Nutty Cook

Cadbury Silk India–Orange Peel

2012-01-25T09:01:00.001Z

Cadbury Silk India has come up with a new flavour called the Orange Peel. The classic Milk chocolate and orange combination with a silk factor in it. Looks like its going to melt before it reaches our mouth, have a look at their latest commercial below.

I particularly find this one funny. Please have a look here. Enjoy your Cadbury Silk with a kiss of Orange.

Speedy Chicken Soup Noodles

2012-01-04T21:37:00.001Z

Now that Christmas and New Year celebrations are over, most of us are back to work. I am not joining work as yet. With my hands full at home with the little one, I hardly get time to do anything else really. I guess that’s what is making me think of all the shortcuts I can make in the kitchen and try and cook speedy one pot meals which are ready in least amount of time yet tastes good.

I try to keep some cooked meat in my fridge most of the time, they are such a life saver when you need some easy meal to be prepared. You can either buy them in the supermarkets or could be the left-over meat from last night’s supper. I had some store bought cooked chicken in my fridge which I have used to make this easy-peasy soup noodles. I made this up on the go so the measurements are really up to you. I used Lee Kum Kee brand spicy chilli-bean paste for this dish. This magic ingredient is available in most Asian food stores and truly transforms this noodle soup. You can adjust the quantity of chilli bean paste based on your tolerance/preference to hot and spicy food.

Ingredients:

200 gm thick noodles (udon or soba)

100 gm cooked chicken (sliced into small pieces)

1 and 1/2 cube of vegetable stock powder

Spicy chilli bean paste (to your taste, I added 2 heaped teaspoon)

400 ml boiling water for the soup

1 onion chopped

1 capsicum thinly sliced

3 Chestnut mushroom thinly sliced

Oil for frying

Method:

Heat the oil in a pan and start frying the onions till they turn golden. Now add the chopped capsicum and mushroom to it and continue frying. Meanwhile in a sauce pan pour boiling water and cook the noodles according to the instructions on the pack. In a bowl pour the 400 ml boiling water and make the stock by dissolving the stock cube. Add the cooked chicken in to the onion and capsicum mix and stir well. Cook for a minute or so then add the chilli bean paste to it. Now add the stock into it and mix it well. Bring it to boil and cook for a minute or so then add the noodles and take it off the heat. Serve hot.

I garnished the soup with fresh coriander leaves.

Chocolate Pistachio Fudge

2011-12-27T07:29:00.001Z

I am addicted to food programmes. Whenever I switch on telly, invariably I end up watching some food programme. On Christmas day, one of the food channels was showing Nigella Lawson’s Christmas Kitchen for the whole day. Can you believe it one whole day of Nigella’s cooking videos, uninterrupted? Well, it wasn’t uninterrupted for me, as with my little-one in my arms, I hardly get time to do anything else. But I am a big fan of Nigella hence couldn’t let go of the urge to watch the show. Obviously I didn’t manage to watch the whole day but I did catch-up some bits and pieces of it. That inspired me to make these Chocolate Pistachio Fudges. Although I must admit I had two other reasons to make these, one I was going to a pre-Christmas party and wanted to take some homemade edible gift for the host and two, I will be publishing regularly at www.thisisbristol.co.uk from now on on their Lifestyle section. I wanted something that’s festive and Christmassy for my first contribution to the website. I made my own little tweaks in the recipe. So here is my version and the original can be found in the BBC website .

Ingredients:

400 gm dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids)

1 can of evaporated milk (about 410 gms)

30 gm butter

100 gm unsalted pistachios

Coco powder for dusting (My touch and completely optional)

Method:

Take a heavy bottomed pan and place it over low heat. Place all the ingredients but the pistachio nuts in the pan and stir until melted and well combined. In a freezer bag place the nuts and bash them with a rolling pin to get smaller pieces of them. Now mix the nuts with the melted chocolate and stir well. Take a rectangular / square tray and line it with aluminium foil. Pour the mixture in the tray and make sure the mixture spreads evenly. Cover and let it cool and set in the fridge. Take it out of the freeze after 4-5 hours but I left it over night. Cut the chocolate fudge into small pieces. You can store them in the freezer and can eat then straight away. My version some how turned out to be little softer than I saw in the video hence I coated them in cocoa powder. it had two advantages, one it looked like truffles and two it helped holding them while eating.

I packed them in a home made gift box and took it to the party that evening. It was a hit. People simply loved it. Thanks a ton Nigella for this beautiful, delicious, easy to make recipe. Oh! I almost forgot..these are very rich delights, so a small piece is enough for most people, unless you are a chocoholic like .. ME! I guess. Enjoy! Sending this to Mission Cupcake’s forever Nigella contest.

Christmas coming soon – Happy Days

2011-12-11T20:36:00.001Z

Its that time of the year again - cold weather, festive lights, snow, family, friends, gifts and lots of gorgeous looking delicious food. We are only couple of weeks away from Christmas but the festive celebrations have already begun. Most streets and houses have lit up with festive lights and Christmas trees. No need to mention that Christmas shopping is also going on at a frenzied pace.

I love festivals not only because they are a lot of fun but also because they create moments that I can fondly remember and relive many times during the year. They provide the warmth which is much needed when I am in real need of some family comfort. So I try to make these family get together moments as memorable as possible and one way to do that is by following an old saying that the way to reach someone's heart is through their stomach.

This year I have started to stock up for the holidays already and I have twice more reasons to celebrate. One, this will be my son’s first Christmas and two, my mum will be with me for this Christmas and the New year.

I always go to Sainsburys to do my shopping and for my this year’s Christmas food shopping I have already bought a lot of things. Many of which are already over but that just gives me another reason to go back to the store and buy more. I bought a lot of things and I love them all but the things I loved the most are from the Taste the Difference range, namely the festive cheese selection, mince pies, the Christmas pudding and the delectable range of wines that goes well with all of them.

Let me start with the Brandy-rich Mince Pies and Mini Tart Selection. The minced pies are just what it says on the box ‘Melt in the mouth’. As you bite into one of these delights, the first thing that reaches your taste buds are the sweet, smooth, rich, all butter pastry and then comes the punch of the brandy. The mince meat is so dense, rich and sweet that you definitely need a shot of espresso to go with. On the other hand the tarts are have a more subtle sweetness, yet have similar buttery base and topped with almonds or macadamias and are infused with either port or brandy.

The last but the all important pudding was the cognac laced matured Christmas pudding which is filled with almonds, pecans, walnuts, cherries, raisins with a blend of sherry, port and cider and then matured with cognac. Tastes divine with a dash with double cream. The wine I thought went well with the tarts and the Christmas pudding is the Sainsbury’s French Muscat wine. Absolutely brilliant dessert wine that’s an absolute bargain. Sweet with a note of apricot. Only thing the bottle is quite small, got over in one round of serving between four of us. I will have to buy at least couple more bottle of this one for my next dinner party.

For the Cheese platter we got the festive cheese selection by Sainsburys which is not from the Taste the difference range but are no less in depth of favour or sophistication. The selection has got four types of cheese Applewood smoke flavoured Cheddar, Double Gloucester Onion and Chives, Wensleydale and Cranberry and my favourite of the selection White Stilton with Apricot. Totally worth it.

Coming to the wine, I found Sainsburys Taste the Differemce Rosso Toscano 2009 or Tuscan Red to you and me as a good choice. It is a smooth Sangiovese red with distinct flavours of mulberry, black cherries and undertones of spices which goes ever so well with Indian and South East Asian dishes designed for Christmas. Another good one is the Taste the Primitivo del Salento 2010 coming from the Puglia region in Italy, made with Primitivo grapes. It has velvety soft tannins with fragrant berry flavours and an undertone of spicy oak. The wine goes down well with red meats and will be a delightful companion for that roast ham during Christmas day.

Happy holidays everyone!

Hot Chilli Pasta–Easy Meals

2011-12-02T22:56:00.001Z

Hello everyone!

Coming back to blogging after a long time. I was so busy during last couple of months that blogging had taken a back seat in my to-do list. I am not free yet and not sure I will ever going to be but I hope to get a little bit of time for blogging in future and be more regular here. For those of who don't know, we have been blessed with a baby boy last month. Since then he is been and will remain the centre of our world for the years to come. It’s an amazing experience. I hardly get time now a days because of obvious reasons.

This is something I made when I used to be alone and didn't want to spend a lot of time in kitchen for a decent looking plate of food. Now I am making it because I have very limited time. either way this works for me all the time.

Ingredients:

Handful of pasta I choose Spaghetti but you can have any thing you like

Enough boiling water to cook the pasta

Salt

4 tbsp Oilive oil (or more if you like)

2 cloves of garlic (finely chopped)

1 whole fresh chilli finely chopped (preferably red)

1-2 tsp of dried flaked red chilli

Handful of freshly chopped parsley

2 tbsp lightly toasted pine nuts

1 tbsp of lime juice

Handful of grated cheese (optional)

Method:

Cook the pasta in salted boiling water as per the instruction on the packet. Once the pasta is cooked drain the cooking water and set the cooked pasta aside. While the pasta was getting cooked, in a separate pan dry roast the pine nuts and keep it separately. Heat the olive oil in the same pan and add the dried flaked red chilli in to it. Fry for a minute or less and then add the fresh chilli and garlic in to the chilli flavoured oil and cook for a minute. Add salt, lime juice and the chopped parsley to the pan and mix well. Now add the cooked pasta in to the pan and mix the whole thing together. Serve hot with some cheese on top and your choice of wine or any other drink you prefer.

Payesh and Bengali Misty Pulao

2011-10-19T15:58:00.000+01:00

Bengalis are known for their sweet obsession, especially people from West Bengal. Apparently we are accused of adding sugar to every dish that we cook. I am sure that’s not true but I think for most dishes salt and sugar balances the taste of the dish rather than using only salt. Rice is an integral part of many cuisines but in India, it has meaning more than just food. We use rice grain in pujas, festivals, wedding or any auspicious occasion rituals . The list is countless. Hence its only obvious we will have countless cooked rice dishes as well.

We recently had a small celebration at home and my mother prepared the two rice dishes that I love the most. For special occasion like this and special rice dishes which are so close to my heart I use the best rice I trust and that is Tilda Pure Basmati Rice. The first one is the Bengali Misty Pulao and the other one is Payesh (Rice pudding). The first one we have at the beginning of our meal and the second one we have at the end of the meal.

Bengali Misty Pulao:

Ingredients:

2 cups of Tilda Basmati rice washed, drained and dried

1 Bay leave

3-4 cloves

3-4 green cardamom

1 2” cinnamon stick

2-3 tbsp Ghee

few raisins and cashew nuts

salt

2 tbsp suger

1/2 cup of peas, finely chopped carrots and capsicum (you can use frozen mixed veg, that reduces a lot of effort)

4 cups of boiling water

Method:

Heat the ghee in a deep bottomed pan (you need a pan with a lid) and fry the cashew nuts and raisins in it first. Once they are lightly golden brown, remove them from the pan and add the whole spices for frying. About a minute later you start to get the aroma of the spices and ghee, add the rice into the pan and continue to fry. Keep the heat in medium and stir so that nothing gets burnt. In a separate pan fry the vegs with little salt. When the rice begins to change the colour add the fried vegs, raisins and cashew nuts and mix well. Now add the water. Add exactly double the amount of rice you use, no less no more. give it a good stir and the salt and sugar into it. Now cover the pan with a lid, keep the heat in medium and let it cook for next 10 minutes without any disturbance. If you are using a glass lid you will be able to see the rice absorbing all the moisture and becoming fluffy. Turn off the heat and let it rest for 2-3 minutes, then use a fork to lightly stir the rice to make it even fluffier. Bengali misty pulao is ready to serve. You can serve it with any meat or veg dish or even just like that.

Payesh:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of Tilda Pure Basmati Rice (Washed and drained)

Boiling water

1 litter full fat milk

200 ml of double cream

200 gms of sugar or if you can get some date jaggery than that will be great

Handful of cashew nuts and raisins

Ghee

1 bay leave

2-3 green cardamom

Method:

Boil the milk in a pan with the bay leave and the green cardamoms over medium heat. Be careful that the milk should not spill out or get burnt at the bottom. To prevent this keep stirring the milk time to time. Melt and mix the ghee into the washed rice and when the milk begins to boil add the rice into it slowly. Keep stirring. Add the sugar/jaggery into the milk an rice mixture and keep cooking over medium to low heat. After about 6-7 minutes you will notice the milk has reduced and the rice is almost cooked, now add the double cream and check for the sweetness of the payesh. If required add more sugar. Now add the raisins and the cashew nuts and continue to cook with stirring occasionally. Cook for another 5 minutes or till the rice is done and then take it off the heat and let it rest. Serve it hot or cold, I personally prefer cold.

A Visit from the Fairy Hobmother

2011-09-29T22:42:00.001+01:00

This is a quick post on nutty cook. A couple of months ago I had left a comment on A forkful of spaghetti’ s post where it was mentioned that if I am lucky enough I might get a visit from Fairy Hobmother and receive a gift! Well I got to be honest here, after I left the comment I never thought I would ever be that lucky. So I forgot about it completely. It’s only yesterday I receive the email that Fairy Hobmother has visited my blog . Yippee!!

Now, Fairy Hobmother (aka Appliances Online who are currently promoting the Bosch Logixx range of energy saving appliances) is also going to give my blog readers the same opportunity which I am really excited about! All you need to do is leave a comment on this post and if you are the lucky person then Fairy Hobmother will pay you a visit too.

So what are you waiting for??? Just leave a comment below and you never know… you might be the next lucky person! Good Luck Everyone!!

The Gourmet Pizza – Domino’s Pizza Review

2011-09-22T23:11:00.001+01:00

Another delicious treat from Domino’s. If you are a pizza lover you have got to try Domino’s Gourmet Pizza. If you are not a pizza lover, then also I would suggest to give it a try as this might change your opinion. There are three options to choose from. Firenzi (Pepperoni), Florentine (Veg) and Rustica (chicken). Check out there full range of delicious pizzas here.

We recently tried the large Firenzi Pizza, thin and crispy base with Pepperoni and double Jalepeno peppers topping (ummm..spicy and hot). You can choose reduced fat cheese but we went for the default, deliciously fresh Mozzarella cheese. The sauce base they used is also very special, made with sundried tomatoes and garlic. Absolutely delicious.

