From the Chef Gokul Krishnan

After a long time it happened, a menu compiled, prepared and presented by a student. Mr. Gokul Krishnan, the final year student came with a menu for the cooking session, the menu was a fusion with Chicken chowder, Corn fried rice, Pan fried fish, Sichuan vegetables and Chocolate mint mousse, a perfect fusion menu.

The main aim is to involve the students in purchasing, because if your purchasing is bad then, what follows is really bad. I have been insisting the students to come up with their own menu, so that they learn from the scratch, from the menu planning to the purchasing, to the mis en place, preparation and presentation. Where the students demonstrate and everyone learns including the teacher.


Nothing wrong in questioning, when you are in doubt and when we start accepting our mistakes and correct ourselves, learning becomes more interesting. Once a student of mine, corrected me on the pronunciation of Pizza, and Jalapeno. I learned and very much happy about it. Ironically, in many occasions the students become passive listeners and the effective teaching and listening just fades away after thirty to forty minutes.

The fusion menu, was a result of interaction, and a little of inspiration, I said the dishes will be video graphed and I promised to send the video CD’s to hoteliers, I expected at least a couple of them to come up with different menu, only Mr. Gokul saved my expectations from shattering. Now I see student with new menus and suggestions for the future cooking sessions. I strongly believe that they were really interested in cooking than video coverage of their dishes.

Anyways with Gokul’s fusion menu, everything went well, we ate, we ate and most of all we learned. I thank my well-wisher who advised and helped me for the video coverage. I could have started this long before (Video grapy). But, I did not know then, though, I know now what to do.

Sweet Sunday

Vishnu, my neighbour invited me home for Ganesh Chaturthi, I was not in pink of health, so did my palate. I expected sweets and more sweets and I doubted my palate, becaues when your body temperature is abnornmally high, our own taste buds will deceive us, everything what touches our tongue is bland, just bland.

But with Vishnu's , everything is perfect, tough I had a fever, the taste of the dishes were beyong expectation. with lord Ganesh in mind, I thanked Vishnu for starting my sunday sweet. A glass of hot rice payasam(Kheer) , with some small tiny tempered rice flour dumplings and the delecious sweet which I kept munching and munching.

The recipe is simple and the final dish is impressive. Make a dough with riceflour, salt and water, divide in to even size balls, flatten with palms and stuff it with melted jaggery and grated coconuts, seal it make a dumpling. The dumplings are then steamed for thirty minutes and served either hot or cold. For the savoury part, the same dough is divided into small balls, steamed for thirty minutes and then tempered with mustard, and curry leaves. With a glass of hot rice payasam , everything is perfect. After an hour the taste still lingers in me and my fever gone, I start wondering how?

The quick and the best

Five years ago , I used the phrase"the quick and the best" for the delicious Muffins, the preperation time is not long and the ingredients is not much. The varieties is as many, which you can enjoy to the fullest, an accompanying sweet sauce is better, with just tea and coffee the Muffins are the best.

When the ingredients are measured precisely the baked muffins is a real treat for the waiting tastebuds. The flour in the muffins gives its structure, the eggs help in binding and raising, the fat softens the muffins and the sweetness is acheived by adding icing sugar, a pinch of baking powder in the end will give a perfect raise and softness.

Any fruits can be added for the variety and the same applies to the essence, a teaspoon of cocoa powder gives a wonderful brown color and a drop of chocolate essence give a great flavor, now a simpe recipe for this awesome sweetbread.

Cream sixty grams of margarine and mix in ninety grams of icing sugar, cream to a soft and fluffy consistency and add two beaten eggs, mix well. Add ninety grams of refined flour sieved with one teaspoon of baking powder to the egg mixture, mix well to a battery consistency, forgent not the essence of your choice and pour it in a greased muffing cup or any small cup, bake for twenty minutes at two hundred degree celcius. after twenty minutes, all you need is a good palate and some time to enjoy.

The Chinese and Chocolate pudding

'The first proper briefing' thats how i call it, I showed all the ingredients in google image , so that Mr.G will learn more and be precise in purchasing , and to our favor the purchasing was perfect and the menu its Egg drop spinach soup, Stir fried beef with brocolli, Hakka noodles and chocolate pudding. Again it was a bulk cooking where the rule is, to join together, cook together, eat , clean together and then continue with the dishes, because almost all dishes taste good when it is hot. To start with there is no complication with the soup ingredients, just wash the spinach more than once and stir the eggs at correct time for a perfect shred. The happy soup entered our hungry stomach more happily . A good appetizer A good start.

Stir fried beef with brocolli is Vishy's favourite, which turned out really good . I started with ten pieces of beef for a demo.Which made us use the remaining all of beef and brocolli, what a wonderful combination , our hands and mouth never rested untill we finished the last part of it. With just five meat eaters in our group, seven hundred and fifty grams of beef with two small brocolli vanished in ten minutes after presentation.

The mild tasting noodles is not at all bad with an extra dash of garlic sauce , with all our attention focused towards chinese we completely forgot our Chocolate pudding in the oven, the unique part of the pudding is we never followed any recipe, but knew the functions of all the ingredients which went in to it . This is what i tell everyone, learn the functions of the ingredients, if your dish turns bad, learn from it. Cooking is all what we do,what we invented. Else, still hunted birds and raw flesh should play the major part of our diet.

Together it was a happy ending with stomach full of food and heart full of happiness, I wish the students to learn more and more in the future cooking sessions. After a happy re- briefing about all the dishes, the unhappy Mr. G came with his words of distress, only then I knew that he will not continue with us, and my google image search for ingredients stops here. Before the next cooking session hope someone comes in the place of Mr.G.

HAPPY COOKING!

The Dancing Drink

The best part in Manjitha, is our wedding. Not because of its traditional custom and costume,or not because of our music and dance, above all we have drinks all around. Yes almost all love wedding because drinks all around, the same kind of love applies to our festivals also which happens yearly once. But wedding? Only God knows when

I remember the day, where i was besieged with bottles of brandy, rum and whiskey. And I in the middle acting as a bartender, there is not much of mixology to worry about and I'm happy because its my sisters wedding. I remember my father saving bottles months before the wedding which numbered to one hundered and thirty seven. Its not a surprise to see all the people took their drink neat, and only a very few enjoyed their drink with slow even pace.

I agree with the bitter taste of alcohol, which makes our face frown without our knowledge, but there is always a better way to beat that frowning face. Of all the taste buds we have, atleast one will surely identify the flavor and taste of alcohol, that depends on how you drink. I'm not recommending everyone to drink , but there is nothing wrong in tasting ; a sip of this and a sip of that, is just an apperitif . In Manjitha when it comes to drink there is no diffrenece in age, gender and class - The only thing I'm happy about alcohol.

There is some unhappy part also, people who give impotrance to alcohol than their childrens education, people who give importance to alcohol than their bed ridden mother and many such cases.. for everything there is always an excuse, a filthy lame excuse and this is where i hate the part played by the alcohol.

As said earlier a sip of this and a sip of that is not at all bad, tasting the drink offered by the world of alcohol is a gift indeed, so I'll say Drink, Drink, Drink ,. But do not get drunk, because when you are drunk and full of alcohol, I'm sure you will forget the best moments in your life. So before getting started, make a point to drink with music , dance and happiness and to remember the happiness forever and not to wake up next day with a hangover. I'll end by offering you a dancing drink untill the next post.

HAPPY DRINKING!