Cooking has been a magical touch in my life after I had started my independent out of India. Full credit goes to my mother, the biggest chef in the world to me. Also thanks to Skype, without which it would not been possible to arrange the online video cooking tutorial from my mother. Cooking is not new to me as my mother used to train me with operating kitchen from my childhood days. That's why I have never felt insecure while cooking independently. But in my home in India, I rarely got a chance to cook independently, unless in some urgent situation. But nevertheless, my great mom has always given me the chances to get the hands-in experiences.
After coming in abroad, cooking has been an integral part of my life mainly because there is no one who is going to do it for me here. As an obvious result of this type of intimate relationship, I have fallen madly in love with cooking. It has secured a permanent position in my passion list...
Initially it was just to fulfill my daily needs in earlier days, but after a few months after getting little bit of confidence, I have started doing experiments extensively. I always feel that purpose of cooking is to share with everyone. But here the chance of sharing with my near & dear ones are zero. So the only way I do is to take snaps or videos and show it to my mother and enjoy the food with myself only. Also sometimes I share with my house mates. And it's a nice feeling when someone from a different country, different culture praises your dishes!
PS: The pictures below are kind of old, these days I am hardly getting time & energy to do so much arrangements. But hope to resume this again & add more pictures in future ;)
This is my cooking flowchart for my daily life:
To me, cooking is nothing but an art. If you love to cook, then definitely you are getting expert hands in it. I have never felt bored in cooking, rather when I feel bored then I go to kitchen & try some new items. Several times it had happened to me that at 3 AM I felt bored, mad, crazy... etc. and went to kitchen & started doing experimentation :)
I love to cook using simple ingredients which are available all time. I am always interested to learn new ideas in cooking. I have learned various dishes from my friends from different countries. Really cooking can be so versatile! During weekdays I usually try to do shortcuts and do experiments in weekends or holidays.
Let's have a tour of my culinary experiences...
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| Crispy Pakora made from Pepper & Onion... for decoration I have used Coriander leaves, hot Chilli, black peppers, tomatoes, onions, oregano, black salt. |
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| Bengali "Payesh", decorated with dry foods |
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| Stuffed Peppers with pasta, chicken, mushroom, soya chunks, broccoli, cabbage, etc. |
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| Stuffed peppers (previous one) after grilling for about 1 hour in 350 degrees |
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| "Luchi" preparation on the way... |
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| decorated "Cholar daal" |
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| Hot "luchi" with "cholar daal" |
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| Continental mushroom |
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| Atlantic Salmon cooked with Bengali spices |
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| Egg curry(Bengali style) |
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| Self invented random mushroom dish with pasta sauce, sour cream, peppers etc. |
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| "khichuri" with "begun bhaja" |
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| Salad |
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| Pepper pakoras during frying |
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| Atlantic Mackerel before processing |
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| Decorated "jeera rice" (courtesy: Mohua di) |
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| "Macher matha diye Moong daal" (courtesy: Subhojyoti da) |
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| Grilled Trout fish (courtesy: Mohua di for some nice ideas) |
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| Chicken kosha (courtesy: Subhojyoti da for spending so much time for preparing the spices) |
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| New year special dishes made by 3 of us (with Mohua di & Subho da at Roni da's place) |
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| Roasted Turkey, X-Mas special (courtesy: Abedin, my roommate for some nice ideas of staffing) |
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| Grilled Cornish hen (used some nice concepts of staffing from Abedin) |
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| Luchi with Begun bhaja & cholar daal (it was a nice pleasure to cook Luchi for breakfast at Roni da's house) |
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| pasta with mushroom, pasta sauce & Greek Tzatziki, prepared by my Greek friend Rallis in his b'day |
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| 'Special' ice cream with maple syrup... arrangement made by Rallis |
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| mushroom with red & yellow peppers, pre-processing of chicken preparation |
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| Chicken preparation on the way |
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| Mixed Fried rice with shrimp, mushroom etc. I made at Tushar da's place |
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| Preparation on the way... |
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| simple Bengali dinner after long, with Basmati rice, begun bhaja, musur daal, dimer kosha, fulkopir rost... made at Tushar da's place (with unlimited adda) |
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| "e to jonmodiner khaoa!!!" said by Tushar da... fried rice, kosha mangsho & custard |
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| Typical lazy dinner: Pork chop(fried) with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, chopped onion, broccoli, mayonnaise. |
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| Becon with paasta, lettuce, broccoli, tomato, onion & pasta sauce |
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| Grilled Turkey thigh pieces... decorated with onion, broccoli, lettuce, tomato |
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| Grilled chicken legs... a bit different kind of self invented recipe: initially marinated with Italian pasta sauce, ginger, garlic, cooked in oil with mushroom, red pepper & then grilled in 375 degrees centigrade for about 1&1/2 hours |
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| Paratha with dimer kosha & begun bharta... |
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| Chicken tandoori (marinated with ginger, garlic, teriyaki sauce, black pepper, tomato, salt, olive oil, mastered oil & then grylled in 450 degrees) with Thiland Jasmine rice (fried with green beans, red pepper, mushroom, onion) |
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| Grilled tofu recipe: marinated a pack of firm tofu with salt & lemon juice (after squeezing out excess water) & grilled in 450 degrees. In the meantime stir fried red pepper, onion, & scrambled egg in butter, added a bit teriyaki sauce, tomato-chili sauce & put little water to cook for a few minutes. Finally put the mixture on top of grilled tofu with some black pepper & eat with pita bread! |
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Squid preparation on the way. I am extremely interested in cooking & testing sea food & squids are one of my favorites. This was the first time I was experimenting cooking fresh squid (searched out from a local Chinese/Japanese store). With my new chef knife(I really like it), cut one squid into thin slices & kept the tentacles as it is. There are specific ways to clean a squid, otherwise it might be a mess...
(P.S.- One of the goals of my life is to eat live squid sashimi in a restaurant in Japan :P |
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| Decorated squid with Japanese noodles. I cooked 2 squids: one I had cut into thin slices & stir fried with other vegetables & spices. The other one I had grilled. Put some seasoned soya sauce & sashimi sauce, & finally decorated with bean sprout, celery leaves, black pepper, etc. |
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Octopus preparation: before & after. It was a baby octopus which I cooked with Japanese noodles. First I boiled the octopuses with bay leaves (no salt, otherwise it will be stiff). Then chopped into tiny pieces. In a frying pan, stir fried garlic, finely chopped pepper, celery, green onion, mushroom with seasoned sashimi sauce, black pepper, green chili, other Indian spices & put the chopped octopus in it. Cooked for 5 minutes & added noodles finally.
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Traditional Bengali "Pithe" I made during X-Mas break
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