Welcome to my fifth blog post for In-Depth 2022!
In the past few weeks, I have made an Indian breakfast dish, interviewed my brother, and met with my mentor. Last week, instead of picking a specific meal to cook, my mentor and I decided to pick ‘curry’ as the theme of our dish, then regroup and see what we came up with.
The curry I decided to make is called Sambhar. It is a breakfast dish served with dosa and tomato chutney (sauce). Dosa is essentially an Indian crepe. It is made from a thin batter, and stuffed with a potato mixture. Sambhar is a vegetable curry that is eaten on the side. It is made from dhal (or lentil, in English) and soup base. Since this was such a big meal, we invited my grandparents over for brunch. The biggest challenge I encountered was time, since I had to make each dosa fresh. Then, the minute I finished making it, it was given to one of my family members and it was hard to keep up. This meant I didn’t have much time to eat one until much later. These recipes we all vegetarian, as most Indian dishes are, so no substitutions had to be made.
My mentor, Ms. Lee, made a Japanese curry with leftover veggies she had on hand.
Recipes I used:
- https://www.indianhealthyrecipes.com/dosa-recipe-dosa-batter/ (dosa)
- https://www.indianhealthyrecipes.com/andhra-sambar-recipe-how-to-make-south-indian-sambar/ (sambhar)
- https://www.indianhealthyrecipes.com/onion-tomato-chutney-recipe/ (tomato chutney)
*I really liked “indianhealthyrecipies.com” because it had Hindi words for a lot of the spices, so I could learn some new words while cooking. For example, ‘hulthi’ means turmeric.
Photos (The photo files were too big to upload, so click the link below to view.)
As In-Depth Night planning began, I started thinking about the different meals I should put in my cookbook, and what meals were perhaps missing. I decided to interview my brother to see what dishes he thought should be included. First, I asked him what his favorite dish has been so far. He said it was dosa and sambhar because it could give an ethnic variety to the cookbook and also was a breakfast dish, something I haven’t made before. This recipe will definitely be included in my final cookbook. Next, I asked him what might be missing from the meals I’ve made. After spending a few minutes looking through his favorite cookbooks, he said that salads were a big part of many meals. He showed me a recipe called the Niçoise Salad, which is definitely something I would like to make in the future, and adapt to be vegetarian. He also mentioned it might be nice to have a holiday section, since many traditional meals included meat (for example, turkey at Thanksgiving) I think this is a great idea and would be a fun challenge to come up with substitutes for big meals like that.
Reflection questions
- What kinds of learning opportunities does the mentor provide to expose you to new learning?
Ms. Lee and I are trying to use the school kitchen to cook a couple meal so I can learn some new techniques and actually cook alongside her. This would give me the experience of having a mentor beside me in the kitchen to teach me as I go.
- What kinds of learning opportunities exist to reinforce new learning?
Opportunities like continually cooking each week and getting a chance to talk about substitutions with my mentor really help reinforce my learning.
- What kinds of opportunities exist that might accelerate learning?
Some opportunities include looking at vegetarian vs non-vegetarian cookbooks to see what kinds of meals vary. I could also see what format most cookbooks are in to help with my final project.
- When you get together what do you talk about?
Ms. Lee and I talk about what dish we made, what went well, what were some challenges and what we would do differently. Then, we talk about our next meal; what to make, what substitutions to use, and any tips or advice needed before making the dish.
- What is going particularly well in your mentoring relationship right now?
I think that communication and availability are two big contributing factors to our mentoring relationship. It is really easy to get in touch with Ms. Lee and she makes time to answer any questions I have. We have also been able to have weekly meetings, which really helps with face-to-face discussions.
- What are you learning about one another?
I’ve learned that Ms. Lee is very good in the kitchen, and that she had made most of the dishes before, so there are very few challenges she encounters while cooking.
“You come up with challenging fun dishes each week to show off your new skills and develop new ones.” – Ms. Lee
Overall, this dish was rated 10/10 by my family!
(The dish was far from perfect, but my grandparents couldn’t resist giving me anything but 10/10)
Until next time,
Rian