When Mia Cooks...

Simple Cheese Cookies

2009-12-15T05:42:00.000-08:00

I like watching Top Chef. You get to see a lot of mostly good food, shake your head at the judges, roll your eyes at the contestants and wonder who got Padma Lakshmi pregnant. Fascinating, right? But from time to time, there are a few people, gems who bring something to the show that really is 'real'. I remember Carla from Season 5, an underdog who made it to the finals. What a character! With her shock of hair and ready smile, that plaintive cry of 'Hootie', she was a pleasure to watch. I remember once, early on in the season, she said she was 'praying to her spirit guides'. It takes guts to say something like that on National Television :D Whenever I saw her on tv, I felt she was one of those people who were true to themselves.

When people say 'be true to yourself', there seems to be an underlying clause- but make sure you don't break social conventions. For example, 'rebelling against authority is wrong'. What happens when you're told that you've got to do something and you don't want to. Especially when everyone else is doing it. What happens when you're unique and the way you express yourself isn't comfortable to other people or doesn't fit in with the 'norm'. When I look back at my childhood, I gape at a path of such fearful docility, it appalls me- not that I was that way (I didn't know any other way) but that that was what was asked of me at every turn. Be who I want you to be. It takes conscious effort to break free of that kind of conditioning and I think all of us have it in us to some degree- things we don't question but just do, because its 'normal'. Time to raise questions, me thinks.

This recipe is a slightly modified version of what I saw on the semi-final episode of Top Chef this season.

Simple Cheese Cookies

Ingredients

1 cup goat cheese/cottage cheese
1 cup sugar
1 tsp lemon zest
1 cup flour
3 egg whites
black pepper
sea salt
3/4 tsp lemon zest
1 tsp chopped basil

Powder the sugar along with the lemon zest. Place the cheese and sugar in a bowl and with a hand mixer and cream it. If the cheese is too dry, add a dash of milk. Fold in the basil, flour and egg whites using a spatula and mix well. Spread out or pipe the mixture onto a flat greased baking dish and sprinkle salt and pepper on top. You could also sprinkle some sesame seeds. Place in the oven for 20 mins at 175 C.

Gulab Jamun

2009-12-05T23:27:00.000-08:00

There's a new life in this world now, making it a richer happier place. True, she just laughs and poops at this point but eventually, she'll get around to the important stuff. She likes sweet talk, has two pistons instead of legs, blows spit bubbles to pass the time, fights sleep till her eyes roll around and speaks in a language no one understands. This kid is super cute. She is also my niece.

I'm doing something for her that I once read in a book- it really touched me... I'm writing letters to her, that I'll keep safe for her until she turns 21. On her 21st birthday, I'll hand over to her a lifetime of letters; my thoughts and feelings about her, all the little things about her that we usually forget with the passage of time, my take on life and so on...just like a time capsule :) But that's a long way away. Now, I look forward to the beautiful years ahead, anticipating an adorable little girl who will be well loved and truly cherished.

Meet Sahana, my beautiful beautiful niece!

The Gulab Jamuns came out wonderfully, nicely round and puffed just this little one's cheeks!

Ingredients

1 cup Skimmed Milk powder
1 tsp all purpose flour
Fresh Cream
1/2 tsp Baking powder

Ghee, to deep fry
2 Cardamom pods
3 cups Sugar
2 cups water

Place the skimmed milk powder in a bowl and add the flour and baking powder to it. Mix it up a bit. Now add cream in batches and use your hands to mix it in, till you get a slightly sticky dough. Cover and place aside.

Make the sugar syrup by boiling the water with sugar in it. Add 1 or 2 split cardamom pods into it. When it boils, remove from the flame and keep aside covered. In a thick skillet, heat enough ghee on low for deep frying. Take the dough and roll it gently but firmly into very small balls. Place the balls in the ghee on the lowest flame possible and allow them to cook, stirring often, until they become golden brown. Remove with a slotted spoon and place them immediately in the sugar syrup water. Repeat till all the dough is used up. Wait at least 15 minutes for the Gulab Jamuns to soak up the sugar. Serve hot!

Spicy Baby Potatoes

2009-11-11T19:36:00.000-08:00

Jessie had a tumor removed this week. When things like this happen, it brings facets of yourself under the microscope- your strength and faith and love. Just a few weeks ago, I began working on my mind with books on positive thinking and faith, tackling worry and being peaceful. I had to call upon every ounce of what I read and found in myself to keep it together. As unnamed fears, sometimes too stupid or too helpless to be voiced chased each other in my mind, I put into practice what I've been learning. And to me, it reinforced something important- no matter how many people you have to support and love you, and I'm truly grateful for that, the most important person who you really really need, who you'll turn to is yourself. Keeping your mind peaceful and strong, courageous and positive- it is something that you get better at with practice and it's something that'll really take you through the tough times.

We were in my brother's place in Bangalore for the operation and this spicy baby potato dish of my mom's helped almost as much as anything else. Food is love, people ;)

Spicy Baby Potatoes

1.2 kilo baby potatoes
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 large tomato, finely chopped
2.5 tbsp oil
1 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp split black gram (optional)
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
2 tsp salt, or to taste
2 tsp chilli powder, or to taste
1 cup water
6 cloves garlic
3/4 inch piece of ginger
10 to 12 curry leaves

Scrub and wash the potatoes a couple of times to make sure there's no dirt. Place in a vessel with just enough water to cover the potatoes. Cover and cook on high till the potatoes are cooked through- about 10 mins. Remover, cool and slice each potatoes in half.

In a heavy skillet, place the oil. Once it heats up, add the mustard seeds, cumin seeds, black gram and allow it to splutter. Add the onions and cook till translucent. Add the tomatoes and cook, stirring till its well cooked. Add the potatoes, the turmeric powder, salt and chilli powder. Stir to coat. Add the water, cover and on high cook till the water evaporates.

Simmer, remove the lid and spread the baby potatoes around the skillet so that they all touch the pan to become more brown. In a blender, place the garlic, ginger and curry leaves and pulse a few time to get a coarse dry blend. Add it to the potatoes and stir well. On low, allow it to cook, scraping and stirring from time to time till the potatoes are well browned. Serve with yummy flavored rice!

Vegetable Manchurian

2009-10-28T04:28:00.000-07:00

I'd do a lot for Chinese food (Indo-Chinese Food). It might border on the illegal, oh heck, I'd swim in the underworld.....all totally unnecessary of course, coz I'm in India- the birthplace of goey, make-your-tongue numb Chinese! I think this is a cuisine that its namesake, i.e, the Chinese would be most surprised by. I've heard it a hundred times- how what we call Chinese food isnt really Chinese food at all.

But like someone or the other said, what's in a name. I want Chinese food! Surprisingly, its something that I never thought of cooking at home. Seriously, never crossed my mind. Until I stumbled upon a recipe yesterday and the idea was born.

So this is Indo-Chinese Vegetable Manchurian- a beautiful bite served as appetizers or with some spicy rice. There's an option to make it dry or with a sauce and I found a good recipe online here. I pretty much stuck to the recipe as is except for increasing the flavoring. Yum.

Vegetable Manchurian

1 Carrots
1/8 medium cabbage
1/4 medium Cauliflower
10 Green Beans
20 leaves Mint
6 Spring onions
2 Green chilies
7 Fresh garlic cloves
1 tbsp Ginger garlic paste
2 tbsp Soya Sauce
1/2 cup Multi purpose flour
2 tbsp Corn flour
Oil , for deep-frying
2 tsp Salt

Carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, beans, mint and spring onions have to be finely chopped. Add multipurpose flour and corn flour to the vegetables. Then add the ginger garlic paste, salt. Make them into dough with water (very little). The dough should be tight and be able to hold shape when formed into small dumplings or balls.

Fry these balls in hot oil until golden brown. Chop the chilies and garlic, cilantro and set them aside.

Dry:

Heat about a teaspoonful of oil in a pan and fry chilies with chopped garlic. When the garlic turns golden brown add the soy sauce and heat it for a minute. Add a quarter cup of water and also the fried balls of Manchurian to the mixture. Keep on a stove for 3 minutes until the water evaporates. Take off heat and garnish with chopped cilantro leaves.

Wet:

Fry finely chopped garlic and green chilies, spring onions in a pan. Then add the Soya sauce. To this mixture add 3 cups of water and 2 tablespoons of corn flour. Let the mixture thicken. Add a teaspoonful of salt and the vegetable Manchurian dumplings or balls to this. Heat for 5 min. Take off heat and garnish with cilantro.

Garbanzo Meal & Recipes

2009-10-16T23:38:00.000-07:00

It's been years since I celebrated Diwali. When I was in the 4th standard, there was a huge scandal in South India which exposed the horrible working conditions and the abuse of child labor in Sivakasi, the capital of fireworks production. We, as school children, were encouraged to protest by staying away from fireworks.

A few years down the line, with our family never together for any festival, I simply lost interest in it all. I never liked the noisy crackers anyway, but the wheels and rockets are always fun. But then, Diwali is more than its fireworks. It's the triumph of good, a celebration of light and these are things that I would simply love to focus on at this point. I won't be lighting any fireworks tomorrow night, but I will think upon that beautiful flickering glow that I imagine one would see when looking down on this part of the world from space :)

I came up with Garbanzo meal, similar to corn meal and played around with a few recipes, all of which came out well. I especially liked the muffins, as its the first time I substituted eggs with flax seeds- the results amazed me!

Garbanzo Meal
makes 1.5 cups garbanzo meal

1 3/4 cup halved soaked garbanzo beans
1 pinch salt
1 tsp olive oil

Prep: Soak the garbanzo beans overnight. In the morning, rinse, drain and chop each bean in half. Spread it a newspaper and allow it to dry under a fan for a little while.

In a heavy skillet, add the oil and the halved garbanzo beans and salt and cook on low, stirring occasionally till the beans are dry and cooked through. Remove and cool. Pulse the beans in a food processor a few times to get the soft grainy garbanzo meal.

Garbanazo Celery Baked Pops
makes 10

Savory Garbanzo Meal:
2 cups halved garbanzo beans
1 tbsp olive oil
1/3 cup celery
1 pinch salt
1 pinch cumin powder
1 tsp chilli flakes
Prepare just like plain Garbanzo meal (above)

To make the pops:

1 tbsp oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 tbsp celery chopped

2 pinches salt
2 pinches pepper
3 tbsp vegetable stock

In a small pan, heat the oil and add the chopped onion and celery. Cook till the onions turns translucent and remove. To the savory garbanzo meal, add the cooked onions, salt, pepper and vegetable stock. Mix with your hands to form a firm dough. Press the dough around ice cream sticks. Place on tray lined with greased foil. Brush oil on top as well. Bake for 25 mins at 200 C. Serve with ketchup.

Garbanzo Muffins
Makes 3

1/2 cup garbanzo meal
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar, powdered
1/2 tbsp ground flax seed mixed in 1.5 tbsp water
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 cup milk
1 pinch salt

Mix the garbanzo meal, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Add the flax seed mixture, vegetable oil and milk and mix till just incorporated. Spoon the mixture into a greased muffin tin till the molds are 3/4 full. Bake in the oven at 180 C for 20 to 25 mins.

Garbanzo Skillet Biscuits
Makes 4

1 cup Garbanzo Meal
1/4 cup lukewarm water, approx.
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vegetable oil

Mix all the ingredients together. Add enough water to make the dough hold shape. Flatten in the palm of your hands smoothing the edges of cracks as you go. Lightly oil a skillet and place the biscuits on it on low heat. Flip once so that both sides become brown. Bake in an oven for 10 mins at 150 C just before serving with chilli or gravy.

Dried Fruit and Nut Cheese Rolls with Pomegranate Sauce

2009-10-08T20:46:00.000-07:00

There are moments in our lives when we touch the heights of happiness. We usually attribute it to events- marriage, births....or periods of time like the years of University or school. For me, they are the nights of the year 2000. The first year of my wasted engineering degree. I was sharing an apartment with two of my cousins. Prabu was a medical intern who'd come home in the middle of the night, most nights. He'd softly call me awake and say 'Let's go'. He was, still is, an expert biker, with great skill and control. We'd take off, on empty roads, through the city, the nearby villages, under dark skies full of stars, fast, with the wind whipping around us, on some lanes with the headlights off, under total darkness....and there is nothing but quiet happiness, the sense of freedom, of infinite space, breathing freely, feeling powerful and content....and happy.

Most of the time, we'd return only at dawn, refreshed, eager to face the day. It wasn't the best time for me then with my confusion about what I wanted to do and what I was doing. And though it could sound a bit odd when stated simply, I'd say it anyway- I survived because of those long nights. They were the best times of my life :)

Dried Fruit and Nut Cheese Rolls with Pomegranate Sauce

1 cup soft cheese
3 tbsp powdered sugar
1 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
10 to 15 sweet green grapes, halved
1 ring pineapple, cut into small cubes
1 cup chopped, assorted dried fruits and nuts-
walnuts
pistachio
semi-dried apricot
honey dried gooseberry
dried figs
raisins
2 tortillas (I made square shaped ones, you could cut round tortillas)

3/4 fresh pomegranate juice
1/4 cup sweet lime juice
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp cornflour

Place the cheese in the blender along with the powdered sugar and lemon juice and pulse a few times to get a spreadable paste. Remove to a bowl and add assorted dried fruits and nuts. Mix well and fold in the grapes and pineapple. Spread the mixture onto a tortilla. Roll tightly, cover it with foil or muslin and place in the refrigerator for an hour at least. With a sharp knife cut it into rolls.

Combine the sauce ingredients in a small skillet and bring it to boil. Simmer and allow it took cook till it thickens. Allow it too cool and spread onto the rolls before serving.

Crisp Onion Samosas

2009-10-03T12:09:00.000-07:00

More than two weeks since my last post. And in them, I've been assaulted with way too many medical terms. Diabetic Retinopathy, Vitrectomy, Microalbuminuroia, Blood Pressure, HepatitisC...my father is a medical miracle. Years of self-neglect and angry defiance to our well meaning advice and now, he's where no one wants to be. My father's body has become a complicated system of units, each with their own problems. Dealing with them, is a dysfunctional family system that, like his body, is trying to work together :)...I'm smiling at the irony. There are new responsibilities that are being incorporated into my routines- I'm working my way to 'me' again and blogging and commenting will definitely be revived, albiet at a slow pace.

So, today we have this amazing Onion Samosa. People here in India will tell you that there are, in general, two completely different types of street food samosas. The North India one is a bulky crumbly pastry with potato stuffing. The South Indian one is a thin crisp, perfect triangle with spiced onions inside. I adore the latter. Unfortunately (and in my opinion, inexplicably) its becoming harder to find it down here. North Indian chaat has become very popular, it seems.

When I was in college, while others headed over to the canteen, N and I slipped away during every lunch break to a stationary shop nearby which sold just one eatable- a mound of crisp hot onion samosas. We'd have a couple, wash it down with a cool drink and head back, completely satisfied. There's nothing like an onion samosa. After a futile drive in search of them yesterday, I decided the time had come to make my own.

I experimented a great deal, making one samosa at a time. After three trials, the stuffing came out perfect. The dough was perfect from the start. The folding technique stumped me for awhile, because though the one I was using was alright, I wanted something better. So I sat down, channeled my inner nerd and with the liberal use of the Pythagoras theorem, deconstructed a samosa to come up with a template. It worked wonderfully well!

When the golden triangles came out of the oil, I didn't just feel like a chef, I felt like Einstein :D

Crisp Onion Samosa

Dough:

1/2 cup wheat flour
1/2 cup all purpose flour
2 tbsp fine rice flour
1/2 tbsp oil
1/2 tsp salt
Water

Mix all of the ingredients together with enough water to make a slightly sticky dough. Knead for a few minutes, cover and allow it to rest for 1/2 an hour.

