Stay-at-home orders that will begin phasing out this week have inspired many Americans to take on Fixer Upper-style home improvement and gardening projects as a way to fill the time.
For those of us without the energy to repaint the bedrooms, though, DIY satisfaction can be found on a smaller scale by picking up a meal kit from several local restaurants. On a day when scavenging for new recipe ingredients in the grocery store is the last thing you want to do, you can make temaki — a sushi handroll — instead, or prepare a hearty bowl of ramen with ingredients from Salaryman, one of Texas’ best new restaurants according to Texas Monthly.
Meal kits come with all the pre-measured ingredients needed for creating a masterpiece in the kitchen on days that call for something more than another variation on chicken breasts or delivery in a disposable box. Plus, they’re another way we can help restaurants still trying to safely serve us.
There are plenty of meal kit options to keep busy in the kitchen until we’re ready to start dining in restaurants again, whether it be on Friday or months from now. Here’s where you can find some of our favorite meal kits. Not to worry, they all come with instructions.
Asian Mint
Asian Mint was one of the first restaurants offering meal kits when chef-owner Nikky Phinyawatana launched her “Chef Mint from Home” program over a month ago. A $58 kit includes a three-course meal for four people and changes every couple of weeks or so. For fans, there’s a subscription service that includes four kits for $220. For those wanting to start with just one, the currently available kit comes with edamame, an Asian noodle salad, a shrimp and chicken basil stir-fry and jasmine rice. While placing the order online, you can also add produce and eggs to your cart, along with other highly coveted items like all-purpose flour, a box of vinyl gloves, and even hand sanitizer. A portion of proceeds is donated to a nonprofit supporting service industry members, and the ordering site includes easy links to purchase kits for frontline workers and at-risk families. Orders must be placed two days in advance.
Four area locations, asianmint.com.
Sushi de Handroll
Because prepared cones of nori seaweed sheets wrapped around crab mix and sushi rice would never survive a ride in a car, Sushi de Handroll that opened last year at The Hill development in North Dallas has started temaki handroll kits. Ingredients for 20 handrolls — enough to feed about three hungry people — are $50 and come with toasted nori sheets, seasoned sushi rice, California crab mix (not imitation), spicy tuna, salmon, julienned cucumbers, tamago (Japanese omelet), avocado slices and sauces for dipping or pouring into your handroll, however you like to do it. Fillings can be upgraded with toro, shrimp tempura or yellowtail. Or for the “extravaganza” size ($75) that feeds six, choose from more toppings like creamy bay scallops with masago roe and Japanese barbecued pork. Delivery is available through DoorDash and Uber Eats, or those willing to take a quick jaunt through The Hill’s snazzy but empty courtyard for pick-up at the front door get a 20% discount.
8041 Walnut Hill Lane, Suite 820, sushidehandroll.com.
Fireside Pies
Even though most home kitchens lack a wood-fired pizza oven, Fireside Pies’ time-honored pizzas can be enjoyed at home with the benefit of hands-on engagement, perfect for kids or anyone with the patience to work with dough. In addition to the joy of taking a bubbly pizza out of the oven you constructed yourself, this kit is a bargain with the ingredients for two one-topping pizzas, a large Caesar salad and any bottle of wine in stock for $40. Take an Italian vacation (in your mind) by choosing a chianti or the Rizzi Barbera d’Alba from the Piedmont region. Pizza kits are available for curbside pickup and can be ordered by calling any one of Fireside Pies’ six metro area locations.
Six area locations. firesidepies.com.
Primo’s
Primo’s MX Kitchen & Lounge that reopened last summer in its original location on McKinney Avenue is offering two different meal kits: a Cinco de Mayo Taco Tuesday kit — available every day — and on May 1, they’ll offer a brunch meal kit ($28) with ingredients and instructions for tres leches pancakes, breakfast tacos, and mimosas for two. The Cinco de Mayo kit ($48) really doesn’t involve much cooking, but it’s perfect for a backyard fiesta next week, with verde y crema chicken enchiladas and grilled beef or chicken fajitas for four. The package also comes with Spanish rice, black beans, and all the fixings for fajitas, including guacamole and Mexi-queso. Since it’s a holiday, or what seems like the hundredth day of quarantine, go ahead and add a margarita kit with a 375-ml bottle of Don Julio Silver tequila. Kits are for curbside pickup only.
3309 McKinney Ave. primosuptown.com/meal-kits.
Salaryman
After Texas Monthly named Bishop Arts’ Salaryman one of 2020’s best new restaurants in the state, getting a seat inside the four-table restaurant was going to be nearly impossible anyhow. So this is actually a great opportunity to get a bowl of chef-owner Justin Holt’s masterful ramen in your hands for $17. It seems like a steal considering the time spent brewing the shoyu with all-natural chickens from an Amish farm in Ohio. House fermented bamboo shoots and soy sauce season the broth, and most impressively, noodles are made fresh with red spring wheat from Austin’s Barton Springs Mills. Some ingredients require a quick sauté in a skillet, and the noodles will need to be boiled for precisely one minute and five seconds. Toppings are packaged separately with items like a half-boiled egg with a custard yolk (ajitama) or for the spicy miso ramen, Japanese chili oil (rayu). Contactless pick-up is available at a table set up outside the restaurant’s front door from noon to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
287 N. Bishop Ave. Call 214-364-8902 to order. salarymanoakcliff.com.
Kuluntu Bakery
Stephanie Leichtle Chalklen, a formally trained baker who perfected her craft in New York and her husband’s native South Africa, has started a Virtual Sourdough 101 class as an extension of her Dallas cottage food business, Kuluntu Bakery. Kuluntu means “community” in South Africa’s Xhosa language, and breadmaking workshops that normally cost between $75 and $140 are part of the bakery’s overall mission of creating cross-culturally supportive groups. To keep facilitating community when many are facing financial hardship, Chalklen is offering a donation-based virtual class on May 9. All that is needed is starter, which is for sale on the website, or for $15, you can get the starter with a proofing basket, bowl scraper, scoring razors, and a shower cap for when dough needs to rest. The workshop can host up to 85 participants, and the sign-up deadline ends May 2.
