A Teaspoon of Epidemia
Japanese Curry for Days!
I have been on a rollercoaster of emotions since all of this COVID drama started taking place! Since I can’t tell when I’m going to be having a positive, productive day, and when I’m going to resign myself to sofa-butt-cramps while I watch Netflix for hours on end, I’ve tried to make sure my cooking is nutritious, and my meals easy to assemble. I find that caters to most moods!
The secret to eating a heap of vegetables in a healthy and easy way is to make CURRY! There are many, many different types, yes, but the easiest one I’ve made is Japanese curry:
Cooking Time: 1 hour 20mins-ish
Ingredients (provide measurements if possible):
Your fave veggies.
I used eggplant, potatoes, zucchini, mushrooms & carrots. Honestly, anything would work well!
(optional) A protein. I don’t recommend using seafood or eggs.
Water
Salt/Soy Sauce
A tip: The quantities are up to you: are you making enough for one meal or a few days?
A good tip is to make sure all your vegetables fit comfortably in your pot, a few inches below its rim.
Method:
A Tip: You can follow the instructions on the Japanese Curry Pack, but I found that my method worked for me. If unsure, there are a million youtube videos that will help you out too!
1. Chop up your vegetables and protein. The smaller you chop the veggies, the more tender they will be. You may want to cut the softer veg into bigger chunks and the harder veggies into smaller pieces as they will cook at different speeds.
2. Place all the vegetables and meat in your pot. Fry for 10/15 minutes.
3. Add water to just cover the vegetables. Bring water to the boil, and then set to a simmer for 30/40 minutes until the vegetables are tender.
4. Add the Japanese curry pack tablets according to how much vegetables and water are in your pot and stir in well. For 2.5 litres of curry, I found that 4 tablets worked really well.
5. Let the curry simmer for another 15 minutes.
6. Turn off the heat and take the pot off the stove. Taste and add salt/soy sauce if needed.
DONE!
Ava Senaratne (Editor-in-Chief at TCK TOWN)
Very Desi Dal Tadka
If you’ve grown up in a Desi household or country, dal is a staple food. You probably didn’t go longer than a week without it. The local desis often associate it with a boring and monotone lifestyle. But what do you return to when you have a cold, when you’re missing food from home, or even after you’ve had a long, tiring day? Dal and rice. It’s heartwarming and easy to cook—the ultimate comfort food. You can pair it with rice, roti, flatbread or just have it on its own.
Especially in these difficult times, when you might not have easy access to fresh vegetables, dal tadka requires very few fresh ingredients. You can even make it without using any vegetables. I am sharing the recipe for dal tadka, a slightly fancier dal to make you feel like a chef in training. On days when you simply want a quick and warm meal, you can just not add the tempering.
Cooking Time: 15-20 minutes if using a pressure cooker.
Ingredients :
1 cup of Toor Dal (Split pigeon peas) / Moong dal (Split mung beans) / Masoor dal (red lentil) or any other variety of dal (lentil). Toor and Masoor dal take longer to cook than Moong dal.
1 tomato diced/finely chopped
½ an onion finely chopped
½ teaspoon of cumin seeds
1 teaspoon of ghee or oil
2 green chillies chopped or 2 dried red chillies
Red chilli powder to taste
Salt to taste
½ teaspoon of hing or asafoetida (Optional)
A pinch of turmeric
1 teaspoon of ginger garlic paste. You can chop a clove of garlic and mash a small piece of ginger if you don’t have a ready-made paste
Chopped coriander (optional)
1 slice of lemon to squeeze (optional)
Method:
A Tip: To check if you’ve put enough water for the dal to cook in your pressure cooker, place the tip of your middle finger on top of the dal in the cooker and add water until it reaches your second knuckle.
1. Cook the dal in a pressure cooker.
Wash the dal under running water and drain. Pour the dal into the pressure cooker. The usual ratio of dal to water is 1:2. Real pros take a guesstimate. You can add some salt to taste. Wait for the cooker to whistle twice and cool down before opening to check if it's cooked.
