“So, what’s Sunday special lunch at home today?” This used to be one common query from friends and neighbours in growing up years. And I didn’t have anything ‘special’ to say since, like in many vegetarian families, most Sundays would be like any other day, with rice, dal or sambar, curry etc and occasionally a dessert like Kheer, Halwa or Gulab Jamun. On some Sundays, there would be a Pulav or a special rice accompanied by a gravy curry or a special dish with truly seasonal vegetables.
The definition of special lunch began to change as I began to explore recipe books and get recipe ideas from friends to try out new things, especially curries. Slowly, items like Paneer, Mushroom, Soya chunks, Baby corn, Makhana (puffed lotus seed) etc became a part of my special items and I desperately wanted to try restaurant-style cuisine for that special feeling. The tips and hacks on the Web were a great help! And when the dish came out well and was liked by everyone, I would feel triumphant, as if I unravelled the mysterious and secret ingredients that were used by chefs and master chefs. Whether it was the cashew paste or the tomato puree or the full cream or the Kasuri Methi, I mastered the art of making special curries. I used to wallow in the compliments when someone said my dishes look and taste professional and perfect!
But, gradually the culinary scene at home changed - cooking for just two or three people, after my siblings got married, somehow brought in a big change in me and definitely not a desirable one at that! With very little time to spend in the kitchen, I compromised on the variety and the details of the dishes that were dear to me. Though I loved simple food, it got much simpler and I was fine if could be made in a jiffy ignoring the actual process. A wonderful interest turned into something mundane and got reduced to a daily chore.
The stickler for authentic taste and perfection in me did not mind ordering food once in a while and scoop out the not-so-tasty curry from the plastic container or unwrap the soggy Roti or a Paratha from that aluminium foil. But, knowing myself well, I could never get tempted or accustomed to the convenience of outside food. Not so much for health reasons, but more for the conscientious cook in me that constantly made me feel guilty about how I neglected honing my culinary skill and how I considered the kitchen as a studio for creating gastronomic delights and how the palette could be filled with colourful ingredients like spices, legumes and vegetables. Many pots, pans and ladles meant for making my kind of special dishes remained unused in the kitchen drawers. Life was going on at God-knows-what kind-of-speed and food started to seem like a survival need. I was conscious of this change and I badly wanted to get back to the days when I would experiment with ingredients, assortments of vegetables to create something special.
And one wintery Sunday, I was determined to get back my special curries, nevertheless always in a hurry unable to cope with the work pressure. The hacks were back, this time more to look for permutations and combinations with those one or two vegetables that get left in the fridge, after you’ve used most most of the pack in a main dish. That one long brinjal could find a perfect balance with a Ridge Gourd or a piece of Bottle Gourd could gel perfectly with Soya Chunks. The gravies found their place back - it did not matter if I could not make the spices from scratch like I used to earlier. In fact it was more fun, mixing and matching store-bought, packaged ingredients with some home made ones. I was back to my experiments with curries that would end us in different shades of red or yellow. For a special look, a dash of cream or along with conventional coriander was all I needed. It didn't matter how I cut the process short, what mattered was the final dish - the curry that could accompany a bowl of rice or rotis or even bread or 'paav'.
Thanks to so many ways to make videos, today, there’s no dearth of cooking tutorials on the internet. And a bigger thanks to Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics, social media keeps pushing the recipes literally on your face, knowing our personal choices, tastes and online behaviour. In the midst of all these, somewhere I always felt a seasoned cook should develop one's own signature dishes, through trial and error and not follow the tried and tested recipes. And there I was adding boiled peanuts to a drumstick and potato curry or a sprinkling roasted Makhana to a paneer gravy and presenting my dishes with most imaginative names like "Lotus seed and cottage cheese in a creamy tomato-cashew gravy" or similar sounding exotic names just like how they translate the names of traditional Indian dishes on the menus of fine dining restaurants:)
The definition of special lunch began to change as I began to explore recipe books and get recipe ideas from friends to try out new things, especially curries. Slowly, items like Paneer, Mushroom, Soya chunks, Baby corn, Makhana (puffed lotus seed) etc became a part of my special items and I desperately wanted to try restaurant-style cuisine for that special feeling. The tips and hacks on the Web were a great help! And when the dish came out well and was liked by everyone, I would feel triumphant, as if I unravelled the mysterious and secret ingredients that were used by chefs and master chefs. Whether it was the cashew paste or the tomato puree or the full cream or the Kasuri Methi, I mastered the art of making special curries. I used to wallow in the compliments when someone said my dishes look and taste professional and perfect!
But, gradually the culinary scene at home changed - cooking for just two or three people, after my siblings got married, somehow brought in a big change in me and definitely not a desirable one at that! With very little time to spend in the kitchen, I compromised on the variety and the details of the dishes that were dear to me. Though I loved simple food, it got much simpler and I was fine if could be made in a jiffy ignoring the actual process. A wonderful interest turned into something mundane and got reduced to a daily chore.
The stickler for authentic taste and perfection in me did not mind ordering food once in a while and scoop out the not-so-tasty curry from the plastic container or unwrap the soggy Roti or a Paratha from that aluminium foil. But, knowing myself well, I could never get tempted or accustomed to the convenience of outside food. Not so much for health reasons, but more for the conscientious cook in me that constantly made me feel guilty about how I neglected honing my culinary skill and how I considered the kitchen as a studio for creating gastronomic delights and how the palette could be filled with colourful ingredients like spices, legumes and vegetables. Many pots, pans and ladles meant for making my kind of special dishes remained unused in the kitchen drawers. Life was going on at God-knows-what kind-of-speed and food started to seem like a survival need. I was conscious of this change and I badly wanted to get back to the days when I would experiment with ingredients, assortments of vegetables to create something special.
And one wintery Sunday, I was determined to get back my special curries, nevertheless always in a hurry unable to cope with the work pressure. The hacks were back, this time more to look for permutations and combinations with those one or two vegetables that get left in the fridge, after you’ve used most most of the pack in a main dish. That one long brinjal could find a perfect balance with a Ridge Gourd or a piece of Bottle Gourd could gel perfectly with Soya Chunks. The gravies found their place back - it did not matter if I could not make the spices from scratch like I used to earlier. In fact it was more fun, mixing and matching store-bought, packaged ingredients with some home made ones. I was back to my experiments with curries that would end us in different shades of red or yellow. For a special look, a dash of cream or along with conventional coriander was all I needed. It didn't matter how I cut the process short, what mattered was the final dish - the curry that could accompany a bowl of rice or rotis or even bread or 'paav'.
Thanks to so many ways to make videos, today, there’s no dearth of cooking tutorials on the internet. And a bigger thanks to Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics, social media keeps pushing the recipes literally on your face, knowing our personal choices, tastes and online behaviour. In the midst of all these, somewhere I always felt a seasoned cook should develop one's own signature dishes, through trial and error and not follow the tried and tested recipes. And there I was adding boiled peanuts to a drumstick and potato curry or a sprinkling roasted Makhana to a paneer gravy and presenting my dishes with most imaginative names like "Lotus seed and cottage cheese in a creamy tomato-cashew gravy" or similar sounding exotic names just like how they translate the names of traditional Indian dishes on the menus of fine dining restaurants:)
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