Wrapper:

After the dough has rested, pinch off a small ball and roll it into a thin (1 mm) sheet, dusting with plenty of flour as you go. Cut out strips. Ideally, a 6.5 into 3 inch rectangle should do. Heat a pan and place a strip on it. After 10 seconds, flip it. After another 10 seconds, flip it again and immediately remove it to a soft muslin cloth. Keep it covered and make strips from all of the dough. Allow the strips to soften in the cloth for at least 15 minutes.

Stuffing:

3 onions
2 tbsp tomato paste
1 tsp salt, or to taste
1 pinch turmeric powder
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp coriander powder
A few curry leaves
1 cm green chilly, chopped extra fine
Cooking oil

Add a dash of oil in a pan. Chop the onions lengthwise and use your hands to separate the pieces properly. Add the chopped onion in the oil. Stir to coat well. After a few minutes add the salt, turmeric, coriander and chilli powders. Cook for a minute. Add the tomato paste and stir constantly for a minute. Remove from the stove and allow it to cool completely. Chop up the curry leaves and mix it into the onions. along with the green chilly.

Deep fry:

Make a thick glue paste by mixing a little flour in water. Fill a wide vessel with oil at least half way up and place it on the heat. Assemble the samosas by filling with the stuffing. Make sure there are no breaks or tears. Lower the heat completely and place the samosas in the oil. Allow it to cook on low, flipping occasionally, until it becomes golden brown. Remove and place on kitchen towels to absorb oil. Serve hot!

Folding Technique: If you want the template, email me!

Ratatouille's Ratatouille

2009-09-15T00:33:00.000-07:00

There are only a handful of movies that truly inspire us to action. For me Kung Fu Panda was one- I've posted my simple noodle soup that it inspired but there is much more to the movie than food. Much much more. To a slightly lesser degree, Ratatouille is another movie that has more substance than the usual crop of entertainment. A beautiful story with an equally beautiful message.

I've been wanting to try the signature dish that Remy created, the one that humbled Anton Ego. So I went straight to the source- here. It is one of the most delicious dishes I've had.

Try it. After all, 'Anyone can cook!' :)

Ratatouille's Ratatouille
Recipe, reproduced verbatim:

FOR PIPERADE

1/2 red pepper, seeds and ribs removed
1/2 yellow pepper, seeds and ribs removed
1/2 orange pepper, seeds and ribs removed
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 cup finely diced yellow onion
3 tomatoes (about 12 ounces total weight), peeled, seeded, and finely diced, juices reserved
1 sprig thyme
1 sprig flat-leaf parsley
1/2 a bay leaf
Kosher salt

FOR VEGETABLES
1 zucchini (4 to 5 ounces) sliced in 1/16-inch rounds 1 Japanese eggplant, (4 to 5 ounces) sliced into 1/16-inch rounds 1 yellow squash (4 to 5 ounces) sliced into 1/16-inch rounds 4 Roma tomatoes, sliced into 1/16-inch rounds 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic 2 teaspoons olive oil 1/8teaspoon thyme leaves Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

FOR VINAIGRETTE

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
Assorted fresh herbs (thyme flowers, chervil, thyme)
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper.

1. For piperade, heat oven to 450 degrees. Place pepper halves on a foil-lined sheet, cut side down. Roast until skin loosens, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let rest until cool enough to handle. Peel and chop finely.

2. Combine oil, garlic, and onion in medium skillet over low heat until very soft but not browned, about 8 minutes. Add tomatoes, their juices, thyme, parsley, and bay leaf. Simmer over low heat until very soft and very little liquid remains, about 10 minutes, do not brown; add peppers and simmer to soften them. Season to taste with salt, and discard herbs. Reserve tablespoon of mixture and spread remainder in bottom of an 8-inch skillet.

3. For vegetables, heat oven to 275 degrees. Down center of pan, arrange a strip of 8 alternating slices of vegetables over piperade, overlapping so that 1/4 inch of each slice is exposed. Around the center strip, overlap vegetables in a close spiral that lets slices mound slightly toward center. Repeat until pan is filled; all vegetables may not be needed.

4. Mix garlic, oil, and thyme leaves in bowl and season with salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle over vegetables. Cover pan with foil and crimp edges to seal well. Bake until vegetables are tender when tested with a paring knife, about 2 hours. Uncover and bake for 30 minutes more. (Lightly cover with foil if it starts to brown.) If there is excess liquid in pan, place over medium heat on stove until reduced. (At this point it may be cooled, covered and refrigerated for up to 2 days. Serve cold or reheat in 350-degree oven until warm.)

5. For vinaigrette, combine reserved piperade, oil, vinegar, herbs, and salt and pepper to taste in a bowl.

6. To serve, heat broiler and place byaldi underneath until lightly browned. Slice in quarters and very carefully lift onto plate with offset spatula. Turn spatula 90 degrees, guiding byaldi into fan shape. Drizzle vinaigrette around plate. Serve hot.

Yield: 4 servings

Rasagullas in Mixed Fruit Juice

2009-09-07T20:07:00.001-07:00

I was speaking to a person recently about my pets and he said "I'm a cleanliness freak and I really object to having animals in the house." I'll come out and admit that I have a temper, but I rarely see red like I did when he said that. It's incomprehensible to me how people can have such horrid attitudes about animals.

Some people sound like they suffer animals' existence on earth, as if they didn't have a right to be here, like humans 'own' the globe. There's a particular high born caste in India, the orthodox members of which would never touch a dog or a cat even if you paid them to. I've seen grown men and women back away in disgust. It's appalling.

To me, its a gross deficiency of compassion and understanding. It is almost unforgivable.

Though a spicy dish would have been more appropriate with this heated censure, I chose to go with a sweet one instead. A tribute to all the gorgeous and amazing fellow creatures we share our world with. So there!

Rasagullas in Mixed Fruit Juice]

Traditionally rasagullas are allowed to soak in a simple syrup, but fruits impart their own subtle flavor and really heighten this dish.

1/2 liter milk
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
Assorted fruits (apples, grapes, passion fruit, pineapple, sweet lime)
Sugar, to taste

Place the milk in a pan and allow it to come to a boil. Pout in the leamon juice and remove from heat. Stir it around a bit so that the milk solids separate from the whey. Strain out the cheese, wash with some cold water and place in a plate. Add the flour and start kneading the cheese dough till it becomes a soft mass. Rill into small balls. Place the sugar and water in a pan and when it comes to a boil, gently drop the cheese balls into it. Simmer, cover and cook for 20 minutes. Every five minutes, add a few tsps of water. Do not allow the syrup to thicken.

Meanwhile, place the fruits in a juicer and strain the juice into a bowl. Add a bit of sugar to lightly sweeten the juice. Add a few strands of saffron. Remove the rasagullas and place them in the juice. Refrigerate and serve cold.

Passion Fruit Millet Polenta

2009-09-02T12:18:00.000-07:00

I've been a bit distracted of late- a nasty bout of sinus and a riveting sci-fi book series kept me from cooking, browsing, commenting.... :(

I have a sweet tooth. Ok, maybe more than one. It's a weird craving- after every meal, even if I've stuffed myself I need a morsel of sweetness to 'seal the deal' (sometimes I talk like a gangster).

I'm kinda tired of making cakes and tarts...and I'm actually kinda tired of seeing the same stuff over and over again online. I'm looking for options now. Actually, I do have a few low-fat sweet options that I can fall back on, some are ridiculously simple- but more on that in a different post. This one here is a nice little bite that I whipped up a while ago- healthy stuff- millet, fruit pulp and just a bit of sugar.

Passion Fruit Millet Polenta

1 cup cooked foxtail millet
4 tsp sugar
½ cup passion fruit
1/3 cup mango pulp

To cook the millet, place it in a vessel with water in the ratio 1 : 4 (millet : water). With medium heat, it cooks pretty fast, between 5 to 10 minutes.

Place the cooked millet in a non stick pan with the other ingredients and stir on low to remove moisture- maybe 3 or 4 minutes. Spoon the mixture into muffin cups, smooth the tops and place circles of wax paper on the top of each. Refrigerate overnight. Turn it over onto a serving plate and gently tap to release the polenta. You could also slightly brown both sides in a frying pan with a little butter before serving.

Big Grandma's Coconut Chutney

2009-08-21T01:48:00.000-07:00

My grandma's elder sister simple refuses to budge from our village. If we somehow spirit her away to our home here, she never lasts more than two days. Though she cannot articulate it, I understand. There are too many walls in the city, too many broken vistas, short steps, grey things. To a soul raised in green fields, under blue skies, the city can never be home.

She's the last of her kind. You see, she's never worn a blouse. Just that loosely flung sari that she wraps around herself in that unique village style. She told me about it. About how the 'blouse rage' spread through the land, how her sisters and friends took to it immediately. They tried with her too, but as she so charmingly and vehemently says "I couldn't wear it, no, no. I threw it off." Whenever she tells me this, I always imagine her running across the fields with a gaggle of people chasing after her, waving blouses in the air.

Anyways, big grandma makes the tastiest chutneys, the only way she knows how- on the grinding stone. Ask anyone in India and they'll tell you it tastes way better than what you blend in a processor. Its true.

She's a hardy soul, who worked in the fields all her life, even gave birth in them! You should hear the stories.....Oh, and big grandma's real name- "Chinna Ponnu"- which means exactly- "Little Girl". So true! :)

Big Grandma's Coconut Chutney
(adapted for making with a blender*)

1 cup packed Freshly Grated Coconut
1/2 lemon sized ball of Tamarind, soaked in water OR 2 tsp tamarind paste
2 large dried Red Chillies
1/2 tsp Rock Salt
1/4 cup water

Put it all together and let 'er rip. Add as little water as possible if it is too thick to blend properly. This is a very tangy chutney and it is best eaten mixed up with rice and a spicy fried side dish.

*These measurements are approximate. You can adjust the ingredients to suit your taste. Start with a little amount of each ingredient and pause as you blend to taste and add more.

White Chocolate Cheese Tarts with Caramelized Beet Dots

2009-08-13T22:49:00.000-07:00

This is one of my own...one of those recipes that come to you when you sit and stare off into space. I love white chocolate and combining it with fresh homemade cheese in a beautiful tart....mmmmm.....

White Chocolate Cheese Tarts with Caramelized Beet Dots
Makes 7 small tarts

2 quantities basic tart dough*
1.75 cups (packed) fresh firm cheese**
4 tbsp melted white chocolate
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tbsp cold water

Garnish-
2 one mm thin slices of red beet
2 tsp sugar
1 tbsp ground almonds
Fresh pineapple strips

Preheat oven. Roll out or press the tart dough and line the tart shells with them. Trim ends neatly and place in the oven. Blind bake for 5 minutes. The remove the beans/weights and bake for 40 mins at 180° C.

In a blender, place the firm cheese, the powdered sugar and water. Blend for a minute till smooth. Remove to the bowl with melted white chocolate and mix well with a metal spoon. After using it to fill the tarts, place in the refrigerator.

Meanwhile, sprinkle a small pan with 1/2 tsp of sugar. Place the beet slices on it and sprinkle with another 1/2 tsp of sugar. On a very low flame, cook the beets, flipping over often. When the beets become floppy, remove from the stove. Use a pen cap to press down on the beets slices and make dots. Place aside.

After the tart shells have been baked, remove them from the oven and allow to cool completely. Fill the shells with the cheese mixture and smooth down the top with a spoon. Refrigerate. In a dry pan, lightly toast the ground almonds and sprinkle onto the tart filling. Decorate with beet dots and pineapple strips.

*Basic Tart Dough

1.25 cups all purpose flour
80 g butter
2.5 tbsp cold water
1 pinch salt

Place the flour, salt and butter in a bowl and use your finger tips to break the butter in. Add the water and gather the dough together into a ball. Do not mix too much. Cover with clingfilm and place in the refrigerator for at least an hour.

**Fresh Cheese

1 liter milk
Juice from 2 small lemons

Allow the milk to come to a boil. Just when it does, remove of the stove and pour in the lemon juice. The milk will separate into solids and whey. Place a muslin cloth in a bowl and pour the contents of the milk into it. Lift the cloth and tie it up, allowing the whey to collect in the bowl below. Untie after half an hour and use immediately or refrigerate until use.

Austrian Coffee Cake...so it said...

2009-08-11T18:55:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy week. Satisfyingly busy. Cute little things have happened- the top news being- Kutti now has a boyfriend!.....it's easier for squirrels, isn't it? She hasn't asked me for my approval, but I think he's a handsome dude. A little shifty, the way he peers at me from around corners, but 'hey', says Kutti, as she munched on some millet, 'its tough finding a good man.' Oh, really?

I think this is the first time I've tried a recipe 'as is' from a recipe book. Though I did re-read it a couple of times- no butter, no oil, no baking powder....Will it rise on egg power alone? Yeah, it rose beautifully and then fell, spectacularly. Jesus, after that it was a matter of desperate salvaging. Even the taste wasn't worth it. With a cream crisis, this doomed recipe (I did everything by the book) and the crappy photography, the kitchen walls resounded with curses. I'm putting it up here, just as it is in that book, because.....because....well, I'm feeling contrary at the moment. Aargh. Sniff.

Austrian Coffee Cake
From Quick and Easy Desserts (may a thousand curses collectively burn it)

Oven Temperature: 180° C, 350° F, Gas 4

4 eggs, separated
1/4 cup/ 60g/ 2 oz caster sugar
45g/1.5 oz ground almonds
3 tsps instant coffee powder dissolved in 4 tsps boiling water, cooled
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1/4 cup/ 30g/ 1 oz flour
chocolate dots, grated chocolate

Coffee Cream-
1 tbsp caster sugar
1 tsp instant coffee powder dissolved in 2 tsps boiling water, cooled
2 tbsps coffee-flavored liqueur
1 cup/250 ml/ 8 fl oz double cream, whipped

Place egg yolks and sugar in a bowl and beat until thick and creamy. Beat in almonds, coffee mixture and vanilla essence.

Place egg whites in a bowl and beat until stiff peaks form. Sift flour over egg yolk mixture and fold in with egg white mixture. Spoon batter into a greased and lined 20cm/8 in springform tin and bake for 20-25 mins or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Stand in tin for 10 minutes, before turning onto a wire rack to cool.

To make Coffee cream, mix sugar, coffee mixture and liqueur into cream. Split cold cake horizontally and use a little of the coffee cream to sandwich halves together. Spread remaining coffee cream over top and sides and cake. Decorate top of cake with chocolate dots and grated chocolates. Chill and serve cut into slices.

Finger Millet or Ragi, two ways

2009-08-08T06:11:00.000-07:00

Finger Millet, or Ragi is a nutritious cereal grain. It is, or rather, was a staple in Indian diet. Though ragi flour is still in good use in some parts of India to make quick pancakes, I find that people here have moved on to ingredients that don't require as much work.

At one time, in the not so recent past, ragi and other millets were consumed everyday- rice was a rarity. My grandparents grew up on such nutritious fare, which (as they used to say) is why they were solid healthy people who lived long lives. But even people in the villages don't use it much anymore. What a shame.

So this recipe is an age old method of preparation- in honor of the past :)

Ragi Kali

This is a flour based preparation that yields a jelly/stiff porridge like cooked dough called Kali in Tamil. It is a wonderful healthy base to be had with any curry- Indian curries, American gravy, Thai curries....whatever you like.

1 cup Ragi or Finger millet flour
3.75 cups water
3/4 tsp salt

Wash your hands well. Place the ragi flour in a bowl. Add 1.25 cups water to it. With one hand, mix the flour in, breaking and smoothing out the lumps that form until you get a smooth batter. (You can do this first step 12 to 24 hrs before and cover with a cloth. Slight fermentation yields a tastier end result. Its optional.)

Place another vessel on the stove. Pour in the remaining water (2.50 cups). As the water heats up well (do not allow the water to boil), pour in the flour mixture. Immediately, on a high flame, use a broad metal spoon and start mixing vigorously- churning would be a better word. Scrape the sides of the vessel as you churn.

