Arjun Kumar had made biryani exactly once, eight months ago, and it had gone fine. Reasonably fine. Edible. His wife Nithya had said it was "good for a first try," which is the kind of review that Arjun had chosen to remember as "great."
So when his in-laws announced they were visiting on Saturday, and when his mother-in-law mentioned in passing that she had heard he was "quite a cook now," Arjun said the words that set the next forty-eight hours in motion:
"I'll make biryani."
His wife looked at him the way a person looks at someone who has just made a commitment that will affect them equally but which they were not consulted about.
"Biryani?" she said.
"Full biryani. Dum style. Don't worry."
She worried.
Friday evening, Arjun watched four YouTube videos and a detailed recipe blog and felt confident. He made a list. He went to the market Saturday morning and bought everything on the list and several things not on the list that looked relevant.
The first issue arose with the saffron. The recipe called for saffron soaked in warm milk. Arjun added the saffron to hot milk, which was not the same as warm milk, and discovered this forty minutes later when the saffron had done something different from expected. He decided this was fine.
The onions were supposed to be golden brown. Arjun's first batch went dark brown, then darker. He added a second batch and watched them more carefully. They went golden, then rapidly past golden. He used both batches and decided the different shades added complexity.
The biryani required sealing the pot with dough — dum style, as he had promised. He didn't have dough. He used aluminum foil instead, which the blog said was an acceptable substitute, wrapped three times for security.
He put it on the lowest flame and set a timer for forty minutes.
The problem was the flame. On his mother's stove, which this was not, the lowest setting was genuinely low. On this stove, the lowest setting was still quite vigorous, which he discovered at the forty-minute mark when the smell that had been biryani for the first thirty minutes had recently become something more reminiscent of a very enthusiastic char.
The top layer of rice, Arjun found, was excellent. The middle layer was acceptable. The bottom layer had achieved a quality that the recipe had not discussed and that he privately classified as "crust."
He plated everything carefully, layering from top down, hiding the evidence.
His in-laws arrived at one.
His mother-in-law, who had been making biryani for forty years with the specific authority of someone who understands precisely what it should taste like, took one bite and looked at Arjun with an expression that contained several things simultaneously: kindness, effort-acknowledgment, and a detailed technical assessment.
"It's very..." she searched for the word, "spirited," she said finally.
His father-in-law said: "I've had worse," which, from a man of few words, was genuinely generous.
Nithya ate two full servings and said it was the best thing she'd ever had, which was definitively untrue but which Arjun recognized as the specific loyalty of a spouse publicly supporting something privately questionable.
He ordered extra naan from the restaurant nearby, citing "I thought we'd want more bread" as the reason, and they all ate generously.
At the end of the meal, cleaning up, Arjun looked at the state of the pot.
"Next time," his mother-in-law said, having followed him into the kitchen with the inevitability of a woman who has never in forty years failed to clean up after a meal, "lower flame. Much lower."
"Yes," said Arjun.
"And the saffron," she added, "warm milk. Not hot."
"Yes," said Arjun.
"And the onions—"
"Yes," said Arjun.
She patted his arm. "The effort was very nice," she said.
He chose to hear this as "great."