Lockdown Larder Cookbook #LOCKDOWNLARDERWSA
Introduction The Lockdown Scene Unfolding Nobody knew what to expect when the early stages of the global pandemic hit Europe. Many people had resorted to panic buying and hoarding ordinary food and household items to soothe their nerves in preparation for impending confinement. The supermarkets began to gape with increasingly larger empty spaces in their aisles where products like eggs, dried pasta, soap, and toilet paper had been wiped out. Lockdown shoppers were soon limited to 3 of each item, but nevertheless cleaning products, hoardable goods, and normal human interaction became scarce: no hand sanitizer, no bleach, no flour, no masks, no hellos, no eye contact “contactless payment only, please”. Some people were comforted by the fact that they had managed to dash to the supermarket early to snatch-up 3 trays of eggs to stash around their home. Others had to come from the shops empty handed and make do with whatever dusty jars and old tins were left rolling around their cupboards. Others still had started to stock up on tinned and dried food a month earlier after hearing about the
events
unfolding
in
China.
A
handful
of
people
were
congratulating
themselves
for
having
already
amassed an apocalyptic food store in earlier rehearsals for Brexit, and were preparing for long evening conversations over a single candle and yet another meal of baked beans and defrosted bread. According to the empty supermarket shelves and trending sourdough posts, the rest of the nation was gripped by a sudden inspiration to become lockdown bakers. This quite possibly caused plain old flour and yeast to suddenly become an uncommon specialty item for the first time in living memory. Clearly food shopping, cooking, and eating was going to be very different during lockdown - or indeed mind-numbingly invariable.
The Lockdown Larder Project As the supermarket shelves emptied, the PGR community at Winchester School of Art also found themselves having to navigate their way through the unprecedented situation. PhD research can be a lonely journey, but for some the lockdown created even greater challenges, such as not being able to visit family overseas, losing paid jobs, living in small or shared spaces, and no access to libraries. In order to keep morale high and to stay connected while having fun, PhD students Lesia and Noriko organised a cookery challenge which involved four categories of innovative and ridiculous culinary challenges – Pasta Dessert dishes, Hybrid dishes, Lockdown Classic dishes, and 1970s Dinner Party Disasters. Students and staff participated by entering a category and submitting images of the finished dish, details of the ingredients and methods, and a short description of how the dish was conceived. The Lockdown Larder Project produced some amazingly creative and mouth-watering dishes that demonstrated how much we can express through food, and the joy and sense of connectivity that it can bring even in challenging times. The collective efforts of the PGR community at WSA are shown in this Lockdown Larder Cookbook.
Pasta Dessert The challenge here was to create a sweet treat using any type of pasta or noodle, staples which are more commonly used for cooking up savoury dishes. Any types of pasta or noodle were allowed, including lasagne sheets and dumpling wrappers. Unusual preparation techniques such as deep-frying, dyeing, beating to a paste, constructing or coating were also encouraged for this particular challenge.
Cinnabow by KoBosco
Soft sweet pasta coated in cream and cinnamon. The ultimate lockdown comfort dish!
Ingredients
Method
Dry pasta
Put everything in the saucepan (except for the
Full fat milk
demerara sugar) and simmer on medium to low heat
Cream Cinnamon Brown sugar
until the liquid is reduced to custard like consistency (and pasta cooked). Sprinkle extra cinnamon and demerara sugar on top. body text
Pinch of salt Demerara sugar
Dish Biography This dish is so easy to make and perfect when you are in need of something sweet, soft and comforting. I thought about rice pudding and it probably would have been very similar had I used something like Orzo rather than bow shaped pasta. All you have to do is put everything in the pan and watch it gently bubble away as the sauce thickens. Just remember to stir the mixture regularly to prevent the pasta from sticking together. The sugary cinnamon aroma is very enticing and if you want to make the dish extra comforting, over cook the pasta a little so that it is nice and soft and not al dente. A perfect dish to make and eat when you are feeling unnerved, like in a lockdown situation, and you just want to stuff your face with mouthfuls of soft, sweet, creaminess.