One large pizza was more than enough for two of us. In fact we couldn’t finish it in one go and had to take some rest before we attacked it again. The pepperoni was little spicy too and along with the Jalepeno peppers, it was haven. Thank you Domino’s for another delicious hot and spicy pizza.

Wine - Review

2011-09-01T21:24:00.001+01:00

Last week I received an email asking if I would like to review some summer wine for the very well known online supermarket Ocado. No points for guessing that I was super exited to read the mail. I didn’t waste any time thinking about it and agreed immediately. I was expecting sample bottles like the small ones you find in the supermarket. Within few days I got the package delivered and when I opened the box, there were not one, not two, instead three 750ml bottles of wine.

The three bottles I received are

1. Banrock Station Colombard Chardonnay 2010

2. Banrock Station Moscato 2009

3. Kumala Zenith Rose 2010

Let me start with the Chardonnay first. I served the chilled wine with some chicken escalope and chilli garlic squid to go with it. Since it’s a white wine I thought chicken would be a good partner. The first thing that you will feel about this light coloured wine is its very smooth and has got citrus flavours in it. S usually prefers red over white but when he tested this one he actually liked it. He found the wine has a hint of tropical fruits combined with the citrus flavours. He also thought it was smooth wine which has complex oak finish, low in tannin and easy to drink.

I had no problem in believing that it was an easy to drink wine as I saw him how soon he finished his glass. The Australian wine had 12% alcohol by volume which I think is a good percentage for white wines. I would say its a good summer wine to enjoy in your back garden on warm summer afternoon with some food, and friends and family.

This is the wine I was so looking forward to try as I was impressed with its dark pink colour of the wine. This is from South Africa with 12 % alcohol by volume. I loved the colour and the sweet aroma it had but I guess it was bit to sweet for S. It was very fruity for him but from a pure women point of view I liked it. I would say it went very well with the chicken dish and the green leaves salad as it was giving the contrast in taste in all three.

Last but not the least we tried the Moscato which is a dessert wine and has 5.5% alcohol by volume. This one is also from Australia and its suggested that it can go with either desserts or mild cheese platter. We obviously went with the sweet option and tried chilled with warm apple cake. This was bit sweeter compared to the rest of the two wines. It had hints of lemon and pineapple. Light in colour, bit dry but with sweet notes and refreshing finish.

Litty Chokha- Delicacy from Bihar

2011-08-22T00:12:00.001+01:00

This is a traditional dish from Bihar. I have never tasted this dish before, its only recently I came accross this dish and really wanted to try it out. I didn't have any reference to compare with so if you have tried this dish before and you make my version too do let me know how close it is to the one made in households of Bihar. I found several recipes online but they all differ some way or the other. Some say to deep fry whereas others suggest do it in the oven. The traditional method was to make in the cow-dung fire which does not sound very appetizing. But the process in which the littis get cooked, sounds similar to baking in the oven. Hence I went with it. I have a strong feeling that deep frying litties will make it taste like “Khasta kachori ” but you can try that as well. Either way I knew its was going to taste great! For chokha some use roasted eggplant with potatoes which complements this dish very well.

Ingredients:

For the filling:

6 tbsp Sattu (roasted chick peas flour)

1“ ginger (finely chopped)

3-4 cloves of garlic (finely chopped)

3-4 green chillies (finely chopped)

1 tsp of kalonji (Nigella seeds)

1 tsp Ajwain

2 tsp of lemon juice

hand full of chopped coriander

salt

1 tsp red chilli powder (optional)

2-3 tbsp of water

For the dough:

1 cup of Atta (whole meal flour)

2-3 tsp of oil

pinch of salt

2-3 tbsp of yoghurt

enough water to make a hard dough

For Alu chokha:

2-3 medium size potato boiled and roughly mashed

1 Red Onion thinly chopped

1 tsp whole cumin seeds

1 whole dried red chilli (broken into 2-3 pieces)

3-4 green chillies (finely chopped)

oil for frying

1 tsp Aamchur powder

hand full of chopped coriander

Method:

Start with the filling. Mix all the ingredients except water and then slowly add the water spoon by spoon. The filing should not be like paste or very dry that it falls apart. if it reaches a state where you try to press the mix in you palm and it holds its shape then its done. Check the seasoning and keep it aside.

Now for the dough add the salt and the oil to the flour first then add the curd and mix well. Add enough water to make a stiff dough. The dough should not be soft so add water slowly as you kneed the dough. Now make small balls out of the dough and start making the pocket for the filling. Remember to make the outer layer of the dough ball thin so that you can stuff the filling as much as possible. Then close the pocket and give it a shape of round ball. Repeat the procedure for all the dough you have or until you run out of the filling.

At this point either you can deep fry the littis or bake in the oven. For baking do the following. Pre heat the oven at 180 degree C then place the littis in the oven for 20 minutes or till they are turned light brown in colour. Take the baking tray out and turn them and place the tray back in the oven for another 10-15 minutes or till you see an even light brown colour on the littis. Take them out again and dip the littis in oil or melted ghee and place them back in the oven for may be 5 minutes or so. Take them out and let it rest for some time.

While the litties are in oven make the chokha. Heat oil in a pan and fry the onion, chopped green chillies, dried red chilli and cumin seeds in that. Add salt, when the onions are soft and little brown add the boiled and roughly mashed potato in to it and start mixing. Add the aamchur powder and mix the whole thing till its almost a homogeneous mixture. Garnish with finely chopped coriander leaves and serve with the littis. Enjoy.

Corn –Indian Style

2011-08-20T23:01:00.001+01:00

Bhutta –pora (Roasted Corn) I felt very nostalgic making roasted corn on the cob. It reminds me so much of my days in Bangalore.Someone told me once that “feelings get destroyed if you try to express them” I am following her advice and not saying any more. Its raining outside and I am going to simply enjoy my bhutta by the window and rewind all those sweet memories I have.

Sweet Pasta for Kids – Garofalo’s Pasta

2011-07-27T21:24:00.001+01:00

I know pasta usually are made as savoury dish but when it comes to kids you need to think differently. Kids loves sweets especially colourful sweet in different funny shapes. They also love chocolates. So when I found out about Garofalo’s Pasta Competition, I thought of doing a different pasta preparation than usual savoury or meat pasta. Hence I decided to do a sweet pasta. I asked for samples and when I received them from Garofalo, it made me smile. The shapes of the pasta were so cute that any child would have lots of fun eating this pasta. They are in shape of little stars, moons, dolls and cars. So very adorable.

The pack said boiling the pasta for 12 minutes in water would be sufficient but I had different plans. I wasn’t going to boil in water instead I boiled in milk. I know from personal experience that for some kids it’s difficult to make them drink milk. So this will be a good way to feed them milk. But I had to make the pasta look attractive as well as taste good so here is what I did.

Ingredients:

100 gm Garofalo’s Kids Pasta

250ml full fat milk

4 tbsp honey (you can adjust the sweetness according to your kid’s taste)

Handful of chopped mixed nuts

Handful of Pistachio lightly crushed

Handful of dried golden raisins soaked in water

Handful of chocolate chips

2-3 tsp of multicoloured sugar sprinkles (optional)

Method:

In a deep bottom pan heat the milk and bring it to boiling point then add the honey to it and give it a mix. Now add the pasta and let it cook for 12-14 minutes on low heat to prevent milk from overflowing. Keep stirring as you don’t want your milk to be burnt or the pasta to be stuck at the bottom of the pan. Towards the end add the soaked raisins and the chopped nuts and give it a stir cook it for 1-2 minutes more when you see the milk has thicken and the dish has got a creamy texture along with the pasta cooked, take it off the heat and let it cool down. Place it in the fridge for some time then pour the pasta in your kid’s favourite bowl and add the rest on the ingredients on top of it.

Serve cold. You can serve this as an evening snacks or like a small meal or dessert. I bet kids will love this.

It’s Pizza time –Domino’s

2011-07-20T23:36:00.001+01:00

I am a huge pizza lover. A big one! Not only because it tastes great but it saves me from cooking dinner on weekdays (sometimes on weekends too!). It is an ideal meal for lazy cook like me and on top of that when it is from Domino’s then I don’t need to say how good the pizza will taste. So when Domino’s offered me to review their Stuffed Crust Pizza I was very excited and was looking forward to it.

On our way back from office we went straight to the Domino’s shop and ordered a large, half and half pizza with one half filled with Hot and Spicy and the other half was Tandoori Hot. Couldn’t wait for long! The waiting time was around 10-12 minutes and I saw how they make it from the scratch! In the kitchen she took a fresh piece of dough and started making the pizza base with corn meal. I was amazed to see that she didn’t use any rolling pin to make the base instead she made a perfectly even base just by pressing and circling the raw dough on the surface.

Next she placed a ring of fresh mozzarella cheese circling around the base and turned the edges to cover the cheese to make it stuffed crust. Rest was simple, she topped the base with Domino’s own tomato sauce and rest of the topping with generous helping of fresh mozzarella cheese on top and placed it in the oven.

You need lot of patience to bring that piping hot freshly made pizza home and photograph it before having a bite. For that I probably deserve another such pizza! But anyway I did all that and then finally when I had the first bite into it, It felt great!

The pizza was very soft with a melt-in-the-mouth texture. The tandoori chicken pieces were well cooked and added the perfect spiciness to the melted cheese and the soft pizza base. All of us agreed that it was a perfect pizza we had in long time. If you want to treat yourself with pizza at any time or just having a party with friends then this is a very good thing to order. They do some awesome meal deals, just go here to find out more about it and enjoy them to the fullest.

Cherry Chutney – National Cherry Day

2011-07-16T21:44:00.001+01:00

It’s summer now! Cherries are in season, in fact today is National Cherry Day.

I always have some stories to tell when it comes to cherries, It all started in Morella, Spain where we nicked bags full of cherries from a tree near a gas station. I will always remember that incident as it reminds me of my childhood so much. Me and my cousins used to steal tamarind and raw mangos from our own ancestral home kitchen back in India.

Last year it was the day when England was playing against Germany in the World Cup Football knockout match. We decided to go to a pub in the city centre to enjoy the match in true British Spirit. On the way to the pub I spotted a cherry tree which had very few cherries left. As usual I was temped to pluck some, which I did but I also got my white t-shirt stained with cherries. It looked awful so I had to rush to a shop to buy another top to wear it to the pub.

This year I got a big container full of cooking cherries from our neighbour as a gift and was thinking what can I do with it. I was thinking of doing something other than Cherry pie and then my mum-in-law suggested that she could make chutney with them. I didn’t think twice, British cherries cooked in Indian way, would be a very interesting experiment for me. It was fabulous. Not very sweet yet tangy and the colour was so dark and rich, I simply loved it. Here is how she made it.

Ingredients:

200 gms (approximately) Cooking cherries (de-seeded)

4 tbsp sugar

1 tsp oil

1 tsp black mustard seed

1 whole dried red chilli (broken into 2-3 pieces)

1/2 cup of water

Pinch of salt

Method:

Heat the oil in a deep bottom pan and add the red chilli and the mustard seeds into it. When the seeds starts to splatter add the cherries with a pinch of salt. Fry for a minute and then add the water and sugar and keep boiling it till the sauce thickens and the cherries are cooked. Do check the sauce to adjust the sugar balance in it. It will take bout 4-5 minutes then remove from heat and let it cool down. Serve cold.

I had it just like that but you can try it with vanilla ice-cream or Greek yoghurt. It will taste good. Enjoy! Sending this recipe to an event Simple and in Season hosted by Fabulicious Food.

Chire Bhaja and A Wiki Project

2011-07-10T19:09:00.000+01:00

There is something very special about simplicity. I find it extremely difficult to express it in words and I might actually spoil its beauty by doing it. So I am going to let the pictures talk and your taste buds imagine. I learnt this recipe from my mum-in-law. I always used to think that one would require lots of oil to make chire bhaja but I was pleasantly surprised when she made this today for evening tea. This is a very popular tea time snacks for people in Bengal and it tastes great.

I recently came across a wiki project called Mycitycuisine.org – A Traveller's Guide to Local Cuisine which I think is a great effort and will be really useful for travellers who would like to try out the local cuisine. Please check out the webpage and if possible please contribute. You can add dishes by Countries/States/Course. Once this site gets populated, it will be a common place to find cuisines from any country/region.

Ingredients:

200gm Chire (flattened rice, the thin ones)

2 tbsp oil

2-3 green chillies (thinly sliced)

1 tbsp finely chopped red onion

Handful of peanuts

Handful of Chanachur (Bombay mix)

Pinch of Salt

Method:

Heat the oil in a heavy bottom pan, then fry the peanuts in it. Remove them once they are golden brown. Now add the chire to the oil, keep the heat to medium-low (as you don’t want your chire to burn) and keep stirring. Add little salt to it, and keep frying it till it becomes crispy and slightly puffed up. It will take about 5 minutes or so. Take it off the heat and add rest of the ingredients i.e. green chillies, onions, fried peanuts and chanachur (which is also known as Bombay mix in the UK). Enjoy with a steaming cup of chai (Tea).

Sorshe Ilish (Hilsha Fish in Mustard Sauce)

2011-07-03T00:22:00.001+01:00

Hilsha or as we call it “Ilish Maach” is a hot favourite of most Bengalis. We love fish and among all types of fishes Hilsha is the king in taste. No matter what you make with Ilish maach, its going to taste great! Back home you can get this fish fresh from the market but here in UK we get it in Indian shops, frozen and at least 8-10 months old. I am happy with that. Something is better than nothing. At least I get to eat it once in a while.

Sorshe Ilish is also called Ilish maach er jhal and one of my favourites. Ideally yellow mustard seeds are used to make the paste but I think they are bit difficult to find here. So I used black mustard seeds. The biggest problem with the black mustard paste was a bitter after taste I used to end up with each time I cook it. I have tried different techniques to get rid of the bitter taste but never been that successful. Finally I switched to English mustard which is a great shortcut for me and easily available in the supermarkets.

This is a very easy to make recipe if you have all the ingredients handy. Also, if you don’t have Hilsha you can use Herring which tastes similar to Hilsha.

