Bottles, Dals and Kitchen decor!

Most of my pet-jars in the kitchen seem to have one or the other kind of dal. Some white, some round, some cut, some yellow, some small, some large. I don't have a clue what half of them are. Thanks to this great fact that you can't substitute one type of dal for another in any Indian dish, I ended up with all these varities. And with each visit of parents, one more new type gets included!
This weekend, as I washed and dried all the bottles under the sun I decided to do some dal-sorting. Most of the dals were beyond their expiriy date. Some jars even had a small, yet, thriving eco-system in them.
Idea! I had 3 pretty-OK shaped bottles. Few nice looking but not edible dal packets. And some time to spare.
So came up with these for my kitchen window sil :-D
Felt they looked nice!

(click image for an enlarged view)

Want to try? Its too simple to be explained in steps. So here goes some tips:

1. Ensure that the jars are perfectly dry before you begin this!
2. Take care to use a funnel to put the dal through narrow-mouthed bottles.
3. Masoor dal gives a vibrant look to it. Use it in plenty.
4. I used an old packet of rock salt for the white portion. Salt/Sugar can also be used.
5. I even stuffed a few dried-red-chilles near the top of the bottle.
6. You can add ANY stuff from your kitchen here. Don't stop at dals. I have added even a saunf layer!
7. And yes, you might have to sacrifice some of the good green-gram and other dals which you use frequently. Don't depend ONLY on the stuffs which have outlived their expiry dates!

That is it, I guess :-D
My attempt doesn't look all that neat. But I got so excited with the idea that I had to-had to-had to blog it :-p

For the "2-minute-rukh-sakthe-hai" types!

Today I pay due respect to the omnipresent curly substance of our everyday life which comes in a bright yellow pack and which when added in boiling water and cooked for 2 minutes yields hot and nice-smelling dish called... yes, you guessed it right, Maggi Noodles:)

The popularity of the dish is obvious by the nature in which it finds its acceptance among all age groups in India. To think of it nobody calls it noodles, or even Maggi Noodles, its called just Maggi!! In this light, it can be compared to the success that Xerox achieved in the world of printing and copying. These days nobody looks for a 'photo copy' or a 'copier', instead you ask the guy at the STD/ISD shop to "take a xerox" of the page, and when moved closer towards South-eastern side of India, its apt to "take a jeraaaks".

So going by the trends and calling it by its pet name we see that Maggi is so powerful yet versatile that it becomes break-fast when eaten at 8, lunch when eaten at 1, snacks(!!) when eaten at 5 and dinner when eaten at 9. Its like this wonderful-dream-come-true operating system which never cribs and can never go wrong whatever way you use it! And what more, with Maggi by your side the Indian Constitution prevents you from declaring that you don't know cooking! It comes in handy when your cooking qualifications are subjected to scrutiny during "interviews". " So what can you cook?" "Err...I can make tea, coffee...uhhmm...and yes, Maggi :)". The impression is favourable, trust me. You will clear the "interview"!

On one hand as Maggi fan-followers grow in numbers in social networking fan clubs and babies ponder switching from Ceralac to Maggi, its only natural that the number of nasty e-mails circulating "gossips" about Lady Maggi also shoots high, call it the effect of celebrity status!

According to them Maggi's "goooey texture" is made of boiled udders of goats and sheeps, and the magic powder inside those silver sachets contain the worst of chemicals, enough to make all moms in India go panicky and ban the food in home. Not funny. I was a victim.

But Maggi's fans are the most loyal ones on earth. They strive harder and harder to optimize the 2-mins cooking even more. Some revelations in this regard can be found by googling for it. To get you curious, did you know that you needn't really cook it on fire for 2 mins?? You could just add it into boiling water and close the lid just like you would make the easier cup-noodles! :)

I can't help but smile when I see tiny toddlers watching their mom draw out a packet of maggi from the shelves in the super market and pat comes the question "Mommy, when are you making me Maggi?" :)



Long live Maggi, the crucial life-saver of bad cooks, bachelors, lazy couples and many others!!

PS - Analysis of the effects of Maggi in the lives of Software Engineer couples has been avoided on purpose :D

Fry till Golden Brown..

Take any culinary book, am sure these lines would never be missed. Its there all over like a punchline!

