Hand of taste.

The only thing which linger in my mind after Diwali is the Ladoos .It happened all of a sudden, the planning and organizing a Diwali fest in our school, the interior decorations to do, the dishes to prepare. Yes, everything happened all of a sudden.We decided upon Badusha, samosas and Ladoos, of all three , words stammered when the word Ladoo was uttered, even the fingers trembled when we wrote Ladoo on the menu card. All this left us to have a food trial for Ladoo. I would rather call it a Ladoo trial.

Chef B, is very much confidant and revealed the secret recipe for Ladoo, its color and consistency.His excessive confidence words gave self assurance to everyone present in the kitchen, the result of the food trial - Excess sweet, poor color, and uneven size. Food trial is an experiment , perhaps there is always a chance to learn from the mistakes.

On the day of our school Diwali fest, the process went like this for preparing Ladoos. Bengal gram flour batter, deep fried into tiny boondis with a perforated spoon, the fried boondis went directly into warm sugar syrup, after twenty minutes the soaked boondis were spread out on a tray for shaping(Round shape). Unlike the food trial , the Ladoos turned out perfect, but I sensed some stammering when we uttered the word perfect.

A day after , its Ladoo again at Amaravishi place, the deep fried gram flour batter resulted in soft boondis , then the marriage between the boondies and the sugar syrup began by pounding it with a ladle, which lasted for twenty minutes, not to forget the fried nuts , the shaped ladoos were beyond perfect. There was a balance in everything, now you know the reason why only ladoos linger in my mind after the festival of lights.

I'm not comparing the three Ladoos, its picking the best among all. In future if I come accross any other ladoo, the Ladoo at Amaravishi's place remains the best. I do not want to research the reasons behind it, because I beleive something called Hand of taste in cooking, and it exists in great quantity at Amaravishi's kitchen.