Rishi Alluri's Senior Project

This week, our group decided to try Asian food in the local Portland area. We started by eating different types of traditional ramen and Japanese sides including gyozas and chicken katsu.  We found that the food was really good especially when enjoyed on a colder day.  Next, we tried sushi and we ordered a large variety of traditional rolls, Americanized rolls, nigiri, and tempura. We all the food we tried that week and we decided to replicate one of the dishes we had called chicken katsu which is breaded and fried chicken cutlets. This was a relatively easy task after our first few weeks of experience and the chicken turned out great. We also tried to make Udon which was slightly more difficult as we had to be working on many different parts of the dish at once including the noodles, broth, and meat. Though it didn't turn out like we expected, it still tasted good which was what matter most. Finally, since we ended up having more time at the end of the week, we decided to try...

This week, our senior project group decided to explore local central and south American cuisine. We wanted to look into how the diversity of the food available in the city of Portland affects the culture. We started by trying food at a local Mexican food cart called cemitas poblanos that specialized in serving traditional cemitas, which are sandwiches made with cemita rolls. We also tried fajitas and burritos from the same location. Next, we attempted to recreate the Mexican food and created our own chicken fajitas with corn tortillas which turned out really great. The next type of food we tried was traditional Columbian food from a food cart called El Pilon. We had chicken empanadas and arepas. We wanted to step outside of our comfort zone and we tried to make chicken arepas, which are corn pancakes made with special precooked corn flour, and then filled with meat. We were less successful in making this dish, as it was difficult to make the dough by hand and we also had to improvise b...

  The person/organization you are working with (if applicable), the classes you chose to continue, or the Capstone Project you are working on Why did you choose this particular project? I chose this project so that I could gain a deeper level of understanding of the portland culture through food. Additionally, I also wanted to immerse myself in this by learning about cooking and the nuances of food critiquing.  Introductions - what was your inspiration, who are the people you’re working with, etc. I am working with Grant Underwood, Cai Fernandex-Powell, and Kai Gamboa. We were all inspired by our shared passion for food and culture. How did you pull together this particular project? We pulled together this project by discussing what we wanted to work on as a group and by creating detailed plans to follow so that we could really make the best use of our time and explore the uniqueness of Portland's food culture. 3 goals for your senior project (set these with your mentor) Learn...