Singh - The Foolproof Cookbook : For Brides, Bachelors & Those Who Hate Cooking

Hay House Publishers (India) Pvt. Ltd.
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Copyright Rohini Singh, 1998

Revised and updated edition (in full colour), 2011

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, by any mechanical, photographic, or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording, nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise be copied for public or private use other than for fair use as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews without prior written permission of the publisher.

Illustrated and designed by
Kadambari Misra

ISBN 978-81-89988-57-9

Printed and bound at
Thomson Press (India) Ltd.

For
Shyamala Shiveshwarkar,
who got me going.

T his book has gone into many editions and sold thousands of copies the response has been most heartwarming. Many young couples have written and thanked me profusely for rescuing them from hungry mealtimes and possibly rocky marriages. Many have confessed that they were able to keep their secret (that they really didnt know any cooking at all) a secret!

Re-editing it now has taken me back three decades to the times when I was a nervous beginner myself. To the days when, on the dawn of my marriage, I began furiously pestering my mother, numerous aunts, cousins, friends, our cook and my grandmother for recipes. This was all in the hope that they would rescue me when the actual moment of truth arrived and I was expected to turn out a palatable meal. I must admit that I had tried the alternative too. I prayed regularly and desperately for a husband who, along with other expressions of affection, would also declare, I love cooking! and thus absolve me from making any effort in this department. That, however, didnt work and as it became increasingly clear to me that I would be the sole repository of culinary expertise in our home, I began to evince a sudden interest in what happened in the kitchen.

But what size will I cut the okra? I asked our cook, unable to disguise my desperation as D-Day approached. Obviously amused, and not deeming my question even worth a reply, he proceeded silently and efficiently to top, tail and cut the vegetable into neat, even bits. Trying hard to affix every process in my memory, I wrote in my newly inaugurated book, under the title Sookhi Bhindi, Step 1: Cut bhindi into bits the size of 1 division of your little finger. Then came the cooking of mung dal the quickest cooking, homely split green gram that was a staple on most tables. First of all, you just boil the dal with salt and haldi, an old aunt explained, it must not be mashed or watery. How long will it take? I queried, scribbling furiously. Oh well, andaaza (approximation) you know, Ive never timed it, child! Youll soon find out. If that was supposed to be reassuring, it wasnt. It sounded scary. Another question to which I never managed to elicit a satisfactory reply was, How much salt? A matter which seemed to be of utmost importance to me, the crucial ingredient that could make or mar a dish, was usually shrugged off with, Now that is a matter of personal preference, so

Then came the days when I was well and truly on my own, often trying to feign an efficiency and bravado in the kitchen that I neither felt nor possessed. The days of misshapen chapattis that we all laughed about as we chewed on the tougher bits. That one looks like a map of India! my brother laughed at his first meal at our table. And that ones Sri Lanka! my sister-in-law added. Not bad, really. Another few trials and it might well be circular! Then there was the day the cooker caught fire I still havent figured out how and the numerous times the masala burnt to a frizzle and we finally decided to go out to dinner. The time we had to rechristen the koftas because, in fact, there wasnt a single one in the dish. The day the surprise birthday cake turned out to be a real surprise it was baked with semolina instead of flour!

It all sounds hilarious now, doesnt it? There lies the point Im trying to make, actually. That even slow-starters can turn into confident cooks almost as magically as nondescript caterpillars turn into magnificent butterflies. Provided you make the effort, of course. Spin yourself a cocoon. In other words, whenever you cook, be thoughtful and dedicated about it. Almost before you know it, you too will emerge transformed from a fumbling, bumbling cook into a competent one. And not just a competent one, I hope, but one who really enjoys whatever time he or she spends in the kitchen.

The turning point for me came some years after those earliest adventures in the kitchen, when I became pregnant with my first baby. Suddenly some maternal instinct took over and as I thought about my own childhood, redolent with flavours of favourite foods, cakes baking and biryanis simmering to perfection, I could not imagine bringing up a child who would not enjoy all that. My culinary adventures now became imbued with an almost fanatic zeal. I began to devour cookbooks and scour newspapers and magazines for cookery columns and recipes. I borrowed my mothers tattered collection of recipes and copied the time-tested ones from them into my own newly inaugurated books. I intended to try them all. One morning, reading yet one more recipe from the Sunday newspaper, I wondered aloud to my husband why authors didnt write simple recipes the kind you could use any day you wished with simple ingredients available in any kitchen; dishes a beginner could also turn out with reasonable success. Without even looking up, he replied, Why dont you do it? Horrified at the suggestion, I ignored it as a casual joke. However, it was not the end of the matter. A few days later he brought up the question again. Rephrasing it this time, he suggested I write a description of the kind of cookery column I wished to read. That was easy. So, I did indeed write a description. The column had to be chatty, friendly, very precise, simple and detailed. It had to start at the very beginning, with the very basics. Now which newspaper should I send this to? he asked, undeterred. Still taking it lightly and assured that this frivolous idea would soon come to naught, I declared grandly, The highest selling newspaper, of course! Thus the proposal reached the Hindustan Times. Six months later, when I had all but forgotten the crazy idea, I received a call from a lady who introduced herself as the editor of the Hindustan Times Sunday newspaper, inviting me to write the column I had proposed. It was to be fortnightly and yes, it was to start from the basics.

And that, my dears, is how I learnt cooking. With a sharp knife hanging over my head, I put on an apron and gloves and got down to work! I chopped and cut; I fried and baked; I perfected recipes and wrote about them week after week for two and a half years without a break. Books followed, readers wrote letters, special bonds of intimacy and gratitude were formed across the globe, the sort that can only come from the sharing of recipes that work well. Many cookbooks later I decided to write this one, a collection of recipes that would help anyone get started in the kitchen. A book that you could reach out to if your mother was an ISD call away, or was unreachable the moment you needed to know how to boil an egg, as I had experienced many years ago myself. A book that would help you bring to your table food that symbolized all that was home.