Within three of four minutes, the mixture will have thickened. Lower the flame- lumps will not form after this point. If any lumps have formed, break them up against the sides of the vessel with the spoon. Cover and cook on low for 15 minutes. Stir twice in between. Keep it closed after you remove from heat for another 15 minutes. Serve with curry.

Ragi Drink/ Kool

Another way to serve Ragi kali is to make a simple refreshing and nutritious drink with it. This is called 'Kool' and was (sometimes is) a popular summer street food drink as well as a temple charity offering.

1 cup Kali/cooked Ragi dough (from recipe above)
1/2 cup yogurt
1 cup water
1 medium red onion, chopped
1 green chilly, finely chopped
salt, to taste
A handful of cilantro/coriander leaves, chopped

Place the Kali along with the yogurt and water in a blender and blend thoroughly. Remove to a pouring jug. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir. Chill before serving in tall glasses. You can serve some spicy pickles alongside for extra bite.

Rose Flavored Soybean Milk

2009-08-07T19:08:00.000-07:00

I've never had soy milk. I have this 'thing' about packaged processed milk. It's my mom's fault, this prejudice. She put it in my head and it refuses to budge. Mothers! (cue to shake head) So, in spite of the amazing nutritional benefits of soy milk, I've never tried it. Which is why I was quite happy to find out how to make it. This version makes ordinary soy milk and the sweetness and flavoring is added to it by preparing a syrup.

Rose Flavored Soybean Milk

500g soy beans
8 cups water
Syrup-
1/2 cup water
1 cup sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp rosewater
red food color (optional)

Soak the soybeans in plenty of water overnight. Drain and process in a blender with the water. You might have to do this in batches. Pour it into a cotton cloth held over a wide bowl. The milk will collect in the bowl. Discard the contents left in the cloth. Pour the milk into a saucepan and heat on medium flame till it boils. Stir often. Simmer for a few minutes, then remove. You can strain it through a sieve if you wish.

For the syrup, place the water in a saucepan. Add the sugar and bring to boil. Simmer for a few minutes until syrupy. Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice and rosewater. Add the food color if you want to. Cool completely and store in the refrigerator.

To serve, stir a spoonful or two of the rosewater syrup into a glass of soy milk.

Rainbow Sponge Cake with Passion Fruit Icing

2009-08-04T23:24:00.000-07:00

I don't care, I don't care if every Tom, Dick and Harry (or their female counterparts) in the foodie blogosphere is making a rainbow cake. I have to make one too. So there.

Ahem. I took a trip to Bangalore last week and visited my brother and sister-in-law. The trip was real fun- the best part being the pastry supplies that I hoarded. The other best part was the electric mixer that the generous duo got for me. I was going to buy one, but it turned up as my gift! :)

I used to beat batter and make dough by hand.....let me tell you, people, if I ever cross over to the dark side and practice evil, that would be my trademark torture device- a spoon or whisk, a bowl of eggs and sugar. With my midnight cape flying, the dungeon walls glowing as the light from the bonfires play across it, I'd command "Beat it! Ah hah ha ha ha hah." And the chains would rattle as the poor suffering souls beat and beat and beat...

But thankfully, I'm a good person, angelic actually...what?... anyways, the point is- I have my brand new mixer and I commemorated it with this multicolor sponge cake.

My passion fruit icing didn't quite make it onto the cake because of a teensy mistake, heh heh, so I patched it up and converted it to ice cream, but I must say- passion fruit icing is the best flavor ever! Next time, I'll make it right and put it in a moist layered cake.

This cake is for my brother and sis-in-law. Don't worry, you two, you'll actually get to eat it soon enough ;)

Rainbow Sponge Cake with Passion Fruit Icing

4 eggs, separated, at room temperature
1 cup flour, sifted
1 cup superfine sugar, sifted
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 tsp baking powder
5 liquid food colors (or more)

In a bowl, beat the egg white till firm peaks form. Add the vanilla essence and baking powder and beat till stiff. Add the yolks slowly and continue beating. Spoon in the sugar as you beat. Gently fold in the flour.

Divide the cake batter evenly into five (or more) bowls. Add a few drops of food coloring to each and mix gently. Grease and flour the cake tin and add the first colored batter in the center. As it slowly spreads, add the second one in the center of the first. Continue this slowly with the remaining colors as well. Place in a preheated oven for 20 mins at 175 C.

Passion Fruit Icing-

2 ripe passion fruits
1/2 of one lemon
1 cup icing sugar
2 tbsp butter, at room temerature

Place the pulp of the passion fruit in a sieve. Using a spoon, press down on the pulp and collect the juice in a bowl underneath. Juice the lemon as well. To this, add the icing sugar and butter and beat till well mixed. Chill in the freezer for a few minutes before spreading onto cake.

Note: I bet this frosting is better with cream cheese, so I'd recommend reworking the recipe with it added in.

Hasperat

2009-08-03T20:51:00.000-07:00

I know you don't have to be a genius to come up with a sandwich filling, but I really do love finding different 'established' recipes. I don't just spontaneously use soy sauce or something out of my experience when I'm making my own, so the variety is welcome. And if its a vegetarian recipe that I don't have to 'adapt', I'm truly grateful.

But the last place I expected to find one was in an episode of Star Trek! Hasperat is a Bajoran snack, Bajorans being an alien species, of course. Oh God, my inner Trekkie is rolling around in ecstasy.....I SO want to live on a space ship in a fictional universe!

This one has been in my recipe file for awhile and the reason its been put off so long is because I have to make my own tortillas....and my own hummus...which means I have to make my own Tahini too.....I have to move somewhere else soon, people. Really. But its worth it, I love hummus! And this alien snack too!

Oh and by the way, it is described officially as "...set one's tongue on fire and bring tears to the eyes". But its toned down here so as to not bore a hole through the human tongue ;)

Hasperat
altered from Vegan Yum Yum, I found two other versions with cream cheese instead of hummus - here and here.

2 10″ Wheat Tortillas
1 Cup Hummus
1 Small Cucumber, sliced very thin (about 1/2 cup)
1 Carrot, shredded (about 1/3 cup)
1 1/2 tbsp soy sauce
1 1/2 tbsp Chilli Vinegar
1/2 bunch fresh coriander leaves
Hot Chili Sauce/Tabasco

Slice the cucumber very thinly and place in a large bowl. Add the carrot. Add soy sauce and rice vinegar and toss. Let marinate 30 mins.

Spread the tortillas with hummus, making sure you cover the entire surface. This will help the sandwich stick together. Arrange the cucumber slices in one layer, slightly overlapping. Add carrot, and sprinkle the fresh coriander leaves on top. Drizzle lightly with Tabasco sauce.

Roll up the wrap, tucking in the ends, and place on a hot grill pan to slightly warm and create pretty grill marks. You can do this in a regular pan if you don’t have a grill pan. Slice and eat immediately.

Peanut Butter Squares

2009-07-29T18:23:00.000-07:00

Being a relatively new blogger and having a zero competitive drive, I've never participated in any food contest before. But I do like watching other people sweat it out ;)

Anyways, just for fun, I'm gonna enter the Peanut Butter Celebration Contest by The Peanut Butter Boy.

So here's a shocker. I've never had peanut butter before now. Ever. There were all these uber costly foreign brands that I wouldn't touch and only this year, we have two local brands that have come out with it. When I saw it on the shelves, I was quite happy. Tasty stuff :)

This is a peanut butter version of an Indian fudge like dessert that we make at home using almonds. Seriously, its irresistible and should never be made by anyone trying to watch their weight! But it uses only four ingredients and is so easy to put together, I'm going with it. Onwards, good people....

Peanut Butter Squares

1/2 cup chunky peanut butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 tbsp milk
1 tbsp ghee (clarified butter, do not substitute with butter!)

In a non stick pan, place the peanut butter and sugar, mix it up well and stir for 5 mins on a low flame. Increase the heat, add the milk and keep stirring for five minutes. Now add the ghee and stir constantly till the ghee separates and the mass doesn't stick to the vessel. This should take 5 to 6 minutes. Remove and transfer it to a small deep plate. You don't have to grease the plate, there's plenty of ghee for that in the squares. Allow it to cool. The ghee will be soaked up. Cut into rough squares.

Wheat Gluten Stir-Fry

2009-07-27T09:06:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I opened my inbox and had a pleasant surprise-- an email from myself! You see, last year about this time, I came across a cool site; FutureMe, which allows you to send yourself an email to be received at any point in the future. I thought it wouldn't work, that I'd remember what I wrote or the date or something but I didn't- after more than a year, I remembered nothing at all. And in the mail, I told myself to trust my instincts, because "it is difficult for you to recognize what you want because you want everything so much". And that actually helped me now about something that was bothering me a bit :)

It feels good- there's something special about listening to yourself from the past :D Try it. And don't just send yourself a corny joke, ok?!

Wheat Gluten was one of the first things I learnt to make when I started cooking and Delicious Asian Food is the beautiful blog that taught me. I use wheat flour whereas she uses all purpose flour, but the method is the same. This stir-fry is simple and very flavorful.

Wheat Gluten Stir-Fry

Wheat gluten balls- 15
1 inch ginger
1 large carrot
One half of a Bell pepper of each color
1 large red onion
2 tbsp tomato puree
1/2 tbsp chilli vinegar
1/2 tbsp dark soy sauce
10 to 15 mint leaves
1 cm piece of veg stock cube
salt and pepper to taste
Cooking oil

Press and chop the bit of ginger into small pieces. Slice the onion, bell peppers and carrot into large slices.

Heat the oil in a pan. Add the ginger, stir and add the onions. Cook till the onions become translucent. Add the chopped bell peppers and carrot and stir for 2 minutes. Add the gluten balls. Pour in the tomato puree, chilli vinegar, soy sauce, veg stock cube and mint leaves. Season with salt and pepper. Stir on medium flame till the veggies are just cooked through.

Grapefruit Basil Sorbet

2009-07-26T22:18:00.000-07:00

Now this sorbet is good, and you don't have to take just my word for it. When Kutti came over today, she licked half a teaspoon of melted sorbet clean! She also had a few good things to say about the Sapodilla fruit I recently posted about. So there! A connoisseur has verified my recipes. What more do you want?! :D

Coming to this, its a regular sorbet, but its special to me because both the ingredients are home grown :) Nothing different otherwise, except that I made it with the pulp and 'infused' the flavor of basil into it. It's intense and perfect, though the grapefruit might be a bit too intense for some :)

Grapefruit Basil Sorbet

1 medium to large grapefruit
6 fresh basil leaves
1.5 cups water
1.5 cups sugar
1/2 cup yogurt
1 pinch salt

Peel and remove the fresh of the grapefruit. Put it in a blender with 1/4 cup of water and blend. This came to 1.5 cups grapefruit juice. You can use a juicer/extractor if you want only the juice, but I wanted the pulp as well. Pour into the vessel you plan to freeze the sorbet in.

Cut the basil leaves lengthwise into three or four strips. Add it to the water with the pinch of salt and place it on the stove in a pan. Stir occasionally. As it begins to boil, add the sugar and stir till it dissolves. Reduce heat and stir for a couple of minutes. Pour it into the grapefruit juice and allow it to cool completely.

Put it in the freezer. After an hour, remove it and blend it along with the yogurt. The basil leaves will become dark specs after blending- not really noticeable. After 4 to 5 more hours in the freezer, whisk and serve.

Shakshuka, fast and furious

2009-07-23T19:18:00.000-07:00

One of the many admirable things about us humans is the way we combine our imagination with that cheeky sense of fun. Imagine a non vegetarian dish that is so delicious, it breaks through the stoic self-control of austere vegetarian monks- could it possibly be called anything but "Buddha Jumps over the Wall"?! Of course not!

:D Gotta love us.

Did a little research after I came across that one. Priest Stranglers, Toad in the hole, Pea Wiggles,.....lots of such names, some of it quite suggestive as well ;) Some sound funny only because they're from a different language. The first time I heard of Shakshuka, I thought it sounded like a martial arts move. Picture it- you leap through the air, legs splayed, right arm raised in a sharp upper cut and scream "Shakshukaaaaaaaaa"! Right? No? Come on, it totally fits.

Anyways, this isn't authentic coz I added too many extra things in it, left out some and it's a quick recipe. But hey, my Shakshuka can beat your Shakshuka any day. Shakshukaaaaaaaaaaaa....

Shakshuka

1 small red onion, chopped
2 tbsp chopped bell pepper
4 to 5 large ripe tomatoes, chopped
2 tbsp tomato paste
1 cup veg broth
1/4 cup peas
1/4 cup corn
2 eggs
1/2 tsp chilli powder
salt to taste
coriander/cilantro leaves
Vegetable oil

Actually, it'd be better if you boil the tomatoes and then peel and chop them. But I forgot....heck, ok, I was too lazy.

In a pan, heat a tbsp of vegetable oil. Add the chopped onions and bell pepper and saute for a few minutes. Add the tomato paste, chopped tomatoes and veg broth. Add the peas and corn as well. Season with salt and chilli powder. Simmer and allow to cook till the corn and peas are cooked and there's some liquid left. Break the eggs into the base. Break the yolks with a spoon, cover and simmer. If you like your eggs runny, remove it well under a minute. I don't, so i let it cook for 2 minutes till it firmed up. Add chopped cilantro and serve with bread.

Sapodilla Lemon Juice

2009-07-22T03:10:00.000-07:00

If I could travel to any point in time, I would not go to the future. I would go back, to the ancient past. To the age when humans made the truest discoveries- of their own sentience, their place in life, on earth. When everything was NEW, and everything had to be discovered.

What was it like, back then? How did they experiment to survive? It boggles the mind, and excites me no end just thinking about it. Especially the fact that humans were so few in number that they could live with the earth.....and isn't it amazing that after all these centuries, after the rise and fall of countless civilizations, we still carry with us some of the knowledge of the early days? Not all, not even most, but some.

How does my uneducated grandma know which leaves heal bones faster? Which bark yields healing smoke. Which flower can cool the body, or coagulate blood....coming to the subject of this post, how does my mom know that the sapodilla fruit is good for the tummy, that it can placate an upset stomach? We talk about folklore and old wives tales and things that have been passed down for generations, but really, it is almost magical to me, this knowledge. It is not a thing of science, but of experience. It is....heavy and deep, the years and minds that it has seen and survived.....and it is to be cherished.

I did not know that sapodilla and lemon would taste so good together, but they do. After my watermelon-muskmelon combo, this is a good home-made juice combination.

Sapodilla* Lemon Juice

1.2 cups loosely packed fresh sapodilla flesh- peeled, deseeded
1 cup water
4 to 6 tsp sugar
1 small lemon or 1/2 big lemon- juice
2 tbsp yoghurt

Blend all the ingredients together. If its too thick, add a bit more water. Serve in glasses rimmed with cinnamon sugar.

*Sapodilla is chikku in North India, and sapota in Tamil. To remove flesh, wash the fruit well, split it in half, take out the seeds and gently scoop out the flesh using a teaspoon.

Lusikkaleivät- Finnish Teaspoon Cookies

2009-07-19T02:03:00.001-07:00

These cookies introduced to me 'brown butter' which, though close, isn't quite ghee. I found the recipe here. I don't think the writer is blogging at present but check out her instructions for brown butter.

You can, of course, use any jam or marmalade, but please, please use blackcurrant jam on at least one! Its heavenly!!

Lusikkaleivät- Finnish Teaspoon Cookies
Makes 20 cookies

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup flour
Jam/Marmalade
Fine sugar, for dusting

Brown the butter. Cool and it add the sugar and vanilla essence. Mix well. Sift in flour and baking soda. Mix to form the dough, which resembles wet sand. (I added a tbsp of melted butter at this stage coz my dough was too dry to hold shape)
Press the dough into a teaspoon. Use a spoon with a fairly deep indentation. The dough is quite crumbly so, handle gently. Use a knife to shave of the excess and make it flat. Gently press one end for the cookie to slip out of the spoon. Place it flat side down on the baking tray. Continue with the rest of the dough. Bake for 15 mins at 175C.

