Cue Card # 70: Describe a meal you cooked

IELTS Cue Card/ Candidate Task Card # 70

Describe a meal you have ever cooked.

You should say:

• when it was
• what meal it was
• why you cooked that meal

and explain how you felt about it.

[You will have to talk about the topic for one to two minutes. You have one minute to think about what you are going to say. You can make some notes to help you if you wish.]

Model Answer:

I may not the best cook in the world, but I still like to talk about my cooking skills. I also like to talk about what kinds of meals I cooked in the past, whenever an opportunity arrives. So, thank you for this opportunity.

It was about a few months ago when a couple of my cousins were visiting us from another town, in order to see our guava gardens. They had visited me even before then in the past in order to spend holidays with me except that time, they visited me solely for the reason of visiting our guava firm. But, since we would probably spend a significant part of the day in visiting our garden, the chances were that we would get hungry at mid-day. So, I decided to carry some foods with us to satisfy our stomach except I was chosen to be the “designated cook” for the day to cook some “real” foods instead of buying dry foods or snacks from some food stores.

Anyway, after arguing for a while among ourselves, I decided that I would cook “vegetable biriyani” because it was both tasty and easy to cook. All I needed to do was to cook some thin and long-grained rice after mixing them with clarified butter, onions, garlic and ginger. Once the rice was cooked, vegetables were added with spices and cooked until the spices had released their distinct aroma. After that, I just added the rice along with the vegetable stock and cooked until fluffy. In about an hour and a half, my vegetable biriyani was ready to be served!

I felt really good after cooking this meal because it allowed me to have some “pure” fun and entertainment with my cousins after a long time. Besides, it also allowed me to feel good and proud of my cooking abilities. Finally, I also felt cooking was never an easy thing because it would take a significant amount of time and efforts, and as such, we should have appreciated our mothers, sisters and wives more often for their hard works in the kitchen.