Scarlet by Aybala CAKMAKCIOGLU
Scarlet is a pasta dessert for the lovers under lockdown. Pasta which is a classic food in quarantine is now redesigned as a dessert in a lovely way. It is made with a few basic ingredients and some love of creativity.
Ingredients
Method
1/2 glass of pasta
Boil the pasta in cranberry juice by adding one and a
1 glass of cranberry juice
half tablespoons of sugar. When the pasta cooked,
3 tablespoons of sugar 1/4 glass of milk 1 tablespoon of oil
place it in a plate. Mix and boil the milk, cacao, one and a half tablespoons of sugar and starch together. Add this cacao sauce to the plate. Slice strawberries and decorate the dessert.
1 tablespoon of cacao 1 teaspoon of starch 2-3 strawberries
Dish Biography Interestingly, the 'pasta' word is used for cakes, especially birthday cakes in Turkey. So, it reminds me of desserts in some way. However, it was a real quirky novelty for me, and making something experimental was super fun. I ate it myself because I'm living alone, but, I think, it is servable to others, and it is unexpectedly delicious. It is inspired by some desserts with sherbet in Turkey but only regarding the technique. So, I preferred to make pasta absorb sugar as a liquid. My idea was to colourise the pasta, and when it became red, it made me think about love in the circumstances of this unprecedented time. And also, about social distanced relationships in addition to the long-distance relationships. Therefore, I decided to give it a form which symbolizes love. When it comes to naming it, I chose 'scarlet' for two reasons. The first one was, obviously, about the colour of the dessert. The second one was about the other meaning of this word which is related to both love and taboos. After all, nowadays, being close is a kind of new taboo, too.
Cannoli Ravioli by Jo Turney
A recipe designed to encompass the sensory and visual experience of ‘Italy on a Plate’. Why choose from the menu and wait for courses when they can be experienced at once? Semplice!
Ingredients Fresh lasagne sheets
Large raisins
1 x tub good mascarpone
Amaretti biscuits
1 x tub good ricotta
1 x shot Amaretto
5 x tablespoons icing sugar
1 x beaten egg
Vanilla extract
Caster sugar for dusting
3 x tablespoons (or to taste) Italian mixed
Oil to fry
peel (you can add dark chocolate chips or finely chopped pistachio nuts instead of/too)
Method Pour the Amaretto over the raisins, Leave to one side to soak. Beat the cheeses with the icing sugar and vanilla extract until smooth. Add the mixed peel. Stir in until fully incorporated. Cover and refrigerate until more solid. Put the caster sugar into a plate and put to one side. Beat the egg. Add vanilla extract and put to one side. Crush 6 amaretti biscuits and put to one side. Boil a large pan of water. Once boiling, add a lasagne sheet. Cook for 1 minute. Remove and dry (you have to do this one at a time, so keep the pan on the boil].
Making the ravioli. This is where you can become creative. For simplicity’s sake, I suggest that you make 1 x ravioli from 1 x lasagne sheet, however I cut smaller ones with a ravioli cutter. Either way, you can a) cut the sheet in half, or fold to stuff, but you must work quickly. Take a small spoonful of the cheese mixture and place in the centre [do not over-stuff]. Brush the edges of the ‘ravioli’ with beaten egg and seal. Take the whole ravioli, bathe in the egg mixture and place on a tray. Repeat until you have the required amount of ravioli. Now put the tray into the fridge to firm up. After about 10 minutes, re-seal any ravioli that has popped open. Now we are deep frying [I do this in small batches in a Wok]. Put about an inch and a half of vegetable oil in a sturdy pan, and heat until you can put a small piece of pasta into it and it sizzles and bubbles. You must watch this like a hawk and have the window open. Gently add one ravioli. Turn it over again and again until it is brown (this will take less than a minute). Remove from the pan and roll in the caster sugar and then the crushed amaretti. Repeat until all ravioli have been cooked. Presentation. Add 2-3 ravioli (depending on size) per serving. Add an additional tablespoon of the cannoli filling , and a tablespoon of the Amaretto-bathed raisins. Buon appetito!