Apply jam on the flat side of one cookie and press another cookie onto it. Sandwich all the cookies in this fashion and dust with sugar.

Note: Requires patience! The dough is quite crumbly so you'll need to handle it gently when slipping it out of the spoon and placing it on the tray :)

Sogan Dolma

2009-07-17T18:42:00.000-07:00

Stuffed Onions. The moment I imagined how this would taste and smell, my mouth started watering. I love using onions in any dish- its part of the Indian holy trinity of cooking, of course. Isn't it simply ingenious, using the layers of an onion as casings?

I admit- I get confused when searching for recipes online. I don't know if its because I'm a perfectionist or because I've got some form of OCD..... there are so many variations of the same recipe and I want the most authentic one! Just when I zero in on one recipe, I'll find something else equally jaw dropping. Then I'll try to combine the two, or three, or ten thousand. Slowly, a fog descends around my head... and my mind starts questioning it all- should I add this? Or that? What if I don't? Will it still be this if I add that? What is life? Am I me?.......

But for this recipe, I found very few listed in English, .....anyways, the whole key to making this juicy dish is the meat, which I don't eat. So to make it as tasty as possible, I went ahead and Indianized the dish- slathering it with a mix of varied spices and coconut. Its amazing!

Sogan Dolma

Place a pan of water on the stove and add a tbsp of vingear to it. Cut of a small bit of the bottom end of the onion and a larger bit off the top. Peel, wash and place the onions in the pan. There should be enough water to immerse the onions completely. Cook until tender- for me, this took 15 minutes on medium heat.

Fish out the onions and drop them immediately in a bowl of cold water. Allow it to cool.

Press your thumb into the bottom end of the onion and slowly but firmly coax out shell after shell. There might be a little tear, that's ok.

Prepare the filling-
1/2 cup rice
1/2 cup crumbled firm cottage cheese/ cooked minced meat for non-veggies
1 tsp chopped ginger
2 tbsp boiled peas, carrots (optional)
chopped coriander leaves, chilli powder, oregano, coriander powder and salt to taste.
Mix all of these together.

Gently stuff these into the onion shells and place on a plate.

Prepare the spicy rich base-

4 cloves
1 inch cinnamon stick
1 cardamom pod
1 bay leaf
1/2 a star anise
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 chopped onion

5 tomatoes
2 tbsp grated coconut
oil

In a pan, add a dash of oil. Add all the spices listed up to the cumin seeds.When it begins to splutter, add the onions and cook till they start turning brown. Remove and cool. Blend these ingredients to a coarse paste and keep it aside. Blend the tomatoes and coconut together with a cup of water. Keep aside. In a vessel, add both the pastes. Add salt and chilli powder to taste. Place the filled onion shells in the base, cover and cook on low for 30 to 35 minutes.

Serve on a bed of yogurt or curd rice.

Back....from the farm

2009-07-16T05:45:00.001-07:00

There's nothing like a day trip to our village farm to help a person relax. I'm back :)

There's plenty of love in nature,....

beauty,

...and magic.

We have lots of good stuff...
Grapefruit

Sapodilla

and stuff the villagers have never seen before out here...

Dragonfruit,
Dates

and plenty of four-legged friends...

Clockwise from top left- Johnny, the irrepressible, New Calf-1, Ramu- the singing sensation, Lucky- abandoned by someone and adopted by us, newborn calf-2 with beautiful forehead mark, Yin Yang kitties- resident mice killers.

The fairies abandoned ship when they saw humans approaching.

The village markets...they sell everything!

Beautiful.

'Later...

2009-07-09T21:40:00.000-07:00

These are my beautiful rain lilies, finally blooming after one whole year of anticipation......things need time to bloom, don't they, even perfect flowers.....
....I'm tired, and everything seems so difficult. Feels like it'll never end sometimes, this feeling. I'm going to do some things for myself for awhile. Just rest. Maybe a week or two. I think I won't cook/bake, just rest.
'Later.

The Kiss

2009-07-09T09:29:00.000-07:00

There's nothing quite like music to move the soul, is there? I listen to so many songs but at any one time, I'll have just one song in my head leading the pack, that I go back to again and again. This week its "This Kiss" by Faith Hill. It makes me grin like an utter fool.....it's one of those songs that gives a hopeless romantic hope. (nice play of words, eh ;)

I don't usually cook something inspired by a song but I spent my free time a few days ago wondering what delicacy would match the feeling that wells up when I listen to this song. But my mind is too polluted with easy commonplace food-emotion equations-> romance= strawberries, passion= chocolate and so forth...

Moving past all that, let's see. For me. It must have lemon, for that burst of pleasure. It must have pineapple, for that beautiful tingly sweetness. It must have a crust, for the play of textures. An element of cold, to shock the senses. A bit of chocolate, for dark smoothness. A hint of herb, for that elusive something. A hint of spice as well, for that subtle undercurrent. A presence of flowers, for the admiring eye. A simple coming together of these elements, to be natural.

Is this it? A mouthful of kiss? Hmmm, who can say for sure. Maybe yes, maybe no. Maybe, down the line, I'll find something that matches the idea better for me......heck, maybe I just need more of the right kind of inspiration :p ;D

The Kiss

Cardamom Crust
Pineapple Filling
Lemon Ice Cream
Garnish- Chocolate Kiss, Sugar coated flowers, mint leaves, toasted coconut

Cardamom Crust
(for 1 deep shell, this is a very soft dough and crust, handle with care)
3/4 cup flour
1/4 cup powdered biscuits
1 tbsp sugar
30 g butter
1 pinch cardamom powder
2 tbsp cold water

Combine all the ingredients and crumble with your fingers till it resembles coarse meal. Gather into a dough ball, cover and refrigerate for at least an hour. Roll out the dough so that its large enough to line the shell. Press down gently, and bake at 180º C for 10 minutes.

Pineapple filling

3/4 cup cubed fresh pineapple
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp flour

Mix all three together and spoon into the cardamom crust. Bake for 15 to 20 mins at 160º C.

Lemon Ice Cream (by hand, very intense- reduce lemon juice for a more subtle taste)

3/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 tbsp lemon zest
1.25 cups sugar
1 cup milk
1.5 cups cream
2 eggs
4 egg yolks

Add the zest to the sugar and grind to a powder. Place this in a bowl and add the lemon juice, eggs and egg yolks. Whisk well. Pour this into a saucepan and heat through on low heat till it begins to thicken. In a bowl, mix the milk and cream. Add the contents of the saucepan to the bowl. Whisk to incorporate completely and return the mixture to the saucepan. Heat on low for a few minutes but do not allow it to boil. Remove and strain the mixture through a sieve into a flat bottomed vessel and allow to cool to room temperature. Place it the refrigerator overnight.

In the morning, place the vessel in the freezer. Every half hour, for four hours, remove and whisk vigorously. Allow to harden for a couple of more hours.

Scoop out and top over pineapple.

Sugar Coated Flowers

Butterfly pea and Rose petals (use only edible flowers!)
Cold water
Egg white
Superfine Sugar

Wash the petals gently so that they are clean and dip them briefly in cold water. Remove to paper towels and allow to dry completely. Using a paint brush, coat the petals with the egg white thoroughly and sprinkle the sugar onto them. Place on a paper dusted with sugar and allow to dry for 2 to 4 hours.

Toasted Coconut

In a dry pan, stir some fresh grated or finely chopped coconut for a few minutes till it just starts turning color.

Enjoy!

This Kiss
Faith Hill

I don't want another heartbreak
I don't need another turn to cry
I don't want to learn the hard way
Baby, hello, oh no, goodbye
But you got me like a rocket
Shooting straight across the sky

It's the way you love me
It's a feeling like this
It's centrifugal motion
It's perpetual bliss

It's that pivotal moment
It's ah, impossible
This kiss, this kiss, Unstoppable
This kiss, this kiss

Cinderella said to Snow White
How does love get so off course
All I wanted was a white knight
With a good heart, soft touch, fast horse

Ride me off into the sunset
Baby, I'm forever yours

It's the way you love me
It's a feeling like this
It's centrifugal motion
It's perpetual bliss

It's that pivotal moment
It's ah, unthinkable
This kiss, this kiss, Unsinkable
This kiss, this kiss

You can kiss me in the moonlight
On the rooftop under the sky
You can kiss me with the windows open
While the rain comes pouring inside
Kiss me in sweet slow motion
Let's let every thing slide
You got me floating, you got me flying

It's the way you love me
It's a feeling like this
It's centrifugal motion
It's perpetual bliss

It's that pivotal moment
It's ah, subliminal
This kiss, this kiss, It's Criminal
This kiss, this kiss
Its the way you love me baby Its the way you love me darlin, yeah

Easy Garbanzo/Channa Curry

2009-07-06T18:05:00.000-07:00

This is a pretty easy and quite delicious curry. Wonderful with rice or any flatbread.

Channa Curry/ Garbanzo Curry

2 medium onions, chopped
10 tomatoes, chopped
4 to 6 cloves of garlic
2 green chillies, cut in half
vegetable oil

Heat some oil in a pan. Add the onions and stir till they become translucent. Add the tomatoes, garlic cloves and green chillies and cook for 5 minutes. Cool and blend to a very smooth paste.

1 small onions
1 cup garbanzo beans, soaked overnight
1 inch piece of ginger, finely chopped
1 dried red chilly
1 tsp cumin seeds
salt, to taste
1 tbsp coriander powder
1 pinch turmeric powder
1 tsp methi leaves/dried fenugreek leaves
2 cups water
curry leaves vegetable oil

Cook the garbanzo beans in a pressure cooker or boiling water till they're just cooked. In a pan, heat some oil, add the cumin seeds, ginger and red chilly. Once it starts turning brown, add the onions and fry lightly. Add the paste, the garbanzo beans, coriander powder, turmeric powder, methi, salt and water. Cook for about 10 minutes. Garnish with curry leaves.

Tomato Egg-drop soup with Loomi

2009-07-04T19:46:00.001-07:00

I was born and brought up in Kuwait and except for regular visits to India to keep in touch with my roots, Kuwait was always home to me. It's been a decade since I left and I don't know if I've really let go. I do tend to put the happiest times of my life up on a pedestal......

It's when I sometimes yearn to live in the past or for better things that one of my favorite quotes comes to mind- "No one lives on the top of the mountain. It’s fine to go there occasionally: for inspiration, for new perspectives. But you have to come down. Life is lived in the valleys. That’s where the farms and gardens and orchards are, and where the plowing and the work is done. That’s where you apply the visions you may have glimpsed from the peaks."

:) I try, I try. Anyways, the food in Kuwait makes up about half of my memories and I greatly cherish them, as a symbol of the wonderful standard of living that I was blessed with as I grew up. One of the most unique ingredients that I came across in Kuwait is the Loomi or Limon Aswaad. This is a concentrated intense packet of earthy tangy flavor, no doubts about it.

If you are a non-vegetarian and if you get your hands on some loomi, ignore this post and recipe, get up and go make 'Chicken Kapsa' (an amazing flavored rice, many recipes online). I was an enthusiastic non-vegetarian till I was about 12 and I'm telling you, go now... Shoo...... I don't love you anymore, you hear?...go...GO....go.......

For the rest of us vegetarians, believe me, this soup is as good as it gets! Intense.

Tomato Egg-drop soup with Loomi

1 cup, assorted vegetables like onions, carrots, beans, peas, potatoes, cabbage (optional)
2 cups vegetable broth, or water
1 cup tomato paste
green chillies, salt and red chilli powder, to season
1 loomi
1 egg

The soup, like any other, is not rocket science. Just throw it all together and let it boil down. But, the loomi must be pierced multiple times with a knife or fork to get the flavor out. Beat the egg in a bowl and pour it in a few seconds before removing the soup off the stove.

Soy Chunk Stir-fry with Mango Pulp

2009-07-02T05:57:00.000-07:00

The mango season is slowly coming to an end here in India and yet again, I find myself with that nagging disquieting feeling- I did not take full advantage of it, did I? Whenever some fruit season comes along, I'm usually pretty satisfied at the end. That warm glow that comes with the conviction- Yup, I did my share, I contributed to the consumption of luscious fruit X. But it's not like that with mangoes. Maybe its because of the sheer bulk, the myriad varieties, the utter deliciousness of the fruit? I don't know, but I solemnly promise (again), I'll make a mark next year (what ambition eh?)

So today's yummy lip smacking dish is a soy chunk stir fry with plenty of green pepper, onions and mango pulp....mmmmm. Quite simple, easy to put together.

Soy Chunk Stir-fry with Mango Pulp

1 handful Soy chunks
1 large green pepper/capsicum
1 large red onion
4 green chillies
1/2 cup fresh mango pulp
1/4 cup tomato puree
salt to taste
spring onions, curry leaves for garnish

Drop the soy chunks into a pan of boiling water and cook for a few minutes till its soft to the core. Remove, wash with tap water and drain. In a small bowl, place the mango pulp, tomato puree and slit green chillies and mix well. Add a 1/4 tsp of salt. Squeeze out the water from the soy chunks and add it to the bowl. Mix well and allow to marinate for an hour or so.

Slice the green pepper and onion into long thin strips. Heat some oil and add the onions and peppers. Add a pinch of salt and stir fry for a few minutes till the onions become translucent. Add the marinated soy chunks along with the sauces. Season with salt, mix well and simmer and cook until almost dry. Raise the heat and stir constantly for a few minutes. Sprinkle chopped curry leaves and spring onions just before removing off the stove.

Roasted Pumpkin Soup

2009-07-01T21:52:00.000-07:00

I'm not stingy, but I literally counted out the pumpkin seeds for garnishing this soup.......in spite of the bagful of pumpkin seeds I had next to me. But then, they're not really mine to use freely, you see....this requires a bit of history.

In Feb this year, my dad rescued three baby squirrels from our farm. He brought them home when they were fur-less little babies and we brought them up for about two months. A glorious fun time when I went around looking like I lived in a cactus patch. They loved climbing humans, those three. Anyways, after a brief acclimatization, we released them in our terrace garden. They took off quickly enough, except for the smallest runt, the one we called 'Kutti', meaning 'little one'.

Kutti decided to make our terrace her home base. Soon, she found her way back into the house for short visits- she'd play, eat, sleep a bit and then take off. Nowadays, she comes mainly to eat. And everyday, invariably, she wants pumpkin seeds. Since we only cook pumpkins once in a while, we have to supplement our hoard. We do this in many ways, but mostly by stealth- every visit to any grocery shop, I scrape out the seeds from the cut pumpkins and slip them away. Kutti puts me up to it, I swear.

She has a lot of influence in this household. Since she runs away if startled, every time she shows up, we all become rigid and freeze. Necessary movement is carried out in ultra slow motion, Matrix style. People who want to enter the room hover near the door or behind the sofa till she's had her fill. But no one minds. The general attitude is that its a privilege to have her back for those few short minutes. Seriously, Kutti is like some visiting royal personage in our home.

Me: "Kutti came today."
Family: Oh! (Father chuckles, mom smiles, there are grins and nods all around)
Me: Yes, yes, she even climbed onto my hand.
Family: (Chorus of exclamations and sounds of delight)
Me: She drank water from her little pot too!
Family: Awww! Heh heh.

And this happens everyday. Every. Single. Day. I'm amazed animals haven't taken over the world. They're too cute and furry for us pathetic humans to resist. Those beady eyes, little button noses....It reminds me of that frame in Shrek 1 where Puss makes his eyes go all round, pupils at maximum dilation, the guards go all awwww and then thwack. I loved that scene because it was so real :D ....so that sums up the story, and the reason the pumpkin seeds are not mine :)

The soup is a simple one- roast peeled pumpkin pieces and cloves of garlic in the oven for 30 to 40 mins. Puree, season with salt, pepper and top with toasted pumpkin seeds. I added a bit of buttermilk to my soup coz I like it better that way.

Cappuccino Cake, by an aunt in the making...

