It was one long party. It started on Friday. We headed out to this beautiful place just out of town to celebrate our wedding anniversary. We landed there at 8 in the morning, just in time for breakfast. An excellent one at that. The butter meter indicated that the people were top notch in the service department. What is the butter meter you ask? Please. Allow me to explain. You can judge how much someone cares about you from how they serve the butter. If it comes to your table in single serve packets, know that they love you as much as I love staying off sugar. If it comes just soft enough at a spreadable temperature, they have warm cuddly feelings for you. If they mix it with garlic and herbs in addition, they are practically bending their knee with the Eiffel tower as a backdrop. This came with the herbs and garlic. Love declared and accepted, a day and half of debauchery followed from there on. We were too tired from all the eating to cook something nice on Sunday. Besides, Tuesday was father in law’s birthday. So, our cooking party was moved from Sunday to Tuesday. Given how he’s been asking if we were making a sizzler for the past 3 weeks, we decided to go for it this time. A roast chicken, with mushroom and pepper sauce, with a side of mashed potatoes and boiled vegetables. A plum cake from Thom’s bakery for dessert. Tuesday morning, I go out for a cycle ride and come back after an hour. The chicken is cooked, the vegetables are boiled and the sauce is done. My lone sauce making responsibility, taken away from me. At this point, it is safe to say not much is expected from me in these sessions. However, this was the week I discovered the husband’s methods. Apparently, he selects a recipe, gives me the list of ingredients and then makes a lot of disgraceful assumptions about how to actually make the dish. Like how it is enough to just mash the potatoes to get mashed potatoes. I swoop in, with zero humility and multiple instructions on mixing the butter, the hot milk and the churning (Btw, anyone realise this is how thayir sadam is made as well?). Meanwhile, with all the fancy cooking, we were fast accumulating ingredients that we didn’t know where else to use. We still had leftover bunches of thyme and parsley from the coq au vin and pasta sheets from the lasagna. It seemed sacrilegious to use paprika or parsley in sambar. I mean dhaniya has served us well for so many years. If I were a famous blogger, this is where I would slip in a product placement for the brilliant fridge-storage-boxes-for-greens that have kept the parsley and thyme fresh. I impressed myself by garnishing the mashed potato and the pepper sauce with the parsley. Having made invaluable contributions to the cooking, I proceeded to take bad photos of the food. The sizzler plates were brought in. Cabbage leaves were neatly spread on it. The chicken, mashed potato and sauce were laid out. Leading to discovery#132: You don’t really need an oven for this dish. The sizzler plate goes on the stove. Anti climatic, to say the least. We lift up the cabbage leaves and sprinkle a mixture of oil and water for the sizzle. Which brings me to my pet peeve - why do we need our food to sizzle? It is just plain uncivilised, uncouth and unwarranted to have your food sizzle. I, for one, was not looking forward to that. They say your emotions show up in what you cook. This time, how I felt showed up in the husband’s cooking. There was no sizzle. Not even a whimper. The dish tended to portray more of a demure South Indian bride look Arguments followed over whether the cabbage should have been boiled, or kept dry and raw, or boiled and then blow dried. But the damage was done. There were no fumes over our food. Nonetheless the fancy wooden sizzler plates were used and I got to tell my dad he won’t get a second helping of the mashed potato unless he finishes his vegetables.
