Word Attack!!

Yeh kya hua???

April 21, 2008 on 11:31 pm | In Food |

It started because of those severely insipid vanilla wafers that Mansoor brought home the other day. Me and the boys were like, seriously,..what were you thinking? Vanilla wafers???? Mansoor thought it was pineapple since the packaging was yellow. I was like, pineapple? When it comes to wafers its only chocolate for me, and apparently thats the case for Saboor and even Az!

So, I thought I’ll use them in some recipe, called up ammi, asked her for the recipe for some dessert of my childhood that she used to make, by layering custard, wafers, biscuits, custard etc and freezing it. Sidra smsd me the full recipe, and i spent my Sunday evening pottering about in the kitchen doing that.

I followed the instructions, but there are times when your mind seems to be glazed and although you’re seeing things, you’re not really looking. The heat in the kitchen stunned me a bit, and then I stood stirring the custard, a little stupidly perhaps…and there! before I could realise what happened, it had curdled. What was supposed to become a creamy custard became a disastrous curdy mixture. There was no way I could use this. SOS alert! I called ammi, who said that she really couldn’t do anything, as she was sitting some 7 to 8kms away.

‘Make ande ka halwa with it’ she suggested when I sounded desperate. ‘Add some khova, a little crumbled biscuits, some ghee and stir it a bit.’

I quickly delegated this task to my MIL who was glad I was thinking of not wasting food, by making more food. Then, I heated up another litre of milk, reduced it, and started the custard process again. I remember, there was one point where I actually opened my eyes wide, just so I didnt miss anything.

I waited and waited for the custard to thicken. When it seemed slightly thick I switched off the gas and followed the remaining instructions, of cooling it, adding gelatin and vanilla and then starting the layering process.

By this time, my MIL had finished making the halwa. It was not a bad effort considering that it had started out as something else.
When I got down to the exciting part of layering the pudding, I dipped the wafers in juice, arranged them neatly on the base of a pretty bowl, and poured the custard over it. Only thing was that the custard hadn’t thickened and the wafers promptly floated up. What layers, I thought in disgust as I poured the rest of the runny custard into the bowl and jammed it into the freezer. When I peeped into the freezer after half an hour, the wafers were floating and I realized that this was an even bigger mess than the first attempt!!!! I had to hack off a few blocks this morning for Saboor and Mansoor, who kind of liked it, but decided it was too sweet for them. Its still lying in the freezer. I hate it when this happens!!! And by the way, the ande ka halwa is ok. Its not bad, but its not fantastic either!! Yeh kya hua!!!!