The Second cooking session...

With lot of hope , and with lot of energy the second cooking session started and ended well. Mr.G's perfect purchase was an additional support. Though the number of students were less, the briefing took solid twenty minutes.The result, we ended up in bulk cooking.Sweet corn soup, chicken chilli, soft fried egg with noodles and Dates wontons, all eleven joined together with the mis en place.

We started with the soup, and it would have been more better with a good pepper powder, because the compound pepper which we used didn't increse its spiciness, anyways everything is good when it comes to bulk cooking. A piece of batter fried chicken along with the soup seduced our tastebuds for a second and a third help. Its a long term practice to prepare and present all the dishes before consuming, but for this menu , i made everyone to dink the soup before starting the second dishes, because Sweet corn is good when its served hot, and not all soup taste vichyssoise when its served cold.

The noodles was mildly seasoned , just with soy and hoisin sause. The best part is the soft fried egg, rather shallow frying, we deep fried it. The white got gently firm and the yellow was liquid inside, the feel you get when the yolk flows in your mouth is beyond explained. Chicken chilli is as usual - everyone's favourite and dates wontons tasted diffrent. In a comprehensive manner the cooking session created a Shinkows nostalgia. Hope the same energy remains with all the students for our third cooking session.

Shinkows- Chinese restaurant @ Ooty.

For your ears only.....

I give lot more importance to purchasing ingredients for cooking.I beleive that is what makes the end product what it is.Not just blind indent and identification of ingredients is enough for purchasing, when it comes to cooking ingredients a little amount of sense is as essential as salt to any dish.Our indent is a very eloborate one, indeed i write both in english and tamil, with special specification if any. Our purchase incharge is very clever with money, and with clear eyesight his identification of ingredients is excellent, but the ear? Yes, he is having an earing problem, not only the words which enter his ear fades, but also the cooking.

Mr.G has been our purchase incharge for past two year, and everything is perfect in him except his ears. He is verymuch happy with himself, but for peoples around him? everything appears upside down.

Once I indented for crab which we call Nandu in tamil, after hours and hours Mr.G came empty handed only to explain that there is nothing called Nandu(Crab) among shellfish, after which I found that he took my Nandu( crab) for Vandu, which he serched hours and hours at Ukkadam fish market. Its my mistake no proper briefing was given before the purcashe.

Mr.G's eating habit is exemplary and will do anything, when it comes to food. He loves argument and its very difficult to win him, because whatever we say never enter his humble ear, he never waited for the finial touch of the dishes and eats everyting for A to Z what we cook.

For past several months , I did not had any problem with his purcahse , after the crab incident, I explained each and every ingredient before hand, certain times its hard to explain staranise and mace in tamil, he often have problem with NO ( numbers) and Kg ( kilo grams), once he purcahsed twenty kilos of apples where the indent says only twenty numbers.

The real problem is in purchasing for continental menu, and I'm happy teaching indian menu, he copies down the ingredients in local language with his own handwriting . Last week he forget to purchase Bacon( Smoked belly of pork) , after explaining him , what and how bacon is, we had Mr.G back in the kitchen after thiry minutes with Bagon spray in his hand. Bacon and Bagon, no big diffrence to Mr.G's ear, but the cooking session?

I don't want to take chances with Mr.G's purcahse , so I planned to sit and teach him each and everyting , before he leaves for purchase, and today he bought peanut butter for prawns. Wher do i start? How do i start?

A new start

( Manjitha - Runner up - in a tournament at Berhatty Village )

(From left - Standing - Sathish, Vinoth, Rajesh, Rajkumar, Arun, Naran, Yaswanth .Sitting - saravanan, Thiag, jai ganesh, Prasanth, Siripu)

From Manjitha:

Long were the days gone, where Manjitha was full of Cricket and happiness, we play hockey, soccer and what not.But, cricket was our all time favourite. We play in our front yard with dust pan as stumps.I remember the bouncy ball which Sasi( Appa) Stitches with long strips of colored cloths with his unrevealed secret. I remember various tournaments we played, in all, Manjitha had a special place. I remember all our fans, all the applaues, all the broken hearts. I remember the silent tears and the never ending happiness.

Srini's super six were just in front of my eyes and the same goes with Thiag's medium pace left bowling. I remember Sasi (Appa) wicket keeping and Kunna senthil's fast bowling, Ranjith's master stroke and Ashok's throw bowling. Everyone felt envy towards Ashok and Ashok's for organising a wonderful tournament, i still remember the winning moment.

I remember ravi's blind bowling and Dilip's defence stroke. Jai's energy and Hari's excitement. Rajesh the all rounder was always out of the scene. Tough we played with tennis ball, we had massive audience and meticulous commentators, not to forget the third umpire.

A tiny little space is enough for us to play Test matches.Yes , Manjitha was full of cricket, but those were the days gone, what happen to everyone? everything ended with our schooling and today its a new start with our favourite blue jersey and green faces. I Pray , the hapiness last forever.

Tiny little wontons

Almost twenty confidant eyes, nodded before I revealed the recipe foa a chinese menu. I was happy to start the cooking session after thirty long days. Everyone was happy with the menu, but the menu was not a balanced one, the color, cooking methods and the texture was almost same for all the five dishes. The briefing took sixty minutes and their confidant level grew higher and higher.Perhaps , their Six months Industrial exposure training which they finished a month ago must be the reason for their confidant level. I told them, its an experiment and never stick to the recipe, know the functions of the ingredients and apply accordingly.

