The art of eating in
Focus on staples Keep your staples basic Love leftovers
Let’s be honest, until a couple of weeks ago, how many of us really cooked three meals a day on a regular basis? Maybe on an average day, you skipped breakfast and grabbed some sushi for lunch at the office. A home-cooked dinner, perhaps four nights out of seven, takeaway one night, cereal another (because you couldn’t be bothered), and then dinner out with friends to round out the week.
If that sounds familiar, you’ll get no judgment from me. That’s a pretty standard week for a lot of people.
Honestly, if you were cooking at home four nights a week, I would say that you’re doing pretty well.
Regardless, in this brave new world we’re all in, making the shift from less than 10 home-cooked meals a week to somewhere in the vicinity of 21 is going to take some getting used to.
Here are my tips. ‘‘Keep it simple’’ has always been a great mantra in the kitchen (and out of it), but it’s never been more true than right now.
You might be tempted to swing for the fences with the ambitious project bake you’ve been dying to try but, from an isolation standpoint, a stunning cake that you can’t even share with friends may not be the most sensible replacement for a square meal right now.
Spending time on staples instead is a better return on investment. Everybody cooks differently, so your staples are entirely your own.
What constitutes ‘‘essential business’’ in your kitchen is for you alone to decide.
I can’t go past a homemade chicken stock, a good salad dressing in the fridge, a bottle of homemade teriyaki sauce, hot chilli oil, and a pot of rice.
With those staples I can make all kinds of dishes in minutes, from fried rice to Japanese-style chicken wings to super-simple soups .
Whatever staples you feel you need in your kitchen, avoid seasoning and flavouring them too much.
Making something less flavourful might seem like odd cooking advice, but restraint with seasoning and flavouring keeps your options open.
For example, I make chicken stock about once a week (from the carcass of a whole chicken I debone) and it is, literally, just chicken bones boiled in water.
I don’t season it with salt, and I don’t add herbs or onions or garlic.
With a basic stock in the fridge, I can add flavourings and seasonings later to turn the same stock into a risotto (with some rice, white wine, onion, and garlic), a Chinese soup (with egg, ginger and spring onion), or an elegant chicken stew.
We need to let go of the idea that leftovers are something unintended or troublesome. I love leftovers because it means I already have a headstart on the next meal. The wisdom of traditional cuisines has much to offer on this.
Fried rice is made with day-old rice not just as a way to use it up, but because day-old rice holds its texture better when fried. I’ll often cook extra rice for an evening meal so that I have enough to make fried rice the next day.