COMFORT FOOD

Recent times have been rather difficult for every one. Someone or other's plans have been deranged severely by this COVID-19 situation. I am no different from everyone else. My plans have been strongly affected too. So far, I have been very strong and patient but there are always times when you can't just keep up the cool. During these times, I don't usually have any appetite but when I do, I turn out to be a mad scientist. Recently, I went through a phase of mental breakdown and I wound up cooking something out of the box. I don't know if people goes through these phases but later when I look back, it's pretty hilarious to see how I use food to fix my mood.

So, what I first started craving was fried chicken and ordering them didn't appear to be a good option. I did know how to make one but the recipe I followed seemed like a hassle at that moment. Instead, I thought of adapting another method, a little easier one. First I found some wings lying around in my freezer and defrosted them. I usually marinate them in advance but on a second thought, I decided to season the batter. My base for the batter was flour and corn starch. For seasoning, I used salt, chili powder, ginger paste and mixed spices. I added in water till I was happy with the consistency. Somehow I was stingy about using eggs so I just coated my wings with the batter followed by a layer of bread crumbs and deep-fried them. Unfortunately, the batter didn't stick too well, maybe I should have used the eggs! I will look into that later and try it out again. Next, no way was I going to have simple rice with the wings. But since my hubby already cooked the rice (it was a little overcooked though) beforehand, the easiest and fastest thing I could prepare was fried rice. This is where I went full-on crazy. I started off with frying some minced garlic in oil (didn't want to chop up onions, so I skipped it) and added in shrimps, spinach, egg and kimchi. Very odd choice, don't you think? Well I then added in the rice and seasoned it with salt, red chili powder and a little of lentil soup to give it a Bangladeshi taste (I already had the soup lying somewhere in the fridge). Once I was happy with everything, I served my version of fried rice with some not-so-crispy fried wings. Since it was my comfort food, I couldn't be a judge. So, I had to wait for my hubby's reaction. As far as I could tell from my hubby's reaction, he seemed happy with it. He even talked about it to my parents that night itself - a clear indication that it wasn't as bad. So good enough! I do wonder if people out there go crazy like this or not. Sorry about the picture though, I wasn't in the mood so I just took a quick snap to keep it as a record. I decided after a while to write about it.

Ingredients: (for two servings)

Fried wings

2 tbsp all purpose flour

0.5 tbsp corn starch

0.5 tsp salt

0.5 tsp red chili powder

1 tsp ginger paste

0.5 tsp mixed spices

Fried rice

1 cup steamed basmati rice

4 pcs shrimps

0.5 cup spinach

1 pcs egg

2 tbsp kimchi

0.5 tsp salt

0.5 tsp red chili powder

2 tbsp lentil soup