We've all made it at least once. And probably more than once, you could say often. That one dish that you make when you're too lazy to make anything else. This dish might differ depending on which stage you are in life. What age you are for example. Or if you live alone, or with a partner, or your parents. Even financial situation may be deciding. But one thing is always certain, the dish has no name, or no official name that we can find in pop-culture.
For me that recently consists of meat, spinach and mushrooms. And that's exactly what I made today, because I needed my quick fix of nutrients along with great taste for lunch. I've been temporarily living alone here in the Netherlands. This means that until co-chef @tanjakolader joins me, I might have more of these lazy moments.
For these moments I make sure to usually have the main ingredients at hand. First is the large container of mushrooms.
Then there's the 400-gram bag of spinach, already washed and everything. I can get about 3 or 4 meals from this bag. Sometimes I might also use broccoli, if I'm feeling adventurous.
All I had to do was hop into the store across the street and get some kind of meat.
These sausages were on sale for 1 Euro. Usually, they're about 2.65 so that's a good deal and I got them.
With the main ingredients ready. I chopped up the mushrooms in smaller pieces and put them in the pan along with the sausages. The goal being to wait until they have a appeasing golden brown color.
When the golden brown color has been reached, I threw in the spinach. And yes, in the same pan. This is all part of the lazy-cooking culture: making as little dirty dishes as possible. So that's why I try to keep my meal to one pan.
Then I waited for about a minute for the spinach to soften up.
Time to season!
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Two things I like to always add to this are Sambal Oelek, which is a spicy Indonesian mixture, and coconut milk for some creaminess. So I always have them within an arm's reach.
I threw the sambal and coconut milk in, along with the usual culprits: salt, garlic powder (instead of fresh garlic, because lazy) and white pepper.
After letting it steam for a few more minutes and mixing everything, it was time to plate and eat!
This was still missing something, so I added some fried onions, for that extra taste and crunch. Which leads us to the end result: the picture at the top.
I have a few of these nameless dishes in my arsenal. But currently this is my favorite one, not to mention that it's nutritious and cheap to make.
We all have this dish, although we never think twice about its existence. For the student it's the instant noodles spiced up with whatever extra ingredients. Someone else enjoys a weird combination of condiments on a sandwich. Then there's once-nameless dishes like fried rice (made from old rice) that became mainstream.
What's your go-to nameless dish?
