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Turkish steak, rice and lentil soup food lab

Start adding seasonings to the meat!

After adding all your seasonings, mix it well and let it marinate for about 20 minutes!

Preheat the oven and bake it for about 30 minutes!

Finished product for the steak!

Now time for the lentil soup!!!

Put your lentils in a pot to cook on the stove.

Add all your seasonings to the lentils and let it cook. Make sure to add water to keep the lentils at a soup consistency!

Now onto the Turkish rice.

Add your noodles(vermicelli) to the pot to let them cook.

MIx in your rice with the noodles(vermicelli) to cook to create a fusion between the vermicelli and rice. This rice dish is called Turkish Pilaf with vermicelli. 

There you have it Turkish lamb. Rice pilaf with vermicelli and turkish red lentil soup!!!!!  

What do you think was the inspiration behind this food lab?  Was the inspiration successful?

The inspiration behind this food lab was too go all out. The reason being that this was the last food lab of the course and the dish I made was completely up to me. No restrictions, no budget, all up to me. So I made a Turkish lamb kabob/steak with Turkish rice and a Turkish lentil soup. I wanted to make sure that this dish was significantly complex compared to other food labs, so could really put my newly found cuisine knowledge and skills to work. My inspiration was successful because the dish turned out to be a flavorful and tasty meal. Not only was it a success in terms of overall taste, it was also a success in the way where it really tested my skills that I learned in this course and it got me to reach my end goal. My goal by the end of this course was that I would be able to make complex and different dishes for my family, and I can proudly say that I feel like I’m on my way to getting there. Overall; this food lab was a victory, it did exactly what it was intended to do, make me reach my goals, and in the end it made a memorable dish and experience for  not only me but also my family.  

Which assignment or class task did this food lab connect to?  How did you apply some of the concepts you learned about into your food lab? Please use food and culture terminology in your response.

I one hundred percent think this food lab connecting to assignments or class tasks we learned in class and there various examples. For instance putting to use, chopping, paring and slicing. For example chopping and slicing the vegetables, like carrots or tomatoes to put in the lentil soup, had I not learned those techniques that could have been a safety hazard resulting in me cutting my finger. Another example being, the concept of cross contamination. I definitely think I put this to use because of the fact that this dish had so many different food groups, for instance, meats (lamb), lentils, vegetables and rice. I had to constantly make sure nothing was every touching each other that could cause cross contamination, like keeping the uncooked meat away from the rice and lentils. I would also use the strategy of having different stations for different food groups, for example one part of the counter for the lamb, another part of the counter for the rice and the island for cutting the vegetables. Had I have known this there definitely would have been a huge risk of cross contamination between the various food groups. At the beginning of this course I had very limited food and safety knowledge but coming out of this course taught me several different concepts and tricks to make me a better and safer chef inside and outside of the kitchen. 

If I were to make this again …. What would I do differently that I have now learned?  Ie. giving myself tips or feedback

There are a couple of things I would do differently next time in regards to this dish. For starters, I would next time take the meat out of the oven about 2-3 minutes before to ensure that the meat isn’t too tough. The reason being that I felt that the meat was a little tough for me at least, resulting in excessive chewing. To fix this mistake next time I would take the meat out a couple minutes before. Another thing I would do differently next time would be to marinate the meat, this food lab was a little spontaneous for me, so I didn’t have time to marinate the meat how I would’ve liked to, so that would be something I would do differently next time. The reason being that I find when you marinate the meat even for a couple hours, the flavors are just so much more bold and you can really taste all the herbs and spices in the meat, which overall just makes the meat tastier and more flavorful. At the end of the day, there were definitely things I would do differently next time to elevate the dish to the next level, however other than that this food lab was a success in the way that I have learned from my mistakes.

[azansappleandavacados]

Gingerbread Cookie food lab

The process!

Start making your base dough!

When finished start rolling the dough out so you can start cutting out your desired shapes

When you have your shapes put it in the oven to it can be baked.

In the mean time start making the icing as your glue.

When your cookies are fully cooked start assembling your tower/building/structure! 

And there you go. Final product!

If I were to make this again …. What would I do differently that I have now learned?  I.e.. giving myself tips or feedback

Something I would have done differently would have definitely been to prioritize baking the gingerbreads instead of prioritizing the other steps for example making the icing. The reason is because thought that we could use the oven again but that wasn’t the case so we got cocky and decided to start a completely new step by making the icing when we could’ve made it at anytime. Had all of our shapes been fully cooked we would’ve definitely been able to keep the structure standing but because of that it wasn’t standing as how we would have liked. So next time something I would do differently would just prioritize the important things first and manage our time properly because worst case scenario something goes wrong at least all we have all of our most important things ready and completed.  

2. 

