The mother of a friend comes over to my house weekly to give me Indian cooking lessons - It is much needed because I am just as clueless about the cuisine here as well as the language...which brings up another hurdle - my cooking teacher does not speak a lick of English! So lessons usually go like this: she gives me one simple command...I don't understand...then she repeats herself a second or third time with hand gestures...the hand gestures are very helpful and I finally understand her instructions...then I do what I think she is telling me to... she quickly takes over the task herself because I am not doing it right...once she has done the task a couple of times she has me mimic her...This must be what Helen Keller felt like.
This week's lesson I learned how to prepare Byriani...which is rice, spices, meat and fat mixed to perfection. It is one of my favorite dishes here.
So I always try to get on my teacher's good side...I don't know how my compulsion to be the teachers pet began, all I know is that it came about around third grade. I am now a grown adult and I am still sucking up to my teachers. I have been known to bring baked goods to Mr. and Mrs on a handful of occasions. So to win over my cooking teacher I prepped my kitchen to a tee...I had all the spices on one side and the fresh chopped ingredients on the other...I meticulously chopped onions and had them sitting in a bowl...I guess I envisioned the ease of grabbing ingredients that one would see on a cooking show. Anyways this work did not earn me brownie points - Come to find out you keep one onion whole for this recipe...and the others had to be sliced...She took one whiff of my spices and did not like what she smelled so she had Z go over to her house and grab her spices. So the entire cooking process took much longer than it should have because of my teacher's pet tendencies.
On a happy note the Byriani tasted wonderful...this woman knows her stuff.
My poem:
Byriani is a wonderful meal,
I eat it with gusto and zeal.
I will make some for you,
You will like it too!
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