“That wasn’t supposed to happen, was it?”
She glared at him and he wisely stopped speaking. He took the spoon from her hand and pulled on another one. But it also tore in half when he tried to dislodge it from the ball of momos.
“Did you grease the container before putting these in?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No.”
“Maybe putting hot steamed dough in contact with itself while cooling wasn’t a good idea?”
She pouted, peering into the container. Now it looked like a giant wad of wet tissues with gobs of purple snot peeking through. Nasty. What the hell was she thinking, making food herself? True, nothing was on fire, but what was she going to serve Anil?
“What’s that smell?” Rohan asked.
Of course. The paneer was burning.
***
The paneer, thankfully, wasn’t burnt. Well, notveryburnt, at least. Just a little charred. Rohan took the gold pen and black note cards still on the dining table and rewrote the food label—Blackened Paneer Kebobs.
“They’re fine,” he said.
But the momos—they werenotfine. Kamila had no idea how to salvage the doughy, gummy mass stuck to the bottom of her largest container. She eyed the mound, hoping inspiration would strike. Would steaming them again dislodge them from each other? Maybe freezing them and taking a chisel to them? She could throw the whole mass in the food processor and call it “deconstructed momo soup.”
“How do we save these?” she asked.
Rohan shook his head. “Glue is made from cooked flour. They’re permanently stuck.” He poked at them again with a chopstick.
Her shoulders fell. She was adisaster. Why did she think she could do this? She sighed as she scraped the blob out of the container, mutilating it even further, and tossed it into the compost bin.
Now all she had was some overcooked cheese on sticks and a pot of hot apple juice. Hardly sophisticated party food. Everyone would rave about the store-bought biryani, and no doubt someone would ask why the house smelled like burnt cheese. With a lingering flaming-sweet-potato undertone.
“Let’s make more,” Rohan said.
She looked at him, blinking. “More what?”
“Momos. There’s”—he checked his watch—“an hour and a half before everyone gets here. Do you still have ingredients?”
She nodded. She’d only used half the red cabbage, and there were plenty of carrots, green onions, and flour.
He pulled another apron from the hook beside the door.
And there he was.Rohanbeing Rohan. Her suit-wearing, stiff, tax-lawyer CEO friend was wearing her red polka-dot apron so he could help fixhermistake. This was why she could never stay mad at him. Also…the apron looked adorable on him. “What do you know about making momos?”
“Nothing. But I can cook. Lisa’s grandmother taught us to make har gow once. I’m sure I can handle this.”
Turns out, hecouldhandle this. It shouldn’t have been a surprise—Rohan excelled at anything he did, so of course making a wheat dough was one of his many talents.
She watched his hands as he rolled a ball into a circle. “How are you doing that so well?”
“Didn’t your mother teach you to make rotli? Zayan and I had to learn to roll a perfect circle before she would teach us to drive.”
Kamila’s mother had not taught her to cook. She’d taught Shelina. “My mom decided I wasn’t capable of cooking.”
He took another ball of dough and started rolling it out. “That’s ridiculous. Anyone can cook.”
Kamila sighed. “Let’s just say she thought teaching me wasn’t worth the trouble.”
Rohan stopped rolling and looked at her.