2009-06-26T11:03:00.000-07:00

Indians have this obsessive compulsive urge to be related to everyone they see. From childhood we're encouraged to call everyone, and I mean complete strangers, as 'mom' or 'big brother' or 'big sister' or 'aunt' or 'uncle' or something appropriate based on their age and sex. The mailman, the greengrocer, the brother's friend, his mom, the neighbors, random person on the street, everyone- we're all just one big happy family, apparently.

This is not something we even think about; its second nature. But there are moments when it hits a person. Take me for example.

For years as I grew up, all these moms would bring their younger kids up to me and introduce me as the kid's big sister. These kids, being Indian, would of course, solemnly accept this new relationship and things sound all cute and rosy up to now, don't they? Then it happens. One day, some blind b...I mean, some nice lady will drag her kid over and say "Say HI to Aunty!"

I mean, what?

All I want to do at that point is say "Listen, you little punk. You call me aunty and you wont live to grow up." But no, I have to smile a sickly sweet 'aunty' smile and 'feel the love.'

So, that's where I stand on that....until now. Now I'm going to be a real aunt. I tried to pull one over my sister-in-law M by telling her that a paltry two or three or twenty six year old gap need not be unnecessarily solemnized with fancy titles and such- just introduce me as an overgrown playmate. But she's not buying it. As soon as that baby arrives, they're going to hypnotize it into calling me 'aunt'.....

...and well....I think I'm gonna kinda like that, you know. Heh heh. I made this Cappuccino cake and frosted it with Deeba's curd cheese frosting. I don't drink coffee; I have it rarely when I want something to soothe a headache, but I do love the smell and flavor in baked goods. And I made it since everyone is coming over.....

....this weekend, we're having the 'Valagapu'- the traditional Hindu function that is carried out to bless a pregnant woman in her 7th or 9th month. A simple event- just some fancy clothes, elders blessing M, slipping bangles onto her hands, a feast with five types of flavored rice.....and we'll be hosting this.....gonna disappear for a while. Work, work, work!

Cappuccino Cake

2 cups flour
1.25 cups fine white sugar
3/4 cup milk
4 eggs
2 tablespoons, heaped, instant coffee powder
200g butter, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda

Preheat the oven to 170 C.
Beat the sugar and butter in a bowl till pale. Add the eggs one at a time and beat well. Add the vanilla extract. Sift the flour, baking powder and baking soda and keep aside. Mix the coffee powder in the milk in a cup. Alternate between the flour mix and the milk+coffee and add to the batter, mixing just enough to incorporate it. Pour into a greased baking tin and bake for 50 to 55 mins. Allow to cool.

Frosting: (Deeba's with a few tweaks)

1/2 cup curd cheese (made from hanging yogurt for 24 hours)
1/4 cup cream
5 to 6 tablespoon white sugar
1 tbsp instant coffee powder
1 tsp butter

In a medium bowl, whip all the ingredients until smooth and spread onto the cake.

Sebadas

2009-06-24T07:33:00.000-07:00

Oh the shame! I saw this dessert and read that it was from Sardinia and the only thought that came to my head was 'What? Those little tinned fish?' I didn't know about this little island! My geography teachers must be collectively rolling about in agony somewhere....

But I read that the fish was named after the island and that was some balm for my wounded pride. And, after I read up on it, the island itself is beautiful and interesting. It's another place to add to my list. I like small islands. They're 'real', in the sense that they don't have boundaries that humans have imagined for convenience (and fight over). Nature took care of that and threw in an unending stretch of beach into the bargain :) I think I'd like to visit isle after isle and see how different they are in terms of culture and cuisine for all that their geography has similar factors. A world isle trip! Sometime :)

Anyways, Sebadas or Seadas are deep-fried cheese-filled sweet ravioli that Sardinians make. (It's so weird, saying Sardinians- I can't help but imagine little fish people in tins, scroll down to see what I drew when watching tv ;) Plain old cheese filling sounded boring, so I made a couple of versions- with fresh mango+cheese, grated coconut+cashews, some of the P oli filling, melted chocolate+mint... I really liked the chocolate and mint. I love stuff like this where you can play around with the fillings. No recipe here coz everyone has their own pasta recipe and the fillings are just fun!

The Un-Kimchi

2009-06-22T22:26:00.000-07:00

There's a Chinese restaurant in Chennai called Hotel Canton. It serves your typical Indo-Chinese food- the Schezwan is somewhat spicy and the Manchurian is always gooey. Nothing remarkable at all......except for this one thing they have on their menu- the Kimchi. Or as I call it, the Un-Kimchi.

Except for the negligible presence of cabbage, it is nothing remotely like Kimchi at all. But it's so so so delicious that I usually scrape out the last bits onto my plate. Fresh, spicy, crunchy, sweet- all at the same time. The waiters were very reluctant to give out the recipe, but with a couple of seemingly innocent yet nosy questions the few times I went, I managed to worm bits of it out of them and come up with a very close approximation.

The important thing is to never pre-mix the solid ingredients with the sauce. It should be done at the table, just before serving. Yum, yum.

Un-Kimchi

1) Cut the following into really thin strips or matchsticks (about 2 inch lengths)-
Cabbage, carrot, cucumber(peeled), green bell pepper, unripe mango(peeled), onion. More or less equal amounts of each, a bit less of the raw mango.

2) You could buy red chilly paste, but I like to make my own- the chef at the restaurant makes it too- Boil dried red chillies in water, cool, blend it into a paste and cook the paste in a little oil till it darkens slightly. (Cover your nose at all times to avoid sneezing your ribs apart)

3) In a bowl, add a generous amount of tomato puree, the chilly paste, a dash of lemon juice, sugar and salt (depending on the amount of veggies) The taste to go for is spicy and just sweet, with a hint of acid.

4) Heat up some oil and deep fry a handful of broken up chow mien noodles until they puff up and rise. Remove immediately and allow to rest on paper towels to soak up the oil.

5) Just before serving, add the veggies to the bowl of sauce and mix well. Add the fried noodles and toss lightly.

Sweet Poli

2009-06-20T03:07:00.000-07:00

Poli is a sweet Indian flat bread. In spite of the fact that I've lived in India for a decade now, I had my first taste of poli only recently, sometime early this year. Well, its not my fault. When you go to an Indian sweet shop, you'll find your head hopelessly spinning from luscious sweets floating in syrup to little bites oozing ghee- all of them just sitting there looking extremely delectable. A spotty looking tortilla like thingy isn't going to really grab my attention. It didn't, till recently.

One of mom's religious thingies required a shopping trip that kept us out in the markets for a whole day. By late afternoon, I was ready to eat her. She, in mortal fear for her life, wisely pointed me in the direction of a little sweet shop and pushed me off. As I stood there looking for something substantial and filling, the poli caught my eye. I polished off two in a heartbeat and I was quite surprised. Very mildly sweet, full of cooked lentils, it was barely a dessert- especially for me as I have a really strong sweet tooth.

I've been looking forward to making it myself and this is it. There are hundreds of poli recipes online that are virtually identical and this one is no exception. But it holds promise. Easy to tweak and come up with something else. Later :)

Sweet Poli

Dough

1 cup flour
1 pinch salt
1 tsp ghee/butter
1 tsp oil
water

Combine the flour, salt and ghee. Add water to make a smooth pliable dough and then add the oil as you knead it to make it very soft and almost slippery. Roll into lemon sized balls and keep aside.

Filling

1/2 cup yellow gram lentil
1/2 cup jaggery
1 cardamom pod or 1 pinch cardamom powder

Cook the lentils in water until they are just cooked- do not overcook. Add the jaggery and cardamom and cook till all the water is gone. Allow it to cool and then pulse it in a blender a couple of times till it resembles coarse meal. Gather into lemon sized balls and place aside.

Flatten a dough ball in your hands into a disc. Place the filling in it and bring up the sides of the dough to cover it. Very gently, roll out the dough so that the filling doesn't fall out. It should be fairly thick. Cook each poli in a pan just like a tortilla with a drizzle of ghee or oil until both sides are done.

Sweet Potato Crostini with Fresh Cheese & Tapioca Caviar

2009-06-18T02:00:00.000-07:00

My absolute favorite things to watch on television are sci-fi shows. I've placed shows like Babylon 5 and Star Trek on the highest altars I can conceive of. Give me a guy in weird make-up and I'll listen to anything he says. For years, I was enamored with Klingons and I even perfected a weird howl that I pretended was part of their language. Yup, I went around howling like a sick wolf. And I only have to hear the words 'warp speed' to get this rapturous look in my eyes and fall off my chair.

Comedies too. For me, 'Friends' is a real benchmark. I remember meeting someone who said he didn't like the show. I looked at him like he was a particularly offensive slug. For some reason, we never really got close.

But Reality TV is really not my thing....except for a dance show and one other show- Top Chef. I guess its because of all the food; always on the lookout for interesting food. One thing that caught my fancy was in the fourth season when Andrew constantly made his 'Tapioca Caviar'. It sounded fun, but this is the first time I got around to trying it.

It's been a while since I bit into something and went "Mmmmm..." This was it. The combination of flavors is really yummy with the sweet potato mash and cheese and subtle mint. The caviar is sorta lost and I guess its mostly decoration anyway. Looks real pretty though :)

Sweet Potato Crostini with Fresh Herbed Cheese and Tapioca Caviar

Fresh Herbed Cheese

1/2 liter milk
1 tablespoon lemon juice/1/2 tsp citric acid crystals dissolved in warm water
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp chopped fresh herbs- mint/ coriander/ parsley.

Boil the milk and remove from the stove. Pour in the lemon juice and wait for it to curdle. Pour into a white cloth to separate the milk solids from the whey. Squeeze out most of the water. To make the cheese creamy, you could put it in a blender. Either way, add the salt and the chopped herbs and mix well.

Tapioca Caviar

1 tbsp tapioca pearls
3 cups water
1 tsp dark soy sauce
1 tsp white vinegar
1 pinch salt
2 pinch sugar

Combine the last 4 ingredients in a small bowl and set aside. Cook the tapioca pearls in water for 15 to 20 mins. Drain partially and fish out the pearls. Add it to the sauce immediately. Allow it to rest for at least an hour as the pearls soak up the sauce. Refrigerate till further use.

Sweet Potato Mash

1 medium sized sweet potato
1 or 2 cloves garlic
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp yogurt
1 tbsp buttermilk
2 tsp chilli flakes
salt and pepper, to taste

Pressure cook the sweet potato till is soft. Chop up the garlic clove and add it to the mash along with the rest of the ingredients.

Toast the bread and spread the sweet potato mash on it. Top with a spoonful of cheese and decorate with tapioca caviar.

Plantain Sandwich with Caramelized Shallots

2009-06-14T18:50:00.000-07:00

Plantain Sandwich with Caramelized Shallots

Plantain Fry

2 plantains
1 cup water
3/4 tsp salt
1.5 tsp chilli powder
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
2 tsp ginger garlic paste (optional)
oil

Prep- Wash the plantains and cut off both ends. Peel by lightly scraping or cutting of a thin sliver of the peel. The idea is to retain the fiber which lies just below the peel- that's the best part! Cut crosswise into 3 or four pieces and chop each piece into a couple of slabs.

Place the pieces in a vessel. Add the chilli powder, salt, turmeric powder, ginger garlic paste and water. Toss so that all the pieces are coated well. Place it on the stove and allow to cook till all the water is gone and the plantains are firm but cooked through. This can be done ahead of time and refrigerated.

Drizzle oil onto a pan and place the plantain pieces on it. Fry till both sides are golden brown (some people like this well browned.)Remove and place on absorbent paper.

Caramelized Shallots

4 tsp cooking oil
1.5 cups shallots, peeled
3/4 tsp sugar
a dash of lemon juice
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp chopped coriander leaves and curry leaves

Combine the shallots and sugar in a pan and cook. Stir often till the shallots become light brown throughout. Transfer to an oven plate, add the lemon juice, salt and pepper and toss. Roast in an oven for 10 mins at 200 C.

Sandwich

Assemble the sandwich by placing a few slices of the plantains on toasted bread. Top with cucumber and tomato slices, freshly grated carrot and the caramelized shallots. You could also grill this instead of toasting the bread.

Vintage Cupcakes

2009-06-12T01:52:00.000-07:00

I call these so because they're a vintage recipe that I used to help celebrate a vintage relationship.

I've been intrigued with Omnomicon's Ice Cream Cake ever since I saw it. Adding ice cream to cake batter is not something that I would have thought of, but its all there in her century old recipe book. More on that later.

Today is my cousin Arun's birthday. He's the son of my tough cookie Aunt S and he's almost her opposite- a soft spoken fellow who can only be perfectly described as 'nice'. He, his sister and I grew up together and we had loads of fun. Jumping into water tanks, stealing stuff from the kitchen, spying, playing, pulling grandpa's hair...we did it all. We grew apart over the years and are as different as can be now but we do love visiting each other, talking about stuff, old and new. Today is his Birthday.

So, I used Omnomicon's idea and made lemon cupcakes with vanilla icecream in the batter. Honestly, I didn't really notice anything that different- it came out much as my lemon cupcakes usually do. Maybe I need to add more? Or maybe I'll try it with chocolate cake next time.

This was my very first attempt at frosting and I was appalled- my hands shake like a drunk chain smoker's! It's a wonder I managed to do some semblance of a pattern on them. Sheesh. Well, Arun will forgive me, I know. He's the first person who ate my very first cake- a slab that if I ever created now, I would quietly bury in the backyard in the middle of the night. He even said it was good and ate lots of it- that's how nice he is :)

Happy Birthday Arun.

Vintage Ice Cream Cake

1 egg
1 cup flour
1/2 cup oil
1 cup sugar
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp lemon juice approximately (juice of three very small lemons)
2 tbsp water
100 ml vanilla icecream
1 tsp lemon extract

Eggless Icing-
1 tbsp cold milk
1/2 to 3/4 cup icing sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp chilled butter

Thaw the icecream so that it is still creamy but not runny. In a bowl, beat the egg well and add the sugar bit by bit. Beat till the sugar dissolves. Mix in the lemon juice, oil, lemon extract and water. Sift in flour, baking soda and baking powder and mix till just incorporated. Do not overmix. Add the icecream and make sure there are no lumps. Pour the batter into a greased muffin tin almost to the brim of the moulds. Bake at 175 C for 25 to 30 mins.

Cool for atleast 30 mins before removing. For the icing, combine all the ingredients till you get a just sweet spreadable paste. Add color if desired and pipe onto cupcakes.

Cooking in the Great Outdoors, i.e, my balcony

2009-06-09T00:52:00.000-07:00

Is it really safe to eat something coated in ash, wood chips and God knows what? I'm still alive, so apparently it is.

Unnatural circumstances led to this one. A meddling father, lost oven skewers and such. But I'd already marinated the cheese and veggies. So I set up this outdoor fire to cook. By now, I was quite excited with the little adventure. I managed to chop little bits of firewood without chopping off my hands. I managed to light a fire in a shallow clay pot I bought long ago cause it was cute. Everything went merrily along, until the winds kicked in. There was smoke, there was ash swirling around, my eyes were watering, I was cursing away.....in all this mayhem, I seriously doubted if what I was making would be edible.

But when things settled down, I was surprised to see clean cooked food still on the skewers. I liked the taste too- smoky and juicy. Maybe a tad bit too smoky but nothing a little lemon juice won't mask. I used my usual marinade- Olive oil+yogurt+chilli powder+salt+pepper+vinegar.

Interesting :) This kind of thing should be done around a campfire, with friends. Some interesting conversation, fresh hot food (don't forget dessert!), some gazing at the stars and camping out with the sound of the wind and the trees and the water....I remember that we once camped out next to a river in a Himalayan trek. There's nothing quite like settling down next to flowing water... :) ....

