Raj Bhoga Exam

For the past two weeks we've been learning cooking at Mayapur Academy. It's been such a wonderful experience especially because we got to learn from so many wonderful cooks. We learned to make kachoris, all kinds of sabjis, dahls, different rice dishes, koftas, and one of the highlights was getting Radha Madhava's personal "sweet cook" come in and show us how to make sandesh, rasmali, rasagullas and rasa kadambas! That was definitely a very sweet day and a very sweet lunch! :D

So, the culmination of these two weeks was that students had to cook a raj bhoga offering. A typical raj bhoga offering consists of 3 sabjis, rice, dahl, chapatis/paratas, raita/chutney, and a drink. Of course it is nice to have a savory and sweet but it wasn't required for us. Working in groups of two, students had an allotted 3 hours to complete this meal and were encouraged to make extra preps if they so desired. Of course, we were also encouraged to come in earlier to prep if we wanted to.

My dear partner, Yasomati, was feeling a bit under the weather and so a few days before, I was told that I could do it on my own if I wanted to. Never shy to back away from a challenge, I thought, "Hey, why not?!"

So yesterday, by Radharani's mercy, I was able to make 12 items: a cauliflower and potato sabji, a deep fried panir, eggplant and potato sabji, a steamed broccoli sabji, fried bitter melon, lemon rice, spiced yogurt rice, plain rice, mung dahl, paratas, cucumber raita, lemonade and a ladhu made out of nuts, orange rind and icing sugar.

All the dishes turned out pretty well, but in true Vrndavana Vinodini fashion, I under-salted the dahl and cauliflower/potato sabji. LOL...but like they say, better to under-salt than over salt. And...unfortunately we ALL didn't realize, but the yogurt that was brought turned out to be misthi dhai (sweetened yogurt), so my yogurt rice turned into a bit of a sweet rice and the raita was also a bit sweet! Actually everyone's raita or "salt lassi" ended up being sweet! Oh well...what to do... :D

The highlight was that we all got to serve our dishes to HG Pankajanghri and Jananivas prabhus and that was so sweet. They were so encouraging and giving us such personal feedback.

All glories to cooking! Prasadam ki JAI!