Talking about recipe books, writing it is as much as an art as is cooking itself! You need to choose words with utmost care so that it tempts the reader to try it. Once the reader runs through all the ingredients required and is satisfied that (s)he has all the stuffs ready she is automatically drawn to the Method section. Now once (s)he starts reading the method, the author should hand-pick and present the words in such a way that he (more than often she) actually starts smelling the aroma of the spices being lightly fried in oil!!

Some tips (read as "culinary jargons") used to draw the readers attention are -
(Use these phrases in case you are looking for an alternate career in writing cookery book/online posts)

1) Onions are always fried till golden brown. Am sure many a times all of us would have wondered what exactly the golden brown colour was, but sure enough we have been made to believe that onions taste best when they are "fried till golden brown", a thing never achieved !!

2) Garnish with fresh mint leaves and blah blah... mmmm sounds so appealing! The readers would fall head over heels for this!

3) If you observed, recipes with simple names rarely catch your attention. Instead see the increase in page-hits you would get if you posted the simple recipe of prawn fry to Golden Fried Prawns in Sweet-n-Sour Vinegar Sauce.

4) Not to forget that colourful picture of a juicy chicken ready to be dug into surrounded with "garnishes from point# 2", a checkered napkin in white-n-red! Yeah man, its going to be nothing without an eye-catchy pic of the (supposedly) real thing

5) If its an online post, get your friends and parents to comment on your recipe. Bribe them to give you as many stars as possible for your ratings and watch the magic as some naive unassuming user(read: prey) searches for something and your recipe gets another hit!

Now who cares if your prey ends up skipping his dinner coz of half kilo grams of burnt prawns with a vinegar sauce that doesn't taste half as exotic as it sounds! You receive your hits (pun intended ;-))

Happy Writing!

Washed Away...

And they were gone...almost 4 or 5 pages , 2 of them completely irrecoverable. Through the thick film of tears in my eyes, I looked at them as I traced the fonts gel into one another and smearing the entire page with a light shade of pink. The pages were soggy wet and smelling like a buttermilk factory!

In a hopeless attempt to retreive them, I laid the pages carefully beneath the ceiling fan. The ceiling fan did its best but what was lost was gone forever!

My most precious and one and only cookery book which had ALL the info I had gathered all these months... from mathan elissery to paneer butter masala..were all gone! The utter helplessness that was written all over my face was more than enough to bring a riot of laughter around me... but the loss for me was indeed a great one!

Thankyou Ceiling fan, for trying your best! :-) Here are the results -

Lessons learnt :
1) Never keep your cookery book next to the milk left for curdling. It might overflow and drench your cook book pages!
2) Never take down recipes using an ink-pen or gel pin. Always use a ball-point pen.
3) Never depend on cook books FOR EVER. Coz they are never there FOREVER.

Cooking for Dummies - The 10 point Mantra!

1) Before you start off anything,DO NOT check if you have all the ingredients. If you do so,believe me, you will not only end up having cooked nothing but also doubly hungry than what you were 2 hrs ago.

2) As a corollary to the above, it is a fact that you are never in posession of all the ingredients mentioned in the recipe. And DON'T even try to fetch them from somewhere!Its a waste of time! This was my first important lesson.

3) If the missing ingredients happen to be scattered mostly in the top portion of the recipe in the book, it means you are in danger.. (you are trying to make a chicken biriyani without chicken!). Instead if they are towards the bottom,breathe easy, leaving them out is purely harmless !

4) If you have decided to cook something, don't even think twice! Cook it!

5) While cooking non-veg, rely on those Meat Masalas to save your day! They make up for your bloopers very well! :-)

6) Keep stirring like crazy.... non-stop !!!!! :-))))

7)Keep your recipes out-of-reach of your victims so that you don't give them too much of hope and they don't know what exactly were you attempting to cook! (If the victim happens to be somebody who knows what exactly we possess and what we don't,then surely don't allow him/her to take a look, cos its people's nature to notice what is not than what is.. human
psychology ;-) )

8) Keep your utensils squeaky-clean. This way you earn trust of your victims ! This also slightly lessens their tension and helps them to relax (atleast,until they actually taste it!) ;-)

9) If the dishes get really bad, serve them in your bestest bowls (aesthetic appeal does a lot to soothe the strength of "de-complimenting" ;-) )

10) Finally, if you are lucky enough to get a pass score ,make sure you let the world know of it! Move the contents to a jazzier serving bowl, garnish it with anything that you lay your hands upon,take snaps from all angles and multiple lights ,send it across to all of your friends, declare it on your blog (if possible, update your orkut album too!!) ... phew! we are not done yet.. use your mobile fones buddies...call up friends and send sms!!!!

