Rainy Days...

So… It’s very cold in London but I’m loving every minute of it. The cool crisp morning air as I make my journey to university, the walk from the cold into the lovely warmth and the slurping on the frothy hot chocolates. Winter for my family means to create all that comfort food to enjoy the weather as much as possible. For example, during the rainy days, it is Pakistani tradition to have onion bhajis and hot chai.

When it is raining, this is the food to eat!

We do have a pretty weird but interesting relationship with food and weather! And so I began reading about the relationship between both food and weather and came across an article on everydayhealth.com. It said that “researchers suspect cool weather may trigger an evolutionary relic inside us to fatten up to survive tough environmental conditions, the way many other animals do. One study published the journal Nature found that participants did consume an average of 86 more calories per day in fall, compared with spring, and ate more fat and saturated fat in the winter months.”

Isn’t it cool how there is such an amazing relationship between food and weather? According to this article, we are more likely to eat more in winter and call it ‘comfort food’. This type of food in Pakistani Cuisine consists of so many different dishes. I recently visited my aunt, and I had an extremely cold journey to her house. With my aunt being amazing, she had made some lovely Lamb Mince and Potato Cutlets to have with our tea. The flavour of the potatoes, blended with the seasoned minced meat and was wrapped in a crispy breadcrumb coating. It just reminded me of the cold, exciting winters over the years, as this was a traditional food to have during the current season. This was indeed a recipe she had learnt from my grandma. But no matter what, my family could never get it to be the same as my grandma’s cooking.

It’s like how Jaspreet Singh says in his novel, Chef: A Novel

“The beauty is embedded in my brain. It is the kind that cannot be shared with others. Most important things in our lives, like recipes, cannot be shared. They remain within us with a dash of this and a whiff of that and trouble our bones.”

I can totally agree with this statement as no matter how hard my family try to follow my grandma’s recipes, it never tastes the same as hers. Singh is discussing the difficulties that come with following the recipes in the same way as the original chef. He claims that it “remains with us”, so there is little possibility for somebody else to come and cook the same dish completely in the same way. But I believe that food is something that requires practice. My family have been cooking for a long time now but I also know they have a long way to go to be a great chef like my grandma!

Here’s the recipe, why not try it for yourselves!

(Serves 12)

Ingredients:

Lamb Mince Filling:

1kg Lamb Mince

1 large Onion

1 tablespoon of grated ginger

1 table spoon of chopped garlic

1 tablespoon of cumin seeds

1 tablespoon chopped green chilli

2 chopped tomatoes

2 tablespoons oil

Salt to taste

Potato:

3 large potatoes to be boiled and mashed

Salt to taste

Method:

1.     In a saucepan, add the lamb mince with all ingredients for the mince filling.

2.     Add some water, 1 cup should be okay. More can be added later if required.

3.     Allow the lamb mince to boil until it becomes dry and becomes brown.

4.     After you have boiled the potatoes and mashed them, take a bit of the potato in your palm and make it flat into a round shape. Add some of the lamb mince filling and then add more potato on top to create a round flat patty.

5.     Keep making these till the filling is all used up

6.     In two bowls, beat an egg in one and add some breadcrumbs in the other.

7.     Heat some oil in a pan

8.     Coat the patties one at a time in the beaten egg and then coat in the breadcrumbs

9.     Shallow fry in oil on both sides until golden brown and serve immediately!

Grandma’s tip: You can even freeze the patties and have them another day!

All for me!

Reference: 

https://www.everydayhealth.com/diet-nutrition/why-do-we-eat-more-in-winter.aspx

Singh, Jaspreet. Chef: A Novel. United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Paperbacks, 2011. Print.