Ours is a love marriage. In India, marriages are usually arranged by elders of the family mostly by parents, hence it is called arranged marriage. Ours was NOT an arranged marriage. We both belong to different states and hence had different cuisines to conquer along with differences due to different upbringings.
Food being the major hurdle in our lives, I decided to conquer it first, by trying to learn the easy delicacies and daily comfort food from his state. I managed to learn a few dishes and was able to master them, thanks to a few cooks we employed in our household.
My mother-in-law is an excellent cook, which is was an additional stress for me because whatever I make will be measured and rated against Mom-in-laws 10/10. One thing which many cannot beat my mother-in-law is rice kheer. Her rice kheer is just divine. My husband drools with just the memory of it. When I ask my mother in law to share the recipe, she underplays the whole things saying its just milk sugar rice and cardamom powder. She would never let me in the kitchen when she is making it and would send me on some errand or the other. Her rice kheer, in addition to being so yummy would look great too with a pinkish brown hue. So naturally, I tried my hand at making rice kheer, by looking up recipes in internet. But how much so ever I tried, though I could get the taste, I was never able to get the color. I tried boiling the milk for a long time till the milk thickens, but would get only creamy yellowish color but never the pinkish brown. When I mention this to her during our visits, she would just give a smile, which seem to taunt me that I can never get at par with her in her culinary skills.
I always used to come back from the visits disheartened and with no enhanced knowledge of the pinkish brown rice kheer. One day while looking at some baking videos, I stumbled upon the process of caramalising sugar and the color it gives. Lo and behold!! I got my answer. I just need to caramalise sugar and add it to the kheer to get the color. From then, my kheer also started getting close to full marks(though not 10//10 yet :-() in taste and also in color. Thanks to internet, my husband is able to enjoy his favourite kheer whenever he likes.
