We had a few friends over yesterday for dinner (husband's birthday) and I cooked Palak Paneer, Pudina Rice and (my version of*) Bagara Baingan for dinner. I know this would sound ridiculous but I started cooking at 1pm and completed cooking at about 5 o clock (pm). I was cooking so-very slowly. Sauteing one item/ingredient at a time on medium setting as opposed to cooking on high setting and finishing it real quick. Waiting for the aroma to fill the room and individually paying attention to color of spices I fried, and allowing the masala-paste to rest too, (watching the Travel channel of course). My quick version of cooking would have completed this meal in 1 1/2 hours.
The food was much appreciated yesterday and I thought it was pretty good too. This morning my husband mentioned that he particularly liked the taste last night and the reason it was so tasty was perhaps due to the slow cooking method I had deployed.
Hmmmm!
Then I googled and found this: http://vegkitchen.com/tips/slow-cooking.htm
In this the author of the article talks about using a slow cooker to cook veges, its still the process of slow cooking though:
"...slow-cooking process enriches the flavor of the dish in a way that other cooking methods can’t match.....slow cooking also scores high marks for taste and nutrition since the long cooking time allows both flavors and nutrients to concentrate in the food. The gentle slow-cooking process actually draws more flavor out of the ingredients.
Yes of course! Then I remembered my mom telling me this cooking tip long time back. Thats why even now when I cook dishes in a hurry especially Sambhar or Gashi (Karnataka dish), it tastes better when I have it as leftover for the next meal i.e. when I have given it some time to rest and allowed all the flavors of the ingredients to blend in well. So from next time I suppose the key to a good meal is not just a great formula/recipe but also how long I take to cook 'quality time devoted'. Yes! much to the annoyance of working women unfortunately!
*Unique formula which is an amalgamation of my mother's recipe and couple of online recipes - I am almost wanting to patent it now!
The food was much appreciated yesterday and I thought it was pretty good too. This morning my husband mentioned that he particularly liked the taste last night and the reason it was so tasty was perhaps due to the slow cooking method I had deployed.
Hmmmm!
Then I googled and found this: http://vegkitchen.com/tips/slow-cooking.htm
In this the author of the article talks about using a slow cooker to cook veges, its still the process of slow cooking though:
"...slow-cooking process enriches the flavor of the dish in a way that other cooking methods can’t match.....slow cooking also scores high marks for taste and nutrition since the long cooking time allows both flavors and nutrients to concentrate in the food. The gentle slow-cooking process actually draws more flavor out of the ingredients.
Yes of course! Then I remembered my mom telling me this cooking tip long time back. Thats why even now when I cook dishes in a hurry especially Sambhar or Gashi (Karnataka dish), it tastes better when I have it as leftover for the next meal i.e. when I have given it some time to rest and allowed all the flavors of the ingredients to blend in well. So from next time I suppose the key to a good meal is not just a great formula/recipe but also how long I take to cook 'quality time devoted'. Yes! much to the annoyance of working women unfortunately!
*Unique formula which is an amalgamation of my mother's recipe and couple of online recipes - I am almost wanting to patent it now!
No comments:
Post a Comment