Recipe Of Life

I love cooking.

Earlier I used to recourse to elaborate processes to prepare exotic dishes, especially, on holidays and weekends. With passage of time, increase in workload and responsibilities and nonavailability of leisure and health issues I have come to adopt  processes  less time consuming. And I find , even with shortened method, the meal tastes as good, if not better.

We Indians have a mindset about cooking – more the number of spices and quantity of oil, tastier the food will be – which is a misnomer. Also, we lay great emphasis on meticulously following the way a dish is required to be cooked. The laid down  manner of cooking is obviously age old inherited from our illustrious ancestors who were undoubtedly master chefs.

Both my mother and father were great cooks. Mother, newly wed,  was a novice in the kitchen. She learnt the art from her mother-in-law, i.e., my paternal grandmother. I grew up seeing maa spending hours in the kitchen. Cooking was not her hobby or passion but she definitely took pride in and identified herself with the job. Needless to say, she  excelled  at it. People were invited home to taste her culinary creations like mutton chops and kobiraji cutlets. However, often she would lament with a deep sigh that the dish did not turn out the way it used to be when prepared by aamu or my grandmother. Father, on the other hand, made regular meals, partaken on day to day basis, so tasty that those still linger on my tongue. He learnt cooking out of necessity when  based in Lahore working away from family which subsequently turned into a hobby. Thus, we never went out of food on the table if mother was unwell, preoccupied or not at home.

Talking  of conventional cooking, to give an example of the process, first the wok has to be warmed up and  then oil to be put and heated  up to the right temperature for the onions (diced or ground to paste) to be added and  fried till translucent or golden brown as required followed by ginger paste to be stirred in till it’s raw smell disappears and similarly thereafter  with garlic paste and lastly diced or pureed tomatoes to be mixed and stirred till oil separates and a nice aroma of well cooked masala fills up  the kitchen. Then comes the veggies or the meat, whichever, the dish is to be made up of.

Cut two – today’s jet age where one has to be an efficient multitasker to survive, time constraint compels time management. So, daily chores have to be done in a manner so as not to  encroach into time slots for other equally important activities. Understandably, processes have to be cut short without compromising on the quality of the outcome. With reference to the above-mentioned process of cooking, my experience says the taste of the finished product remains the same if we put ginger garlic paste together with the onions and  cook them well (instead of putting them separately one after the other) which means two steps lessened in one shot. Sometimes I put all the four basics together and cook. Honestly nothing goes amiss.

Tough situations are always enriching as they  teach you something new in adaptability. One of my  bosses taught me to put every task into set formula for ease of discharging. Working with him, I learnt  to structure repetitive tasks  into  lucid formats. As a result, the tasks were finished in no time.

Same with cooking most of which is stereotypical and does not really require intricate craftsmanship. Gourmet delicacies are not made everyday.  There is nothing extraordinary about regular lunch and dinner which is made as per weather , stomach condition and sensory pleasure. Underscore the last is not to be minimalized in any way.

Since the day I have been advised (by Ortho) not to stand too long on my feet  I have redesigned my cooking style, made khaana (meal) simpler (moderate on oil/ spice content)  and time saving and reduced five (strictly against Bengali tradition of starting with bitter and ending with sweet) into two course meals.

Coming to favorites, of course, meals which are the easiest to prepare – de-starched rice with boiled daal tempered with a dollop of clarified butter or chhole or rajma which once  put  on stove with all the well stirred ingredients can be forgotten for half an hour till they soften. I can go on and on. The list is very long.

Fact remains I am a foodie and often follow super chefs like Ranveer Brar or Kunaal Kapoor on You Tube, Instagram and the rest. Brar has a tendency to make things grand in scale, execution and presentation. Kapoor is comparatively down to earth. For rare Bengali dishes I follow Lost And Rare Recipes, but frankly,  more for the narratives than the recipes, Bong Eats etc. The secret is to grasp the tweaking in the ordinary made to look extraordinary. Once you catch hold of that you need not embrace boredom for the sake of ease. 

Life, at my age, needs to be functional. For that the best option is to find happiness in simplicity – kam mein zyada or more in less.

All said and done I cannot renounce the pleasure of the palate. Notwithstanding my disenchantment with non-veg (I believe you can experiment more with veg), a few days back I prepared Chicken Awadhi simplifying my own way the recipe found on insta. At the expense of blowing my own trumpet, I must say and believe me, it was yummilicious – lip smacking, finger licking et all.

Wish to try some…..?