Judicia Pariat puts her heart into cooking. She uses her imagination and adds love potion to turn even a regular dish into an exquisite platter. There is magic in her hands, she is told. But she says it is “my way” of cooking and humbly turns down the ‘magic’ theory.
Pariat recently launched Cooking My Way, a collection of traditional Jaintia cuisines as well as other recipes.
“Writing a book has always been one of my dreams. After my mother passed away, I wanted to write a cookbook and dedicate it to her since I learned many of the recipes from her… My mom was the inspiration… over the years I have cooked and experimented with various ingredients. What you find in the book are all my original recipes,” says the author.
Pariat, wife of bureaucrat turned politician HM Shangpliang, says she learnt more about cooking during her stay in Nongpoh where her husband was posted years back.
“I did not have anywhere to go and I had time to try different recipes. I started experimenting with my style of cooking,” remembers the masterchef.
Once she had prepared chowmein with sliced beef and “many people praised it”, Pariat says as she talks about her culinary journey.
When it comes to food and cooking, Pariat is a passionate speaker and loves to tell a good listener how she makes her recipes different by adding a twist to them. She admits that she loves to eat and Bengali dishes are her favourites.
“Whenever I go to Kolkata, I visit restaurants for Bengali cuisines. I just love the way they cook Hilsa with sarso (mustard seeds) and I have learnt how to make it,” she says.
She even got a prize for steamed Hilsa preparation in one of the cooking competitions in the city.
Pariat took almost a year to finish the cookbook. She cooked every dish in the book, took photographs of the dishes and also of the ingredients. Melanie, Pariat’s younger daughter, says her mother is innovative and “she arranged the dishes and ingredients beautifully keeping the marble floor as the background”.
“She has a knack for doing these things. It is really laudable that mother did almost everything, from cooking, taking photographs for the book and definitely writing,” adds Melanie.
The book contains traditional Jaintia cuisines like banana flower and pork, jadohsyiar and doh khleh syiar, jackfruit with pork ribs and chicken curry, among others. “There are enough unique recipes to cook one dish every week for a year,” says the author and adds that of all the recipes, her favourites are jadohsyiar and chicken curry ‘my style’ and “I often cook the dishes for my family”.
The cookbook is unique as it promotes and celebrates Jaintia food and indigenous recipes and ingredients of Meghalaya. “They have both a mother’s touch and flavours of the state and that is what makes the book unique,” according to Pariat.
A proud owner of the book from Mawlai says his mother could not stop appreciating how good the book is. “Some have also told me that this is the best traditional food they have tasted and the bonus is that the recipes are healthy. That is what I keep in mind, the food should be simple, healthy and at the same time yummy. One can order the book online from my website www.jdpariat.com,” she says.
~ NM