Yesterday, I made honey-chicken from a recipe I found online. Once I had seen the video, I kept the phone aside and made it from memory. It was simple enough with limited ingredients. Easy-peasy one would say.

If there are too many ingredients and/or steps involved, I normally keep the recipe, either written or in video form, close by, and refer to it at frequent intervals. I mean, I do have a fairly good memory, but will still go back to the recipe in between cooking for absolutely no reason whatsoever that I can imagine!

In the case of the honey-chicken though, I firmly kept the phone aside for charging so it wouldn’t be anywhere near me for me to be tempted to take a look. I had already noted how it was made and was definitely not going back to check and recheck this time.

Don’t worry. No disasters happened. It came out as perfectly as predicted. As soon as it was done, the ‘taster-in-chief’ at home (the L&M) was called over to ‘taste’ a morsel of the finished product and give his verdict. One look at his face and I knew it was a success. A grand success at that.

That reminds me…

Recipes and the measure of ingredients that went into each was something that I followed TO THE LETTER while still a newbie cook. When mother said we could do without something or replace it with something else, I’d get all hot and bothered. I was going to make it EXACTLY as it says in the book, I’d declare.

Nowadays though, a lot has changed in this attitude of mine. Only when I am trying out something absolutely new do I stick to the recipe, and that too only the first time around. The next time I make it will usually have improvisations as demanded by the situation at hand or my own creativity.

After decades of cooking, compromise (and creativity) comes easier. One has learnt that things can be switched and substituted. Though the end product may sometimes turn out a trifle different, it is not the end of the world and will still taste good.

Recently, the First Born asked me for the recipe of the Malayalee chicken stew. Practically all recipes are available online, but I was with him at the time, so he asked me. I began recounting. He stopped me halfway through. ‘Can you tell me the exact measure of the spices and other ingredients?’ he asked.

I stared at him blankly. I have been making the dish so often that everything is on the lines of ‘a little of this’ ‘a little of that’ ‘a little more of this’ ‘a little less of that’. I admitted my helplessness at giving precise measurements. Not offhand anyway. Forty years of cooking has put me on auto-mode for things made frequently at home.

He threw up his hands in despair. Just kidding. He didn’t, not being the dramatic kind. Instead he looked at me thoughtfully and said that his mother in law, a super cook by the way, says the same thing. ‘A little of this’, ‘a little of that’… and all the rest. I actually heaved a sigh of relief on hearing this because obviously I was beginning to feel inadequate and guilty. It pleased me to know there exist others like me.

Ironically enough, mother came to my mind right then. I remembered how years back I had been miffed with her because she couldn’t give me the exact measurements for recipes of daily fares. ‘How can you not know the precise measurements?’ I had asked her, annoyed. ‘You have been making these dishes for years and years!’

Sigh. Now, I know.

Life had indeed come a full circle.

©️ Shail Mohan 2025