The covid time unleashed the hidden demon (read cook) within us. And disasters such as Maggi pakodas, noodle ice-creams and the likes came to the fore.

Since I understand food and know how to cook, I can vouch that I did not cook any such demonic delicacies. But, some dishes that I cooked cannot be called angelic too.

I am vehemently reading Cassandra Clare’s books these days, hence the referral to angels and demons. 

So back to covid era. I was also trying to explore new recipes for my blog. But something different, something that can be created from scratch. So I zeroed in on exploring the sauces from South-East Asia and cooking noodles in them. 

Teriyaki sauce came out to be my first minor kitchen disaster in this experiment. This sauce is generally made for proteins and vegetables but I decided to use this to cook noodles. Instead of buying a ready-made Teriyaki sauce bottle from Modern Bazaar, I would be preparing this from scratch. 

So I searched the recipe and tweaked it according to how it should be for a noodle sauce. Instead of mirin, I added white wine. Instead of sesame oil, I used olive oil because again, who will buy sesame oil for just one dish? My mother was already on edge with my over shopping for pasta, noodles and different varieties of mushrooms that you only see in alien-type movies. 

The sauce was cooking good, looking good and tasting good. The noodles were boiling right.

And since there is always a but, a disaster did happen. 

I had never cooked shiitake mushrooms before. And since I had the dry variety, I did not know take care of soaking them in hot water for the designated time. Because in my over enthusiasm for a new sauce, I conveniently decided to ignore the instructions on the box of these mushrooms.

Thou shalt soak the mushrooms for 15 minutes in hot water. Though thou did not. Thou soaked them for 5 minutes, cut them brutally and thou added them directly in sauce without washing them. 

There is a reason that these instructions are there. The mushrooms were hard because they were soaked for a short duration. The 15-minute soaking time would have softened them.

And then I added other vegetables just 2 minutes after adding mushrooms. 

And then I added soy sauce without measuring because I assumed that I will be able to pour the right amount. 

The result – an excessively tangy noodle dish that was demonic black in colour because of excessive soy sauce and that had huge chunks of shiitake mushrooms that were difficult to eat and had “kit-kit” texture because I did not wash them. 

When my sister saw this dish, her first reaction was that I’m simply not going to eat this. I cajoled her to taste and gave the exact review that I mentioned in my last paragraph.

Since then, I have always measured soy sauce and vinegar in tablespoons while cooking noodles, because when they flow freely from their bottles, no power in the universe can stop them. Weird sorcery!

And now, I always soak shiitake mushrooms in hot water for 15-20 minutes, wash them properly, cut them gently in thin slices and cook them for 10-15 minutes before adding finishing ingredients.