Online Indian Vegan Cooking Class by Swetha Sivakumar
Cooking should not be learned just by looking at recipe after recipe. There should be some level of framework upon which the recipes should be built. Unfortunately, the majority of us just stumble our way through the kitchen year after year, decade after decade. Let me help you end this cycle! Learn Indian cooking from the ground up (using science + experience as your framework).
Cooking vegan food is in fact easy. We need to let go of our need to imitate meat. We need to celebrate the uniqueness of each plant ingredient for its own wonder, and learn to cook it to its strengths. Learn how to do just that!
COURSE FORMAT
This course is organized around four webinars of 60 minutes each, which will be conducted on Zoom. The first 30 minutes of each webinar will be a discussion/lecture format, followed by an interactive 30-minute cooking session. If the lessons go over time and you still have questions, I’ll be happy to do so – the end is flexible.
I’ll provide a list of supplies needed at the start of the course, such as grains, spices, book suggestions, etc. None of them are mandatory. Although I do think you’ll love to have an actual dish or two ready by the end of the class as we cook along! Don’t worry about missing out on any hard-to-find ingredients. I will recommend easily available substitutions.
Recordings of the webinars will be available for participants who could not catch them live.
In addition to this, there will be cooking exercises throughout the course. We will also have a Signal Group while the course is on, in which links will be posted, recipe trials can be shared and your questions will be answered.
COURSE DETAILS
Here are the details about the four webinars. Below that, you will have instructions of how to sign up.
Week 1: Grains, faux grains
Learn how to identify if a grain is better suited for plain cooking, or perfect for a kichdi or pongal, or as a standalone grain style (like in biryani). Learn about the types of rice (Raw rice, boiled rice, ponni rice, sona masuri, basmati rice, etc). What happens when you soak them or roast them? How much water should you use? How should you ferment leftover rice? How should cauliflower rice be used as a substitute for white rice?
Recipe: Lemon Rice (South Indian Style)
Week 2: Protein, Protein, Protein
How do the dals differ from each other? How do you decide which dal to use for which recipe? How can you intuitively know which recipe template works best for a certain dal? Let us examine the properties of each dal.
Let’s talk dal:
Moong dal
Chana dal
Toor dal
Urad dal
Recipe: Sambar (South Indian stew)
Week 3: Vegetables:
What vegetables are best roasted? How can we best use veggies that are water heavy (Doodhi, chayote squash, etc).
Can we eat Indian vegetables in their raw forms? What is the difference between steaming vegetables, pressure cooking vegetables, air frying, and roasting vegetables? How do you use an intuitive template to flavor vegetables? How does one use frozen vegetables effectively?
Recipe: Vegetable Poriyal (stir fry)
Week 4: Healthy Indian Snacks and Desserts
How do you construct a tasty, healthy chaat? How can you ensure a tasty sundal (lentil stir fry)? How should you use dates in desserts?
Recipe 1: Sprouts chaat
Recipe 2: Easy sundals
Recipe 3: Date sweetened laddus
THE SCHEDULE
Classes begin from September 3, 2021 and consist of four webinars run over four Fridays — September 3, 10, 17 and 24. The timings of the webinars are at CST 6 pm (4 pm California, 7 pm Eastern) on all these four days.
Price: $100.
You can pay by sending a Paypal or Venmo or Zelle to [email protected] . After the payment, send an email to [email protected] to confirm payment and get zoom details.
Note: ->>If there are enough people from India interested in the course, I will start a second batch exclusively with a more convenient timing and separate payment mechanisms. Just shoot me an email confirming your interest. Cost - Rs 7000
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