Surprisingly Delicious: My 3 Recipes that Made Everyone Smile.
“A recipe has no soul. You, as the cook, must bring soul to the recipe”
~ Thomas Keller
It was my unexpected meeting with him; he was a follower of lord Krishna and learned to follow vegetarianism and a path of nonviolence, which will be a quite hard decision to make when you are born in a country where people usually eat fish, chicken, beef, and pork, so counter attack to that there are some products available which are vegan chicken and other products.
Usual events like camp parties at the beach and sometimes in the mountains, in larger gatherings, they serve this kind of free food to avoid the mass killing of animals to follow nonviolence. That was quite an admirable task accomplished by him, aside from that we talked about things related to Hinduism.
I received a surprising offer to cook Indian-style food for a large gathering of approximately 300–400 people. I had no experience in cooking for such a large group. The event took place in a serene setting, with artists, mainly singers, staying among the trees and sleeping in hammocks. It was a truly tranquil and mindful experience.
Upon receiving the offer, I had various thoughts and decided to find information before giving my answer. I assured the person that I would inform them of my decision once I determined if I could do it. In the end, I accepted the offer of that adventure.
Several days before the main gathering for the event, I decided to make some inquiries about it. We were aiming to cook “Kheer”, a traditional and delicious Indian dessert. I started to ask our cook for advice and began preparing the fundamental ingredients. Kheer requires milk, coconut, rice, dry nuts, and sugar as the major ingredients. Again and again, I found myself puzzling over whether I could cook for such an enormous event. I even sought reassurance from my parents. In the end, I was confident about the amount of ingredients needed.
The primary day of the event was April 22. After finishing my day shift at the hospital, I headed toward Baguio, it is one of the coldest cities in the Philippines. Baguio is famous for its strawberries and rich indigenous culture. After a four-hour ride, I finally reached the terminal and took a taxi to the primary venue. When I arrived, the number of crowd gathering shocked me. It was much larger than I had suspected.
I encountered lighting and the noise of loud music. Some people opened stores there selling handcrafted dream catchers, necklaces, and other small and simple ornaments. They welcomed me there. I got introduced to the staff in the kitchen. On that day, I simply ate the food they cooked there, and after enjoying that night’s performance by some artists, we had some conversations on various topics, like their profession, and of course, plans to prepare our food for tomorrow.
The next day morning we woke up after a great and peaceful sleep, they already started cooking other recipes and I got my turn to apply my recipes, I asked them if they had all the ingredients that I previously mentioned; I was amazed, there was no milk, I got in trouble it's one of the main thing needed to make Kheer, they informed me there is coconut milk and I noticed its kind of thick in consistency; I was thinking I never used it before, how am I going to do this? In the end, I decided to cook kheer using coconut milk. I started to cook kheer by boiling rice, in that coconut milk, and adding some extra water to dilute the consistency of coconut milk, I was thinking of putting some ghee to serve out the finest flavor and aroma from the kheer, ghee is the form of butter, derived from cows and buffalos milk, with multiple processes on it, we can make it. so I did not have it on my hand so I decided to skip that step.
I got a sticky and milky consistency of rice, after several minutes of boiling on high flame, I added a good amount of sugar to it until I got a better taste, and I mixed some dry nuts like cashew and almonds, and again I added some on the top to make it look better, I offered some to mother nature since it was appearing like forest zone, it was mainly surrounded by pine trees, and they tasted it, they were impressed I got really good taste in it, and we put another container, with same ingredients I cooked, and we serve it to crowd, to simplify that recipe they explained it as a rice porridge which is widely available food in the Philippines called “lugaw”. so it’s like a sweeter version of lugaw, we were able to cherish joy on their faces. they loved it, as well as I felt happy and satisfied.
Usually, when I travel around the Philippines I bring some secret spices, which I get from India, I prefer to cook my own food, so I brought those spices with me, I got the idea to cook another recipe called “Mix veg sabji”
I told them to prepare some veggies like tomato and potato and some amount of onions; I got it chopped, and I started to do my magic, I started to cook by adding ginger and garlic in the oil, and added those mixed veggies, afterward, mixed it all well together, and put my secret spices, and again mixed it well. Finally in the end I prepared it as well. They ate it with rice, and I heard “hmm, sarap” means delicious in Tagalog local widely used language in the Philippines, again it was satisfactory.
It was evening time, and everyone was preparing to go back home, I saw some milk bottles and fortunately, I had some tea leaves with me, now I had another idea to cook tea, Indian style tea with ginger also called chai, I got two milk bottles out of cartoon there; I started to boil milk, added some tea leaves, sugar and of course ginger, for that strong aroma and taste.
I prepared it, and I served it hot, hmm it was insane not even leaving some tea for me in the end, I laughed, and I left them with a good experience of having unexpected Indian cuisine, for which I was not even well prepared, the in the end with a smile and some group photography, for saving the memories not only in mind but close to heart. We said goodbye to each other. It was imprinted on my heart with some footprints of joyful memories.
“Happiness is only real when shared”
~ Christopher Mccandless
P.S. I also write poems and there are other interesting articles to read. You may check them out in your comfortable time, be happy!
