FROM A BOILED EGG TO BUTTER CHICKEN: My Culinary Evolution

I never really understood the importance of learning how to cook until I was in the university, at the ripe old age of seventeen, holding a semi boiled egg up to my ear shaking it, listening for any swishy sounds, questioning just how long I had let it boil and if, that was enough at all. This would be my first ever real attempt at cooking something, since when I was young my mother would always cook and always kick me out of the kitchen. Nothing changed too much after I got married with the first meal I ever cooked for my husband, a miserable attempt at fries and rice. Having not heated the oil for very long the sliced potatoes turned out more like a cake than any form of fries that anyone has ever seen.

The rice was also a cakey mixture which dared the bravest of us to give it a try. Forget elaborate Indian dishes, I was having trouble cooking the most basic things when I got married.  Today however, I can cook for over forty people with a variety of over twenty Indian traditional dishes, an almost unbelievable feat. My Butter chicken especially is sought after by various family friends. Looking back, had I known even the tiniest thing about cooking twenty odd years ago, perhaps my first meal with my husband would have been more filling and less humorous for the both of us.