The ‘One Pot, One Shot’ (OPOS) cooking method was created by B. Ramakrishnan, a culinary enthusiast from Chennai. This cooking style helps you save a lot of time without compromising the dish’s flavour and quality.
According to Ramki (that is what everyone calls him fondly), “Learning to make tasty food with quick recipes and minimum effort is an essential skill.” However, he promises to teach everyone the magic of simple cooking methods through his OPOS cookbook.
Working moms and youngsters who are interested in trying new dishes but not yet feeling comfortable with the intricacies of traditional cooking procedures will find this method incredibly useful. Ramki started to experiment with different recipes when he was working in Bahrain. He was missing his favourite Indian food items and wanted to try them without any hassle. After much trial and error, the ‘OPOS’ method was born; needless to say, it was a big success.
In Ramki’s view, if you prepare a dish using OPOS techniques, you are not compromising its nutritional levels. In addition to this, all the cooked vegetables preserve their colour and crunchiness. That is why OPOS cuisine can entice even the most picky eater.
Using the OPOS cooking method, you can cook butter chicken in 6 minutes ‘aviyal’ (a south Indian vegetarian dish) in just 5 minutes, including the chopping time of the ingredients. Amazing, isn’t it?
To start, you need a 2L pressure cooker, measuring spoon, cups, weighing scale, timer and a stove. In the pressure cooker, the ingredients are diced and layered one by one with a minimum quantity of water. And, you need to cook on high heat for very little time. For every recipe, there are particular procedures to adhere to.
Cookbooks with a wide variety of delicious OPOS recipes are available on top-rated online shopping sites, and many of them boast the ‘best seller’ status. Let us try one of the recipes.
OPOS No Water Mushroom Biriyani
Ingredients needed
1. 400 grams of mushrooms chopped into 4 cups
2. 1 cup Basmati rice
3. 2 tablespoons of ghee
4. 1 cup of chopped tomatoes.
Method of preparation
Mix the chopped mushroom with the ingredients below and keep it aside.
5. ½ cup of caramelised onion
6. ¼ cup yogurt
7. 2 green chillies slitted
8. 1 tablespoon mint leaves
9. 1 tablespoon of garam masala
10. Salt
Soak the rice for 30 minutes and drain it.
Now layer the ingredients in a 2L pressure cooker as below.
Layer 1: 2 tbsp ghee
Layer 2: 1 cup of chopped tomatoes
Layer 3: 2 cups of mushroom
Layer 4: soaked rice
Layer 5: 2 cups of mushroom
Fix the weight and cook on high for four whistles or 10 minutes. Switch off and keep it aside to settle the pressure. After some time, open the lid and mix well. The hot and spicy OPOS mushroom biriyani is ready to serve.
Reference for the article: OPOS Cookbook – 5 min Magic by Ramakrishnan and UBF, OPOS school students.
