Sunday, October 24, 2010

A "recipe" for disaster

This post is written for blogeshwarandanubhooti.




I'm not much of a cook, all I like about food is the stage where you get to actually enjoy the glories of a good delicious meal. But my culinary skill were put to a premature test (my cooking skills start and end with making tea) when my mother had to go to her alumni meeting one day. She was in a hurry and just prepared rice for lunch, and I was supposed to heat up the previous day's fish curry. But I wanted something else and still was too lazy to get anything from a hotel. So before my mom went on her journey I asked her how to prepare egg. She told me the easiest way to prepare egg(for normal people) here's the recipe with each step, and also how i messed up each step.

1. get out the frying pan, pour oil on it place it on a stove and wait till it is hot enough.( how am i supposed to know it is hot enough, was I supposed to touch it?- I just waited till steam came off the pan.)

2.break the egg in the middle with a knife. (easy for my mom to say, have you ever tried doing that? I was too scared to do that, I mean what if the "egg matter" splatters all over? so I was hitting it with the least amount of force as I can )

3.pour the "egg matter" onto the pan without any small or large pieces of the egg shell falling in.(the problem with this step was that, I was still pondering over step 2, so I just broke off a tiny portion of shell at the top and started to pour it onto the pan- BAD IDEA, the "egg matter" fell like sand in a sand clock, too slow and too little.So to speed it up I tapped [hit hard] the egg with the knife, and then there was pandemonium- the shell at the bottom fell in, and it dazzled me to such an extent that I let go of the other half of the shell in my hand. Obviously I hadn't thought that through)

4.turn the stove to simmer and add some powdered pepper and salt on top.(but at this stage I didn't turn the stove to simmer and I was picking off egg shells with the knife)

5.turn the "egg matter" to the other side,so that it is cooked equally on both sides, the other side must be light brown (by the time I took out all the pieces of the shell, there was a smell of something which was burnt a little too much. Then I remembered this stage and turned it over to the other side, but instead of a light brown colour there was a dark brown colour bordering on a slight shade of black.)

6.turn the stove off and admire a perfectly good, tasty egg fry.( that's when I realised I haven't fully followed  step number 4. so I turned it over and added some salt and pepper powder(3 spoons each, hey it seemed perfectly sensible when I did it. I mean, I usually add 3 spoons of sugar to my tea[when I made it])

7.enjoy a perfectly tasty egg fry with rice and some curry (went to get the door, post woman came then with new copy of reader's digest. And when I got back to the stove I could smell something that was really similar to the odour of burning rubber. so I turned off the stove and got out of the kitchen to get some fresh air)

When the kitchen was seemingly safe enough to enter again and all the smoke cleared out, I got to see my masterpiece for the very first time, it was shaped like a dog or a puppy I could never be sure. In a way it reminded me of that scrappy character in the old cartoon series scooby doo. (I'm not immature, I really have a good memory of all the cartoons I watched when I was a kid)
                                        And the finished product tasted as bad as it looked and sounded,(with my explanation of how I made it) it was too salty and too hot.[to my surprise] All I can say is, that incident taught me a lot, for starters I learnt that the last thing I do should be to cook food to impress someone.It also made me realize how tasty my mom's food really is. Seriously the best time to get a good perspective, is when you hit rock bottom or in my case when you taste something really disgusting.

p.s if something smells like it is burnt, it most definitely and probably is burnt, so don't eat it. Trust me I know *sad face.

12 comments:

  1. its almost like the Rotis i make....though i make real good omelettes....

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  2. LOL I was laughing throughout!
    I say same pinch dude!Ur post brought a sense of deja vu..U shud read my cooking disasters in my blog;I'l send d link later.
    wonderful description.At least u added d oil;I'd not wen I cooked first!
    n dis piece of omlette should be auctioned off-modern art!
    Loved it!

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  3. MAN, EVEN DESE DAYZ I M STAYING AWAY FRM HOME N STILL STRUGGLING A LOT TOMAKE JUS NYTHN...really u understand the etheral taste of mom's food only wen u u r nt havin it, hehehe ur post reminds me of numerous attempts(less den 5) of cooking food..nice narration

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  4. :) Hilarious!!! Nice background picture...

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  5. you have gr8 sense of humour ....

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  6. lol I haven't made omelet ever but try after seeing your experience.
    :)

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  7. LOL

    buddy was that a puppy or a kitten- an omlette with a shape some creativity dude :)
    Nice nice

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  8. @abhijit: hmm i suck at both, my roti's are UBOs... unidentified burnt objects
    @rinya: he he same pinch, and modern art?? sotheby's may be interested :p
    @vineeth: thanks man!
    @tanima: ya the background picture was the best part of the post??? :( jus kidding, thanks!!
    @cenpas: thanks mate!
    @vinay: do try to make one.... life changing experience!
    @muddassir shah: thanks... and ya puppy or a kitten, cant tell :(

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  9. Even if your cooking experience was disastrous but the post has all the flavors of humor.The egg you prepared looks like a piece of art in frying pan showing cute little puppy holding bone in his mouth .

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  10. haha..i simply loved the shape of that omlette.
    i ll advice u to start a business of that..like v have those cute animal shaped biscuits :D

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  11. i fancy u dont even know to make an omelette.. :P
    good one.. and yeah the shape is really amusing..

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