Every Thursday we have a different lesson in some aspect of Indian culture. Past weeks we have learned how to do rangoli, intricate art done on the floor using different colored powders, mehindi (henna), or learned about different religious festivals and traditions, etc. This week we had a lesson in Indian cooking. The school of hospitality and hotel management at Manipal hosted a workshop for us, pairing us each with a culinary student to create seven classical Indian dishes. Over hot stoves, chefs shouting orders, and lots of pouring and stirring, we bonded with our student hosts and learned some of the basics of Indian cooking. We made a potato/pomegranate salad, a tomato based soup, paneer tikka masala, a chicken dish, dal palak (lentils and spinach), carrot halwa (a dessert), and biryani rice. What was supposed to take two hours ended up taking maybe four but it was totally worth it! The students were so nice (even when I was so clearly doing something wrong) and it was so fun to learn about and make our own Indian food.
Indian food is so complex and one dish might vary completely every half-kilometer you go. It was easy to see how this was possible, as the chefs would add random extra ingredients to our dishes as they saw fit, deviating from the set recipes, making it impossible for us to replicate the dishes later. But this also demonstrated incredible skill and creativity. In the end the dishes were served on fancy plates and we were able to eat all the incredible food, laughing with our student hosts. Plus we were treated to amazing cakes left over from the students’ baking practical earlier in the day. This was easily the best lesson yet.