God save your hands

I often think about this phrase. More often when I am in the kitchen. I learnt it in Istanbul, Turkey. My friend Ayfer had explained the Turkish tradition: "When someone cooks for you, you kiss their hands and say God save your hands." Basically you appreciate and honor his efforts to cook for you by doing this.

So I kissed Gulzaan's hands and repeated what I had just learnt! She had made veggie shorba for me..Turkish style.

But I think of the phrase not due to the tasty food that my friends cooked for me... going out of their way to feed me with something vegetarian for the many days I stayed with them...but because of their sensitivity. That one must thank the chef for the delicious food that one might be savoring.

For generally I can only associate "Bon Appétit" with good food habits. But that is essentially to say...enjoy your food...thanks to whom? the person who cooked...right?

I have often advised my friends to compliment the chef in kitchen for the great food on the dinner table. Precisely... this is for all the wives and mums who cook the delicious food day after day..for years! Until we ourselves take charge of the kitchen... God save your hands!

Love for the leaf

It was only yesterday while preparing dinner it stuck to me that may be I should write about the curry leaves sometime...Well, this may surprise many...who know me...cuz they also know that I never had a love for cooking! In fact...kitchen was just as unexplored for me as Mars is to the mankind... that was until I moved out of India...Yeah! slowly its getting me...I am enjoying my experimentations in the kitchen... though sometimes they do end up in disasters!

Coming back to curry leaves, or kadhi patta as it is called in most of India...or meetha neem patta, as we UPites call it! I was at a friend's place a few days back... and she suggested I must use the curry leaves to add fragrance and taste to my food. Though I wasn't very convinced at first, I nevertheless decided to give it a try after tasting the food she had prepared. And, on my next trip to Patel Cash & Carry I got a pack of fresh curry leaves.

The first time I tried it...I was a bit sceptic...how my family would react to the new found fragrance in my food. But everyone appreciated! Bingo! That is it! Curry leaves have now replaced the dry Bay leaves that I have been using all this while. And, they have become a regular feature of my food.... So much so that last week my husband commented: Are you going to use curry leaves in every dish you prepare now? My answer...? You must have guessed that by now!

My mum always made me go in the garden and pluck a few fresh ones... now I know why. May be I will do the same when I have kids too (and a garden!).

Curry leaves work the best when you put them first in oil along with cumin (jeera)...so try it that way.

Well...I don't know much about the curry leaves...so I am not going to profess my intelligence on the subject...but my experience says...it's a mighty good ingredient and worth a use in the curries that you prepare!