I didn't particularly sleep well yesterday night - for no particular reason. I got up from my bed after having tried to push myself to sleep for the past 1 hour or so. I had stated yesterday that I'll be cooking lunch today - and I was ready for the undertaking. I've been wanting to cook this particular kozhumbu for many months now, but somehow never managed to make it. I always chose to make vatha kozhumbu instead of milagu kozhumbu, whenever I had the fortune of cooking in this spectra. It might be argued that these two kozhumbu aren't linked or in anyway similar - but in my head, it seemed to be alike.
I asked Amma for the recipe for this dish.
She sent me a WhatsApp audio note of the same. It can be heard in the below link.
When I started to learn cooking last year, soon after the pandemic broke out & there was a nation wide lockdown, I never really asked Amma for any recipe of how she prepared the basic dishes - like sambhar, potato fry, dal etc. I decided to just read recipes & not watch them, made notes & just executed it in action. Via this process, I had learned to cook some dishes. The objective then was just to get the fundamentals & practice them. I strongly felt that if I aced the basics of cooking, then later on when I had to resume after a long period of not having cooked at all, I will not encounter any starting troubles.
I hadn't cooked since January 2021 this year. Since March, it's been a pretty comfortable life as far as food goes for Preeti & I - we've been nicely pampered by our parents. 2020 was the first time when I actually worked to make my own food & consume it. It's truly a nourishing experience - to cook your own food & eat. And this experience further amplifies multifold when one actually plucks vegetables from his/her own garden & cooks them - I could see that from the experience of having stayed at my In-Laws for the past 50 days or so - how they cherish their garden and its yield. This exploit - comes from toiled labor - which I've not acknowledged enough throughout my life. Some things we can just realize with pure experience & not of any anecdotes or narrations.
After brushing, I came down to the hall for my morning coffee, when I came to know that my FIL has already soaked tamarind in water. Having heard this, I got a jolt. I was particularly displeased & made it known. When I cook, I don't like any interference/gyan on any technique/procedure/drill. This isn't out of any disrespect - I just like my space. I didn't want any sort of assistance today. But then, I very well understand that I'm entering someone else's space to carry out my task - my in-laws kitchen. This is where they spend most of their day, their time, their life - which begins & end with some action on milk. This is where all the gossip happens, all the chatter happens on what to cook, what to eat, cooking. And all this, happens in an infinite loop. And I totally recognized that it was I who was disrupting this space, but then I also have boundary issues I guess - ANIMALS we're I tell you. ANIMALS!
I'm in the stage of my life now where I'm developing my own rigidity. And in this process, any confrontation with other forms of rigidity from family members ends up in some sort of conflict in my head. As I've grown older, I've definitely observed the rigid character in society - at both the micro level & macro. I can see where this scrutiny comes from - the flexible me from earlier is becoming inelastic. I'm beginning to shape my life with some morals & principles. Not sure if me getting married has anything to do with this, but certainly the timing of all this is strange. While I see this shape that my character is taking, I think I must learn to practice flexible rigidity.
Coming to kozhumbu...
It was fairly straightforward. I followed Amma's recipe to the dot. First time I think I've cooked a lunch dish out of my mom's kitchen. The than for the kuzhumbu was - brinjal, drumstick & ladies finger. I had chopped it & kept. I had to prepare the kuzhumbu powder for the dish - the ingredients of which I had roasted & kept. I ground this in the mixie & let it cool. It smelled very strong indeed. I kept the vegetables to boil along with this powder - and the key in this dish is to let it bowl for a long time; 30 minutes or so - and nicely stirring it. After boiling it for the desired duration, it became a nice thick kuzhumbu as you can see below. I had a taste - it was pretty sour; more sour than I had expected it to be. But I was fairly hopeful that while on consuming it with rice, the taste should be fine.
On the side, I made french beans vegetable. This is something I'm accustomed to making. I just love all the green vegetables out there. I enjoy the whole process right from chopping them to cooking them. This is the combination I really enjoy - milagu kozhumbu & french beans vegetable.
The lunch was good. Everyone liked it - I mean, as long as they didn't not like it, I was good. I found it okay. Now that I've made this once, the next time, I know what exactly to tweak. The next time I make it, the dish will definitely be better.
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