16.07.24
Friday 13 November 2020
Pictured: 'Before' – ingredients were prepared and delivered to students.
Pictured: 'After' – steamed chicken and jasmine rice prepared by a household of Catz students.
Pictured: Martha was pleasantly surprised about how well her meal turned out.
Last night, St Catharine’s kicked off the first in a series of weekly cook-a-long experiences designed to inject some fun and flavour into everyone’s lockdown experience. ‘Making a meal of it – a Catz cook-along’ was conceived by the College’s catering team and developed in collaboration with the Junior Common Room (JCR) Committee.
Each week, the Catz community can try one of two tasty, nutritious and crucially “gyp room-friendly” recipes, with Rob Jonas, Catering & Conference Director, offering guidance each step of the way during a live-streamed cooking tutorial. The first recipes chosen by Rob for everyone to tackle last night were:
- Sesame and Ginger Rice with Steamed Chicken, and
- Jackfruit Chilli with Smashed Avocado and Herbed Couscous.
Students living on the Island site or at St Chad’s are also able to ask the College deliver the ingredients to them, providing they sign up by 10am each Tuesday this term. Meal boxes will ordinarily cost £2.45 for the plant-based recipe and £2.80 for the meat-based recipe, but the College decided to subsidise the first week so that it was entirely free of charge.
Rob explained, “The catering team really pulled out all the stops to ensure fresh ingredients were delivered to our students already prepared, making it was as easy as possible to cook-along with me last night. Together, we’ve clocked up many decades of culinary experience we’ve but never done anything quite like this before. I’m genuinely delighted by the enthusiastic response from students, staff and Fellows alike.”
Pictured: 'Before' – ingredients were prepared and delivered to students.
For last night’s launch, over 145 undergraduates signed up for meal boxes. Additionally, all students, staff and Fellows received the recipe cards in advance, encouraging even more members of the College community to source ingredients and join in from their own kitchens. In total, 25 households tuned in for the live tutorial.
Martha Rushbrooke (2019, Veterinary Medicine), the JCR’s Catering Officer, added, “From the Island site to St Chads and Wolfson Court, eyes were opened to the wonders of steaming chicken alongside fragrant rice, and tangy, garlicky guacamole had the veggies and vegans all set for a flavour-packed meal. Complex and delicious dishes were prepared using simple gyp equipment in just half an hour thanks to Rob's informative and calming instruction. Bring on next week!”
Mary Simuyandi, Welfare Officer, commented, “Food is a really important part of the life at Catz: from making sure we are eating nutritious meals, to socialising and connecting whilst we eat together. This project is a fun but important way of highlighting how welfare and food are interlinked and is all the more important as we are currently in a period of increased national restrictions. Enabling students to come together to cook a tasty meal and spend time together at the end of a busy day is really important in looking after the wellbeing of our community during this time.”
Pictured: 'After' – steamed chicken and jasmine rice prepared by a household of Catz students.
Pictured: Martha was pleasantly surprised about how well her meal turned out.
Details about the next set of recipes will be released by email early next week.