Ingredients:

800 gm Hilsha (cut in to pieces)

2 tbsp of English mustard paste

2 tbsp of white poppy seed paste (We call it posto in Bengali)

1 tsp of nigella seeds

1tsp of turmeric powder

1 tsp red chilly powder

3-4 fresh green chillies

3-4 tbsp Mustard oil

Salt

Method:

Clean the fish and lightly rub them with little turmeric and salt and keep it separately. In a bowl make a mix of the english mustard, poppy seed paste, turmeric, chilly powder and salt. In a frying pan heat the mustard oil and shallow fry the fish pieces. Remove the pieces from the pan and add the nigella seeds and the green chillies in the remaining oil, fry for a minute then add the mustard-poppy paste to the hot oil. mix it well then add the fish pieces and cover them in the sauce. Cover the pan and cook it for 1-2 minutes and then remove from the heat. Serve with plain boiled rice.

An apology

2011-06-30T08:29:00.001+01:00

It’s been ages I have written anything here. I feel so guilty about it. I have been very busy for last couple of months and didn’t have the motivation or energy to write something. Lots of changes and events happened within last few months that I hardly had any time for anything. But anyway here I am, surviving through all those tough months and now hoping for the best to happen. It’s a new beginning and I decided to come back with a double post, one sweet and the other is sour and savoury, covering the basic tastes of life (except bitter)

Chocolate cookies with chocolate glaze

Last weekend I was meeting one of my friends and her family after some time. She has a very cute little daughter who is three years old. The little girl loves people and is very friendly. I usually get to see her only on her birthdays but surprisingly she remembers me every time. I decided to bake Nigella’s chocolate cookies for this little angel. The cookies looked so adorable to me when I saw the video. I have halved (almost!) the quantity mentioned in the recipe but still got 25 cookies out of the cookie dough I made.

Ingredients:

150gm soft butter

1/2 cup sugar

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

Topping:

4 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 cups confectioners' sugar

1/4 cup boiling water

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Multicolour sugar sprinkles

Method:

Simply add all the ingredients except for butter in a bowl and mix well. Melt the butter and slowly add it to the dry mix. Make a soft dough out of it. You don’t need to kneed the dough a lot jut mix everything well and it’s ready. Now make small walnut size balls out of the dough and place them on an oven tray covered with grease proof baking sheet. Keep some distance between them as they will expand and take the shape of a cookie as the bake in the oven. Bake them at 170 degree C for 15-20 minutes. The top of the cookies will look a bit cracked but that’s fine as you will be topping that with chocolate glaze. Let the cookies cool down for some time. Meanwhile make the chocolate glaze. On medium heat in a saucepan add all the ingredients for the topping except for the sugar sprinkle and give it a good stir. you will end up with a shine chocolate glaze. Remove from heat and now pour a small spoon-full of chocolate glaze on top of each cookie and then sprinkle the multicolour sugar sprinkles on top of it. Leave it to set for some time and then once set place them in an air tight jar and store them.

Jumbo Chilly Dip

In her own words a “Guilty pleasure”. Another delicious recipe from Nigella’s collection. It was Friday evening, beginning of a weekend, elaborate cooking was definitely not in my mind. Only thing in my mind was to sit back, relax and enjoy some movies with some tortilla chips and a glass of wine. All I needed a nice dip to go with it.

Ingredients:

1 can of roasted red pepper

1 clove of garlic

1 bunch of fresh coriander leaves with stocks

3 green chillies (with seeds)

Jest and juice of one lemon

salt

100 ml oil (plain groundnut oil, nothing fancy)

couple of mint leaves for garnish (optional)

Method:

In a blender put everything together except the garnish and blend them till it forms a smooth paste. That’s it! Serve with tortilla chips and enjoy with your choice of drink. Although Nigella’s suggestion was to serve it with Americano cocktail (The original James Bond drink!). We just had it with some Pinot Noir.

Valentine’s day – Part 2

2011-02-10T00:13:00.000Z

Although you can buy practically everything from the supermarket its always nice to have some personal touch to the food we cook or share. They don't have to be perfect and that’s the beauty of it.

I have got these beautiful bars of chocolate from Sainsbury, you can eat them just like that or you can use for your baking. I did. I noticed I don’t have any cupcake recipes here. Its Valentines day, another excuse to have chocolates and cakes. Not that I would like to bake a huge cake but a small one just for two of us or some cup cakes which we can finish in one go.

I had some beautiful little chocolate truffles which I thought I could use for decorating these chocolate muffins as my dear husband is not very fond of creamy icing. After all, I was making these muffins for him only. BTW guess what I got in return, a trip to SFO and LA. Isn’t that great! Well it's our milestone anniversary weekend as well!

As usual I am referring to Nigella’s recipe. As you know if it involves chocolate and indulgence but is quick and easy, it has to be Nigella. For these little chocolate cupcakes I used her recipe from Nigella Feasts – Comfort Food. Here is a link to the video Choc Chip muffin.

Ingredients :

For the cupcakes:

First the list of dry ingredients:

100 gm of dark chocolate (melted)

1/4 th cup of dark chocolate chip (recipe suggested 3/4th cup but as I used 100 gm of dark chocolate so I reduced the chocolate chip amount )

1+ 3/4 th cup sugar

1 + 3/4 cup plain flour

2 tsp of baking powder

1/2 tsp of baking soda

List of wet ingredients:

1 cup of milk

1 cup vegetable oil

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg

For the icing:

100 gm dark chocolate

100 gm white chocolate

100 gm melted butter

2 tbsp cherry Liquor (for the dark chocolate icing)

Sainsbury’s TTD Chocolate truffles

Method:

Pre heat the oven to 400 degree F. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl and keep it aside. In a separate bowl add one by one all the wet ingredients and whisk it together so that the egg is mixed well. Now add the mixed wet ingredients to the dry ones and mix it well. Place the muffin cups on the baking tray and scope the cake mix in them. Bake them in the oven for 20 minutes.

For the icing melt the dark and white chocolates separately and add 50 gm of butter to each of the melting chocolate. keep stirring and then finally add the cherry liquor to the dark chocolate for little extra flavouring.Once the muffins are cooled down I put the icing on them and decorated them with the chocolate truffles.

I am sending this as an entry to Maison Cupcake’s event Forever Nigella #2 “Seduced by Chocolate”

Recipe Testing : Meringue Fool

2011-02-01T00:15:00.000Z

I have never ever made a meringue before. This was the very first time I was making it. Honestly I was a bit nervous, not knowing how will it turn out. When I saw the finished product I felt this is the easiest dessert I have ever made. I was following Vanessa Kimbell’s recipe. She is writing her cook book called Prepped.

The recipe is really very easy. It requires only six or seven ingredients to make this fabulous pudding. I loved it but I wanted to get more peoples’ opinion so I took the dessert to office for my colleagues to share. Believe it or not, couple of them had second helpings. I was so pleased to see their expression while they were having the pudding. Within minutes that huge pudding was demolished. Here is the recipe, please do try it out if you can..you will not be disappointed if you have a sweet tooth. It is very light, low effort pudding and melts in your mouth in moments.

Ingredients:

For the meringue:

6 egg whites

300 gm white caster sugar

For the Fool:

300 ml double cream

3 tbsp icing sugar

1/2 tsp Vanilla essence (This was my addition wasn’t there in Vanessa’ s recipe but she did say to use flavoured sugar which I didn't have so I added this)

For topping:

Rhubarb jam

Fresh berries

Method:

(I am using Vanessa’s version here as I followed them word by word and I recommend to do that too! )

Pre heat the oven at 150 degree / Gas mark 2. Before you begin, make sure your utensils are spotless. Don’t use a bowl that may harbour any grease (such as a plastic bowl), and make sure your utensils are dry. Meringues are sensitive and don’t get on with moisture or fat. To make the meringue base, whisk the egg whites until they are fluffy: 3–4 minutes should do. Once they are fluffy and white and form soft peaks, don’t stop the beating; just slowly add the sugar, a tablespoon at a time, until it is all dissolved. (approximately 10 minutes)

Tipping it all in at once knocks the air out of the eggs, and if you stop beating the eggs, you knock the air out when you restart beating. So a flow of continuous beating gets the best results. Draw a large dinner plate circle in Pencil on the back of some baking parchment and turn it over. Dollop the mixture onto the circle on the paper, turn the oven down to Gas 1./ 275F / 140C and bake for 2 hours. Turn the oven off and leave the meringue in the oven to cool.

To assemble, whip the cream and the icing sugar until thick. Not too thick, though: you need to drape it gently over the meringue. Then spoon the rhubarb jam (or stewed rhubarb) on top of the cream and serve. If you have any geranium petals of other edible flower petals you can use these to decorate.

You can pre order her book from Amazon here. Best of luck Vanessa! Looking forward to your book.

Book Review : “How I cook” by Skye Gyngell

2011-01-29T13:50:00.000Z

I enjoyed reading Skye Gyngell’s “How I Cook” (Quadrille Publishing). It is a beautifully illustrated, well thought-out book, targeting towards making a simple family meal a memorable one. The refreshing thing about this book is that it doesn’t fall into the trap of being a yet another catalogue of recipes.

The book has a relaxed, laid back summer afternoon feel. This is the kind of book you would refer to when you are not in a rush and would really want to enjoy your food with family and friends. Many of the recipes are delightfully simple and yet remarkable in their outcome. I tried her recipe for the roasted Sea bass with lemon and thyme. It took me only a few minutes to put together and it turned out beautifully. This book is also very suitable if you are cooking for any occasion or for someone special.

The book is categorised according to different themes and occasions like ‘Sunday lunch’, ‘Late night supper’, ‘Time to spare’ etc. Each of these sections has recipes for all three courses so that you don’t have to look elsewhere to see what starter will go with the mains you are making. The book has a wide spectrum of recipes most of them are complimented with lovely photographs by Jason Lowe. It covers from very simple recipes like cucumber sandwich to as complicated as slow cooked lamb shoulder. Along with the traditional recipes you will also find some not so widely known like Pashka (I loved the suggestion she made for this particular recipe. Read the book to find out! ). If you like spicy food like I do, then you will love her recipe for Rouile. It is simple but with absolutely delicious end product.

The book makes me feel like it is already summer. There are so many recipes that you can make in advance and take with you for picnics. They will be delightful alternatives to dull sandwiches.

This book doesn’t confuse novices with complex techniques. It gives clear step by clear tips and instructions on cooking and also storing food. I found her tips on Strawberry sponge cake very useful. Skye also encourages you to use the fresh produce or simple things like having small pots of fresh herbs in your kitchen window, which I completely agree. It is so useful to have some fresh herbs handy when you are putting together a dish. It adds a new dimension to the food.

I must say after reading this beautifully crafted book, I do feel like going to her restaurant and trying out some of her wonderful creations.

Valentine’s Day Chocolates

2011-01-24T20:49:00.001Z

I love Chocolates.

Who doesn’t? But seriously, this is something that I can have any time of the day or even night. That’s why when I received a big box full of chocolates from Sainsbury last week. I was over the moon again. There were seven different types of chocolates in it which I will be sharing with you here in two posts. It felt like opening a box of treasures as they show in the pirate movies.

Now, since Valentine’s Day is approaching soon, I am sure everyone will be thinking what can you get for the very special person in your life. What ever gift you choose two things are must chocolates and flowers. Without them your day is not complete (at least for me it’s not! ).

I always wanted to photograph chocolates. I have seen many gorgeous photos of chocolate and it made me drool every time. This time I thought I will first photograph them before I eat them. I must tell you it was difficult, very difficult, not to have a bite while taking the photos.

Marc de Champagne: Filled with genuine French Marc de Champagne made with Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay grapes

Milk Chocolate: A traditional Gysi-family recipe using chocolate from Ghana and Ecuador

Vanilla Caramel with fresh Swiss cream

Rich Dark : Made with single-origin chocolate from Madagascan Trinitario beans

Belgian Milk Chocolate Flaked Truffles

But I tried, and tried hard not to eat, as they were such a temptation but you can’t stay away from them for long time. So I ate one or two ..may be more during the photo shoot but I managed to finish the photo shoot before I finished the chocolates.

End of part one ..There are few more chocolates which I still haven't photographed yet! I will cover them in my next post.

Courgette Paratha

2011-01-22T01:49:00.000Z

I have this really weird habit of picking up things that I really don't need while shopping. I know it’s a common complaint many men have against their wives, but I think I do it more often than I realize. Especially when I am doing grocery. I end up buying things and then keep thinking what shall I do with them. That is exactly what happened when I last went to the supermarket. I bought 1 kg of Courgettes (2 packets, around 6 of them). Then I forgot about them. I rediscovered them back in my refrigerator three days after I bought them. They were buried under the tomatoes, the green beans, the mushrooms, the green chillies, the coriander etc. etc. Well, now you know how my veg. basket looks like :)

Anyway, when I rescued the courgettes underneath all these vegs, I started to worry that what do I do with them. These are similar to a veg we get in India called “Lauki” in Hindi and “Lau” in Bengali. The typical dish that we make with these are with prawns called “Lau-Chigri” which we had recently. I looked in the internet and guess what I found a recipe in BBC Good Food called “Indian Bread with courgettes and coriander”!! That was unusual!! I didn’t expect that at all!! So I thought of giving it a try and an hour later, there I was serving courgette paratha for dinner. As usual I didn’t follow the recipe word by word and started adding different things and made my own version of it. I must tell you it’s quite difficult to handle the dough when you are using fresh raw veg as it releases lot of water and becomes a nightmare to get the right dough consistency but the finished product was good. I loved it. Hope you like it too.

Ingredients:

3 Courgettes / 500gms (pealed and grated using the coarsest side of the greater)

1 tsp cumin seeds (dry roasted and made into dust)

1 tsp red chilli powder

1 tsp garam masala powder

200 gm of plain flour and some extra for rolling the paratha

200 gm of roasted chick peas flour (we call it “Chatu” in Bengali) (you may find this in Indian store or replace with whole meal flour)

3 tbsp rice flour

2 tsp grated root ginger

3 tsp of green chilli paste (optional, I added because I like it)

Oil for frying

Method:

Mix all the dry ingredients in a big mixing bowl and then add 2/3 tbsp of oil in the flour mix. Give it a good mix then add rest of the wet ingredients in to it and start kneading. You will not need any water to knead as the grated courgette will release a lot of water. I found this step bit difficult as the dough is very sticky at this point. I put few drops of oil in my palms while kneading the dough, which helps to make the dough not sticking to hand. Continue kneading till you have a smooth dough. Make a log out of the dough and cut it into 12-14 equal portions. One by one take each portions and roll the in your palm to make small flat balls. Dip them in dry flour and set them aside. Dust the rolling plane with flour and start rolling each of the balls to thin parathas. Heat a heavy bottom frying pan and place one paratha and cook until you see little brown spot on the side facing down. Turn it over and cook till you see the brown spots again. Pour a teaspoon full of oil on and around the paratha and cook for 1 minute on both sides or until they are fully cooked. Serve them with your choice of veg or meat curry.

