How to be a student cook

You don't need a lot of fancy gadgets to eat well when you're at university – a wok and a sharp knife will do
A halls of residence kitchen
Cooking in a halls of residence kitchen poses unique challenges. Photograph: Martin Godwin for the Guardian Martin Godwin/Guardian

If you're a student you've probably already had a tough time getting into university; and maybe you have not learned all that much about cooking, either at school or your mother's apron. Now suddenly here you are, hungry, with nothing to light the gas and a couple of rusting pans, realising you can't live on Pot Noodles for ever.

Unless you're belatedly starting on a cookery course, you'll probably be eating to stay alive, rather than wanting to use up valuable brain power on food. Things are much easier than they used to be. When, years ago, I wrote Cooking in a Bedsitter – bedsitters being where most of those escaping from home-cooking usually wound up – there was precious little ready-made food. No one at that level had a fridge; chicken tikka masala was not yet the nation's favourite dish; and things such as pasta, the mainstay nowadays of anyone young, hard up and not slimming, were regarded as exotic. Spaghetti, indeed, was a series of dismal worms in a tin, and olive oil had only just stopped being something you bought in a tiny bottle at Boots for earache. Microwaves were unknown – they're only really useful for baking a potato in five minutes flat and heating stuff up anyway.

But why cook at all, when there's so much ready-made food you can just pop out and buy? The most obvious reason is it's cheaper to cook, but there are plenty of others: it's raining, the nearest shop's miles away; you might want to impress someone; you'll have to learn to do it eventually; and actually it can be fun.

There are different approaches, of course. You can cook a great batch of stuff that will last for days – which is fine if you've got a fridge and no mean flatmates who'll pinch your food (putting a label on it saying "I have spat in this" doesn't work; sooner or later you'll find another label saying "so have I"). Some recommend a slow cooker, but most don't think of cooking until they're hungry.

The one invaluable object is the wok – a perfect substitute for a frying pan – in which you can cook just about anything, not just stir-fry. Omelettes do tend to come out a rather odd shape, though less like fried facecloth than those done too slowly in a frying pan.

There are certainly things you don't need: coffee machines, for example. If you've got a strainer, pouring hot water over the grounds in a jug works fine (which is actually also the best and least smelly way of cooking kippers – sit them in a jug of boiling water for 5 minutes). With a wok, a sharp knife and a saucepan you can not only survive but flourish. Oh, and a corkscrew, of course.

Tell us below about your own experiences of student culinary delights or disasters, and share your best recipes for feeding hungry minds