Feeling wonderful!!

Friday, November 10, 2006

Maid was on leave, mom was to return home at 10 p.m. after a hectic day at work and S didn’t feel like cooking. So I, the blogowner set out with newly found inspiration to cook more, from Asha, and with nothing else but the taste of my mother’s rassam or charu or whatever it’s called (!) to make dinner for the night.

I couldn’t think of any dish that I would want to try neither did I feel like finding the dusty old Sanjeev Kapoor and Tarla Dalal recipe books. So, like everytime I’ve made something for the first time, I trudged along with with only my instincts (which actually must be enough for seasoned cooks since my mom (and everybody else’s of course!) keeps coming up with new innovative ideas every now and then).


The charu I made-

Yea well, it doesn't look great but it did taste so! Yes, i have no modesty left in me!

It took me about half an hour to prepare the charu. It took me 10 more minutes to toast some bread and cut it in shapes. My mom was home by then. I immediately served all I had made (hot hot!! Yay! it all tastes best when it’s hot :)) and she, being the understanding mom who has spent 20 odd years of her life trying to make a slow-eater S eat while the food is still warm, got down to the eating business. Of course, she told me it was wonderful and called up my dad to tell him about the Sneha-making-actual-dinner story! God! That feeling, watching mom have the food I’d made was most heart-warming. I was so happy to actually see her…. Okay well, istead of trying to put the feeling down in words I’ll just leave it on the hindi saying – Khaane se zyada khilane me mazaa aata hai!

UPDATE!!!

Okay, so originally I had not included the procedure that I had followed to make this charu (I don't use the word recipe here, because it's not the real recipe!). Anyway, here goes....

1) I heated some oil (about 3 teaspoons) in a kadai and added a little mustard seeds, saunf or fennel seeds and asafoetida or hing powder till the mustard seeds spluttered (which was very early!!). I then addded some curry leaves, crushed ginger and about 3 cloves of garlic which had also been crushed.


These are mustard seeds!

Saunf (or fennel seeds)

Asafoetida Powder.


2) I then added some salt (to taste of course!), some curry powder, a little chilli powder and finally 3 (I didn't really know how many tomatoes I should be using, however since I was cooking for 3 people, i thought why not 3?!) tomatoes which had been cut in thin slices. The tomatoes were medium sized.

3) I cooked the contents of the kadai for a while (till the water from the tomato had almost evaporated). Then, I added about 3-4 cups of water (I was really generous with the water :)).

4) I added a lid and let the water come to a boil. After it came to a boil, I cooked it further for about4-5 minutes (till the salt-water balance came ie!) with stirring from time to time.

5) Then....... my charu was ready! :)

Enjoy!

PS. I added the pictures (which I found from the net) of those 3 components because I thought it would be easier for other novice cooks like me to figure out what all these ingredients actually mean. I didn't know those black chaunk seeds were mustard seeds till I googled it this morning!!



29 comments:

raghu said...

its so tru.. khilana 4 a change is always bettr..not always.. i can cook a lil.. no charu but rice.. n curds..man dats enuf 4 me.. suk can do wonders wid egg i suppose..lolz
ya but charu does LOOK GOOOOOOO:DDDDD:D:D:D

FH said...

Wonderful Charu!I am so proud of you.Wish my kid would do that and feed me some time.Not a chance in hell,I know!:))

Wish you had given us the recipe , a quick one.You are a great daughter darling,I might just have to adopt you!Keep it up Sneha, thanks for mentioning my name. Hugz....

Lost-Lawyer said...

Abey! share the recipe naa! could use it wen am bac in hostel an bored to mess shit!!!

Tejal said...

it luks great sweety!!! congrats on ur achievement!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Khaane se zyada khilane me mazaa aata hai ------------ yeah sure but eating is a lot easier plus someone has to take the initiative to make the cook happy innit?

The New Age Superhero said...

ah.. so sweet :).. so sneha plannin 2 cook dinner everyday now i guess! her mom's gonna be so so proud! :D .. yeh ragz.. i can cook all i can with eggs! oh man.. got ulcers again.. dont remind me of eggs.. cant eat thm 4 sometime :(.. :'(

Skylight said...

i know! it feels great to feed ppl.. i'd brought one of my friends home for a couple of days and since she stays in the hostel, it was double fun feeding her Real food!

Sneha said...

