If I am asked what is the most underrated job in the world, I would say it is the duty of being a housewife and a stay at home mother. These jobs , demanding a work of 24/7, are often used as the opposite terms for a working woman, aren’t these.
The irony is that the ladies performing these jobs themselves downplay the tasks they commence throughout the day. In fact, at times, I cannot even justify my whole day spent on certain activities. I feel like asking me what have I done- cleaning, cooking, tutoring kids, that’s all. Well, this downplaying of one’s own importance makes sense when the standards are held strong in our unconscious.
Nevertheless, if we examine the details of the chorus that we perform throughout our day, we may get the sense to appreciate our efforts. Let’s examine the micro details of one of the tasks that I performed in the last 24 hours.
Yesterday, I cooked Vegetable Fried Rice
First of all, I washed all the vegetables (cabbage, carrot, capsicum and green onion).
Then I started cutting them one by one. I used a salad cutter (slicer) to cut the carrot into fine slices.
Then I cut the sliced carrot into further finer slices with the help of a knife.
Though I have a chopping machine with vegetable cutter but I don’t like the irregular and not-so-good shape of vegetables it produces. That’s why I prefer cutting with my hands.
After cutting the carrots, it was time to cut capsicum and green onion. I first removed their top and then sliced them.
Then I sliced the cabbage using the salad cutter.
Cutting process done..... It was time to move to cooking.
I added oil, salt, black pepper and Chinese salt to the vegetables and fried them on high flame.
Further I added vinegar, chilli sauce and soy sauce.
Meanwhile, I had washed chicken and put it to boiling in another pan. Adding salt, pepper and Chinese salt to the chicken I made sure there isn’t too much water in it because I want the water to dry.
This way, the chicken turns out to be more flavoursome as nothing is wasted while draining the excess water.
After the chicken was tenderized, I took it out in a plate and shredded it into finer pieces.
I made sure no piece of thin bone is left in it. Actually, I hardly use boneless chicken for the recipe. I think bony chicken brings better taste.
Then I added shredded chicken to the fried vegetables.
The next step was to rinse and soak the rice.
Afterwards, I took another pot to boil water in it. I had added some salt to it.
When the water boiled, I poured the soaked rice in it and let it cook for a while until the rice was partially tenderized.
With the help of a strainer, I drained away extra water.
Meanwhile, I had prepared a mixture of yoghurt, Chinese salt and black pepper in a separate bowl.
Then it was the time to mix everything.
First, I spread some rice in the pot. Then I sprinkled yoghurt mixture and chilli sauce. After it, I spread a layer of fried vegetables and chicken on it.
I repeated the process thrice. (I am sorry I couldn’t take the photograph of the process because I was in a hurry. I had to take my son to the doctor).
After layering up all the rice and vegetable batter, I covered the pan with its lid and put it on low flame until the rice was tenderized completely.
After mixing the rice, the meal was ready.
It was served with ketchup, chilli sauce and yoghurt. (Pakistanis are complicated with regards to their eating habits. Despite including all the ingredients in the dish we want to add them separately again in our serving plates 😜)
Oh! Did I mention that cleaning up the ness and washing the used utensils has also been the part of the cooking process
Okay.......
So what did I do? One word answer is “cooking". All the process, efforts and time vanishes....
Being a housewife, I don’t get any tangible rewards for the efforts I put in home chorus, but the reward I get is the satisfaction. Satisfaction of providing the best to my family, created with love and affection.
This is my participation for Hive Learner’s featured contest.
[Image source] (https://pixabay.com/illustrations/property-real-estate-looking-for-2955057/)
All the other images are taken by me via my mobile camera.