Cooking as an Art Form!

A certain someone (who shall not be named) thinks that the elaborate mise-en-place that I do for every meal is a waste of time - she believes that since all of it will inevitably end up in our tummy, we should not waste time seeking culinary perfection like I do.

"Eye roll, eye roll. The blasphemy." I know, right!

My friends, who have a background in culinary arts, are already bleeding from their eyes and ears while reading this. You see, most people who join hotel management have a fascination for cooking. Whether they later pursue it as a career or not is irrelevant, because once you join culinary arts training and learn the basics, you can't help falling in love with the process. A lot of young adults who haven't had the same inclination might not get it but the art of cooking is sacred and people like me thrive in the glory of a well-cooked meal. I admit there were parts of cooking I wasn't a big fan of - like doing the dishes, cleaning up the kitchen platform, etc. But I can safely say today that I have adapted to those parts too. 

The picture I have attached above is from today's lunch. I made two dishes - Egg and Mushroom Hakka Noodles & Soyabean Chilli. But as you see, I have given the bigger part of the collage to the mise-en-place. And just for your information, this is the prep for the noodles only. I actually did a separate preparation for the soybean chilli which I finished before I did the prep shown in the picture. It doesn't sound very wise to do this - bad time management mostly, but there was a reason. You see for the soybean, I needed my onions and capsicum diced; for the noodles, I wanted slices. If I had cut them together, I would have needed more dishes to keep them separately as well as more space on the kitchen counter. So I chose to finish one item and then moved on to the other. Yes, I needed to wash the dishes and clean up twice, and probably spent more time cooking, but that was just a personal choice. If you have a lot of dishes and space to spare, you may choose to do it all together.

Now coming to the part of actually cooking. You see, for most Indian dishes, you need to saute onions - and this is a time taking process. You need to be patient with it, otherwise, your final dish will not taste as it should. When I say this, she who shall not be named asks me how does it matter - her logic being that blasphemous one I mentioned in the first paragraph. Indian cooking is not like baking - the proportions can be toyed with and yet, there is a right taste to every dish - and while you may end up cooking something which is in the vicinity of that taste and if you move too far from it, you end up with a dish which can be called 'sub-par'. 'Sub-par' is a kinder way to say 'ruined' or 'a disaster'. Speaking of disasters, I am reminded of dishes my uncle used to cook. You see, an eternal bachelor, my uncle would cook for survival - with no training in cooking, or aptitude for it, his cooking was what you'd call "everything-is-soup" cooking. To elaborate on that, here's how he did chicken curry. He would throw in a couple of diced tomatoes and onions into a pressure cooker along with water and then add chicken pieces and masalas and pressure cook them. Result: Chicken broth with onions and tomatoes. 

Most of my readers do not have the fortune/misfortune of being eternal bachelors and a sizeable number of them have taste buds, I reckon. So I will not suggest assaulting your palates with disasters like my uncle's chicken curry. For a long time, I believed I liked only spicy food, but when I started cooking and experimenting, I realized I have a taste for bland stuff as well, but they have to be cooked or prepared a certain way for me to enjoy them. Take, for instance, the dahi bhindi I cooked yesterday - I made it with sweet curd instead of regular curd and the result was a monstrosity like no other. It was a mistake, of course, not an experiment. But it goes on to prove, that just because everything is going into the tummy, doesn't mean the process is inconsequential and can be compromised. 

I am a foodie and so are so many others. It's not really gluttony or hedonism, this pursuit of taste, good food. I argue that if there is a Creator and if they have given us the sense of taste, then it must be by design. We are supposed to experience the food we eat - it is supposed to inspire us, maybe to explore, implore or just to keep on living. That's why I truly believe that cooking is an art. I prefer to cook Indian dishes because I can get a great taste even with approximations in the recipe, but every now and then, I try out recipes from continental cuisines or baked products which need a stricter adherence to the recipe in terms of measurements and that's challenging but fun. I have had a bit of free time in hand to experiment in the kitchen and I have cooked almost every day for several weeks now. I have my own eccentricities - there's a very limited list of vegetables I like to eat, I am finicky about my utensils, I throw out stuff if they go even remotely bad, and so on. But on most days, I manage to cook meals that are rich and indulgent. And I always aim to please.

So that was my article. For those of you who came for the recipe, here are the links of videos you may like to watch:

For Soyabean Chilli Manchurian - click here for Ranveer Brar's recipe which I loosely followed. I cooked it without spring onions or coriander leaves.

For Egg & Mushroom Hakka Noodles - click here for Ranveer Brar's recipe which I followed. I just added carrots julienned and sliced mushrooms, which I sauteed separately and added before adding the noodles. Again, did not have any spring onions.

Best of luck guys, try these recipes and tell me how it goes. You may comment on this blog and let me know your views on cooking, or this article.