The quest for the perfect trail food begins and this is my first experiment with homemade freezer-bag style food. Inspired by Sarahs blog, I ordered the stuff I needed from Harmony House Foods.
All good Thai curries, start with an excellent paste. I'm too lazy to fry my own paste on the trail – so my plan was to pre-cook and then dehydrate the paste. I fried some paste in coconut cream in a similar way to my Massaman Curry post here (except using Green Curry Paste). Follow the Massaman Curry recipe up until the point I mention beating people back with a spoon.
Once I made the paste, I spread it out onto parchment paper and popped it in the convection oven for a few hours on very low (I don't have a dehydrator)
A few hours later, and it dried out nicely. Next I broken it up and ground it into a powder in a coffee grinder.
A few days later and I'm ready to make the concoction I'm a complete newbie at this, and so have no idea on the right ratios of stuff but I'm pretty fearless, so I just winged it 🙂
Here's the recipe I used:
– 1 cu Uncle Bens Instant Rice
– 3 Tbsp of Green Curry Paste Powder
– 1 2oz bag of Chaokoh Coconut Milk Powder
– 4 Tbsp Dried Diced Potatoes
– 3 Tbsp Dried chicken bits (Soy product)
– 1 1/2 Dried Tbsp Onions
– 1 Tbsp Dried Peppers
– 1 tsp Lime Powder (Sour)
– 1 Tbsp Palm Sugar
– 1/2 tsp Sea Salt (My fish sauce substitute)
I simply threw all the dry stuff into a bowl, mixed it up and added to a zip lock. Final dry weight was 10.7 oz. Heavier than freeze dried fare – but a hearty meal for two.
To cook , I simply added 2 /12 cu of water. I think 2 1/4 might have been better – it was a little wet.
The taste? Outstanding, really outstanding – even if I do say so myself. Theresa tried it and wanted to eat it for dinner. The chicken bits were actually pretty decent and (IMHO) a good alternative for not carrying the weight of canned chicken. It was very spicy – as I used a lot of paste, so you might want to cut back on that if you try this at home kids.
Next time, I think I'd add fish sauce and sugar to the paste before drying it – to see how they survive, vs using salt.
And here are some photos documenting it, and the ingredients:
This is something I must try. I dont think the fish sauce will be a problem as it’s just salt, sugar and fish flavour. As you have a drier you could steam some mange tout, shredded cabbage or grated carrot and dry these. They rehydrate really quickly and add a certain authenticity to the dish.
yeah – i guess it is pretty much just salt by the time it’s been dehydrated. i’m hoping to preserve some of the richer fish-sauce flavour – but maybe i’m too optimistic
Brett,
I am going to try that recipe. You can pretty much freezer bag any meal that is cooked and then dehydrated. My wife and I have been doing that with all of our meals. On our last trip we had Pistou and Stir Fried Salmon as examples. We also make our own bars which are 290 calories for each 2 oz bar.
Hey David – how do you do the calorie math? I like the taste of homemade meals, but I have no idea how to compare them to Mountain House foods wrt. calorie/energy supply…
Brett,
Some of my recipes show the calories and on some I look up ingredients and do the math. I usually need about 5 1/2-6 1/2 oz of dehydrated food to keep my tummy happy at dinner. I can
survive on 5 1/2 but can eat 6 1/2.
good info. i would experiment more – but i find it so hard to do overnights since we recently had our baby… theresa is graciously allowing me to take 9 days out to do the wonderland trail this month – so i’m spending my overnight budget all in one go 🙂 with limited time, it’s just easier for me to grab a mtn house pre-made and run with it 🙂
Brett,
That sounds very good! Love the photos as well.
Excellent recipe and instructions. I found your website linked from the Freezer Bag Cooking Facebook page. I’ve dehydrated all sorts of sauces and such, but for some reason never thought of curry paste. Thanks!
Brett, on calories/nutr. stats …when I do them for recipes I just look at packages, figure out my serving then note everything down. Once I have everything, I tally up. I have found even for freeze dried veggies, I can get calories/fiber/fat and sodium online if needed for it.
good tips on nutr. stats. i’ll make sure to write it down next time 🙂
Hi Brett,
great blog and love the food bits.i have tried making a thai chicken curry and drying it but found the coconut milk did not dry fully,how did you get on with the paste,how long did it take.
mike
hey mike,
for the paste – i first fryed it in coconut cream as per the massaman recipe i point to. then i dried that out, i can’t remember how long exactly – probably 5-6 hrs. some with the heat on in the oven, and some hours with just the convection fan running with residual heat. i’m sure a real dehydrator would make short work of it.
did you try drying a entire pre-made curry dish? i would imagine that would have a large amount of milk in that would take a while to dry…
Hi Brett,yes i tried to dry the whole dish.We have a habit in the uk of eating ready made dried meals either bought or made.We tend not to build our meals out on the trail.It must be our terrible weather!
Ill try cooking out the paste with coconut milk and drying that.
mike
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Perfect! I’ve been working on figuring out a good recipe for curry on the trail (ever since finding the powdered coconut milk), and this looks just right. I think I’ll dehydrate some red curry paste tonight. Thanks!
let me know how it goes w/ the red. i’m going to try a massaman soon i think too…
Mmm… Looks good. How long is the dry mix good for, given that the coconut cream used to make the paste has a high fat content?
Chris – I have no idea… I can tell you if tasted good after about 5 days. If you’re worried – you could mix the cream in later and keep it in it’s sealed pouch.