Saturday, June 02, 2007

One Page Cookbooks

One page cookbooks offer a new, easy way to look at cooking.

For the reluctant cook
They are designed for the”don't-wanna-but-gotta-cook" people. No cooking terms are used and no knowledge is assumed on the part of the reader. The presentation is non -threatening. There are no complicated steps, no exact measurements and nothing to memorise.

Learn one recipe – Cook a thousand more
Each recipe is broken into three easy parts- The base, the flavouring and the additives. These are prepared separately, then mixed and cooked together. This way, the chances of going wrong are minimised. Since all recipes follow this exact format, learning one recipe lets one cook thousands of other recipes.

A thousand recipes ?
The table lists recipes starting from 000 to 999 - a total of 1000 recipes. There is a recipe corresponding to each number, and many of them have never been cooked before - you have a chance to invent your own a unique recipe. In fact the table lists not just 1000 recipes, but 9!*9!*9! ( read Nine factorial cubed). You won't run out of recipes anytime soon !

Easy to refer
One page cookbooks are designed for easy reference. Hang it in the kitchen and thousands of recipes are right there, in front of you!


Focus on creativity, not manual skill
The core idea is to encourage creativity by not focusing too much on details or on manual skill. All recipes demanding a good deal of manual skill have been avoided. Only simple, easy to cook recipes are listed.

Cook on the first try
All recipes are designed to be cooked by a novice on the very first try. That said, this cookbook does not promise to create an overnight chef. The chief goal is to keep it simple, which occasionally leads to oversimplification. However I find it useful, when stuck with a cook's eternal question - What do I cook today ? I hope you do too.

1001 Kerala curries


Kerala Curries

Kerala curries are built on Coconut and Yogurt. Unlike North Indian curries, Milk /cream/ nut paste are not used as a curry base. Heavy use of coconut, fish, use of raw curry leaves and raw coconut oil for flavouring, Low use of Tamarind unlike other south Indian cuisines, use of Coconut oil for cooking & use of vegetables like raw banana and raw jackfruit, breadfruit ( kadachakka) are unique to Kerala curries.

0.0.0: Tomato Pulissery

Prepare base as per point 0 & flavouring as per point 0. Add a handful chopped tomato. Cook as per the master recipe.


1.1.1 Olan (Beans and pumpkin in yogurt-coconut curry)
Prepare base as per point 4 & flavouring as per point 1. Add half a handful of raw chopped pumpkin. Cook as per the master recipe.

2.0.0 Pulinkari (Tamarind curry)
Prepare base as per point 5 & flavouring as per point 0. Add a handful of chopped and boiled raw bananas and cook as per the master recipe.

3.8.0 Aviyal (Mixed vegetables in yogurt curry)
Prepare base as per point 3 & flavouring as per point 8. Mix all with half a handful of boiled mixed vegetables. Add half a spoon raw coconut oil and serve. No need to cook any further.

4.0.0 Plantain Erissery (Banana cooked in coconut gravy)
Prepare base as per point 1 & flavouring as per point 0. Add a handful of chopped and boiled raw bananas. Cook as per the master recipe.

5.7.0 Kalan (Yam cooked in Coconut – Onion gravy)
Prepare base as per point 2 and flavouring as per point 0. Add half a handful each of cubed and boiled yam. Cook as per the master recipe.

6.7.2 Keera Mulagootal (Spinach and lentil curry)
Prepare base as per point 6 & flavouring as per point 7. Add a handful of chopped spinach. Cook as per the master recipe.

Food Consultancy / Licensing / Crash Courses

Contact siramki@gmail.com for complete Food consultancy from concept to completion.

Customised one page cookbooks now available for pressure cooker / microwave / mixie / masala & other cooking product manufacturers. Replace bulky recipe books with easy to refer One page cookbooks and watch your sales soar !

Twecipies

Cooking is fun - Duplication is a pain !

"It is extraordinary to me that the idea of creating thousands of recipes by mixing building blocks takes immediately to people or it doesn’t take at all. .... If it doesn’t grab a person right away, ... you can talk to him for years and show him demos, and it doesn’t make any difference. They just don’t seem able to grasp the concept, simple as it is". ( Thanks Warren Buffett !)

"What's angering about instructions in many cookbooks is that they imply there's only one way to cook a dish - their way. And that presumption wipes out all the creativity." Cook dishes your way - Download  1001 South Indian curries now and learn to cook, not to duplicate ! ( Thanks Robert Pirsig !)

"Recipe purity is no different from racial purity or linguistic purity. It just does not exist. Cuisines are alive and change all the time. What is traditional today was esoteric just a few decades back. So being a 'foodist' is as bad as being a racist !

About Me

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Chennai, Tamilnadu, India
Okay, let me start from the very beginning. 1500 crore years ago, with a Big Bang, the Universe is born. It expands dramatically. Hydrogen forms, contracts under gravity and lights up, forming stars. Some stars explode, dusting space with the building blocks of life. These condense into planets, one of which is Earth. Over time, self replicating molecules appear, multiply and become more complex. They create elaborate survival machines (cells, plants, animals). A variety of lifeforms evolve. Soon, humans arise, discover fire, invent language, agriculture and religion. Civilisations rise and fall. Alexander marches into India. Moguls establish an empire. Britain follows. Independence. Partition. Bloodshed. The license raj is in full sway. I'm born. India struggles to find its place. Liberalisation. The Internet arrives! I move from Tirupur to Chennai. Start a company. Expand into Malaysia, Singapore and the Middle East. Poof! Dot com bust. Funding dries up. Struggle. Retire. Discover the joy of cooking, giving, friendships and the pleasures of a simple life. Life seems less complicated. Pizza Republic, Pita Bite and Bhojan Express bloom !

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