I
wish I could cook like my mom
Take One cup of rice….Add 2 cups of Water…..wait for 3
whistle sounds from the pressure cooker !!! Dear friend you have just cooked
the rice. I wish you a very happy married life"…So goes the WhatsApp joke I received recently.
It’s not only the newly married but
also a Single and the working couples who face this problem in daily life :
where will my next best meal come will come from? Inside each one of the
person, lies a deep desire “I wish I could cook like my mother”. Dear friends
Good afternoon to you all.
Are you feeling clueless inside the kitchen? Then I would like to share my
wisdom on how to tap your mother’s cooking skills, leading to kitchen
empowerment: Ready…here we go
Cooking boils down to two aspects:
A) Doing the right things
B) Doing the things right
Sorry for sounding like abstract
like a management guru… Allow me to deconstruct by beginning with the right
things to do inside a kitchen.
Set up Your Kitchen:
The bare essentials for cooking are : cooking gas connection and cutlery.
Getting a cooking gas connection is tougher than getting an US-H1B visa. So
Beg, Borrow or Steal a gas connection in your hometown and transfer to the
place you live in.
Regarding Cutlery, The lesser the
better. Do not clutter your kitchen with cutlery. this is because you would have to clean up the mess
that you generate inside the kitchen.
Safety Precautions: In a kitchen you are playing with fire , literally Any
oversight can be harmful to self, family & neighbors. I just stick a big photograph
of my apartment owner kitchen and everytime I start cooking I chant a mantra: I am not going to burn down his house..
Now comes the most challenging part. How to start cooking? Get the recipe from
the World’s best chef. It’s none other than your mother or even better your mother-in-law
.Ask them to write down a step-by-step recipe for day today cooking. No
cookbooks. No cookery shows at this point of time. They give only recipe for
disaster.
Ask your mother who will give the
right recipe for the right dish. Based on the recipe Procure the ingredients
and store in a container. Now.. Print a name tag and attach to the container.Many
beginners can hardly distinguish between salt & sugar and that too by
tasting it.
Learning to cook is like learning to swim. You should know how to bail out to
safety, before you take the dive. Doing right things such as Mother’s recipe,
knowing your kitchen will facilitate that.
Now it’s time for real action inside
the kitchen; doing the things in a right manner.
Prepare a mental checklist of what you want to cook for the day. Is it Sambar,Rasam
and Potato fry or Roti, Dal, and Curd rice;
Once you zeroed in on the menu, Cross-Check
with you mother’s recipe if you have all the ingredients. If not procure them.
Else you have to change the menu. This is essential because there are no
shortcuts to a palatable dish.
Having got the ingredients in the right proportion, it’s a green signal to
light the burner.
From now on Timing is the all important factor. The patented aroma of your
mother’s sambar is simply due to the timing. Keep an eye on the clock and act
swiftly according to the recipe. Remember there are no undo options in a
Kitchen gadget.
Finally Preparation & Timing rest on important human factor: Focus.
Imagination at work is great. Imagination while you cook is not. Avoid mobile
calls, Television or chatting during cooking. Cooking is a multi-faceted
exercise by itself requiring your utmost attention. Let the world wait till the
oil boils inside your kitchen.
In summary, mastering your mother’s recipe along with preparation will put you
on path to kitchen empowerment. With cooking skill added to your resume,
“Singles” need not worry where there next best meal would come from ; If you are
married and if you would dedicate your cooking skills to their mother-in-law ,
you will be absolved of all the mistakes
Wish you a happy time inside the Kitchen