Here is to Women who Cook from the Heart and Feed the Soul

BENGALURU: There are three women who make me gasp and stare at them in awe. There is Maa, my mother, Dida, my grandmom, and Amma, my mom-in-law.

Among their countless gifts, they have the special ability to take just minutes to cook up meals that taste like they have been slow cooked for hours. While I am the kind that sits and plans and shops and then cooks, in their kitchens, stuff materialises out of thin air and delicacies get made within minutes.

Ask mum what to do with a certain vegetable and she says, "Oh, you can do this…and you can also do that…and of course, you can do that too." In short, she leaves you with so many options that by the end of the conversation, you have no room in your mind for the list of ingredients you were looking for. How does she hold it all in her head? I don’t know and I am hoping that ‘experience’ is a fairly right answer.

Dida will never entirely reveal a recipe to you, and even if she does, it will not turn out the way it turns out in her able hands. And I gripe and scowl and I still don’t get it like she does. All this while, I felt she had some secret ingredient. Until of course, I saw Kung Fu Panda, and that myth was busted. She agreed vehemently and said that I could look all I like but I would never find any secret in her kitchen because…there is no secret.

And Amma’s secret is just easy, simple cooking. Don’t sweat it in the kitchen, she keeps insisting. And then she produces all that awesomeness that her son adores and I am stumped because frankly, I like her cooking way better than mine. I also attribute it to the fact that food does taste better when somebody makes it for you. Amma is a champion in that department. She takes a few minutes and very limited ingredients to make such magical stuff that I can hope to master it all only when I am a grandmom.

Here is to mothers who feed hearts and souls and keep at it for lifetimes. They don’t just feed us food but also a feeling of being loved and taken care of. Completely. Let us love them back. And once in a while, cook for them.

Vegetable Khichdi

Here is an all-time favourite dish loved by most households. Easy to make, delicious and wholesome.

• Prep Time: 10 minutes
• Cooking Time: 15 minutes

Serves two You need

• 1 big cup of rice, soaked
• A fistful of yellow moong daal, skinless, soaked with the rice (soaked for 10 minutes)
• 1 capsicum, deseeded, chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 carrot, peeled, chopped
•   A fistful of green peas
• 1-2 green chillies chopped
• 1 inch stick cinnamon
• 2 green cardamoms, cracked open
•   3-4 cloves
•   3-4 black peppercorns
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 tsp cumin/jeera seeds
• 1/2 tsp ajwain/carom seeds
• 1 tsp turmeric powder
• 1/2 tsp garam masala powder

(optional)

•   Water
• Ghee
• Salt

Here’s how you make it

• Heat ghee in a pressure cooker. Add turmeric, jeera, ajwain, bay leaf, peppercorns, cloves, cinnamon and cardamom. Stir.I give everything a pounding in a mortar and pestle before tossing it into hot ghee.
• Add green chillies, onions, carrots, peas and capsicum. Stir well.
• Empty rice and daal into the cooker and stir. Add garam masala (optional) or just add salt, water and then pressure cook for 3 whistles.

NOTE: When you are making regular rice in a pressure cooker, 2 whistles suffice. But dal needs cooking so its 3 for khichdi. If the daal is soaked for an hour, 2 whistles are  enough. Serve hot with ghee, raita,  curd, papads or pickle.