Is scratch cooking a lost art?
If you compare the meals served in many of the kitchens today to meals served years back, there is one very big difference. Nearly every meal has come from a box, bag, or pouch. Take breakfast, for example. Did you have toast? If so, did you make the bread? Cereal? One of those little packs of oatmeal, all flavoured up and just waiting for you to add water? Did your breakfast originate in the freezer?
If you do a quick survey of your own kitchen, you may be surprised at what you find. I discovered that the best way to clean up my act was to focus on cooking only from scratch. Now, my kitchen has only a few holdouts, most of which are there for food storage purposes.
Some of the most common processed items that “sneak in” are dairy and grain products, bread, yogurt, and pasta. None of these would be incredibly difficult to make, but they are time-consuming. In a world that is ever-increasingly geared towards convenience, few people take the time to roll out noodles or bake cookies these days. Birthday cakes come from the bakery, cookies come from a bag with a convenient tab to reseal it, and bread comes from a shelf at the grocery store, so perfectly uniform that if you put it back and mixed all the loaves up, you’d never find the original loaf. All of this easy-access food has taken a deeper toll than you might imagine.
A toll on our health, our ability to make the simplest item on our own, the time we spend with our families, to the next generation, when we fail to teach them the arts that are vanishing as our grandparents pass away. I still remember my grandmother used to cook fresh snacks from scratch when we return from school.
Cooking from scratch is actually an analogy for today’s society. Scratch cooking is easier than it seems. Media is partly to blame for making it seem difficult to actually cook.
The Nadan dishes from Kerala are prepared scratch mainly using the locally available ingredients. In Nadan cuisine, spices play an important part. The main spices used are black pepper, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, cloves, garlic, cumin seeds, and coriander, turmeric and green and red chillies
Nadan lamb curry
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 40 minutes
Serves: 4
Ingredients:
Lamb, cut into medium pieces – 500 gms
Turmeric powder – 1/2 tsp
Ginger/ garlic paste – 1 tsp
Green chilies, sliced – 1 Shallots, sliced – 1/2 cup
Curry leaves – 1 or 2 sprigs
Water – as required
Mustard seeds – 1/4 tsp
Curry leaves – 1 or 2 sprigs
Green chilies, sliced – 1 or 2
Ginger, julienned – 1″ piece
Garlic, sliced – 3 large cloves
Onion ,thinly sliced – 1 cup( 1 large)
Coconut, sliced – 2 to 3 tbsp
Kashmiri chili powder – 1/4
Tomato, chopped – 1/4 cup
Coconut oil – 1 tsp
Salt – to taste
Oil – as required
To roast and grind:
Dry red chillies – 4 ( see notes)
Coriander seeds -1 and 1/2 tsp
Cinnamon – 1/2″ piece
Cumin seeds – 1/2 tsp
Fennel seeds – 1/2 tsp
Cloves- 2
Black peppercorns – 1/2 to 3/4 tsp
Method:
1) Heat a heavy bottomed pan and dry roast all the ingredients listed under – To roast and grind – stirring continuously for 2 to 3 minutes.
2) Allow this to cool completely and grind to form a fine powder.
3) In a pressure cooker add the prepared masala powder, lamb, turmeric powder, ginger-garlic paste, one green chili, shallots , curry leaves ,salt to taste and sufficient amount of water( about 3/4 to 1 cup).
4) Cook until lamb is done. (For best result, cook covered in a heavy bottomed pan for about 45 to 60 minutes.). Set aside.
5) Heat oil in a clay pot or in a pan. Add mustard seeds and let it splutter. Add curry leaves, green chilies, ginger and garlic. Sauté for few seconds.
6) Add onion and sliced coconut . Cook until onion turns soft, stirring frequently, add chopped tomato and mix well.
7) Cook until tomato turns mushy. Add kashmiri chili powder, and sauté for about 1 minute.
8) Add the cooked lamb along with the stock into the onion mixture. Add more salt if required.
9) Cover and cook over medium flame for about 10 to 12 minutes or until gravy turns thick. Finally add 1 tsp coconut oil and few curry leaves, switch off the stove. Serve with rice.
I am with you! I make most food from scratch, even our bread. But, I do have a lot of kitchen toys. That definitely makes it easier to cook from scratch.
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Very true!! Even making bread at home is easy if you tried. How many of us make fresh mayonnaise at home? With more toys in kitchen you could make this game more cheerful!!
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as a Malayalee, I love all nadan dishes and devour on it. the nadan lamb curry looks yummy!
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Aha Malayani aanalee.. Nadan dishes are my ever time favourite too..Thanks for the compliment gloria😊
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🙂
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I completely agree with your notion regarding made from scratch…in all honesty, though, I have the time. I can understand how women with full-time jobs, kids, and a household to take care of may not have the same luxury. But all in all, I agree – our society pays a price for the convenience, health-wise, and with loosing local/national traditions and flavors. It will be a sad world when kids won’t know what a freshly baked, from scratch, fresh out of the oven loaf of bread is like – compared to the tasteless, full of preservatives thing that comes out of a plastic bag.
