Ma, what's cooking? - ITC Kitchens of India

Ma, what’s cooking? - Part 1

-          ITC Kitchens of India

I’m a bad cook. That’s what my daughter all of 22 years thinks; “thinks”, being the operative word. She eats some of the food and skips the rest. So I figure everything else is “bleh” as she sometimes says or “whateves” (sic), the teenage word for iffy, I surmise.

It’s time to cook food and I’m hyperventilating. I open a recipe book - some chef’s experiments with microwave cooking, although I don’t microwave either.

The teen’s craving is paneer and so I look for a paneer recipe...

 Gotcha, here it is…

Palak Paneer

Ingredients – you need:

500 grams Paneer

1 bunch of Palak

2 Onions

Tomatoes puree

1 inch Ginger 

Blah, blah

But as I know all this I do it my way…

But it smells the same?!

 (Duh!)

I yank the kadai out of the gas and into the sink.

Then pull out another kadai and follow another recipe from…

…ITC Kitchens of India…

…Which says: “Just heat and eat(?!) Method 1: Cut pouch, empty contents into a frying pan, and heat for 3 - 5 minutes while stirring. Serve hot…”

No kidding, that’s it?!

My daughter smells the food all the way from across her room and says, “Nice”.

That’s her way of saying it is pretty good.

I garnish it with sprigs of coriander and serve it piping hot. (Wink, wink)

 Hold on there’s more…

She calls me the world’s greatest cook! (Blink, blink, wink, wink)

So I sagely offer her such treats three times a week if she stops making Domino’s Pizza her surrogate mother!

We seal the deal with something sweet, again from ITC Kitchens of India. (Again, wink, wink)