Edition 3: ACS Cookbook
Food tells a story. Its significance within our communities cannot go unnoticed, and so this edition will be a dedication to and celebration ACS Food.
Recipes are in a sense an intergenerational conversation – a chance to share a meal that our ancestors also sat down to eat. They are not restricted by geographical locations and can be enjoyed anywhere. My hope with this edition is to create an ACS cookbook, where we can share our own culture not just through conversations or small exchanges but by connecting each other’s cultures through food.
More recipes will be added to this edition, so have a look out for more in the coming weeks and months.
Asma Maloumi
In the hustle, rush, and mindlessness of university life, it’s very easy to not reflect on the food you eat and simply see it as fuel to carry you through to your next essay crisis. A banana consumed at your desk for breakfast whilst you race through some reading or emails, a meal deal sandwich swallowed whole whilst you’re pacing it on the way to the library. The quickest, or cheapest (and probably the least healthy) meal you can have for dinner, so you have more time on work.
For me, this is such a difference to the way food is made, eaten, and shared back in my household. We enjoy our home cooked meals together – talking, not working– and most importantly, we take our time. Dinner is a family affair. Bread is broken over conversations about our relatives back home, a recap of work encounters, and headlines from Al Jazeera. Sometimes my sister and I have heated political debates whilst my Mum complains that the food is getting cold. We try to leave some scraps of meat for our cat, Mimi, to nibble on as she sits and watches us, but she sniffs at them and trots off, offended that we haven’t given her Sheba instead.
Whilst its unrealistic and logistically impossible to get all of that at university, I decided I wanted to invest more time and effort into dinner time. I didn’t just want to eat to survive, I wanted to bring the joy of preparing, making, and sharing food that I grew up with into my shared uni kitchen. College dinners also stopped cutting it for me a long time ago, so I had no other choice but to go rogue (by university standards) and cook my own meals on a daily basis. I decided that time spent doing something that made me happy, and kept me nourished, would never be time wasted. The essay can wait.
In the kitchen, I fry some chops or salmon/ boil rice/pasta, roast vegetables or make a sauce (depending on the mood) in good company, catching up with my friends. If I’m lucky, I have a plastic container of a traditional Algerian dish my mum has made a mission of freezing for me, so I can simply defrost and get a taste of home away from home. When I run out of meal ideas, I just freestyle it with whatever’s left in the fridge. The latter led me to have a full English breakfast at 9pm one evening, but I didn’t regret it.
Quite often, my friends prepare their own meals too. Red makes traditional Filipino dishes with a pot big enough to feed a small village (he leaves it to ‘soak’ for 2 business days), and Aibhlinn makes pasta dishes the real Sardinian way – putting Vapiano’s to shame one bowl at a time. Jes’ rice-cooker is also always on standby in times of need. The kitchen becomes the place to be after long, dreary days of academics, as we all bring a portion of ‘back home’ into the meals we prepare. Sometimes cooking takes me longer than it should, because I’d rather spend time making something hearty and laugh with my friends than rush back to my room to battle with JSTOR for the whole evening. I think that’s what makes these days worth it.
Sometimes I invite a friend or two over to cook for them, as a way of saying ‘I know you’re tired and can’t be bothered to go out to eat and spend money, so come round to my place and let me treat you’, because good food made from the heart can bring people together in ways that can turn a uni house into a home. Real friendship is your special guest insisting ‘you made dinner, so let me do the cleaning up’, but you insisting even more that they should stay seated.
All of this is not to say I will never go near a quick fix or ready-made meal again, but if there’s one thing I’ve learnt whilst being a student at university it’s this; food always tastes better in good company.
And the essay can wait.
Hawawshi:
Ingredients:
½ kg of minced meat
2 onions
2 red bell peppers
Salt
Pepper
Paprika
Thyme
Sage
Round Pita bread
Steps:
1. Dice the onion and bell pepper, adding both to the meat.
2. Add the seasonings (listed above) into the meat and vegetables, mixing them well
3. Make an opening in the round pita bread and put the meat in, spreading it out until it’s flattened. Then flatten the bread with the meat inside.
4. Add a small amount of oil into a frying pan and put the stuffed bread onto it, using a medium heat. Place the stuffed bread for 3 minutes on each side.
5. Finally, enjoy the dish served with tahini sauce.
Puff Puff
Ingredients:
2 teaspoons of Yeast
Half a cup of sugar
A tablespoon of salt
3 ½ cups of flour
Steps:
1. Mix two cups of warm water with 2 teaspoons of yeast, half a cup of sugar and a tablespoon of salt.
2. Let this sit for 5 minutes, and then add 3 ½ cups of flour (you may need to add more flour or water if it doesn’t have the right consistency)
3. Let this rise for an hour
4. Using a small pot, fry the mixture in oil using a tablespoon to portion it or you can do the Aunty method.
Tsebi Dorho (or Doro Wat):
Ingredients:
5 red onions
Two fresh tomatoes
A head of garlic
1/2 cup oil
1 whole chicken cut into pieces
3 spoons Berbere (Ethiopian spice)
1/2 cup water
6 boiled eggs
1/2 tsp of salt
Steps:
1. Chop your onions, and cook them with oil until they are golden brown
2. Then cut two tomatoes into small pieces (or alternatively, blend them) and add this to your onions. Leave this for 5 minutes
3. Add Berbere spice, and other spices of your choice, as well as half a head of garlic, leaving this for another five minutes.
4. Gradually add ½ cup water every few minutes when the sauce begins to thicken, and once everything is mixed allow this to simmer for 10 minutes.
5. Wash the chicken with lemon and salt, then cut it into smaller pieces.
6. Cook the chicken in the oven and add the other half a head of garlic into the sauce for 15 minutes.
7. Pour the sauce onto the chicken and enjoy!
