A bug-bite and an itch

A bug with an inclination towards gastronomic snacking seems to have bitten me. This might have happened during our otherwise rather uneventful return trip from the US. After coming back, there has been this persistent itch which I diagnosed as an overwhelming desire to cook and eat. As nagging as it was, I decided to do something about it.

Now, let me make a confession here. I am a bad cook. Or I should rephrase and say that I am an apathic cook. With a terribly limited culinary expertise, my lunches do not go beyond unpretentious rice and sambar and my dinners are limited to unyielding chappathis and potatoes. Although what I cook is reasonably tolerated by my family – who might have no other choice in the matter – there is not even an ounce of creativity that might add more variety to my meals.

Faced with such a handicap, I turned to my better, plumper half who professes to be a better cook, for a second opinion on whether I should pursue this new yearning of mine. He said he would support me through thick and thin, wins and losses, triumphs and disasters. And thus we started cooking.

The first one – a potato “bonda” – was a success beyond even my wildest imagination. The phone bill might bear the brunt of a painstaking tutorial from our mothers, but our congratulatory smiles were intact on our faces. M, who still cherishes a nostalgia for Bombay streets, got burger buns and made “vada paav.” We celebrated.

Our next attempt was a more ambitious fish cutlet. M took the reins this time, while I was relegated to making oval patties, which he criticized lavishly for their lack of evenness. The fish cutlets were excellent, and if I did not like tuna all that much, I did not bring the matter up. We rode the wave of success one more time.

Our next project was an even more complicated “murukku.” For one, the dough cannot be too hard or too soft. Two, the circular shape of the murukku is almost impossible to achieve with a cookie press that weighs a ton. Of course, the hard job of making the precise circular shapes went to my dexterous husband while I took on the less strenuous but equally sweaty job of frying them. The murukku came out well too. Three hits in a row.

Needless to say, our beginners’ luck was about to give way.

The next weekend was set apart for “uzhunnu vada” – medu vada or urad dal vada or black gram dal vada according to the language spoken. Heeding the warning that the dough should not be too runny, we set to work. Our mixer/blender has a disinclination to grind without water, and with the confidence of a veteran, I said we could add a modicum of water. And so, the water went in. The batter was smooth. I asked M to watch and learn while I wetted my hands, deftly took some batter on to my left hand, pressed a hole in the center and tried to put the dough ball into the hot oil. I knew something was wrong that instant. The dough, with a surprising doggedness, just clung to my hand, a gooey mess. M snickered. It was too runny, we deciphered. I had an immediate solution to it – add rice powder. We added and added, and added some more. Finally, the consistency was just right and I congratulated myself. We fried our vadas golden brown. And then we sat down to eat.

The vadas were, quite explicably, rock hard. I ate one, commented on the suspiciousness of the texture, while M, with more resoluteness, managed to eat about three or four. A little dent in our record, our spirits were undaunted still.

As providence would have it, M brought home a huge packet of cashew nuts last Friday. It struck our minds almost simultaneously that we could make “kaju katli.” With the groundwork completed, we set about measuring the ingredients and faced our first hurdle. Our measuring cup measured less exotic items such as rice and sugar and flour but not cashews. Mom had cautioned us against guessing. We should have listened.

The sugar syrup was our next hurdle. The instruction was to boil the sugar in water until we got a thread-like consistency. Thin or thick thread? M asked. I did not know. While the syrup boiled, M expounded on the hygroscopic quality of sugar and the existence of a Brix value that measured — well, something. He was just showing off. I said I will hurl a brick at him if he did not shut up.

The syrup boiled and boiled and had almost recrystallized by then. We tried mixing in the powdered cashew. It just became a lumpy mess. We should add more water, I impulsively decided and poured some. What was once lumpy now became watery. We quite predictably panicked. We added more cashew, more sugar, tripled the existing quantity – finally, when we realized that our kitchen was becoming unrecognizable in a deluge of powdered cashew and sugar, we gave up our salvage attempts. We decided to call it our very own cashew fudge. A fiasco of unmitigated proportions.

Our fudge is still inside our fridge waiting for reprieve. We still nibble at it now and then and console ourselves that it tastes good.

The bug-bite might finally be losing its itch.