KOCHI: ‘You don’t have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces -just good food from fresh ingredients,’- stated the legendary American Chef, Julia Child. In an era where people favour the fancy in the food than hygiene, have you taken a second to think about your food of choice?
Even as one more International Chefs Day was celebrated, City Express talks to home chefs from the city who speak about the procedures of home cooking and the factors that go into serving hygienic food.
“Most of the hotel chefs don’t prepare food instantly. The food is prepared earlier. They add flavours to make people believe that the food is fresh. As home chefs, we prepare everything fresh at home without adding any preservatives,” says Maria George, a cookery instructor from Fort Kochi who has been professionally cooking for fifteen years. She adds that hygiene is given importance even when purchasing ingredients. “ Spices for example are always enclosed in low-quality glass bottles or plastic bags which are very harmful. However, during home cooking, spices are made instantly and stored safely,” she further explains. She also advocates keeping the utensils clean for hygiene’s sake. She advises the use of turmeric water for cleaning vegetables.
Healthier cooking practices
Home chefs say there is also a difference in the way food is prepared compared to their hotel counterparts. While restaurant cooks use electronic devices, home chefs prepare food in the traditional way. “Cooks in the hotels and commercial food joints take shortcuts. Unfortunately they don’t have dedication and patience. A rule in cooking is you need to cook at slow pace. In hotels, they use high flame burners even for small dishes and electronic blenders which change the taste and texture so drastically,” says Nimmy Paul, a well-known Kochi based cookery teacher. If good food is a deciding factor of well-being, then storing the ingredients plays a major role. She also says that food in hotels is stored in cold rooms which are expensive to set up in a house. Hence, refrigerators are the only choice. However, since vegetables are purchased on a daily basis, food need not be stored. “I use clay-pots and heavy quality stainless steel to store acidic items as they don’t lose strength at least for certain amount of time,” she concludes.
Nisha Lal, home cook from Kacheripady says that due importance should be given to quantity as well as quality of a dish. Lal, who works for Masalabox delivery service, says that the amount of oil used by home chefs is very low compared with how much chefs in hotels use. She further goes on to say that home-made food is also healthy due to the exact amount of components used which are finely balanced.
As restaurant chefs work in customer-oriented environments, items like oil and water are reused often as different foods need to be prepared one after the other in very less time. “I never use the same oil again and again. Once used, the oil is thrown away as I want to provide sanitary and hygienic food,” says Smita Nair, home chef who works with Masalabox.
While on the one side, you see lot of hotels coming up with new dishes to attract the public with their fancy display of dishes, home chefs are venturing out to provide food by picking purity over presentation.