The Tropical Jackfruit

2009-06-06T01:21:00.000-07:00

Its jackfruit time here in India! Juicy luscious jackfruit. There's nothing quite like it. And when mom walked in yesterday lugging a big fruit and two babies, I was thrilled. Especially with the small ones. The fleshy bits were so cute and tiny, they looked like perfect little bites. All of yesterday, I was chewing on how to stuff it and today, I whipped up a batch of these. Crunchy and sweet! And very little cooking!

Tropical Jackfruit bites

(I haven't added any measurements because its all up to individual tastes)

Jackfruit flesh- whole
Broken wheat
Sugar
Freshly grated coconut
Cashewnuts
Ghee or Butter
Mint leaves

Lightly fry or roast the cashewnuts in the ghee and set aside. Cook the broken wheat like you would rice. Spread it out on a plate and allow to cool. Sprinkle sugar onto the wheat and mix well. Stuff the jackfruit flesh with a bit of the cooked wheat. Place a generous amount of grated coconut on it. Top with a cashewnut and a mint leaf.

I found that this little bite is even better with a little more crunch- so next time around, I'd probably break up the cashews or maybe roasted peanuts into little bits and add it to the cooked wheat stuffing.

Not many people know that jackfruit seeds are edible- in fact, they're very very tasty. While I was busy with dessert, mom cooked up the big batch of seeds we've saved up over the last few days. Yum yum!

Jackfruit Seed Roast

20 Jackfruit seeds
Water
Salt
Chilli powder
Turmeric powder
Mustard seeds
Cooking oil

If your jackfruit seeds have been drying outside for a couple of days, they should peel easily. If they're fresh, don't try peeling them at this point.

Allow the water to boil in a vessel and add the jackfruit seeds. Cook for 15 mins or so. Let cool and slice the seeds into two. If you haven't peeled them, do so now. It should be relatively easy.
Pour a dash of oil into a pan, add the mustard seeds and allow to splutter. Throw in the split jackfruit seeds and pour enough water to cover the seeds completely. Add a pinch of turmeric powder. Season with salt and chilli powder.

Once all the water is gone, simmer and allow the seeds to cook till they're completely dry. They'll stick to the pan, so scrape them around frequently. Sprinkle chopped curry leaves or coriander leaves and serve hot!

Ash-e-anar or Pomegranate Stew

2009-06-05T01:59:00.000-07:00

My parents have green thumbs, so much so that after a lifetime of work, they took up farming at an age when others would have peacefully retired with books and rocking chairs. The farm is about an hour away, but even back home, no patch of earth around the house remains bare.

We have a lemon tree, plantains, bitter gourd, ivy gourd, tomatoes, various herbs....a not so short list. I'm glad I've inherited their love for the land. Before, it was an admiration for nature- the beauty, the complexity, but with farming, its all about the way you literally reap what you sow. With just a little coaxing, the earth is so ready to present us with beautiful bounties and that's something one can appreciate with every flower, fruit or vegetable.

In my day dreams (which is how I spend most of the day), I imagine my future home, or rather the land around my future home. Green and lush, I see myself clearing out a generous bit for my very own vegetable garden- the fresh tomatoes and cucumbers ready to be plucked, the fruit trees standing watch as I thank each plant for its gift to me- which is something I do even now, I should add. Everytime I pluck something from a plant,vine or tree, I thank it.

I had a whole lot of thanks to give to our two pomegranate trees this year- they outdid themselves and are literally laden with fruits.

It brought to mind a recipe which has been in my file for quite a while now. A Iranian/Persian soup or stew called Ash-e-anar. I was quite curious to see how this would taste and I'm delighted to find out that this is a very hearty dish- quite delicious and satisfying. There was something familiar about the taste- I think the addition of the lentils brought it very close to our Indian Sambar.

Our pomegranates have pale pink flesh, which unfortunately did nothing for the color of the soup. Also, the original recipe calls for meatballs. Being vegetarian, I just threw in some soy chunks.

Ash-e-anar

1 tbsp oil
1 onion, chopped
4 cloves, garlic
1 handful, fresh mint leaves
1/3 cup yellow split peas
3 cups pomegranate juice
3 cups water
1/2 cup rice
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1.5 tsp salt
1.2 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp sugar
Meat balls/soy chunks

Cook the yellow split peas in a pressure cooker or pan till soft and keep aside. Soak the rice in water for 10 mins. Heat the oil and add the chopped onion. Cook till translucent and add the garlic and mint leaves. After a minute, add the rest of the ingredients including the lentils and rice. Simmer, close and cook for 35 to 40 minutes. Serve hot!

Pineapple Crumble

2009-05-27T20:31:00.000-07:00

Whew, a month long break- a welcome respite from the heat. I did cook of course, but nothing noteworthy or new. But I've been reading all the blogs in my list, Deeba's Passionate about Baking being right on top. She's part of the Daring Bakers, this amazing group who cook 8 to 12 challenging and creative dishes every year. Its a group I aspire to join, once I begin living in a place that has at least half the ingredients I'd need.

Anyways, her blog is unbelievable- always gorgeous, the pictures, her food. And recently, she's been making a lot of fruit crumbles. I didn't really look at the recipe- I was too busy drooling over the pictures, but when I did, I was hooked. It's so easy and sounds really delicious, I just had to try it.

I didnt have rolled oats, as she specifies in her recipe, so I went with biscuits. I've often made tart crusts out of biscuits and I really enjoy the texture. I also had to scale it down for a 5 inch pan. But God, it was so good. I had it hot and it was just heaven. This is one of those recipes that are going to stay with me forever.

Pineapple Crumble

1 small pineapple or 350gms
1 small mango,cubed
2 tbsp flour
1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
3 biscuits
2 tbsp chilled butter
1 pinch salt

Mix the first four ingredients well and pour into the pan. Combine the next five ingredient with your fingertips till it comes together in lumps and sprinkle onto the filling in the pan. Press the filling down gently and place in a preheated oven at 190 C for 40 mins. Serve hot!

Mango Payasam

2009-04-27T07:21:00.000-07:00

It's a simple dessert, but one that I love a great deal. The humble south Indian Payasam. Throw some tapioca pearls in milk and water, add sugar, boil and slurp greedily. I do the last bit very well, I do.

Moving on, the mango season had begun in India!!! Ooooh, its delightful! Dozens of varieties of mangoes flood the market every year. And every year, I memorize all their difficult names and promptly forget it all at the end of the season. This happens unfailingly. This year I am going to document it- name with description of taste, smell and physical characteristics. I'll post it here too, just for reference.

Isn't it amazing how one fruit can taste so different in different forms? And if I went to say, Africa, I would find these mangoes with African names and even more varieties, wouldn't I? It boggles the mind...

Anyways, combining mangoes with payasam was just the next step for me. Word of caution- make sure that the mango is nice and sweet. A sour one would really spoil the dish (don't ask me how I know).

Mango Payasam

3 cups water
1/2 cup tapioca pearls
2 cups milk
1 cardamom pod OR 1/2 inch cinnamon stick
5 to 6 cashewnuts
1 spoon ghee or butter
4 small mangoes, pulp extracted or 2 cups mango pulp

Lightly fry the cashewnuts in the ghee till light brown and place aside. Boil the water and when its happily bubbling, add the tapioca pearls. Cook till the pearls expand nicely and do not have a white core- this will take a while. Then add the sugar, cashewnuts and cardamom /cinnamon and simmer for 5 mins. Add the milk and cook for another 5 minutes or till the payasam starts becoming thick. Cool to room temperature and add the mango pulp and mix in well. Serve as such or refrigerated.

Note: Payasam is also made with vermicelli instead of tapioca pearls, or with a combination of the two. However, slightly dry roast the vermicelli ahead of time to ensure it doesn't become very sticky.

Mung Bean Sprout Patties

2009-04-23T23:15:00.000-07:00

When I think 'bean sprouts', I think 'encapsulated health'. Seriously, I'm so in awe of them that when I eat them I imagine all sorts of vital nutrients bursting from them as they travel busily through my bloodstream. I almost expect my body to rise in mid-air and bulge muscles, bursting with health, just like Popeye with his spinach.

They're absolutely lovely raw. Sometimes I just run my hands through them and let them fall and they make this lovely crispy noise. I sound like Scrooge McDuck with a wad of bank notes and there's no doubt about it; sprouts make me feel rich.

I wish I did eat some everyday, but I tend to make a big batch and use them up in two or three days. Sometimes, I use them all up at once- in my sprouts patties.

The beautiful thing about using sprouts for this is that you don't need any binding agent like egg or flour for the patties to hold shape. The sprouts, when processed, end up with a natural stickiness that holds them together perfectly. But not for deep frying, no no (don't ask). That said, I sometimes do coat them with bread crumbs too.

Bean Sprout Patties
1.5 cups Bean sprouts
1 onion, chopped into bits
2 bread slices
1 handful any fresh herb (coriander/ parsley/ basil etc)
chilli powder
salt
pepper powder

1 egg beaten
bread crumbs

Cook the bean sprouts in a little salted water till they are done and the water is all gone. Cool and add to the food processor. Pulse for a few seconds. Toast the bread slices and chop them into small squares. Add to the sprouts, along with the salt, chilli,pepper powders and the chopped herbs. Grind till you get a smooth paste. Shape the mixture into balls, press flat and give them an egg wash. Coat with breadcrumbs and fry them in a pan with a sprinkle of oil.

This is just a very simple version and I usually add something different each time. Like any patty, you can go crazy with what you add into it, in terms of spice powders or veggies or meat.

Carrot Halwa

2009-04-20T07:34:00.000-07:00

I know it varies a great deal from family to family, but within ours, relationships with our relatives are a roller coaster ride with more downs than ups. After awhile, a sort of indifference sets in, an emotional and sometimes physical distance that makes it comfortable to just go about life with the rare meeting....but in spite of it all; the distance, the misunderstandings, the history....there's an unbidden affection I feel when I see them, some invisible bond that makes me take a step toward them.

Perhaps it is the child in me, the one who loved them without thought once, untainted by expectations or knowledge of what 'should' or 'shouldn't' be.

My Aunt S is a tough cookie, feared in many counties for her sharp and fearless tongue. But she's quick to laugh too and really enjoys her own funny stories; laughing too heartily to even get the story out completely. In the past few years, she's started visiting us often, which I find nice :)

Today I told her I would come over, a rare event I plan to get around to increasing in frequency. Anyways, I felt like making something for her and since my dad, mom and I each bought bagfuls of carrots last week, I went with some carrot halwa. I love this gooey delicious dessert, and since its mostly carrots, it's as easy on the conscience as well as the tummy!

Carrot Halwa
Serves 2

Ingredients

1 cup grated carrot
1 3/4 cups milk
6 tbsp sugar
1 cardamom pod
1.5 tbsp ghee
4 cashew nuts

Split into two and fry the cashew nuts in a tiny bit of the ghee till they are light brown. Set aside.
Place the milk and carrots in a vessel and cook till all the milk evaporates. The add the sugar and cardamom pod and cook till the dessert thickens. Then add the ghee and the cashew nuts. Mix and cook for a minute and remove from the stove. Allow to cool a bit before serving.

Unripe Mango Cake

2009-04-19T00:01:00.000-07:00

Unripe Mangoes are quite popular here in India. They are used majorly for pickles. But they are also a common street food. For a few rupees, you'll get several long pieces of unripe mango coated beautifully with a mixture of salt and chilli powder. The flavors really work- the tanginess and the heat- it'll definitely leave you feeling satisfied as you wipe your eyes and nose.

The inspiration to make cake using them came from the simple fact that there were no other fruits in the refrigerator. I just thought 'Why not?'

Slightly crunchy in texture and with a hint of that tanginess that I love, this cake is quite delicious to bite into.

Unripe Mango Cake

1.5 cups Unripe mango, grated
1 cup flour
1 or 2 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 pinch salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 pinch baking soda
6 tbsp water

Beat the eggs and sugar till fluffy. Add the oil and the rest of the ingredients. Pour into a well greased baking tin and place some strands of the grated mango on the batter. Bake at 180 C for 35- 40 mins.

I haven't added any essence such as vanilla because I wanted the pure flavor of the mangoes, so its optional. I also felt that some frosting or icing would be a lovely soft touch that would have made it even better.

Herb + Wheat + Soup + Soya Chunks + .....

2009-04-17T08:10:00.000-07:00

Ok, what this really is, is a wheat herbed tart shell with soup soya chunk veggie filling. Which no person of sane mind would ever post as a title. Hence the equation.

But before I go into that, I must share this......today was so hot. The whole week has been so hot! I was actually lying on the floor with my dogs this morning trying to cool off. It was in the afternoon, when I was munching on something with a book in hand when this sudden noise made me look out the window.........and there, in spite of the sun shining down with all its might, there was a glorious rain!

We have a saying in Tamil, loosely translated it amounts to- When the sun shines and the rain falls (simultaneously), the crow and the fox get married.

Ok.

I have no clue what the deep wise hidden meaning of that is, or even if there is a deep wise hidden meaning. But I do know that the rain revived me a great deal....the magic of rain....

So much so that I got up and cooked dinner. I wanted something hot and filling. So I made a tart with a whole wheat flour shell full of herbs and a filling of veggies and soya chunks cooked in sweet corn soup. Sounds like I just threw some stuff together, doesnt it? But nope, I actually planned the entire thing.....and whoo! was it filling! Hot and tasty. The herbs in the shell were really present, and the soya chunks had soaked up a lot of flavor...I didnt want a heavy filling with milk and eggs and stuff, so the soup was just light enough and brought everything together nicely.....mmmmm, mmm, mmm.

Long Named Tart
Serves 2

Ingredients

Tart Shell:

3/4 cup Whole Wheat Flour
1 pinch salt
3 tbsp water
40 g butter
A handful of Chopped fresh mint and basil leaves

Filling:

10 Soya Chunks
1/2 cup Sweet Corn Soup
7 shallots, chopped into two
1 tbsp each of chopped carrot, green bell pepper, cabbage, cottage cheese
1 dried red chilli
1 small tomato, chopped
Salt to taste
2 tsp Oil

Place the flour, salt and cold butter in a bowl and mix with your fingers. Add the water and the chopped herbs and incorporate into a ball. Do not over mix. Wrap and refrigerate for an hour.

In a pan, heat water and add the chunks and a pinch of salt. When the chunks are puffed up and cooked through, drain and squeeze out water lightly. In a separate pan, heat the oil. Add the dried red chilli and the shallots. After a min, add the vegetables. Cook for a few mins and the add the soup. Pour in some water to thin it out and add the soya chunks, preferably cut in half. Cook till the vegetables are almost tender and the filling is thick.

Roll out or rather gently press the tart dough into a flat circle to line a 6 inch pastry shell. Pour in the soup and veggie mix. Top with some chopped tomatoes and bits of cheese. Bake in an oven for 35 mins at 180 C.

Sis' Raw Ash Gourd Salad

2009-04-16T08:59:00.000-07:00

There aren't many vegetables I'd adore eating raw. I do include cucumbers, carrots, onions and bell peppers with every meal just as they are. I could name a few others....but ash gourds? My sis came up with this one and ever since that first tentative taste, many years ago, there's been no looking back.

Whenever I hear about the amazing nutritional value of each vegetable and how much of it is destroyed when cooked, I've felt it was such a shame. So this side dish is just perfect. Ash gourds are loaded with calcium and all that good stuff. An easy and simple dish.

Raw Ash Gourd Salad

Ingredients

1 cup grated ash gourd
4 tbsp yoghurt
2 tsp oil
1 dried red chilli
2 pinches mustard seeds
2 pinches cumin seeds
10 to 15 curry leaves, chopped
coriander leaves, chopped
salt to taste

Remove the seeds and the fleshy part around them before you grate the ash gourd. Place it in a bowl along with the chopped coriander leaves and yoghurt. Heat the oil in a small pan. Add the red chilli, mustard and cumin seeds. Allow them to splutter. Take off the stove and add the chopped curry leaves. (Hold the pan as far away as possible at all times) Add this to the bowl along with the salt and mix well. I personally enjoy this salad cold, so I refrigerate it.

