Cooking may come naturally to some people (so I think), but I surely am not one of them. No matter how confident I feel while entering the kitchen, the results are not always over the top. Sometimes even the trivial task of making an omelet turns out to be a disaster (but off course only when I am improvising). A few days ago I took up the task to boil some chick peas. I had taken instructions from my mother, but I was still a bit apprehensive about the outcome. To most of you this may seem like the basic of the basic “cooking” task, but for me it was something bigger.
So I set out in the morning by soaking the chick peas in water. Then I went to office. By the time I returned home, in the evening, the chick peas were soft and had swollen nicely. I even chewed a few, just to be sure and was pleased of what went into my mouth.
Then I drained their water, put them in the cooker and poured some fresh water over them. After sprinkling a big pinch (ok maybe a bit more) of salt on them, I tightened the lid and waited for the pressure inside the cooker to be built.
After about 10 minutes, the weights on the cooker started swaying. I knew things were going right so far. I set an alarm for 30 minutes and went to watch some TV. When the 30 minutes were over, I turned off the stove from under the cooker. Oh did I forget to mention I actually turned the stove on too. Had I not done it, only a miracle would have made the cooker weights sway. *giggles*
I left the cooker there, removed the weights and let all the steam escape through the top holes. When I was sure that all the steam was out, I opened the lid. There they were; the nicely boiled chick peas that were just the right amount of tender. I hastily filled a big bowl of those and heartily feasted on them. Any lost confidence of mine in the realm of cooking was replenished with that meal. I am happy and thinking what to “cook” next.
