A boy and his fried rice

In this issue: a childhood cooking tale, flavour balancing help, and a simple salad dressing

I remember in vivid detail my first attempt at cooking. I was about 11. I was in love with the fried rice sold at “Chinese” food vans in Delhi where I grew up. Determined to reproduce it at home, I persuaded our cook to attempt what I thought was the way to make fried rice. She would stir ingredients around in a pan, while I would give instructions. Finally, after everything had been mixed in and cooked, I got some of this concoction on a plate to taste the outcome of my endeavour.

It was a disaster.

And not in a “oh, this needs a bit more salt” kind of way. See, I knew nothing about cooking, and I had tried to watch the cook at my favourite roadside Chinese food van and figure out what he was adding. I had no idea that the dark colour of the rice came from soy sauce, so I thought adding some turmeric would colour the rice. As you might guess, turmeric colours things yellow, not dark brown. Not satisfied with the colouring on the rice, I told the cook to add more turmeric. Alas, if turmeric added only colour, it would not have been so bad, but dear reader, turmeric is a strong flavour. It’s not a good idea to add 2-3 teaspoons of the stuff. It utterly ruined what I set out to make. I couldn’t bring myself to have my mother taste any of this. It just had to be thrown away.

Why do I share this humiliating anecdote? I want to illustrate that nobody is born a great cook. Or a great anything, really. But we can learn. And the path will involve making some mistakes and messing up. Everyone must learn to cook; it’s an essential life skill. Do you need to learn how to play a piano? No, but you do need food.

There are people terrified of cooking, and those who just hate it. What is it about cooking that is intimidating? I’ve asked several people, and judging from their responses, it comes down to two categories:

• Basic skill: how to cook a particular dish, how much of each ingredient to use, what order to add them, cooking methods, how much time it will take to cook. What do you do if you mess something up?

• Project management: how to plan the preparation work for one dish, or if you have a family, a full meal. How do you juggle the cooking of multiple dishes at the same time? This is especially a problem for working people with time constraints.

Then there are those who hate the activity because they feel uninspired – “what do I make today, damn it?” – or hate the preparation and cleaning up part.

I’m here to assure you that it doesn’t have to be this way. Essential cooking is a craft that can be learned without years of training. You do not need to reach restaurant chef level knowledge and make “art” out of every dish. Even if you know how to make ten things, you can feed yourself and your loved ones. Just those ten things can produce new variations by changing a few ingredients or mixing and matching some leftovers. That’s the creative part. Don’t consider yourself creative? That’s OK, you can take an engineering approach and construct dishes and menus as per templates and formulae. I told you: it’s a craft.

How can I be so sure? Because I too was a blank slate. But that kid who royally messed up his first fried rice didn’t stay at that skill level. I went on to study cooking more seriously when I was 13, though I think I was around 15 before I was serving “good” food. The time in between was spent learning bits and pieces, mostly without any formal guidance and order. Later in life, I went on to run a South-east Asian restaurant for many years, had a stint as a restaurant consultant, and a cooking column in a national newspaper.

When I was cooking in the 1990s, I had only the help of cookbooks and TV cookery shows. There definitely was no access to global ingredients like in today’s supermarkets. Today, thanks to the Internet and YouTube, you can learn any dish from any part of the globe in a few minutes. Rejoice!

What is harder to find are the in-between bits that help you understand the cooking process itself. How much salt do you need to add? “To taste” – huh? What happens if I cook something for 20 minutes instead of 10? What do ambiguous recipe instructions like “cook till done” mean? (This hilarious clip from the comedy Schitt's Creek about what “folding in the cheese” means is a great example.)

And hence, folks, this newsletter. My goal is to gently guide you with tips on basic techniques to make you better cooks that know cooking from first principles. And to help you with project management techniques to make the process less painful. Along the way, I will also share some insights into the workings of the food and beverage industry, tell you some restaurant secrets, and subject you to some pontification about food culture.

If you have any ideas or feedback, send me an email. And the subscribe button is right at the bottom of the page, so LikeShareSubscribe as YouTube channels love to say.

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Less is more

Here’s a rule of thumb if you’re a novice and wonder how much of an ingredient to add to a dish: use less than you think you need. If you use less and find upon tasting the food – and you should always be tasting your food as you cook – that it’s not enough, it’s easy to add more and adjust. If you use more, it’s usually tough to fix that. This is especially true for strongly flavoured ingredients where quantities are measured in fractional teaspoon quantities. For instance, using 25% more garlic in a recipe may not make a huge difference, but 25% more nutmeg or cinnamon definitely will! Ditto for salt. People have different salt sensitivity and preferences. Those who want more salt can add some, but those who prefer less are out of luck.

Another place to apply the “less is more” principle is cooking time. Undercooked food can be saved by cooking a little longer. Overcooked food is likely irredeemable. The texture changes can’t be reversed, and depending on the dish, overcooking could burn things. Who knows, maybe the recipe asked for “medium low heat” and you used “medium”. Just check about 75% of the way through and adjust accordingly.

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No work salad dressing

Let’s make something that requires no cooking: a simple vinaigrette for a salad dressing. And to make it easier, I won’t even ask for kitchen equipment like a bowl and a whisk. You just need a small container that can be a plastic takeaway sauce container or a small jar. You’ll throw in a couple of ingredients and just shake vigorously for about 10 seconds. And that’s pretty much it!

The basic formula for a vinaigrette is: 3 parts oil + 1 part vinegar + salt + vigorous agitation. The agitation helps emulsify oil and water: bring two things that normally don’t mix together into a stable emulsion (if you still remember school chemistry.) You can also optionally add an emulsifying agent like mustard. The mustard helps the process and prevents them from separating quickly. If you want a 90 second explainer, watch this YouTube video from America’s Test Kitchen.

What you’ll need:

Extra-virgin olive oil: 3 tablespoons

Vinegar: 1 tablespoon

Mustard: 1/4 teaspoon (optional but keeps the dressing together for longer)

Salt: 1/8 teaspoon

Chuck all that into your takeaway container, put the lid on and make sure it’s tight, then just shake it vigorously for about 10 seconds. And you’ll find you now have a thick basic salad dressing you can pour on some vegetables.

Wait! Make sure you taste it first. Do you have enough salt? If not, add 25% more and shake again. Repeat the same with the vinegar. Is it too sharp? Then add 25% more olive oil and shake again. Not sharp enough? Add more vinegar and shake. When in doubt, use less and add more to adjust, as I explained above.

This is your starting point. Want to be more creative? You can enhance this in multiple ways with other herbs and spices. Watch my little video below for a basic guide.

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