Dish Biography Missing travel and far-flung places, this recipe aims to re-imagine my experiences of being in Italy, whilst in isolation in UK suburbia. It takes home-made ravioli, which I learned to make during a very hot and Jasmine-scented cookery course in Sorrento, and combines these skills with the memory of eating cannoli cream, warmed by freshly made biscuit shells, during a thunder storm in Palermo. It draws texture from the crispness of the fragrant amaretti biscuits (usually my breakfast with heart-palpitating espresso), and depth from the heady, warming, and equally almondy Ameratto-soaked raisins. This recipe demonstrates that in order to travel, you just need to go to the kitchen.
Hybrid What kind of new culinary delight would you create by combining at least two traditional or popular dishes together? What would the name of the new dish be?
The challenge here was to create a dish that involved the process of a mash-up, a remix, a gastronomic fusion, an accident or even an alchemic amalgamation (that hopefully escapes ending up as an absolute abomination!).
Jelly Brains by Megen de Bruin-Molé
You are what you eat! Scrumptious brain-shaped jelly—simple, topical, and fun to play with.
Ingredients
Method
1 packet jelly mix (recipe uses Hartley's
Prepare brain mould with sunflower or other vegetable
strawberry jelly)
oil (so jelly does not stick to sides).
sunflower oil water
Make jelly according to package instructions, but using half the suggested amount of both boiled and cold water. Pour jelly into prepared mould and refrigerate for at
* This recipe requires a silicone brain ice mould and a kettle.
least 8 hours. Remove carefully from mould and serve. Pair with fruit, ice cream, or whatever you have in your pantry.
Dish Biography Jelly is a pantry staple that inspires childhood nostalgia, but after weeks in lockdown we all feel a bit like our brains have turned to jelly as well. Quick and fun to make, if a bit fiddly to remove from the moulds. Fortunately scrambled jelly brains are equally appropriate—and equally delicious!
Forbidden Rice Ball by Elio Hao
This is a great choice when you crave a mochi but want a shortcut. Handy daily materials are just right for this dessert. To control the proportion of materials yourself base on your preference.
Ingredients Cook these together:
Decoration:
Black Rice Oats
Walnut & peanut (Any nuts you would like to
1 tiny cube of Butter (or one teaspoon)
use)
Water Milk/Any Vegan Milk (I used Almond
Fruits
milk) Blend in when the rice is cooked Black sesame
* I used a rice cooker to cook the rice, but there
Chia seeds
are many other choices that you can use to cook
Honey (Or just cooking sugar)
the rice in this recipe.
Method There are three parts above in the ingredients part. Mix everything in the first part together and cook the rice. (Tips here: Don't add too much water or milk here. Otherwise, it would be difficult to shape the rice later) Blend Chia seeds and sesame, as well as honey (or sugar) into the rice with a shovel. Let it chill, and it would be a great idea to put it in the fridge. Then, it's time to shape the rice into balls! (Tips: 1. I used an ice cream scoop to scoop the rice, and then every ball will be average size. 2. the cooked rice is very sticky. Prepare some cold water in a container and set it next to you, every time before you touch the rice, dip your hands in the cold water will help a lot!) Finally, decorate the black rice cake with nuts that you love on it, as well as fruits aside. Enjoy!
Dish Biography This idea comes from a kind of Chinese street food, the original way they make it is to make tin foil into tiny containers with black rice flavoured with condensed milk and sugar in, and then steam them in a steamer. It is somehow like mochis because the rice flour is made of glutinous rice while the black rice is a type of glutinous rice. The ingredients I added and changed has made this recipe healthier, and the oats make it taste chewier. As the lockdown happened, board eating could be a serious problem, and I love dessert so much, this could be a healthier choice when your mouth craves something sweet and chewy.
Unicorn Pizza Recipe Medieval Style by Ana Cavic
This recipe is an imaginative take on the pizza, incorporating the cloves and garlic marinade mentioned in a mid-14th century 'unicorn recipe' and applying the decorative approach of the illuminated cookbook in arranging the toppings.