This same recipe is perfect with cucumber as well, and get this- try it with the inner stem of plantain- that's the white portion that we Tamils call 'thandu'- its a wonderful vegetable, and is really good raw in this dish.

Note: Plantain Stem needs to be cleaned of its fibers. Chop up the log like stem into tiny rectangles, place in a large bowl full of water and use a rough surfaced stick to churn the water. At intervals, remove the fibers that stick to the surface of the stick. Do it for a few mins. Then drain and use.

Tang Yuan, from Rasa Malaysia

2009-04-13T05:31:00.000-07:00

I've fallen in love...with sesame seeds. I've always liked them- no one would doubt that if they saw me down my Mom's idli podi(a powder to accompany idlis)in which sesame seeds are the main ingredient, but with my first taste of the sweet version, I heard heavenly music, saw bright stars and was swept off my feet.

It was a different type of love, the first time I stumbled upon Rasa Malaysia. Beautiful, elegant, fresh.....downright classy. A blog like a genteel lady. Today, after many weeks of trying to find the time to, I got around to trying her sesame seed dumplings- Tang Yuan- something I've never heard of before.

We have a similar version in India, but we steam them and the fillings are varied across the nation. This one I wanted to try. I must say- when I ground the roasted sesame seeds, the aroma that filled the room was just perfect.

There was only one problem- sticky rice flour. People here would go- what's that? As did my mom. So I had to make do with the stickiest rice I could find here and make my own flour. Since I have nothing to compare it to, I have no clue if what I've made is anything like what it should be. But I have a pretty good notion that its not right- it just didn't feel right. The flour was not working.....I'm gonna go to Malaysia to buy flour. Sure I will. Anyways, I'm waiting for Rasa Malaysia to clear up some doubts. So an update- the verdict, will follow soon.

I halved her recipe. Here it is-

Ingredients:

8 oz. glutinous rice (sticky rice) flour
180 ml water (3/4 cup water)
1/4 cup black sesame seeds
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 stick butter (1/4 cup or 4 tablespoons)

Ginger Syrup :

5 cups water (reduced to 4 cups after boiling)
1 cup sugar
4 oz. old ginger (skin peeled and then lightly pounded with the flat side of a cleaver)
1/2 teaspoon sweet osmanthus (optional)
2 screwpine leaves or pandan leaves (tie them into a knot, optional)

Head on over to Rasa Malaysia for the full recipe....its so worth it.

Cottage Cheese Coins with Cauliflower puree

2009-04-09T05:12:00.000-07:00

Did anyone notice how many 'C's there are in the title?.....It sounds so fancy but its a really simple recipe.

I love vegetable purees. They are so simple to make and so versatile- I use them as such as sandwich spreads, as dips, add them in gravies....you can pretty much do anything with them and make them with any combination of vegetables as well. Cauliflower puree is very tasty- it can be colored AND flavored with the addition of carrots or oooh, beets! Healthy and lovely!

Cottage Cheese Coins with Cauliflower Puree

Cottage Cheese coins

Marinade-
1 tsp White Vinegar
1 tbsp Sweet Chilli Sauce
1 pinch salt

Mix all the ingredients together. Cut firm cottage cheese into 1/2 inch thick circles and marinate them for a few hours. In a lightly greased pan, cook both sides till slightly brown.

This is the first time I used ketchup to marinate something and I really liked the result- the cheese was really juicy.

Cauliflower puree

1 cup Cauliflower
1/2 cup water
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp yogurt
1 tsp butter
salt and pepper to taste

In a pan, boil the water and add the cauliflowers and salt. Close and cook for a few minutes till the cauliflower is tender. Allow it to cool and transfer to the food processor. Add the rest of the ingredients and grind into a fine puree. If you'd like a little acid in it, add a dash of lemon juice.

Kovil Mavu

2009-04-03T17:55:00.001-07:00

As a child, going to the temples was an event, an adventure I looked forward to enjoying with my cousins. We'd all be spruced up, neat and clean, with much too powdered faces, running ahead of the adults amidst huge blocks of sculpted stone. Religion hardly fit into it. We were along for the ride...and the kovil mavu.

Tamil ladies make this simple dessert and place it as offerings to the gods. The priest blesses it and returns it to us and the fun begins. I love that mavu. Literally meaning 'temple flour', its a sweet grainy bite that we distribute to the other people who come to the temple and take just enough back home. The theory behind the distribution is the Indian version of the Golden rule, a symbol of generosity.

This week, we visited our ancestral clan temple. Usually these temples are simple structures way out in the middle of nowhere, as ours is. The goddess is a green faced beauty, richly covered in bright jewelery and shiny clothes- I always love looking at her. The "Patchai Amman" or green mother goddess is famed for a few miles around for her Deiva Vaku- where flowers are heaped on her and the priests chant and ring bells around her. The person who prays at that point asks a question, silently or aloud and waits for a flower to fall. If it falls to the left, they take it as a yes, permission granted. If it falls to the right, it means no. Now, as an engineer, I can talk about acoustics and sound vibrations and all that to explain the falling flower, but then as a spiritualist, I believe that nothing is a coincidence or an accident. Whatever the reason behind the actual falling, the people who pray there derive some comfort and guidance and as long as they're happy with it, I'm content to watch the almost magical event.

Photography is prohibited in the inner sanctum, but I took snaps of the guardians of the Gods who stand watch outside. They are huge- 20 feet or so and are quite imposing to look at....

Kovil Mavu

1 Kilo/2.2 lbs Rice- ground into Rice Flour
5 cardamom pods
3/4 kilo/1.5 lbs Jaggery OR sugar
1 cup water
1 pinch salt
1 cup Black sesame seeds
1/2 a fresh coconut, grated
1 cup Split Roast Gram

If store bought rice flour is extremely fine- like face powder, that can be used. Otherwise, its better to make one's own. Simply soak rice for atleast an hour. Spread out on a newspaper and allow to dry partially. It must still be a bit damp and cool. Grind into very fine powder. It's best to grind the cardamom pods along with the rice flour. Its a wonderful way to get fragrant flour.

Seive the rice flour into a bowl. The traditional method to sweeten this is with Indian jaggery. The big lumps are broken down to smaller ones or powder. If you can't get jaggery, use white sugar. Place the jaggery in a pan with the water, add a pinch of salt and boil a bit till you get a simple syrup. Add to the rice flour.

Roast the sesame seeds lightly and add, along with the split roast gram and grated coconut, to the flour mixture. If you plan on keeping this for awhile then its better to slightly roast the grated coconut as well, as it'll keep longer.

Mix with your hands and slowly gather it as you mix so that it forms one big lump. The damp rice flour and the sweetener will almost always give off enough moisture for the shape to hold. Break into small lumps when serving it.

Paniyaram and Ebleskiver- when cousins meet

2009-03-31T22:43:00.000-07:00

Today two cousins met in my kitchen- Mr.Paniyaram from India and Mr.Ebleskiver from Denmark. I really enjoyed the meeting- the Indian I knew well; we've met often before. The Dane I got to know intimately and he will always be welcome in my home...

When I first came across the Ebleskiver online, I was struck by how similiar it looked to the savory South Indian paniyaram and how, if there ever were food cousins, these two would fit the bill so well. Both of them are cooked in a special pan with round wells. This cooking experience was particularly enjoyable- how often does one get to cook both the main course as well as the dessert in the same utensil at the same time?! Almost never I imagine.

So that was the plan- cook both the paniyaram as well as the ebleskiver simultaneously. Since I'm home alone, I needed to make only a few of each for myself. I chopped the recipes down to miniature amounts to achieve this.

I learnt two things-
1) How to reduce a recipe to 1/14th of its original measurements- Sheesh, all that math!
2) Don't be naive. Sure, in theory, 11 round pancakes sound filling. But in the real world, they disappear, even when its just you lurking around them. Make more. Much more.

Paniyaram

1 cup Idli/Dosa batter
1 medium onion, chopped
1 inch green chilli, chopped fine
1 tbsp bengal gram/channa dal (which is not channa, i.e, garbanzo)
1 tbsp black gram/urad dal
2 pinches mustard seeds
2 pinches cumin seeds
2 tbsp oil
curry leaves, chopped
coriander leaves, chopped
salt, to taste

Idli/Dosa batter is a combination of wet ground rice and black gram. You can buy it readymade or make your own. Add the chopped onion and coriander leaves directly to the batter. In a small pan, heat the oil and add the mustard and cumin seeds. When they begin to splutter, add the bengal and black gram. Stir constantly till the grams start to change color (Do not allow it to burn). Remove from the stove and add the curry leaves. Stir this into the batter. If the batter is already salted, add just a bit. Otherwise include salt for the batter as well.

Some people like to add baking soda to the batter, but its not really neccessary.

Ebleskiver

(makes 5)

2 tbsp buttermilk
2 tbsp flour
2 tbsp beaten egg
1 pinch baking powder
1 pinch salt
1/2 pinch baking soda
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp melted butter

Mix all the ingredients together. Ebleskivers are not very sweet by themselves- they are usually served with jam or dusted with sugar. So if you want to eat them as such, double the sugar.

Once both the batters are ready, gently heat the pan for a few minutes. Add oil to half the wells(paniyaram) and butter to the other half(ebleskiver). Scoop the batter into the wells till they just fill them. They cook fast, so with a skewer, gently flip the pancakes over. Some people follow a quarter turn technique where they turn the pancakes little by litttle to get perfect globes. If a skewer inserted into the center of the pancakes comes out clean, scoop them out and serve hot.

Simple Noodle Soup

2009-03-31T04:16:00.000-07:00

Kung Fu Panda is one my all time unbeatable favorite movies of all time. I enjoy every frame of the movie, the story, the characters, the voices, and most of all the amazing message thats so true- that all it takes, is belief, and the Universe is open to you.

I've stored this movie on my computer and I go back to it almost every other day; a scene here, a scene there, just to laugh or feel or enjoy myself for a moment. And as I was watching it today, in the back of my mind I was chewing on what to make for dinner.....and Po lifted this steaming dish of noodle soup.......it really didn't take long for me to decide! Noodle Soup it would be!

I'm also a sucker for fancy names and techniques, when it comes to cooking. Ever since I googled Mirepoix, I've been wanting to make something with it. Mirepoix, as Wikipedia says, is a 2:1:1 combination of onion, carrots and celery, finely diced and cooked in butter to create a classic flavor base in French cooking. So I tried it out with this soup. Maybe because it was inspired by so many of the things that I love, this soup, that I scarcely added anything to, turned out so delicious; it was the only thing I needed for a good dinner.

Noodle Soup

1 100g packet of unflavored noodles
1 medium sized onion
carrot and celery, roughly half the amount of onion
2 tbsp butter
1 cube veg broth
100g firm cottage cheese (Indian Paneer)
1 inch green chilly
Salt to taste

Chop the onion, carrot and celery as finely as humanly possible. Heat the butter and add the mirepoix(la di da). Stir gently till they become soft. Add 3 to 4 cups of water, the veg broth cube and the salt. Cut the cottage cheese into bite sized cubes and add to the soup. Chop the green chilly finely and add it in as well. Allow the soup to reduce to roughly 3/4th its original volume. In a separate wok, cook the noodles in slightly salted water, drain and add to the soup. Or you can dish out the soup into individual bowls and then add the noodles into each. Garnish with coriander leaves or parsley.

Eggless Moist Chocolate Cake

2009-03-25T23:17:00.000-07:00

Whenever my aunt visits us, she never has my cake. She'll break off the tiniest bit humanly possible and pop it into her mouth to spare my feelings. She dislikes eggs, especially in baked stuff.

Eggs are not a frequent part of my diet either, so all in all, its high time I tried my hand at an eggless cake. Since I had a craving for chocolate today....I lifted this recipe straight out of Chowtimes. I reduced the quantities to two thirds however.

I'm pleasantly surprised. So eggless cake can be moist and tasty too. Great! The cake really hit the spot. It has a slightly chewy texture on top but thats ok, I liked that part too. With it, I had some musk melon-watermelon combo juice thats such a rage in my house. Seriously, I take hours over it- removing all those watermelon seeds and making the juice. I put in the refrigerator and within hours, a gallon is gone. I think people at home 'sample' some everytime they walk past the fridge.....I certainly do. Heh heh.

Eggless Moist Chocolate Cake

2 cups flour
1.25 tsp baking soda
1 pinch salt
4 tsp cocoa powder
1.25 cups water
1.25 cups sugar
1/2 tbsp vanilla extract
1.25 tbsp vinegar
1/3 cup vegetable oil

Mix all the dry ingredients except sugar together. Add the wet ingredients to the sugar and mix till it dissolves. Pour in the wet mix into the dry and mix till incorporated. The batter is slightly more watery than the conventional egg version. Pour into a greased pan and bake for 45 to 50 mins at 170 C.

Melon Juice

2 parts musk melon, peeled, cut into pieces
1 part watermelon, seeds removed, cut into pieces
sugar, to taste

You can water down this juice too, but add only a dash of water, since watermelon releases quite a bit of water on its own. The musk melon I use is the one with the soft breaking apart kind of sweet flesh and the cream colored net like peel. Its not honey dew or other stuff with the firm juicy flesh.

The Fajita Combo

2009-03-25T09:34:00.000-07:00

When I visit the city, I occasionally have dinner at a good Mexican restaurant. The Fajitas at TexMex are really good...so much so that I decided to re-create it at home.

I made the tortillas, a cottage cheese veggie filling, potato wedges, coriander flavored rice and some salsa. The only thing missing was the sour cream. I wanted that sour cream. Badly. It preyed on my mind and I suspect it'll haunt me tonight.

The tastes were good, not exactly the same as the restaurants version, but then I don't really know their recipe. Just did some guesswork. Looked good on a banana leaf- the traditional South Indian way of serving food.

Cottage Cheese Fajita Combo

Tortilla
1 cup all purpose flour
2 cups wheat four
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
Hot water
Knead the dough into a ball and allow it to rest for more than half an hour. Split into lemon sized balls, roll out, cut into circles and cook on a skillet. The tortillas need to be turned just once- simply allow each side to puff up.

Cottage Cheese Filling-
Cut the following into matchsticks sizes-
Cottage Cheese
Carrots
Bell peppers
Baby corn
Onions
For the paste-
1 onion
3 tomatoes
3 garlic cloves

In a pan, heat some oil, add the onions and garlic and cook till it turns light brown. Add the tomatoes and cook for 5 mins. Cool and make a paste all together.

In another pan, heat some oil, add the chopped onion. Cook for a minute, then add the babycorn, bell peppers and carrots. Stir frequently. Then add 3/4th of the paste and cover and cook for 2 mins. Add the cottage cheese, sprinkle some water, add salt and chilli powder. Cover and cook till done.

Coriander rice-
1 cup Basmati Rice
Two handfuls of coriander, washed
The paste leftover from the filling recipe
3/4 tsp Salt
Chilli flakes

Slightly braise the coriander in a pan till it wilts, cool and grind to a paste. Heat some oil and fry the rice till translucent and glassy. Add the coriander paste, onion-tomato paste, 2 cups of water, salt and chilli flakes. Cover, simmer and cook till rice is done. Stir only once or twice in between.

The potato wedges and salsa are simple, common recipes, nothing unique there.

So, this is quite some work, especially if you're doing it all alone. All the little things add up. I feel like I've been cooking all day. Time to rest :)

Papaya Pudding/Custard Cake

2009-03-22T22:50:00.000-07:00

Ok, I admit it, I don't really know the difference. Custard, pudding- its all the same at this point and its just too hot to google the difference. Indian Summers! The heat waves have started to hit and I'm quaking in my shoes imagining April and May. I googled for solutions this morning and one interesting technique I found was to cover windows with sheer white fabric that's been liberally moistened with water- wet, but not dripping. I think I'll try that one.

Anyways, I wandered into the kitchen thinking vaguely 'I want to make something different', but just like in the nursery rhyme the cupboards were all bare and so was the refrigerator.....except for this sorry looking papaya.

