An Evening's Supper

Another day, another evening and time to plan the menu for the dinner. It is just the three of us, nothing special. But still we need to get on with it. I don't know how you feel about tomatoes but it is one of the favorites with my dad. So we always if possible include it in our menu and it is always a pleasure to see him enjoying his meal. Of course we are generally inspired by the dime a dozen cookery shows that appear on television, but it is what we make of a meal in our own way and the finishing touches that we give to our cooking that eventually matters. So, that evening we decided on a dish that would include ripe and red tomatoes, cottage cheese or more commonly known as paneer here, onions, and garlic. You heat up the cooking oil and just whip up this delightful mixture of ingredients and add your dash of spices like turmeric powder, chilli powder and salt to taste. The end result is quite delicious with the tangy taste of tomatoes and the cubes of paneer with garlic giving it body, and enhancing the taste further. Here, I would like to mention that a similar kind of dish forms a part of what is called the Kathiawadi cuisine. The tomatoes form the base of the dish(minus the paneer pieces) but there is an addition of what is called "sev" or a crisp savory item that is used as garnish. So what you have on your plate there is called "sev timater " or tomato. I have had the opportunity to sample this dish recently at a "dhabha" and it turned out to be an all time favorite with all of us. The dhabha is the real place to go if you are looking for wholesome, rich food. The other item on the menu that captured our imagination was the cabbage salad. As the name suggests, it is a crispy salad of cabbage turned in with some oil and the addition of mustard seeds, green chillies, turmeric powder and salt to taste. The thing is to keep this simple with very little of fuss. So, in my opinion cooking is really an art and you have a lot of scope to innovate. Of course, you need to have your confidence about you and the more you go out there and cook, the more sure that you will be about turning in your dishes.