I liked/Didn’t Like… at home I could alter this food product by…

I liked that even though we had so many trials and tribulations at the end of the day we got through it for example how we were expecting to make the cn tower but because of the fact that our gingerbread pieces were half cooked it wasn’t standing up properly,  with all the different layers on the Cn tower. But although that didn’t end up happening we ended up improvising and making the Washington Monument. So I liked that as a group we never gave up and got through it at the end of the day. Another thing I liked about the gingerbread making process was cutting out the gingerbread and making the shapes for our structure I think that it was definitely one of the best thing about this project. Something that I didn’t like was building the structure because for it was difficult to keep it up and at the same time keep it looking decent so it was overall just very stressful. 

3. 

How did your first idea compare to your final gingerbread house? Is it similar or different?

Our first idea compared to our final product was definitely very different as we had to improvise the whole structure being that our actual gingerbread wasn’t fully cooked and because of that it wasn’t standing up properly. Being that it wasn’t going how we wanted it, made us feel disappointed at first, however we didn’t give up and kept going and improvised to make our final product. Although making the Washington monument wasn’t our initial plan we got through the difficulties and hurdles and ended up making a structure that was sturdy and had a realistic color to the actual structure. Our project was definitely not the prettiest of the bunch however it was definitely something personally I was proud of because of all the missteps and hurdles we had to overcome. Overall this project was a great learning experience for not only future food labs but for dishes I might cook in my own.

[azansappleandavacados]

Make the filling. In our case consisting of vegetables!

Start putting the vegetable filling in the dumpling!!

After you’re done wrapping all your dumplings. Start cooking!!!

Finished product!!!!!

Don’t forget to dip it in soy sauce!

How can the foods you made in this lab be modified  - to either be ‘healthier’ or to meet other food restrictions or  avoidances.  Think about the individual components that were used and how they could be altered or ‘tweaked’.

To modify this dish to make it healthier would be to not fry it. When we cooked the dumplings we ended up frying it, as we all know frying any food is not the healthiest and can definitely be modified into something healthier by simply cooking it a different way. In this instance we could have cooked the dumplings by boiling it, boiling the dumplings would be a much healthier option as we wouldn't also have to use oil as well.

2. 

What connections can you make between this lab and what we 

learned in class?

Some connections I made when doing this lab were the different types of knife skills we learned. For example chopping the bok choy, or slicing the carrots etc. I took these concepts and applied them to the actual lab to make sure I would cut the foods safely and effient. Another thing I connected from concepts we learned from the kitchen nightmares assignment. For example keeping the kitchens clean and safe. For example washing the dishes before and after using them, cleaning the counters and frequently washing our hands. 

3. 

I liked/Didn’t Like… at home I could alter this food product by… 

I liked how we made something that was very unique and different because it was nice to experience traditional cultural cuisine because personally I never had those type of dumplings. Overall it was a great food choice. Something I didn’t like was the fact it was in a way too easy to do, it kind of felt short. Because it felt like what we did was just cut the vegetables, put it in the wrapping and than cooked it. That’s it, it just felt short in my opinion and too easy, but overall it was a fun lab and dumplings are something that i would definitely make again.

[azansappleandavacados]

Dough making process!

Let the dough sit!

Mold the pretzels whatever shape and size you’d like!

Preparation time! Bake in the oven.

Finished product. Enjoy!!!!

1.

If I were to make this again …. What would I do differently that I have now learned?  Ie. giving myself tips or feedback

If I were to make this again a couple things I would do differently would be to make the pretzels skinnier so that they wouldn’t mush together as they were getting cooked, even though it was somewhat difficult to shape them out with practice I could get it. By doing this it would also make the pretzel look more aesthetically pleasing. Another thing I would do differently next time would be to cook the pretzels for slightly less time because what I noticed and some other classmates noticed was that the pretzels were slightly hard, which is preferred for some people however for me I tend to like pretzels more on the softer side. 2. 

If you prepared the food for your family – show us and tell us what they thought. How did you feel after

I saved a pretzel to give and show to my family. My family overall had positive inputs on my pretzel, for example my mother said that she liked that it wasn’t overly salty because a lot of pretzels in some cases have way too much salt to the point where you can’t even taste the actual pretzel. My brother overall liked it but he said it was too hard for his liking, however to be fair he had the pretzel about two and a half hours later so it did get a little harder than it was originally. My dad said he liked it as well and he liked the colour of the pretzel, as it was a golden brown colour. These comments made me feel good because I made the pretzel and took the time and effort, however I also acknowledged the fact that there were a lot of areas of improvement and just something I would learn and apply next time. 

3.

I liked/Didn’t Like… at home I could alter this food product by… 

I really liked how instead of putting the full block of himalayan salt on the pretzels we smashed them to make them smaller so that there would be more salt on the pretzel while keeping the pretzel not too salty so it was a perfect salt to pretzel ratio. Something I didn’t like and what I would do next time was make some sort of sauce with the pretzel for example a cheese sauce just like the restaurant Auntie Anne’s, because taking too many bites of the pretzel just got way too dry to eat, so I think if we had done this, this would have really elevated the pretzel to the next level and would have really complimented the pretzel with the different flavours. Unfortunately I didn’t think of this until afterwards but this is something I didn’t like and something I would definitely do differently next time.