Ingredients Pizza toppings
Pizza sauce
½ onion
Âź can of tomato pure
1 pepper
1 teaspoon of cloves
1 courgette
1 garlic clove
12 button mushrooms 5 olives
Pizza base
1 handful of canned corn
350 grams of flour (300g for the pizza dough
200 grams of grated mozzarella
and 50g for the rolling out of the pizza dough)
1 tablespoon of dried oregano
½ sachet (approx. 3 grams) of yeast 1 cup of luke warm water 2 pinches of salt
Method Pizza sauce Add the tomato sauce, coarsely chopped garlic and cloves into a small saucepan and let it simmer on a low heat for 10 minutes. Let the mixture cool and infuse with flavour for the 2-3 hours it takes to make the pizza base.
Pizza base Take a mixing bowl, add the oil and rub it into the sides. Add the flour, yeast, water, sugar and salt. Knead the mixture in the bowl into a slightly sticky ball of dough. Cover the bowl with a tea towel and leave to rise for 3 hours. Later, when you return to the dough, it should have risen to about double its size. On a clean counter, sprinkle the rest of the flour. Take the pizza dough and place it on the floured surface, first kneading it into a ball. Then, roll the dough out on with rolling pin (or any cylindrical turning it over a couple of times so that the dough is covered in flour. Roll the dough out evenly so that it is roughly the same thickness. Roll it out to fit the shape and size of your baking tray. My tray is large and rectangular, so I rolled the dough out into a large rectangle.
Pizza toppings Chop the onion, pepper, courgette and mushrooms into slices. You can experiment with the chopped shapes, but the idea is to have small, mosaic-like, pieces that can be easily arranged to form the image of a unicorn.
Compiling and baking the pizza
⁰
Take your baking tray and oil it, place it in the oven 200 C for 5 minutes to heat up. Take the tray out and sprinkle the corn meal evenly. This will prevent the pizza base from sticking to the tray. Take the rolled out dough and place it onto the tray. Spread the pizza sauce evenly all over the base. Sprinkle the oregano and a handful of grated mozzarella. Then, arrange the pizza toppings into an image of the unicorn! I referred back to the images of food displays in 70s cookbooks and the illuminated images in the medieval cookbook for inspiration. But, rainbow coloured unicorn images of any sort lend themselves to the colourful pizza toppings, so improvise and have fun! I found arranging the toppings a creative and meditative process and I hope you do too! Sprinkle the rest of the grated mozzarella over the toppings, place the tray in the middle of the oven and
⁰
bake at 200 C for approx. 15 minutes. You will know the pizza is ready when the dough has browned lightly and the cheese melted. Taketh out of the oven and serve one unicorne while it is hot!
Dish Biography In 2012, the British Library announced that they had found a medieval ‘unicorn cookbook’. Geoffrey Fule’s mid14th century cookbook features a recipe that starts with “Taketh one unicorne” and goes on to say that the magical creature should be marinated in cloves and garlic before being roasted on a griddle. The cookbook is even illuminated with images of the roasting and serving of the unicorn. A couple of weeks into lockdown, I started to crave restaurant food. Pizza most of all! So I learnt to make it at home. Soon, I was eating pizza every other day. Running out of ideas for how to keep it interesting, I experimented with different toppings, using the random canned ingredients I had in the cupboard: corn, olives, tuna, etc. When fresh vegetables were available, I incorporated them too. Then I started tweaking the pizza sauce, by adding different herbs and spices. Eventually, I started looking at historical recipes to spice things up! This recipe is an imaginative take on the pizza, incorporating the cloves and garlic marinade mentioned in the medieval recipe and applying the decorative approach of the illuminated manuscript in arranging the toppings.
Gyhal by KoBosco
A fusion of two cultures. The hybrid gyoza may take you by surprise!
Ingredients Gyoza wrapper
Dhal
120g strong white flour
125g red lentil
120g plain flour
½ tsp turmeric
½ tsp sea salt
½ tsp sea salt
120-150ml hot water (just boiled)
½ tsp cumin seeds
Method Gyoza wrapper Mix the flour and hot water bit by bit and knead for about 10 minutes. Divide the dough in to two and roll it out into a long sausage shape about 1.5 cm in diameter. Wrap it with cling film and leave for about an hour. Cut the dough into equal size (you should be able to get around 16 to 18 pieces from one dough). Roll out the pieces into a thin circle and cut out with a disk cutter (9cm diameter).
