Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Alan Ka Saag: The Secret Family Recipe


So by now you get the general theme; a bowl of stuff, a plate of fruit.

Tonight I unfroze a brick of alan ka saag, a Jaffrey "secret family recipe" which, since it has a yogurt/besan base, doesn't unfreeze with the same smooth texture that it had prior to its life as freezer brick; but as George Frankly once said, "changing the surface area doesn't affect the taste!"

(Which isn't, necessarily, true; but it works in this case.)

I'm kinda wondering, as I put these up, whether my dinners look appetizing to anyone else. I mean, in the past few days we've had "bowl of brown goo," "bowl of red goo," and tonight's "bowl of green goo." Sure, these are all extremely healthy soup/stews with plenty of fresh vegetables and spices, but they don't seem to be particularly photogenic.

Maybe I need to stick a sprig of parsley on the side. Or put everything on a large plate instead of two small ones, so the colors of the fruit show up next to the colors of the stew. Tomorrow will be another bowl of alan ka saag, so I will get another chance on making it look as good as it tastes!

3 comments:

Avinash said...

One of the tricks to getting good food shots that I learned from looking at cookbooks is to open up the aperture on your camera as wide as possible (in other words, aim for as shallow a depth of field as possible).
http://flickr.com/photos/68177867@N00/1794699583/

It also helps to take the shot from a very low angle, rather than from the top.

Jaclyn Harr said...

Yeah, it's definitely a photography/lighting issue - I'm pants at taking food shots as well, but there are plenty of Indian cooking blogs that take pictures of goo and make it look really tasty.

Blue said...

Avinash, I think you're right about that low angle thing. :)