I made simple potato with onion, tomato and cumin slowly cooked on low heat.

Dark Chocolate Tart and a Bright-Eyed Snowman

2011-01-06T17:52:00.000Z

My long holiday is over. I am back to work now! I had a great break of two weeks of uninterrupted holiday, being at home, no work, just relax, eat, sleep, watch movies, listen to music and most importantly do nothing! But things happen and as usual I have a story to talk about.

As the holiday started I decided I should do a signature bake. How I got the idea of the signature bake I will tell you later as it is altogether a different story, for now let me tell you this story. I was all geared up for this new bake, thought about the flavours and how should I go about it, what will be the quantity of the ingredients etc. I kept everything ready so that after dinner I can start baking. I was making spiced bread rolls. After dinner I placed the bread roll dough in the oven for baking and started watching a movie. It was a very interesting Hindi movie called Phas Gaye Re Obama. I loved the movie, if you haven’t seenit then please do, or if you have already seen it then you know what I am taking about. Anyway the timer reminded me of the bread rolls in the oven and I reluctantly went and checked. The rolls were almost done but some how I felt the inner part need little more time in the oven. So I turned off the oven and kept the rolls in it and went back to my movie. I was planning to come back in 5 minutes and take the rolls out of the oven. I watched rest of the movie and then saw another movie and finally went to bed at 3.30 AM in the morning. Next day, I woke up around midday and went to the kitchen to make something for brunch. That’s when I opened my oven and saw the poor bread rolls. They became so hard, they almost felt like rocks, which I can probably break only with a hammer. I was so disappointed. My first attempt of the signature bake was a disaster caused by negligence. In case you are wondering what happened to my bread rolls look at the last picture of this post. I bet you won’t be disappointed.

Anyway, I was not going to give up so easily so I started on my next baking project which was dark chocolate tart. This was a success. I make sure I wasn’t distracted by anything. Here goes the recipe :)

Ingredients:

For the tart base (pastry):

150 gm flour

100 gm butter

6 tbsp cocoa powder

2 tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt

water for the dough

For the dark chocolate filling:

100 gm dark chocolate (60% or more)

3-4 tbsp coconut milk (thick and creamy, from the can)

3 tbsp of cherry liquor

Sugar (optional – I don’t like very sweet chocolate so I didn’t add any but if you prefer please add sugar to your taste )

Cherries for decoration

Method:

Add all the dry ingredients together and mix well. Now slowly add little water and start making the dough. It will be a moderately soft dough. Roughly around 40-50 ml of water will be required. now wrap it on cling film and keep it in the fridge for half an hour or so. Mean while on a bain marie melt the chocolate, add the coconut milk and mix it together. Add the cherry liquor and sugar (optional) and keep mixing until it’s a homogeneous mixture.

Take the pastry out of the fridge and roll it out evenly, big enough to fit into the pie dish with a little overhang. Cut out the extra overhang to give the pie a nice edge. Now pre-heat the oven to 220 degree C, place a baking sheet on top of the crust, fill with beans and bake in the oven for 15 minutes. Take the pie out of the oven and remove all the beans and the baking sheet and bake for another 10 minutes. Take the pie out of the oven and let it cool for 10-15 minutes. Fill the pie with the dark chocolate filling and keep it in the fridge for at least couple of hours before serving. Enjoy with a cup of tea or coffee.

OK! Now back to the bread rolls, those days it had snowed heavily and my husband was very keen on making a snowman. So, when I finished baking my chocolate tart, he took me out in the back garden and showed me this.

He had used two of my bread rolls to make the eyes of the snowman…”At least they are of some use!!” he added , when I gave him “a look”.

Christmas 2010 - Lamb and Date Tagine

2010-12-29T01:12:00.000Z

I have never cooked on Christmas eve or Christmas dinner before. Every time either I will be at my best friend’s place or in India with my parents. In both cases I never had the responsibility of cooking the festive meal.

Couple of years ago I was at my friend’s place and I had the responsibility of decorating the Christmas tree. Last year I was in India and I shamelessly accept the fact that I never help my mom in cooking, I just enjoy it. This year it was different, my parents have visited me couple of months ago, I wasn’t going to India and my friend was working late on Christmas eve. So it was just me and my better half at home on a snow covered, –12 degree C evening.

I am a big Nigella fan. Simply because she makes such mouth-watering dishes with least effort spent. Whenever I have to cook something special I often look in her website or books for recipe ideas. This holiday season I was following her program Nigella’s Christmas Kitchen on the Good Food Channel and recording them for my future reference. I know if I am in need of any culinary help then where to look for.

This Christmas eve was one such occasion. I was about to cook my first ever Christmas eve dinner for both of us and I wanted it to be special. Very special. I decided to make Lamb and date tagine which I had recorded form Nigella’s Christmas series. It is an easy to make and extremely rewarding on taste for the least amount of effort spent in making this dish. I had a lovely evening with my husband, celebrating Christmas eve without spending hours and hours in the kitchen to produce a good festive meal. If you love lamb as I do, then this is most definitely worth a try.

You can find the recipe for the lamb tagine here or in the link above mentioned. I served the lamb with some couscous and a red onion relish which she suggested in the show. The recipe for the relish is very simple just thinly slice the red onion and soak them in pomegranate juice and half of a lime juice while the lamb is cooking and serve with the lamb and couscous. For couscous I followed my recipe which you can find here, only difference was this time I didn’t add the chickpeas and the orange jest. Enjoy.

Sending this to Maison Cupcake for this month’s Forever Nigella contest.

Next morning the Christmas day we went to our friends house where she was preparing for a massive Christmas dinner for eleven guests. She is an expert cook. In fact I learnt from her how to throw dinner parties. She is an amazing host and a great friend. Every Christmas that I have spent in this country was with her and family. So this time also we did the same thing and as always it was great! For the boxing day we went shopping, had lunch outside and when we came back home we watched Inception and two more movies before going to bed. Here are some photos :)

Happy holidays to all my readers :)

Food Bloggers' Cafe on Facebook

2010-12-23T22:08:00.001Z

“Are you on Facebook?”
That’s what you get asked nowadays when you make new friends :) I love meeting new people, making new friends, it’s just an amazing thing to do. Besides my routine work this is one of those few things that makes my day different from the last one. To enhance on this thought, about a week ago, I created a group on Facebook called Food Blogger’s Cafe. At that time I didn’t know what I will be doing in here or any member of this group as a matter of fact. But I created anyway, just the idea of having as many food bloggers as possible under the same roof made me create this Cafe. Little did I know that this group will grow much faster than I thought. Just more than a week and we are already 100+ members in the group and not only that, this is an extremely active group. Members are sharing their blogs, latest posts, news, adding more food bloggers in the group. It’s an absolutely happening place on facebook. So if you are on Facebook and a food blogger please do join the group :) and share you blog links with rest of the members.

Since we are growing so fast, I thought it will be nice to have a profile picture for our cafe. A picture that represent our group. So, I invited the group members to submit one photo of their choice that they think will be suitable as a profile photo for our cafe, which meets the following guidelines:
* One entry per member.
* Your own work please.
* Post the photo on the group wall.
* Please see all the photos before liking.
* To "Like" click on any of the photos, then on the top left corner of the photo there is a link of "See all photos".
* Self voting will not be counted.
* The photo that gets most liked will be chosen as a profile picture of our Cafe :)
* The last day of submission is midnight 31st. December 2010.
* I will be featuring every entry with a link to the member's blog on my blog in a single post.

Here are the entries I have received so far. I will continue to update this list as I receive more entries.

Vegetable Platter

Nivedita’s Kitchen

Finely Chopped

Look Who’s Cooking Too

Tasty Appetite

Yummy Food

Hephzi’s Kitchen

Kalyani’s Kitchen

Sandhya’s Kitchen

4th Sense Cooking

Cooking for all Seasons

And finally Mine :)

I am so glad to receive such a great response from the group. So thank you guys for being part of this Cafe and keep blogging. To like or comment on your favourite photo please visit the group album by clicking here.
For food bloggers who haven't joined the club yet, please do so and enjoy making new friends.
Wishing everyone Happy Holidays :)

Christmas Cookies

2010-12-14T00:05:00.000Z

It’s so Christmassy! That’s what I thought when I saw these cookies for the first time. I had been thinking of baking some cookies for some time but never really got a chance to do it. As we are only couple of weeks away from Christmas, I decided to make these gorgeous looking cookies. I not only enjoyed making them I also loved the fact that these cookies go so well with the festive atmosphere. Those little bits of red cherries in the light golden brown butter cookies make the perfect accompaniment for an afternoon tea in this festive season. These are not exactly instant cookies or very easy to make either but they are not very difficult too! The most difficult part of making these cookies (other than the waiting part!!) is making the logs, which I have explained later in the method.

Ingredients:

230 gm unsalted butter

200 gm white sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

350 gm all purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

200 gm glazed cherries (chopped)

Method:

In a bowl mix all the dry ingredients (other than sugar) and keep it separately. Melt the butter and add the sugar in it and start beating. I use an electric hand mixer to do this. When the mixture is little light in colour add the egg and continue beating till it becomes a pale yellow mixture. Now add the vanilla extract and mix well. Now add the dry mix you made earlier to this egg, butter, sugar mix and continue beating until the dough forms.

Divide the dough into three roughly equal part and place them on individual greaseproof baking sheets. Now comes the most difficult part of the recipe. Making a log of this mixture. At this point the mixture will be bit sticky so to make a log I placed another baking sheet on top of the mixture and used a rolling pin to roll the top surface of the mixture to give it a uniform shape. Now press both the ends (width) inside so that the log is evenly shaped and when you cut the log you get even pieces.

My log was 10 inches long, 2 inches in width and about an inch and a quarter thick. Once you are happy with your log cover it with the baking sheet and seal the edges. Repeat the same procedure for all three portions and keep in the fridge for 5-6 hours or overnight ( I kept it overnight). You can also freeze them to bake later in the month.

Pre heat the oven at 190 degree C. Use a thin bladed knife to cut the cookies roughly about 5 mm thickness. Place them on a baking try lined with a baking sheet and bake them for 10 –11 minutes or until lightly golden brown. Cool them in a wire rack and then pack in an ait tight container. Enjoy with a cuppa!

Time for Goodies

2010-12-06T23:45:00.000Z

Last Monday I had an invitation to the Sainsbury’s food blogger meet in London. I was all set to go and on the day of the event I had to cancel my invitation because I had to be in another place at the same time. It wasn’t very happy about it as I have been waiting for it. Anyway, it may be next time. The next day, I received an email from Sainsbury’s, which cheered me up! I was about to receive a box full of goodies from Sainsbury’s. Isn’t that wonderful! It made me feel like it was already Christmas.

Friday morning, I received a huge box in the morning post. Much bigger than the pervious panettone box. And guess what I found inside the box? Here is the list. Thank you so much Santa Sainsbury’s for making my this Christmas so very special. Cheers!!!

Taste the difference Almond Panettone – Italians are known for their taste when it comes to Christmas treats. I have tried the Panettone with chocolate bits and now this lovely almond one. It seems after baking this light, buttery textured Italian cake is hung upside down, which helps produce the exceptionally moist finish.

Taste the difference Swiss Truffles – The box had four types of truffles, and I have enjoyed them all.

Rich Dark, made with single-origin chocolate from Madagascan Trinitario beans;
Milk Chocolate, a traditional Gysi-family recipe using chocolate from Ghana and Ecuador;
Vanilla Caramel, with fresh Swiss cream; and
Marc de Champagne, filled with genuine French Marc de Champagne made with Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay grapes

Foiled chocolate racing cars – These little treats are ideal for Christmas stocking, but I would suggest buy them closed to Christmas eve, else you will just have to buy more and more of these goodies. As far as I am concerned I have finished these too. .

Taste the difference fruit and nut topped Christmas pudding is about as good as it gets. The glossy, luxury fruit topping is made with three different French glacé cherries, American almonds and pecans and some sweet-sour candied Moroccan orange halves. The pudding ingredients include juicy Turkish raisins and Greek currants mixed with Californian sultanas and Chilean raisins – all soaked in a warming, boozy blend of sherry, brandy and mixed spices. The pudding is gently steamed and then cooled before maturing for six months, allowing the world-on-a-plate flavours to develop just in time for Christmas.

Taste the difference Holly leaf Christmas cake is baked at a low temperature and the oven gets blasts of steam throughout the cooking process, helping to give it an exceptionally moist finished texture. When cooled it is laced with Cognac before being hand finished with a rich layer
of marzipan, white icing and hand-made edible holly and berry decorations.

Shortbread selection packed in a cute Scottish dog shaped box, just melts in mouth. Its buttery smooth texture is just ideal for a cuppa!

Note: Some of the images are courtesy Sainsbury’s and I am taking a break gobbling down these gorgeous goodies.

Frosty morning and a frosted rum cake

2010-12-02T00:16:00.000Z

It’s December the festive month! Time for Christmas, shopping, gifts and snow!!!

Last Friday I was in my office, it was quite dark outside and as usual I was eager to go home but needed to finish something before I could leave for the day. One of my colleagues walked in to my cube and said “did you notice it’s snowing outside”. I jumped out of my chair and went out to take a look at season’s first snow. I went out of the office building, stood there in the dark, it was freezing cold and the little, light, small pearl drops were falling on me. I was there as long as I could and then came running back inside the building. I know it sound stupid but it felt good!!

I was hoping if only I had my camera with me I would have clicked some pictures. All I had was my mobile camera which would definitely not do any justice to the snow. Then again something is better than nothing! Thanks to the modern mobile technology I came back to my cube took my ~~mobile~~ camera and went out again to try and capture a moment that I can share. I wasn’t sure whether next morning I will be able to see some snow or not. I took few and this was the best of the lot.