Dhal Put the lentil into a pan with 400ml of cold water and bring to the boil. Stir in the turmeric and salt. Lower heat and simmer uncovered, stirring every now and then. When the dhal is nearly done, stir in the cumin seeds.
Bringing it all together! Place a teaspoon of the cooled dhal mixture in the middle of the gyoza wrapper. Moisten around the edge. Make pleats along one side and bring together with the flat side. Heat some oil in the frying pan and arrange the gyhal in a neat row. When the base of the gyhal is golden brown, pour in some water and cover the pan. Cook for about 4 minutes until the water has evaporated. Eat piping hot with some sweet chilli sauce.
Dish Biography I remember my mother teaching me how to pinch the gyoza wrapper to create the pleats along the edge. Her pleats were always even and tidy and I thought her gyoza were the best. She always used store bought gyoza wrappers so I have done the same until this lockdown made it difficult to casually go to the shops. I fancied gyoza but had no wrappers so I had to find a way to make them myself. It was surprisingly easy apart from the time consuming aspect of rolling out the disks. Rather than making the usual gyoza filling, I thought I would further challenge myself by coming up with an alternative. I thought I would make a hybrid gyoza that would straddle two cultures. So came the idea of using dhal and I decided to call it Gyhal (gyoza + dhal). It tastes more like dhal and roti but good nonetheless.
Lockdown Classic What would your Lockdown Classic be if you found yourself having to self-isolate in a pandemic?
The challenge here was to rename and describe an iconic lockdown dish. This could be a meal that one finds cooking over and over again, whether out of comfort or necessity. It could also be a symptomatic dish that signals the times we are currently living in. Or the dish could be something that represents a possible future.
Like a Fish by Aybala CAKMAKCIOGLU
Have you ever felt like a fish which is caught in a fishing net and trapped in lockdown? Have you ever empathize with a fish while you're cooking it? That sounds crazy but it is what happened when you wandering around in your small room like a fish in a small bucket. However, this did not stop me from cooking this delicious salmon.
Ingredients
Method
Boneless salmon fillets
Wash the salmon fillets and put them in a plate which is
Olive oil
not too flat.
Lemon Honey Dry mint
Squeeze half of the lemon over the fillets. Add some olive oil, a dessertspoon of honey, add some salt and dry mint, a bruised clove of garlic and marinate the salmon with all of them.
Salt Baking paper Red onion
Place a piece of baking paper to a microwave-safe plate, put the fillets and some slices of onions on it, then cover them with another piece of baking paper,
Garlic
crimp the edges together to close the package, pierce
Asparagus
the package. Put it into the microwave and cook for 3.5 minutes. Meanwhile, fry the asparagus with some olive oil in a pan.
Dish Biography This dish was not a novelty for me but I realized that it becomes a classic in the lockdown. I also started to empathize with fishes in some way and I think it might be a symptom of staying in the same place for a long time or having too much time for overthinking :) Actually, recipe belongs to my mother, but, I adapted it for microwave because I don't have an oven in my room. Since I don't have a separate kitchen, I covered it with baking papers so it does not smell too much. I suppose it represents freedom to me from now on.
Air Soup & Wind Pudding (with chocolate cookies, if you're lucky) by Jeniver
If someone asks, what’s for lunch? Growing up on a farm during peak season, a common answer would have been, ‘air soup and wind pudding’. This was a way of saying that you’re either too busy to stop working or you don’t have the means to eat. Time and resources were precious. As they are now.
Ingredients
Method
60g butter soft
[This recipe is inspired by the lovely people of the
40g soft brown sugar
Borough Market Cookbook Club, after one of their
40g caster sugar
Zoom sessions.]