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We did the unthinkable this week. No, I am not talking about skydiving, or one of those quit-your-job-to-pursue-your-passion things. We had already done those, about two mid life crises ago. I am talking about setting out to make that pinnacle of desserts, the one “foodies” all over the world claim to know the exact authentic taste of. The Tiramisu. The previous two weeks of cooking has generated much amusement and interest amongst our friends. Amusement because the resolution we made was not the resolution Gotham deserved, or needed. Interest because they wanted to partake in the spoils of the Sundays. One such family, of the #friendslikefamily type, expressed the desire of the youngest member to eat Gawd uncle’s Italian cuisine. Dates were discussed, menu options were thrown around and long story short, we invited ourselves to their place. The woman of this house, who is the better cook, offered to make Spaghetti Bolognese with a side of fish. Considering how this all started because we were cooking fancy stuff, we offered to bring something to add to the mix. I suggested soup to il marito. Pappa al pomodoro. I am a closet soup fan. So closeted that I haven’t admitted that to myself. So deep in the closet that I would sooner fall out onto the other side into Narnia than come out on this side. The suggestion was met with incredulity. I could sense him questioning the fundamental building blocks of our marriage. I wised up, and dropped it. We fixated on our favourite course of any meal, the dessert. He gave the matter grave consideration and chose the tiramisu. Il marito is incredibly brave. It turns out Tiramisu is one of those recipes that is very simple on the face of it, and for that very reason, quite difficult to get right. We managed to find the ladyfinger biscuits at our gourmet store, ensuring we reduce our failure rate by at least 50%. Let’s talk about these biscuits and their nomenclature for a moment. These are a delicate, airy, sweet sponge biscuit variety that are a main ingredient in many desserts. They have a wikipedia page dedicated to them. You see these to the left of the picture below. And in the middle, you see the other kind of ladies fingers known to give Indian kids the ability to understand calculus. Wikipedia gently directs you to the Okra page if you want to know more about them. On the extreme right, are what actual ladies’ fingers look like. That is before we get into nail art and the associated horror. Wikipedia does not acknowledge their existence. Now, for more asynchronous learning, spot 6 differences among the three pictures The other ingredient that goes into the tiramisu is a mixture of eggs, mascarpone cheese, cream and sugar. The eggs of course, needed to be separated into yolks and whites and by their birth order. These ingredients were then mixed into three different combinations and beaten until different types of “peaks” were formed. They were all then folded into each other. Yes, folding is different from beating, which is different from whisking, which is different from spoonfuls of tasting during the making. Not to mention, there is a “gentle” version to all of these. Two hours later, when all of these were beaten into submission, the tiramisu was layered and shoved into the chiller to be set. The next morning, out of the fridge, emerged a dreamy sponge. Some cocoa powder was sprinkled for special effects and we were off to our hosts’ for the evening. After generous helpings of the spaghetti and fish, the piatto centrale was brought out. An emergency meeting was held around the table on how to cut a piece with all the layers intact. Knives and spatulas were brandished about. The youngest members of the households didn’t care for the scene at all, the dessert and the excitement around it included. They had their fun by stretching the dinner to a sleepover and then not sleeping for the better part of the night. The adults had the tiramisu over an extended conversation that involved three of us ganging up against il marito. This is getting to be quite the trend nowadays. But then again, il marito is brave. The gist though, is that debates that are had during dessert never end up in blows. It’s tough because no one wants to let go of their plate of dessert, and the moves you can make with a dessert spoon in one hand and a fluffy cloud in the other are quite limited.
This week’s adventure started on google with a hunt for the Sunday dish to be. An hour and five hundred links later, reading my way through “most popular foods around the world”, “average dinner in 195 countries”, “world’s most disgusting foods”, a quick backtrack and “top French foods to eat before you die”, I landed on “Easy French recipes”, a more accurate indication of aukaat. Before I do the grand reveal, a piece of trivia for you. There is a museum in Malmo called ‘Disgusting food museum’. Between the police procedurals and this, Malmo has got the gamut of human interest covered. Btw, the entry to the museum is 185 Swedish Krona for you and absolutely free for your toddler. You are welcome. Coq Au Vin emerged the winner. The dish eliminates the need to pour wine into a glass, both during the preparation and the consumption of the meal. Instead, it is poured directly into the dish. The original one pot meal. The French have obviously won at life. So Coq Au Vin it was, along with Lyonnaise potatoes. I can see now that I am going to be the one making the weekly trip to the gourmet neighbourhood supermarket. This time for Thyme, Parsley and the Vino. The friendly store helper asks me to buy rosemary as well. No sir, I am not going to be selling at the Scarborough Fair, none for me. Back home, mon monsieur puts the bacon on the pan. The grease that is generated is enough to fry the bacon, the chicken, the mushroom and just about everything else for the day. He wants to watch something while cooking, something 70s-ish Hollywood. Apparently, the perfect thing to go with the French cooking. ‘Grease’ literally suggests itself. In case you are wondering, the movie is still as terrible and fanciful as it always has been. My job primarily consists of following le monsieur, cleaning up after him, changing the volume of the movie in tune to the kitchen orchestra, and of course, assisting with the sauces and the broths. Nothing that can’t be thrown away and redone midway, if it all goes south. We discover just in time that the thyme leaves have to be taken out at the end. What? We clearly don’t know how such a task is accomplished. We end up placing them like this, hoping they stay that way. At this point, with the chicken, mushrooms, bacon, carrots and the thyme, it looks like something Getafix is brewing for the warriors of Gaul. I am trying to keep up with my other New Year resolutions as well. So, I open a book - Factfulness, which starts with Hans Rosling declaring he loves the circus. I steal sideways glances at the kitchen, he could have just visited us. It is a singularly uplifting book, for those of you looking to start the year with some positivity. He makes a point where he says the dim worldview most of us hold is not entirely true. For e.g the rich are not getting richer and the poor are not getting poorer. It gives me hope that maybe the fat are not getting fatter. This hope is essential when your only side dish is a bushel of potatoes. Which brings me to the soul searching question of the week - Why do we, as a race, love potatoes? How is it possible for one vegetable to get so much of our love? How shallow are we to be taken in by the dark wheatish complexion and the round shape? Back in the kitchen, the chicken has been drowning in the wine for a couple of hours and combined with the thyme leaves, it smells heavenly. Meanwhile, the twitter wars are raging on, between Sebamed and the rest of the soap world. I wonder why no one has made a soap with wine in it. That would resolve the pH debate once and for all. I’ll say it, everything should have wine in it. The potatoes are sliced and following the steps of this recipe reveals that we just made good old aloo fry. Which means, it tasted like la bombe. The whole family was called in for dinner, attempts were made at plating and all of the coq au vin mopped up with some amazing sourdough. In short, to paraphrase Danny Zuko aka John Travolta “We got chills, they are multiplying”.