I came back home and after dinner I had to bake a cake ( it was my birthday after all!) but was thinking what best would go with this weather. The suggestion came from my better half, “anything with alcohol would be nice ;)”. Hence decided! I found the recipe online, started baking and after an hour or so, my house was full with the baking aroma. I think everyone likes that!

The recipe suggested that the cake tastes even better the next day, so I left the cake out of the oven and went to bed. Next morning when I woke up and looked out side this is what I saw and this time I had my camera with me :) Enjoy the photos!

After half an hour of photoshoot I realized its time for some breakfast and in this case its the rum cake. To match the weather outside I thought a frosting of icing sugar would be ideal for the cake and here you go!!

Ingredients:

1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp lemon zest
1/2 cup dark rum
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt

For Rum Syrup

1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup dark rum
1/4 cup water

Method:

Melt the butter, add the sugar to it and start beating (I used an electronic mixer). When the mixture becomes pale in colour add the eggs and continue beating. Now add the vanilla extract, lemon zest and the rum to the mixture and mix well. Now in a separate bowl add all the dry ingredient give it a stir and start adding in to the wet mixture slowly while continue beating until it becomes a homogeneous mixture.

Pre heat the oven to 180 degree C. Grease a baking tin with butter or spray oil. Pour the cake mixture in to it and bake for 50 minutes or until it passes the skewer’s test. Bring it out from the oven and let it cool. Make the rum syrup by boiling all the ingredients together. Pierce the cake multiple times and pour the syrup on the cake. Let it cool completely.

I am sending this post to an event celebrating baking in snow called The Snow Day Bake-Off hosted by A Slice of Cherry Pie.

BTW, I had a beautiful birthday and you know what, I didn’t cook a thing on that day!

Linguine with Smoked Salmon

2010-11-19T01:11:00.000Z

I always look forward to the weekend. No matter where I am in the week, just the thought of weekend relaxing and chance to sleep more than the weekdays makes me feel relaxed. You might think I am such a lazy bum, but trust me, this trick works when you have mountains of work around you. Some weeks I have more work pressure than other. By the time I come back home, I am terribly tired and no energy left cook a meal. That is when I make my Speedy Linguine. This recipe takes less than 10 minutes to prepare and is an absolute pleasure.

Earlier to this post, every time I cooked this meal was in the night and been very tired so never really had the energy to take the photos. This time I made it in the weekend because, one it’s easy and fast, two I wanted to take the photos this time.

Ingredients

Smoked salmon

Linguine (handful)

6-8 Cherry tomatoes

2-3 cloves of garlic

Red chilli flakes (optional)

Olive oil

Salt

Curly parsley leaves (handful - chopped)

Method:

Boil the linguine in salted water till al-dente. In a pan heat the olive oil and add the chopped garlic and fry till the aroma comes. Now add the red chilli flakes to it and fry for another minute before you add the salmon. After adding the smoked salmon immediately add the cherry tomatoes and chopped parsley, mix it well and don’t cook for more than a minute. Now add the cooked pasta, give it a good stir and check the seasoning. Remove from the heat after a minute. Garnish with some chopped parsley and drizzle some olive oil on top. Serve hot.

Note: you can add some toasted pine nuts on top, really makes a difference (I didn’t because I was running out of patience :) ).

Simple Pleasures - Panettone

2010-11-15T22:44:00.000Z

Life is full of sweet surprises which suddenly appears and brings a smile on your face. Last week I received an email inviting me to try one of the Sainsbury’s Taste The Difference range of products, which will help in making this Christmas a perfect Christmas for all of their customers. I was delighted to receive the e-mail and decided to go with Taste the Difference Panettone from the list of products.

On Friday, I received a big box in the morning’s post. I knew it is cake but didn’t expect it to be in that big a box. It was huge and came in a very pretty looking festive gift box with a ribbon on top. I so fell in love with box that I didn’t want to open it for some time. I was expecting a small loaf inside it but finally, when I opened the box, I found this huge cake occupying the entire box in all three directions and left no space for any extra packaging.

I usually don’t like to share my piece of cake but it was such a huge cake even I knew I won’t be able to finish it alone. We were planning to see our friends over the weekend, so thought why not take this cake and get an opinion form everyone. So we took the cake to the party.

We had a rocking party in my friend’s house and after dinner was time for the movie. So my friend put the kettle on and I started to cut the huge Italian Chocolate cake in to pieces. I was almost done with it and realized we need some plates for everyone to enjoy their cake with some fresh coffee while watching the movie. It took me only few mutes to come back with the plates but by then all the pieces were gone. I couldn’t understand for a minute what just happened. I looked at the empty plate (well, almost empty - they saved a piece for me) and then looked around, almost everyone had finished eating. “Oh My God!! What a cake!!!” one of my friend broke the silence. Then one after the other everyone started telling how lovely the cake was. My best friend and the host of the party said “All time delicious, mouth watering cake. It literally melted in my mouth. Very special for Christmas”.We were around ten people in that room and everyone loved it!!

Finally, I got my piece of cake and I couldn’t agree more with my friends present in the room. The cake was extremely light, sweet, buttery and chocolaty at the same time. The texture was very similar to soft inner part of a croissant. The cake had a very thin chocolate layer on top and inside it was filled with small chocolate bits. Simply divine and a must for the upcoming festive season. Thank you Sainsbury's. We all love it and will definitely get more in near future.

Also thanks a ton for the chocolate and the coffee I received last month. The Ethiopian Sidamo Ground Coffee from Sainsbury’s Taste the difference range is amazingly smooth and the bitter sweet dark chocolate goes perfectly well with the coffee. Thanks!!!

Walnut and Coffee Cake

2010-11-11T01:10:00.000Z

Two months. I can’t believe I am blogging after two months!! Feels like I am coming back from hibernation. It’s been a rollercoaster ride of emotions for me these couple of months. Usually we get happiness and the sorrow in our life in a periodic manner but well spread out so you get enough time to recover from both. This time that wasn’t the case for me.

It's way past midnight now and this is the only time I got to pen down something. When my parents were here with me, I had hardly cooked anything. My mom was in the driving seat cooking, taking care of the house and I was in the backseat, relaxed and pampered like anything. Now when I am back in to my old usual routine life, it feels as if I was floating on the cute little clouds in the sky and suddenly fell down on hard rock and broke all my bones and trust me it hurts like hell!!

One of the few things I made during my parents stay was this cake. It was my better half’s birthday and this is the only thing I made for him. The dinner was a treat from my parents.

Ingredients:

150 gm butter

150 gm brown sugar

150 gm all purpose flour

3 eggs

2 tbsp baking powder

1 tsp of ground cinnamon

2 tbsp instant coffee dissolved in water (1-2 tsp)

1 tsp of Almond essence

100 gm chopped walnuts

For Icing:

200gm butter

200 gm sugar

1tsp instant coffee dissolved in 1 tsp water

few walnut halves

50 gm melted dark chocolate

Method:

Beat the eggs first until light and fluffy, to that add the melted butter and sugar and continue beating. Once you have a well combined homogeneous mixture add the flour slowly, little by little to the mixture while continuing to beat. Add the coffee dissolved in water, the almond essence and the baking powder. Give the whole mixture a good mix again with the electric mixer. Add the chopped walnuts in to the light brown cake mixture and mix them with a wooden spatula and keep it aside.

Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper. Pre heat the oven at 180 degree C. Pour the cake mix in the baking tray and bake it for 25-30 minutes or until it passes the skewer’s test (poke a skewer in the cake and it should come out clean). Let it cool.

Now make the icing. Beat the butter and sugar together with the coffee for the icing. You can add more sugar if you feel the mixture is bit soft. Now spread the icing on the cake. It’s better to do the icing as soon as it is ready as the icing will become harder to spread later. Once the spreading is done, place the cake in the fridge to set. I took it out after few hours and decorated with the melted chocolate sauce and the remaining walnut halves.

Meat Kachori & Sweet Chilli Tamarind Sauce

2010-09-10T22:18:00.000+01:00

There are several verities of Kachories in India and they all taste different, but I never had a meat kachori ever. So I thought of giving it a go to see how it tastes. I have never made kachories before so it took me couple of times to get it right specially the size of the kachories. I remember one of the many disasters was the kachori was cooked from outside but inside it had dough like texture. It wasn’t cooked at all. The amount of oil goes into the dough is absolutely crucial as it forms the outer crust and you don’t want it to be soft.

Ingredients:

The dough

400 gm Plain Flour

½ tsp of Salt

1 tsp of Baking Soda

½ tsp of Ajwain

100 ml oil

water

Meat filling

200 gm Lean mince meat

1 red onion (finely chopped)

1 tsp ginger garlic paste

1 small tomato

½ tsp of cumin seeds

½ tsp of red chilli powder

½ tsp of coriander seeds

3-4 cloves

3-4 cardamom

1 cinnamon stick ( 1” piece)

1-2 bay leaves (dried)

Salt to taste

Oil for frying

Sweet Chilli Tamarind Sauce

200 gm of tamarind

200gm brown sugar

1 tsp red chilli

1 tsp cumin seed

300 ml of boiling water

Method:

For the kachoris:

To make the dough mix all the dry ingredients together well and then add the oil and give it a good mix. Now add water slowly and kneed the dough continuously until it reaches uniform consistency. Keep it aside for some time (15- 20 minutes). Meanwhile in a pan, dry roast the whole spices for 1 minute and grind them using pestle and mortar. Heat the oil in a pan and add the red chilli powder, chopped onion, ginger- garlic paste and stir. Cook for 1-2 minutes then add the chopped tomato and the roasted spices powder and continue to cook till the onions are golden brown and soft. Add the minced meat, mix it well with the spice mixture and continue to cook. Season it well and cook till the meat is well done. Take it off the heat and let it cool.

Knead the dough for 1-2 minutes again then divide the dough into 10- 12 equal parts. Roll the small dough balls using a rolling pin. Now put spoon full of minced meat mixture at the centre of the rolled dough. Seal the dough from all sides and keep it aside. Repeat the procedure for all the small dough balls. Heat oil in a deep-bottomed pan.Take the filled dough balls, dust it with some dry flour, and roll them a bit with the rolling pin. Deep-fry individually each kachori and then drain the excess oil in a tissue.

For the tamarind chutney:

In a pan dry roast the cumin seeds for the tamarind sauce for 1-2 minutes then grind the roasted seeds in a pestle and mortar. Keep it aside. Now in the same pan add all other ingredients for the tamarind sauce and let it cook for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes add the roasted cumin seed powder in to the tamarind mixture and cook it for another 5 minutes. Strain the mixture in a bowl to get a thick sauce.

Boozy Chocolate Cake

2010-09-02T22:20:00.001+01:00

OK! Now I know this sounds bit strange but after you read the whole story you will know how I ended up doing this experiment. My better half was out of country for couple of weeks. I was alone at home and honestly didn't have any drive or interest to cook for me only. You see, I am known for my laziness and specially when the king is away from the castle, the whole administration becomes quite relaxed (a bit too much relaxed!!). Throughout week I had lived on minimum cooking. To begin with, heating up the leftovers but how long can leftovers remain? Once they are over then I turned on to heating stuff on oven and microwave. Somehow I reached the end of the week and on Friday, I reached my limit of having frozen food so I decided to cook something. I cooked some spaghetti in white sauce with mushrooms and peas and opened a bottle of red wine.

While having my dinner I was reading about how difficult it is to match a wine with chocolate and as a result started craving for a piece of cake. It was quite late to go to supermarket, so the only option I had is to bake it myself. I started the process and then I thought why not bake a chocolate cake with red wine. Quite a lot of wine was left in the bottle and this was just the excuse I was looking for to do my experiment. I found a recipe online, but I find it difficult to stick to recipes so mid way in the process of baking the cake I thought let me add some whiskey as well. It's going to boozy cake anyway why not make it a cocktail one. So I used some single malt whiskey from my husband's collection. Later on when I told him that I used some of his treasures in baking the cake, he was shocked and gave me a blank look and to his surprise there was a glittering spark of revenge in my eyes.

Ingredients :

For the cake:

125gm unsalted butter
125gm sugar
2 eggs
1 glass of red wine
3 tbsp single malt whisky
125gm plain flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp red chilli powder
1 tsp baking powder
1 bar of dark chocolate (75 gm)

For soaking: (Yes, you need to soak the cake, which keeps the cake moist for a long time)

1 cup of water
2 tbsp sugar
1 glass of red wine

Method:

In a bowl mix all the dry ingredients together and keep it aside. Melt the butter and add the sugar to it and start whisking. Break the eggs and add them to the butter and sugar mix and whisk them until pale in colour. Melt the chocolate and add that to the egg-sugar-butter mix. Continue whisking while adding the glass of wine in to it. Now add the dry ingredient mix in the whisked mixture and as usual continue mixing (use a electric one). When it has become a homogeneous mixture, add the whiskey and the nuts and mix with a spatula. Preheat oven to 170°C and grease the baking tin. Pour the mixture in to the baking tin and bake it in the oven for 35 minutes until well risen. Insert a skewer in to the centre of the cake to check if it is cooked. If it comes out clean then your cake is ready. Once cooked, let it cool down for half-an-hour or so, then take out from the baking tin.

Now comes the soaking bit. Bring water and sugar to the boil in a small pan and add the red wine to it. Place cooled cake back in tin and pour the red wine syrup in to it. Once the liquid has been absorbed, store it in the fridge at least for few hours (ideally overnight). Don't try to cut a piece out immediately after soaking, I learnt this because I did and it broke into pieces as it was too moist. Later on you can take the cake out of the tin carefully and serve cold.

Note: This was a pure experiment with some unconventional ingredients for a cake but I enjoyed it. Hope you will also like it!!

BSI - Event - Contestant entries – Winner Announced!!!

2010-08-17T23:53:00.000+01:00

OK! First of all a big fat thank you to all of you who submitted entries for this event. I had all together 22 entries for this week’s event, making it a great success!

