she is very very special because it was love at first bite with maggi when, in a much awaited and celebrated day in my childhood, my grandmom treated me and my brother to the magic called maggi - we had only seen it in a commercial on our neighbours tv until then. it was an unattainable luxury both my brother and i had only dreamt of and salivated over, and we had to labouriously study to win ourselves a date with maggi as a reward from our grannie. hmmm...on second thoughts, i am not sure whether it was grannie or mom who introduced us to maggi, but that is not important. what is, however is that like any true love, my unabiding passion for this two minute wonder has only grown stronger over the years... not so much for its taste, as for the myriad memories it holds in its delectable curly twists. she is a true soulmate who has stood by me through solitude and company, slim and fat. little wonder therefore that i decided to invoke mother maggi to lift the sagging spirits of my own mom.
since i prefer to make all simple things complicated, i decided to take maggi to another level and give my mom a true gastronomic experience. gastronomic somehow doesnt read right here. why would anyone talk gas when it comes to appreciating food? i dont like the word. but lets consider gourmand. i like the tinge of grandeur in it. yes, gourmand experience. much better. gourmandistic? gourmandic? gourmandanic? gourmandareous? or is it plain simple gourmet? im too excited to get on with the maggi experience to bother even finding out. but you get the idea.
so hold your breath for an invaluable secret is soon to be revealed that promises to turn you all into true blue two minute connoiseurs..heres the closely guarded recipe for gazillions of those who always wondered how maggi is cooked but didnt know who to ask.
rejoice! party!! celebrate!!! you shall soon have the key to maggi's heart.
a quick caveat: i used my phone cam to take these pictures. therefore please remember it isnt a professional who has shot these with a DSLR. ok lets get on. shall we?
like any
i boiled the peas in salted water for couple of minutes
sliced the onions. i like to keep the slices a little thick. i dont know whats with me and thick..really.
i sliced (julienned?) the garlic and green chillies. i love spice, but you be prepared to dial the fire station if you cant stand the heat and still use as many chillies as shown here.
while i chopped these veggies (and also some spinach for dinner), i boiled three cups of water for two maggi packets. i also added a pinch of salt to the water. btw, im thrilled my cam managed to pick up the bubbles in the water.
and now ladies and gentlemen. the star of the dayy...maggi herself!!!!! fyi, this is the economy pack from which i used two slabs of noodles. and i suddenly had an idea (after having taken out the two pieces) that since this post was inspired by insanity, nostalgia and the years of yore , i should show a different side of maggi.
eat your heart out. my cam can shoot black and white pictures too. there she is - my sublime maggi. i realised the gaping end wasnt really looking pretty.
i got this one right. phew..did i tell you i get easily distracted? so back to the historic recipe. for me, today, maggi wasnt the only star. there was someone else who was equally captivating.
this pretty lil lady in the best of blush. i wanted to do justice to her striking beauty, which i think i managed to some extent given the equipment and skill constraints.
the lady in red was so pretty she even had the other lady currently in my house - my sisters german shephard - charmed.
here i have her mesmerised - all with a tomato. see? see? who would have believed me if i had told them without proof. anyhow.. back to the pretty thing in red.
alas. she has to go into the wonderful delicious maggi that needs our immediate attention now. slice the tomato...yes..THICK.
meanwhile i empty the masala packet into the boiling water and since i belong to the middle class, i do something - a habit which no matter how hard i try i havent been able to shake off.
i pour a lil water into the masala sachet... (what you see around the water filter tap is m-seal and in my finger nail is spinach and stains from some green plaintain i had peeled. dont you get any ideas now.)
swirl it around and add it to the boiling water. incidentally, i also do this with milk packets. reserve some masala, about half a tea spoon from the second sachet.
add the broken pieces of maggi
now..if you hadnt seen this picture here, but lets say in a galleria, what would you have thought this was?
as the maggi starts to bubble away in the pan, heat some oil in a kadai. periodically dunk in the curls to ensure even cooking. this is gourmandatory cooking remember? you cannot afford to slip up on such finer details. (i thought of saying girdle instead of kadai. i had the good sense to check out the word on dictionary.com since something didnt sound right about it. im ashamed to admit even griddle would have been incorrect.)
throw in the garlic and green chillies. stir fry for a few seconds...
add the sliced onions..stir fry on high flame for a minute...
the steam hit the phone cam lens and this is what i got. but i like the mystery in this picture...not to mention the delicate hues. mmmm...can you smell the onions and garlic?
now you dont want to fry the life out of those onions. leave some crunch on.
add the tomatoes...
and the boiled peas...wait! what have we got here!!
i earnestly appeal to the government that maggi be declared our national dish
alright you killjoy.. i mix it all up..
add a teaspoon of coriander (dhania) powder and a quarter teaspoon of chilli powder. yes i love chilly, do you have a problem with that?
add some salt and some reserved masala from the second sachet.
stir it all up. not for more than a minute. all this should happen while the maggi noodles have been put to boil. now i have a second masala sachet that needs to be flushed.
swishhhhh. it goes into the boiling noodles.
i use the same slotted spoon for stir frying the veggies as well as cooking the noodles.
throw the cooked noodles (dont mush it up) into the crunchy veggies. you could add capsicum, carrots and cabbage to the veggies as well. and forget the noodles and just have the veggies cos there would be a mountain load of them.
scrape the bottom baby. thats where the goodness lies
give it all a good mix and ready yourself to present her with aplomb
isnt she gorgeous?
my mom's brunch for the day. margaret thatcher.
oh btw i lied about the lady in red. she survived. i didnt have the heart to cut her up. here she can be seen joyfully perching on a jar of vegetable pickle my mom made recently. hear her crooning 'im alive'?
here she is saying a prayer for the martyr who bravely took her place. you realise i can do this all day.. but the noodles will go cold.
that is my mom happily toasting in the sun on the balcony. cucooned in a blanket too.
i take my precious maggi to her..wake her up
she cant figure out for the life of her why i was shooting a picture of her like she was accepting the nobel prize. the fact she had just been woken from deep slumber didnt help much either. i assured her it was just her hand (and more importantly my maggi) that i was interested in shooting.
thats the after-brunch barren look sported by my kadai. middle class value # 2 - dont waste food. not a morsel. though that isnt very different from value #1.
thats the tea that we chased the maggi with. i dont like tea. i drank a lil to give my mom company. aand just in case youre wondering about the lady in red...
i got her introduced to some fellas that i thought she might be interested in hooking up with. look at those chaps now..the lascivious rascals!
its a happy ending for everybody. burp. and amen.
