Palak paneer, HSB kuruma, six-minute biryani, beans paruppusili, ammini kozhukattai — videos of these five recipes posted on the YouTube channel OPOS Chef have made many look on in disbelief. For, what traditionally took people a good half hour or more to cook has been reduced to about 10 minutes or less, with little or no manual intervention, and with better flavour.
“These are flavour bombs,” laughs B. Ramakrishnan, who founded the Facebook group United By Food (UBF), three years ago. It powers the OPOS (One Pot One Shot) technique, and the YouTube channel. As the channel says, the recipes are the result of work done over “13 years, 780 blog posts, 10411 posts…”
More than 120 videos have been put up in the first few months of the channel, and Ramakrishnan is gratified by the response. Members started off as hesitant video makers, before they developed the confidence to experiment with editing software and voice-overs.
The videos are not enhanced, and what you see is what you get. Ramakrishnan cooks using his hands, and to those who criticise that, he says, “I need to keep the videos as authentic as possible. How do you cook at home? Using your hands, right? The idea is not to alienate people, but to tell them this is possible. We don’t want to entertain; we want to encourage.”
Each video takes about 10 minutes to shoot, but a couple of hours of post-production follows. Says Ramakrishnan, “Nothing is left to imagination. The advantage of the videos is that people can now see and follow, because some people did have a problem with recreating written instructions.”
That’s true, if you go by the responses on the FB group. Some people speak about how the videos clarify the small details. Such as the size of the chopped vegetables, something that cannot be explained in a written recipe.
Also, when people see the entire process on air, they become confident about trying it out. They realise the cooker does not burst after all (the biggest doubt many have!) and that five minutes is enough time to cook a dish. “More importantly,” says Ramakrishnan, “videos make everything believable. The stuff is happening in front of you.”
The videos tempt you to replicate a dish. So, this morning, as I wondered what to cook, the recipe for kuruma popped up. In five minutes, onion, tomato and cauliflower were layered and topped with the coconut paste. And, six minutes later, the fragrance of spices filled the house.
Flash and tell
The videos mostly deal with flash cooking, which Ramakrishnan insists is the best way to retain flavour, texture, colour and taste. Traditional cooking has always watered down a dish before reducing it; this takes the opposite route.