Everyone took position on their respective tables, looking at their confidant level, i stopped monitoring them and started cooking tiny little wontons, the filing were mushrooms and the dip a spicy garlic sauce. I fried a few and steamed a few, everything went well with the spicy garlic sauce, after seventy minutes i went around to see what twenty chefs and chefies have prepared. Their confidance deceived me, their nodding was just a false impression, rather cooking everyone experimented with the dishes and damaged it as worse as possible.

Table number one fried the whole leg of chicken, rather deboning and cutting into dices for "Chicken in hot garlic sauce". I said to saute garlic with soy, tomato sauce and add stock and then to thicken it with cornflour paste, but table number three , thickened the stock itself with cornflour, the wierd scene went on and on with each and every table . The fried rice with diffrent color and diffrent texture and all possible shapes of wontons, all fried with and withour filling. I am suppose to taste all the dishes and comment on them, but i went back to my table only to eat the tiny little wontons which i prepared ( Sometimes food will lessen our stress /depression/sadness/guilt). I did not comment on any of the dishes nor i tasted any, because it was I who briefed the recipe of an unbalanced menu and I promised to do better next time.

Secret Recipe..

From next week its “Eat what you cook”, it doesn’t meat that I will stop dining out, twice a week its “Eat what others cook”. With inspirations from Amaravishy, I shifted to a new location, in real, there is nothing much to shift, I am learning purchasing.
Boiling milk on the first day is very auspicious, we all know that. I purchased a Stove where you have to pump for pressure and use kerosene as fuel. My first purchase was a real bad one, because if you stop pumping the flames goes down and the first day I pumped for continuous fifteen minutes to boil half liter milk.
Where do is start, the first day with and without any ingredients to cook, we managed with milk and biscuits and for brunch, a good restaurant (Annapoorna) nearby with wonderful sambar and slightly on the higher selling price is one which I chose for dinner, rather dining out I packed four masala dosas home. The waiter made me wait thirty minutes only to say that there were no more masala dosas, then why did he took the order?
His response was an alternative tomato masala dosa, without the potatoes, I didn’t mind, just drinking sambar for dinner would be enough. Everyone in Coimbatore knows about that popular sambar, one of my student who worked there, as supervisor couldn’t get the recipe, at last he gave up after six months. So what? It’s an assignment and an experiment for the next cooking session, where the students will prepare sambar similar to that of Annapoorna ‘s sambar. Experimenting with so many sambar recipes is a good teaching and learning experience, but soon will try to find and reveal the secret.

A sample recipe:

Ingredients

Sambar Thoor dhal- 1 cup Any Vegetable of your choice- 1 cup (drumstick, carrot, beans, raddish, kohl rabies) Onions- 2 (chopped) Tomatoes- 2 (chopped) Tamarind extract- 1/2 cup Sambar Powder- 1 tsp Red Chili Powder- 1 tsp Turmeric Powder- 1/4 tsp Asafetida Powder- 1/8 tsp Garlic- 3 flakes (crushed) Mustard Seeds- 1/2 tsp Urad Dhal- 1/2 tsp Salt Oil- 1 tablespoon Chopped coriander leaves (cilantro)

methodPressure cook thoor dhal with garlic and mash well. Steam the chopped vegetable with onions, tomatoes, turmeric powder and salt. Mix the cooked thoor dhal and steamed vegetables together. Add tamarind extract, red chili powder, asafetida and sambar powder. Boil this until the raw smell of tamarind vanishes. Heat oil in a small pan. Add mustard seed. When it starts to pop add urad dhal and fry until it becomes golden. Remove from fire. Pour this seasoning over the sambar mixture. Heat for 5 more minutes. Garnish with chopped coriander leaves .

neither soup nor stew

GOULASH:
A Hungarian beef soup named after the keepers of Magyar oxeb( gulyas). The origin of this dish, which is now made with onions and paprika and garnished with potatoes, dates back to the 9th century. At that time , it consisted of chunks of meat stewed slowely until the cooking liquid completely boiled away. The meat was then dried in the sun and could be used later to prepare a stew or a soup, by boiling up in water.

Traditionally, goulash is made in a special cauldron(bogracs). There are number of regional variants according to the cut of beef and the cooking fat used( pork fat or lard) , but purists agree that goulash should not include flour or wine, nor should soured cream added just before serving. Hungarians regard Viennese goulash as a flout- thickened version of genuine goulash soup: in Hungary the latter is sometimes served with potatoes and csipetke( small quennells of egg pasta, poached in stock)

RECIPE:

Peel 250 gm onions and slice them , Cut 1 kg beef in to large pieces( 80gm each) . Melt 100gm fat in a large casserole. when it is hot, put the meat and onions and brown them. Add 500 gm of quartered tomatotes , crushed clove of garlic, mixed herbs , salt pepper and finally 1 tbsp of paprika .Add enough stock to cover the meat, bring to the boil,then reduce the heat, cover and cook for 30 mins.Add quatered potatoes and boil till the meat is cooked. Adjust the seasoning.

Paprika: a spicy seasoning ground from a variety of sweet red pepper.