In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Following the previous post about OPIG retreat 2022, and having received numerous requests for recipes, I thought I’d document the process of ensuring that 24 people are kept fed and happy. Recipes at the foot of the post.

Disclaimer – these recipes are entirely my own interpretations, adapted where necessary to suit a range of dietary requirements. They are in no way authentic to any national cuisines and are not intended to be.

Disclaimer II: The Disclaiming – all measurements are approximate. I rarely write down recipes or use precise measurements. Taste as you go, and don’t be afraid to add more salt.

Facilities, dietary requirements, and the plan

Having made the foolhardy decision to cook at previous retreats, I’m familiar with the many and varied things that can go wrong without a suitable plan and detailed inventory of the cooking facilities available. The first step was to identify any dietary preferences or requirements and draft a possible menu that ensures everybody is catered for. In this instance, I was working with the following requirements:

• No tomatoes or other evil red fruits
• No chocolate
• No gluten
• No peanuts
• No cucumber
• No Quorn
• Vegan (and by extension vegetarian/no dairy)

This immediately placed some interesting constraints on what I could do. As a vegan myself, I have plenty of recipes that can scale up to feed 24 people. However, I regularly take for granted the ability to make a tomato-based sauce, a pad thai with peanuts, or a batch of seitan (a meat substitute made from wheat gluten). In addition, having access to a small kitchen with two standard hobs and ovens that may or may not work as advertised means I couldn’t simply rely on being able to fill the ovens with enough pizza for 24 people. Finally, I didn’t want to just prepare a mish-mash of unrelated dishes that fit on the hob but don’t really work together. Clearly, I needed some sort of plan!

I first wrote down several options for themed nights and listed some possible dishes for each. This was less about actually deciding what to make and more about thinking about what might be feasible given the constraints mentioned above. After some feedback from the group and some thinking about what to do if half of the kitchen didn’t work, I came up with the following meal plan:

Day 1 – Curry night

• Chana masala (chickpea curry)
• Palak tofu (spinach and tofu curry)
• Split pea dal
• Rice, flatbreads, and papadams

I love Indian food (or, rather, random sampling of the enormous range of regional cuisines of the Indian subcontinent), and the prevalence of vegetarianism makes it an excellent source of ideas for vegan dishes. Avoiding tomatoes and gluten does require some tweaking of recipes, but for the most part this was a straightforward plan that just requires some large pans and can easily feed the entire group.

The nice thing about these dishes is that they all start with frying aromatics and spices and end with simmering in a large pot, so the whole cooking process was easy to streamline and scale up to feed the entire group.

Unfortunately, this is where the plan started to break down. We discovered very quickly that one of the two hobs didn’t heat properly, meaning it was fine for simmering but useless for boiling or frying. Thankfully, we brought a pair of rice cookers so we weren’t dependent on the cookers to prepare rice for 24 people! The palak tofu also called for frying a large amount of tofu while other ingredients were cooking. With one of the hobs essentially out of action, we instead fell back on throwing the tofu in a hot oven and hoping for the best. It didn’t come out as crispy as it would if we’d fried it, but it was good enough.

We also realised that the tin opener was broken, which led to a brief panic. Fortunately, Olly’s camping skills and a sharp knife left us with open tins and Olly with all of his digits intact. Lesson 1: bring your own tin opener!

Finally, the ‘large frying pan’ in the inventory turned out to have a deformed base, meaning it wouldn’t sit flat on the heating plate. This would have been fine on a gas cooker, but on an electric cooker meant the pan was of no use. Once again Olly came to the rescue by having the foresight to bring a large work! Lesson 2: bring as many pans as you can, even if the venue says they have what you need.

In short, my original plan for how to prepare this meal using the facilities available ended up being useless. The planning, however, proved valuable as we knew precisely what tasks were affected and were able to find solutions on the spot. One day and 24 well-fed OPIGlets later, I breathed a small sigh of relief. Surely the next meal will be easier!

Day 2 – Pasta night

• Avocado pesto pasta
• Vegetable pasta

Now hold on, I know what you’re thinking.
“But Fergus, you just said no tomatoes and no gluten, what sort of pasta night is this going to be?”
Fear not, dear reader, there was a plan! I couldn’t bring myself to avoid tomatoes completely, but preparing a tomato-free pesto is trivial, as is having a separate pot of gluten-free pasta. Logistically this worked out nicely – one giant pot of pasta for the vegetable sauce, one giant pot of pasta for the pesto, and one giant pot to actually prepare the vegetable sauce. Apart from toasting some pine nuts, the pesto was made using a pair of blenders we brought with us, so it took a lot of pressure off the overcrowded hobs.

Unfortunately, once again the plan broke down due to one of the cookers not heating well. The original plan had been to cook the vegetable sauce at a fairly high heat while the pasta boiled, but with the good cooker completely full of pasta pots, the best we could do was a gentle simmer. Knowing ahead of time that this was the case, we ended up preparing the sauce earlier than originally planned and setting it to simmer for about twice as long as I would normally cook it. The lack of space on the good hob also made preparing a small pot of gluten-free pasta difficult – as with the vegetable sauce, we set it to boil well in advance and, thankfully, it eventually got hot enough. On the flip side, a late arrival brought with them a tin opener so we didn’t have to worry about Olly sacrificing a few fingers to the tinned tomato gods!

Lessons learned

Overall, I consider this year’s catering a success. 24 OPIGlets were kept fed and happy, nothing caught fire, and nobody lost any fingers. However, there are a few important lessons about planning and logistics that we took away for future retreats. While this was an adventure in cooking, these go for any task in life.

