Food Storage Friday: Coconut Curry Chicken

No, no oats in this recipe, this is all just for food storage fun! Or the fact that my daughter's birthday is this week and has thrown me ALL off my groove. So the muesli post I had scheduled just didn't get done. Luckily, I had this piece of work lying around saying: "Post me! Post me!"

This is a recipe I picked up from a Rachael Ray magazine. The only conversion it needed to be food storage friendly was to substitute canned chicken for fresh. Is dead chicken fresh? Anyway, here we go...


Coconut Curry Chicken. Yum. Sound like food storage?


Ingredients: Rice, canned chicken, coconut milk, curry powder, and five spice powder


First we're going to make rice, Philippino style. Mountain Man (my main, and only man) served a mission in the Philippines so this is how he makes rice. He shuns all rice cookers. I like my rice cooker. Especially when I have company coming. But I have to admit, this is easy!



Pour some oil in the bottom of a saucepan that has a lid.


Measure out your rice, I use one cup for our family of four.


And twice as much water as rice, so two cups here.


Put your rice over high heat and let it come to a boil.


Like this!


Totally blurry picture, but, if it were clear you would see that the level of the water has boiled down to the level of the rice, this is what you're looking for. Turn off heat completely, cover with the lid and leave on the burner (turned off) for about 15 minutes.


When the time is up, pop the lid off and fluff your rice.


Perfect.


Now for the curry, a little oil in the bottom of your sauce pan.


Add the curry powder


Stir it together with the oil to make a paste.


Now add your coconut milk. I found coconut milk by the rice in my grocery store.



Add the whole can


Cook over medium heat until the coconut milk reduces by half, about 7 minutes or so.


Now open your can of chicken, drain it and dump it into a bowl.


Add the five spice powder. I looked in vain for this seasoning at my local grocery store, there was none to be had. So I thought, hey, it's just five spices mixed together right? I can do that. So I looked it up and found a recipe here. I have a spice grinder so I was pretty stoked, for the first thirty seconds. It took FOREVER to grind all that stuff up. So although you can make it at home, I would recommend finding an Asian market and buying it. Your arm will thank you later.



Add the salt



and pepper


And mix around until the chicken is coated.


Here's where I made a game-time decision. You have to do that in food storage cooking. I could have put the chicken directly in the sauce here, but I was worried that if I did all the seasonings that I worked so hard to make would just fall off into the sauce. Not that it wouldn't taste good as a whole, but I wanted this chicken to taste good and not so much like canned chicken. So I warmed up some oil in a little frying pan and grilled the chicken a little, just so the spices would caramelize onto the meat and stay attached. Just for a few minutes, not long at all.


Go ahead and add the chicken to the sauce, stir it all together and top it on some rice and you've got yourself a delicious food storage friendly meal.


Thanks Rachael!


Coconut Curry Chicken
Adapted from Rachael Ray Magazine

1 1/2 cups white rice
2 tsps curry powder
13.5-oz can coconut milk
canned chicken
2 tsp five-spice powder
1 Tbsp oil

Add rice and 3 cups of water to a saucepan. Drizzle a little oil in and turn up to high heat. Watch for the water level to boil down to the rice. When it does, turn off the heat and cover. Let sit for 15 minutes. Fluff with a fork.

Drizzle oil in a skillet. Add curry powder and cook for one minute. Add coconut milk and cook until reduced by half, about 7 minutes. Drain chicken and add to a bowl with the spices. Coat chicken. Add chicken to frying pan with warm oil and saute for a few minutes. Add chicken to the sauce and stir to combine. Serve over rice.


Happy Halloween!