Like all regular couples, on New Year’s eve, the man and I pondered over what resolutions we must make for the coming year. We went over the usual - eat perfectly, exercise regularly, throw in meditation for good measure, read a book a week and solve global warming. Given the number of times we went around the Sun, this of course, was a pointless exercise. So, we decided something unusual - that we would cook something fancy every Sunday. 52 fancy meals for the year. So, here we are, the first Sunday of the year. I receive a forward from my mum that says “start this Sunday with a clean heart.” So, I wipe the kitchen counter clean, call the man in and ask him to get to it. The dish for the day is Chicken Lasagna. The fancy ingredients, viz. pasta sheets, Thai basil leaves, paprika powder and grated parmesan were procured the day before. The fact that we thought lasagna is a fancy dish gives you a good baseline of where we are in this journey. The man begins by putting two mobile phones into action, one where the Youtube recipe lady is droning on, the other where he is playing a video game. The scene is enhanced with a half-filled, precariously-perched wine glass and bottle next to the stove. I am in the living room trying to set up a board game for the afternoon (the rules are as complex as the fancy dish). A few minutes on, I hear the first of the profanities from the kitchen. Turns out the recipe asks for the chicken to be cooked and then minced, instead of just suggesting we buy minced meat. I carry on. Nary a quarter of an hour passes, when I hear the sound of glass shattering and more profanities. It seems the paprika bottle was sacrificed at the altar of the aforementioned cacophonous scene. The game set up is paused. I roll up my metaphorical sleeves. Which brings me to this - how are women supposed to roll up their sleeves and get work done if most of our clothes are sleeveless or worse, so tight around the arm that you have to roll the skin up along with the sleeve? But I digress. Some of the paprika is rescued, the glass pieces are swept away, the counters are wiped clean and eyes are rolled at the man. Son rushes in wanting to know what happened, he is asked never to enter the kitchen again without slippers. He consoles us with the fact that at least the glass is not outside the kitchen. He’s very wise, like that. A quick google search on whether eating glass powder kills you, reveals that it is in fact ‘ineffective’. The recipe lady now says a béchamel sauce is required. I am enlisted and called to report immediately. I cook the sauce, while the man cooks the chicken. The pasta sheets cook themselves. A fine lesson in independence. I take out the very new, very cool baking dish that my mother in law had entrusted me with earlier this week. We take about another hour to line the dish with infinite layers of chicken, sauce, sheets and cheese. The oven is warm, the time is 1.30pm, the wine bottle is empty and the son is wondering if we are now doing lunch less Sundays, when all of a sudden, the oven refuses to be big enough for the cool new dish. Not vertically, not horizontally, not diagonally. The man is close to tears, we hug it out. We start the process of moving these layers into three small dishes. With each transfer I make, he does wild hand gesturing and makes cooing noises in fear. The Thai basil leaves end up not being neatly arranged on top. No matter. The oven is warmed yet again. The dish is shoved in. The son is given strawberries. 30 mins on, it is finally done. It doesn’t look bad and is obviously the best lasagna we’ve ever had. 30 mins further on, the board game is still half set up, one dish is fully polished off, one transferred to the fridge for tomorrow, and one baked and standing on the kitchen sill, waiting for orders.
PS: The Thai basil leaves were burnt to a crisp, a complete waste of fanciness. PPS: If anyone knows what to do with leftover boiled pasta sheets sticking to each other and daring me to throw them away, ping me. |
Aishwarya KalakataThe loss of and search for individualism has never been felt more acutely. Everything changed after I had a kid. But this blog is not about me being a mom. It’s about the things I do when I want to stop being a mom. It’s about telling myself that it is possible and that it is ok. It’s about my little escapades. Mostly travel - sometimes physical, sometimes mental. A desperate bid to stop my identity from being rolled into a single word. CategoriesArchives
March 2021
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