My initial reaction to the Week 17 theme, from scratch, was, "But if we're doing a real home-cooked meal, it's all from scratch!" While true, the focus of the challenge was "finding a product that you'd normally buy pre-made, and going that extra step to make the thing from scratch," quoting from the weekly introduction thread on Reddit.
Although they had some suggestions there like ketchup, cream cheese, and udon, there was only one thing I wanted to make for this challenge: bread. We've been wanting to make bread from scratch for a while, and B loves bread, so homemade bread seemed like the perfect answer to a "from scratch" challenge. I even found a recipe for a focaccia that sounded delicious.
But we're in the middle of a pandemic, and everyone is baking bread.
And we don't have any yeast at home.
And the stores don't have any yeast (thanks to the nationwide shortage), outside of very expensive one-pound packages of yeast, and we do not need that much yeast unless we're going to start baking bread on a regular basis. We've never even made bread before. Who knows if we'll be any good at it? A one-pound bag of yeast just seems like a waste for a cooking project of unknown success.
So this post is more of a placeholder, a part I to acknowledge the existence of this challenge and note that we had a plan for it, and we'll have to wait to execute this plan until we get some yeast. One day, when yeast is back in the store, hopefully we'll be able to do part II of this challenge post. This, unfortunately, isn't going to be the only challenge with a placeholder on our list, but we're really going to try to get back to finishing them once the situation allows.
Sunday, April 26, 2020
Friday, April 17, 2020
Week 16 - South African
Skipping ahead to the current challenge and will fill in the posts for the other challenges later...
I was really excited that the Week 16 challenge was South African. During our WorldEats and other general restaurant exploration, we had tried quite a few South African dishes that we liked, and I thought maybe I could make something like bobotie or bunny chow for the challenge. The only real issue with that is the current pandemic. Grocery shopping is one of my favorite activities, but grocery shopping during the pandemic is not fun at all. Lines are long. With the virus everywhere, the best course of action is to pick one store, go in with a big list, get as much as you can, and get out, not visit multiple stores picking up all sorts of specialty ingredients. Also, you never know what will be sold out on any given day.
If you want to make a specific recipe these days, it's just challenging, because you don't know if you're actually going to get what you need or if there will be any good substitutions for the things you're missing, so it's better to pick something flexible or one where you already have most of what you need. Bobotie, especially since we would already need to make changes to make the bobotie egg-free, just seemed like too difficult of a task right now. Instead, I decided to try Durban chicken curry, representative of South Africa's Indian cuisine, based on a recipe I found on The Spruce Eats.
Ingredients:
The ingredients for our modified version of Durban chicken curry were:
- 2 tbsp butter ($0.20)
- 1 tbsp grapeseed oil ($0.10)
- 1 tbsp curry powder ($0.35)
- 1 tbsp ground coriander ($0.20)
- 1 tbsp ground cumin ($0.20)
- 2 cinnamon sticks ($0.25)
- 1 onion, chopped ($0.79)
- 1 tsp ginger paste ($0.10)
- 8 cloves of garlic, finely chopped ($0.25)
- 3 boneless skinless chicken breasts (about 1.5 lbs) ($7.05)
- 1 can diced tomatoes (undrained) ($0.99)
- 4 medium gold potatoes, diced ($1.15)
- 1.25 cups chicken stock ($0.30)
- freshly ground black pepper ($0.05)
- 4 scallions, chopped ($0.60)
- 1 tbsp chopped cilantro ($0.80)
- 2 cups (uncooked) brown rice ($1)
The recipe also called for whole cumin, which I skipped because we tossed our very old cumin seeds in our spice cabinet clean-out a few weeks ago, cayenne pepper, which I skipped so it wouldn't be too spicy for baby B, curry leaves, which I skipped because they don't sell them at Trader Joe's (our store of choice for our most recent stock-up), and a small rutabaga, which I skipped because they don't sell them at Trader Joe's and I forgot I needed to put a substitution on the shopping list, like parsnips. Despite not having all of these ingredients included, I think the finished product ended up true to the spirit of the curry recipe and didn't suffer without them. It ended up coming out to about $14.38 for dinner for the three of us with a little bit of rice and maybe a bowl of curry left over, which isn't too bad considering that half of that cost was the chicken by itself.
Steps:
The steps for the curry, adapted from the original recipe, were:
1. Melt butter in grapeseed oil over medium heat. Add spices and stir until fragrant, about a minute.
2. Add onions, garlic, and ginger. Cook for a few minutes until onions have softened.
3. Add chicken and brown over high heat, coating the chicken in onions and spices.
4. Add the tomatoes, stir, and cook for a few minutes.
5. Add potatoes and chicken stock. Check seasoning, and add black pepper if needed (we added a little).
6. Bring to a boil, lower heat, and simmer for about 30 minutes (making sure all the potatoes are covered by broth). Add scallions about 25 minutes in.
