Hello boys and girls!
Welcome to cooking with Varun! One of the best things about school, not counting the hours of academic training on things I haven't seen or heard since I graduated the place, was the food. From trading my short break dabba with my mate because I preferred namkeen over jam sandwiches, to rushing to lunch the second the bell rang to eat at least 3 of the 6 pavs from my pav bhaji lunch before the rest of the boys raided it, to running to Hite Bar for the shawarma and the burgers, school was nothing short of a food fest and that doesn't even include all the picnics and the scouts camps!
I remember, as part of scouts, we had games and tasks every Saturday (we also had other boring sessions, but I don't pretend to remember those). One of these tasks was cooking. That's right, 40 13 year old boys with sticks to light a fire, a bunch of ingredients and a dream. A dream to cook up a storm in 3 hours in the shadow of the (often monkey infested) very large shady trees that skirted a section of the sizeable circumference of the school playground. Our 10 man patrol's very ambitious menu was masala stuffed bhindi, chole, fried rice and sooji ki kheer. Now if you've been following this blog you'll know that these aren't the hardest things in the world to cook but swap your cooktop for a tiny burner and a not-hot-enough bonfire, your smartphone with hastily scribbled hand written notes and your kitchen for a dusty playing ground and things get slightly more complicated. Throw in 10 inexperienced cooks into the mix and the ensuing melee is something you won't soon forget!
Things started off well enough.. we allocated tasks to people and got on with it and were going along swimmingly until we were randomly inspected by the scouts master who discovered that the chole we had got were pre-boiled and the veggies were pre-chopped. Not good. After getting an earful for our pre-session efforts, our 3 hour cooking time was dropped to 2. So while the other 3 patrols were going about their merry way, we were in a blind panic. But being the resourceful little ticks that we were, we smashed it with 10 minutes to spare and decided (unfortunately) to taste the results of our labour. Bad idea. The food was about 12 times better than we thought it would be. My fluke bhindi in particular was a massive hit and got passed around more times than a spliff at a hippie bonfire until we realized we had to save some for the scouts masters to be judged! After much grumbling, we managed to set a plate or two apart for the masters and sat there in the grass watching people's ingenius attempts at making jelly using a big hole in the ground and an ice and salt freezing mixture (which worked btw.. it was incredible!) as we waited for the stipulated 3 hours to run out. It was close, but we edged out the jelly boys for the win and as we reveled in the glory of our win, Moti, the PT instructors mongrel, stuck his head into the big patila of sooji ki kheer and gave himself a sugar rush. We couldn't eat it after that, but we'd had our fill and we had the win. The diem had been carpeid.
Today's recipe is a slightly more expert version of the kheer that Moti so happily lapped up and it goes like this..
For Sooji Ki Kheer, you will need the following:
Sooji (semolina) 1 cup
Welcome to cooking with Varun! One of the best things about school, not counting the hours of academic training on things I haven't seen or heard since I graduated the place, was the food. From trading my short break dabba with my mate because I preferred namkeen over jam sandwiches, to rushing to lunch the second the bell rang to eat at least 3 of the 6 pavs from my pav bhaji lunch before the rest of the boys raided it, to running to Hite Bar for the shawarma and the burgers, school was nothing short of a food fest and that doesn't even include all the picnics and the scouts camps!
I remember, as part of scouts, we had games and tasks every Saturday (we also had other boring sessions, but I don't pretend to remember those). One of these tasks was cooking. That's right, 40 13 year old boys with sticks to light a fire, a bunch of ingredients and a dream. A dream to cook up a storm in 3 hours in the shadow of the (often monkey infested) very large shady trees that skirted a section of the sizeable circumference of the school playground. Our 10 man patrol's very ambitious menu was masala stuffed bhindi, chole, fried rice and sooji ki kheer. Now if you've been following this blog you'll know that these aren't the hardest things in the world to cook but swap your cooktop for a tiny burner and a not-hot-enough bonfire, your smartphone with hastily scribbled hand written notes and your kitchen for a dusty playing ground and things get slightly more complicated. Throw in 10 inexperienced cooks into the mix and the ensuing melee is something you won't soon forget!
Things started off well enough.. we allocated tasks to people and got on with it and were going along swimmingly until we were randomly inspected by the scouts master who discovered that the chole we had got were pre-boiled and the veggies were pre-chopped. Not good. After getting an earful for our pre-session efforts, our 3 hour cooking time was dropped to 2. So while the other 3 patrols were going about their merry way, we were in a blind panic. But being the resourceful little ticks that we were, we smashed it with 10 minutes to spare and decided (unfortunately) to taste the results of our labour. Bad idea. The food was about 12 times better than we thought it would be. My fluke bhindi in particular was a massive hit and got passed around more times than a spliff at a hippie bonfire until we realized we had to save some for the scouts masters to be judged! After much grumbling, we managed to set a plate or two apart for the masters and sat there in the grass watching people's ingenius attempts at making jelly using a big hole in the ground and an ice and salt freezing mixture (which worked btw.. it was incredible!) as we waited for the stipulated 3 hours to run out. It was close, but we edged out the jelly boys for the win and as we reveled in the glory of our win, Moti, the PT instructors mongrel, stuck his head into the big patila of sooji ki kheer and gave himself a sugar rush. We couldn't eat it after that, but we'd had our fill and we had the win. The diem had been carpeid.
Today's recipe is a slightly more expert version of the kheer that Moti so happily lapped up and it goes like this..
For Sooji Ki Kheer, you will need the following:
Sooji (semolina) 1 cup
Milk 1 litre
Sugar 8-10 tsp
Almonds small handful
Raisins small handful
Kesar (saffron) a small strand or two (optional)
Cardamoms 5
Prep:
Method:
Prep:
- Turn on the gas.
- Drop the heat to low.
- Bung a pan on.
- Shake in the sooji.
- Toast it until light brown. (You'll smell the toasty goodness!)
- Roughly chop the almonds.
- Soak the kesar strands in a few drops of warm milk.
- Turn on the gas.
- Bung a heavy bottomed pan on.
- Pour in the milk.
- Drop in the cardamoms.
- Watch the milk like a hawk until it boils. (I mean it, you blink too long and you'll have a overflowing milky mess to clean up!)
- Drop the heat to low.
- Slowly add in the toasted sooji. (Stir continuously to avoid lumps.)
- Once all the sooji is in, crank the heat up a notch.
- Add in the sugar.
- Cook for 10-15 minutes. (Stir periodically to keep it from sticking to the bottom of the pan.)
- Toss in the chopped almonds.
- Plop in the raisins.
- Add in the kesar.
- Cook for a few minutes.
- Turn the gas off.
- You can either serve this hot or chilled. (Anything in between is just wrong!)
- Stuff face.
- Bask in the glory of your successfully executed dish.
Tip: I prefer this cold. Makes a great dessert after a heavy meal.
And remember, overeating is a myth. A full tummy is a happy tummy!
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