At home I did sometimes dabble in the kitchen (with my mother at wit’s ends, seeing the trail of mess that I always left in her otherwise spick-and-span royal kingdom); but that was limited to an omelet or at the most, a paneer-ki-sabzi. But cooking always interested and intrigued me; how did the dry, brittle tiny pieces of lentils get converted into an absolutely yummy liquid broth? Or how did the roughdry ugly cauliflower transform into a Cinderalla-like sumptuous beauty?
Well, now I had all the time, and the entire kitchen to me (yeah, the size of the kitchen here would surely get a satisfied grin of approval from mom!); so armed with a simmering enthusiasm, on the third day itself, I rushed to the Bluebird Departmental Store (right behind my house) and bought myself all the spices, and a packet of Arhar Dal (which I had heard from mom quite often was quite easy to make)! I would surely get down to this mystery of conversion, now!
With a pressure of excitement steaming within me, I kept the lentil for soaking; while I went on to chop the onions and tomatoes.
Let me add, cooking is a fine art that involves a lot of patience, an ingredient which God simply forgot to garnish me with. So, I pottered around impatiently for the half hour that I knew the dal required soaking. After the designated time, exact by the stopwatch, I put the dal, spices, salt, onions and tomatoes and poured water into the pan, and kept it on the new gas that I had purchased only a day before. Thus began my trauma as for the next quarter of an hour I saw the water dry up, but the dal remain obstinately hard. I kept on pouring water, while the concoction gurgled back to me like an angered demon, and the heat sucked it dry, to which I simply added more water , in sheer frustration; but all in vain. In Hindi, I can say “mai gal gaya, par daal nahi gali” (a translation would render this sentence tasteless). In my naiveté, I had not realized that dal is best made in a pressure cooker. While I sautéed and turned golden brown with rage, the dal remained intact, refusing to merge its identity with the water around it! I had to forego dinner that day!
My next tender attempt was with rice; after all, it was so simple that even my father could cook it well. Ahem…the same pan woefully experienced its, to put it politely, underside burn - while, once again, I fried with rage! I reckoned, again in my naiveté, that the pan must be to blame. But a quick look at the few utensils that I had got from India made me lose oil with grief! My list of utensils was even lower than India’s top line batsmen!
But I was not to give up so soon…not when I had embarked on such a creative mission. This time round, from India, I got some useful urns and pans and of course, the ubiquitous and all-useful Hawkins Pressure Cooker, which came with an accompanying cook-book. Apart from this, I also got a dash of tips from my mother and sister. Once again, a trip to Bluebird was made (to get all the rest of the ingredients, as mentioned in the book). Once again, the packet of the dal resolutely came out.
And this time, I allowed the pressure work in the cooker, than on me. Voilà- a perfect dal stared back at me with glee once I opened the lid. It amazes me no end, now, that how the cooker works (I wish there was a transparent model also) - because, to me, it is akin to a birth of baby; the womb of the cooker holds magic!
After this, I have tried difficult things like rajmah (red kidney beans) with extremely tasteful results. I have the hang of spices, and the cook-book carries a useful list of water quantities to be used with differing vegetables, lentils and pulses. I can also make perfect rice,now.
Yesterday, I churned out a real yummy dish, by making dry khichdi with rice and dal; later, I poured oil in a kadhai (what’s the English translation?), sautéed onions, put tomatoes (skinned, and chopped finely), zeera (cumin seeds; roasted on a tawa beforehand) and cinnamon. To this, I mixed the rice/dal combo from the cooker and stirred it well till everything got mixed; the end result was something of a biryani, and really mouth-watering!
With these modest successes, I am now getting brazen with my experiments, and want to attempt everything; today is the turn of ‘biriyani’( dunno the English translation).
The few people that I meet here our surprised that I do my own cooking, and have not employed a maid for this. I have never understood this fact ever: cooking is conventionally considered to be a woman’s domain; yet, paradoxically, all the chefs in restaurants and hotels are (nearly) always male! Why, so?
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