Malvika stared at the black-and-white picture of her grandmother and smiled. Her grandma had this stern expression that had been a constant for as long as Malvika had known her. She never smiled; she had always looked like a proper principal who was never off duty.
Compared to Malvika's paternal grandmother, her maternal grandmother, or nani, as she was called, was a woman of few words. She did not play with her grandchildren like other grandmothers and hardly spoke to the
Malvika and her cousins would never have visited her house if it weren't for one thing: Nani was an excellent cook.Everything she made was infused with culinary magic. Her simple roti was so soft and had a flavour that was hard to describe. Her pickles had caused family members to fight over them. The sweets she conjured up during Diwali were more precious than those from the biggest sweetshop in the town. Nani always held her recipes close to her heart. She had secret ingredients in all of her dishes to make them uniquely her own.
Malvika looked down at the picture again, and then at the papers stuck next to it. The papers contained recipes that her Nani had written to pass along to her children. They also took several photos of the dishes during each step. But being Nani, she had not disclosed the secret ingredient to them.
Over the years, all of Malvika's relatives had gone through the scrapbook with her nani's photos on each page with an unwavering stern expression and her precious recipes. She had added a secret ingredient with a flourish at the end of each recipe. Many had tried to guess her secret ingredient, with wild combinations and additions to her recipes, but none had come close to the taste.
Last Diwali, the family paid professional chefs to come in and recreate the dishes to their taste. They had been confident in the ingredients and made the dishes accordingly, but they still missed that certain something.
Malvika looked around the kitchen as her sister came in holding a bunch of herbs."Maybe the secret ingredient is that we have to use the herbs from Nani's herb garden!"
"We tried that four years ago; that was not it."
Her sister's smile vanished but reappeared: "Let me give it a try."
Malvika folded her arms and watched as her sister started making the potato curry.
"What if the secret ingredient is love?" her sister piped up.
They both looked at the tight-lipped woman staring back from the photo and burst out laughing.
"I am sure a woman who has written 19 leaves of mint in her recipe did not cook using love."
"Ugh, who adds precisely 19 leaves? I mean, you just sprinkle some on top." Her sister said it absent-mindedly as she stirred the curry.
Malvika's brows furrowed. "Give me the recipe album."
Nobody had taken Nani's strange measurements for garnishing seriously, going by their own cooking experience. The colour of the tempering was also never exact, as Nani's photos looked as if the onions in the tempering were translucent and just turning brown. In Indian cooking, you wait until your onions for tempering are a golden brown to get the spicy curry base.
Malvika laid down the album and began cooking. She matched every stage with the photo given, even if she did not agree with it. She followed the instructions to the T.
She was so lost in cooking that she did not notice a commotion, as many of her relatives had gathered outside.
"Malvika looks like Nani with her concentration." Someone whispered.
"Maybe the secret is to not smile during cooking." Sombody sniggered.
Malvika heard that and bit back a smile. She presented her dish, which she knew tasted exactly like Nani's, and said
"The secret ingredient is something like that. Making sure everything is right on the edge of being cooked, making sure all ingredients are in the exact quantity The secret ingredient is discipline."
