Young adulthood entails a lot of things for girls – hormones, hot guys, female rivalries, sweet infatuations, regular rebellion, pimpled foreheads, fun and frivolity. But if you’re a Muslim girl, you’ve got one additional thing to master, aside from how to lie convincingly about why you got home past curfew on Friday night: culinary school.
Run from every dutiful mother’s kitchen, it’s a part time course that starts with how to slice an onion properly (very thinly, without stabbing your thumb through your tears). Then it proceeds to the easy stuff: baked beans, khuri kitchrie, pasta, fresh fruit juices, custard and jelly. Mum instructs, you obey, furiously writing in your first little recipe book while trying not to burn the rice. (That constitutes an immediate fail).
You receive your credits for this first course once your mum decides she can trust you in the kitchen with a can of Koo, and still come back to an intact house with no sign of burnt AMC pots.
Then you’re eligible for the serious food course: chicken curry, kebab chutney, battered chops, home made KFC, grilled steak, and every other carnivorous delight. If you’re like me, you start off by pulling your nose and squealing “ewwwww!” with every chop and drumstick you have to bludgeon, but you persevere. (You also finish a quarter of a bottle of liquid soap after every poultry-hacking session, feeling like Macbeth did when he cried: “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?”)
This course is tough to master because it’s not simply about cooking the damn dish. It has to meet your family’s prerequisites for perfection: the salt must be just right, there mustn’t be too much of oil, don’t over-cook the chicken, add more pepper to the steak next time, remember to garnish nicely. You keep all this in mind for the next time, and the next time, and the next time, until you attain the perfect recipe that meets your satisfaction. (It then becomes known as “your” chicken curry, not mummy’s).
If you’ve lasted this far without losing any fingers or blowing up the kitchen, it’s time for the final course, the mother of all credentials, the definitive skill that distinguishes chicks who can say “I can cook” from those who can say “I can cook anything.”
I’m talking about akhni, briyani, dhall and rice, and all those other special dishes that are reserved for Friday lunches and Eid day. Grandmothers reckon that if you can cook these dishes, you’ll make a splendid wife and you’ll have “no problems” with your husband. (Assuming of course, that men marry on the sole criteria of a perfect plate of fish briyani.)
Since I cook because I love to and not out of any fear of “problems” with my hubby, I’ve happily marked today as my graduation from culinary school.
It took 2.5 hours and two sinks of dishes, but the end result was a delicious pot of chicken akhni, served with vermicelli, papad, and dhai.
The epic Friday lunch, my biggest solo production for the palette to date. My grandmother would be so proud.
6 comments:
eek you sound like you're describing my teens. for some reason my mum went all kitcheny on me as soon as my elder sis got married. now i know how to do these stuffs but alas since it was not desire but tradition that created the knowledge, i hardly use it. hence the empty peanut butter jars when my mum comes back from holiday. congratz tho ur first pot of akhni is as stressful as grade 12 exams...
All that sounds so familiar. I was the daughter who hated going into the kitchen. I was closer to my dad's toolbox, than my mom's kitchen. I had an elder sister who could everything - so I let her :P
Your food is looking good. And you might agree - akhni is very easy to make :)
I've yet to make briyani and dhal on my own. Getting there :)
:-D wonderful! and good for you!
I think Suth Africans have a thing for the kitchen and mastering the art of making the rest of us look like incompetent fools :-( Yet another blog ive been meaning to write- my goodness im so lazy!
For some reason, my mum never budgeoned me into the kitchen. I learnt how to make chicken curry and rice very early on, i could make pastas and the like and i was "decent" in the kitchen department. Sandwiches being my speciality :-P loooll. Amazingly enough, Akni is the one thing i know how to make and apparently make deliciously well. My mother in law taught me how to make rotis and told me i lied cos they came out perfectly round the first day i made them (what the heck was that all about)?!?! and its been desserts and biscuit galore since i became a SA housewife!
@nooj @nafisa: i used to hate kitchen duty myself until I was abt 17 ;)
@zahera: thanks :) and yeah, i think if you go all out 'cos you like to and not 'cos it's forced on you, it's damn fun to cook -or bake - up a storm :)
we only got called in to really cook by the age of 18, but living alone helped us along. In my family, i'm the apparent 'expert' in akhni. I've made biryani & akhni for critical friends & family & they gave me the thumbs up:-)
I still go 'eew' when i have to touch raw meat. I don't know how to cut a chicken properly & don't really want to know.
Your vermicilli ooks yum:-)
In my student days I used to enjoy inviting friends over. I've become so lazy now though-& spoilt. Now that we're older we help less in the kitchen-actually we don't do anything! But my mum's at home, & my sisters & I work, so...:-)
I hate cutting chicken and i am rather thankful that my husband prefers chicken fillet.
See, Allah does answer prayers! :)
Nevertheless, I love experimenting in the kitchen and even though my mum did teach me, I only really started cooking when I got married.
I find it fun that it's not forced on me. However, when I do find a new recipe, my husband is forced to be a guinea pig!
Word Verication: medstain
hectic
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