To be perfectly honest with you choosing a winner from these wonderful recipes that I received was a very difficult job. As I went through each one of the recipes, it was very easy to get distracted by your amazing photos. Every time I saw a new recipe, I was thinking if only I can have some of it…so many adorable looking yummy dishes..ummm mouth-watering! It’s difficult not to drool, but more than that was choosing the winning dish. The recipes which gave me the most hard time to control my urge of eating them somehow, were the following, Kesar Pista Rasmalai, Apple Pista Milkshake by Creative Sanyukta, Jumbo Pistachio Cookies, Pista Shahi Rabri by Super Yummy Recipes, Falooda Kulfi by IndianSimmer, Delicate Darling – Pistachios gujiya/puri by A Pinch of Love, Pistachio Halwa by Joy of Cooking, Pistachio Lime Cookies by Isabel Lake, Pistachio & Cardamom Cake (Eggless) by Queen of my kitchen, Garam Masala Tofu Scramble by Recipe Rhapsody and Pistachio Gelato by Biggest Diabetic Loser.

I wish I had more prizes to give out, in that case I could have done justice to all the brilliant entries but there is only one winning place to secure. Finally after quite a lot of deliberation I decided the winner of this week’s event is Pistachio & Cardamom Cake (Eggless) by Queen of my kitchen. A big congratulation to Supriya. Now can I have a piece of your cake please?

OK! Time to announce the next week’s host for the BSI- Event. I am really glad and happy to announce that Sanyukta from Creative Sanyukta will be the next host of this event. Please visit her blog to see the next week’s BSI and participate. Thanks Sanyukta for hosting this event on your blog.

Below is the list of all the entries I received for the 92nd week of BSI- EVENT :

1. Pistachio-Bottlegourd Pudding/Lauki Pista Kheer - By Creative Sanyukta

2. Luxury Fruit Bread – By Chacko’s Kitchen

3. Chilled Carrot Soup with Pistachios – By Quips, Travels and Braised Oxtails

4. Falooda Kulfi – By IndianSimmer

5. Jumbo Pistachio Cookies – By Super Yummy Recipes

6. Pistachio & Cardamom Cake (Eggless) – By Queen of my kitchen

7. Delicate Darling – Pistachios gujiya/puri – By A Pinch of Love

8. Basundi Recipe – By What’s cooking today?

9. Mango Shrikhand – By The taste space – steam, bake, boil, shake!

10. Garam Masala Tofu Scramble – By Recipe Rhapsody

11. Shrikhand –By Creative Sanyukta

12. Kesar-Pista Basundi –By Creative Sanyukta

13. Heavenly Cracked Wheat Kheer – By Creative Sanyukta

14. Tri colour peda – By Joy of Cooking

15. Shrikhand – By Joy of Cooking

16. Pistachio Halwa – By Joy of Cooking

17. Pistachio Lime Cookies – By Isabel Lake

3 cups sugar
1/2 cup lime zest, about 6 to 8 limes
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch cubes, chilled
6 ounces shelled pistachios
5 egg yolks
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon natural almond extract
3/4 cup fresh lime juice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
In a food processor work bowl, add sugar and lime zest. Process until sugar and zest are well mixed, about 20 seconds. Scrape into a large mixing bowl. Reserve about 1/2 cup of lime sugar in a separate bowl for later use.

Add flour, baking powder and salt into food processor and pulse briefly to mix. Add cold butter into food processor with flour mixture and 3 ounces of the pistachios. Process with short pulses until mixture resembles cornmeal and no large lumps of butter remain, about 10 seconds. Add remaining pistachios and mix briefly, about 5 seconds. Pour this mixture into the sugar and lime mixture in the large mixing bowl and set aside.

In a medium bowl, mix egg yolks, vanilla extract, almond extract, and lime juice together.

Using an electric mixer with a paddle attachment, pour in the lime/sugar and flour/butter mixture and stir until combined, about 15 seconds. Then, while the mixer is still running, slowly add egg/lime juice mixture and mix until well combined and dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl, about 15 to 30 seconds.

Scrape the dough into a large bowl and refrigerate until cold, but not solid, about 30 minutes. Use an ice cream scoop to scoop the dough onto parchment-lined cookie sheets. Take the dough balls and roll the tops into the reserved lime sugar. Use the bottom of a water glass to press the cookies flat, about 1/4-inch thick. Bake the cookies until slightly browned, about 15 minutes. Remove the parchment paper with the cookies from the tray to a cooling rack and cool.

18. Kesar Pista Rasmalai – By Creative Sanyukta

19. Apple Pista Milkshake – By Creative Sanyukta

20. Almond-Pistachio Vermicelli Milk Pudding – By Creative Sanyukta

21. Pista Shahi Rabri –By Super Yummy Recipes

22. Pistachio Gelato –By Biggest Diabetic Loser

BSI - Event

2010-08-16T17:08:00.001+01:00

Ok Guys! As I mentioned before, there are going to be some changes to my week of hosting BSI event, so here they are. There was some miscommunication regarding the hosting of the 89th week’s event and as a result two people hosted week 89. There after two parallel threads of the same event were going on. This problem was discovered during my week of hosting. We had stop this from continuing and for that I had a lot of discussion with the immediate previous hosts. The conclusion was that I will continue to host this week and my week will be 92nd week of this event. I have updated the list of previous hosts below to accommodate everyone and also the last date of submission for my week.

The story behind this event is that each week the chosen host will pick up an ingredient of his/her choice which has not been chosen as BSI before. To participate in this event you need to send recipes using the chosen ingredients and at the end of the week the host announces the winner and passes on the event to the next host.

Now time for the surprise. I am really happy to announce that I have received a sponsorship from CSN Store’s Dutch Oven for the winner of this week’s BSI-Event. The prize is a gift certificate of US $35. This gift certificates can be used in CSN Stores US/Canada and if the winner is from UK then an equivalent amount of gift certificate will be given which can be used on CSN Stores UK online stores. There is a huge range of products to choose from. My apologies if the final winner is not from US, UK or Canada, but I am sure the recognition of being a BSI winner is a reward by itself! So gear up and send me your entries.

This week's ingredient is Pistachio.

How and When:

    * Main or one of the main ingredients of your recipe should be Pistachio.

    * Anyone can participate, you don't need to have a food blog to participate in this event.

    * If you have an archived recipe then please send me the link.

    * Please send your entries at (easy2cookrecipe [at] gmail [dot] com).

    * Alternatively you can also leave a comment on this post.

    * Last date to send entries 29th August 10pm GMT.

I will announce the winner on Sunday 29th August also the name of the next host who would like to host the 93rd Week.

Here are our previous hosts:

Week 91: The Southern Cookbook – Butter

Week 90: Recipe Rhapsody - Flour

Week 89: Debbi Does Dinner Healthy - Ground Turkey

Week 89: Abraham Chacko – Garbanzo Beans

Week 88: Hema – Onions

Week 87: Quips, Travails & Braised Oxtails – Black Eyed Peas

Week 86: Making Good Choices – Applesauce

Week 85: Non-Dairy Queen - Raspberries

Week 84: Healthy Exposures - Bulgar Wheat

Week 83: Clarity in Creation – Peaches

Week 82: Mo’s Kitchen - Rice

Week 81: Waisting Duxie - Swiss Chard

Week 80: Fuss Free Flavours - Capers

Week 79: Jenn Cuisine - Honey

Week 78: Living Free - Cashews

Week 77: Affairs of Living – Artichokes

Week 76: One Frugal Foodie - Sunflower Seeds

Week 75: Part of the Whole - Beets

Week 74: Dinner at Christina’s - Sour Cream

Week 73: The Chef in My Head - Goat Cheese

Week 72: 5 Star Foodie - Asparagus

Week 71: Eats Well With Others – Carrots

Week 70: Burp and Slurp - Brussel Sprouts

Week 69: Fun Fearless Foodie – Parmesan Cheese

Week: 68: Natalie’s Killer Cuisine - Cocoa Powder

Week 67: Eat, Live, Travel, Write - Lemon Zest

Week 66: Travel Eat Love - Coconut Milk

Week 65: Run Beans Run - Tofu

Week 64: Chicago Marathon Val - Mushrooms

Week 63: Biggest Diabetic Loser – Cheddar Cheese

Week 62: A Fit and Spicy Life – Balsamic Vinegar

Week 61: Peanut Butter Fingers - Nutmeg

Week 60: Jenn Eats Nutritiously Now - Garlic

Week 59: Home Cooked Em – Cinnamon

Week 58: The Balanced Broad – Flax

Week 57: Cookin Fanatic - Blue Cheese

Week 56: Foodie in the City - Ricotta Cheese

Week 55: Savvy Eats - Maple Syrup

Weel 54: Sound Eats - Dried Fruit

Week 53: Mega Nerd Runs - Acorn Squash

Week 52: Healthy Tipping Point - Pancake Mix

Week 51: Live, Laugh Eat - Almond Butter

Week 50: Balance, Joy and Delicias! – Cauliflower

Week 49: Healthy San Diego Living - Chickpeas

Week 48: Thought 4 Food - Yogurt

Week 47: London Foodie in New York - Chocolate

Week 46: Johnstone’s Vin Blanc - Oats

Week 45: Guilty Kitchen - Figs

Week 44: Ordinary Recipes Made Gourmet - Peanut Butter

Week 43: The Sophisticated Gourmet - Brown Sugar

Week 42: My Kitchen Addiction – Lime

Week 41: Nutmeg Nanny – Coffee

Week 40: Chaya’s Comfy Cook – Broccoli

Week 39: Healthy Delicious – Plums

Week 38: Zoe - Feta

Week 37: ChezWhat- Potatoes

Week 36: Cinnamon, Spice & Everything Nice – Blueberries

Week 35: Girlichef -Greens

Week 34: The Ungourmet – Watermelon

Week 33: Bread + Butter – Bell Pepper

Week 32: Burp and Slurp -Corn

Week 31: Say Yes to Salad – Kabocha

Week 31 1/2: Simply Fabulous Now – Cherries

Week 30: Thinspired – Bananas

Week 29: To Be The Whole Package – Almonds

Week 28: Kristas Kravings – Lemon

Week 27: From French Fries To Flax Seeds – Coconut

Week 26: Plentiful Plants – Avocado

Week 25: Training Fuel – Eggs

Week 24: Dinner at Christina’s – Cabbage

Week 23: Hey What’s for Dinner, Mom? – Strawberries

Week 22: One Bite at a Time – Basil

Week 21: Just Sweet Enough – Black Beans

Week 20: What I Ate Yesterday – Kale

Week 19: What’s for Dinner – Orange

Week 18: BranAppetit! –Spinach

Week 17: Tales of Expansion Dates

Week 16: Biggest Diabetic Loser – Zucchini

Week 15: Sweet & Natural –Peppermint

Week 14: bella eats [and runs] – Ginger

Week 13: Coffee Talk – Walnuts

Week 12: For the Love of Oats – Pumpkin

Week 11: Trying to Heal – Sweet Potatoes

Week 10: The Inner Workings of a College Graduate – Eggplant

Week 9: Itzy’s Kitchen – Pears

Week 8: The Fitnessista – Cranberries

Week 7: Tri to Cook – Lentils

Week 6: Rhodey Girl Tests – Polenta

Week 5: Eating Bender – Butternut Squash

Week 4: Care to Eat – Apples

Week 3: On a Lobster Placemat – Mushrooms

Week 2: Hangry Pants – Tomatoes

Week 1: sportsnutritionliving – Quinoa

Boozy Chocolate Cake

2010-08-09T14:34:00.001+01:00

Ingredients :

For the cake:

125gm unsalted butter
125gm sugar
2 eggs
1 glass of red wine
3 tbsp single malt whisky
125gm plain flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp red chilli powder
1 tsp baking powder
1 bar of dark chocolate (75 gm)

For soaking: (Yes, you need to soak the cake, which keeps the cake moist for a long time)

1 cup of water
2 tbsp sugar
1 glass of red wine

Method:

In a bowl mix all the dry ingredients together and keep it aside. Melt the butter and add the sugar to it and start whisking. Break the eggs and add them to the butter and sugar mix and whisk them until pale in colour. Melt the chocolate and add that to the egg-sugar-butter mix. Continue whisking while adding the glass of wine in to it. Now add the dry ingredient mix in the whisked mixture and as usual continue mixing (use a electric one). When it has become a homogeneous mixture, add the whiskey and the nuts and mix with a spatula. Preheat oven to 170°C and grease the baking tin. Pour the mixture in to the baking tin and bake it in the oven for 35 minutes until well risen. Insert a skewer in to the centre of the cake to check if it is cooked. If it comes out clean then your cake is ready. Once cooked, let it cool down for half-an-hour or so, then take out from the baking tin.

Now comes the soaking bit. Bring water and sugar to the boil in a small pan and add the red wine to it. Place cooled cake back in tin and pour the red wine syrup in to it. Once the liquid has been absorbed, store it in the fridge at least for few hours (ideally overnight). Don't try to cut a piece out immediately after soaking, I learnt this because I did and it broke into pieces as it was too moist. Later on you can take the cake out of the tin carefully and serve cold.

Note: This was a pure experiment with some unconventional ingredients for a cake but I enjoyed it. Hope you will also like it!!

Coconut filled Pancakes

2010-08-07T20:41:00.002+01:00

Coconut always reminds me of festive sessions in India. I can't think of one festival where I have not seen coconut being used. In India any puja, festival or any auspicious ceremony will not be completed without coconut. I was pleasantly surprised to know that there is a festival in Maharastra which is named after this tropical fruit. It's called the "Narali Purnima" which is celebrated during the month of Shravan (August) by the fishermen.

I made these pancakes quite some time ago but never really got a chance to upload them. This week I was going through my list of unpublished recipes and found this one. Although I have uploaded the photos on my Facebook page but the recipe was not uploaded. Back in India we used to relish on this dish during Makar Sankaranti around end of January. The dish is called Patishapta in Bengali. I have made little changes to the original recipe. So here is the recipe of Patishapta with chocolate sauce.

Ingredients:

For the pancakes:

100 gm plain flour
100 gm semolina
30 gm rice flour
600 ml of full fat milk
50 gm of brown sugar
Pinch of cinnamon powder
Oil for frying

For the coconut filling:

100 gm of freshly grated coconut
50 gm soft brown sugar
50 ml Maple syrup
50 gm honey
3-4 green cardamom

For the Chocolate Sauce:

100 gm dark chocolate ( at least 60% coca solids)
100 gm soft brown sugar
100ml double cream
50 gm unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla essence

Method:

Mix all the dry ingredients for the pancake, then add the milk and mix well until it becomes a thick homogeneous mixture. Keep it aside. In a deep bottom pan mix the coconut, sugar, maple syrup and honey until the sugar has melt and the whole thing has become sticky. Crush the green cardamom seeds and mix in the coconut mixture well.

