Dehydrated Green Chicken Curry
Although this is one of our heaviest and bulkiest backpacking meals, it’s Geoff’s favourite so we always take it! It tastes remarkably fresh with the lime juice and fresh herbs and spices, and the textures of chicken and turkey mince, crunchy vegetables and rice noodles are great. As always, you can tweak the protein by adding more mince. Replace the mince with textured vegetable protein for a vegan version. Keto hikers can dehydrate zoodles or use keto spaghetti. The original recipe has less meat and more sauce, and uses coconut cream, milk and water, but I’ve tweaked to omit the cream and use powdered coconut milk. This recipe is for folk who love cooking but, if you buy sachet green curry paste instead of making David Thomson’s from scratch, you’ll find this incredibly quick and easy to make.
As always, this recipe is for a large batch of 10-15 serves, and packaging is for two people. Halve for solo hikers.
INGREDIENTS
¾ - 1kg lean chicken mince OR equivalent TVP for vegans
¾ - 1kg turkey mince OR equivalent TVP for vegans
½ -¾ large cauliflower, cut into small florets and stem diced to 1cm
500g -700g green beans cut into 1cm lengths
½ - 1 cup fish sauce
Juice and zest of 8 - 10 limes
2 bunches (equivalent to 1 Excalibur tray) coriander chopped
2 bunches basil (ditto) chopped
dark brown sugar to taste (optional)
4 Makrut lime leaves finely julienned
6 - 8 big wooden spoonfuls of curry paste (see below)
Rice Noodles
3 tbspn oil
Coconut milk powder, equivalent to about 10 - 15 cups (for 2 kg meat)
DAVID THOMSONS GREEN CURRY PASTE (amounts for 2 kg meat; reduce amount for a milder flavour or less meat)
8 tbspn chopped green bird’s eye chillies
2 tbspn chopped galangal
4 tbspn chopped white stems lemongrass
2 tbspn chopped lime zest
2 tbspn scraped chopped coriander root
2 tspn chopped red turmeric
6 tbspn chopped red shallot
4 tbspn chopped garlic
2 tspn shrimp paste
20 white peppercorns
1 tspn coriander seeds and
½ tspn cumin seeds, roasted and ground
Pound all ingredients in a mortar and pestle, or process with a little water in a blender
Cheat’s No Dehydrating Hacks:
Use commercial curry sachet, either powder or paste, dried TVP, 20g freeze dried peas (for one serve), and rice noodles.
You can use a curry sachet instead of making the paste from scratch
Method:
In a large non-stick pan (you may need two batches) fry paste in oil for a few minutes, stirring regularly to prevent burning. Add mince and continue cooking until fragrant. Add green beans, cauliflower, lime juice, zest and fish sauce. Bring to a simmer (add a tiny amount of water if necessary) and cover. Simmer until vegetables are cooked. This is your WET MIX.
Don’t worry if the mix tastes a bit too strong, astringent or salty – you’ll be adding rice noodles, water and coconut milk which will round out the flavour, so your WET MIX should be strongly flavoured.
Next:
Make up a single serve test batch of WET MIX in a bowl and weigh. This is WET MIX A. Don’t dehydrate this: it will be your tester.
Place another single serve of WET MIX A on a dehydrator tray and mark with a spoon.
Fill remaining trays and dehydrate at 62C (145F) (or 55C; 120-135 F if using TVP) until completely dry.
Dry the chopped coriander and basil on separate trays.
When dry, weigh the mix on your marked tray. Record as B. THIS IS YOUR DRY MIX WEIGHT FOR ONE. Place all the dried mix, including B, into a large bowl, add coriander and basil, and mix well (the herbs weigh almost nothing and won’t significantly affect measurements).
While the wet mix is in the dehydrator, calculate the water you’ll need to reconstitute the coconut milk.
Make up about one cup of coconut milk with powder and hot water according to packet directions and progressively add to your single test serve WET MIX A . The sauce should be runny, not thick. Taste as you tweak and record amounts. Increasing the volume or concentration of coconut milk powder makes for a richer flavour. Whatever you add, record. The tally is the amount of coconut powder C and water D you will need for one serve.
Cook one serve of rice noodles and drain. Add the noodles to the test serve of coconut milk and WET MIX A. It should taste great, but you can tweak the coconut milk further. Just keep a tally of the coconut powder and water you add for the final C and D totals for one serve. You can add your brown sugar now too if using. Once you’re satisfied, eat your test serve - yum! - and package your meals.
Packaging:
In each food saver bag for 2 place
2 x B dry mix
2 x brown sugar if using
2 x C coconut milk powder (including tweaks)
2 x rice noodles, in a Ziploc bag.
Vac seal the food saver bag. On the outside write the amount of water (W) needed. This will be:
(2A-2B) to rehydrate the vegetables and meat + 2xD (twice the water you’ve used for reconstituting coconut milk for your tester) = W.
Ready for rehydrating
In camp, open bag and remove noodles. Pour boiling water (W, written on outside) into bag, stir very thoroughly, close and place in a cosy for 20-25 minutes. 10 minutes before the curry is ready, place rice noodles in a pot of hot water. Drain when ready and mix with curry. Enjoy!
I rehydrate noodles separately from the curry as double serves won’t fit into a single sous vide bag, but solo hikers can place the noodles into the same bag, remembering you’ll need to add extra water for them.