½ tbsp milk
1
½ tsp vanilla extract 100g plain flour 2 tbsp cocoa powder A good pinch of baking powder
Method: Find chocolate. Can be anything that satisfies the need in this moment. Crumble it up and go from there. In my case I had to wait to find flour, cocoa powder and even feel brave enough to go to a supermarket that might have a fancy dark chocolate.
A good pinch of bicarbonate of soda
Put these things all together in a bowl, mix and form
A good pinch of salt, or more to taste
into little balls (will yield approx. 12-14). Place on
40g dark chocolate, chopped
baking sheet. Bake for 10 min at 190C oven. Let cool
25g toasted walnuts, chopped
for a few minutes then enjoy.
Dish Biography I won’t lie. Early days of high lockdown were not pretty in my kitchen. Like many people I went for comfort. And one of my enjoyments is chocolate. Without prejudice of its origin or producer, the love is vast. These photos are just a few of the many, many gems that passed through my hands in those first weeks. The wrappers and crumbs accumulated until the day, I found … flour! Hooray! Oh bliss oh joy! Then I could really bake something, in the oven, that brings comfort like a warm hug and a smile. Undoubtedly I enjoyed the process of making more than eating: the smell of melting chocolate, the sound of the oven whirring up to temp and the sticky textures coming together to form this lovely culinary gift-to-be. It doesn’t really matter what they tasted like in the end; it was the first thing I baked and that made me happy. I shared them with my neighbours, leaving little wrapped parcels at their doorstep. Safely distanced, naturally.
Paucity Pizza by Jeniver
The evolution of comfort cooking, revolving around flour. In my case, buttered toast to (very) modest pizza to an elegant savoury tarte rustique.
Ingredients Pizza dough
Toppings
1 Bonne Maman jar of flour
Tinned tomatoes for sauce: Couldn’t find, used olive
A sizeable pinch of salt, or more
oil instead. Fresh tomatoes: Have only two left, will
A few spoons of warm water (enough til the
use sparingly. Meat thing: Hooray! Have found some
flour gets sticky)
Catalan Fuet at back of fridge. Cut in small slices.
A few spoons of olive oil (enough til the
Red pepper: Enough slices to make the top look
dough makes sense)
somehow populated. Olive oil: See above. Drizzle
Some good pinches of herbs (flavour with
over the dough. Herbs and salt and pepper: sprinkle
whatever is in the cupboard, all I had was
over top to taste.
oregano and thyme, not ideal but there we go. I wanted to add fennel but didn’t find any)
Method Prepare the dough. Spread it onto a greased oven sheet. Poke it a few times with a fork to prevent massive bubbles when baking. Spread with olive oil and the toppings. Cook in oven at 220C for approx. 15-20 min until crust is a deep golden brown or until the kitchen begins to smell like a pizzeria. Then you know it’s ready! Enjoy with glass of rosé or your favourite liquid of early summer.
Dish Biography A few days before lockdown went into effect, I had this sudden urge to stock up on reading material to keep me company. Inside my local library I instinctively and efficiently grabbed a few fluffy novels, some dense historical fiction and quite possibly, the most fitting cookbook I could have found, even if it had knocked me over the head. Posh Toast, turns out, was the perfect remedy in those first weeks and became my inspiration. For lack of finding any flour or other baking ingredients, I relied on toast and any old topping that seemed not horribly incongruous. Quite often this was cheese, butter and/or marmalade. By then the weather had grown beautifully warm and sunny and I couldn’t stop dreaming about the South of France. Oh the torture. I then decided the season of rosé and pizza had arrived. Just a few days prior I’d been delighted to find flour. Still no yeast or tinned tomatoes but never mind. I made it work with whatever was in the larder. Here you see the evolution of my toast to a rather spindly looking pizza, and finally the photo on the right is last weekend’s adventurous step into a savoury tarte rustique with fresh basil. After finding loads of bright red ripe tomatoes, like a treasure, how could I not? Here’s the method for the French tarte: [https://www.undejeunerdesoleil.com/2017/08/tarte-rustique-tomates-pesto.html]
Macaroni and (Grilled) Cheese by Megen de Bruin-MolĂŠ
The hardest part of this recipe is ensuring you have leftover macaroni! Crunchy on the outside, gooey on the inside, delicious through and through.
