Date: Thursday, February 25, 2010
The Victim: Me
The Damage: Nothing. This was a freebie. Vegetable red thai curry provided by Scratch.
The Background: You might know that one of my New Year's Resolutions was to learn how to cook.
I'll be honest. This whole cooking thing is off to a VERY slow start.
But when Farleigh and Scratch contacted me back in February and offered to send me a meal kit for one that I could easily prepare within 15 minutes, well, it just seemed like a good way to dip my toe into the water. Everything would be cleaned and cut up already. I didn't need to REALLY work for my food. All I needed to do was break out the pots and pans and stir it together. (To summarize Scratch from their own Web site: We make fresh meal kits. A box of all the fresh, uncooked ingredients – chopped,washed and weighed – and instructions to cook your meal from scratch. Our food is tasty, healthy and all cooked by you from scratch.)
The first surprise: This is all vegetarian. I kinda wanted some chicken. Not a big deal. I mean, who doesn't need to eat more vegetables?
The second surprise: They want me to rinse the rice. That's not going to happen. That stuff is going straight into the pot of water.
The third surprise: That's a lot of coconut milk. How much fat is in there? I'm supposed to be on a diet. (After a little worrying, the nutritional information on the back of the package states that the whole package has just 15.25 grams of fat in it. Crisis averted. Glad that they've included that info.)
After mixing the curry paste with some coconut milk, I add all the vegetables and then throw in the rest of the coconut milk. The rice goes into a saucepan. (My mother's saucepan from when I was five years old.) I feel vaguely Martha Stewart-esque as I'm doing this, and I even put on an apron. How domestic. But the rice is not in one of those boil-in-the bag thingies (like Uncle Ben's), so I have to drain the rice in a sieve when I'm done. This means that this meal for one is going to require that I wash three dishes. (Not two, as promised in the description. And that's four if you count the bowl I ate out of. I did consider eating out of the saucepan to save on dishwashing.)
The finished product is fresh and pretty tasty. The green beans and baby corn are nice and crunchy, and I'm a sucker for butternut squash. The curry is a bit smoky and the coconut milk gives this all a nice creamy finish. I feel pretty proud of myself. And full. Even despite the lack of protein.
The Verdict: I like the concept of Scratch. I'm a busy person, and I live by myself, so if I were to buy the greenbeans and butternut squash and corn all in one go, I'd either have to buy them in extremely small amounts (so small as to look ridiculous), or buy enough to eat this every night this week. So it's nice to have an intermediary organizing it all for me. I also liked the taste of Scratch. This was fresh and healthy food, and there's a sense of accomplishment that comes from cooking this all yourself. That being said, I was kinda not happy about the washing up, which in some ways, made me wish I had actually been cooking for four. Would have been the same mess, you know?
You can find Scratch in the chiller cabinets at the Sourced Market in Kings Cross St Pancras station, Budgens Islington, the Grocery in Shoreditch 54-56 Kingsland Road, Couture Food Hall in Woolwich Arsenal, Kennards in Bloomsbury and finally Selfridges on Oxford Street.
6 comments
You can replace coconut milk with either full cream or half cream milk or you can make it 50/50 coconut & half cream milk (I usually use this for all my curries).
You can also add any meat together with the vegetables. The only thing is you have to get your hands dirty to slice the meat. If not, you can simply throw in a few prawns (unpeeled).
You can also rinse the rice using a sieve. Just let water run on it until water is clear. This is to remove the extra starch on the rice (so that u don’t get starchy rice).
If you have an oven at home, how about making a Quiche Lorraine. It’s very simple & easy to dish up. Don’t even have to get your hands dirty except a bowl.
http://www.cookingninja.com/103-Quiche-Lorraine.html
V.funny post! But you really should rinse your rice first to get rid of the starch. I thought I was bad in the kitchen but I feel like Jamie Oliver after reading this.
I live to entertain! Duly noted about the starch. But really, my rice tasted fine!
Yes to the rinsing! And you don’t have to drain your rice after cooking (thus saving on one dish) if you use the absorption method of cooking – 2 parts water to 1 part rice if cooking in a pot on the stovetop.
It kind of makes me wonder why they didn’t part-cook everything so that you could just stab the plastic coating and stick it in the microwave / oven.
Hi Krista! Glad you found my blog! I took a look through yours, and it seems like we have very similar taste in London restaurants and foodie destinations like San Sebastian! I look forward to reading more of your posts!
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