Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: DELICIOUS (02/04/16)
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TITLE: The Empty Pot | Previous Challenge Entry
By D. Michael Newell
02/09/16 -
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We were seated at a table in Sunjay’s Restaurant in downtown Leicester, England. The waiter asked me if I wanted my normal choice for dinner.
“Of course,” I replied
Sunjay’s had the best Chili Mushroom Paneer in all of England. Well, that is, until my wife decided to make some for my birthday. It was a good thing my birthday was a few weeks off. She had never cooked any type of paneer before, but she asked me, “How hard can it be?”.
She went to one of her good Asian friends, known to be a great cook and asked for the recipe. “No problem I’ll give you mine.”
Trudy came home all smiles with Harsha’s recipe.
“Let me see the recipe.” I said.
“Here,” and she handed me the sheet of paper.
I frowned. “This is just a list of ingredients. And it won’t work this way. Harsha must have left something out.” A trick use by a lot of cooks to keep a recipe secret.
“Let me try this, then if you want to play around with the recipe go ahead.”
She knew that I had learned some things about Indian cooking when I helped Atul cater a few weddings. I may not have helped cook, but I did watch the cooks carefully.
She made some the next day as a “practice run”. Sure enough it wasn’t what we wanted. Now it was my turn to fix the paneer. Trudy would make the jeera rice.
I cut down on the chili powder and used some fresh chilies. That made a big difference. But it wasn’t right yet. So a few more tries with adjustments in the chilies and other ingredients, and each time it got a little better.
At last, it was time to try it out on Geeta, one of our Asian friends. Geeta normally ate with us on Tuesdays. She is an excellent cook and would be a good judge of how I was doing. Geeta’s verdict – “Not bad, but you may want to add a little (my secret) just before you serve it”.
I tried it and Wow!! It was better than Sunjay’s.
Our teammates hosted a “shared meal” for our Asian friends on the first Friday of each month. This would be the ultimate test. Would an America making an authentic Asian dish as a contribution to the meal pass the test?
Friday night about twenty-five people gathered for our shared meal at John and Jeanie’s. The various dishes were set up as a buffet and everyone helped themselves to what they wanted. Most of the dishes were Asian cuisine. This included homemade chapattis. Chapattis are served at every meal as some of our Gujarati friends don’t use silverware. After all, fingers were made first.
As the meal progressed people went back for seconds and began to ask who brought the Chili Mushroom Paneer. When told that Trudy and I brought it, they asked Trudy for her recipe.
The look on their faces was priceless when Trudy said “I didn’t make it. Mike did,”.
Then they were all asking me for my recipe. I felt that at last I had perfected the recipe when these ladies were asking me for a recipe for one of their national dishes.
“It’s my secret.” I said
I finally broke down and told them I would make copies and give them the recipe next week when we met at our house for Bible study. The only thing is, in true Gujarati fashion, I left out my secret ingredient.
By the way, that was the first time in years that the hostess didn’t get to try a dish. It was just an empty pot when she went to get her plate.
Two weeks later Gina, Trudy and myself went to dinner at Sunjay’s. When the waiter asked “Do you want the best Chili Mushroom Paneer in all England?”
“You mean the second best,” corrected Gina.
The stunned look on the waiter’s face was one of shock. He knew that Gina was the owner’s wife.
She smiled at him. “You haven’t tasted Mike’s.”
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I want to try it.
Enjoyed it and the 'word' delicious was not used but the feeling of delicious was from the first to the last paragraph.
Blessings~