What’s Cooking is a series in which I answer questions and share advice about food and cooking that you may have but are too shy to ask.
Two things this past week prompted the topic of this column. The first was a bowl of ‘boil and fry’ breadfruit with saltfish that I took to my department’s Potluck. The second was the curried chicken that I made for Sunday lunch and the various stages it took to cook the dish. Watch out for the curried chicken in next week’s column. Both dishes took time to cook to develop their individual flavours.
My colleagues devoured the breadfruit and saltfish and kept remarking at how good it tasted. One of them, Valdene, sitting next to me asked, “How did you get that rich colour and flavour?” When I explained to her what I did and the time it took to cook the aromatics, she opened her eyes wide and exclaimed: “Twenty minutes just to fry up the onions, tomatoes and other things?! Man that’s a really long time!”