Lesson Plan: Cooking in Quarantine

1. a) Have you been cooking more during quarantine? How has it gone?

b) What do you think went wrong with the following dishes?

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c) Match these pictures with the captions:

1. It looks decent, but it was raspberry soup.
2. My whole wheat sourdough bread turned out more like a frisbee.
3. I just wanted pancakes. I tried to make several. This was the best one.
4. My roommate attempted to make a chocolate cake and noted that it was a bit salty. She had misread the directions and put three-quarters CUP OF SALT in the cake. 
5. This was my attempt at gluten-free vegan pizza. Oven temp was 550°F for 30 minutes, but this vegan cheese barely melted. The ends of the crust did not get the classic bubbles, and the overall texture was weird. I don’t know what I did wrong. 
6. Today I learned that I cannot poach an egg.

2. a) What do you think people are cooking and eating around the world during quarantine?

b) Watch the video. What are people making and eating? What looks good? What doesn’t look good?

c) Which food do they mention?

carbonara, meatballs, leftover food, bag milk, steak, milkshakes, milanesas, yams, chocolate, peanut butter, curries, deer meat, sausages, instant noodles, pizza, cous cous, porridge, tacos, pancakes.

d) Match the two halves of these sentences:

I’m stuck in my room	it’s the view with the food.
I’m going to prepare pancakes,	looks like during quarantine.
Because even in quarantine,	which we’re rationing quite strictly.
Usually when we have leftover food,	food that my mum cooked this morning.
Quintessential Danish food is	for the next five weeks.
I’m going to show you what my pantry	we make fried rice.
I’ve got some chocolate,	we will eat pasta.
My go-to quarantine meal is	my favourite dish during the coronavirus
The best part isn’t the food,	baking your own bread.

e) What is your go-to meal during quarantine? Have you been rationing anything? What does your pantry look like? What is a quintessential food in your country?

3. a) How do you make a tuna casserole?

b) Put these instructions in order.

	Let it simmer until the liquid evaporates and the beans are soft, about 5 minutes, then mash the beans with a potato masher or a fork. Make them as smooth or lumpy as you like. You just want to release some of their starch. Turn off the heat.
	When the garlic is slightly golden and very fragrant, add two (15-ounce) cans drained, rinsed white beans and about 1/2 cup of white wine. (I didn’t measure, but that’s what it felt like when I was splashing it in. You just want to moisten things up here.) And you don’t need to open a bottle of wine for this (I had an open one nearby). You can use 1/2 cup water or broth.
	Then dig in, squeezing some lemon juice over the top if you want to zip it up. My 11-year-old loved this, even after I admitted there was tuna in it, which she thinks she hates. Maybe it was the potato chips. Or maybe, tuna casserole was just what we all needed, whether we knew it or not.
	Bake at 350 degrees, until the tuna mixture bubbles around the edges, 20 to 25 minutes. If you want the potato chips to get more brown, you could run the whole pan under the broiler.
	Now add 1/4 cup milk and 2 (5-ounce-ish) cans of tuna. If you have the oil-packed kind, add the oil. If you have the water-packed kind, drain them, and drizzle in more olive oil. Mash the tuna into the beans, leaving it a little chunky. Mix in a tablespoon or two of chopped fresh herbs (I used fennel fronds), grated zest from half a lemon and lots of black pepper. Finally, mix in 2 to 4 tablespoons grated any kind of cheese. (I used Gruyère, according to Ms. Henry’s recipe, but Cheddar or Parmesan or Jarlsberg would have been great, too.) Taste and add more salt and pepper if needed.
	Adding a couple of anchovy fillets at this point would increase the umami, but I resisted because it felt too far outside the tuna casserole paradigm. I regretted it later.
	Spread the mixture evenly in the skillet, and top it with about a cup of potato chips that either you or your bored child crushed with a rolling pin. Scatter on more grated cheese, about another 2 tablespoons, and dot the top with, as Ms. Henry says, little nuggets of butter. She and I both agree that 1 tablespoon will do it.
	To make enough for four, in an ovenproof skillet, sauté a chopped onion (or shallots, scallions or leeks) in olive oil over medium-high heat until soft, about 5 minutes. Add a pinch of red-pepper flakes, a pinch of salt and lots of sliced garlic cloves. Ms. Henry calls for six, and I happily complied. I also threw in a rosemary sprig, but it’s purely optional.

c) Watch this video to check your answers:

d) What’s your favourite dish to make? How would you make it?

4 a) Watch this video. What are people cooking? Could you do any of that?