If there’s one thing we learned about ourselves from the first lockdown and throughout the pandemic, is that food can always cheer us up when times are hard. While supermarkets struggled to keep their shelves stocked, the flipside of pandemic cooking resulted in a burst of creativity with numerous trending recipes that put the ‘comfort’ in ‘comfort food’.

And as we strive to move on to an endemic stage for Covid-19, these delicious food trends are one of the few things worth keeping from the pandemic!

Dalgona coffee

Who knew instant coffee could create something that tasted and looked so expensive? Suddenly, all the coffee-lovers (even the usually snobby ones) were busy whisking away in their kitchens and Instagramming their beverage as if it were a creation out of an artisanal coffee bar.

Made my whisking together sugar and instant coffee, then with added hot water and then topped onto iced or hot milk to create two distinct layers before drinking, the Dalgona coffee is a food trend worth keeping, as evidenced by the fact that many restaurants decided to put it on their menu since the drink blew up on social media!

The tortilla wrap hack

Whether sandwich bread with a large crust, or a rolled wrap, one of the biggest problems with a carb-wrapped meal is how to make sure you don’t have a bite with no filling! Tortillas are known to be a convenient and lighter option to bread, but rolling and tucking the ends haven’t proven to keep fillings spread evenly, and not to mention sometimes don’t even keep fillings in!

The method – that went viral on TikTok and other platforms – involves spreading the various fillings over 4 ‘quadrants’ of the tortilla, using a knife to cut a radius line into the tortilla, then folding the quarter-circles over each other.

If you haven’t already seen this hack, go look it up on social media – and let it change the way you eat tortillas, or any sort of food you might use as a wrap (Lebanese flatbread, crepes, etc), for good.

Sourdough bread

With gluten allergy as a health concern gaining more awareness, we are starting to pay attention to issues such as overindustralised breads. Rather in tandem, the popularity of homemade bread, specifically sourdough, is on the rise as a healthier alternative, as sourdough loaves contain more nutrients that are also more easily absorbed when compared to other breads.

And what better time to learn to make bread from scratch, if not during a lockdown at home! Many people decided to brave the challenge of mixing and nurturing a sourdough starter, and subsequently shaping it into a loaf that they would call their own.

Breadmaking, just like learning to cook a steak, is an essential kitchen skill, and any home baker who unlocks the ability to make sourdough from scratch can certainly look forward to many more loaves in their lifetime.

Feta cheese pasta bake

When we think of pasta, we think of Italian cheeses like parmesan or mozzarella. Who could have known that a Greek cheese would offer us not only a pandemic dish to remember, but the ultimate easy pasta hack?

Another TikTok specialty that broke the internet, the dish is made by placing a whole block of feta in the middle of a roasting pan, along with cherry tomatoes, olive oil, some optional slices of onions and garlic, and other herbs and seasoning of choice. The ingredients are then roasted in the oven, mashed together, and finally tossed with cooked pasta.

Vegetarian-friendly and basically foolproof, this dish is the kind of comfort food that we can allow to continue to comfort us for life.

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