook until it's just white on the outside.  Add bamboo shoots, Kaffir lime leaves, and sugar.  Add more coconut milk if more cooking liquid is needed.  Cook and stir until chicken is cooked through, approximately 5 minutes.  Add red bell pepper, basil leaves (tearing in half or so to release oils), and all but the last 1/2 can of coconut milk.  Stir and add coconut milk to taste (if you prefer it more salty and hot, leave out the last 1/2 can, or if you want to mellow it out more you can add the rest of the coconut milk).  Off the heat.  Makes 4-5 servings when served over rice.

Note: I've seen a few tablespoons of ginger garlic paste (also available at Asian markets) added to some recipes online, but I've never tried it.  Might be a good thing.  Also, I purchase the bamboo shoots, chicken, bell peppers, sugar and coconut milk at my local Wal-Mart.  I buy jasmine rice in bulk from Sams.  The canned Kaffir lime leaves and fish sauce go a long way and the curry paste has a long shelf life, so really this can be a very inexpensive and easy meal.  About a week ago I made two of these recipes plus 5 servings of mango sticky rice for dessert (recipe here), fed over 8 people, and spent only $26.  That's almost exactly what it would have cost me to buy just 2 servings of red curry chicken and mango sticky rice from our local Thai restaurant.  You can't beat that!