Let's get cooking!!

I'm watching one my favourite programmes on TV - Saturday Kitchen Live. The whole concept of fresh ingredients and cuisine fascinate me. This programmes shows bits of BBC's cooking shows plus guest chefs prepare some fabulous food in the studio :)

Being the Christmas season, all cooking shows are concentrating on baking cakes. I've never been too successful with baking cakes - except with the packaged flour mix variety. That's hardly any creativity!!

I'm still very good with non-vegetarian items. I can make lovely Chicken curry laced with spices and herbs or even the biriyani. I make spicy fried fish during weekdays and recently made my first kutchi mutton biriyani (rice and meat cooked together with yoghurt and spices).

I'm not a stickler in terms of presentation because it is the taste and aroma of the dish which matter to me. I appreciate some of the beautifully presented food in top-notch restaurants or shown on TV. I remember one of the dishes shown in BBC's Masterchef finals - an appetizer delicately presented inside a smokey glass dome. It looked like heaven in a plate even without tasting.

One of the tastes that I have always enjoyed is Thai. I think that has got to do with my love for coconut milk based curries. I just love the lemon grass, ginger and citronelle flavours that are infused into the perfumed scampi or meat curries. One of my favourite dishes is the Thai green chicken curry.

We used to visit a tiny Thai restaurant near our house. It was small and quiet but always full. The food was of a good quality and the service was good. We still eat from that place but we just order a take away. It's much easier to eat at home with the baby around.

My baby loves our traditional Indian dishes despite having the Belgian fare in the creche during the week. He loves the rice, sambar, dal or yoghurt mixes that we have at home.

This convinces me that our palates are influenced by genetics more than our current conditions. An Asian palate will always be tuned to spices regardless of the geographical location!!