For roughly the past week and a half I've been jonesing for some curry. This started last Saturday when one of the dishes at a wedding I was at was some Thai red curry. I'd wanted to get more of the curry, but I felt like if I tried to eat anything more I would explode, so I opted against seconds. I would have made some sooner, but on Tuesday I was invited over to help polish of leftovers from said wedding and I'd built up my hopes for more of the curry. Upon arrival and discovery that the curry hadn't made it that long I realized I needed to take matters into my own hands. Luckily I still had a box of S&B Golden Curry sauce mix left over from when I'd made curry chicken dip earlier in the summer.
This meal almost didn't make it. Between some overzealous shopping, some inattentive shopping, and some poor pan picks, the curry almost turned out both too thick and too thin. A couple of pieces of advice before the recipe proper: If you have to ask if you can get more ingredients into the pan, the answer is no. If you're looking to simmer something, be sure that said thing is in the water and the water doesn't come to the top of the pan. Split chicken breasts contain both skin and bones. If you put different amounts of water into two
pans, you should also put different amounts of sauce mixes into the pans, particularly if it contains a thickening agent. This recipe is intended to be served over rice, but I've yet to figure out a good way to do rice quickly and consistently, so if you have a preferred method, use it.
Ingredients:
2-3 lbs chicken breast
1 8.4 oz package of S&B Golden Curry Sauce Mix (pick heat level based on personal preference/gastrointestinal strength) NOTE: contains MSG, so if you think that bothers you either suck it up or skip this recipe
2 onions
2 bell peppers
20ish baby carrots
1 package sliced mushrooms
1 potato
6 cups of water
Instructions:
Oil Pan(s)
Cut chicken into chunks (this is considerably easier if you buy boneless skinless chicken breasts rather than split chicken breasts)
Dice onions (or long dice if you're lazy like me)
Begin pan frying the chicken and onions while you finish crying
Stir occasionally while preparing carrots and peppers
Cut baby carrots either in half or into thirds based on size and add to holding bowl(s)
Cut peppers in half, then into strips and add to holding bowl(s)
When onions have browned (or bowl{s} are ready) stir contents of bowl(s) into the pan(s)
Add water to pan(s)
Bring pan(s) to a simmer, then simmer for 5 minutes while preparing mushrooms and potatoes
Rinse mushrooms
Clean and dice potato
Stir mushrooms and potatoes into pan(s)
Simmer an additional 10 minutes
Remove from heat and stir in curry mix until dissolved
Simmer for 5 minutes (I assume this means to return to heat, so that's what I did)
If you're rocking two pans, compare the consistency of the mix between the two pans. If there's a noticeable difference, consider doing what I did and combining the pans into one pot
As you might be able to tell from my pre-recipe tips, a lot of things didn't go correctly for this meal. While I was shopping I got a little ahead of myself and wound up picking up one more potato and pepper than I wound up using (I have no idea yet how I'm going to utilize both of these into one meal yet but I'm sure I'll figure something out) and split chicken breasts instead of boneless, skinless chicken breasts. On the bright side I now know something to look for while shopping, in addition to the fact that deboning chicken breasts before cooking them is more effort than I want to put for for a meal.
After my questionable shopping choices I proceeded to make matters worse with my pan choices and my refusal to compensate for the pans I had picked. I own a fairly large frying pan, that could have probably fit either most, or all of these ingredients into it. However, I'd forgotten about this pan until I was searching for lids to use on the pans I'd picked (you're supposed to cover the pan while simmering. I'd opted not to both because I didn't have correct sized lids and because I wanted to get rid of some water). Since I didn't realize I had that pan (which does have a lid) I instead decided to split the recipe in half and do half in my deeper pan (which will now be referred to as lefty) and my shallower pan (which will now be referred to as righty). The problem with this is that lefty has more volume than righty, and this fact will come center stage shortly.
After doing a terrible job of deboning and chunking the chicken breasts and adding the chicken and onions to the pans I saw that one pan had more room left (heh) than the other, so I allocated more carrots and peppers for lefty than for righty. Unfortunately, when I went to divvy up water between the two pans I didn't take the volume discrepancy into account initially. So I attempted to put 3 cups of water into righty, but I realized that this wasn't going to work and put some of what was intended for righty into lefty, and scooped some more out to ensure a safer simmer level.
At this point lefty has more vegetables, water, and empty space than righty. So when I add the potatoes and mushrooms I put more into lefty, which makes sense. Unfortunately, the 8.4 oz packages of curry are separated into two individual trays. So I put one tray into each pan, totally forgetting the discrepancy I'd been building in every step since step 2. This resulted in lefty being both thinner in texture and lighter in color than righty. In fact, looking at them in this entry's initial picture, they hardly seem like they have all of the same ingredients in them.
At this point I knew that something had to be done. One pan had far too much water and was nearly drowning in excess fluids while the other was overly thick and would have had the texture of eating sludge, which is exactly as unappetizing as it sounds. Luckily, the solution to this conundrum was present on my stove. By pouring both pans into my pot, then stirring the mixture together and allowing it to use the residual heat from the pans to accelerate the merging of the two curries I was able to end with a single, delicious curry.
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