SISP Spotlight: Hari's Cooking Show

As part of the senior year curriculum, students begin working on the Senior Independent Study Project, or SISP for short. Seniors spend 100 hours on a passion project of their choice, learning about plenty of different topics throughout this time. At the end of the year, seniors present their SISPs to juniors and faculty members, sharing what they learned along the way.

Currently, Hari Koornala, a senior at MAMS, is working on creating a cooking show for his SISP. In his cooking show, Koornala attempts to solve an issue that he has always faced as a vegetarian – the lack of vegetarian options at many popular restaurants. “Most of the vegetarian dishes in the past five years have been homemade, and then only in the past five years has it been more commercialized. But most of the foods I wanted to try – either they're very expensive or there aren’t many vegetarian counterparts to it,” Koornala explained. As a result, he decided to create his own versions of foods that he had always thought looked delicious, and try them out for himself.

Koornala’s creative process is a mix of research and experimentation. He watches highly rated YouTube videos, picking out techniques and ideas he believes would better the flavor. As for the meat substitutions, Koornala has experimented with various alternatives. “In the beginning, I used to use tofu and paneer, which is like a cottage cheese,” Koornala shared. “But then I ventured to test different types of mushrooms, and also jackfruit, ‘cause jackfruit has that stringy kind of texture that you see in chicken. So, if you were to boil it down, it becomes tender and the texture is very reminiscent of chicken, so if you were to mask that with flavorful foods, I’ve heard that you don’t really taste that drastic of a difference between a food with jackfruit as opposed to chicken.” Koornala also forgoes replicating the meatiness and simply uses vegetables in some recipes. “Sometimes I do cauliflower, sometimes I do just whole pieces of squash. It just works out still.”

Koornala keeps the technical side of his show simple, using just his phone to film. His videos follow a unique, loop-like structure. As he describes, “I start with the made food, take a bite of it, and go, wow, that’s so good. And then I say, let’s make it, and then I bake it, and then at the end of the video, I show that same plate of food, and it’s like a continuous loop.” Originally, he considered uploading longer videos, but he found that short-form content worked better for his style and editing process. “It’s easier for editing if I mess up, and it's easier to cover,” he explained. One challenge he faces with his setup is that the steam from cooking fogs up his camera, but he’s found a solution by wiping the lens in between shots.

His editing process has been made easier due to his previous experience with video editing. In junior year, Koornala worked on a French film and a film for a Humanities project, which helped him familiarise himself with the editing process. “Editing, I already had figured that out, and this is much easier than the French film because I don’t have to worry about shots lining up in the story making sense,” Koornala said. While finding the right clips can be time-consuming, he sees the rest of the editing process relatively straightforward, especially compared to his past projects.

Despite his solo approach to filming, Koornala isn’t afraid to ask for help with cooking when it comes to time-consuming tasks. When making dumplings for a family gathering, he had to prepare over a hundred dumplings to serve ten people, a daunting task for any cook. “I couldn’t roll them all by myself, so I did ask my mom and my grandma for help,” he said. “But I only take help for time-taking processes to make them easier. If it’s a technique that I’m struggling with, I try to learn that myself.” Although it was his third recipe, the dumpling-making experience tested his skills due to the food's large volume and complexity. “It took a lot of time to cut and chop all the vegetables [for the] filling, and I was scared of over seasoning it [or] steaming the vegetables too much,” he shared. “It was one of the scarier recipes I made, just because of the amount that I made.” Koornala had to carefully mix the vegetables as they steamed for 30-40 minutes, ensuring no piece was overcooked. “It did hurt my hands a little,” he laughed. “It became a family experience, where I cooked it with my parents.”

When it comes to the types of food that Koornala enjoys making, he doesn’t limit himself. “I make everything. My only rule is to stay away from Indian cuisine because I eat it so much,” he said. “But if it's a recipe that I haven't tried, I’d love to try it.” Half his recipes focus on sweet treats, driven by his 12-year-old sister’s love for desserts. “She also has a lot of input into this,” Koornala mentioned. “If she sees a short with something in it, she's like, ‘Can you make this?’ And then that's added to my list.” The other half of his dishes are savory dishes, with a variety of cuisines including Asian, American, and Italian. “Next, I want to tackle African cuisines. Those are my next few recipes,” he said.

So far, Koornala has uploaded four videos onto YouTube, and he’s planning on making them public before his SISP presentation. He also plans on expanding his reach by sharing his videos on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok.