For most of my life, I only cook on very rare occasions and I’ll be sharing one of these experiences. For our unit 3 summative in food and nutrition, our class was tasked with creating a meal for our families. During this beginning stages of this project, I was wondering what I would make. I for one wanted something different. Something that we didn’t eat often. However, I knew if I made something too outlandish, the higher the chance nobody would eat it. I also wanted something easy to make to lessen the chances of me screwing up. In the end, I made the compromise of making curry chicken. I knew this would be a safe choice as everyone in my family likes this dish. However, unlike the curry chicken we eat regularly, I would be using a different recipe. Instead of curry blocks, I would be using ingredients like curry paste, power, and coconut milk. It would be different enough for me to enjoy and similar enough for everyone else to enjoy.
I will admit, after choosing the recipe I would be using I did little preparation until the day of cooking. Luckily we had almost all the ingredients for the most part. Anything we didn’t have, I would substitute it with a similar ingredient. During the day of cooking, I started prepping at 5:30. Since the recipe estimated the dish would take around 50 minutes to complete, I was aiming to finish at around 6:30. I didn’t happen. The first thing I did was collect the ingredients I need, which didn’t take long compared in the grand scheme of things. Next, I washed all the vegetables I would be using under cold water, then I had to cut them. The most time-consuming part of this was definitely pleasing the potatoes. I didn’t keep track of time, but it took a while for me to peel the skin then get rid of the eyes. Hopefully, in the future, my speed will increase when it comes to this. After preparing all the vegetables, I had to cut meat. At this point, mommy told me to use all of the chicken in the package. This led me to double the original proportions, from serving four to eight. With the chicken cut, I moved onto mixing the ingredients. Using the coconut milk, curry powder and paste, I made the curry which I set aside for now.
Now came the actual cooking. Using a wok, I first put in the chicken, then the potatoes and other vegetables, and finally the curry mixture. While I waited for the curry to cook, I prepared the vegetable dish. I didn’t follow any instructions and mommy told me what to do. Basically, I just microwaved some frozen broccoli before putting it into a pot with sauce. From this point, it was just cleaning and waiting. After around 30 minutes the meal was ready to be served.
Overall, I really happy with the results. It was edible and nothing went wrong. I guess the next time I do something like this I would like to improve my prep speed. As the estimated 50 minutes turned into 2 hours. In the end, I liked it and my family seemed to like it as well.