More often than not, you learn more from mistakes made in the kitchen than from recipe books. Indeed, by following recipes slavishly instead of your own instinct, you can get things very wrong.

A case in point is my recent attempt to make a dish from a new cookbook I had picked up in Karachi called The Jewels of Nizam (sic): Recipes from the Khansamas of Hyderabad by Geeta Devi. Flipping through it, I came across a recipe for achaari machli or fish cooked with pickling spices. This awoke a dormant memory of eating this dish in Lahore’s Old Anarkali in the ’70s.

We would go to a tiled shop, and buy a couple of large portions to take away; these would be handed to us in a tin that had earlier held some other edible item. We would then pick up a bottle from a wine shop on the Mall (these were pre-prohibition days), and drive to the National College of Arts hostel where the principal, Shakir Ali — the gentle artist my son Shakir is named after — had his bachelor quarters.

For a time, my old and much-missed friend, Zahoorul Akhlaq lived there, too. The wonderful flavour of the dish has stayed with me ever since, as have the memories of those relaxed evenings full of conversation and laughter.

The recipe I read calls for: one kilogramme fish, deboned and cubed into two-inch pieces; two medium-sized sliced onions, deep fried and ground into paste; two tablespoon red chilli powder; one tablespoon kalonji; one tablespoon each of mustard seeds and cumin; one cup oil; lemon juice and salt.

In a pan, sauté the fish in three tablespoon of oil and set aside. In another pan, heat the remaining oil and fry the cumin and mustard seeds and the kalonji. When they start popping, add the onion paste, chilli powder and salt, stirring constantly to prevent sticking.

After five minutes or so, lower the flame and add the fish, cooking on low heat until the fish is done. Do not overcook. As soon as the fish went in, Nandi, our wonderful cook who had been watching the proceedings with interest, asked if I wasn’t going to add some water. I replied that the recipe didn’t call for any. But by the time the fish was done, I knew she had been right as the dish was too dry by the end, and the fish seemed to have been barbecued. The flavour was OK, but the achaari machli I recalled was much more moist, and tasted more of pickling spices. Oh well, I’ll just have another crack at it…

Another recent lesson I learned was from a pulao cooked by an Indian friend. Renu is a regular visitor to our home in Sri Lanka, and a very good cook, so I never miss an opportunity to ask her to prepare something. This time, I requested a chicken pulao. When she went into the kitchen, I assumed she would just tell Nandi to do the basics before putting it together. When she was in there for a long time, I went to have a look and discovered that the chicken pieces had been cooked separately, while Renu had made a broth with the neck and the wings, together with the normal spices.

Her version called for the rice to be cooked in the stock, and then just before the rice was done, the chicken pieces, cooked in cumin and red chilli powder, were introduced, and the pot was tightly covered, and left on low heat for 10 minutes. While the dish tasted very good, for me it was not a true pulao. In the more delicate Lucknowi version, all the chicken pieces are simmered with the usual assortment of spices, and then the rice is introduced and cooked until it’s done, slowly absorbing the flavour of the rich stock.

Without wishing to sound ungracious, I fear Renu’s Delhi version was more like a biryani than a true pulao. No wonder people from Lucknow look down on Delhi cuisine.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, March 13th, 2016