My Mom's Birthday dinner, the first big meal I ever cooked

As much as I love making fun of my mum’s diets, there’s one day a year where she can eat anything, and I make sure that day is always special. Today’s post is about my mum’s birthday, which took place on July 3 2021.

Around June of last year, my mum was feeling down because we couldn’t take a holiday. COVID had forced us to stay at home, and she really wanted to go somewhere. So I decided, for her birthday, I would take her somewhere. A culinary trip around the world. The idea sounded really good, and that’s where it started. Planning it was a blast. I’d never done a full meal before, I’d only done single dishes, so this was a new experience for me. The first question was whittling down the theme. I loved the idea of a culinary trip, so I chose the 4 countries from one of my mum’s favourite cooking shows - Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. The meal would start in Japan, move on to Iran, then Italy, and finally Argentina. I found most of these recipes on the SFAH website, and all I had to do was augment them with new elements.

The first course was breakfast in Japan. I chose to make an onigiri, with grilled mock chicken and a wasabi-edamame puree. For the onigiri, I didn’t do anything special, just followed the basic recipe. Similarly, for the chicken, the only special thing I did was preparing the mock chicken. Some brands of mock chicken tend to get very dry, which can be an issue. A simple solution to this is to boil the chicken until it’s 3/4ths of the way done, and then marinate it as per the recipe. The special part of this course was the wasabi edamame puree. Making a good, smooth puree is actually quite easy. When you’re blending the elements, just add a tiny bit of oil or water, not more than a small splash. Then, pulse it a few times to break up the bigger chunks before setting it to the highest speed for a few seconds. I’d recommend straining it after, just to get out any of the slightly larger chunks which may have escaped.

The next course was lunch in the Iranian spice markets. Here I chose to make Iranian rice with tahdig and a Persian mock lamb stew. The rice and tahdig were as per the recipe, and I found the recipe for an herb and lamb dish, called Gormeh or qormeh sabzi. I substituted the lamb for mock lamb, and followed the directions of the recipe. My only recommendation for this course would be that the herbs in the curry stand the chance of burning in the initial stages, so if they seem like they may burn, add some water. Honestly though, I wasn’t a huge fan of this course. The tahdig and rice were great, but I didn’t love the ghormeh sabzi.

Personally, I’d say the first two courses were decent, but it was the third and fourth courses that truly felt like they could be served in a restaurant, and I’m not just saying that lightly. The third course was dinner in Italy, for which I made some pesto pasta and Ligurian focaccia. The pesto recipe on the SFAH website is one of the best I’ve come across, which is why I wanted to make a pesto pasta. The pasta dough can be made as per their recipe, but I made a few changes, such as infusing a bit of fresh truffle oil into the dough. This dish pairs very well with the Ligurian focaccia. To elevate it a bit more, I mixed the brine with some herbs like rosemary and thyme, which got baked into the focaccia. I’d say that this dish is a relatively simple dish, but it’s absolutely delicious, and if done right, it could seem in place at any good restaurant. I also did something special in this course, specifically for my mum. She always loves to mop up the sauce with a piece of bread, so I spread the sauce around the entire bowl, so that she had all of that sauce to mop up with the focaccia.

My favourite course was the fourth and final one, which was moonlit dessert in Argentina. The course was a citrus pavlova with a toffee crumble, grapefruit compote, and yuzu caviar. This was honestly the first time I ever diverged from the recipe and made my own dish. The citrus pavlova was easy to do. The recipe wasn’t on the SFAH website at that time, so I found an easy pavlova recipe online. An important note here is that citrus can curdle eggs, so if you’re making a pavlova, don’t mix in any citrus until the entire batter is already done. As for the toffee, I found a tuile recipe online, but I failed at making the nice looking tuiles, so I took all of the toffee I’d made and blended it up into a toffee crumble, which gave the same crunch and flavour, and honestly worked just as well. The grapefruit compote was actually decently easy, the only issue was actually finding the grapefruit in Bangalore. My dad spent the morning going around the city trying to find it, and eventually got a pomelo from a friend of his who was a chef. (so technically it was a pomelo compote, but grapefruit is what I was going for) For the caviar, I had a molecular gastronomy kit, but the basic idea is that you mix 190ml(around 3/4 cups) of fruit juice/whatever with 2 grams of agar agar powder and let them boil for around 2 minutes, then use a dropper or squeeze bottle to drop little droplets of the mixture into a tall glass of chilled vegetable oil.

With the food, it’s also important to make the drinks thematic. In my meal, I paired a good drink with each course, with help from my aunt. She suggested a cold junmai sake for the first course, because sake is made from rice, which means it should theoretically pair with the sushi rice. For the second course, she suggested a pinot noir, but I did some research and found out that greek wines pair well with herbed cuisines, which would be perfect for my herb curry. For the third course I she suggested a Montepulciano wine, which she said pairs well with pasta in general. For the fourth course, the best pairing would be a fruity Argentinean white wine, but since my mum doesn’t like fruity or sweet wines, I chose a yuzu liquor(I know…it’s not from Argentina, but it pairs well with the dessert).

I have tonnes of suggestions for this meal. My mum said the drink pairings were perfect, but she wasn’t a huge fan of the second course. I think it has to do with the curry, which didn’t taste very good. I’d recommend making some good grilled vegetables and kababs instead, although I’m not sure how well mock lamb will fare in a kabab. The first course wasn’t balanced enough, I’d recommend making smaller nigiris and using more chicken, so that it doesn’t taste like plain rice. The third course was easily the most thoughtful, and even though it’s really simple, I wouldn’t change a thing, even flavour wise. For the fourth course, I honestly was blown away. The recipe is incredible, and the consistency of the pavlovas was absolutely outstanding. My only suggestion would be to bring the eggs to room temperature before whipping, because room temperature eggs whip quicker.

This meal is extremely close to my heart. It was the first time I made a big meal, and the first time I experimented with experiential cuisine, and honestly, for a first time, it was a very good attempt. I’d even go so far as to say that this is the meal which gave me the confidence in my abilities to cook, and this is the reason that I love cooking as much as I do. I’ll link the recipes or websites I thought were worth revisiting, but I’m leaving a few of the recipes out which I think are quite forgettable.

By the way, I'm sorry there aren't any photos here...the photos we took weren't the best, so I decided not to put them in. Let me know if you think I should and I'll update the post.

The main Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat website - https://www.saltfatacidheat.com/
Onigiri - https://www.saltfatacidheat.com/salt/grilled-onigiri
Grilled chicken - https://www.saltfatacidheat.com/salt/grilled-chicken-with-soy-sauce
Tahdig - https://www.saltfatacidheat.com/heat/pavo-en-escabeche(for some reason the link here says Pavo en escabeche but goes to the Tahdig)
Pesto - https://www.saltfatacidheat.com/fat/basil-pesto
Focaccia - https://www.saltfatacidheat.com/fat/ligurian-focaccia
Pavlova - https://simplebites.net/mini-citrus-pavlovas/
Tuiles/Toffee crumble - https://chefiso.com/p/caramel-tuiles-recipe/

In case you were confused, this post is not sponsored by salt fat acid heat, I just like the recipes.