Get back to the basics and rediscover the fine art of slow cooking with more time unexpectedly on our handsAt home on a culinary trip

Pushpesh Pant

It has been well said that nothing concentrates the mind as solitary confinement. Truth be told. We rant alone in our home prisons. But going out isn’t an option. This is the best time, we think, to rediscover the joy of cooking, and enjoying food in a leisurely manner we had all but forgotten. With so much time unexpectedly on our hands, we can give the pressure cooker a well-deserved rest and can, at last, keep aside the noisy electric mixer-blender.

The grinding stone may not be easy to locate but we are sure the good old mortar and pestle can be found lying neglected on a cupboard shelf. Just try pounding fresh spices just before use and notice the difference these make. Coarsely pound pepper, red chilli flakes, even coriander and cumin release their enchanting aromas, and once you get used to this process, it will be difficult to cling on to the factory-produced powders when you come after the quarantine. Crushing garlic cloves and small pieces of scraped ginger can be given the same ‘loving’ treatment. We can assure you that it will not take long to master different strokes for different folks i.e. dry spice seeds, garlic, onions, etc. From Maharashtrian thecha to Kerala upakaris, this is the gadget that delivers the best results.

Slow down and cook

There has been much talk about slow cooking and zero-waste cooking by our celebrity chefs who have ‘picked up this bug abroad’ (sorry, for the scary reference in the present context!)

How easily we have forgotten that our ancestors cooked everything slow from bati on uple (cowdung cakes) to meat on dum in a patili tightly sealed with dough paste and glowing embers put on top. They understood that this was the way food best retained its nutrients.

No one in the countryside could afford to waste anything. Vegetables were peeled with a sharp knife removing only a thin layer of outer skin and good use was made of stems, stalks, leaves and flowers. The cuisine of Bengal, Assam and Odisha has many delicacies that rely on scraps like chorchori. No one is asking you yet to turn the garbage bin upside in search of edible stuff. Suffice to note that very little should go into it in the first place.

Boiling, steaming, stir-frying and pan-grilling should be used rather than deep frying. Go slow not only on fats but also refined sugar and salt for the next three weeks. This will cleanse your palate and make it sensitive to delightful forgotten flavours — sour and naturally sweet. Lime, tamarind, carrots and beetroot will begin to register their healthy presence.

Consider cooking ‘one-dish meals’ giving new meaning to sharing potluck. Handi cooking was popular in this country long before the casseroles were introduced by the firangs. We understand that you can’t go out shopping for ethnic clay pots during the curfew but any large vessel with a tight-fitting lid will do. Khichdi and biryani/pulav are passé. Try your hand at tehari, kabooli or better still bisi bele hunna.

Make it family time

Involve all members of the family in the play — not task or chore — of preparing a meal. You don’t have to arm the tiny tot with the sharp knife but all else regardless of gender and age must join in. No time like this to bond with children who in normal times are way from home — at school or with peers after school — or glued to the smartphone. Recall and narrate food lore from your childhood, adolescence and youth. Forgotten festive delicacies and lost family recipes.

Memories of food can span generations so easily! In the eighth decade of my life, I recall my 70-years plus old nani sitting on a morha, stirring a pot of chharra alu or Kathiawari karhi in Almora circa. Mid-1950s what her mother-in-law used to cook in the same kitchen at the turn of the 20th century! And, my son now touching 50 dismisses my gastronomic experiments with disdain judging these by the exacting standards my mother had imparted to him when he was an eight-year-old.

A healthy mind and joyous optimistic outlook are our body’s best defence. Remember all miraculous immunity boosting ingredients that are being prescribed by nutritionists and quacks with gay abandon have to be activated by triggers from the brain once these are imbibed. Don’t give up easily. Challenge the young ones to take off as top guns in the kitchen. Let them cook for the family what they are addicted to pasta and burgers with whatever is at hand. Jugad is one of the greatest contributions of India to the world. Now is the time to substitute, improvise and innovate. Tabletop cooking, with an induction cooker at hand, can provide an opportunity to experiment with desi adaptations of fondue. Those artistically inclined can indulge in fanciful plating emulating abstract painters with assorted edible chutneys, pachadis and achaars.

Discover each day

We, on our part, have decried to embark on a 21-day journey — ‘Discovery of Culinary India’. Cooking one dish from a region/ food zone a day to break the monotony bringing back to sweet not so silent thoughts of remembrances of things past — what we have eaten at different places. We are avoiding fowl, fish or flesh for no reason but as a matter of respect to extra caution some of our dear readers may be observing after the Wuhan disclosures regarding exotic meats. We have great pleasure in sharing some of these with our readers.

Small portion of steamed rice or a slice or two of the proverbial loaf of bread paired with any of these will provide a silver lining to any gloomy day darkened by a virus cloud.