Being cooped up at home has left even the most positive and energetic of us feeling a little bored, lost, and lethargic.
Some of us have latched onto the rising trend of Tiktok, while many have pivoted to the kitchen and put their chef hats on.
And if you haven’t heard of dalgona coffee, you’ve either been living under a rock or you need better WiFi connection in your home.
It’s been plastered on essentially throughout the entire length of my Instastory feed, and everyone and their families are suddenly whisking masters making some beautiful looking coffee.
Whether you just want to experiment with new food or are just flat out bored, well, read on because we have cooking inspirations and recipes ranging from Pasta to Korean Fried Chicken that will have you becoming a Master Chef by the end of Circuit Breaker.
1. New South Wales’ Top Chefs and Restaurants
Since the severity of Coronavirus has impacted millions of lives across the world, people who have some level of influence – celebrities, singers, athletes – have within their capacity, sought to help people through this pandemic.
The top New South Wales’ professional and award-winning chefs have turned to sharing their tips and tricks online to help home cooks with churning out some of these amazing dishes while cooped up at home.
The head chef of CicciaBella in Bondi, Sydney, Mitch Orr has made his name in Down Under on the back of the quintessential Italian dish – pasta.
Now, Chef Mitch is sharing with the world his thought process and expertise on Instagram.
His online demonstrations of “How to make the perfect carbonara” has over 2.4k likes on the post and his feed features far more than just pasta, though you’d be certain to see a fair few recipes on the Italian noodle dish.
Chef Danielle Avarez is a champion of sustainable and local produce while helming the kitchen at Fred’s in Paddington.
She has also since taken to Instagram to share her guides on using staples from the pantry to achieve some of the most delicious sounding dishes. Tune in to her Instastories or view her highlights to gain step-by-step instructional guides on dishes like brown butter apple cake.
Some of her posts even has the entire recipe laid out down to the measurements so you can recreate them in your very own kitchen!
2. The Asian Food Network
The Asian Food Network (AFN) has most recently paired with local food media and reservation platform HungryGoWhere to share recipes to both classic and hip Asian food such as Korean Fried Chicken.
On their own webpage, AFN has a whole host of content pieces on food hacks to baking and in general how to maximise the usage of your produce and kitchen. And if you haven’t tried dalgona coffee, you might wanna try their dalgona three ways.
3. Sorted Food
Sorted Food is one of my favourite food channels on YouTube.
From cooking battles to reviewing some awesome (and quirky) kitchen tools and technology, Sorted Food is run by five British best friends with fun wholesome content that revolves around all things food.
They also have exclusive membership which entitles you to cookbooks of their own recipes with an audiobook function which means you can literally have them guiding you through the recipe as you work your magic in the kitchen.
Their channel is all you need for your cooking inspirations and how to become a whiz in the kitchen. You can also get a whole range of recipes on their website.
4. Michelin-Star Dishes
To taste Michelin-level quality of food, we’d usually have to spend quite a bomb in Michelin-starred restaurants.
Well, Beijing’s one Michelin star restaurant Jing Yaa Tang, renowned for their Beijing Roast Duck, has divulged two of its recipes for everyone to recreate within the confines of your own home – Kung Pao Chicken and Cherry Tomatoes in Salted Plum.
We’ve shared the Kung Pao Chicken recipe below for all of you try your hand at it!
Kung Pao Chicken Main ingredients: Chicken thigh (20g) Diced green onion (50g) Cooked peanuts (25g) Cooked cashew nuts (25g) Sliced garlic (5g) Sliced ginger (5g) Dried chilli (5g) Ingredients: A. Salt (2g), rice wine (5g), sugar (1g), egg (1/3), corn flour (6g) B. Sugar (30g), salt (3g), rice vinegar (50g), corn flour (10g) Method: 1. Mix and pickle the diced chicken thigh with seasoning (ingredients A). 2. Heat the oil in a heated wok first, and fry the pickled chicken and diced green onion until the chicken is cooked. 3. Cook the sliced garlic and ginger, dry the red chilli segment first, add the cooked chicken and onion, and then stir-fry the cooked peanuts, cashew nuts and ingredients B. Tips: 1. Cook the fried chicken and diced onion for one minute to elevate the taste. 2. Turn off the fire when adding the peanuts and cashew nuts to keep them crispy.
