This story skips ahead in the narrative of this site, but it seems like a something of a milestone to me, so I wanted to document it while the events were still fresh in my mind.

So much of what I have written here about my cooking revolves around the quest to improve my skills and the struggles I have faced in doing that. As I have suggested, in the past few years, I slowly moved past trying to strictly re-create restaurant cooking and finally have embraced home cooking. This I found has allowed me to judge my cooking more objectively rather than wondering why my dishes taste so different than how I remember them from a restaurant many years ago.

With that change in mindset, I started to recognize that my cooking actually has improved over the past few years, and I am enjoying eating what I make even more than I used to. Practice, as the old adage goes, makes perfect. Right? Actually…I still consider it a work in progress. While the good nights have been more numerous, there are still some off-nights. But overall I have gained more confidence in my abilities.

Aram’s Spiced Creations

By 2022 I had garnered enough faith in my kitchen activities that I boldly decided that for Christmas I would create gifts out of three different gravies that I had been making during the past year. Thus was born Aram’s Spiced Creations, my very private label. And my gambit was successful! The gravies came out well, and I received some words of encouragement.

For the next two years I expanded to new categories including a few desserts. While most of the items in the gift basket were recipes that I had made successfully for myself during the preceding year (including a few of my own creations), a few I was audaciously trying to cook for the first time. What could go wrong? Thankfully, not much! Nearly all of them came out well, although my first (and second!) attempts at Mango Burfi was not what I would consider a rousing success. Even so, it tasted good.

Each successive year this project got more involved. It would take a significant portion of December for me to: decide what to make; do practice runs; create labels; write up an info sheet; and finally do the actual cooking. Because most of the gifts had a shelf life to consider, they could not be prepared too far in advance. Therefore, most of the week prior to Christmas found me consigned to the kitchen. To help juggle all the balls successfully, I took time off of work so I could focus on the task at hand. By Christmas, I was quite tired of cooking!

Decisions and Planning

As November progressed towards Thanksgiving this year, my thoughts turned to what “Spiced Creations” I could make. For a few weeks, I was hitting a wall; nothing seemed to click. I also was a bit unsure about what I should bring to our family Christmas celebration. In the past most of my family found my side dishes “too spicy” (a.k.a too much chili), so for the past several gatherings I had opted to bring some sort of appetizer which presented less of an assault to their taste buds.

Although I was happy to come up with something for the Hor d’oeuvres again, many others in the family often have the same thought, and we wind up with far too many choices to pick from. Instead, I decided to try a side dish again, but carefully monitor the chili. Over the past few years I had found a few simple zucchini dishes where the heat could be tamed quite easily. After settling on one of them, I did a (successful) test run.

I was still stuck on the “Spiced Creations” part though. Whatever I made had to be easily transported; ready to eat (one of my brothers does not cook — at all); and of course interesting. One additional consideration was that it could not be a repeat of a previous year. I’m not sure I remember exactly how I determined the finalists this year, but after much consideration, I settled on Almond Burfi and Masala Vadas.

I had made Masala Vadas a few times from a recipe in the Dakshin cookbook and they are a favorite snack of mine. Making them, however, requires a fair amount of work. I checked other recipes online, but found most to be quite similar to the one in my book, except that a few included fennel seeds which I thought was an interesting idea.

Almond Burfi, however, presented more of a challenge. I had never made it before, and it had actually been a few years since I had even eaten any. I searched for recipes online (but curiously not in my cookbooks), and eventually found three to work from. While I was not too worried about making the vadas, I knew that I would need to make the burfis at least once prior to Christmas. The directions were so simple that I was worried there might be a catch, especially since I do not make sweets very often. My test run turned out pretty well, but not without issues, so I took note.

The Countdown Begins

I began my vacation on the Friday before Christmas (I needed to use vacation days, so the timing was perfect). I had set a very ambitious agenda for the following week and there was too much to do. While I was a bit worried that I had overdone it this year, I was determined to meet the schedule head on and see where it landed. To diminish my anxiety, and help me organize all my projects, I created a cooking schedule to try to keep me on track. It is a good thing I did!

I needed to prepare the “Spiced Creations” gifts for my brothers and cousins; prepare the labels and info sheet; make the side-dish for the family celebration; cook dinner for myself to last two weeks while I was on vacation; cook poha for breakfasts; make salad; cook dal for lunches. Whew! To accomplish all this would require me to stick to the schedule with no deviations. There was no room for error!

Friday, Dec 19th

As my vacation commenced, my carefully planned schedule was immediately upended. The weather forecast had been for rain, and a lot of it. My task for that day had been to go to the Indian grocery stores in Waltham to shop for all the ingredients that I could not find elsewhere. However, I did not want to be carrying all the groceries back in the rain, so in despair, I canceled the trip. Later that day despair turned to anger when the rain turned out to be not so bad save for a short burst in the late morning. (I will leave my thoughts about “Tabloid Weather Forecasts” to the side for the moment.)

Luckily, I was prepared for this turn of events. I had been monitoring several weather forecasts with a wary eye for the past week. And just in case, I had decided to create an alternate cooking schedule which turned out to be as tightly packed as the original and likewise left little room for error. This alternate schedule was to be the way forward, so I set to work.

No sooner had I started to cook, than an unwanted visitor came a-calling. The infamous Mr. Murphy let himself into my kitchen and tried to disrupt my cooking. As a consequence, one of the first things I made — Dabeli Nuts — did not succeed on the account of oil; too much of it! The nuts would need to be done again since they were slated as gifts. Thankfully the dal and poha I made that day both turned out OK. I was not worried, but told myself: No more screw-ups! You don’t have the time.

