Top 5 Ways To Guide Someone To Cook
Is your husband/friend/brother/sister or anyone you care about, who cannot cook, stuck somewhere in this lockdown with no access to cooked food. With the option of takeaways almost none compounded with the inconvenience and dangers of going out in search of supplies, cooking isn’t just one of the options but the only choice.
Yes, there are thousands of cookery videos in Youtube, guiding one through any dish belonging to any part of the world, but this is not a time for fancy cooking, and for novices, the ingredients and methods would be too overwhelming. What they need now is to feel motivated to cook for an unspecified time frame and at the same time get a good nutritious meal to overcome this calamity.
Here are 5 ways to guide them to cook easy wholesome meals(below illustrations mainly cater to Indian taste buds)
🍽Choose simple recipes-Biryani, though tastes heavenly, could be a demoralizing recipe to start with as even seasoned cooks may get it wrong. Though initially they would feel like cooking up a storm in the kitchen, encourage them to go for simple recipes like dal chawal, vegetable fries, raitas, simple chicken curry, egg curry which would be both filling and have some shelf life.
🍽Keep Roti optional-For those who have never put their hand into flour and the slurry it makes with water before metamorphosing into a firm dough, making Rotis would be quite a task as trust me, it's not for the weak-hearted!! So it would be great if one can lay hands on half-cooked vacuum-packed Rotis available in Indian stores or just go with khakhra which has a long shelf life or slices of bread.
🍽Addressing that hunger pang-With not much to do and with ample time at hand, it is but natural to feel like snacking. To avoid unhealthy spree of munching, they can be guided towards making their own healthy snacks with a little prep like-Black Chana Chat(boiled horse gram with salad vegetables dressed in lemon and chat masala), Mini bread pizzas(bread layered with pizza sauce, onion, capsicum and topped with some grated cheese and cooked on a Tawa in low flame), Masala pappad(vegetable salsa over roasted papad), Vegetable sandwiches or Fried paneer /chicken tossed with onion capsicum and chilly sauce which can make up for a great appetizer.
🍽Using Leftovers- With scarce resources and sometimes just the unwillingness to cook up a full meal, using leftovers would be such a saving grace.
— Leftover rice and chicken curry can be layered with some fried onion and ghee to make a Pulao.
— other options-Tomato rice, Tamarind rice, Curd rice, Jeera rice, Lemon rice.
— stale bread can be cut into pieces and fried with vegetables and topped with some tomato sauce to make into an Upma.
🍽Go for soul-soothing Comfort Food-Its a human tendency to crave for the taste of one's home kitchen at troubled times. Whether it's a Khichdi, kadhi chawal,alu ki sabzi, or a simple suji ka halwa-these are easy dishes requiring very few ingredients and can soothe the soul.
They say “ a balanced diet is a cookie in each hand..” that pretty much says how important good food is in keeping us in good spirits. So reach out to those who need a little push and help them stay healthy and strong in this lockdown.
