India Volunteer Care (IVC) Blog: Adventures in cooking Spaghetti Bolognese...Indian Style

I was chatting casually to Nicolas, one of our French volunteers working in the boy's orphanage last week, when he mentioned an idea he had as a treat for the boys. “I’d really like to give them an Italian experience,” he told me. “I’d like to cook them spaghetti bolognese next Sunday for lunch. Would you like to help me?”

How could I say no? Having never cooked for so many people , 14 boys plus at least 6 adults, and liking to be organised I started preparing straight away. First thing was the shopping list because being India, I wasn’t sure that we would be able to buy everything we needed at the supermarket. A quick look in Nilgiris, the local supermarket confirmed this.:

Pasta, garlic paste, olive oil, salt, sugar and even dry pasta herbs. Check.
Mince meat, tomato paste. Negative.
Tomato puree as an alternative? Check.
Fresh tomatoes and onions from the Grand Bazaar market. Check.
Mince meat from the grand Bazaar. Negative

So how were we going to cook spaghetti bolognese without mince meat?

With 5 days to spare, Anja, a fellow volunteer from Germany, and I set out to find out where we could buy mince meat. Our first stop was Satsanga, a local restaurant, that Anja told me has spaghetti bolognese on their menu. They told us they order their mince meat from Bangalore and would sell some to us for 260 rupees per 500 grams. 260 rupees per 500 grams! That’s around AUD$11 per kilo and as we needed 3 kilos, way too expensive.

Next I tried an Italian restaurant. They told us they bought it from the market, pointing in the direction of the Grand Bazaar. But I couldn’t remember seeing any meat there besides fish when I wandered around its tight-nit stalls. Anja tried Bon Bakes, a bakery that also cooks spaghetti bolognese. They told her they use chicken. This sounded quite unusual to me but we agreed we could probably do the same as a last resort.

Upon returning home, I asked the ladies who run the Day Care Centre where I live if they knew where I could buy mince meat. Bingo. They told me I could buy mutton or goat for around 160 rupees per half (kilo) at a market just around the corner from the temple heading out of Pondicherry on the East Coast Road AND that they would take me on Saturday morning to buy some. Although bolognese is usually made with beef, this is the land of the holy cow, so mutton is the next best alternative.

On Saturday morning, I got out of bed at 8am to get ready for the weekly volunteer’s meeting at 9am only to remember it was a long weekend! It was French Independence Day on Monday and Pondicherry’s Independence Day on the Tuesday so the Day Care Centre was closed until Wednesday. Nobody was going to be there to take me to buy the meat. At this rate, spaghetti bolognese was going to become plain spaghetti pomodoro or some other variation. But never fear. Arasu, Prime Trust’s director came to our rescue and agreed to come and pick me up the next morning and take me to the market to buy minced mutton.

At 8.45am we headed off down Mahatma Gandhi Road. Unlike weekdays, the street was relatively bare of traffic but that’s not to say it was free of the constant honking of horns from what traffic was around. As we cruised down the road, Arasu pointed the weekly Sunday Market setting up along the side of the road. “You can buy anything,” he told me. “Even computers.”

We parked the bike outside the Mahatma Gandhi Road market and walked into the meat section to Arasu’s favourite mutton store. We ordered 3 kilograms of mince mutton for 400 rupees per kilo (without bones and fat). It was to be minced by hand so we took the opportunity to go for a coffee and Indian breakfast of pongal which is a rice porridge served with dhal.

Back at the IVC headquarters (the Volunteer’s house), preparations started at 10am to serve lunch at 1pm. Tomatoes chopped. Onions chopped. There was even time for a rest before cooking had to start at 11.30am exactly. Everything was going smoothly and to schedule until 12.35pm when we ran out of gas for the stove. But never fear, Arasu came to the rescue once more with a quick dash to get another gas bottle.

Whilst it may have been served later than expected and it may not have been a truly authentic bolognese, the boys loved it. “Super” one of the boys called out after he had finished his plate. Kelly, a returning volunteer from Scotland, overheard them say in Tamil that it was really, really good except the spaghetti made them feel so full! Whilst there were plenty of leftovers, they didn’t last long. The boys finished off the rest for afternoon tea at 4 o’clock.

Until the next adventure.....

Kym