A mighty Sweet Start..

Photo: www.indianfoodforever.com

To be honest, the fist time in years, a Fresher cooking something in the first practical session. As years goes , I see many with more confidence in them. The eagerness and the interest what they show towards culinary is really Good.

Its almost a week and today , Friday the 24th of June, I had a fresher who is very much confident in what he does, the dish he prepared was Mysore Pak, the more interesting part is that the recipe was take from Google and experimented at his home, and the result, Teaching his mother how to make mysore pak.

Mysore pak a sweet dish of Karnataka,is usually served as dessert. It is made of generous amounts of ghee ,sugar and chick pea (besan) flour.Some say Mysore Pak was first created in the kitchens of the Mysore Palace by a palace cook named Kakasura Madappa out of the above ingredients. The cook at the Mysore Palace kitchen simply made a concoction of besan, ghee and sugar. The sweet that was formed delighted every one so much that it became a "Royal Sweet". When asked its name, Madappa obviously didn't have its name, so he simply called it the ‘Mysore Pak’, a delicacy from the Mysore Palace. The king relished the sweet so much that he got Madappa to set up shop outside the palace grounds so that it could be made available to common people

I have seen many who knows to make good mysore pak, but in all , the measurement of ingredients in very, very precise. If something goes wrong , they just keep complaining the measurement , forgetting the real reason behind it. But today , I saw the fresher without a measuring cup when preparing the sweet, might be the reason, that the sweet what he prepared today turned out to be a sweet. As I said earlier, once you know the functions of Ingredients and its role in a particular dish, then everything else is simple. You literally create an understanding between you and the dish, That's what happened today , a mere understanding, between the fresher and the mysore pak. Once it is achieved , how-much ever time you prepare(closing your eyes, jumping up, lying down), the dish will never deceive you. And today, it created an awesome impression on me. and I believe that the impression last forever.

HAPPY SWEET!

MYSOREPAK
Take one cup of besan flour and gently roast in 1 tbsp of ghee. Make a sugar syrup with two cups of sugar and 1/4 cup of water. Add the besan flour little at a time,keep stirring. Add ghee(3 cups), little at a time , the mixture will absorbs it, when you see the fat coming out from the mixture , pour it in a greased plate and cut after chilling.

Tasteless indeed...

I made a awful chicken today, not few will agree, but I do know what I'm up to. The order was for pepper chicken,with a good coat of gravy.So a small twist in the recipe I couldn't stop adding half a coconut. It all happend in a happy mood, tough things are sad and diffrent inside me, when it comes to cooking, I forget the worries till the time the dish is off the flames. Here with the chicken today , I am not blaming the ingredients or the pressure cooker with a fault indicator, or whatever, the dish just turned unappetizing.

Comments or complaints , I take it as complimentary , after all these years of cooking, some how I could manage to judge its texture, and the texture of the chicken today was just raw, however good you say the chicken taste , I know deep inside that its just raw chicken, dressed with wonderful and tasty comments of yours.

A cheap quality ingredients, the water you add, and the heart and soul you put in cooking, soo many things contribute to the taste and texture of the dish, towards the end, if something goes wrong, you'll just know what went wrong, where and when. But when you have everything perfect,The ingredients, equipments, and a happy mind for cooking ,almost everything and again if the dish turned out to be tasteless , like the chicken I made today, just do not get perplexed. It happen's for some unknown reason.

dosa, dhosha, dosay, dosai, dhosai, tosai, thosai, or dvashi

More than a couple of months , the tawa gifted to me was just idle in the kitchen, if only I lit the stove, the tawa gets seasoned. I enter the kitchen just to drink water, thats how things will happen when you are alone at home , filled with lonliness all times , carrying the boredrome with you all times, cooking becomes a big question??

When I have guest, things are quite diffrent, I cook, not for the sake of cooking, but happily. The unexpected visitor (my uncle), who came last week made me to use the tawa, and I cooked dosa.. simple plain dosa

Dosa a staple of South India, has a history of more than two thousand years, the fermented mixture of rice and urad dal batter , has its origin in Udupi, Karnataka says Patrick Lawrence Chapman, English food writer. The Sanskrit classic Manasollasa written in 1051 AD by Western Chalukya king Somesvara III describes Dosai. The first reference to Dosa occurs in the Tamil Sangam Literature, with so many thoeries prevailing, who ever or whatever the place of origin may be , Dosa is one popular and basic dish one could't avoid.

The fermentation process increases Vitamin B abd C, contains no sugar , saturated fatty acids , The CHO rich dosa is loved by many. How ever good the mixture is ,The best depnds on the hand which pours the batter and the Tawa which browns it, and in my case the tawa didn't deceive me. I could call it just perfect. Thanking the person who gifted me the Tawa, I'm going in for variations in dosa next time.

HAPPY EATING!