One of the worst enemies of home cooking and, ergo, a healthy diet, is tedium. Of course you understand that anything cooked from scratch is better than highest protein and lowest sugar-labelled ready meals or even halfway house ingredients like jarred sauces. So God knows you try, starting your bechamels from roux and even chopping all your vegetables by hand for stir fries or curries.
But there always comes a point when you think: ‘not grilled salmon with salad or chicken breast with mash AGAIN!’ And you seem to be cooking the same dishes over and over, week in, week out. The family might not be complaining, but you are just bored with boring food.
Going out to eat is exciting, because you can order stuff you can’t cook or never have ingredients for at home. But especially these days, going out means not much change from a hundred quid! It’s certainly reserved for special occasions.
How to break the tedium? Where to find inspiration for less run-of-the-mill dishes that won’t require special skills, equipment or ingredients and won’t take hours slaving at the hob? Hey, I am totally with you there.
I get bored so easily, I keep trying to find new routes for my daily walk round the block. I become fed up with cooking the same stuff so much that I experiment with tried and tested recipes, just to see what comes out. So I can perfectly understand the cook’s ennui.
Meat and two veg type of dinners might belong in the past, but we have the new tedious in the form of pasta, plus the eternal salmon and chicken dishes. How about trying some new flavours and cooking techniques, without breaking the bank or your back?
My favourite direction to divert me from western European food tedium is Asia. Asian cooking requires a lot of chopping and prepping but the cooking process itself is the matter of minutes. And you only need plain rice or noodles to serve alongside a stir fry instead of fancy sides.
And no, you don’t need a zillion exotic ingredients to make moo shu pork or bang bang chicken. For most excellent stir fries all you need is soy sauce, Shaoxing wine (or good old sherry) and sesame oil – all available from supermarkets. And if I can persuade you to source a tub of gochujang for chicken stir fry, or Sichuan peppers for crispy ginger beef noodles, you’ll only thank me later on.
Another direction is towards the Middle East, a vibrant blast of flavours and not a lot of trouble to produce wonderful dishes. Instead of roasting the boring chicken fillet au naturel, make chicken shawarma. Spices like cumin, cinnamon coriander and paprika are not expensive and they will enliven dinners no end. Instead of pasta or potato fillers with the shawarma serve some good shop-bought pita bread, warmed up in the toaster.
You can also experiment with grains. I can’t imagine how anyone might not like bulgur wheat in the pilaf with red peppers or served with roasted root vegetables. If you get even more adventurous, try it mixed with lamb mince in a kibbeh pie. Or brown rice mejadra: a delicious mix of rice and lentils, super nutritious and super easy to make. Middle Eastern doesn’t only mean shakshuka, you know, though the latter is gorgeous too of course, for instance using poached salmon instead of eggs, for a novel take on the fish.
I know I said you can do fresh and zingy without investing in a million ingredients, but sometimes one new item makes a difference. Like nduja, Italian spicy sausage, that can be spread on lamb fillet or melted into a sweetcorn salad. Tahini is very much a staple these days but try it mixed with butter on a sweet or ordinary baked potato! A revelation.
Finally, there is a lot of sense in media banging on about how good beans are for us: they are a nutrition powerhouse. Butter beans with chorizo, or a slow cooked bean stew with ham hock, or finally a pork and bean chilli are all great options, and probably not dinner ideas that readily come to mind.
Hope it all helps to zhuzh up everyday cooking and discover new flavours. Happy discoveries!