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What’s in your tiffin?

COLOURFUL FARE Chef Virgil James with the bruschetta and aval lasagne

It’s one thing every mom dreads — packing the child an interesting, yet healthy lunch. For, given a choice, kids would happily binge on cheese-laden sandwiches, spicy fritters and calorie-rich chips. Vegetables draw yawns. So, how on earth does someone make children love veggies?

Simple. By thinking out-of-the-box and coming up with interesting tiffin ideas that will have the little ones asking for more. These ideas don’t cost much; all it takes is some innovation in the kitchen. But, if you’re the sort that needs prompting, there’s help at hand to ensure you pack nutritious, yet appetising meals.

Take, for instance, malli.in’s tiffin box planners. The website that calls itself Chennai’s gourmet guide has come up with two meal options for children in three age groups. Well, their options seem to celebrate calorie-rich stuff, but the carrot sticks, fruits, and juices are compensation enough. Recently, the website organised a ‘Tiffin Box Planner’ workshop, comprising a face-to-face with nutritionist Varsha to give parents a brief idea as to what needs to go into their child’s daily meal, and a demonstration by Chef Virgil James of GRT Grand, who conjured up amazing stuff in a jiffy. Dr. Varsha threw light on many issues that has parents worried sick, and told them they needed to lead by example. For instance, how will children know that idli is meant to be eaten with chutney and sambar if you eat it with tomato ketchup?

After the demo, you came back with the idea that no sandwich is possible without fresh mayonnaise (the version with eggs), but what’s cooking without a little creativity. Replace it with the eggless, packed variety and see the children happily tuck into sandwiches with a variety of fillings — cucumber, carrot, zucchini, coloured bell peppers… the works. Or, a crunchy and tangy boiled potato-apple salad with walnut and mayonnaise. Want to do away with mayonnaise altogether? Then, opt for the hung curd dressing. Just mix hung curd, chaat masala, jeera powder, salt, red chilli powder, ginger juice and fresh coriander for a creamy filling for sandwiches and salads.

Another tasty innovation was the aval (poha) lasagne, a real quickie. Soak aval for two minutes and drain the water. Add some oatmeal and rava to it. Make a tomato base like you would for regular lasagne. Cook the aval, oatmeal and rava (a healthy combo) after tempering it and adding chopped onion, chopped garlic, baby corn and pepper. Layer a bowl with this, followed by the tomato base and a couple of cheese slices. Make one more layer using the aval-oatmeal-rava combo, tomato base and cheese. Top with crispy potato, cheese slices and some black olives.

And, then, there was the curd cooler, made by beating together curd, ginger, black salt, salt and cucumber. It makes for a creamy drink, perfect to give a child when he / she returns from school!

For more ideas, you could also check out http://www.dabur.com/en/

group/Foods/real/

packed_tiffin/interesting_tiffin_ideas.asp, the website of food major Dabur, which lists some easy-to-make tiffin recipes.

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