(My Rajma Come to Me, Dont Be Shy Like That)
Anyway in the humdrum of living in Toronto, I am for the first time truly putting my culinary inclinations to work. And well believe it or not I am surprising myself. See when I cook, I dont have a set recipe or a procedure. I start with a picture in my head. This picture will be of something I know I really want to eat. Like say today it was rajma. I had bought a can of kidney beans a week ago and they were just sitting there while I was working my way with the lentils and other things. Well anyway at Metro the other day I managed to find a can opener like the one we had back home and thankfully I hadnt had to rob a bank. Man sometimes I wonder when such a simple thing as opening a can got so painful that it needed motorized hands-free systems and all. Anyway so here I was with a can of beans and a picture of rajma in my head.
The other day fooling around youtube, I found this guy's channel. Vah re Vah.com. So its some desi guy with a 'bet your left nut' southie accent making a very genuine effort at rajma made easy. Honestly though, it is a good idea. Most vids are about 5 or 6 minutes long and he gives you the essentials. So this time like never before I decided to follow VrV bhayya or should I say anna. Armed with an allegedly seven star chef's advice, I head right into it. I had it all. I picked up some italian strained tomatoes on the way back with one onion, whipping cream and other essentials. One onion? These damned leaves here are so big. Like a small pumpkin or something. Believe it or not by the time I got cooking more than half the pot was this one onion, and they are spicy too.
Moving on, I started like a good student of my anna with some oil in the pot. Got to tell you though I washing up afterwards thinking to me my Black & Decker rice cooker and that Betty Crocker pot are like godsend, couldnt do anything without them. Best $50 bucks I spent in this country so far. So with the oil heating up I dumped some jeera and the chopped onion in there. Wait for them to turn golden and then add some garam masala. Well sabji masal was my substitute. Havent managed to go by little India down on Gerrard St so far. Anyway this does it for my buds. Then it was the turn of the ginger garlic paste and the tomato puree. Added some water and set it to gather a boil. Anna said to add some water strained from cooking the rajma beans. I was using canned beans and I wasnt ready to poison myself with all that preservative BS. So tap water it was.
See around the kitchen I am almost can look like a star. Sometimes I think that everytime I cooked if I had a girl watching, I could do everything right to get her going. You know what I'm sayin'? So while the masalas gathered some steam I washed up the rice and set my B&D to the task. I washed up some corriander and chopped it up. Garnish man! Presentation is the strength of a good chef. By the way, I didnt know it was called cilantro as well. Or maybe I knew it but who cares to remember these things. So the corriander was ready. And so were the beans. Had washed them clean of all that slimy canned goo and made VrV da happy dumping them exactly how he showed me. And then you see things started to unfold. Everything till now was perfect. Alright agreed I hadnt chopped the onion so finely or that most of the jeera had been burnt by the time i saved their behinds with the onion but hey what the hell so far so good. Only problem was it wasnt really looking it.
Once I make up my mind, I tend to be in it for good. I dont know why I was thinking this in the middle of everything but it surely wasnt doing anything for my satiety centre. Well I think hunger being the basic instinct that it is got me thinking about other things and then it wasnt too hard to drift for a bit there before the jumping lid got me. Little Betty had too much steam building inside and the lid didnt have one of those little vents. So checking on my dinner, according to the international renowned Sanju(I baptised my chef, I dont think thats his name but he looks like a Sanju) I was ready to eat. Well definitely didnt look like it.
See there wasnt the right consistency, the righ colour or even the right smell. When I cook, inexperienced as I am, I use all my senses to guide me. So you will see me peep, sniff, feel and taste all the time. I was talking about my food. And it seems now I feel convinced that I often do hear it right as well. But today none of these agreed. Well VrV beta now take a hike, Culti mar! This wasnt going to be my dinner. Not tonight and definitely not for the next two. Rule #434 in the Bachelor Handbook : If you take the pains to cook today, dont forget tomorrow. And the days after.
I knew what I had to do. Some whipping cream will change it all. See I know thats what mom used to do. She would add some KDD thick cream into any of her culinary adventures to improve their consistency. Added to the taste as well, made them really rich. So in a hurry I fetched the carton of whipping cream I just bought, shook it up and opened the seal, held over the bubbling cauldron and tilted it. Pour, pour and pour. Damn!
See now thats another thing. In all the energy that a kitchen brings in, I forgot my amateur skill and go straight for it. That is, I rarely measure up anything. I just add as much as I feel I should. Thats it. And trust me, going by today that isnt very good. By the time I mixed in the cream, the rajma went from a cinnabar red to a light citrus. Not very heartening. And as if that werent enough it started to smell of cooking cream, you know that wierd unmarinated paneer smell. Shifting into damage control, I dumped some more tomato puree hoping to bring the colour back. The smell changed again. Damn!! So added some more subji masala. It did little. To the smell or the colour. If this were a cartoon, a little cloud over my head would show a bulb light up.
Pataks Madras Curry paste. Another great product of modern day technology and market. So I scooped some of it mixed in some water and in it went. The colour had slightly improved now. It looked more like a kind of rajma I remembered eating at a dhaba once. So finally as I almost gave up, I went in for the kill. A taste didnt do too much. See my dad always did this, if you ever gave him something to taste, once wasnt going to enough. So go armed with half a bowl. The taste wasnt horrible but it surely wasnt what I was hoping for. It was initially bland, had a spicy aftertaste and then left you breathing like a dragon as it went down. I was missing something.
Salt. Now that is something that definitely increased the palatability of this mess I made. Still there was the dragon breath to be handled. I mean its one thing when it burns on the way out, but I honestly feel good food should never burn on the way in. So two big chunks of garlic butter it was going to be. Atleast all that butter would numb down the buds. Sadly there wasnt going to be much I could do for the behind, that fella was going to burn and I dont think I am ready to try two big chunks of garlic butter down there.
Finally, it came to an agreeable odour, clour and consistency. And as for the taste. Well I have to tell you, before today I had my doubts but now I think we can make it official. I can work wonders in the kitchen. As all the ingredients settled down, everything fell right into place. Rajma it was. See I am one greedy, gluttunous SOB when it comes to food I like but I was so amazed myself that I dropped some of it off at a friends place upstairs before settling down to enjoy my work.
And as for the hallmark of a good cook. It all comes down to the presentation, even if it is for yourself. Eating begins with the Eyes.
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