Ingredients leftover macaroni (this recipe used a variation on the following): https://www.theorganickitchen.org/oldfashioned-skillet-macaroni-and-cheese/. Instant or supermarket macaroni is also fine (the key is having it in congealed block form) bread butter or mayonnaise
*This recipe requires a frying pan or grill.
Method Preheat frying pan or grill until hot. Slice two pieces of bread and spread butter or mayonnaise on both sides. Prepare a bread-sized piece of congealed leftover macaroni and place it between your two slices. Make sure the slice is thin enough to allow it to partially reheat between the bread slices (max. 2 inches).
Toast sandwich for 4-5 minutes or until outsides are golden brown, and insides are beginning to melt and ooze out. Don't forget to press down on the sandwich a few times to smoosh everything together, and flip the sandwich halfway. When toasted, cut on a diagonal and serve with some salad and homemade kombucha—or just scarf it straight out of the pan.
Dish Biography Macaroni and cheese is my go-to comfort food. I could eat it every night! Grilled cheese (or toasted cheese as it's often called in the UK) is another classic comfort dish. It holds a lot of fond childhood memories for me, but I don't eat it as often because I don't usually have bread to hand. During lockdown, though, my partner has been making homemade sourdough, and I couldn't resist the opportunity to combine the best of both comfort foods.
Order 42 #7EE9F2 [EAT IN] by Lesia Tkacz
In a dystopian future, Crayola succeeds in dominating the food industry. Your manufactured meal may taste waxy, but it sure is a gorgeous color!
Ingredients For the noodles and toppings:
For the mee rebus gravy:
1 packet of Mee Azure instant noodles from
Sweet potatoes
Crayola Cuisine
Baking potatoes
Mung bean sprouts, grown in a jar
Onion
Scraps of green or red chilli, grown on a
Garlic
window sill
Lemongrass
1 slice of Chow Cow fermented protein, with
Beef bones diced
grill detail
Beef meat Dried shrimp Dried red chillies Chicken stock cubes Curry powder Macadamia nuts Sugar Ketjap manis Dash of fish sauce Lime juice
Method Noodles Prepare the Mee Azure packet according to the manufacturer's instructions. Open up a slice of Chow Cow, and finally add whatever fresh toppings are able to be found.
Mee rebus gravy Roast sweet potatoes and potatoes until soft. Meanwhile, toast the macadamia nuts in a pan and finely grind. Put a dutch oven pot on the stove top and fry the curry powder. Add finely diced onions, garlic, and lemon grass and gently sautĂŠ until onion has caramelized. Add roasted items to the dutch oven pot along with water, chicken stock cubes, sugar, dried chillies, and dried shrimp. Use a potato masher to reduce the roasted items to a smooth gravy. Add nuts, sautĂŠed ingredients, and beef meat and bones and simmer on a low heat until all the bone marrow falls away. When the gravy has reached the desired consistency, mix in ketjap manis and a dash of fish sauce to deepen the flavor. Add lime juice just before serving over freshly cooked noodles.
Dish Biography There's a lot of time to think about possible dystopian futures during lockdown - what will be the dominant power? who will be there? where will we be? and most importantly, what will we eat? Many Science Fiction works open with scenes where character interactions play out at a steaming noodle bar in a dark alley, with the ever-present neon glow of a space station or futuristic megacity towering in the background. If you could peer into the steam and learn what goes into a bowl of dystopian noodles, you could divine the future state of civilization. I peered into the steam, and it ain't pretty: blue noodles with a waxy taste, scraps of indoor-grown vegetation, industrial protein, and a dark gloopy sauce. Our dystopian future is constricted and controlled by monolithic conglomerates which have far overreached their original corporate capacities. Take Crayola as a prime example. in the 2000s they were a children's crayon and marker pen company which persisted in dismal attempts at breaking out into video games, makeup, bath fizz, candy, and desserts. Crayola's icecream was perhaps the most revolting dessert failure of all: garish green, yucky yellow, and a highly hyped blue bathetically blended together to offer a plain vanilla flavor, all the while building up a gummy residue on your tongue with every bite. Fast forward to our dystopian future, and Crayola has finally heaved itself into the food industry as gargantuan player. Aggressive marketing across the solar system has managed to convince exhausted moon miners, asteroid wranglers, and space junk collectors that dazzling color should be prioritized over taste. It was an easy sell for Crayola, especially when they become the only cheap grub off-world after absorbing Nissin Foods Galactic and JAXA's meal preparation division. The dish presented here, Order 42 #7EE9F2 [EAT IN], represents a typical dish ordered at an BYOV (Bring Your Own Veg) AstroNoodle location.
