My Cooking Errand: My first experience in serious cooking

I could hear my heart beating in top speed. I could sense my hands shaking in nervousness as I gripped the dosa spatula tightly on my hand, balancing the not-so-circular dosa at least one foot above the dosa tava. This was the moment- the moment which would decide my future in cooking, the moment which would decide if I was fit to be inside the kitchen, at the prestigious position in front of the gas stove. A part of me wanted me to fail so that I could get an excuse to say- “Sorry, I can’t cook.” Another part of me wanted me to succeed mainly for pride- “Can there be anything I can’t do?” With million thoughts racing in my mind, and my heart reaching out to the countless Gods of the world, I turned my wrist to let the dosa turn and fall on the centre of the tava! I closed my eyes for a moment and opened it to witness the outcome....Half the dosa was on the tava while the other half dangled outside, screaming to be rescued. I pulled my face in frustration and realised- Cooking wasn’t as easy as eating, was it?

                            

I have come a long way from then. My learnings- Cooking is an art. It needs passion. It needs interest and above all, it needs patience and a heavy dose of common sense. There were times when I used to boast that I know to cook, but apparently, boiling water, boiling milk, grating coconut and rolling bizarre-shaped chapathis weren’t considered cooking. (Pity me!)

Once you enter the ‘marriage age zone’- say after 22 or 23 (sometimes even younger)- the first mission is to acquire the cooking qualification. It was no different for me. The time had come for me to earn my Bachelors degree in C.f.S – Cooking for Survival.

Rasam is like oxygen for both the person who cooks and eats. Both can’t survive without it. On my first class, my mother told me- Rasam- though easy and very quick to make, was also the trickiest dish ever. Get the proportions wrong- the resultant product will stand faaaaar away from ‘Rasam’. I gave the triumphant Rajnikant laugh then, (Hahahaha!) and asked her to just tell me the procedure and then sit back and watch me wave my magic. In 60 minutes, the kitchen which looked like the one in Fox Life turned into the one like in Karate Hussaini’s show (Remember?). Apparently there is a reason why the stove has two burners and we have two hands. It seems everything has to be put into use at the same time. Just like we watch TV, read a book, browse the internet, and chat with friends at the same time, it seems we need to cut vegetables, grind something in the mixie, and let something boil on the kadai at the same time....Oh!

Jokes apart- sorry- facts apart. Let me take you guys through my experience and my personal thoughts while making Rasam for the first time in detail. It's going to be lengthy, so please bear with me. It happened quite a while ago. You can also learn how to make it- or say- how not to make it.

First thing, it’s very important that you are well prepared before entering the kitchen. Hence, with great determination, I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, let some motivational filmy songs play in my head (Chale chalo, Vetri nichayam types) and slowly picked up the most important thing for cooking- especially for beginners. APRON! I was told that as many mistake you make in cooking, the ingredients fight back strongly and the first thing they attack is your clothes. Hence secure that first. Get an Apron which has pockets so that you can always have your lifeline with you – Your phone. With everything set, I entered the kitchen with my cooking notebook. I had confidently asked my mother to stay away from sight and true to her word, she was nowhere to be seen and that sent me a strange fear. Anyway, I checked my phone for ‘important’ notifications. Fortunately or unfortunately, there was none. So I got down to work. I checked my notes and began to follow the instructions.

 1. Rinse 2 cups of toor daal, add a glass of water, add one tomato (as a whole) and put it in the cooker to cook. 6 whistles. Then 5 minutes in sim. (Varies from house to house, from cooker to cooker)

“2 cups? Which cup? Tea cups? Or the water measuring cups? Or was it the drinking glasses?” I scratched my head in confusion. I pulled out the toor daal container and was relieved to already find a small cup inside. (Thank you Maa...). I followed the rest of the instructions as I had written. “It’s not that difficult as Amma said,” I though. 6 whistles. 5 minutes in low flame. I reminded myself. I had the timer ready with 5 minutes on clock. “I am not going to leave any room for error,” I said confidently to myself.

Since multitasking was the order of the day- I looked at point number 2, with my ears still waiting for the whistle signals. 

2. Take some tamarind (a small ball) and let in soak in hot water. (Procedure differs from house to house, from person to person) Add some jaggery along-optional.  

SOME!?!? What does SOME mean? Some tamarind - Some jaggery. But how much? Size of a ball? A golf ball? A tennis ball? Or a football? From an old jar specifically assigned for tamarind, I pulled a substantial piece out and stared at it as if it was a bomb. Of course- it was no less than a bomb. I get this wrong- my dish was bombed. The stickiness of the tamarind on my hand was irritating me and so I quickly washed my hands and put the tamarind in a small cup. I added three small pieces of jaggery (One for me, one for mother and one for father). I let it boil for a few seconds and kept it aside.

“Ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss”. The cooker whistled sending me in bewilderment. Shock. Fear. “Was that the first whistle or did it whistle before? May be it’s the 2^nd. “Ssssssssssssssssssssss”. I fixed the number to 3 whistles and stood idly waiting for the rest of the whistles to be blown. Can’t lose count again. Putting the flame in low, setting the timer to 5 minutes, I walked to the next step.

 3. Extract tamarind juice.

I have seen my mother and grandmother do this a lot of times and hence I knew I had to use my hand to extract the juice and not the juicer. Using the tip of my five fingers, I squeezed the warm tamarind, to see the colour of the water turn into dark brown. I felt I was in chemistry lab, with colour of water changing and all- not to forget the apron did feel like I was wearing a lab coat. Anyway- I continued squeezing and then finger-filtered (miserably) the juice into another vessel. Then I poured some more water and continued the process. (Timer screamed. 5 minutes was over. I switched off the stove and put the cooker aside.). I wondered how long I should continue the juice process. I mean- “how much juice do I need? A vessel full? Should I keep adding water and keep extracting? I mean- I wanted to make a vessel full of rasam, so I would need a vessel full of tamarind water too, right? Uhmmm...The colour of the water isn’t changing anymore.”  I decided to stop the process. If I wanted more rasam, I will add more water at the end. Throwing the tamarind waste aside, I filtered the juice once more (using a proper filter now), and then put the vessel on top of the stove- the other burner.

 4. Boil the tamarind water.

“In what flame? Should I keep it in low flame and let it boil or should I up the flame? But if it boils, the water will evaporate and the level of rasam will come down, wouldn’t it? Always safe to play safe.” I kept in medium flame and stared at the tamarind water, silently pleading it to boil faster. I was losing patience. I was getting bored. And above all, I was feeling hungry. I looked at point number 

5. Add asafoetida (not powder), salt (rock) and rasam powder (yellow cap, small bottle) - 1 tbsp.

I wanted to hit myself. I haven’t made any note on the quantity of salt and asafoetida.

After a five minutes search (and misplacing almost all the containers in the shelf), I found the needed ingredients. I took the dark brown asafoetida cake to pull some of it....What on God’s name was that??!!! It was harder than a diamond. I couldn’t even get a grip to pull some out. And it smelled strong... “What should I do? Skip the ingredient? No. May be I should cut it.” I used a knife on it but no luck except the knife got stuck in it, taking me 2 minutes to save the knife alive. The tamarind water had started to boil and it was high time I dropped the ingredients. I used all my strength again and pinched the cake to pull some out of it. I got a small piece, accompanied by a burning pain in my fingers. Something was better than nothing. I dropped that small piece into the boiling tamarind water. I took a handful of rock salt from an old (sentimental!) jar and dropped it into the vessel (dropping some on the floor too). Rasam powder. I found the yellow capped bottle, took a spoon full and dropped it. The colour changed. “Phew!” I was getting somewhere... “Yep. The end of the instructions.”

6. Once boiled, add the cooked toor daal and tomato- mashed.

I kept my ears close to the cooker to see if it was still singing and humming. It was silent. I slowly opened the cooker to have steam blown all over my sweaty face. I scurried for the idikki (gripper), and pulled the hot vessel out. Good. The dal was cooked- over cooked actually. I picked the matthu (blender), which used to be my toy when I was young, and blended the daal and tomato. Battle of the Equipments! As I twisted the blender in steady speed, the vessel rotated as well, splashing hot daal on my hands and apron. In order to position the very hot vessel, I had to use the gripper, but in that case, I couldn’t use the matthu as I needed both hands to twist. (Confusing, I know) OH MY GOD! I closed my eyes calming myself and continued with the job, struggling with the kitchen equipments. The mashed dal and tomato was ready. I was waiting to pour that into the work-in-progress (WIP) rasam.

My mother’s instructions said the tamarind water had to boil with salt and other things for at least 5 to 7 min. I had put that on the timer and was waiting for it to wail. With nothing to do, I pulled out my phone. Seven notifications. As I walked through them, I heard a ‘ssssshhhhh’ sound, like waves in the beach. I raised my head to see the WIP rasam rising and about to flow out of the vessel. “What is happening? Did I add milk? Why was it about to flow out?” I lowered the flame immediately, threw the phone back into the pocket, switched off the timer before it shouted, and poured the mashed daal into the vessel of boiled tamarind rasam powedered water.

