18/10/09 Imperial College cooking session

This session was all about improvisation using a repertoire of generic cooking techniques and applying same to donated ingredients. We collected: carrots, parsnips, pointed cabbage, broccoli and purple sprout broccoli, carvollo nero cabbage, potatoes, cooking apples and spring onions. We made the best of what was available without following a fixed recipe - this aspect is special to FoodWorks cooking because we get what vegetable donations we are given. Creativity and technique application are crucial so that we make really tasty and nutritious dishes for our beneficiaries because we care.

The carrots, parsnips and potatoes were cut into chunks and wedges, blanched and then roasted with seasoning (salt and pepper), cumin and various dried herbs we had in our larder box.

The rest of the vegetables, except the cooking apples, were quickly sautéed and made into a vegetable curry by Ankoor who spiced the dish personally using individual dried spices i.e. not using a pre-packaged spice mix. This is authentic home style Asian cooking and something very special!

Finally, the cooking apples were made into a dessert dish by first tossing apple wedges in sugar, some white wine vinegar and dried sultanas. This was then roasted off quickly for about 10 minutes in a very hot oven, after which big dollops of pecan nut paste were mixed into the hot apple wedges. The vinegar (in place of lemon juice, which we didn't have on the day) helped the sugar to dissolve as well as caramelise the apples wedges. The pecan nut paste added a nutty flavour to the dish.

As our beneficiaries are from central Africa mostly, we are currently exploring what their food ways are back home so that we can adapt our techniques to produce dishes which would appeal more to them. It would seem that central Africa food (www.congocookbook.com) feature often peanuts, tomatoes, yams and palm oil. (Palm oil is high in cholestrol which is not ideal so we would prefer to substitute sunflower oil and such like) So that's something we are looking into right now.