Some say frying red chillies is good for stress release because it makes you sneeze, cough out yellow stuff from the chest and throat then tears drooling from the eyes and many more.
By Dr Hector Perera: London
I received lots of emails from Sri Lanka then from other countries as well after watching my energy saving cooking programme in Sirasa TV in Sri Lanka. They all appreciated my attempt to save energy and to avoid any smell depositing on them while cooking. I replied to many then one University graduate from Matara Sri Lanka also send me an email after watching my energy saving cooking in Sirasa TV. She said that she followed my method to cook in order to save energy and avoid any smell depositing while cooking.
I replied to them, glad you all understood the fact that I didn’t open the chicken curry like most Sri Lankan ladies do. One of them mentioned that at least 5 to 6 times they open the boiling chicken curry and kept on stirring. Not that they wanted a secret aroma beauty therapy but they keep on opening and stirring for no obvious reason.
Why they lick hot hot “Hodi” many times
Heat is lost in three ways, convection, conduction and radiation. The material of the cooking pan absorb some heat then pass it on to the contents inside the pan. The convection currents inside the cooking pan and that will bring the heated liquids from the bottom to the top and give the heat to the contents. No need to keep on stirring and licking the “HODI FROM POLKATU HANDA” several times unless you want to shower with cooking aroma then walk up and down like a TANDOORI CHICKEN. These chemicals like any other chemicals cannot be seen but once they deposit on any cold surface they give out a special smell like I said before. Those clay pots are bad conductors of heat and have less thermal capacity that means do not retain any heat for a long time whereas stainless steel are good conductor of heat and have a good thermal capacity. I admit that our mum also cooked in clay pots but the time has changed. May be I didn’t explain all these terms in the Sirasa TV cooking programme at that time.
British TV chef are really funny
I really want to help these British people as well how to save energy but didn’t get the chance to appear in TV, never mind keep on trying. Believe me no British TV chef cooks like me saving energy. To me they just waste energy, chat chat unwanted things, out of the topic of cooking subjects then bath in fumes, sometimes they let the cooking pan catch fire purposely. May be they wanted the public attention that way, to me that is not energy saving cooking.
Baking cannot save any energy
Some British TV cooking programmes are mainly devoted for baking cakes and the judges are handsomely paid just to taste those cakes. If I am not mistaken all what the judges do is to taste the cakes. I think their judgements depend on the decorations as all the taste of cakes are the same as they are all made out of nothing but sugar. The so called bakers or who content for the titled of baker, mix sugar, flour, butter then baking soda then bake them in an oven. While it bakes some of them kneel down and virtually bow at the oven, is that necessary? Once you put the cake into the oven there is nothing much to do, cannot adjust the flame like in cooking other than waiting them to get baked.
Cooking rice
Try not to measure the depth of water in the pan by fingers, that time is gone. Put two tea cups of water from a tea cup for one cup for one cup of rice. Better to let the water get warmed while you wash the rice then put the rice into the warm water that way you even save five minutes of waiting time in the kitchen. Make sure rice is washed properly to get rid of the outer soluble starch. Within five minutes it will boil and give out froth then shut the gas completely. Then start again but keep the flame minimum. If you got it right then steam must come out like small jets of steam, no over flowing. Too difficult to get it right at first time but try. Note the time then after an half an hour just off the gas and leave it like that, don’t open it for at least 15 minutes because the steam is unsettled. I call it due to high entropy that is a scientific term. Let’s do one at a time.
Other smelly stress releasing things to cook
Please let me know if you got it right then I will tell you know how to cook chicken or fish curry. I really like “KARAWALA TEL DALA” but no smell deposit on me when I cook scientific way. How about “FRYING HAAL MESSO”. Then frying dry red chillies? You must be releasing your stress by sneezing several times then comes the drool from the nose, am I correct? I will show how to do without that mess, how by applying science to cooking. That means I make use of the thermal capacity of the hot oil so that the dry chillies absorb that heat. By the way you need to fry some “papadams” first at low heat then shut the heat and leave it for three minutes then only you add those chillies. Take my word, no smell, you will not drool from the nose then no sneezing either.
Laughing therapy in India
Did you know in India they have a stress releasing therapy called laughing therapy? Similarly most Sri Lankan ladies release the stress by frying dry chillies because that makes you sneeze several times, then comes yellow stuff from the chest and throat then you need to spit out. It does not stop there, then comes tears drooling from eyes then you need to sneeze again and then you need to clean the nose by blowing the nose, am I correct? Most people just wipe those snot and many more on their clothes including “Kussi amma” as they don’t carry tissue, do they? Don’t believe me? Never mind, I hope my work helped you to save about 60% energy in cooking rice. I really need to demonstrate again how to cook and save energy and stop any smell depositing while cooking. Just imagine if five millions of people saved that much energy on every time they cooked rice, how much money would they save per month then for an year? Please let me know how it worked then take it from there. Your comments are welcomed perera6@hotmail.co.uk
