Have you watched the film 'No Reservations'? Then I'm sure you would remember the shot where Zoe and Nick make pancakes for Kate. Watching that little kid flipping pancakes with an almost professional swagger gave me an idea. I’m anyway doing a PG in how-to-effectively-murder-time. Why not try my hand at cooking in the meanwhile?
To my surprise, the film CD’s special features option included a video of a master chef speaking about how she trained the little girl playing Zoe's character. A master class in the art of pancake-making! I grabbed my greasy notepad and a stub of a pencil and scribbled away meticulously. I re-read the notes. Child’s play! "Tomorrow’s breakfast – Pancakes!" I resolved.
Unfortunately, the next morning, I overslept. Everyone at home had already had their fill of hot masala dosas for breakfast. Everyone, except me. In a huff I told myself, "Their loss!"
Armed with my notepad I marched into the kitchen. Time – 9:30 a.m.
First things first. I took out a large bowl to mix the ingredients for the pancake. Next, I consulted my notes. "Flour – 1 ½ cups." It said.
Did the chef mean rice flour, wheat flour or corn flour? Cakes contain maida. So pancakes should be no different! Going by that irrefutable logic, I decided to use maida. I opened the fridge (that's where my grandmother stores maida) and took out the open packet.
Now, how much to use? The chef's measure is in terms of cups. How big a cup does she mean – big, moderate, small or tiny? After much deliberation, I zeroed in on a moderate, decent-looking cup. Then to my dismay I discovered that the contents of the maida packet wouldn’t be sufficient to fill even half the cup. "Well, I don’t even know the exact size of this prescribed cup! It's all an approximation. So what does it matter?" I consoled myself and tipped all that was left of the maida into the mixing bowl. I added a little bit of wheat flour too to make up the rest of the quantity – just as a precaution.
That settled, I moved on to the next item – sugar. The chef had sieved the sugar, maida and baking powder together in a fine sieve. But I found out that my sugar cubes didn’t match up to the expectations of my sieve. I tried to coax the grains through the sieve to no avail. Resignedly, I fetched the mixie bowl, washed and dried it and tipped the sugar into it. Just after I had taken all this effort, the power supply went out. How typical! Cursing the KSEB (Kerala State Electricity Board) for denying my rumbling stomach its nourishment, I stomped up and down the kitchen. I raved like a lunatic until I had a brain-wave. I chucked the sugar into a cup of milk (the milk that I was supposed to add to two eggs and one teaspoon of vanilla syrup, according to my notes) and dissolved it. Pancakes with a twist. After all, who made all these rules for mixing ingredients – dry with dry, wet with wet? I'm sure it really doesn't matter. It's high time someone did some experimentation around here. And that someone was going to be me.
With more pride and self-congratulatory airs than the situation demanded, I went ahead. Next in the list was baking powder. But there was a minor obstacle ahead. For lack of anything better to chew on in the heavy monsoon season (my grandmother had anticipated such an attack and had stowed away every edible item under Z+ security), an army of little red ants had decided to wage a full scale war on the (believe it or not!) hapless baking powder container. They felt cheated and I felt hungry. Both teams were desperate.
Half an hour and about ten score vicious bites later, I managed to rescue the baking powder dabba. My notes mentioned a tablespoon of baking powder. But I had enough sense to know that a tablespoon might make my pancake too fluffy to eat. So I carefully measured out a teaspoon. I added it to the flour mixture along with a pinch of salt and sifted them together. Time - 11:00 a.m.
Marveling at my own intelligence I opened the freezer where I had safely stored a couple of eggs last month. Horror of horrors! A crack had developed right through the middle of all the six eggs. I emptied the petrified contents of the shell into the milk, in an effort to revive them. For 45 long minutes, I tried every other trick up my sleeve. (In the meanwhile, I decided that six eggs were too many and fished out three of them from the milk. Thank God that they were still rock solid. Had they melted, removing some would have been quite messy!) Ultimately in desperation, I boiled the milk to thaw the eggs. Melt, they did. But just as quickly, they quickly turned into yellow globules floating in the milk, wobbling around indecently. Undeterred, I did a quick odour check. No problem, for now.
"What to do now?" I wondered. Never short of ideas, I took out grandmother’s ancient kadakol (a tool to separate butter from curd) from the cupboard. I added the dry ingredients into the gooey liquid and whisked everything together vigorously. I got something that strongly resembled curdled milk.