I took a dislike to papayas when I was a child- I hated the way the seeds looked in it, so much so that I refused to even look at them. I'd just leave the room if anyone started cutting up the fruit. I don't mind so much now, especially since I discovered how wonderful papaya is for the skin- I regularly make a puree and refrigerate it. Its part of my daily regime to dab some onto my face, mixed with honey or lemon juice. Really helps keep pimples away.

So anyway, I decided to make a dessert with it and an old recipe I'd never tried came to mind.

Papaya Pudding

4 Tbsp (heaping) self-raising flour
1/4 cup sugar
3 eggs, separated
1/2 cup papaya puree
1 cup milk
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 pinch salt
Orange/Red food coloring (optional)

Beat the sugar and egg yolks till light. Separately beat the egg whites till stiff and add to the yolk mixture. Add the papaya puree and the milk and mix well. Next, add the flour, baking powder and salt. Pour into a large greased baking tin or several small ones. Bake for 30 to 35 mins at 180 C.

The verdict- It rose beautifully, even though I made the classic rookie mistake of filling the bowl almost to the top. (Blame the heat, not me!) I couldn't really taste the papaya. Maybe chunks of papaya instead of puree would lend itself better. Or maybe this would go better with a stronger flavor like orange or lemon. (Yum) The taste was delicious, especially when I had it piping hot from the oven. I love that light brown cooked layer on top. I'll be trying this again with a different flavor.

The Secret- All Purpose Paste

2009-03-17T23:52:00.000-07:00

Earlier this month, I was away in Kerala, visiting an old friend. Su and I caught up with each other after a gap of 10 years and we decided to celebrate with some heavy backpacking through God's Own Country. The trip took on an added edge when the summer heat began to hit us hard and I was just about ready to pack up and go home when we landed in the quaint hill station of Munnar. This is hilly land thats covered with tea plantations as far as the eye can see.

And in this green landscape, we visited a tiny home where the lady of the house offered us lunch. And what a lunch it was! There were three different vegetable dishes, two curries, rice and dessert! I noticed that two of the vegetables had been prepared in almost the same fashion but they were really tasty. I got the recipe- a ridiculously simple one which can be used with just about any vegetable. I tried it on some fresh Chinese Cabbage and its just as good.

The only thing the recipe requires is this Spicy Paste-

All Purpose Spicy Paste

1/2 cup of shallots
1 big dried red chilly
2 pinches of salt
2 tbsp oil

Grind the shallots and chilly together in a mortar,pestle or in a food processor to get a slightly coarse paste. Heat the oil and add the paste to it. Season with salt and cook till the paste begins to darken.

Thats it! This paste can be used with fresh vegetables like you would a salad dressing. Or like the lady in Munnar did, just steam vegetables like peas or beans or carrots and mix in some of this spicy paste just before serving. It's as simple as that! This paste can also be used a base for curries. Its easy to pre-make and refrigerate, just like pasta sauce. Just add a tbsp of oil on top before putting it in the fridge.

Spicy Tomato Cake

2009-03-16T20:48:00.000-07:00

This one is a gift, for Uncle N. To sorta appease him for my no-show at his house today. I'm sending the Spicy Tomato cake as my stand-in.

Uncle N is an old family friend. He and my father have a funny 'thing' of calling each other 'Sami', which in Tamil means God. They've been friends since childhood. I remember when we were in Kuwait, Uncle N drove me to drawing class once. Until then I'd never encountered anyone who drove so slowly on Kuwait's pristine roads. He was doing something like 20 to 25 kms/hr. And when a Kuwaiti overtook him too fast, he rolled down the window and shouted 'Pannikku Poranthavane!', which means "Born to a pig!" I was laughing so hard, ducking in the back seat. :D So anyway, he has diabetics and a heart problem, and I had to come up with something tasty to send him that didn't have sugar and was too rich. And I came up with this.

The cake tastes absolutely delicious, but it didn't really rise. It was a bit dense. Maybe because its eggless? Anyhow, I think I'll experiment with different water and baking powder levels the next time.

Spicy Tomato Cake

1.5 cups all purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/4 cup + 1 tbsp vegetable oil
1.5 cups tomato paste
4 to 5 cloves garlic
1/2 inch piece ginger
1/2 tsp salt
1 handful curry leaves
2 dried red chillies

(I made the tomato paste- I reduced home made tomato puree with vegetable stock and some salt to make it more flavorful.) Place the flour+salt+baking powder in a bowl. Add the tomato paste. Mince the garlic and ginger and fry it on a little oil. Add the curry leaves to the oil right at the end and stir. Add this to the flour mix. Finely chop the dried red chillies and add this to the dough along with the oil. Mix well with a spoon and pour into a greased cake or loaf tin. Bake for 40 mins at 180 C.

Like I said, I'll have to work on getting the proportions right to get the cake to rise better. I'll update this at some point.

Beet Cake

2009-03-15T22:08:00.000-07:00

The beets have begun to haunt us. I had disturbing dreams last night and I'm not completely sure, but I think there were red-tinted people in it. Anyways, I managed to do away with one big beety fellow. I grated him to oblivion, or rather, to the cake tin.

The aroma floated through the house in almost cartoon like fashion, bringing everyone to the kitchen. The cake was absolutely delish!

The batter was so gorgeous, I wanted to eat it all. What color! I anticipated losing all the color once the cake was done but it is sorta reddish, especially on the inside. Yum Yum.

Beet Cake

1.5 cups grated beets
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1/4 tsp salt
1 pinch cinnamon powder
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup chopped toasted nuts (walnuts, cashews)

Beat eggs till frothy and add sugar. Beat well, till the batter is thick. Add oil and the extract. Then add the sifted flour+baking powder+salt+cinnamon powder. Mix till just incorporated. Fold in the grated beets and chopped nuts. Bake for 35 mins at 180 C.

I'd recommend doubling the recipe for one big cake or two nice layers that can be frosted together. Cream cheese frosting works well with this cake- a natural way to color it would be to swish some chopped cubes of beet in the beaten cheese till you get the rich color. Remove the beets once you're done. Alternatively, you could just add a dollop of beet puree.

Beet Soup and Baby corn Surprise!

2009-03-14T22:45:00.000-07:00

We have a farm out here that's just chock full of vegetables- and that's something I simply love. This week, the beets outdid themselves and overflowed into our home.

Most chefs profess a love for this radiant vegetable- the color, the ease and versatility. I'm no exception. It's a wonderful healthy way to add color to any dish. My mom and I sometimes add a few of them into our Biriyani. We enjoy eating pink spicy rice, for some reason.

Today I decided to make beet soup. Some people just puree the boiled vegetable and add their seasonings. But one thing that I don't like about beets is their raw smell. So I also cooked the soup for a bit in between pureeing and chilling it.

Chilled Beet Soup

1 large onion
4 medium sized beets
1 or 2 garlic cloves
1 sweet orange-pulp and juice/ 1/4 cup orange juice
Beaten Yogurt, to taste.
Salt
Pepper

Chop each beet into eight and boil them or pressure cook them till soft. Cool and add to that the orange pulp, garlic cloves and some salt. Grind into a smooth paste.

Heat some oil and add the chopped onion. Cook till nicely brown- this imparts more flavor than lightly cooked onion. Add the puree, salt and pepper, cover and cook till nicely thick and the raw smell has gone.

Cool and add the beaten yogurt. How much you add is a matter of taste and color. Transfer to a bowl and refrigerate.

This soup is actually tasty at any stage from when it leaves the stove. Hot soup with no yogurt in it is delicious too! Another possibility is to make this a dip or a spread. Instead of pureeing the boiled beets, simple mash them with a pestle, add sour cream or yogurt and season well. A dash of lime will round it off nicely. For a slightly different flavor, roast the beets instead of boiling them. There are many options :)

Another dish that I personally loved was the Baby corn Surprise. The reason I'm calling it so is because it was just an experiment and came as a complete surprise that it turned out so well! Now, I cannot reveal the recipe as the marinade is my mom's secret- one she uses regularly for fish. Being a vegetarian, I've always wanted to try it on some vegetable and the baby corn looked just right.

And how! The baby corn was perfect- the texture was great and it really went well with the cooked marinade. A perfect bite. I'd encourage anyone to try this with their own fish or meat marinade.

Baked Spring Rolls

2009-03-13T08:16:00.000-07:00

Hmmm, third recipe. But third time not so lucky. These baked spring rolls were not a raving success. The problem was with the spring roll wrappers.

Since I live in the woods, .....ok, I don't live in the woods, but I might as well. There's just so much stuff that you don't get in small town India. Spring roll wrappers are one of them. I had to make them myself and I did that yesterday and froze them. I don't think the recipe I used was exactly right. Combine that with the whole 'baking instead of frying' process and you get a sort of weird, brittle chewiness.

Which is a shame, because I took time with the filling and made it just right-
Grated carrots, finely chopped cabbage, green bell pepper and celery, lightly cooked with some salt and pepper. I also made matchsticks of firm cottage cheese (Indian Paneer) and lightly fried those. But I left them out because I didnt like thier contribution. I think I'll simple marinate them and add them to the filling the next time around. Ho hum.

Savory Vegetable Tart

2009-03-12T00:27:00.000-07:00

I like one pot dishes. You just throw everything in together and wait for the outcome. I'm trying to think of a brilliant analogy about life and all that, but it eludes me. Anyway, today's menu had just one lip-smacking item on it- the mega savory tart.

I've always loved tarts- the sweet versions, that is. The crumbly pastry, the luscious cream, those divine fruits....It's been years since my sister and I went to Shimla together. I remember the trip only in bits and pieces. But one of those memories, complete with a photoshop glow and nostalgic tint around it, is of a bakery there where I got these amazing bite sized tarts. I inhaled them instantly and looked around in suprise. I remember my sister asking me where they were too.

So when I came upon recipes of savory tarts, I didn't really hesitate. And I'm glad I didn't. It was delicious and fulfilling. But is this going to be oft repeated?.....I don't think so. I think the next batch of tarts I make would be sweet, and the next and the next.....

Savory Vegetable tart

Tart Crust:
1.25 cups flour
80 gr cold butter
3 Tbsp cold water
A pinch of salt

Filling:
A handful each of every vegetable you have at home.
2 eggs
1 cup milk
Salt, to taste
Red chilli flakes, to taste

Instructions:
Mix in the butter with the flour and salt with the tips of your fingers or a fork. Add the water and bring the dough together till just mixed in. Pat into a ball, wrap and refrigerate for 40 mins to an hour.

Meanwhile, cook the vegetables in broth, and salt, till tender. Roll out the tart dough into a thin circle and line the baking tin (9") with it. Add the cooked vegetables to the tart. Beat the eggs, milk, salt and chilli flakes together and pour into the tart. Bake for 30 to 40 mins at 180 C.

One thing I feel about tarts is that its definitely better to make a number of small individual tarts rather than one big one. The beautiful crust loses its place in the spotlight when the tart is big and you really cant bite into the dish, which is all the fun. So that's what I think- pies should be big, tarts should be small.

Chocolate Sable cookies

2009-03-11T20:52:00.000-07:00

There are some truly inspirational food blogs out there- the kind that make you want to attack your screen in a frenzy of mindless craving. Tartlette pretty much inspires that kind of violence in me. So its fitting that my first entry be her recipe for Chocolate Sable cookies, that I tried out a couple of days ago.

The cookies were perfect- I loved the texture. But I might just a bit more sugar the next time I make them- my sweet tooth doesnt really appreciate subtlety! She actually made sandwiches out of them with cake filling- a combination that boggles my mind- I'll try it out soon!

This is her recipe, reproduced verbatim. The only difference I made was to add banana essence instead of the vanilla. Its something I appreciated two days after I made them- the flavor really came out nicely.

1 stick butter (113 grams) butter, at room temperature

¼ cup (50 grams) sugar

½ vanilla bean, seeded or 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract or 2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste

2 egg yolks

1 ½ cups (190 grams) all purpose flour, minus 3 tablespoons

3 tablespoons (16gr) cocoa powder

Pinch of salt

1 to 2 tablespoons heavy cream (optional)

Preheat oven to 350F.In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, whip the butter and sugar until light and creamy. Add vanilla, then the egg yolks, one at a time, scraping the bottom and side of the bowl in between each addition. Add the flour, cocoa powder and salt and beat until the dough just starts to come together. Add some heavy cream if the dough still looks very crumbly and dry.
Gather the dough into a ball, flatten it a little to a small disk and wrap it well in plastic wrap. Refrigerate two hours before using.Lightly flour your work area well and start rolling the dough from the center out, lifting it from the work area every 2-3 times you roll over it. With a 2 1/2-inch cookie cutter, cut out 48 rounds in the dough, gathering scraps and rerolling as you go (you might need to refrigerate the dough for 20 minutes if it becomes too soft to roll out easily).
Place the cookies on 2 parchment lined baking sheets and refrigerate 20 minutes. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Let cool.

And so it begins.

2009-03-11T19:33:00.000-07:00

I've been cooking for quite a while now- it all started when I went on a major weight loss plan and I had to find ways to cook food that was light and healthy. We have traditional Indian food here at home, day in and day out. So not only was I focused on losing weight, I also wanted to experience different flavor combinations. I guess I was getting bored.

My plans worked and I have lost weight- I'm fit and healthy now. The unexpected bonus was discovering my interest in cooking and baking. I can safely say I'm hooked!

Since then my recipe file has been growing in leaps and bounds. I wanted to stick to the old fashioned way of having a recipe collection on paper. I love my recipe file- its one of those things I'd grab if my house was on fire. (There seem to be too many things on that list!) But I've been toying with the idea of a food blog of late. With a new camera and the daily dose of inspiration I receive from the truly sensational food blogs out there, I've decided to jump in! So here it is- When Mia Cooks!

I write poetry- really dreadful stuff, I'll admit. Doesn't help that I'm an obsessive rhymer. But I've got to answer my higher calling and commemorate the occasion. So here goes-

When Mia cooks!

When Mia cooks and bakes away,
She sings a tune, she hums, she sways.
She smiles as she makes her carrot puree,
And gasps as she whisks her watery sorbet.
It's easy to make her favorite Tabbouleh,
But she wants a challenge, her mind is at play-
A vegetarian fillet? Or a savory parfait?
She dreams of, one day, serving up a buffet-
A golden table, an exquisite bouquet,
A happy crowd, such a glorious day,
As her food goes out on gleaming trays,
and pronounced all around as better than ok...
She's happy to dream as she measures and weighs,
True love and comfort- its what she hopes to convey,
When Mia cooks, she is, at heart, a rustic gourmet.

As I am :)

2009-01-01T23:33:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, there was a magnificent dream that flew in the heavens. Around planets and stars, racing with the comets, it flew higher and farther than any dream had ever done before. 'This is what I be', it shouted to a passing swirl of atoms. Laughing, glorious, it flew far, far, leaving behind nothing, for it knew that all things were contained within it. 'You have the right idea, Sire!' it said to a busy black hole and winked as it flew by.

Cosmic dust from nebulae swirled in its path as it spun its way through vibrant galaxies, un-lost in endlessness. Flight without restraint, love without bounds.

It flew through the fire-light that the stars playfully threw at it and teased the moons that raced to hide themselves behind their planets.

Timeless, it flew. In and out of wormholes, flitting between dimensions, embracing worlds. Pausing to absorb shifting colors, it looked at the infinite possibilities that it breathed. "Engage warp drive, full speed ahead!" Laughing, it took off again. Complete, and always growing, it flew.

Eons and supernovae later, it came to a serious little rock. A curious restlessness stirred in its heart at the sight of the blue and green. 'Destiny?' it pondered as it slowly soared through an air scented with the aura of miracles. In that moment, the earth shook with the force of its love and the skies opened to reveal the stars. The moment passed, calm returned. Like a feather, it settled down gently in the dust, and looked about.

"I am here."

email me at : whenmiacooks@gmail.com