Have you been to a supermarket recently? Undoubtedly, this will vary by location but a recent trip I took to a local Tesco branch gave me cause for hope in these deeply trying times. Presently, we inhabit a world in the cradle of an invisible pathogen, blanketed by the amplification of dread and entropy. Given the ever-present anxiety that the fabric of society is potentially being ton asunder with the ease of a mother slicing through wrapping paper with a single scissor blade, any modicum of order encountered is a considerable relief. Now, it's very infrequent that I find myself feeling any sort of pride in being British, but boy howdy can we queue like champions.
This might be a familiar scene to anyone who has been shopping recently, but hear me out. It was pretty easy to imagine that I'd be met with scenes of banditry and lawlessness when going to pick up the essentials, but this was almost instantly dispelled by the sight of a line of equidistant people, waiting patiently to gain admittance to the supermarket. Every two meters lay a marker informing us how much distance to put between where we stood and the person directly in front; I had never felt so good about waiting in a queue. The noble retail workers became the gatekeepers of stability with their vigilance, their neatly maintained demarcations and their disinfectant wipes. Sure, you can't get everything (sorry for anyone who was hoping to get canned tomatoes or whatever variety of flour any time soon) you might want, and the experience of pandemic shopping will never be a pleasant one, but there are many people working incredibly hard to mitigate this and for that I am intensely thankful.
Now more than ever, I believe it is to make what we can of this situation. For the next few months, we're not going to be able to have everything we want readily available to us. As someone who has had the privilege of never meaningfully experiencing shortages of any kind, empty food shelves can be a very scary process. As a home cook, reading recipes now comes with the mental reminder that getting hold of ingredients at the moment may well be a challenge for now and the near future. Perhaps this is part of the reason why I feel like knowing how to cook is so important, given that it equips you with the required tools to refashion and augment based on necessity. That almost seems like a survival skill during times such as these.
With regards to you above I present to you a fully-formed recipe that is also an entirely exchangeable template based on what you have available; Kimchi & Brown Lentil Stew - yes, made with the kimchi from the last post! The very basic skeleton of this is a tin of tomatoes (okay, I realise the major impropriety in writing a recipe involving such a scarce commodity, but I will proffer alternatives below), a portion of lentils and any form of (suitable) liquid you have available to you. From there, you build upwards; your store cupboard supplies are your bricks, your cement and your ornamental crenelations. Or you can keep it as basic as the bare scaffolding, which may not be flavourful but it will be something to eat that contains a moderate amount of vitamins and protein. Sometimes all we need is to cover the necessary bases. With this in mind, please don't feel intimidated by the fairly lengthy nature of my ingredients list; for the most part, it's all negotiable.
I'm trying to take this attitude with me out of the kitchen and into every day life too. I'm still feeling pretty down about the whole "PhD that wasn't" situation, but I'm adapting. The time that could have been spent on preliminary research can now be put towards creating a proposal, and while that feels a lot less certain perhaps that's exactly what is needed after the last debacle. I've got the blueprint of what I want to do, it just needs to be filled in with the specifics. That could take a while, but we'll see.
Speaking of taking a while the recipe below does have something of a longer cooking time, but I'm assuming you're all looking for something to do, right? Though, much of that cooking time can be spent dreamily stirring the thickening stew every five minutes; this isn't a particularly high maintenance recipe (and parts of it can be eschewed if desired). There's something about a stew that's incredibly soothing to both eat and cook (unless you're in the midst of a invasive storm of 'will this work?' thoughts) which I think is feeling that many of us might just be in short supply of at the moment. Spend a moment chopping and slicing (or even skip that part), some time stirring and then slump disgracefully on the sofa with a bowl full of warmth.