• Have a plan, but don’t expect to be able to follow it. By planning, you gain a better understanding of the task. When things go wrong, and they will, you can better identify parts of the task that can be adapted with minimal disruption.
• Get a detailed inventory of the kitchen facilities, but bring your own mission-critical hardware (tin opener, rice cooker, wok) if there’s only one on the list. Just because it’s present doesn’t mean it’s usable.
• Start cooking earlier than you think you need to. Things will go wrong, and you need time to troubleshoot and adapt.
• Communicate and delegate tasks clearly – a small kitchen with pans of hot oil is not the sort of place you want people milling around aimlessly.
• Over-catering is better than under-catering. Different people have different tastes, and you will have insurance against pots and plates suffering unfortunate accidents in transit!

Whew. Another OPIG retreat survived. Now I need to think of some new recipes for next year…

Recipes

All instructions below are to serve ~4. Obviously season to taste and scale quantities to numbers and appetite.

Chana Masala (chickpea curry)

• 2 tins or 500g pre-cooked chickpeas
• 1 tin (400ml) full-fat coconut milk
• 2 large brown onions, finely sliced
• 8 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 lump ginger, finely chopped
• 4 rocket chilies, finely chopped
• Juice of 1 lime
• 4tsp chana masala spice mix
• 1tsp mango (amchur) powder
• 1tsp pomegranate (anardana) powder
• Saffron
• Fresh coriander leaf

1. Heat oil in pan. Add onions and cook until caramelised.
2. Add ginger, garlic, and chillies, cook for a few minutes.
3. Add spices, cook for several minutes, until aromatic. Add a little water if necessary to stop them burning. Transfer to a pot with a lid.
4. Add coconut milk, chickpeas, and a pinch of saffron.
5. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat, and simmer for ~30 minutes. Add water if necessary.
6. Add salt, chopped coriander leaf, and lime juice to taste.

I used a chana masala spice mix from an Indian supermarket, but you can use your favourite curry spice blend. If you don’t have mango and/or pomegranate powder, just add more lime juice to taste. If you’re not allergic to tomatoes, add a diced tomato at the same time as the garlic, or a tablespoon of tomato puree at the same time as the spices.

Palak Tofu (spinach and tofu curry)

• 200g fresh spinach
• 300g extra-firm tofu, diced
• 100ml coconut cream
• 2 large brown onions, roughly chopped
• 8 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
• 1 lump ginger, roughly chopped
• 4 rocket chillies, roughly chopped
• 4tsp curry powder of choice

1. Heat oil in pan. Add onions and cook until caramelised.
2. While onions are cooking, in another pan, heat oil and fry tofu until golden brown. Set aside on a paper towel.
3. Add ginger, garlic, and chillies, cook for a few minutes.
4. Add spices, cook for several minutes, until aromatic. Add a little water if necessary to stop them burning.
5. Add spinach and cook down, 3-5 minutes. Depending on the size of your pan you may need to add it a handful at a time.
6. Add coconut cream and contents of pan to a blender and blend until you have a smooth, green sauce.
7. Add sauce to a pot with a lid. Add fried tofu, mix well, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes. Add water if necessary.
8. Add salt to taste.

I used a biryani spice mix but you can use whatever you like. If your spice mix is old or bland, add more powder. If you like heat, add more chillies. If you like creamy sauces, add more coconut or some (vegan) butter. If you’re not allergic to tomatoes, add a diced tomato at the same time as the garlic. In general do whatever you like.

Split Pea Dal

• 500g cooked split yellow peas
• 1/2 tin (200ml) full-fat coconut milk
• 2 large brown onions, finely chopped
• 8 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 lump ginger, finely chopped
• 4tsp curry powder of choice

1. Heat oil in pan. Add onions and cook until caramelised.
2. Add ginger and garlic, cook for a few minutes.
3. Add spices, cook for several minutes, until aromatic. Add a little water if necessary to stop them burning. Transfer to a pot with a lid.
4. Add split peas, coconut milk, and a little water if necessary. If you’re made of money and have some left over, add a pinch of saffron. Mix well, cover, and simmer until thickened.
5. Add salt to taste.

Are you seeing a pattern here? I used more biryani spice mix because it’s what we had, but use whatever you like. You can also use whatever peas/beans/lentils you like, just adjust the cooking times accordingly. If you’re using something that cooks quickly like red lentils, just add raw lentils and some water at the end and cook until the lentils are done.

Rice

• Rice
• Water

1. Cook the rice. Following instructions on packaging optional, but recommended.

Vegetable Pasta Sauce

• 1 large red onion, finely sliced
• 1 large brown onion, finely sliced
• 1 red bell pepper, finely sliced
• 1 yellow bell pepper, finely sliced
• 300g mushrooms, finely sliced
• 8 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 2 tins (800g) chopped tomatoes
• 1 tbsp tomato puree
• 1 tbsp vegetable bouillon powder
• 30g fresh basil, chopped.
• Salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat extra virgin olive oil in a pan. Add onions and mushrooms and cook until onions are caramelised.
2. Add peppers and garlic and cook for a few minutes.
3. Add tomatoes, tomato puree, bouillon, and salt and pepper to taste. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer.
4. Add more salt and pepper to taste. Add basil.

You can add some red wine to deglaze the pan before adding the tomatoes if you like. When cooking for myself I top with nutritional yeast, but you can do whatever you want.

Avocado Basil Pesto

• 1 large avocado
• 30g fresh basil
• 25g pine nuts
• 50g walnuts, crushed
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 2 cloves garlic
• Salt and black pepper to taste

1. Toast pine nuts in a dry pan until lightly browned.
2. Put everything in a blender and blend into a pesto.

Seriously. It’s just pesto. Put it on pasta and eat it. You don’t need a page of instructions or a story about that time I visited the pesto factory in Sicily.

Pasta

• Pasta
• Water

1. Cook the pasta. Following instructions on packaging optional, but recommended.

This is why I don’t write down recipes.