New Cookbook Doubles Up As Meal Planner
A new cookbook tries to inspire readers to produce exquisite dinners by reproducing recipes, but it also serves as a meal solution and planner.
It also has numerous amusing anecdotes. The sweetmeat ‘ledikeni’, for example, was called after Lady Canning or Lady Kenny, the wife of the first Viceroy of India during the British Raj. Bhim Chandra Nag, a Kolkata confectioner, created Ledikeni.
Mohanti recommends mutton or vegetable Paniyarams, Radhaballabi, French toast Casserole, fruity soda bread or tomato bread rolls for breakfast and brunch, and Makhmali Gulabi Boti, prawn spring rolls, water chestnut corn, and asparagus spring rolls, beetroot or mutton chop, pudina keema, sheermal, pumpkin mozzarella balls and pepper chili fried chicken to whet the appetite.
Dilli O Dilli, Timeless Traditions, Mughlai Durbar, Kolkata Chronicles, Odisha, Darjeeling Diaries, Konkan Express, Hyderabadi Cuisine, Malabar Sadhya, Parsi & Sindhi Flavours, High on Thai, Moroccan Mazzah, Italian Sojourn, and London Diaries are among the main course meals.
Mohanti claims that her book, published by Rupa, tries to answer the same question every day: “What should I cook today?” “Open a chapter in this book to find the answer.” At the end of each main meal segment, there are menu options produced where the courses are mentioned with the optimum combinations from other sections of the book. “There are options for daily cooking as well as larger gatherings,” she explains.
Importance of menu planning
“The very basis is what will be on your table during a meal. Balance of color, flavor, texture, consistency and the process of creating the perfect synergy between dishes depending on the heaviness or lightness of them,” writes Mohanti, a hotel management graduate.
“More often than not I have come across meals served that are a complete mismatch of regions or flavors, leaving the palette confused. Though my right may not be yours and food is very personal, yet using some basic guidelines can be beneficial,” she argues.
She claims that there is an outpouring of recipes from mothers, relatives, friends, instructors, home staff, and sometimes even people she hasn’t met but whose recipes have been recommended and tried across the book’s pages.
“My task with most of their recipes was to quantify the ingredients as most people cook by instinct,” Mohanti says.
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