Sunday, Dec 21st

Because I had plans for Saturday, I was not able to return to my schedule until Sunday. That day was busy. I rose early and headed to Waltham for my rain-delayed shopping excursion and returned home around lunch time. After lunch, I immediately entered the kitchen to start cooking. I needed curry leaves, a bunch of coriander and chilis for some of the recipes, so I began by preparing those ingredients.

I had planned to make two dishes for dinner during my vacation. The first, Paneer Achari came off without a hitch. It is a recipe that I have been making for a long time, and I still like to experiment with it occasionally (although not this time). The second, Gatte Subji, is one I combined from two different sources and have been modifying for awhile trying to find the right combination.

Today the gatte dough (dumplings) came together better than usual, and I was feeling positive. I put water on to boil, and started to roll the dough into cylinders. Once the water was boiling, I dropped the cylinders in, and began to prepare the ingredients for the gravy.

But, wouldn’t you know it, Mr. Murphy snuck back into my kitchen and tapped me on the shoulder! While I had been busy mixing yogurt and spices, the gattes had finished cooking, and left unattended, the water had foamed up and was about to to boil over! Luckily I caught it just in time. I had not read the directions closely enough (“When water is boiling, reduce heat and carefully add gatte to pan”).

Luckily, I was able to send Mr. Murphy on his way. Although the gattes were covered with foam and in danger of falling apart, I was still able to cut them into nuggets which I added to the gravy. Amazingly they held together and actually had a better texture than usual. Aside from that near miss, the dish came out quite well.

Monday, Dec 22

Thankfully I was not yet rattled as I settled down to make the vadas on Monday. I double-locked my door, and left a stern note for Mr. Murphy admonishing him not to return. It had been awhile since I last made Masala Vadas, and I was making a double recipe, so I planned to take my time.

I started by soaking the dal for a few hours. Next, I made sure I had all the ingredients cut, measured and ready to mix in. My next challenge was to grind the dal to the proper texture; one that would allow me to shape vadas into patties that would hold together when cooking. My Vidiem “mixie” came through like a champ grinding the dal perfectly in three batches. I mixed in the fresh ingredients, began to shape the vadas and slipped them into a frying pan to cook. I only deviated from the recipe by pan-frying instead of deep-frying them, but they came out great! It just took awhile to cook them all.

Tuesday, Dec 23

Hitting the home stretch, I needed to prepare the zucchini side dish, the almond burfi and the Dabeli Nuts again. The nuts were the easiest of the three, and I was careful with the oil this time. They came out great, and I set them aside to cool.

Next I turned to the zucchini, which is an easy enough dish that I have often made for myself. This time, I wanted to make some changes. First and foremost, I did not add the green chili from the recipe. I was very careful when measuring out the Kashmiri chili powder and also reduced the salt a bit. I wanted a thicker gravy since it would be served with many other dishes. So as a thickener, I ground one medium onion and sautéed it until it began to brown. Then I added chopped red onion, garlic and ginger. I also let the gravy simmer for longer than normal to reduce the liquid before I added the zucchini.

I was very happy with how this dish came out, and couldn’t help but scrape the pan for the last caramelized bits. On Christmas Day, this dish was well received, with no complaints that it was too spicy. One of my brothers even commented that there was room to for more chili.

In a last minute add to my crowded cooking schedule, I decided I should to make my overnight oats recipe for breakfasts later that week. I mean why not? When there’s too much to do, just add something else! Luckily, this was very simple to put together (oatmeal, cardamon, almond milk and a bit of kewra water), and was completed in 15 minutes with no drama. Nice!

That left the Almond Burfi; also easy, but not exactly simple! And I guess I forgot to double-lock the door, because guess who showed up for dessert? Yep, our old friend Mr. Murphy. When making burfi, one of the challenges is to make sure it cooks long enough, or it will not set correctly and be to soft. I had not made burfi enough times to tell when it is done. Consequently, I was left with a sticky mass of dough when I emptied the contents of the pan on the parchment paper to cool. Nevertheless, I rolled it out, garnished it with pistachios and cut it after letting it cool for a few hours. As I suspected, it was soft, sticky, and not quite right; but it tasted good. Nevertheless, I would need to make this again and time was running out!

Wednesday, Dec 24

My original plan had been to just make salad, but not cook anything else on Christmas Eve. Thanks to Mr Murphy, my well-laid plans had been scuttled. I was going to have to make another batch of the burfi! Since it was the last thing I had to do, I relaxed, had lunch and then set up to make the burfi yet one more time — this time very carefully! One of the recipes has a test for determining when the burfi is done, which I made use if. I carefully examined how the dough changed character in the pan as I was cooking. It took quite a bit longer then the recipe said it would, but this time it came out right! I was able to spread it out smoothly, garnish it and cut it into squares.

Later that afternoon, I completed cutting and applying labels to the plastic containers I was using to deliver the burfi and vadas as gifts and finally was done!

And In The End

After all the work (and snafus), I had a few reasons to smile. I realized that even though I still face challenges to my cooking, I now have enough experience to know how to recover from mistakes. Because they happen! Also I have developed enough intuition that I know how to modify a recipe such as the Zucchini Curry to meet a specific requirement and come up with good results. Looking back even five years ago, I would not have had that confidence to overcome the issues I ran into, and also, the results would not have been as good as they have been recently. Now if I could just find a way to lose Mr Murphy…