@raghu- thanks!! yea, khilana is most pleasing to all of one's senses :)

@asha- thanks!! i am sure when ur kids grow up they'll feed u lots and lots! we kids do pay silent tributes to our mommies for cooking us all those fab things!!
And hey, I added the recipe now :D ooh!! i would be most fortunate to be ur daughter- all those yummmm thingies on ur blog and in ur kitchen! Cheers :)

@wanderer- shared it!! :) easy-peasy recipe! have fun trying it out...

@TC- muchas gracias!

@bhargav- hahah! well, in my case, the initiative part is not a problem since S is always around to oblige. In fact, 99% of the time it's her for whom i cook :)

@sun- not everyday! i don't have that kind of expertise yet... heh

@ninkita- Yep... feeding someone who hasn't been fed properly is double fun. PLUS, the food tastes double-good to them!! heh

The New Age Superhero said...

ahh recipe.. umm procedure's made public.. so cool :D

Abhu said...

U ACTUALLY COOKED??? * BEWILDERED*. i knew u knew how to make maggie n stuff..but actually cook????? gawd!! um not telln my mom this.. she as it is keeps on telling me (in vain) to enter da kitchen n cook something for a change (i.e. instead of jst hunting for food..lol)...gud yaar!!!! but still...um not that bad it u know!!! remembr in school?????

Sneha said...

@sun- heeh.. nothing secret-y about it:D

@abhu- oh! you don't even KNOW half of me! hah!! come to my place someday (with prior notice of course :P) and i'll treat u to some of my own cooked food .. i think sonia n neha have had my potato and cottage cheese stuffed sandwiches :))
n yes, for the record, i know how to make things apart from maggi!! (even thought that's a fav during crunch time)
yes yes, home science must have really undone some of ur brat-who-can't-even-make-her-own-coffee instincts :P:P Hee!

Abhu said...

PUHLEEEZZ!!!! i can cook if i want to... jst dat um very moody...

Sreejith Panickar said...

(I don't use the word recipe here, because it's not the real recipe!)

LOL!

Hope you are okay even after having your new dish! :P

Ar Ar Ar Arrrrr said...

Sneha zeee.....
thanks for sharing this hand made, tried and tasted recipe with all of us...I was kinda bored coooking british food at home for dinner...

no one likes eating ham/bacon sandwiches...hai na?

Well then, istead of trying to put my true feelings down in words for this post, I’ll just leave it on the hindi saying –

Badhiya hai....badhiya hai :P

Sneha said...

@abhu- moody? heh... surreee....

@sreejith- oh!! i have never been better :D

@z000nie- thanks and u r most welcome!! try it and tell me if u liked it :))

raghu said...

ah sneha gets all touchy if u tell u NOE her..heehe!

raghu said...

PUHLEEEEEZ let us comment on the cycle..plz plz plz.. im beggin U!

--Sunrise-- said...

hehe... even i never understood the difference between rassam and charu... sigh... !

Anonymous said...

Congratulations! It looks like a appetizing bowl of soup to me.

Nice blog you've got here. :)

Isha said...

actually it looks pretty great too its rasam how else would it look?

Noushu says: said...

good Post. very interesting.

keep it up.

www.noushadtt.blogspot.com

Deepak Gopi said...

Hi Sneha;

great post. Thank you.

Sneha said...

@raghu- lol.. no no.. i dont get touch when someone says they 'know me' :D i just get touchy when ppl claim to know things about me which they really don't! ;)

nahh.. iam not letting that happen. u can comment on any post but not on that one!

@sunrise- really! i now think that there may not be any difference after all :))

@virus- hullo and thanks so much!

@isha- point :D iam super-pleased that u think it looks good :D....

@noushad- thanks!!

Sneha said...

@dipak- hie dipak, thanks! :)

Deepak Gopi said...

Hi Sneha;
thankyou for the greetings.I liked this post vrey much.:)

Isha said...

meh ur welcome im hungry :( its been a bloody eon since i last had "chaaru" might go make myself some tonight

raghu said...

oye ppl hittin on u evn frm blogger?

Sneha said...

@deepak- thanks and ur most welcome. hope u had a great day and hope u have a great year :)

@isha- :D enjoy!

@raghu- what? who? when? :S

Anonymous said...

Rasam is the best food ever :) Steamy rice and steamy pepper rasam would make my day anytime!

Thanks for visiting my blog