CHENNAI: Cooking is an art in itself, and once proper skills and techniques are employed, coupled with a lot of patience, one can gain mastery over it. The power of food is such that it brings together people of various cultures and backgrounds and prompts even great bureaucrats to meet over dinner — an event popularly known these days as Chai pe charcha.
But, how does one get kids interested in cooking? Culinary expert Aliya Sajid, who runs Kids Castle at KK Nagar, came up with the idea of a workshop on fireless cooking recently. The event drew in a large crowd of kids who tried their hands at cooking, without any hazard of dealing with fire.
The items that the kids prepared at the workshop included choco chip cupcake, marble cupcakes with butter cream frosting, butter cookies with two variations — choco chip cookie and cut out cookie with chocolate glaze — and Hawaian salad.
Aliya says that cooking and teaching are her twin passions. While cooking has been her passion since she was 13 years old, she also developed an interest in inspiring little ones to cook. With her passion to try out different flavours, she is now an expert in training people in multi-cuisines like Moghlai, Chinese and Traditional Indian Dishes. This is besides the exotic varieties of cakes and pastries, cake icing, buns, loafs, cookies and many more.
Coming back to fireless cooking and its advantages, Aliya says that apart from the fact that children are safe while indulging in cooking using this method, fireless cooking is a lot more economical as it saves the cost of fuel. The only disadvantage is that cooking using this method takes more time when compared to cooking on stove, and one has to pay more attention to it, to ensure that the food is not over cooked or under cooked.
Aliya says, “I noticed that kids are more interested in baking than cooking. Fireless cooking is a lot safer for kids to try out. However, even in fireless cooking, parents have to be present with the kids, while using ovens and battering cake flour.”
There are a few points that one must keep in mind while baking without fire. “The oven has to be kept in room temperature. Dried ingredients have to be sieved at least three times and the process of aeration has to be given importance, for making the maida light and fluffy,” she says. “After the maida is mixed to the batter, it has to be mixed in the same direction or it would lead to the deflation of the batter. Such techniques have to be taken care of,” she adds.
For more information about fireless cooking, visit Aliya’s Facebook page Kitchen E Lazeez.