The First Curry

Today marks an important milestone. I cooked the first proper curry in my life.

I have previously cooked simple food like rice, fried egg, and traditional mashed potatoes (that goes phenomenally well with ghee and rice). But if you grew up in this part of the world, you’d know that those are hardly our regular food.

Much like Indian food, which is more widely known across the world, regular Bangladeshi meal also consists of many different types of curries (both vegetable and meat) made in complex combinations of spices.

To say cooking is a life skill would be an understatement. You never really realize how big of a deal everyday cooking is — which our moms do almost on autopilot, daily — until you’re abroad, on your own, and have to learn cooking.

I took the challenge and was astonished at the number of basic spices that were needed just to make egg curry. But I must say, I’m feeling pretty good having done this rather well.

Since this is the first time I’ve cooked something that looks like actual homemade Bangladeshi food, I thought I’d write about the highlights of this important milestone.

• We — and by we, I mean perhaps the whole Indian subcontinent — use way too many spices. The end result is worth it, but damn! I bought the smallest portions (200g packs) of each spice, and my cupboard is almost full!
• In preparation for learning to cook, I talked to a few people and learned that everyone has different things they like when it comes to cooking. Some people like chopping but hate cooking, while others like cooking but hate cleaning. I found what I dislike the most: Chopping. The knife and the entire chopping board would like to apologize on my behalf for the embarrassingly bad way I chopped onions!
• I somehow managed to put just the right amount of salt!

Of course, this is only the beginning. I bought fresh vegetables and would like to make vegetable curry next week, though I’m dreading the chopping part.

But just the fact something I made turned out to look even remotely similar to the food mom makes felt worth writing about!