Cooking with Cast Iron—Brutal Pleasure for a Chef……

As a chef you always look for new ways of doing things, rather, better ways of cooking things in your kitchen. It is always fascinating to cook using the latest and the modern cookware whether its non-stick appliances or anodized cook wares, etc…….

Recently I started taking a keen interest in Vedic ways of cooking or in layman’s parlance, Ayurvedic Cuisine. While studying this very scientific and natural cuisine, I looked up on the cookware used for cooking the healthy Ayurvedic foods. One of them was cast iron. Cast iron cookware was the cooking utensil of choice for our forefathers; it was readily available, inexpensive, extremely versatile, and nearly indestructible.

However, cooking in cast iron or for that matter any iron cookware was always looked as “desi” method.

During my early professional years, except for Kadhai used for frying, iron cookware was looked down upon in Modern Kitchens. Growing up as chef… we were more focused on hygiene and sanitation in cooking and hence iron cookware were always relegated to least and last of the options…Rust, maintenance, bulkiness and heavy weight were some of the reasons for not using them anytime…

I recently bought a set of Earthenware and Cast Iron Cooking vessels at my home. Again after the initial excitement of learning how to use them and seasoning them for the next use, they were back in some corner in the kitchen… not used at all!!

This pandemic break has really come as a blessing in disguise as I started exploring many ingenuous methods at home.

Now as of yesterday, I made use of all the cast iron cookware, the indomitable tawa (skillet), the frying pan, the kadhai and even the small deep round spoon used for tempering!!

The occasion was my daughter’s 25th Birthday!!

So had to cook something special for dinner… here we go…