Hello! Welcome to my blog.
It's another edition of the ladies of Hive contest and I will be sharing a memorable kitchen experience I had in 2013. I believe what happened then is a common story for most women. We just can't explain what went wrong, should I say some spirits are just bent on embarrassing someone. When you are cooking for yourself it's always prefect but when the time to show your cooking skills, these "village people" show up.
Seriously, this particular day wasn't funny to me. My mom travelled so, I had to stay in her friend's house and I was the only girl because all her children were boys and she just said I will be the one to cook. I was the one that announced that I will be preparing Egusi soup with Pounded yam. The boys volunteered to pound the yam while I prepared the Egusi.
I got stock fish, Ponmo and meat because I wanted to prepare something special and everyone was expectant. After boiling the yam, the boys went on pounding while I was left alone to cook the soup. I boiled the meat, washed my Ponmo and prepared the Egusi with small Ugwu (pumpkin). The whole building was engulfed with the lovely aroma because I added plenty Iru( locust beans) and we were all salivating. I didn't bother to taste because I trusted my measurements and from the look you wouldn't doubt the taste.
The boys tried with the pounded yam although there were little lumps but it wasn't that bad, I knew I couldn't have done better because pounding yam was difficult for me. It was time to eat and their mom was to dish the food. She was impressed when she saw the soup and we were all seated at the dinning. We waited for her to finish dishing the food and prayer before we all started eating. I stood up to get drinking water for myself and coming back to join others there was this sour look that they all wear and I could sense a change in the atmosphere. I sat down and ignored them. As I took the first bite, I had to force myself to swallow it..oh my God! It was salty.
I tasted the boiled meat but it wasn't salty, what went wrong? How did I added too much salt? These were the questions running through my mind. We were all very hungry so, we managed to finished the pounded yam, we removed all the meat, washed them and pour the soup away. Their mom had to prepare another soup for the next day.
I couldn't forget the comment of the youngest son, he said "Aunty Seun, your soup is too sweet" other boys laughed but their mom came to rescue me from the shame by telling them that I'm not familiar with the salt that they used that's why it was too sweet.
Since then, anytime I visit people I don't jump or become over happy when they ask me to cook and this has taught me to pray sometimes before cooking just to beg God not to put me to shame but such still happens once in a while, Instead of it being salty it can be that the salt is not enough which I just cover up by saying I don't eat too much salt. Overtime, I laugh it off and just comfort myself by saying no one is above mistakes.
These kitchen experiences really make me a better person because I had to watch more videos, learn ways of reducing salt in a salty food like adding potato or yam, by adding more ingredients to the sauce and various means of preserving food. The summary of it all is that although it was an embarrassing event, It brought a lot of improvement and made me pay more attention to my cooking.
NOTE: THE PICTURE IS MINE.
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