"It looks like a Chemistry experiment gone bad," a tiny voice in my mind muttered. I put on a brave front and kept whisking vigorously, spraying the kitchen lavishly with my gastronomical incompetence.
My grandmother, must have got disturbed by the racket in the kitchen. She was sleeping till then, blissfully unaware of my culinary adventures.
"What on Earth is going on here?" Grandmother asked, speeding in to inspect in her immaculate kitchen. She opened her mouth and closed it again immediately. Her eyes became as round as they could get.
"I think you might want to scream at me," I observed dispassionately as she turned a delicate shade of purple. "I can explain. But I'm busy now. Please come back later Grandma."
Maybe that was the last straw. Or maybe that fore-mentioned scream had got stuck somewhere halfway inside her throat. Either way, she gesticulated wordlessly at me. I couldn't care less. Some sort of a mad hungry frenzy had gripped me. I turned around to proceed with preparing my "breakfast".
My poor grandmother quailed at the defiance with which I slammed the pan down on the stove and quickly retired to her bed. Perhaps she decided to reason with me at a time when I was relatively saner.
"Butter" said my notes. I scraped out some butter from within the depths of my fridge and threw it into the pan. There, it sizzled, melted and acquired a rich auburn shade. Quickly, I scooped up a dollop of my sticky lumpy mess and plopped it irreverently onto the pan. The 'pancake' mix spluttered in rage and slowly spread out. I checked my notes, one last time. "Vanilla". I had forgotten that. Never mind…
Half an hour later, I was still waiting for my pancake to get cooked all the way through. It looked like some kind of an alien half-breed. "It had the 'pan' part, all right," I decided, observing the tan it was getting warming on on the pan. But the 'cake' part was conspicuously missing. It looked more like a large brown misshapen uthappam accidentally squashed underfoot by an elephant, rather than the beautiful piece of art that I had seen in the film.
But there is an adamant air that hunger gives you. "It may not be the best pancake in the world, but it’s still my very own signature pancake," I decided as I flipped it onto a plate. Abandoning the World War ravaged kitchen, I clutched my plate and looked lovingly at my pancake – my well-earned medal of honour. Time – 12:30 p.m.
I tore out a piece of pancake and greedily stuffed it into my mouth. Slowly, as the morsel moved down my gullet, my face turned from pink to a faint shade of dirt-green. Grimacing, I swore, "I refuse to hate pancakes..."
To my surprise, the film CD’s special features option included a video of a master chef speaking about how she trained the little girl playing Zoe's character. A master class in the art of pancake-making! I grabbed my greasy notepad and a stub of a pencil and scribbled away meticulously. I re-read the notes. Child’s play! "Tomorrow’s breakfast – Pancakes!" I resolved.
Unfortunately, the next morning, I overslept. Everyone at home had already had their fill of hot masala dosas for breakfast. Everyone, except me. In a huff I told myself, "Their loss!"
Armed with my notepad I marched into the kitchen. Time – 9:30 a.m.
First things first. I took out a large bowl to mix the ingredients for the pancake. Next, I consulted my notes. "Flour – 1 ½ cups." It said.
Did the chef mean rice flour, wheat flour or corn flour? Cakes contain maida. So pancakes should be no different! Going by that irrefutable logic, I decided to use maida. I opened the fridge (that's where my grandmother stores maida) and took out the open packet.
Now, how much to use? The chef's measure is in terms of cups. How big a cup does she mean – big, moderate, small or tiny? After much deliberation, I zeroed in on a moderate, decent-looking cup. Then to my dismay I discovered that the contents of the maida packet wouldn’t be sufficient to fill even half the cup. "Well, I don’t even know the exact size of this prescribed cup! It's all an approximation. So what does it matter?" I consoled myself and tipped all that was left of the maida into the mixing bowl. I added a little bit of wheat flour too to make up the rest of the quantity – just as a precaution.
That settled, I moved on to the next item – sugar. The chef had sieved the sugar, maida and baking powder together in a fine sieve. But I found out that my sugar cubes didn’t match up to the expectations of my sieve. I tried to coax the grains through the sieve to no avail. Resignedly, I fetched the mixie bowl, washed and dried it and tipped the sugar into it. Just after I had taken all this effort, the power supply went out. How typical! Cursing the KSEB (Kerala State Electricity Board) for denying my rumbling stomach its nourishment, I stomped up and down the kitchen. I raved like a lunatic until I had a brain-wave. I chucked the sugar into a cup of milk (the milk that I was supposed to add to two eggs and one teaspoon of vanilla syrup, according to my notes) and dissolved it. Pancakes with a twist. After all, who made all these rules for mixing ingredients – dry with dry, wet with wet? I'm sure it really doesn't matter. It's high time someone did some experimentation around here. And that someone was going to be me.
