You need more than just a stocked pantry, Netflix, and hand sanitisers to see you through this lockdown

Stalks & Stocks

Let’s face it, stocking food for two/three weeks of homestay with a likelihood of it getting extended is a tall order to fill. Not only have you to take care of the cravings that come from being home-bound, but of the meals as well. In other words, it is Sunday repeated 14 times, with possible mid-meal cravings that can emerge from the monotony of being at home, isolated.

So how do you prepare for that? The ideal way would be to create a pandemic pantry, which can sustain you through these uncertain times. But if you haven’t been able to —of course who can overstock food — fret not as we get simple cues from experts on how to work with what you have got.
Yes, even those that are filled with 20 cup noodles, biscuits and ready to eat packets — with cues on how to refill if you get the chance.

Repurpose the fresh produce first

Aside spuds (which sprouts in about the third week’s end), few vegetables can survive two weeks shelf life even on refrigeration. A better way says Chef Praveen Shetty (Executive Chef, Conrad) is to process it into a paste, a chutney or even steam it. Turn onions into a paste along with tomatoes, stalks of coriander and fry it before storing it in the freezer. Once fried and frozen in a glass container, the paste can stay for three months at a stretch without losing its flavour. If you have to store it in the fridge segment, add a dash of lemon for extra preservation. The same goes for spinach, corn and even pepper and cauliflower, which can be part roasted and then steamed to get that amazing flavour.

Do season them lightly before storing. This allows you to not only give them a shelf life, but they concentrate on flavours thus turning them into these flavour bombs that can add taste to a curry and make a great tasting soup as well.”

The other way to store veggies, says seasoned Chef Nimish Bhatia, “is to sun dry them, especially things like tomatoes, mangoes, rinds of orange or store them in a brine that would slowly cure them causing their natural flavours to concentrate and boosting their probiotic properties.” For the rest, say the chefs, “finish them at the earliest possible.”

Invest in a small garden

Having this little makeshift kitchen garden for growing easy herbs like coriander, mint, onions and spinach can help you have a regular supply of herbs to flavour your food. And the best part, says Kapil Mandawewala of Edible Routes, a firm into all formats of gardening, “is that you can make the soil with the daily vegetable waste and the plants with the seeds or just by pushing the root side into the ground.”

A kitchen garden, in fact, adds Mandawewala, “cannot only supply you with once a week fresh spinach but once fruiting can supply you with fresh ingredients that can help you cook a day’s meal. Bonus: they are a stress-relieving exercise.”

Canned is good, too

Of course, fresh food is desirable, but canned food is not bad either, says Chef Avijit Ghosh (Corporate Pastry Chef, The Leela Palace Bengaluru) who finds merit in one of the oldest, effective methods of preserving food and making it travel. In fact, as a seasoned pastry chef, he often turns to canned fruit to get the tone of the dessert right, courtesy their consistency. The thing about canned food is that they are preserved during the season and so the chances of finding good produce inside the can is more than if sourced locally, says Chef Ghosh, who often discards the sugary syrup — the brine is worth reusing while boiling chickpea for hummus, he insists— before using them in his desserts.

In addition to being great quality fruits, these canned fruits, adds Chef Ghosh, “also exceptionally diminishes the need of adding too much sugar in the dessert because of the syrup they soak in. For the taste factor though, you can wither masque it with the use of aromatic spices like cardamom or give them a steam.”

Incidentally, canned food finds a patron in Chef Vikas Seth of Sanchez as well, who finds it to be a great help while repurposing instant food like a pack of noodles, which he advises “should be simmered like a pasta till the ingredients lose the oil and chemicals and then can be recooked as a
stir fry or a soup, where the tinned produce can come of help.”

Of course, adds nutri-therapist Sveta Bhassin, “while brine and sugar syrup seem simple to do away with, do read the labels. Any label that has too many starch elements like maltose, corn starch in the beginning or too many preservatives like sodium benzoate, benzoic acid, nitrites, sulfites, sodium sorbate and potassium sorbate should be avoided in totality — not just for the canned food but anything processed.

But what if you got them?

Limit their consumption, says Bhassin, “or if you have to have it, pair it with something that can offset the craving by filling you up.” One way to do that, says Chef Sabyasachi Gorai (Culinary Director, Byg Brewski), “is to invest in traditional food. Make your large meal — which now will be lunch — regional.

Thinking thali style enables us to get our day’s fill of nutrients but also in probiotics like pickles and papad. Try including sattu, ragi, millets like foxtail and ramdana in the diet. These are not only a good source of protein and energy but also come with such a low GI index that you can stay satiated with less craving that can take you towards processed food.”

Another way to curb your craving that stems out of monotony is to create your own home snacks which like, says Shetty, “a chivda mix that uses cornflakes that you have with peanuts, dal and roasted makhana. Or have these energy bars made at home that can be made by melting chocolate and adding their crispies to it to create the bars that are both a treat and fills you up quickly.”

Likewise, says Chef Ghosh, “for those excess biscuits that can be turned into a crust and mixed with
re-whipped yogurt and cream/condensed milk, have it as a filling dessert.” While it is a no-brainer that chips made from frozen food is better than packaged chips, says Bhassin,
“the best way to turn it into a time when you can consume more probiotic is with the dips. Try creating an array of chutneys to go with it. This may earn you some brownie points at not only eating right but limited as well, since a mix of chutneys and pickles can turn your mouth enough sour to
make you stop.”

Drink a lot!

Incidentally one of the key reasons for that ‘need to munch something’ feeling stems from two reasons: lack of involvement and low hydration often surfaces as the need to eat.

Hence, says Bhassin, “have a glass of water first followed by a beverage — nimbu pani, shikanji, sol kadi, any, no sugar-added probiotic drink or even kanji.

Give it some time and then reach for some kind of food. Tea or coffee works too but in limits since they can dehydrate the body easily.”

Another way is to have soups made with lentils as base. Lentil soups, says Chef Gorai, “have a proven
record of being nutritionally rich, even the simple ones that are tempered with garlic, aid the
digestive system.”

Must-have & must refill

While a good pantry has all the dry ingredients like maida, butter, hard cheese, rice flakes, peanuts, ketchup, flour, lentils, rice, sugar and such, it would be a good idea to also stock things like stock cubes, ready to eat food, milk in tetra packs, chocolates, dry fruits, puffed grains and of course, a wide variety of traditional cereals and millets. And a few selected sauces like soy, fermented chilli paste, ghee and oil and souring agents like amchur and imli.

The idea is not just to survive but to also be able to create food that can help you boost your immunity. Take the case of milk in tetra packs, for example, says Chef Sharad Dewan (Regional Director, Food Production, The Park Hotels), “while the powdered form is often convenient to create sweets, tea and coffee; for getting your fill of probiotic which comes from curd and things made from curd like kadhi, you would need milk. And a tetra pack works well in this regard. Likewise, the case of dry fruits. They are good for instant energy and to add that creaminess to your dal, rajma or even porridge.”

Get crushing on

The one thing that you may want as a regular in your diet are dishes that were meant to improve digestion like rasam and kanji. While having a variety with fresh ingredients looks like a distant possibility, now, says Chef Dewan, “could be the time to invest in concentrates made of raw mango, golden apple (bael) or kokum. These, he adds “while a little high on the sugar and sodium, do come in handy to create these cooling drinks.”

Having a pantry with these options also means that you can experiment with a wide variety of Indian foods that are based on the concept of probiotic or umami, ends Bhassin, “which is important to have once in every two weeks to help the gut fight any potential illness including common cold and flu.”