'Anywhere But Here!' BBQ Burger by Lesia Tkacz
Greek halloumi, Costa Rican pineapple, and Thai sriracha mayo sauce - you can't get away from here, but your tastebuds can.
Ingredients
Method
2 slices of halloumi brushed with olive oil
Heat to a high temperature and add the halloumi
2 slices of fresh pineapple, about the same
and pineapple to the grill. Keep the slices
size as the halloumi burger bun, sliced in half lengthways Sriracha mayo or another hot sauce 1/2 handful of coriander
stationary to achieve distinct grill marks. After a few minutes, flip the halloumi and pineapple to cook the other side of the slices. Once cooked, place the halloumi and pineapple slices in the burger bun. Top with generous amounts of sriracha mayo, and coriander - don't scrimp on the coriander!
Dish Biography Realizing that the festivals and summer holiday we had planned weren't going to happen, we bought a BBQ instead. We sit around it in our camping chairs with the speakers on and a beer in hand, desperately trying to capture and focus in on any emanating festival vibes. It's all in effort of feeling like we're anywhere but our tiny porch. To help with the mental transportation, I put together the "Anywhere But Here!" BBQ Burger which reminds me of a fond beach spot in Greece, the rainforests I dream of visiting in Costa Rica, and the culture I long to see and taste in Thailand. This burger quickly become our lockdown BBQ classic.
1970s Dinner Party Disaster The 1970s experienced social change, economic upheavals, microchip revolution, iconic films and some seriously bad food. The challenge here was to take inspiration from the 70s – the bygone health food fads, the arrival of the deep freezer in domestic spaces, the kitschy culinary presentation, and instant meals to recreate an outdated hors d’oeuvres and retro munchies or adapt them for a 2020s web dinner party.
Elevated Cauliflower Head and Potato Cups by KoBosco
A modernised and 'elevated' version of a 70s dinner party dish.
Ingredients For the cauliflower cheese:
For the potato cups:
1 cauliflower head
Mashed potato (made with lots of butter
1 quantity of cheese sauce
and full fat milk) Curry powder Turmeric Sultana Salt and pepper Cooked green peas
Method Cauliflower cheese Par boil the cauliflower florets. Make cheese sauce (any basic cheese sauce recipe will do but make sure to add plenty of cheese and a teaspoon of mustard). Place the cauliflower florets in a shallow dish and pour over the cheese sauce. Bake in a pre-heated oven (190°C) for 25-30 min until the sauce is bubbling and top is golden.
Potato cups Make some mashed potato (use plenty of butter and full fat milk). Add curry powder, turmeric and sultana to the mash and mix well. Season with a bit of salt and pepper. Take a small handful of the potato mixture and mould it into a cup. Scoop a small spoonful of cooked green peas into the hole of the mashed potato cup.
Dish Biography I wanted to create a dish inspired by the 70s for the Lockdown Larder recipe challenge. I was looking through an old cook book and came across a black and white image of a whole head of cauliflower covered in some kind of thick sauce surrounded by mashed potato cups containing green peas. The cauliflower looked like an anaemic brain. I couldn’t believe how unappetising the dish looked. The idea of forming mashed potato into cups was also weird but it did, in a funny sort of way, exemplify the odd enthusiasm for food manipulation that was prevalent in the 70s. I thought I ought to do something about it, to ‘elevate’ the dish and make it more appealing. My version is certainly more colourful and full of different flavours. I actually enjoyed making the mashed potato cups. The mixture reminding me of playdough.