7. Test to make sure potatoes are fork tender, remove from heat, and add cilantro. Stir well and serve over rice.
Conclusion:
We really liked this curry, and it made our kitchen (and whole apartment, really) smell so good! I was a little concerned partway through when I was checking for taste that it would be bland and not live up to the fragrant aromas wafting around from step one of cooking, but while the flavors weren't super strong, they were really good and well-balanced. The potatoes especially picked up the cinnamon, thanks to the cinnamon sticks floating around in the broth, and added to the cozy comfort food feel of the dish. It took a little bit of time to make, somewhere between one to two hours, but that's not surprising considering the 30 minute simmer time at the end. All three of us seemed to like this, and it felt good to make something new. Even though we've been cooking almost every day (in a complete 180 from last year at this time, we've ordered delivery/takeout once for dinner since the lockdown started), I haven't actually made a new planned-out recipe in some time, and I'm glad that this was a success!
I was really excited that the Week 16 challenge was South African. During our WorldEats and other general restaurant exploration, we had tried quite a few South African dishes that we liked, and I thought maybe I could make something like bobotie or bunny chow for the challenge. The only real issue with that is the current pandemic. Grocery shopping is one of my favorite activities, but grocery shopping during the pandemic is not fun at all. Lines are long. With the virus everywhere, the best course of action is to pick one store, go in with a big list, get as much as you can, and get out, not visit multiple stores picking up all sorts of specialty ingredients. Also, you never know what will be sold out on any given day.
If you want to make a specific recipe these days, it's just challenging, because you don't know if you're actually going to get what you need or if there will be any good substitutions for the things you're missing, so it's better to pick something flexible or one where you already have most of what you need. Bobotie, especially since we would already need to make changes to make the bobotie egg-free, just seemed like too difficult of a task right now. Instead, I decided to try Durban chicken curry, representative of South Africa's Indian cuisine, based on a recipe I found on The Spruce Eats.
Ingredients:
The ingredients for our modified version of Durban chicken curry were:
- 2 tbsp butter ($0.20)
- 1 tbsp grapeseed oil ($0.10)
- 1 tbsp curry powder ($0.35)
- 1 tbsp ground coriander ($0.20)
- 1 tbsp ground cumin ($0.20)
- 2 cinnamon sticks ($0.25)
- 1 onion, chopped ($0.79)
- 1 tsp ginger paste ($0.10)
- 8 cloves of garlic, finely chopped ($0.25)
- 3 boneless skinless chicken breasts (about 1.5 lbs) ($7.05)
- 1 can diced tomatoes (undrained) ($0.99)
- 4 medium gold potatoes, diced ($1.15)
- 1.25 cups chicken stock ($0.30)
- freshly ground black pepper ($0.05)
- 4 scallions, chopped ($0.60)
- 1 tbsp chopped cilantro ($0.80)
- 2 cups (uncooked) brown rice ($1)
The recipe also called for whole cumin, which I skipped because we tossed our very old cumin seeds in our spice cabinet clean-out a few weeks ago, cayenne pepper, which I skipped so it wouldn't be too spicy for baby B, curry leaves, which I skipped because they don't sell them at Trader Joe's (our store of choice for our most recent stock-up), and a small rutabaga, which I skipped because they don't sell them at Trader Joe's and I forgot I needed to put a substitution on the shopping list, like parsnips. Despite not having all of these ingredients included, I think the finished product ended up true to the spirit of the curry recipe and didn't suffer without them. It ended up coming out to about $14.38 for dinner for the three of us with a little bit of rice and maybe a bowl of curry left over, which isn't too bad considering that half of that cost was the chicken by itself.
Steps:
The steps for the curry, adapted from the original recipe, were:
1. Melt butter in grapeseed oil over medium heat. Add spices and stir until fragrant, about a minute.
2. Add onions, garlic, and ginger. Cook for a few minutes until onions have softened.
3. Add chicken and brown over high heat, coating the chicken in onions and spices.
4. Add the tomatoes, stir, and cook for a few minutes.
5. Add potatoes and chicken stock. Check seasoning, and add black pepper if needed (we added a little).
6. Bring to a boil, lower heat, and simmer for about 30 minutes (making sure all the potatoes are covered by broth). Add scallions about 25 minutes in.
7. Test to make sure potatoes are fork tender, remove from heat, and add cilantro. Stir well and serve over rice.
Conclusion:
We really liked this curry, and it made our kitchen (and whole apartment, really) smell so good! I was a little concerned partway through when I was checking for taste that it would be bland and not live up to the fragrant aromas wafting around from step one of cooking, but while the flavors weren't super strong, they were really good and well-balanced. The potatoes especially picked up the cinnamon, thanks to the cinnamon sticks floating around in the broth, and added to the cozy comfort food feel of the dish. It took a little bit of time to make, somewhere between one to two hours, but that's not surprising considering the 30 minute simmer time at the end. All three of us seemed to like this, and it felt good to make something new. Even though we've been cooking almost every day (in a complete 180 from last year at this time, we've ordered delivery/takeout once for dinner since the lockdown started), I haven't actually made a new planned-out recipe in some time, and I'm glad that this was a success!
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