With more pride and self-congratulatory airs than the situation demanded, I went ahead. Next in the list was baking powder. But there was a minor obstacle ahead. For lack of anything better to chew on in the heavy monsoon season (my grandmother had anticipated such an attack and had stowed away every edible item under Z+ security), an army of little red ants had decided to wage a full scale war on the (believe it or not!) hapless baking powder container. They felt cheated and I felt hungry. Both teams were desperate.
Half an hour and about ten score vicious bites later, I managed to rescue the baking powder dabba. My notes mentioned a tablespoon of baking powder. But I had enough sense to know that a tablespoon might make my pancake too fluffy to eat. So I carefully measured out a teaspoon. I added it to the flour mixture along with a pinch of salt and sifted them together. Time - 11:00 a.m.
Marveling at my own intelligence I opened the freezer where I had safely stored a couple of eggs last month. Horror of horrors! A crack had developed right through the middle of all the six eggs. I emptied the petrified contents of the shell into the milk, in an effort to revive them. For 45 long minutes, I tried every other trick up my sleeve. (In the meanwhile, I decided that six eggs were too many and fished out three of them from the milk. Thank God that they were still rock solid. Had they melted, removing some would have been quite messy!) Ultimately in desperation, I boiled the milk to thaw the eggs. Melt, they did. But just as quickly, they quickly turned into yellow globules floating in the milk, wobbling around indecently. Undeterred, I did a quick odour check. No problem, for now.
"What to do now?" I wondered. Never short of ideas, I took out grandmother’s ancient kadakol (a tool to separate butter from curd) from the cupboard. I added the dry ingredients into the gooey liquid and whisked everything together vigorously. I got something that strongly resembled curdled milk.
"It looks like a Chemistry experiment gone bad," a tiny voice in my mind muttered. I put on a brave front and kept whisking vigorously, spraying the kitchen lavishly with my gastronomical incompetence.
My grandmother, must have got disturbed by the racket in the kitchen. She was sleeping till then, blissfully unaware of my culinary adventures.
"What on Earth is going on here?" Grandmother asked, speeding in to inspect in her immaculate kitchen. She opened her mouth and closed it again immediately. Her eyes became as round as they could get.
"I think you might want to scream at me," I observed dispassionately as she turned a delicate shade of purple. "I can explain. But I'm busy now. Please come back later Grandma."
Maybe that was the last straw. Or maybe that fore-mentioned scream had got stuck somewhere halfway inside her throat. Either way, she gesticulated wordlessly at me. I couldn't care less. Some sort of a mad hungry frenzy had gripped me. I turned around to proceed with preparing my "breakfast".
My poor grandmother quailed at the defiance with which I slammed the pan down on the stove and quickly retired to her bed. Perhaps she decided to reason with me at a time when I was relatively saner.
"Butter" said my notes. I scraped out some butter from within the depths of my fridge and threw it into the pan. There, it sizzled, melted and acquired a rich auburn shade. Quickly, I scooped up a dollop of my sticky lumpy mess and plopped it irreverently onto the pan. The 'pancake' mix spluttered in rage and slowly spread out. I checked my notes, one last time. "Vanilla". I had forgotten that. Never mind…
Half an hour later, I was still waiting for my pancake to get cooked all the way through. It looked like some kind of an alien half-breed. "It had the 'pan' part, all right," I decided, observing the tan it was getting warming on on the pan. But the 'cake' part was conspicuously missing. It looked more like a large brown misshapen uthappam accidentally squashed underfoot by an elephant, rather than the beautiful piece of art that I had seen in the film.
But there is an adamant air that hunger gives you. "It may not be the best pancake in the world, but it’s still my very own signature pancake," I decided as I flipped it onto a plate. Abandoning the World War ravaged kitchen, I clutched my plate and looked lovingly at my pancake – my well-earned medal of honour. Time – 12:30 p.m.
I tore out a piece of pancake and greedily stuffed it into my mouth. Slowly, as the morsel moved down my gullet, my face turned from pink to a faint shade of dirt-green. Grimacing, I swore, "I refuse to hate pancakes..."
