Words & Photos from Emma H.
On our first day, we met in Timmis and Bolton’s common room. Kayla introduced herself, and asked each of us to share what our cooking experience has been. Our first thing would be chicken stock, and the final result would be our own ramen.
She demonstrated how to prepare chicken for roasting. Simply boiling the chicken would not give us the same depth of flavour, nor the same amount of nutrients. We divided ourselves into groups of three to four to mince the vegetables and condiments for our soup stock: carrots, onion, ginger, garlic, and green onion. We seasoned the vegetables with sesame oil and took turns tossing, to varying degrees of success. Everyone soon realised how enjoyable mincing was, and long after the vegetables were prepared, we took scraps and chopped to our heart’s content.
Once the chickens were out of the oven and cooled, we removed the meat from the bones and saved them for later. The bones went back in the oven.
After lunch, Kayla, improvising, taught us how to make dumpling filling, similar to wontons. Prawns, and more vegetables were chopped and packs of minced pork were unwrapped. There was a competition of who could mix it together the best, and I watched as I grated carrot. Kayla, of course, won by far. Kayla fried the mix, and while many of us were first deterred by the ugly appearance of the mix, others’ coaxing persuaded them to try the delicious prawn-and-pork mix, and they did not regret it. We folded them haphazardly, as we did not have round wraps, but square ones. A few of us were experienced from folding dumplings for Chinese New Year, and helped the others. Soon, we had two trays of dumplings that went into the freezer.
At the end of the day, we swept the floor, wiped down the counters and washed the dishes. All of our food sat in plastic containers on the counter, and we realised that Kayla had marinated eggs and pickled shiitake mushrooms and divided the chicken broth for our ramen tomorrow.
Day 2
On our second day, we spent the morning preparing crepes! The day before, we had unanimously agreed that we would all enjoy them. So far into our experiential we had no major mishaps, until we attempted to make homemade Nutella. You would not be able to tell that our failed experiment was supposed to be Nutella — it resembled dirt more than the smooth, hazelnut spread, as many members of our group proclaimed. Whenever we had visitors, we would persuade them to take a spoonful with gleeful smiles. With a combination of peer pressure and curiosity, they would try it, and were surprised by it being edible, and even delicious. That was until the aftertaste hit; overwhelming saltiness underscored by the bitterness of cocoa powder. Their faces would fall, and each time we would shriek with laughter. The person who provided the recipe, who shall remain unnamed but I am certain any one of us would be happy to share their name if you asked, had gotten both measurements wrong, and instead of a teaspoon of salt, we had a tablespoon, and added far too much cocoa powder.
Other than the Nutella Incident, the morning went smoothly. Kayla had designated us all a different sauce to make, and we were absorbed in our preparations. There would be caramel, raspberry compote, apple cinnamon compote and whipped cream. Kayla offered to make us poached eggs and several of us watched, entranced, a master at work. The secret to poached eggs? Time them. (3 minutes for each egg). (Also, crack them into a separate bowl).
The sun had grace us with its presence, and illuminated the room as we set down our crepe ingredients. We had a variety of sweet and savoury. Maya, with our leftover lemons, made us raspberry lemonade and another group visiting Fairway Market rescued us by buying a jar of Nutella. We gathered around the table and oohed and ahhed at all our hard work before digging in. The sounds of cooking were gone: all that was left was our eager digging in, and exclamations of delight. Once our mountain of crepes was gone, we found ourselves all but melted into the sofas, sleepy, well-fed, and tired from our morning exertions.
Josh and I were forbidden from washing the dishes, as we had done them yesterday, and I personally think that this was a good intervention as Josh had cut himself three to six times while washing the knives. Kayla roused us from our food stupor by reminding us we still had ramen to prepare and consume. We were still sluggish as we watched her make homemade mayonnaise, far better than the store bought stuff. We used the leftover roasted shredded chicken, vegetables and Kayla’s mayonnaise and spice mix to make little bowls of salad to take home.
At the end of the day, we joined Group AC#2 and had a blindfolded taste test of the other group’s food. It was hilarious seeing the tester getting riled up by others, and their anxiety making way to relief and anger at being tricked, for what they were given was not so bad. We said goodbye to Kayla with grins, and armfuls of food to take back to our homes, highly anticipating our next Expedition days in March.