A Theoretical Chef

'A theoretical chef', that's what my husband told me I am. Well, I can also agree that the title goes in-line with me. I am not much into the so-called 'hands-on' cooking but I watch a lot of videos of cooking, specifically Bengali food and also of baking. That's why I know how to make Biriyani, Lucchi, or sour-dough bread theoretically, for example. Recently I got a kitchen for myself, so if sometimes I feel that any recipe is negotiable in an easy version, I tend to try that. 

I am not very good at measuring the proportion of the ingredients, yet, seldom my experiment turns out to be fruitful. The unfortunate fact is, as I hate wasting, both money and time, whatever I cook, does not matter, how bad it tastes, I eat that with a pseudo-pleasure. Before eating, I never forget to take photos and post on social media with a 'yummy' caption. Honestly, the food I cook does not taste that much as it looks.

Sometimes, I become overexcited about the nontrivial steps, such that I forget the trivial steps like adding salt. If all the required ingredients are not at home, I try with some available replacement 'Jugad' which sometimes works, but most of the time does not. Once I tried poached egg, like in the video they showed, that dropping the broken egg into hot water and vinegar mixture. I did not have vinegar at home, very smartly though, I thought oil would work as a substitute for vinegar. Unfortunately, it did not go quite well, it took me a few days to remove the strain of the egg from the bottom of the pan.

Saraswati Puja is just around the corner and I am very excited about that. Don't misunderstand me, I am excited neither for the hope that worshipping Goddess will get a permanent position nor because it is called Bengali's Valentine's Day. Although I am an atheist (for the last few years and I worship only humanity), somehow being foody connects me to festivities. I see food at any festival you can think of. Saraswati puja is a special one, I become nostalgic on this day. I miss all the food that comes as 'Prasad' like 'bhoger khichuri', Lucchi and all sorts of sweets. In my school days, I used to start eating Prasad at my home, then used to hop from one friend's house to another to continue eating at their home.

This year I will prepare Khichuri (one-pot meal of rice, pulses, vegetables) at my place in my kitchen. Khichuri for any festival purpose is prepared with a special kind of rice, called Gobinda Bhog rice and moong dal. I have already seen several videos on how to cook it. I also have a plan to make some sort of sweets on my own. Sweets made of milk are just awesome. Again, I have gone through a few videos and liked one comparatively easy but delicious (if made properly). 

The first step of making most of the milk-based sweets is making Chhana (a particular Indian cheese). I have read that to make Chana, one has to boil the milk, then need to add lemon juice, vinegar, or curd. I had neither lemon nor vinegar but curd. Today, I thought it is the best time to embark on the venture of making channa before eating up the curd. As expected, I again wrongly measured the ingredients, also partly because I was lured to have a spoonful of curd. Anyways, according to my theoretical knowledge, I boiled the milk, cooled it down a bit, and added diluted curd in it. Voila!!!! Noting changed. Nothing happened as expected, even after waiting a while, the mixture just became curd flavored milk. As a rule of any venture, I did not stop there, with a random thought, I boiled the mixture again and also added a pinch of baking powder, as the ingredient label on its packet says that it contains a percentage of some sort of acid. Thankfully, this time, the mixture slowly changed to.. no, no, not to exact Channa, but perturbatively close it. And it was curd flavored.

Well, the first step was done. The next step was to convert it to Sandesh, yes, that's the sweet I wanted to prepare. It was hard to make any error at this step. Finally, all wait is over, it came out well (okay maybe not very much). To get rid of the curd smell, I added mango syrup. Abracadabra!!! I did it. Aam (Mango)-Sandesh is ready.

Aam-Sandesh!