Lockdown cooking: Locals whip up new dishes in the kitchen

The first dish that took the city by storm was Dalgona coffee, a south Korean style of coffee that whips up the coffee and places it on a base of milk. Another very popular food dish currently is banana bread. According to home baker Tina Lulla, the popularity of this dish comes from many panic-buying too many bananas and deciding to use up the excess in a different way. “From banana bread, many have shifted to making different types of bread — even focaccia and sourdough, because they got a start with the banana bread. People who also want to bake are finally having the time to bake, and since all the grocery stores are open, the resources are easy to come by. Rather than standing in line for two hours and not getting bread, people would rather spend those two hours baking the bread,” she said.

The reason for the popularity of certain dishes over others, according to Lulla, is due to the fact that amateur and novice chefs are now able to spend time in the kitchen, and thus easy, simple recipes with an aesthetic appeal gain traction faster. Innovation is non-existent in these dishes because most making the dishes are first-time chefs who simply want to reproduce the recipe.

The trend is now shifting to family and traditional recipes. “I asked my mother to teach me her puttu kadala recipe. Since we have the time and easy access to resources, I have been trying it out,” said a resident of T Nagar.