Break the chocolate in to pieces and place them with the butter and sugar in a Bain-marie and let it melt till it becomes a pool of chocolate. Add the double cream and the vanilla essence; mix well with a wooden spoon. Remove from the water bath and let it cool.

Heat oil in a non-stick pan, add spoon full of pancake batter and spread with the spoon. Cook till bubble forms on the top. Place the coconut mix on one side of the pancake and roll the pancake and keep for a minute and remove from the pan.Repeat the procedure for every pancake you make. Serve hot with the hot fudge sauce.

Chilli and Chocolate - My 50th Post

2010-07-24T18:24:00.000+01:00

Well I have been thinking and thinking and thinking about my next post. This is a very special post for me because this is my 50th one. Half a century! I wanted to do something different for this special post and trust me, I just couldn't think of anything. My mind had gone completely blank. If some idea flashed in my mind, moments later I would think, no that isn't good enough. I also didn't have a date in mind about my post, so I just kept on procrastinating in my typical way. And then suddenly on Friday I thought, enough of wasting time. I need to publish my post before Sunday, so I need to decide now what will be my 50th post. Surprisingly it took me only ten minutes to decide on my post. All these days of breaking my head over what to write was simply a waste of time.

Have you ever seen the old tube-lights that keeps blinking? When I was a kid, in my room I had one such ancient one for some time. When you switch on this light, it used to do the following, first the corners of the tube will become orangish-red, then a sudden blink, then for next five minutes it will simply flicker and dance, and then it will pause a minute or two, and then a sudden flash and then finally it will be the "let there be light" moment.

For this post my brain sort of worked in a very similar fashion like the old tube-light. I was ~~looking~~ staring at my blog and then suddenly the light inside my brain flashed. It's in the name of the blog, there you go..I have my ingredients staring at me..phew! What hard-work!! I certainly used up all my brain cells to figure that out. Anyway after that the rest is quite simple.

I went to the supermarket, bought what I wanted. Got honked once (really hard) in a traffic roundabout. And a few minutes later scared an old man to death by my driving. No, the old man wasn't the one who honked me in the roundabout. These were two completely separate incidents that happened to me within five minutes of one another!!. Anyway, I reached home in one piece. I sat there in my car and was trying to think, did I just avoid a deadly accident or it wasn't my fault at all in the roundabout. I hope my parents aren't reading my blog, otherwise there will be a permanent ban on my driving.

After such an eventful afternoon, I decided not to make the dish on Friday evening as I wasn't able to concentrate very well and I didn't wanted my dish also to spoil like my afternoon. I needed a fresh start for my special dish and my 50th post.

So here you go..my special dish is Chilli & Chocolate fondue which I prepared on Saturday afternoon and enjoyed it with marshmallows and sponge-fingers. I hope you like it too. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

200 gm dark chocolate (at least 70%)
1 fresh red chilli (finely chopped)
1 tsp red chilli powder
100 ml double cream
2 tbsp dark rum

Method:

Melt the chocolate in a bain-marie and add the chopped red chilli. Heat the double cream in a different container, do not boil. Now add the cream, red chilli powder and the rum to the melted chocolate mixture and remove from heat. Mix well and pour it onto a fondue dish. Serve it with either strawberries, marshmallows or sponge-fingers.

Hot Canapés

2010-07-19T22:27:00.000+01:00

I have been posting a lot of sweet dishes lately, primarily because I love desserts, especially if it involves chocolate. The only problem is you cannot have dessert all the time. Hence to change the taste, here is the recipe of savoury hot canapes that I made this weekend (on Friday night actually).

These canapes are really easy to make and requires very few ingredients. The important thing is that you can prepare and serve them under 15 minutes. Something that is quick and easy to make is very handy when you are hungry and tired, or if you are lazy like me and have an attitude of "will do it later" for any work in hand. This is an ideal nosh to make you feel good and it will be an absolute delight to your tastebuds.

Ingredients:

1 Baguette
Some red pesto
1 block of fresh Mozzarella cheese
Few slices of salami

Method:

Heat a non-stick pan. Slice the baguette in to half inch thick pieces and place them on the pan for 1 minute on each side. Turn on the oven on grill mode and adjust the temperature to 100 degree Celsius. Spread the red pesto on one side of the bread slices. Place couple of salami slices on top of it. Now place one slice of fresh mozzarella. Place the bread slices on a baking tray wrapped in kitchen foil and bake it in the oven for 7-9 minutes or until the cheese on top is bubbling. Let them rest for a minute and then serve hot. Enjoy.

Chocolate Biscotti

2010-07-12T17:38:00.000+01:00

I know, I know, I am obsessed with chocolate, but you see I have no choice, they are so tempting and delicious. Also its very difficult to avoid them simply because wherever I go I find chocolate in some form or other. You can do so many things with chocolate other than eating them just like that. The other day I went to Starbucks for a coffee. I usually go there quite often but this time I had tried some biscottis. Since then I have been looking for opportunities for making biscottis at home. I was also going to see some friends over the weekend, so I thought this is something they would like to have while we chat over our coffees. This recipe makes 20+ biscottis and in this case, all of them were finish before the weekend was over.

Ingredients:

125 gm Sugar
125 gm flour
50 gm chopped nuts
1 egg
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder

Method:

Beat the sugar and egg together until the colour changes to light yellow. To this all the dry ingredients and mix well. This will become like a soft dough. Now lightly dust some flour on a flat surface and put the dough on and gently knead it for some time (about a minute or so!)

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees and line a baking tray with baking sheet. Now take the dough and place it on the baking tray forming a log of 2 inch thickness. Place the tray in the oven and bake it for 25 minutes. Check the top surface of the log, if its firm to touch then bring it out and let it cool. Bring the oven temperature down to 140 degrees.

Once cooled slice the dough in to 1 cm width pieces using a serrated knife. Place these biscotties back in the oven for another 30 minutes or until they are very dry. Remove from the oven and let it cool completely. Store them in an airtight container.

Cheesy Mushrooms

2010-07-08T07:51:00.004+01:00

Cooking is not always following the recipe to its last word. For everyday cooking you can't follow recipes all the time. If you cook on a regular basis you got to be trying and testing with different ingredients.

Usually I start thinking about dinner when I am on the way back home from office. If I can't decide by the nearest supermarket to my home, I usually sneak in to the shop to see if I can find something I fancy at that very moment.

During my one such visit to the supermarket I had picked up some big flat mushrooms and was wondering what to do with them. I thought of using them in pasta but then I changed my mind and did something different. I had read about the this starter recipe of mushrooms before. Traditionally it is made with Portobello mushrooms but I had these big flat mushrooms already, so used them instead. I also had some cheese left in my fridge, so I combined these two key ingredients. Here is what I did.

Ingredients:

4 Big flat mushrooms

Cheddar cheese, grated (you can use your choice of hard cheese)

2 cloves of garlic

Freshly crushed black pepper

Salt

Olive oil

5-7 roasted cashew nuts, crushed (I didn't have any pine nuts left so I used cashew nuts instead)

Method:

Wash the mushrooms first then wipe them with a tissue. Finely chop the garlic and mix it with the grated cheese and the freshly crushed black pepper. Place each mushroom individually on aluminium foil (enough to wrap the mushroom) and season it. Fill in the flat face with cheese and garlic mixture. Drizzle some olive oil on it and then cover them with the foil. Preheat the oven for 200 degree Celsius and place these mushroom parcel on a baking tray and place it in the oven for 5 minutes.

Take the parcels out, open them and place them back again in the oven for another 5 minutes or until the cheese is melted. Now bring it out and plate them. Sprinkle some crushed nuts on top of it before serving.

Note: These mushrooms can be served on a bed of fresh green salad leaves.

I had it with a wine which I picked it up on the same day from the shop. It was awesome. A very smooth Californian Merlot for a great price.

Choco-Belly Cookies

2010-06-25T20:03:00.001+01:00

I saw these little cookies yesterday and instantly fell in love with them. Never seen such adorable looking little cookies before and not only they look so cute they taste divine. Hence it was decided instantly that this is going to be my next post and I will make them tonight only. It was quite late when I reached home last night and was bit tired as well but I was determined that I would make them, no matter how late it is.

These cookies won't need lots of hard-work, but they need some cool down time, so I made them last night and left them to cool down and because I was tired, I left the filling of the cookie pockets with chocolate for this morning.

Ingredients :

For the cookies
300 gms plain flour
100 gms sugar
Pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla essence
200 ml melted butter

For the chocolate belly
50 gm dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa or more)
2 tsp honey
2 tsp melted butter

Method:

Pre heat the oven in 180 degree Celsius. Mix all the ingredients for biscuit together and make a dough. No water is required to make the dough. Now make small balls with roughly about one teaspoon of dough each. Place a greaseproof sheet on the baking tray and place these dough balls on them leaving some space between them.

Now bake the cookies in the oven for 10 minutes. Bring them out and using the back of a rolling pin make impressions on them. There will be some cracks on the cookies when you make the impressions but that's fine, as long as they don't break. Place the baking tray back in the oven for another 10 minutes. When you see the cookies are turning light brown in colour that means they are done. Leave them to cool down.

Meanwhile melt the chocolate in a bain-marie until it forms a thick pool of chocolate and no lumps remaining. Now add the butter and the honey to the melted chocolate and mix well. Once the cookies are cooled pour the melted chocolate mixture on the centre of the cookie and let it set. Your cookies are ready to serve.

Strawberry Milkshake

2010-06-23T22:03:00.002+01:00

This is something I make almost every morning for breakfast. Great way to kick-start your day. It's ready within minutes. Fast, easy, delicious, healthy, filling what else do you need? For a change you can mix different fruits in your milkshake like banana, peach, mango etc. anything you fancy.

Ingredients:
Strawberries 4-5 (or any other fruit you like)
300ml Milk
1 tsp sugar (optional)

Method:

Remove the stalks of the strawberries then place all the ingredients in to a blending container and blend them together. You can also mix different fruits if you like. Serve with few cubes of ice.

SPAIN - VALENCIA - DAY- 3

2010-06-17T10:33:00.000+01:00

~The Bull Ring~

This was our last day in Spain so we thought we will take it easy. Just go around the Valencia city and to the beach and relax. It was Monday so our friend had taken the day off for us. We woke up a bit late and then went out to do a tour of the city of Valencia.

~The Train Station - Valencia~

We went to see the famous monuments and places of the city including the old station, the famous bull ring, the post office, the famous square, the cathedral, the remaining two doors of the 12 original doors of the ancient city-wall which were built in the Muslim period.

~The Cathedral~

It was a very different feeling as I stood at one of the door which is called "the door of the mountains" as most people who walked through this door to the Valencia city in ancient times were from the mountains.

~The Ancient City Doors ~

Around midday, we reached the city market known for its fresh local produce (not the boring supermarket stuff). That night it was my turn to cook dinner. I had planned the menu the previous night only, so with the list in hand I bought whatever I needed from this market. We also bought lots of chorizos to bring back to the UK.

~The Seal of Valencia - The Post Office~

It was a really huge market with a wide selection of meat, fish and fresh veg. The vendors were very friendly asked a lot questions to our friend which she translated back to us later on.

~The River Turia (He Represents the river)~

It was already 2 pm by then and we were quite hungry so we took the underground train back home to keep the food stuff. Our friend bought a flower plant from the market and promised us that she will water it regularly. I also have a very poor reputation in this matter. So far whatever plants I have been presented or bought, have all died due to lack of attention. I admit I am not a keen gardener but I was inspired by her and after coming back from Spain the very next weekend I went and bought a plant for my living room. I hope I will be able to keep this one alive.

~The Cured Meat - Valencia Market~

Anyway, I digress, back to Valencia. We decided to go to the beach and have lunch there. So, around 3 we reached there. The beach is quite close to our friend's apartment, so initially we though of walking there, but it was very hot and we were quite tired and hungry so we drove to the beach.

~Valencia Beach~

We had Fideuà (Seafood paella). It's made with shellfish and very similar to paella, the main difference is its cooked using Spanish noodles, instead of rice. We also had Ice-cream for dessert (loved it - ideal for hot afternoon). The restaurant was covered in glass from floor to ceiling so we can enjoy our food with the sea in front of us. As soon as the food arrived we dived in straight away and were so busy in eating that we didn't speak for a while.

~Fideuà~

We had a long walk after the meal (it was very much required!!) along the beach. The sand was quite hot but it wasn't long when sea water kissed our bear feet. We walked quite a bit and then realized we need to go home and start cooking for the night, it was 6 pm already and we still had a one more stop to make (for some coffee really!!) so we came back to our car.

~Cold Coffee with Crushed Ice~

We went to a cafe called Horchata Daniel which is very famous for a regional drink called "Horchata". It's an ancient drink originated in Valencia at the time of Muslim period, made of tigernuts. The drink was served with crushed ice, a perfect drink one would wish on a warm evening to cool down. Amazing.

~Horchata - Speciality of Valencia~

We reached home around 7-7.30 pm, freshen up and went into the kitchen to cook Indian dinner for that night. The menu was Pakoda, Aubergine fry, Fried rice and Chicken Curry.

~Fried Rice - Dinner~

My friend is very enthusiastic about Indian cooking as I found almost all the spices I needed for my cooking, in her kitchen. She was writing down each and every step as I was cooking.

~The Dinner~

For that night's dinner our friend's room-mate was also joining and our friend opened a Crianza 2005 which she saved for this dinner specially. For dessert we had those stolen cherries (see my earlier blog entry).

~The Dessert - Cherries~

We were chatting over dinner for quite long time until we realized it was quite late and we had a flight to catch in the morning. So we wrapped up every thing and went to bed. That was the end of day 3 in Spain and our vacation as well. Next morning we left home quite early, reached UK by the afternoon. We had a wonderful trip and we were missing the fun we had in Spain on the way back home.

