When I was in my early teens, every school holidays, I would spend a week at my maternal grandma’s house. My late grandma had lost the use of her legs by then. Although she couldn’t walk, that has never stood in her way when it came to her passion for cooking and baking. She would cook daily meals and festive cookies year in, year out. What she lacks in, she makes up for it with her passion, personality, courage and warm heartening gestures. My late grandma was such an amazing woman, in so many other ways.
During the holidays spent at grandma’s house. I would get to learn a thing or 2 about cooking. There is this line that grandma used so often and I failed to understand why. She always said….”I dunno what to cook today” For someone that is a fabulous cook, for someone that cooked at weddings and for someone who had people praising her cooking, I never understood as to how that was possible. If she asked me as to what she should cook, I would be able to come up with quite a list!
Years have passed and now I have taken over most of the “kitchen duties” from my mom. Now I can finally understand my grandma because at times even I dunno what to cook. My mom would say, “you have sooooo many cookbooks and you dunno what to cook??” Well she made some sense there. The problem is, I would flip pages of my cookbooks and decided to cook a particular dish and there would always be ingredients that would be missing from the pantry! It is not just about the recipes you have, it’s the ingredients you have in hand too.
I am used to cooking for the 2 of us; me and mum. Now there is 4 of us. Not that things are any harder coz it really isn’t. My niece is a fuss-free eater. Just hand her a plate of rice with some chicken and she is satisfied. Just that now I try to organize things a bit more so that I can juggle work and cooking. It has worked pretty well. Life is more organized now. Most of the housework are being done over the weekend. Mom does the laundry every other day. I go shopping for groceries on a weekly basis and I make a list of my menu for the whole week before heading out to the supermarket. This make things, way easier for me. Infact it would make everyone life easier too, especially for working ladies.
Anyways an easy Squid Masala recipe to share especially for curry lovers.. Great with rice or bread.
- 1kg squid - Cleaned and cut into rings
- 3 onions - chopped
- 4 garlic - minced
- 2 green chilies - sliced
- 1 tsp chill powder
- ¼ tsp mustard seeds
- 2 tbsp curry powder
- 1 large tomato - cubed
- 1 tbsp yogurt or 2 tbsp cream
- curry leaves
- cilantro - chopped
- salt to taste
- Heat oil in a pan and fry curry leaves for 30 seconds.
- Add onion, mustard seeds, chill and garlic and saute for about 3 minutes.
- Add in all of the spices. Cook for a further 5 - 7 minutes.
- By now, the pungent smell of raw spices should be gone.
- Add in squids, tomatoes and season with salt. Cook for about 10 minutes.
- Lastly add yogurt or cream and top with chopped cilantro.
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