Once done with all this circus, bow to your audience and thank your victims for having co-operated :-D

Happy Cooking....Be a Winner!!!

PS :- Sorry Sand.., But I know u still love me :-p

Flash News : Absconding Blogger found in a new marital status!

Am back! After a long period of absence from (b)logam, I thought I needed a break from the busy life I was living! The last note of indication that I was alive happened on Dec 19th..after that life was whroooooommmm!!!! On Jan 21st, I got married to my best(est) friend, we moved to our new home on Jan 30th, honeymooned in Goa,Delhi and Manali and got back after a nice luxuriously pampered holiday, on Feb 10th, sun kissed and full of enthu ... only to be bit by the reality ---> " OUR NEW HOME " sounds romantic enough, but the flip side of the coin reveals the 2 BHK's pathetic condition ... the word "new" in "Our new home" is a far call to being romantic, unless it happens like in the ads on TV where the hero brings in the heroine blind-folded into the new house and the moment he unfolds her, the song sequence flows in .. "yeh he mera ghar..mera hamsafar.." and the heroine takes alook around at the beautifully lit house,sparkingly clean and decorated...hugs the hero and the name of the Paints come on the screen! For the two of us,the house was still very much terrifyingly new...which roughly translates to something like the moment you open the main door,you should be closing your nose rather than your eyes coz you are greeted with a cloud of dust.. step in with your right foot forward and as you move on, you will turn back and see that you have indeed lovely foot prints against the film of cement powder on the floor.

So with both of us literally "biting the dust", there was nothing other than dusting, vaccuming, cleaning, mopping, dusting, cleaning, mopping, again vaccuming, shopping, more shopping, still more shopping, exchanging shopped items, transfering goods here and there, bringing our things to the 3rd floor taking the stairs coz the lifts were not functional...phew!!! In one week, with the able support from my mom and dad, we were almost settled.. (and so had the dust!)..

Soon the kitchen had some activities going on ..Thanks to mom! Every other day on my way back in the bus I would remind myself that I will have to do the cooking once mom goes back to Kerala and so learn to cook atleats one dish today! But sadly enough, by the time I reached home, point one ,I would be dog tired after being mentally over powered by 2 major traffic jams and a mosquitoe laden bus.. point two , mom would have already got the dinner ready! :-(

After a week's no-responsibilities-yet-married (!!) state of bliss, my dad and mom left to Kerala (boo-hoo!!) and the truth stuck me.. The kitchen is under my jurisdiction ! With the highly infectious compliments from hubby dear ( I taste the curry and say...wow..it tastes amazing... and he tastes it and I wait and watch his expressions and look away only after I make sure that he starts feeling "wow..it tastes amazing" :-)) ) I managed to have a good start with veggie dishes and during an auspicious weekend, I laid my hands on fishes as well. The Success Story in the Kitchen was taking me to the seventh heaven and the feeling of pride was as obvious as the taste of salt in my dishes and ploooooop...one day 2 nice juicy pieces of neimeen turned to karimeen ( :(( --> karimeen = karinja + meen )! That one incident was enough to bring me down from a feeling-of-high aka Am-I-Tarla-Dalal !

After 3 months,am still picking up the basic lessons of cooking..I have 2 books that I hold close to my heart for survival--> both self authored by a famous cook back home (yeah, my mom!) which gives me detailed instructions like no one can give (Eg : Take 3/4th spoon of salt if you are using the spoon inside your salt dabba or take 1 spoon in case you are using the new ones we bought from ******* super market! Or in another instance, she says, take the dal from the
jars on the left cup-board ,so that I don't demonstrate my famous dal-indentification-knowlege (or lack of it) !)

So life has been treating me good...and so has my husband :) (News about my "animal husbandry" (!!) would require yet another blog...so am saving it for the next time...I have loadddddsss to tell you !!)

And in case you thought I was sticking to my home..naah... am back at work too...and juggling the 2 totally different "applications" decently well :-))

Time for me to make dinner now...Catch u on another day...Till then...Take care... and Get married soon... (Believe me,all those nasty quotes of weddings are nothing but media-hype ;-) Actually,its great!!)