World Food Day 2019: atom42 edition

You may or may not know that it was World Food Day last week – a day for feasting that we have readily gobbled up every year for the past 6 years! Every year, we celebrate World Food Day because we love a good excuse to: 

1. Explore foods that are significant to our colleagues
2. Eat like hungry hippos

It’s no secret within our office that we love our food. Hell, with the huuuge Homeslice pizzas we order in for lunch every month and pastries every single friday, we seldom go hungry, that’s for sure! So, on 16th October last week, plenty of atoms were very forthcoming in creating some pretty excellent homemade goods to share with everyone. 

We were super impressed by everyone’s efforts and the rich tapestry of foods that were on offer for a super fulfilling lunch – and now we’re sharing some of the recipes with you for you to try too!

Kamala’s Thai salad

Kamala says: “Thai salad is my favourite, and it always cheers me up when I’m feeling down. It has complex flavour; sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami just like flavour of life!”

Ingredients

• Palm sugar
• Garlic
• Fish sauce
• Lime or Lemon
• Core vegetable; tomato, carrot + any vegetables you like!
• Roasted peanuts
• Fresh chilli (if you like spicy flavour)
• Dry shrimp

Method

For the sauce: 

If you can find mortar and pestle, it would help salad to have a better texture. You also can use the mixer as the alternative for step 1 & 2 and put dry shrimp and chilli before adding tomato.

1. Crunch roasted peanuts and leave it in a separate bowl.

2. Crunch garlic, dry shrimp, palm sugar, fish sauce, Lemon, chilli together by following order, adjust the flavour as you like it to be.

For the salad: 

3. Add the tomato and carrot, and any additional vegetables you like!

4. Finally, sprinkle roasted peanuts on top.

Laura’s Stroopwafels

Laura says: “ I chose to make stroopwafels because my dad’s dutch and they really remind me of going to the Netherlands when I was younger!”

Ingredients

For the stroopwafels:

• 500g plain flour
• 250g butter, melted
• 150g caster sugar
• 4 1/2 teaspoons dried active baking yeast
• 60ml lukewarm milk
• 1 egg

For the filling:

• 350g treacle
• 200g brown soft sugar
• 50g butter
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Method

1. Combine the flour, melted butter, sugar, yeast, milk and egg in a large bowl. 
2. Knead until you have a smooth, elastic dough. Set aside and let rise for 45 minutes.
3. For the filling, heat the treacle, brown sugar, butter and cinnamon in a saucepan over medium heat. Mix well and set aside.
4. Preheat a pizzelle or shallow waffle iron (I improvised, and used a flat sandwich press!) . Knead the dough briefly and divide it into balls the size of a tennis ball (about 4cm in diameter; adjust depending on the size of your waffle iron). Place the ball in the waffle iron and close the lid to cook the waffles until no more steam escapes and the waffle is golden brown.
5. Remove the waffle carefully with a spatula or palette knife. Use a round cutter to cut off the edges and make a perfect circle. Carefully split the waffle into two rounds whilst still hot. Do not wait too long as they will break if cool.
6. Spread a little of the filling on one of the halves and then sandwich with the other half. Repeat with the remaining waffles.

Zara’s Mixed Lentil & Vegetable Khichdi

Zara’s tips (outside of making this in an Instant Pot / Pressure Cooker):

·       You can substitute the 4 different lentils with any lentils you may have on hand. It could be just 1 cup of moong daal or 1/2 cup of moong daal and 1/2 cup of chana daal. Just make sure you take 1 cup in total.

·       You can use any combination of vegetables. Just make sure to add about 4 cups. Frozen mixed vegetables also work well in this recipe.

·       To make this khichdi with brown rice, simply increase the pressure cook time to 20 minutes.

·       To make this recipe vegan, substitute ghee with cooking oil.

·       The water ratio in this recipe is 3 times the rice and lentils together which makes a soft, porridge like consistency for the final dish. To make dry-ish khichdi reduce the water from 6 cups to 4 cups.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoon ghee
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 1 tablespoon ginger
• 1 carrot peeled and sliced
• ¼ cup green beans chopped
• ¼ cup frozen green peas
• 1 red potato cubed
• 1 tomato diced
• 1 cup cauliflower chopped
• 1 cup cabbage chopped
• 1 cup spinach chopped
• ½ teaspoon turmeric
• 1 to 2 teaspoons mild red chili powder
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 cup white rice
• 1 cup mixed lentils moong, masoor, toor and chana daal
• 6 cups water
• ¼ cup coriander chopped, for garnish

Method

1. Turn the Instant Pot to sauté mode and heat the ghee or oil. Add cumin seeds and ginger.
2. Cook for 30 seconds, then add all the vegetables (carrots, beans, peas, tomato, potato, cauliflower, cabbage and spinach). Mix well.
3. Add turmeric, red chili powder and salt. Mix well.
4. Add the rice and mixed lentils, then pour in 6 cups of water. Give the mixture a quick stir and close the Instant Pot lid with the pressure valve to sealing.
5. Press the rice button (12 mins) followed by natural pressure release. Open the Instant Pot and garnish with coriander.