Kimchi & Brown Lentil Stew (Kimchi Lenjeu Kong Jjigae)
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 45 minutes
Serves: 3-4 people
Ingredients
1 brown onion, finely sliced
2 spring onions, finely sliced
4 cloves of garlic, crushed and chopped
1 1/2 tsp of fresh ginger, finely sliced
1 fresh red chilli, finely sliced
150g of brown lentils
150g of fresh plum tomatoes, sliced in half
2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 2cm cubes
100g of kimchi, coarsely sliced
400g of tinned chopped tomatoes
400g of coconut milk
2 tsp of hot pepper flakes or 1 tsp of chilli flakes
1 tsp of paprika
1/2 tsp of cumin
1 tsp of soy sauce
1 tbsp of vegetable oil
1 tsp of sesame oil
1 tbsp of rice vinegar
1 tsp of sugar
1 tsp of salt
1/4 tsp of MSG (optional)
Pinch of sesame seeds
Method
In a large saucepan, heat the vegetable oil on a medium-high heat. When the oil has come to temperature, add the onion and saute for 2 minutes. Once the onion has softened slightly, add the garlic, ginger and fresh chilli to the saucepan and saute for a further 1 minute.
Add the sliced fresh tomatoes to the saucepan along with the rice vinegar, the sugar and 1/2 the tsp of salt and turn the heat up to high. When it has come to the boil, cover the pan and turn down to a medium-low heat; cook like this for 10 minutes. This will allow the tomatoes to break down and sweeten slightly with the sugar and the vinegar.
When the fresh tomatoes have finished, add the sweet potato and turn up the heat to medium-high. Cook like this for 4 minutes, turning the sweet potato occasionally before stirring in the chopped kimchi to the mixture.
Once the kimchi has been stirred into the mixture, add the tin of chopped tomatoes, coconut milk, soy sauce, hot pepper flakes, paprika, cumin, MSG (if using) and the other 1/2 tsp of salt and stir to combine before adding in the brown lentils. Stir the lentils into the mix and turn the heat up to high. When the saucepan has come to a boil, turn the heat down to medium and allow the pan to simmer for 30 minutes. This will give the sauce the opportunity to thicken, and the lentils will have time to absorb the liquid. You can use this time to prepare something to go alongside the stew (I chose rice, obviously) or you could just take rest break; do not nap, however, as you will need to stir this every five minutes!
After the simmering is done, check that the sauce has thickened to the right consistency. If not, give it an extra 5-10 minutes. Check the seasoning is to your liking. Once everything is as you prefer it, add in most of the spring onion (leaving some of the green parts to sprinkle over the top of the dish) and the sesame oil and stir through, cooking on the heat for an additional two minutes.
Leave the dish to cool for a few minutes in the saucepan, before serving in bowls with a sprinkle of spring onions and sesame seeds. You could perhaps even add some extra kimchi on the side!
Notes & Adjustments
There are SO MANY potential adjustments here (as I've subtly hinted at previously) so I'm only going to go through a few here.
If you couldn't get your hands on any canned tomatoes, you can use 400g of fresh tomatoes. You probably should peel and chop these (I say grimacing as I find this a laborious process - but maybe you'll find it easier than I do). Cut an X shape from the bottom of your tomato into the surface and throw them into a pot of boiling water for no longer than a minute, before plunging them into an ice cold water bath and lifting them directly back out. The temperature contrast should loosen the skin from the flesh (in a very Silence of the Lambs way) and hopefully you should be able to peel it away with ease. I hope my tone is inspiring confidence within you.
Don't want to use sweet potatoes? Or can't find them? Literally any other root vegetable will do, chopped to the same size. If you are going to use something like a carrot or a parsnip however, I would check after the 30-minute simmer that they are cooked all the way through.
This recipe has quite a bright and sweet flavour to it, so if you want more of a savoury taste then you could add 1 tsp of fish sauce (if you're not a vegetarian or if you're flexible about it like me - however you can find vegetarian fish sauce also) or an extra tsp of soy sauce. I would recommend not leaving out the MSG if you do this; I know a lot of people have objections to MSG being used as a seasoning but these are based more in racism and sinophobia than they are in science - just be moderate with it.
I did have feedback that this is pretty spicy, so if you find yourself quite sensitive to heat then perhaps consider halving the amount of chillis. For me, this translated as a moderate warmth in the mouth, so it very much depends on your taste buds.
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