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Microwave cooking

An effort by Godrej to promote microwave cooking

INSTANT COOKING Microwave cooking can save time

Cooking can be such a boring chore sometimes. All that endless stirring over a sweltering flame and peeping into bubbling pots and sizzling pans to check colour, flavour and half a dozen other things can be excruciatingly irksome. And that's exactly why the microwave folks are gleefully rubbing their hands together, while cash registers ring madly in their minds.

Over the past five years, microwave sales have increased fivefold, according to Shyam Motwani, VP, Marketing and Exports at the Godrej & Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd.

Now, everyone knows that microwaves are most popularly used to reheat food. For the real business of cooking and baking, people prefer to stick with their gas stoves and ovens. So the company has brought out a microwave cookbook, which is all about 5 Star cooking at home.

`Five Star food at home' might sound like an oxymoron; besides being something only a moron would try. After all, when making dal can be such a challenge, why would anyone want to mess around with crab claws and subtly spiced salmon? Here's the pleasant surprise. They've made it addictively easy.

In a clever move, the company has not only roped in eight well-known five star chefs and asked them to provide recipes but has even got nutritionist Sushila Purshottam Sharangdhar, director of Health Education and Management, Mumbai, to keep them honest by keeping track of the calories and ensuring the butter, oil, fat and ghee make no more than miniscule guest appearances in the dishes.

After all, she says, the advantage of having a microwave is not just the fact that it slashes cooking time by 75 per cent but also that it "reduces fat anywhere from between 50 to 100 per cent." Besides, she adds, "You can mix, cook and serve in a single dish."

There are recipes that need two and three minutes.

The company plan to make this a road show of sorts, travelling the country to prove that microwaves can be used to for serious cooking, and convince the "housewives" of the versatility of the appliance. The book, unfortunately, is available only with the appliance. Perhaps they should start marketing it independently. Till then, well, for recipes there's always the Internet.

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