Cooking

When I first arrived on Rote I had two pieces of equipment I could use to cook. A rice cooker and a kompor. The disadvantage of the rice cooker is it requires electricity – not a problem in the evening as the hospital uses its generator if the electricity supply fails after 18:00 but as I tend to cook at lunch time and go out in an evening it can be very frustrating when the rice, noodles or vegetables are not ready when the sauce is! I have found that I can cook a wide range of dishes in the rice cooker.

The kompor is a single, kerosene powered, cooking ring. There is a real art to adjusting the flame to give the right amount of heat as there is a significant time lag between turning the wick and the heat altering – this is a skill I still have to perfect. It is a very portable cooking devise and when people are preparing for a party extra kompors are just borrowed from neighbours to allow the range of dishes required to be prepared.

In March I acquired an electric oven from another volunteer who had finished placement. It is only small but has allowed so much more adventurous cooking. I now bake my own bread – I tend to do this on a Friday as I finish work early and can put the bread to rise in the sunshine on my porch. It took a few attempts to get a reasonable loaf as the flour here does not absorb water in the same way and I can only get an all purpose flour. Sonya was slightly scathing about the bread but it is so much nicer than the slightly sweet breads we can buy here. I have made pizza and cakes and can toast my bread – if I have long enough to wait for breakfast!