For those who love cooking, it is no less than a passion. Like any other passion of course. Food becomes an art when this passion combines with innovation and creativity.
The affable SathiskumarShanmugam, an HR professional is one such Uncommon artiste. Though not a chef by profession, Cooking is indeed his canvas and his recipes are his medium of expressing his greatest love.
The Uncommon Box is delighted to present this enthusiastic TUB-er as our Food Guru in this feature.
Sathiskumar Shanmugam, born and brought up in Sri Lanka, lives in Chennai. With roots of Indian origin, he is an avid follower of different culinary styles and loves to experiment with his own set of theories or recipes.
‘I decided to specialize in food as I always presumed and believed that with good taste and sense of gustation, one can really evolve one’s ideas. It’s also because through food, I find solace in my area of specialization.’
Sathis says while explaining why Food has become such an area of interest for him.
Interestingly, the journey of this self-taught gourmet, began when he had to fend for himself in the kitchen while studying for his graduation.
He remembers that ‘the only way to keep me engaged and happy was by cooking for myself.
During the course, I cooked different types of food and uploaded the pictures, along with their recipes on Facebook which got me a lot of likes and appreciation.
And because of those uploads, my friends asked me to treat them with the food that I cook. Surprisingly they always loved it.’
It is at this time Sathis gave his passion for cooking serious thought. He decided to begin his journey with a blog which would comprise all his inputs on cooking. Thus, Tastepot.com was born.The main motive of this blog was, in Sathis’ words,
‘To share my creative recipes and reach a lot of people from a different cultural background who, like me, would love to treat themselves to different cuisines.’
Sathis has been constantly improving his cooking skills and also planning to expand his blog by adding videos of his works to make his blog more interesting and interactive.
He has shared with us one of his original and favourite recipes – the Good Day Biscuit Peda.
Recipe – Good Day Peda
About Good Day Peda:
Milk Peda is a sweet dish popular across the Indian subcontinent. It is a semi-soft sweet made out of khoya or mava. It is mainly served during the Hindu and Muslim festivals and poojas. As in the books of history of food, it originated from Mathura, Uttar Pradesh. The traditional peda is made from dry milk solids prepared by heating the milk known as khoa or mava, sugar, cardamom and saffron. But presently, every part of India has its own customized version of the sweet like Dharwad Peda in Karnataka and Kandi Peda in Maharashtra.
I am presenting a simple peda recipe made with Condensed Milk and Good Day Cookies which is time saving and three times easier than the traditional peda.
Ingredients:
Time: 45 mins
Serves: 6 heads
Calories: approx. 150 calories per 30g
- Condensed Milk – 01 can or 400g
- Good Day Butter Cookies – 2 packages or 200g
- Butter – 25g
- Gems Chocolate – 14 pieces.
- Cardamom Powder – 01/04 table spoon
Steps:
- Grind the Good Day cookies to a fine powder.
- Add butter, condensed milk, and Cardamom Powder into a hot pan on medium low flame and slowly stir until the mixture is bubbly, thick and starts leaving the pan.
- Once the mixture turns a thick switch off the flame, slowly add the powdered cookies to the mixture and mix it well with a spatula.
- Let the mixture cool a little.
- Grease your palm with little butter and take a lemon-sized portion of the mixture and pat it into a small peda with a diameter of 3cm.
- Place the gems chocolates on the top of the peda and press it a little, so that it will stick to the peda.
Suggestions:
- Instead of Good Day, you can use Marie Biscuits or Sunfeast Magic Cookies.
- You can give some structural designs on the peda before placing the gem to have a better look.
- You can also use pistachio or cashew nuts instead of gems chocolates.
Sathis admits, ‘Writing a simple recipe was the toughest task, as I had never tried writing contents for blogs.
Dedicating some time for writing recipes and other details about the food was not that easy with my regular work. I believe a good content should always provide something new for the readers. For this I really had to gather a lot of information from chefs, restaurant owners & recipe developers, articles on food, books, and magazines on food and culinary. I could utilize only the traveling time in the local train between my office and my house for this and somehow, I managed to write at least one recipe a week.’
And very well we all know ‘Rome was not built in a day’-likewise my quest is running parallel with my passion of being an expert.
With dreams in his eyes to set up a restaurant which will feature some of the authentic recipes from his mother as well, Sathis would love to continue experimenting with fusion cooking further.
And his words of advice for budding foodies-
For all the foodies out there in the world, I would say that to be a global foodie and let your taste buds take a drive-by coming out of the box. Widen your view, taste the unknown and enjoy the foodie life. Create a niche food love and don’t forget to inspire others equally to your quest.
GOOD FOODIES WOULD CREATE A BETTER WORLD TO LIVE. Live gastronomically strong.
It is so evident that the interest of Sathis in cooking is indeed far beyond just a passing interest or a hobby. He sees it as no less than a way of experiencing different cultures and traditions from the world over.
Team The Uncommon Box wishes Sathis the fulfillment of his dreams and endeavours!
You can follow his work:
Blog | Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter
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