~¡Buen viaje!~

SPAIN - MORELLA - DAY- 2

2010-06-09T02:33:00.002+01:00

~ The City of Morella~

After a good night sleep we woke up at 9am in the morning and kick started the day with home made brownie (which our friend made specially for us), strawberry milkshake and freshly brewed coffee. We left home by 9.30 am for our first destination, an ancient Spanish city called Morella. It took us 2 hours to reach there, on the way we had a good laugh about Bollywood music industry and how they shamelessly copy from world music and hardly pay any copyright to them. The landscape changed quite quickly as we left Valencia, from a seaside town to rocky mountains. There were lots of cherry trees we could see on the way, I felt like stopping the car and get some but controlled my emotions for the time being.

~The High walls and the Entrance gate to the City~

Around mid-day we reached Morella. The entire city is surrounded by a high wall to protect it from the outsiders who came from time to time to take over the city. The castell (castle) was built during the Islamic period around 13th century. As we enter through the huge gates of the city I felt as if we have gone back in time. The city has since been very well kept. It is an old historic city and it certainly it feels like it.

~ The Narrow Steps to the Castell~

We walked through the narrow lanes of the city towards the castell. The castell is described as a three layer cake.

~Castell de Morella~

Layer one is actually the upper part of the town which was integrated into the castell during the "carlista wars" making it stronger.

~The main entrance to the Castell~

~View of the valley from the Castell ~

Layer two is the original castell where most of the services existed. The most exciting part of this layer were the dungeons. The entrance to the dungeons was quite high and didn't have a floor. It was rough, cold and damp. I could imagine how difficult it would have been for the poor prisoners who were put there.

~The Guard of the Castell~

~The Cannon~

~The Dungeons~

Layer three, which was the most protected part of the castell, had the royal rooms, which were now ruins. The cherry of this three layer cake was a well.

~The Royal Rooms~

~The Well~

From the top of the castell we could see a bull ring in the village centre, which may be still in use during festival time.

~The Bull Ring~

The slope of the stairs are quite steep, so we were quite tired by the time we reached the top layer but it was sunny, warm and windy so we relaxed a bit and started going down.

~The Window~

It wasn't so tiring going down but we were quite tired already so started to feel hungry very soon. We had lunch in one of the restaurants in the historical village. The fascinating part of the lunch was that I found an old and very well preserved well in the basement of the restaurant next to the cellar where they kept their precious wine.

~Way back to the City~

Our lunch was delicious. We did some shopping after lunch, bought some real truffle which is the speciality of that region and some spicy chorizos. We still have some left and don't want it to finish. Wish we had got some more.

~The Lunch~

We started from Morella around 4pm heading back to Valencia. On the way we stopped near a church which was engraved in the mountain. Unfortunately we couldn't enter as it was under restoration. The most unfortunate thing was that we were running low in our DSLR camera's battery and it died over there before we could take any photos of this amazing work of architecture. So I tried to take some with my phone camera. I managed to take just one photo before it died as well (confession: I forgot to pack my phone charger for the trip).

~The Dessert~

Because I was in the back seat and was quite tired (so as everyone) soon I fell asleep but not for long as I woke up to realize that we were lost in the valley. Apparently we took a wrong exit to the motorway and went to north instead of east while I was having my siesta in the back seat. After some time we managed to find our way back which delayed our journey by an hour but we were happy that we were on right track now.

~Olive Oil~

We stopped at a gas station to fill up. There was a cherry tree full of ripe juicy cherries. This time I couldn't resist myself as I saw my friend was doing the same, so I joined them in plucking cherries from tree. We had to stop when our bag was full and didn't have any space left for more cherries. We really had lots of fun, it reminded me of my childhood summer holidays when we used to visit our village. When the elders were having their afternoon nap, me and my naughty cousins would steal raw mangos from the trees in our back garden and run to the terrace to hide. The guilty pleasure of eating those delicious green mangoes (with some stolen salt and red chillies from the kitchen) is hard to describe. Nicking cherries in Morella petrol station came pretty close to that childhood pleasure. My hands were full with cherries and so were the bags when we went back to the car.

~ Starter #1- Battered red chillies stuffed with potato and eggs~

We reached home at around 7pm. That night my friend was cooking dinner for us (only the dessert is something I made for her). We freshened up quickly and entered the kitchen. The menu was as below. Let me tell you, the food was as delicious as it looks.

~Starter #2 - Mushrooms and asparagus cooked with eggs~

~The Mains- Pork rolls served with onion and carrot gravy~

~The Dessert- Semolina cubes~

We enjoyed our dinner with sparkling rosé wine. Our friend told us funny tales of her weird ex house-mate and we were hysterical. We went to bed quite late again. That was the end of day two.

SPAIN - VALENCIA - DAY- 1

2010-06-05T17:05:00.005+01:00

~ Valencia Coastline ~

We had been planning for our Spain trip for a long time but something or other will always come up and we would think "OK! May be later." This time we were determined that we will make it and we did!! We planned it on a weekend plus 2 weekdays!! I had butterflies in my tummy because not only I was about to have a long weekend also the next working week was only a 3 day week for me but above all, we were going to see one of our close friends in Spain.

~ City of Valencia ~

On an average I wake up quite late on weekends but because our flight was scheduled at morning 6.30 am on a Saturday and as usual I did my packing on Friday night, I hardly had only 2 hours to get some sleep. We planned to leave home by 3.45am but not always things go according to plan, we woke up at 4 am and could leave home by 4.30am thankfully at that early hour there was no traffic so we could reach airport on time.

~ Mountains of Spain ~

I thought of having a nap in the flight but that didn't happen, instead I took some photos when we were flying over Spain and before landing in Valencia. It was only 2 hours flight, so we reached Valencia at local time 10 am and our friend was at airport to pick us up.

~ The Lake ~

It was sunny 28 degrees in Valencia, we went to our friend's home first, just to drop our luggage and then we went out to explore Valencia and it's neighboring places. Our first stop was a lagoon off the Mediterranean sea. It was a large lagoon as you can see below and it was a unique experience to go through a narrow canal and then opening up to the huge water body. It was amazing. So calm and relaxing, one can actually spend whole day just by the lake and do nothing.

~ The Way To The Open Waters ~

Life in this part of the city was quite relaxed, no one was in a hurry, and people are in general quite friendly and have a good sense of humour. We asked for a ride on a boat in the lake, before getting in to the boat we went to pay for the tickets to the boat owner, he smiled and said "Its ok! Pay me when I bring you back to the pier, if the boat sinks then you don't need to pay!!"

~ The Boat ~

It was 1 pm but in Spain its too early to have lunch, usually people have lunch around 2.30 pm so we had some time in hand so we thought of going to a nearby beach. Not enough time to get into water so we decided to walk along the beach where we won't fully get into the water but no harm in getting your feet wet! The beach was outside the city so we didn't see many people at the beginning but as we continued walking we soon realized why the beach wasn't so crowded. We had come to a nudist beach!!! This was my first experience in a nudist beach Most people around me are completely naked either sunbathing or were in the water.There was a family in the beach, where parents were playing badminton and the little kid was playing in the sand..all stark naked! Among all these people we were there fully dressed walking along the beach.

~ The Fish ~

So we concentrated on the sea water, the sand, the stones, there was a fish which was trying to swim back to the sea but for some reason it wasn't able to. Anyway I was quite hungry and so was everyone else, so we went to a small village to have traditional paella. It was a small village called El Palmar which is famous for its paella. We had the traditional paella made up with chicken and rabbit meat with snails served on top. It was amazing. The dish is served on the plate they use to cook paella. Lovely!

~ Paella ~

We finished lunch around 3 pm and then headed home to have a siesta. It was very much needed for me as I had slept only for 2 hours last night and Spanish weather and food forces you to have a nap anyway.

~ L'Hemisfèric ~

~ L'Oceanogràfic ~

~ The Opera House ~

In the evening we walked to the opera house and the aquarium designed by the famous valencian architect Santiago Calatrava. Its called "Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències" which means City of Arts and Sciences. Below you can see some of the photos of that area and the park surrounding. As you can see the architecture is amazingly very modern and quite obviously Santiago likes white. The colour of the water goes extremely well with the background white colour. It was a very pleasant and relaxing evening walk.

~ Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències ~

In the evening we went to the city centre to catch up with some old friends. We had dinner in palace famous for Tapas. It was mouthwatering. One of our friends' English wasn't so good but our other friend said, "Don't worry!! After few beers he will speak in fluent English." We really had a great time as I started talking in Spanish after few glasses of wine. We came home around 1 am in the morning and that was the end of day one.

Chocolate Brownie

2010-05-19T16:49:00.001+01:00

Its amazing how we transition from busy to busier and then to even more so. I didn't realize at all how soon two weeks have passed and I didn't get a chance to think about my next post. Now when I am trying to write something, I felt its been such long time.

May be this is a very womanly thing but after spending my whole day in office, I feel relieved when I enter my home, especially in my kitchen. My kitchen feels like a room full of treasures. You select what gems you want from the treasure chest and then make your own jewellery.

Ingredients:
200 gm of dark chocolate (I use 60% or more)
200 gm of unsalted butter
150 gm sugar
100 gm plain flour
100 gm mixed nuts
3 eggs

Method:

Beat the eggs and the sugar in a bowl until light and fluffy. Break the chocolate into small pieces and then melt with butter in a Bain-marie until it forms a thick pool of chocolate and no lumps remaining. Add the flour in to the egg and sugar mixture and whisk it well using an electronic whisker. Now add the chocolate in to the mix and using a wooden spoon give the mixture a good stir. Last but not the least add the mixed nuts to the mixture and bake it the the oven for 20 minutes.

Cool it in a rack for some time then cut them in to squares and serve with tea or coffee. Enjoy.

Little Delights

2010-05-02T14:38:00.006+01:00

Once upon a time in a land far far away there lived a little girl. She lived in a little cottage and had a little garden full of strawberries, peaches, apricots pineapple and many more fruits and vegetables. Near her little cottage there were two small springs each had melted chocolate flowing through them. One was dark chocolate and the other one was white. On a bright sunny day she would go to her garden, hand pick some fresh fruits and get two bucket full of chocolates and make little delights for the afternoon market in the village.

Ingredients:

Method:

The little girl decided to dress the strawberries in a suit with a bow. Some of the apricots in white dress with dark laces decorated on them and some in dark hat. Let the well dressed fruits relax for sometime and then she took them to the market.

Peas Paratha

2010-04-29T12:44:00.000+01:00

I found it interesting that although we consider green peas as vegetable but botanically it's actually a fruit. Arguably, the most popular English dish is 'Fish and Chips' which is basically one whole fillet of fish, battered and deep fried, served with deep fried potato wedges or chips. Sometimes this dish comes with steamed or boiled mushy peas. Either way, it tastes great because the sweetness of the mushy peas balances the saltiness of the fried fish and potatoes.

In India we get to see peas only during the winter, when they are in season. The Indian peas are not as sweet as the European/American ones. I guess, that's why I don't get the exact taste that I used to get back home with peas based Indian dishes.

I made some peas parathas (in Bengali we call it motorshuti-er-kachori) with the English garden peas. There was a distinct hint of sweetness to the parathas which I never got while I had the same dish in India. Both the versions do taste very nice, so no matter which peas you use, you will have an an easy and delicious dinner with this recipe.

Ingredients:

For the filling:

100gm Peas (fresh or frozen)

1 tsp red chilli powder

1 tsp cumin powder

1 tsp coriander powder

1 tbsp oil / ghee

Salt

For the dough:

250 gm of flour

1 tbsp oil

1 tsp salt

Water

Some extra flour for rolling the parathas

Oil for frying the parathas

Method:

Mash the peas and keep it separate, don't worry if its not a silky smooth mash (well I didn't!!). In a pan heat the oil for the filling, then add all the spices listed, fry for few seconds then add the mashed peas. Mix it well and cook till the mixture becomes dry. stir continuously so that it doesn't get burned or stuck at the bottom. Once done, take it off the heat and let it cool.

Now for the dough, mix the dry ingredients first i.e. flour and salt, then add the oil and mix well again. Now add sufficient water to make a soft dough. Divide the dough in small balls and keep it separately. Now roll the small dough balls a little and place a spoon full of peas mixture in the centre. Seal the mixture by closing the rolled dough from all sides. Cover the balls in dry flour. Repeat the same procedure for all the balls.

Take each stuffed ball and roll them out. Heat a frying pan, cook the parathas for 1-2 minutes on each side and cook till you see the brown spots forming on each side, then brush some oil on both side, cook for another 1 minute and remove from heat. Serve hot with pickle and Greek or plain yoghurt.

Cheddar Cookies

2010-04-26T23:31:00.001+01:00

It's amazing how small things in your day to day life can take you back to your childhood within no time. Last weekend I was trying to make some chedder cheese cookies and while cutting the cookies with the cookie cutter some memories from my childhood flashed in my mind.

Every child loves their mom's cooking, I wasn't any different. During Christmas and New Year, my mom used to bake cakes for us and for the rest of the huge extended family we have. She is famous for her baking and cooking in the family. Those days I would know that she has baked a cake as I enter through the main gate of our house as the air will be filled with the inviting sweet smell coming from my mom's kitchen. I would run through the doors, somehow get rid of my shoes (didn't bother about the socks!!), throw my bag somewhere in the house and run straight into the kitchen, "Mummy CAKE!!".

These cookies I made are not at all sweet. These are savoury cookies, so didn't fill the air with sweet smell while getting cooked in the oven, instead with a salty baking smell which you will normally get if you smell a freshly baked loaf bread. These cookies are very easy to make and can be severed just like that or like scones with clotted cream and jam, goes well with tea and coffee.

Ingredients:

200 gm of self raising flour
100 gm of cheddar cheese (shredded)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
6 tbsp of oil
water to make the dough
pinch of chilli powder (optional) (That's me being typical Bengali)
pinch of salt

Method:

Mix all the dry ingredients together then add the oil and mix well. Once that is done add water to make the dough.

Roll the dough with a rolling pin, to a centimetre thick (roughly) and use a cookie cutter to cut the cookies out of it. Line a baking tray with aluminium foil and brush or spray some oil on it. Now place the cookies on the tray and brush them with some oil.

Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees and bake the cookies for 10 minutes. Let them rest on a wiring rack to cool down then put them in a jar and store it in a cool place.