Week 2 – Indian Cuisine
This Week’s Dishes:
Chickpea Curry
Indian-Style Rice
Recipe
Recipe
Highlights from Cooking Classes at Indwell
Tuesday Class
Thursday Class
YouTube Cooking Tutorials!
Ingredients:
One (1) Splash of olive oil
One (1) Onion
One (1) Celery rib
Two (2) garlic cloves
Four (4) tomatoes
Two (2) can Chickpeas
One (1) can Coconut Milk
One (1) Tablespoon Brown Sugar (optional)
Salt and Pepper to taste
Spice Blend:
One (1) tablespoon Garam Masala or curry powder
Half (½) teaspoon cumin
Half (½) teaspoon turmeric
Half (½) teaspoon ground coriander
Quarter (¼) teaspoon cayenne pepper
Instructions:
Heat up olive oil in a pot, when hot add the chopped onions. Add chopped celery.
After one minute add the crushed garlic and the spice blend and sauté until the onions are softened.
Add the chickpeas, chopped tomato and coconut milk and bring to a boil then to a simmer. Let it simmer for around 10 minutes until the flavors are blended.
Turn off the heat. Add 1 tablespoon of sugar and mix in (optional). Add sea salt and black pepper to taste.
Ingredients:
One (1) cup of basmati rice
40 grams of wild rice
One and 3 Quarters (2 ½) cups of water
One and a half (1 ½) tablespoons of vegan butter or oil
Half (½) teaspoon of salt
Instructions:
Wash both types of rice 3 times (optional).
Add all ingredients to a pot, bring it to a boil and put a lid on.
After 15-20 minutes, take the rice off the heat and with a lid for 5 minutes. If the rice is too firm add a couple spoons of water to the pot.
Open the lid and fork the rice to make it fluffy.
Ready to serve.
When we think of curry, a variety of dishes come to mind because of just how far this influential dish has spread! Curry, which is a dish that originates from South Asia and is made of a sauce seasoned with many regional spices, is what one would call a “fusion cuisine”. Fusion cuisines are those that combine elements of different cultural dishes/practices in cuisine to create an entirely new dish or a dish with a new twist. So, while traditional curries have been around for millennia in South Asia, this incredible dish has travelled far and wide across the world and is now incorporated into the cultural dishes of other regions of the world. This was helped by the British influence on India, who introduced curry to English cuisine in the 17th century to create an Anglo-Indian fusion. Curry powder was also another thing exported to Western countries as a spice mix, which includes ginger, turmeric, black pepper, cumin, fenugreek, cinnamon, and coriander) made to obtain that characteristic curry taste and feel.
Within South Asia, curry traditionally takes on a number of forms, but are generally eaten with rice and can contain vegetables or meat. For our program, we’ll be creating a plant-based chickpea curry, which will give you a good source of protein as an alternative to meat! We will also mix in some coconut cream to thicken the curry so that it may be enjoyed in other ways, such as a dipping for chips or as a spread!
Rice, as everyone is likely all familiar, is an essential staple food across the world. It is an important source of grain and commonplace in almost every culture on Earth. Basmati rice is grain that is grown in India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh, and is therefore a major source of rice intake in the region! So if you were to make, say, Indian-style rice, purchasing some basmati rice would be a great start! You can also substitute basmati rice for the longer-grained jasmine rice, which is grown in Thailand. From there, what makes rice from this region of the world special are the spices that it is prepared with. Coriander, cumin, garam masala, and bay leaves make for quite the aromatic flavour and adding turmeric gives the rice a lively yellow glow!
With this rice prepared, you can pair it with vegetables or together with the chickpea curry we’re featuring in this week’s set of recipes! I’m a big fan of spices, so I would definitely recommend that you give this one a shot!
This, I believe, marks the strengthening of the connection we are having with Indwell and the tenants that we interact with. While we’re all getting to enjoy the excitement of teaching the tenants how to prepare different meals and increase their exposure to different cultures and foods, we get to reap a different kind of success that is often the byproduct of community projects: a sense of creating meaningful change in people’s lives and development, especially of the self. Did I ever imagine I’d get to discuss the excitement for this program with tenants in a ride on one of the building’s elevators? Not at all! But now I look forward to these types of interactions and moments for conversation because of the many opportunities for bonding that present themselves. The tenants seem to be invested in this program, and so are we! And I think next class will be quite interesting, as we got permission from the Tuesday class participants to be filmed by the London Environmental Network as part the coverage of our program, so I’m excited to see what story can be told in our kitchen for all to see!
With the third class of our program now behind us, it was exciting to see our participants from last class join us again for class! As they walked into the kitchen, they gave Lucca and I a bright smile as they carried their food kits with ingredients from the previous class! It’s that sort of energy exuding from the tenants about this cooking program that fills me with joy and fulfillment, as it seems that for some of the tenants at Woodfield Gate, we’ve manage to strike a keen interest in them to learn more about plant-based food and cooking as a whole. They were even so kind as to return their food kits with all the containers and jars washed, which wasn’t something we previously anticipated. We were preparing ourselves to invest some time into washing the containers ourselves as the cooking class pushed on, but through the kindness and consideration of our participants that didn’t end up being necessary!
I want to start of by saying that passionate people make you excited. No seriously, I mean it. The kind of energizing feeling you get when you’re around someone who wants to get involved and demonstrates their care for what you’re trying to do or present to them is phenomenal. And that’s the exact same feeling we’ve been getting from this one tenant that has been attending our Thursday classes these past two weeks. They are just so curious and so eager that they get you just as excited for what Chef Lucca is going to teach, as if he wasn’t an interesting fella as it was! It’s that sort of attitude that gets you into the groove and makes you feel a little relaxed while “running the show”. With that encouragement comes confidence in our own programming and the way we’re administering things, because that shows we’re doing a good job. You know, when someone has so much faith in you that they want to join you again the following week, it really warms you heart!
And that’s why I personally love projects with community engagement and outreach—you get to meet all sorts of people from all kinds of backgrounds and you have the opportunity to appreciate the diversity that exists among people within the same community. Perhaps not everyone will participate in your community project, but when you show up with the intention of being inclusive and accessible, everyone appreciates what you do. And then of course, there’s the added bonus of having an impact on the individuals who do show up! That’s what’s so wonderful about this cooking program: we’re uplifting a community by, in part, showing our commitment to their betterment and well-being. Teaching cooking skills and an understanding of different cultures their history is one of those defining experiences in a person’s life that can change both their viewpoint of the world and their ability to provide for themselves. One of my closest friends has shared with me that food is a love language and because love can take so many different forms, that just adds to the power that food has. To teach, to encourage community, to show hospitality, and to sustain—the power of food is honestly one of the things Lucca’s Plant-Based Cooking Program aims to present. The tenants aren’t the only ones learning things, so are Lucca and I! :)