Plea for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and Vegetables

Imagine a mushroom in a pan as it is tossed about and left to simmer. It first gets coated with a thick layer of oil which then gets soaked in. With time it loses its vital juices, flavor, vitamins and minerals. What is left is a shriveled up, dehydrated mushroom in a gravy, that has drained it of its individuality, a scapegoat for the worst of human sins – Cooking with Indifference!

Every human being, animal and vegetable deserves the right to meet its end, with dignity. Day after day we commit atrocities at the altar of the cooking stove like overcooking, not marinating, not using fresh ingredients and underestimating the complexity of basic cooking techniques. There is still hope for even the most cruel among us, if we follow three simple rules.

The First rule: Respect every ingredient. Know their tolerance for marination and heat, both in terms of intensity and duration. The most important part of cooking takes place even before I have lit the stove. Marination is the process of soaking food in liquid and spices to flavor and to tenderize tougher cuts of meat or harder vegetables. Remember the best juicy tandoori chicken or paneer kebabs you ever had? The one where the juice dripped down the side of your arm. Those were marinaded by the acidic method by using yogurt or lime. The other more efficient method is enzymatic by using papaya or pineapple juice. In fact the best chefs in the world inject the food with the juice using a syringe. This causes the tissue to break down, allowing more moisture to be absorbed and giving a juicier end product. A good marinade will have a delicate balance of spices, acid and oil.

The Second rule: Keep it short and simple. This doesn't mean using short cuts but that the finer rules of cooking are the simplest. Like the polish proverb, ‘Fish, to taste right, must swim three times -in water, in butter, and in wine’ Or for example, ‘Hot pan, cold oil, no stick’. One of the most common mistakes in stir frying is not bringing the vessel to the correct temperature before adding oil. Since the oil isn't hot enough, it gets absorbed into the food, leaving us with a greasy dish and food that sticks to the pan. When a vessel is heated to the right intensity, adding oil creates a thin film that goes into the pores of the metal, creating a "non-stick" effect. The oil then dances easily on the surface of the wok, coats the ingredient and sears its surface as soon as it comes into contact. sealing in the juices and then I continue tossing over a high fire till the meat is cooked to the bone, not a second more. Once you get it right, you will always have tender meat that melts in your mouth and the vegetables crisp yet juicy. You also consume less oil in this method.

The Third: Justify the use of every ingredient and method of cooking. Be it boiling, baking, stewing, steaming, frying, tossing, toasting, roasting, bbqing and my favorite stir frying. Take for example the simple difference between boiling and steaming French beans. Both methods cook the beans with water. But with boiling, the beans loses its water content to the medium and the nutrients follow whereas nothing is lost if the same beans were steamed for the right amount of time. Rice on the other hand absorbs the water in which it is boiled. Therefore I can justify boiling rice, but never vegetables unless I utilize the water in which it is boiled. Good cooking is also a democratic process where every ingredient gets equal representation in terms of flavor without one overpowering the rest of the dish. In this way the chicken doesn't taste like mushroom, the mushroom doesn't taste like baby corn and the baby corn doesn't taste like the neighbour’s cat.

Three rules: Respect every ingredient, keep it short n simple and Justify the use of every ingredient and method. The way I appreciate food extrapolates to every aspect of my life. The rules are the same, respect others, be simple and justify every action. Ladies and gentlemen, the next time you sit to have a great meal, whether it is rich mughali gravy with cashew nuts, currants  saffron sprinkled on top with fluffy butter chulchas, Chinese stewed rice with stir fried broccoli  bamboo shoots and mushrooms in oyster sauce or as you lift your spoon with heavenly orange mousse, with walnuts cherries while the chocolate sauce drips into the whipped cream below remember that cooking is an art that is built on the foundation of pure science and who you choose to share your meal with is as important as the meal itself.

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French chef Bernard Pacaud: "To me, the only real adventure is in the ingredient, in its identity; the china plate must not be more attractive than the dish prepared. Everything goes through the senses: you have to touch, listen to an ingredient in order to understand it."