Cooking in the dark | Spekko Rice

Cooking in the dark is not as enticing as dancing in the dark, but can lead to more adventure (and satisfaction) than you may have bargained for. You could discover your food roots, meet up with true, pioneer-style dishes, or even find your inner domestic goddess. The list of possibilities sparkles.

But while fantasising about fires in the bush and camping on the beach must have given you some ideas, let’s look past the romantic slant on things. Instead, let’s find the positive side of the load-shedding elephant in the room.

Plan A

When the lights go out, the fallback meal for families can be anything from a few peanut butter sandwiches, to viennas or a greasy take-away. Thanks to our memories, we’re convinced we can survive off of these options. After all:

We lived through that dusty road trip eating nothing but padkos – cold-boiled eggs, frikkadels, cold chicken and sandwiches.
Experience taught us that chops marinated in a curry sauce have a longer lifespan than those kept in plastic bags in the boot on camping trips.
Many a gran or auntie had a larder full of canned peaches, bottled curry boontjies, beetroot, rusks and biltong. We rest on their laurels.
In any rural upbringing, provisions from backyard vegetable patches, mealie fields and chicken coops are par for the course.
If celebrated West-Coast chef, Kobus van der Merve, from Oep ve Koep can live off fynbos and stuff that can be gathered from rock pools, who are we to say we cannot live off the land?
A standard meal for many of us comes from an open fire equipped with a potjie, or a grid supported by a few bricks.
With no cooking skills, we survived as students on instant noodles and a box of wine.
We have swanky Weber or Big Green Egg braais, and can cope provided we have a bag of charcoal.

Bon Appétit

You don’t have to limit your menu to the few backup options you have for when there’s no electricity. Rather, explore and enjoy the Spekko Rice guide to the gastronomic side of cooking in the dark. Have fun with these tricks and shortcuts!

Invest in a one-plate gas cooker, a slow cooker, a good torch and a headlamp. Throw in a blowtorch while you are at the hardware shop.
Always eat by candlelight – everything looks better.
Cook double the rice you need – you can keep “load-shedding rice” in the fridge for up to 3 days. Use it for quick stir-fries on the gas stove; eat it with milk, sugar and cinnamon; mix it with store-bought custard and berries, topped with brown sugar. (Sear the top with a blowtorch)
Cook rice in a good-quality stock and keep it in the fridge. Stir-fry chicken breasts on your gas plate, add a handful of peas and some cream. Serve on the savoury rice, sprinkled with a few spring onions. Or if you must, buy a ready-cooked chicken, warm the rice and serve.
A frozen beef fillet can be carved very thinly and served as carpaccio. Dress with curls of parmesan cheese, coarsely-ground black pepper and good olive oil. Serve a brown rice and rocket salad on the side, dressed with an anchovy and garlic vinaigrette.
Make a ceviche. Good quality fish fillets, thinly sliced and dressed with lime juice, will “cook” in 5 minutes. Serve with a citrus and rice salad. Invest in a bottle of Sriracha sauce – chilli sauce – which is all the rage now.
Cook a French-beef bourguignon, a spicy oxtail, beef brisket, Irish-lamb stew or a Greek-lamb shoulder in the slow cooker. Switch on when you go to work and the food will be hot and steaming when you get home – even when the lights go out at 5 pm. Remember to keep cooked rice in the fridge to serve.
Invest in good-quality salad ingredients. Make your own vinaigrette. There are loads of fabulous rice recipes on the Spekko website.
Try the Spekko one-pot meals such as lamb curry, spicy chicken and rice, as well as sausages and rice pot.
Serve a frittata – add cooked rice for substance and texture.
Always keep some quality drinks around. Even if you cannot get the food going, you can always have a cold glass of something.
And for the braai guy, have some items in the fridge that can be charred, buy a potjie as a PR thing, and get a load of wood from the garage down the road. Works like magic for his self-esteem.