Active Cooking ... my foot!

Having got up and gotten ready for the office a bit too early I had some time to spare in front of the idiot box. As usual, wasn't interested in "a morning dose of any kind of news" flipped through the movie channels, nothing interesting was on atleast nothing I haven't seen before so I went for my most interesting channel in the entertainment section of Tata Sky, Active Cooking. They have changed the layout a bit, instead of 4 cookery videos in 4 windows they have just 3 with a cookbook of 6 recipes in the last window.

I instantly selected the window overflowing with Marut Sikka that's because a) the window itself was small b) he is atleast about 20 times as grossly overweight as I am :). I suspect it has something to do with his notorious "an extra dollop of butter", "an extra portion of pure desi ghee", etc but, that's just a "guess". Anyhow, I like the chubby "maakhan chor" and his recipes. He was cooking spicy potatoes in Srilankan style. While he cooked he gave out some "gyaan" about how potatoes entered India along with the Portugese and how Tomato was initially classified as a fruit but, was soon moved to the less lucrative vegetable category because some judge in an American court thought they were not sweet enough to be a fruit. All of them interesting and fun facts to know along with the recipe and very much relevant to the recipe in question too.

Then I flipped over to the second "active cooking" window named "Snack". Interesting! I thought. Some chef (probably much more popular than I think he is or can be) called Abhishek Dikshit was taking the viewers on a tour to Delhi's Paratha gully. He too gave some "gyaan" about how Delhi has always been a melting pot of cultures because of all the long list of rulers it has had and how Paratha gully has secured its significant place in Delhi's history. Then he takes the viewers to a 126 year old shop on the Paratha gully where one of their chef's prepared a nice "Parat Paratha" (Layered Paratha). By the end of the episode I was glad that I knew how to cut up a Paratha into 16 pieces and then reassemble it into a nice layered delectable version of a Paratha. Quite a neat and handy trick for an amature cook like myself if ever I choose to make parathas.

I moved on to the next window titaled "Dessert", WOW! I thought. And looking at the text description I was even more WOWed than ever because it said "Malpua". Malpua is by far the best Indian sweet dish I have ever had in my life. I continued watching with enthusiasm. The video started and there were 3 women in the frame one of them had the demeanour of a host. Another woman was too close to the stove so I presumed she must be the chef Nina Gupta as the text said on the window. Then there was this woman who was "comfortably seated" in a chair beside them she is just there on the show to taste the Malpua, "Lucky Bugger!" I thought. Vivid memories of Malpua I had from the time when we (me and my girfriend's family) were in one of the Rajasthani theme parks in Jaipur came rushing back to me. Yummy! By the time I reeled back into the present the host woman had just finished introducing the chef woman to the show and the dish which she would be cooking today. The chef woman said the base ingredient for Malpua is Chena a.k.a. condensed milk the expression of aloofness on the "seated woman"'s face was worth seeing. Seemed as if she had never been to a kitchen or tried to even read (let alone try) an indian dessert recipe. Now that I think back on it what the hell was she doing on a cookery show? Anyways, the chef proceeded to fry the Malpua and that is when I realized to my horror the true colors of the "bum resting" woman. She was shooting her mouth off about how the chemical bonds in food change and how vitamins are all lost when we cook food and heat proof protiens are. She was a nutritionist. A freaking nutriotionist on a cookery how teaching the Malpua recipe. Grrr! If there is anything i hate about a kitchen it is that space around stove where people, especially the likes of this "nutritionist" woman, can sit comfortably and start crowing about how "rich" the dish is and how it brings with it the promise of a heartattack or a fat body or how low it is on the nutritive scale. My girlfriend tends to do that sometimes and despite knowing that she has only my wellbeing at her sugary heart I have many a time kicked her mercilessly out of the kitchen. No torture needed when I am in the mood for some good food! Thank you! When the show started I was in front of my laptop and looking at the title "Malpua" I simply popped open a notepad window to make a note of the recipe. I was even determined to try the recipe even if it meant me calling in sick and losing half a day of work but, the psycho nutrition woman has put me out of all taste for Malpua with her babble about how vitamins are lost. All thanks to Tata Sky and their "oxymoronic" shows with the heavenly yet horribly malnutritive Malpuas I now find going to office through an hour of horrible traffic and returning back through the same traffic late in the night a very pleasurable activity.

Not so cheerful!

/PhaKuDi