Netiher do I fall under the Anjali Mukherjee(female cum licensed
cooker) category nor do I fall under the category of the celebrity
chefs like Sanjeev Kapoor(?). What I am going
share here are my own experiences of survival. If bachelors(married bachelors included) can gain something from this revu and stop visiting the friend/s every day during his/her cooking time, that will be really some achievement.
If you are looking for expert tips on cooking Indian food,
please google and you will find tons of professional bloggers available
on the net. I prefer to visit Sailu’s Indian food as she is from my native place.just kidding.;-> Its actually a well maintained website with a cool virtual ambience(keep your speakers on whiel browsing this site) and got good links to other bloggers. More importantly one can expect response to queries.
Also, refrain from trying something that can bought in stores or
is really difficult to prepare and not worth spending time and effort
on like Chapatis/Dosas/Parathas/Wada/Idlis unless you have interest and patience else go to the nearest restaurant.
V. IMP. After being away from home for almost 12 years now, got an
experience of dealing with food and foodies. What I mean by foodies is if you are a bachelor, never expose your culinary
skills to friends, I can bet you are calling for never ending trouble.
So please assume that all the preparations below are for one person, at the most two. Number of vegetables or cups depend on experience. So initial attempts will give you a fair idea subsequently. As they say, Practice makes a Crook perfect.
BTW, make it a habit to buy vegetables once in a week. After all we live to spend money and time.;-)
Two of the simplest things that one can live with, anywhere.
->Sandwich.
Keep
a White or Brown bread in ur kitchen as and when its over. Place
Sliced tomatoes, cucumber, onion(if you prefer), butter/cheese, any
eatable green leaves and an easy, filling, healthy but not just veggie. If you have toaster, thats great even otherwise, simply heat it on a pan with butter till the bread becomes crunchy and enjoy your sandwich with juice. No Colas recommended. Am a pucca Gopichand follower.
->sarav Bhel
Cut an onion, 1 tomatoes, 2-3 green chillies(or alternately you can use a pinch of chilli powder)
into small pieces. Add some puffed rice(mur mure) in a Bowl along with the cut onion, tomatoes, green chillies, salt and lemon squeeze. If ground nuts are not an allergy, just mix some and stir with a spoon for about 2 minutes. If you are not afraid of any kind of cholestoral, a spoon of oil will add to the flavour.
->Omlette
How can one forget this healthy food? The more you stir, the better it will come out. Just make sure that the eggs that you are using are of chicken. One of my roommates who visited Japan had tough time buying chicken eggs as he had to choose from so many sizes of eggs that ultimately he decided not to eat any eggs.:-(
Basically most of the Indian food(primarily vegetable curries) consists of Fries or with Gravy. Both the kind of foods consist of basic ingredients like turmeric, cumin seeds, mustard seeds, oil, chilli powder, salt. Each ingredient has its own medicinal values but more than that their presence give you a feel of satisfaction unlike bland food.
Most of the vegetables can be fried in right quantity of oil along with the above mentioned ingredients whereas the ones with Gravy are prepared by boiling them with water and then adding the above mentioned ingredients once cooked.
Frying analogy can be applied to breakfast / tififn dish like Poha(also called flattened Rice) while cooking with water analogy can be applied to something like Upma. BTW, Upma is an interesting dish. There are so many variations like the Vermicilli Upma, Sooji Upma, Rava Upma, etc. So try out one basic Rava Upma preparation and each time you can have different dishes.
Just a hint Always put less salt if you are not sure. Less or More both can be repaired but less is always easier.
Some of the basics like cutting onions/tomatoes/chillies are assumed. If not, first few times you will have non-vegetarian in your food till you become an expert in cutting vegetables.
An hour of time spent in kitchen everyday will be very helpful. Believe me. for your friendsL-)
After reading this revu, if you have confirmed that you are not going to Cook at all, do comment.