7. Pour daal. Pour water.

“How much water? Till the edge of the vessel? There is just few centimetres of space left in the vessel. What to do? The rasam seemed already watery enough, but but but I SHOULD add water according to mother.” I poured in a glass of water, taking God’s name. The vessel was COMPLETELY FULL.

 8. Let it boil for some time. Add coriander and curry leaves.

The rasam was on the verge of spilling out. I had to go to the fridge and bring the curry and coriander leaves. “Will the rasam look after itself? Or will it be naughty again and try to jump out? May be I should switch off the stove and then light it again?” The rasam wasn’t boiling yet. I ran to the fridge, pulled out the containers and ran back to my rasam. It was still snoozing. Relief. With no intention of confusing myself this time, I took equal number of curry leaves and coriander leaves (no partiality you see) - washed them, cut them, and put them in the rasam.

I tried to smell the aroma- but there was none? What was wrong? When my mother or grandmother used to make rasam, it used to smell so good. Why was there no smell at all? May be it was like when we use perfume. We can’t smell it, but others can. Convincing myself- I went to the last and final point.

9. Season it with ghee+mustard.

Now this was where there could be counter attack. Mustards, though it looks very small, are capable of causing heavy damage to human beings. After letting the specific seasoning karandi heat for some time, I added the ghee. It melted before I could blink. It was time for the mustards. Standing two feet away from the stove, with just the hand stretched, I dropped the little bombs into the karandi. It fluttered immediately, throwing itself around the kitchen. I dropped them instantly into the rasam and it ‘wooshed’.

That’s it! The rasam was ready. Congratulations! It looked like a rasam...but did it taste like one? TASTE! Who was going to taste it? Terrified, I took a spoon of rasam, blew air on it to cool and dropped it inside my mouth. I stood for a minute pondering. Two things were very clear. 1. It is easier to taste food made by others. 2. Something was definitely wrong with the rasam. Was it too salty? No. More salt was needed actually. No. It was too sour. No. Too spicy? No. I should have added more rasam powder. No. Screw it!  At least I didn’t throw up.

I looked at the watch. Yippee! I managed it to make it in 60 minutes. That was good speed, right? It was verdict time.

If my father felt any sort of stage fright, he didn’t show it on his face. Mother and I looked at him closely, as he took a spoonful of rasam and rice.

‘Superb! Amazing!,’ said my father instantly. ‘If you are cooking so good the first time itself, I am sure you will become a master chef very soon.’

I smiled widely. Of course he is going to appreciate me. He is my Dad. He just can’t say a word against his princess daughter, can he? I looked at my mother who took a spoon of my masterpiece.

She smiled. ‘One learns cooking from mistakes only. This is good for the first time. Just add some salt, some more rasam powder, less jaggery, less tamarind- you are good to go.’

I couldn’t even feel happy for the polished criticism mixed nice words. All I felt was exhaustion.

‘Cooking is all about imagination. Innovation,’ said my father.

I thought to myself, “I can’t even follow the given instructions and he is asking me to innovate?!”

My mother said, ‘Remember. This is just the beginning. Soon, you should be able to make a rasam, a sambar and a vegetable curry in 60 minutes. That’s multitasking! Also- there is morkuzhambu, puli kuzhumbu, poricha kuzhambu, aviyal, payasam, pongal, vegetables of a million variety and sweets and savouries of a billion variety which you need to learn and mix and match.... every day.’

‘NOO!’ I exclaimed like someone in Hindi serial. I could feel cameras circling me, capturing every part of my shock, ending with at least four- BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! sound at the background. ‘Come on! That’s more than a single semester syllabus. And to make three or four dishes in a matter of 60 or 90 minutes is IMPOSSIBLE.’

I knew what the next line would be, ‘Nothing is impossible.’

I have come a long way in cooking after this first experience. Apart from cooking, I have learnt a lot of managerial skills too. Like- when cooking, you should also learn to attend telephone calls, attend door bells, clean up the house, wash the vessels, refill the ingredient containers, and a countless other things. I have also realised, I have been so wrong all these years. There is something more difficult than differential and integral calculus.

There are a few rules which I have come up with to motivate myself while cooking. I am sharing this with my fellow beginners. If you are a beginner, you will find it useful. If you are a good cook, you will find it silly. If you are an expert, you will find it funny.

5 Rules for C.f.S level

#1.   Don’t panic. That’s the job of whoever is going to eat your preparation.

#2.   Tastes differ from people to people. What seems right to you might seem awful to others.

#3.   After your job is done in the kitchen, move on. Don’t look back.

#4.   Cooking is just another job. Don’t take it too seriously.

#5.   If the resultant dish is not what you intended, consider the dish your latest INVENTION.

Every time I prepare a new dish, a funny experience is attached. Do share it if you have one. Happy Cooking!