Cooking experiences.....or should I say, "experiements" ? :-P

So, finally, I've come to my favorite topic: food, food & more glorious food. As you might've gleaned from the title above, what I'm going to share with you in this post, are some of my gastronomic experiments. I'll add to them as & when I become more accomplished at cooking, but till then I hope to entertain you with my antics of the past while in the kitchen.

The first time I decided to start my hand at cooking, was when I was in my 8th Standard. I'd seen a recipe in some magazine of a Thai-style fried pomfret, and I decided to pester my dear mother into cooking it for me (oh how I miss her cooking now :-P). I took on the role of the head chef, while my Mom ran around preparing the fish for marination, and subsequently, the deep-frying part. Well, in all the hurry, I screwed up somewhat, and the marination wasn't done properly enough since maybe I'd not left the fish in the marinade for an ample amount of time. The coating which was supposed to come after the marination, all came off during the deep-frying process, and the raw fish was left behind. At the end, the fish tasted so bad, that we had to throw off the entire lot, since prior to frying, I'd insisted on trying to marinate all the 4 pomfrets that we'd got (very much in spite of Mom's reluctance to do so) and I got paid for it by having to face all the music courtesy Mom :-P.

You'd think I'd have improved the next time around, but it wasn't to be so. The next time I tried cooking, was in the vacations after my 12th Standard. I'd tried making Paneer Tikka on my own. This time, the marination was perfect, but the only problem was that I'd baked them for a much longer time than was necessary. The result was that the end product was the best quality rubber that I've ever seen in my entire life :-P. Also, you'd be surprised (or maybe, you won't be, depending on whether you know me or not), that I'd made the same mistake that I'd made 4 years earlier: I'd baked the entire lot & then tasted the end-product, so I'd to throw the entire batch of freshly baked Paneer this time around too :-P (needless to say, I got another long lecture from Mom for that).

Now, I'm in the US, and I'm expected to cook for myself. Or rather, I'll put it this way, if I don't cook, I'll starve. So, as it happens, I was in my cousin's house in NJ for a week before coming to Charlotte. During my stay there, my dear Bhabhi tried her level best to teach me cooking, while I just stood by & "observed" :-P. So anyway, one day the entire family had gone out, and I was alone at home, starving to death. Having woken up at 11 AM & chatted online with friends till 2 PM, I suddenly felt hungry, and being the genius that I am, decided to whip up a meal for myself. I asked some of my friends for suggestions (damned if they know cooking either, what a bunch of friends have I got :-P), and one of them suggested me to cook some pasta. I hunted around in the fridge for pasta, but couldn't find it anywhere. Instead, I found some Palak Paneer leftover from the previous night, and something that resembled Paneer Tikka (which was cooked God only knows when). As I was bored (and am a very lazy guy when it comes to cooking), I decided to mix both of them up & fry it a bit. So, I pulled out a kadhai with a flourish, and having subconsciously immersed myself in chatting, proceeded to make my lunch. It was only after I tasted it (after almost letting it burn for 20 mins :-P), that the thing I'd thought to be Paneer Tikka, was actually Chicken Tikka :-P (I've decided to christen my creation as Palak-Paneer-Chicken-Bhurji :-P) And to my misfortune, I'd boiled the Palak way much more than was necessary so all of it had become one great congealed mass, and was sour as hell :-P All my Bhabhi's efforts gone down the drain in this way, and I'm expected to cook for myself (she still is unaware of this "experiment", and I hope it stays that way, else I'll be given a dressing-down by her).

In parting, if you've been scared by these "experiments" of mine, and are willing to pray, do me a favor & pray for my dear room-mates who're yet unaware of my antics :-P

Till the time I starting messing up with something else, ciao, and happy eating ! ;-)