Bulk Cooking: Chicken and Shrimp Curry

 

Song:  Time

Composer:   Hans Zimmer

I love cooking large batches of food as it makes life so much

simpler and convenient.

This way, I may freeze many portions of food...

which I may then just take from the freezer 

and defrost over a few days in the refrigerator...

so I may then microwave them for a quick meal.

I love curry over rice...

and so...

I decided to make a large enough batch to last me many months of meals.

I first had to start brining and then cooking the just over 5 lbs of chicken.

After having defrosted and brined the chicken for a few hours...

I coated them with one stick of melted butter...

and then placed them into a 450 F oven for about forty minutes.

This brand is my favorite curry.

It is a Japanese brand that can be gotten online or in many Asian markets.

They can be bought for about $2.00 a box...

even though you have people trying to sell them for $20.00 a box online.

I got mine online for just over $2.00 a box.

Wait for a decent price...

and then stock up.

I then began defrosting the 6 lbs of shrimp.

As they were defrosting...

I cut up two bags of carrots.

I then began cooking the carrots in my 24 Quart stock pot...

and the shrimp in my wok.

After the chicken breasts were done...

I placed them in a bowl and began shredding them.

These are the cakes of curry.

After shredding the chicken...

I put the pieces into the stock pot.

I then added the shrimp.

I then added the curry cakes into the stock pot and let the pot simmer until the mixture thickened.

In general...

in almost all recipes...

I automatically double the amount of recommended meat...

and with this curry...

I also doubled the amount of curry used.

I also don't add onions to my curry...

because onions are toxic for dogs...

and Bandi loves curry...

so...

I don't add any.

It was still light outside when I began the simmering.

As you can see...

I always clean as I go.

Everything else but the stockpot and a ladle had been washed.

The curry thickened in a short period of time.

What would take the longest would be the time it would take 

for the curry to cool down enough for it to be placed into individual

plastic freezer containers.

The freezer containers are on the middle shelf.

I have many more unused ones in one of the pantry shelves...

but these should be enough.

As you can see...

the sun had set before the curry had cooled enough.

However...

I would eat some for this night's meal.

After eating the curry...

I put together one of my favorite desserts:

frozen strawberries, bananas, and blueberries...

topped off with sweetened condensed milk.

As a child in Japan...

I used to love the candy 'Milky'.

It was just a hard candy form of sweetened condensed milk.

I still love the flavor...

and so...

it is one of my favorite dessert toppings.

Although I rarely eat dessert...

this is one of my favorites.

I had initially taken out what I thought would have been enough containers...

but I would later find out I would need another six of them.

Each container makes one meal for me to eat.

I just spoon out the contents into a bowl and heat it up in the micro 

for a hot meal in minutes.

This one batch made 18 containers...

plus what I had for supper.

This will provide me with many months of delicious meals...

even should I eat one a week.

With large batch cooking...

I may have a large variety of delicious meals premade

and ready to heat and eat on demand.

I still have a large stock of Habanero Ham Hock and Beans in the freezer as well.

The clean up was just an easy few minutes.

I allow the pots and pans to just air dry overnight...

and I then put them away in the morning.

-----------

I look forward to large batch cooking for two reasons:

It makes my life so much simpler in future meal preparation.

And...

as I love to listen to music as I cook and clean up afterwards...

it allows me to improve my singing and dancing

(I need the practice...believe me  :)