Hello!
On Saturday night the Posh Boy's boys, came over. That made 6 for dinner as one of the usual Boarding School boys was at a wedding. No matter, we werent expecting them, they had a hasty chat by email. We have no roof, whahhh, the rain is coming in whahhhh... And an hour later they poured in from 3 counties, with their sleeping bags in hand, to keep our spirits high.
Thankfully we still have power in the garage, meaning there was cold drinks in that fridge. The boys all found it hilarious that we have hot water coming out of the cold tap and cold water from the hot taps, where the builders did something silly with the water pipes. They will sort it, I need a roof more than I need that changing back.
What did I feed everyone, when I dont live near a shop and didnt want to go back out after a day in Stoud? Store cupboard massaman curry.
Please excuse the builders tray. Everything else is in a box somewhere... Lets pretend this is a really gorgeous picture, OK. Hmm lets move on.
The massaman curry paste was on offer, 20p a packet, reduced to clear. The tempura flour was 12p a bag, also on clearance. Got to snap the bargains up. On Saturday I used 2 packets of the curry paste, 2 cans of new potatoes, 3 cans of coconut milk, also on offer, 2 for £1. And the star of the show? Not chicken or beef or any meat. Yep, you have guessed it TOFU. Also from the store cupboard.
We ate all the tofu in the store cupboard, 3 cubes to be exact.
Now I know what you are thinking... Sol, you really use silken tofu? Well yes I do. Here is how.
Break open the box with scissors, dont squeeze it out. Cut open the other end. Using a spatula push it gently out. Leave it to drain for as long as you can. Say, 20 minutes. Then carefully cut it into nice cubes, think how you would cut chicken for a curry. Now you are going to use the tempura batter. You arent making batter. You are going to use the tempura flour as a coating. Lightly press the cubes into the flour. And then fry gently in some oil. Do this in small batches.
To make the curry sauce up, follow the instructions. Something like lightly fry the paste from the packets, and then add the coconut milk from the cans. Whisk it in. Heat through. If you had it in your pantry roughly chop 2 big onions. Heat in some oil on high in the pan you used for the tofu, burn some bits on it. Then open the cans of potatoes, make them bite size. Put the onions and the potatoes into the curry sauce and cook for a few minutes. When you are ready to serve, add the tofu to the curry very carefully and bathe the cubes with the sauce and gently stir.
Serve with boil rice from your stock pile.
You can also make this with beef or chicken. I have never tried fish but I am sure you can, if you can do it with tofu you can do it with anything.
Be careful, massaman curry can and will stain your clothes.
So much easier than pounding all of the ingredients like I did at Thai food cookery school.
Heres what it looked like in Thailand. I forgot to take a picture before they ate it all.
Enjoy.
One of the boys called it Zombie Apocalypse curry... Not bad for everything coming out of pantry right?
On Saturday night the Posh Boy's boys, came over. That made 6 for dinner as one of the usual Boarding School boys was at a wedding. No matter, we werent expecting them, they had a hasty chat by email. We have no roof, whahhh, the rain is coming in whahhhh... And an hour later they poured in from 3 counties, with their sleeping bags in hand, to keep our spirits high.
Thankfully we still have power in the garage, meaning there was cold drinks in that fridge. The boys all found it hilarious that we have hot water coming out of the cold tap and cold water from the hot taps, where the builders did something silly with the water pipes. They will sort it, I need a roof more than I need that changing back.
What did I feed everyone, when I dont live near a shop and didnt want to go back out after a day in Stoud? Store cupboard massaman curry.
Please excuse the builders tray. Everything else is in a box somewhere... Lets pretend this is a really gorgeous picture, OK. Hmm lets move on.
The massaman curry paste was on offer, 20p a packet, reduced to clear. The tempura flour was 12p a bag, also on clearance. Got to snap the bargains up. On Saturday I used 2 packets of the curry paste, 2 cans of new potatoes, 3 cans of coconut milk, also on offer, 2 for £1. And the star of the show? Not chicken or beef or any meat. Yep, you have guessed it TOFU. Also from the store cupboard.
