project I, part I
Favorite Meal – Curry Chicken
When I was in kindergarten, I declared that eating was my favorite thing to do. Although today I have acquired a few more hobbies, eating my favorite dish can still topple the list. The dish starts with Japanese Golden Curry sauce blocks, filled with herbs and spices, the few vegetables I liked when I was a kid, tender chicken, and potatoes cooked to perfection, generously poured over the fluffiest rice. Deemed the “hamburger helper from the Asian market” by my mother, curry chicken is the meal that can satiate any craving and heal all emotional and physical hardships.
At the beginning of every week, my mother used to ask me and all three of my older sisters for requests for dinner throughout the week. When there were no requests and my mom had no tricks up her sleeve, she took out the Golden Curry and started chopping. Although my mom isn’t the best chef in the world, she can master a recipe and make it to perfection every time. So when the timer on the rice cooker popped and the pot of curry sat in the middle of the dinner table, we were all eager to sit down and eat. Six bowls were laid in front of the rice cooker as we all stood in line waiting for our turn with the rice paddle. After scooping the steaming rice, we make our way to the un-officially assigned seats at the dinner table and shovel curry into our bowls. We didn’t ask for this meal, but we all ate it with delight, grabbing seconds without thinking. Even at times when curry chicken seemed to appear too many times in our family dinner schedule and the thought of it was boring, by the time we sat down and the forkful made it into my mouth, I knew my mom was right in making it because it was never not the most delicious thing.
I used to put an immense amount of effort into eating curry chicken. Every single bite had to be carefully stitched together with the perfect sauce to rice ratio and a nibble of each vegetable, balancing on a piece of chicken. However, now I know that the dish doesn’t need my help to be delicious, it just simply is by itself. No help needed. The meal was already impeccable with the amount of effort my mother put into it and with the seasoning blended to perfection. It took awhile for me to realize this, but mother always knew that curry chicken would forever be one of my favorite meals saying that, “from the time Madelyn was a small child, she’s always liked food that was full of herbs and spices. She never touched mashed potatoes unless it was laden with garlic and herbs. . . the taste of the dish satisfies her cravings for the herbs and spices.” The meal may have become enhanced in older years because I’ve become less picky about what I eat, but nonetheless, it still amazes me how tasty the dish is.
In 2014, my family moved halfway across the country from a suburb of Chicago to southern New Hampshire. Everything about this new place was different. Home was different. I lost my friends and I quite literally had no idea where I was. I was devastated. My dad was gone for weeks at a time travelling for work and my sisters were hours away at university. Home wasn’t home anymore. I felt obliterated. I was homesick laying in my own bed. But food and my mom’s cooking was what made it disappear. After being uprooted twice in the last two years, I knew I was home when I took the first bite of curry chicken. It filled my senses. My mother claims that, “I think curry chicken is such comfort food for her because it evokes memories of home-y dinners with all her siblings at home.” I could take one bite, close my eyes and I could be anywhere I wanted. I could be sitting around the table with my entire family in New York, or with my mom and my sister in Illinois, or I could be exactly where I was. Home was never constant, but the food was. Curry chicken was the meal that had the power to make anywhere home.
During my time in highschool, I was a committed member of the swim team. Practices started the second I got out of school and ended at four-thirty in the evening every weekday. Coming home at five o’clock was not the worst time in the world, but I always walked through the door sore and thinking of the homework I needed to complete. I wanted nothing more than to take a shower and sleep, but before I could march myself up the stairs to my bathroom, my mother always made me sit down and eat because most days I had no lunch or breakfast before going to practice. The days she made curry chicken seemed to make my body repair itself. My mood instantly focussed on the food sitting in front of me and not the pain I would be in the future or the millions of assignments I had yet to start. I could be miserable and the moment the smell of the dish wafted through the air, everything would alleviate. Everything got better.
My life was never hard, but it was far from perfect. I’ve spent my time caught inside panic attacks or on the top of the world. And whether I feel like I’m in the bottom of the lows or on cloud nine, there was one thing that could always make it better. That one thing is curry chicken.
Recipe
2 lbs of chicken
9 oz. carrots
10 oz. potatoes
2 tbsp. cooking oil
5 cups water
1 box of Golden Curry Sauce Mix
Stir-fry meat and vegetables with oil in a large skillet on medium heat for about 5 minutes.
Add water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer until ingredients are tender (approx. 15 minutes).
Turn heat off, break Golden Curry Sauce Mix into pieces and add them to the skillet. Stir until sauce mies completely melted. Simmer for about 5 minutes, stirring constantly.
Serve over hot rice.