Alternatively, if you don’t have a pressure cooker, you can boil the dal in a big pan with about 4-5 cups of water. This takes longer so make sure to soak the dal in water for a few hours at least.
2. Cook the vegetables
Heat 1 teaspoon of ghee in a pan. Add the chopped onions and saute until golden brown. Add the ginger and garlic paste and fry. Add the tomatoes and add a pinch of turmeric. Add salt to taste and mix.
3. Add the vegetables to the cooked dal and let it simmer for a few minutes.
4. Make the tadka (tempering).
Heat 1 teaspoon of ghee in a pan. Add cumin seeds and wait for them to crackle. Add a pinch of hing. Then add the chopped chillies or dried red chilli.
5. Add the tadka (tempering) to the dal just before serving.
6. Add garnishes.
Sprinkle with chopped coriander and squeeze a few drops of lemon juice in the dal to serve.
DONE!
Radhika Sharma (Editor at TCK TOWN)
Corned Beef on Rice on Guam
Most of my childhood was spent somewhere in the Western Pacific. This was a quick way to serve food and was easy after typhoons, when we didn’t have power. We cooked over the barbecue using one pot for rice and another for the main dish.
The recipe is simple and most people will have the basics. Post typhoon/or current shut down, the fewer ingredients needed the better! It’s easy to swap foods out too, you could easily use seafood or chicken here.
Cooking Time: 15 minutes if the rice is already made.
Ingredients:
1 standard can of corned beef
1 x 400ml can of tomato sauce
1 x clove of diced garlic
1 x chopped onion
2 or 3 chopped capsicums (green bell pepper if you’re North American)
A splash or two of Worcestershire sauce or soy sauce (but not both!)
240ml can of tinned peas or frozen
A shake or three of black pepper (no salt, this is corned beef, there’s enough in it)
Serve with a bottle of Tabasco Sauce at the table(Guam-style)
Method:
A Tip: You can make this in a pot⸺it keeps the splatter to a minimum.
1. Place the corned beef in a pot. Turn on heat to medium low. Break up beef, add onion and cook until the beef is well heated. Then add garlic. Finally add capsicum.
2. Add tomato sauce and green peas when the onions and garlic are cooked enough. Do not drain the fat. Add in the pepper and worcestershire sauce.
3. Serve over cooked rice flattened on a plate in “etouffee” style.
DONE!
Paul Kennedy (Writer at TCK TOWN)
Not-In-Spain Sangria
Some people stocked up on food and staple pantry items for quarantine. I stocked up on wine (we all have our priorities, okay?) One afternoon, I wanted to jazz it up for a change. The weather forecast said 80 degrees fahrenheit and sunny for the next few days. I immediately started fantasizing about warm and sunny days with a cold, yummy quarantini in hand while I sat on the patio with a book. I googled recipes for a homemade red sangria and came up with my own version with what I had in the kitchen and fridge.
Prep Time: 15 minutes Cooking Time: 2hrs or more to chill the beverage
Ingredients:
1 bottle of red wine, preferably a Spanish or South American one. I chose a Malbec from Chile. (I forgot the brand but I chose a budget friendly one)
1 orange, sliced
Handful of raspberries (any kind of berry will do as well, blackberries, blueberries, etc.)
1 handful of halved strawberries
1/3 cup of orange juice
Ginger ale to top it off
3 tablespoons sugar
Method:
A Tip: This recipe is very flexible, I found a recipe that loosley had some of the same ingredients in the fridge but I did improvise a bit. I found things that I currently had in the house and mixed it together. It tasted great. Have fun improvising or adding brandy, lemons or apples as well!
1. Wash and cut the fruit.
2. Pour one bottle of wine into a pitcher or a large bowl.
3. Add the fruit, orange juice and sugar to the wine in the pitcher or bowl and stir.
4. Put the bowl or pitcher in the fridge, let sit overnight to mix OR if you’re like me, let sit for 2 hours.
5. Take out the chilled beverage, fill a wine glass with ice, pour sangria into the wine glass till about half full and top off with the ginger ale. Pretend you’re in Spain and enjoy!
DONE!
Molly Kaitlin (Writer and Social Media Manager at TCK Town)
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