We are making full use of our kitchen. In our last budgetary meeting, we ruled out eating out as an unnecessary expense; it is now one of those luxuries that we can only sporadically afford. And so the weekends have been transformed into teaming up with H and whipping up restaurant-style feasts. Jalibes, gajar ka halwa, pooris, laddoos, pesto, putanesca, banana loaf bread, etc streamed out of our kitchen with increasing regularity.
Our latest effort was ghobi manchurian. Preliminary research confirmed H's suspicion that it's doable and in these kinds of exploits, youtube, in particular, and google, in general, are your friends. We found enough resources to guide us in our virgin attempt at indo-chinese cooking. Word of caution: be wary of this chap's youtube version of cooking demo as he has a habit of leaving you out of the loop when it comes to exact measurements, "Add 1 cup....but I tasted it and it wasn't right, so add a little more of this....".
The first batch of ghobi manchurian was such a success it emboldened us to go a step further and paired it with vegetable manchurian. We had faith in our guide since he was supposedly a Vaas-Chef. With an overstretched smile plastered on his face, he explained why ajinomoto (MSG) must be used sparingly albeit inconclusive scientific study that it is carcinogenic; In a bid to preempt a hail of hey rams from strictly vegetarian audiences, he assured us with a sheepish grin, that no eggs were needed.
His video demo was a reliable guide for the most part, though his version of a "little bit" had us befuddled when he saw him showering quite a bit of the said ingredient instead. Precision in measuring ingredients has eluded a lot of these cooking demo-ers although it might be because most of them were playing by ear, so to speak. Auntie Manjulaji of Manjula's Kitchen definitely stood out when during her demo she made perfect rotis by "adding half a cup of water to half a cup of flour".
In the end, after about 3.5 hours of cooking and deliberating on whether to put up our own cooking demo, we had a very late/very early sumptuous lunch/dinner for less than $20 plus tip it would have cost us at Masala Wok. And that is kitchenomics, in a nutshell.
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