We ate all the tofu in the store cupboard, 3 cubes to be exact.
Break open the box with scissors, dont squeeze it out. Cut open the other end. Using a spatula push it gently out. Leave it to drain for as long as you can. Say, 20 minutes. Then carefully cut it into nice cubes, think how you would cut chicken for a curry. Now you are going to use the tempura batter. You arent making batter. You are going to use the tempura flour as a coating. Lightly press the cubes into the flour. And then fry gently in some oil. Do this in small batches.
To make the curry sauce up, follow the instructions. Something like lightly fry the paste from the packets, and then add the coconut milk from the cans. Whisk it in. Heat through. If you had it in your pantry roughly chop 2 big onions. Heat in some oil on high in the pan you used for the tofu, burn some bits on it. Then open the cans of potatoes, make them bite size. Put the onions and the potatoes into the curry sauce and cook for a few minutes. When you are ready to serve, add the tofu to the curry very carefully and bathe the cubes with the sauce and gently stir.
Serve with boil rice from your stock pile.
You can also make this with beef or chicken. I have never tried fish but I am sure you can, if you can do it with tofu you can do it with anything.
Be careful, massaman curry can and will stain your clothes.
So much easier than pounding all of the ingredients like I did at Thai food cookery school.
Heres what it looked like in Thailand. I forgot to take a picture before they ate it all.
Enjoy.
One of the boys called it Zombie Apocalypse curry... Not bad for everything coming out of pantry right?
7 comments:
Sounds great! Been years since I've had a good massaman curry (in Thailand I think was the last time) but I do love it. We quite often have thai now and I did bring back a big croc that you pound the salad in.
Your curry definitely looks good to me..you even panfried the silken tofu! I can just imagine the nice creaminess of the cocunut milk...YUM:) Eating out under the sky always gives special flavour to any gathering...but hope the builders got their acts together by now - specially as summer is not really summer-like these days LOL!
Hi Kev we eat quite a lot of Thai food.
Hi Annie, it is raining every afternoon and then into the evening. lol we are just getting on with it.
Don't go to Thailand , Sol. They are beating up English people, some really ugly videos of families being attacked! Guess it's ok to eat the food though. ;-)
Sounds to me like you are getting some good practice for the apocalypse, when it happens it will all be old hat to you folks!
I'm not a Tofu person, but that curry looked yummy.
Hey Harry, we have been to Thailand quite a few times, nothing has ever happened to us. if you had said Vietnam I would have thought, yeah we arent ever going there again. We have never had any trouble in Thailand. But we do Bangkok, Chang Mai and then to the island Koh Chang each time, although the last time we did the Hell Fire Pass. We stay in the old fuddy duddy areas. I have felt more intimidated in Italy and in Tunisia, where the men seem to think they can touch you.
Tofu is nice when it is cooked correctly. Have you had much tofu? There are some really nice desserts you can also make with it. Maybe I will do that for next time. Need to find tofu on offer first.
How is your Wife liking our Property Brothers renovation? lol
I love a meal that comes entirely from store cupboard ingredients, especially when it can stretch to feeding unexpected guests as yours did.
I have a pack of silken Tofu in the cupboard that needs using up, perhaps it will be finding it's way into a curry after reading this.
Hi Sue, I use silken tofu in a lot of food, as I can find it on offer a lot of the time and it has a 2 year shelf life. Good for the stock pile. I add it to soup, make desserts with it, and I found that if you fry it so it has a crust on it, you can add it to curries and other wet food as long at it is added at the end and not thrown about too much. If I had over night I would have put it in a cheese cloth on a rack. Because I like firm and extra firm tofu, silken is not my favourite but it is cheaper and readily available in the large supermarkets. Other wise I have to go to a big town over 25 minutes away by car. The holland and barrett near here is very small and has mostly nuts and what I think looks like slimming or body building stuff. You have to use what you have. I forgot to say that I added peanuts to this dish. I had cheap peanuts, I think they are about 50p for 250g, they are the salted ones you would buy in a pub. I wash them and then dry fry them in a frying pan. lol Cheap arent I! lol
Post a Comment