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Very true Danubee. I would blame our busy environment. Really sad for the kids having these food with preservative. Every thing comes in jars and bottles.
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Dear Sumith, I have nominated you for the Sunshine Blogger Award. I love your blog, and I sincerely hope you accept the nomination. You can see the rules in my post Sunshine Blogger Award https://koolkosherkitchen.wordpress.com/2016/07/17/sunshine-blogger-award/
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Thank you Dolly. I will check it and post:))
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Sumith, you more than deserve it! Your recipes are great and your food art is fantastic! More people should see and appreciate your work.
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You deserve it more than me with your amazing posts.
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I honestly don’t know what you find amazing, but thank you! I wish I could learn your amazing food art, but for that you have to be a real artist!
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Dolly if I can do it, anybody can do it. It’s all about ones passion and interest:))
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As a proud Malayali I love your blog! Amazing photos!
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Thank you Ro for stopping by:))
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Lovely> And I love the small portion size served with a salad 🙂
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Indu, thanks for the compliment:))
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Another fantastic tasty inviting looking recipe! Yum yum yum,…beautifully presented too! 🙂
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Thank you for your generousity!! Sophie
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Looks so yummm 🙂
Your blog is filled with wonderful recipes and mouthwatering pictures. Thank you so much for following me and letting me know about your amazing space Sumit. Hope I can learn something new from a trained chef 😊.
Keep up the good work…see you around!
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I been to your blog, too much to explore there. And thanks for stopping by. Hope to see you with much more interesting recipes:)) thank you Nadi
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You welcome 🙂
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Hi Sumith – Thanks for a great Saturday Night tea! I’ve re-blogged your post Nadan Curry and added a couple of photo’s of my version. Hope that’s ok? Lovely meal and very much appreciated! x Hope your having a great weekend! x
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Thank you Wendy for the feed back. Happy to know you had a great meal. It’s my pleasure sharing some good recipes. Enjoy the week end:)) And thanks for the link you have shared, it’s “power packed” I would say.
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And I’m looking forward to testing out some more. I need to have a trip to Levenshulme to pick up some fresh curry leaves and some other fresh ingredients I think… Glad you enjoyed the link – yep ‘Power Packed’! x
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At times me too do shopping at Levenshulme. I prefer more at wilmslow road in Rusholme. Explore Wendy much more gems to get caught:))
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oooo – perfect – Rusholme it is! x
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Loved the intro…very true..as I reflect back on what you described, it’s true that scratch cooking is nearly vanishing ..a nice concept and an awesome dish..😊👍
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Thank you Neethu. It’s true scratch cooking is nearly vanishing.
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Tempting looks…well done!!
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Thank you Anu.
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Looks and sounds simply amazing!
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Thank you!!
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Glad you like it!!
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Very true Sumith, we indeed try to buy all the pre packed stuff. Think laziness creeping in or the lifestyle to blame. But I can say after I had started to blog I am venturing on trying to make things from scratch. Coming to the recipe you have shared looks so delish. Would try them sometime. I have seen some of the recipes from Nadan’s blog. But never put my hands on. 👍🏼
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Meena, I would blame the life style. Wide variety of curry sauces are readily available in the market now a days. Even ginger garlic paste to frozen eggs are available.
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Hey Sumith! Wow! Nadan Mutton curry….my favorite! I happen to often visit a mallu restaurant in SG with hubby and friends….mallu food is by far our most favorite food on earth…we are not mallus though! 😀 I always wondered how they make everything “Nadan” 😉 ….Thanks so much for the recipe! Looks yumm! 🙂
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I am glad you like kerala foods. And thanks for the compliment:)
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We are definitely going to be having this for our tea on Saturday night – which is normally our ‘curry night’ – can you make it the day before? As for breakfast – I’ve been on an ‘egg fest’ as part of my new ‘healthy scratch diet’ however, for the last week or so I feel like I’m ‘egg max’d’ so am on the yoghurt and fresh fruit for a change.. Sounds delicious and I’m looking forward to making it! x
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Hi Wendy I prefer to make the gravy the day before. And cook the meat in the gravy on the day. The flavour extract from the spices if you cook it the day before. Let me know once you made it:)
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Fab – I’ll try it that way and of course I’ll let you know how successful I was.. Fingers x
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What a mouthwatering recipe Sumith! I love the idea of the clay pot too.I agree whole heartedly that making food from scratch tastes the best!
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Cooking in claypot gives a better flavour. Thank you for the comment sandhya
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This curry looks great..we were in Kerala (Bekal) a couple years ago and the chef at our resort showed me how to make a chicken Nadan curry..It’s become a fav at home now…great share!!
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Thanks you shy:)
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My sibling to my mother “I have bought a packet of her enemy. Hide it”
M: Enemy. which one?
S: my friend, the ginger-garlic paste. She makes it from scratch!
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That’s my enemy as well in my fridge:))
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Totally agree with you, Sumith. We try to make as much as possible from scratch, but packaged/ ready made food and ingredients do inevitably creep in.
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I would blame our life style and the media; Sophie😊
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