Culinary Tales: When I made a spoof of the biryani

I am a big foodie. I love tasting all kinds of food. I also have a fascination for food that is presented in an idyllic manner. It adds to the experience. I want to be that person who cooks and presents dishes like the ones we see on MasterChef. Not the Indian version of it, of course. But then, reality kicks in. Let me face it. Cooking is my nemesis.

I have had my fair share of cooking disasters – burnt cakes, runny curries, salty veggies etc. You name it and I am sure I’ve been there done that. But this one disastrous cooking incident that’s etched in my memory dates back to the time when I was newly married. I can’t believe it’s been 10 years already. So, I was just settling in with my in-laws and I wanted to show off my culinary skills. It was a Sunday and the dish on demand was the scrumptious mutton biryani. I dialled my mom asking for instructions and ingredients. Well, I have seen my mom make biryani so many times so I kind of had some confidence (rather over-confidence) that I could pull it off. My husband, and my in-laws in particular, were quite excited to see their daughter-in-law all set to conquer the ‘Everest’ (A perfect biryani is nothing short of climbing the tallest peak you know), and helped me with all the prep.

It all started well — the onions, the whole spices, the powdered spices, and the meat. Everything was cooked well and the aroma was just right. I could envision myself slowly inching towards victory. Then, it was the last step of adding rice to the meat mixture to let it simmer to perfection. Now this is where everything went downhill. To boil rice, the rice to water ratio must be correct to get the rice cooked to perfection. And this ratio became my Achilles Heel. I added too much water to the dish which overcooked the rice making it stick together and made the biryani lumpy and tasteless.

In the end,the outcome looked more like a spoof of the biryani. I was so distraught that I shut myself in my room for the next couple of hours. I couldn’t join the family for lunch after making such an average dish. Later, my husband got me out and took me to the kitchen, showed the half empty biryani vessel and comforted me saying that the family liked it and everyone had their fill. Well, I couldn’t be any more embarrassed so I took it in my stride and laughed it off later with the rest of the family. I did confess that it was the first time I had ever cooked biryani and promised them I would treat them to a good one soon.

True to my word, I did learn to cook the ‘right’ way from my mom and delivered as promised.

Although I wouldn’t call myself a great cook, I’m sure I can cook and serve something good for the entire family to sit down have a good time together.