Satay Expedition Curry
This is a recipe that we have been experimenting with for a few years now, and we think we have something that ticks all the satay boxes. This curry has plenty of flavour and can be made from shelf stable ingredients so it will keep nicely even in a hot barrel for weeks at a time.
Ingredients
Serves 2 people.
As with most of our recipes there are a few core ingredients and some optional extras you can swap out and experiment with.
Core ingredients
The core ingredients for this recipe is most of them:
4 tablespoons peanut butter
50-60g creamed coconut (to make approximately 150-180 ml of coconut milk)
1 teaspoon curry powder
200g of cooked chicken (we use canned chicken, though you can use a vacuum packet or other shelf stable chicken substitute)
250g rice (we’ve used basmati or long grain)
Pinch of salt
Optional Ingredients
Now this is where you can start experimenting. Here are the extras we have found work well, so we then add the following to the core ingredients:
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon of soy sauce instead of salt (the individual packets you get with sushi work well here)
1 dehydrated onion in strips, or freshly chopped
2 dehydrated carrots diced, or freshly chopped
¼ teaspoon of chilli powder.
Cooking equipment
This recipe does not require much equipment.
Camping stove - something that has a controllable heat is preferable. Although possible over a spirit burner it is a bit more of a challenge to not weld food to the bottom.
2x Saucepans with lids - big enough to get the ingredients in.
Mixing spoon - we tend to use a large wooden spoon.
Knife - almost anything that has an edge on will do.
Cutting surface - something that can be cut onto without damaging you or your knife blade.
Method
It might look like a lot of steps, but the method for this one is relatively simple: add things to the pot and keep stirring!
If you are using dehydrated vegetables add them to the pan with enough water to cover them. Wait for a few mins for them to rehydrate.
If using fresh vegetables, chop into strips approximately 3-5mm thick and place in a pan.
Chop up your pre-cooked chicken into small pieces, with canned chicken we aim for 10mm (½”) cubes.
Drain any water that is not absorbed by the dried vegetables. If you are having something like rice then this water can be used for cooking that. Waste not want not!
Start the stove.
Add the peanut butter to the pan with the vegetables, with the heat it will split and provide an oil that will help with the frying of the vegetables.
Fry the vegetables until soft.
Add the curry powder and fry for around 30 seconds.
Add the creamed coconut powder with the amount of water needed to make it coconut milk.
Add the salt or soy sauce.
Add the cooked chicken pieces.
Keep stirring until everything is piping hot, place a lid on the pan and take it off the heat.
Place the rice in a second pan (this may be clean, or have your excess water from the dehydrated vegetables).
Place twice the volume of water to rice in the second pan, stir and put it on the heat. If it is safe to do so, you can balance the satay pot on top of the rice pot to keep it warm.
Stir the rice every so often to ensure that it does not stick to the bottom of the pan.
When rice is cooked, serve and tuck in!
Trail tips
Make sure that your vegetables are cut nice and thin as this will mean that they take less time to cook and therefore you use less fuel in your stove.
Keep stirring anything that is on a camp stove, as they tend to provide a much more intense localised heat that can result in welding a circle of food to the bottom of your pan.
