(Lima) Beans and Delhi Cha(a)t

We Promise....

2007-11-05T22:13:00.000+05:30

Season's Greens

2007-01-13T21:02:00.000+05:30

A couple of posts back, Cesar promised I would be blogging about some Indian festivals. Well, here I am, with one that is celebrated on this very day (13th January) every year. Lohri heralds the harvest season in north India, when fields are awash with Rabi crops, sown in early winter. Two months from now, the sparkling golden wheat will be ready for harvest.

In Punjab, the breadbasket of India, wheat is the main winter crop, which is sown in October and harvested in March or April. In January, the fields come up with the promise of a golden harvest, and farmers celebrate Lohri during this rest period before the cutting and gathering of crops.

Born and brought up in Delhi, which is situated in north India and happens to be a bastion of north Indian culture, I have been witness to many a Lohri celebrations. It’s a fun festival, with an evening bonfire being the highlight. A fire is lit outside houses, and people move around it in a circle, dropping popcorns, peanuts, and other wintry goodies into it. Supposed to mark an offering to the fire god wishing for prosperity, this is a tradition that perfectly fits the season. Nothing can be more heartwarming than the community coming out in the evening and sharing joy before a warm, glowing fire.

As the evening wears down, the celebration is rounded off with a traditional dinner of Makki di Roti (maizemeal bread) and Sarson da Saag (mustard greens curry). Let’s gather then for a hearty meal, shall we?

Sarson Saag (Mustard Greens Curry)

Ingredients:

Mustard Greens: 500 grams
Bathua Greens: 250 grams
Ginger paste: 1 teaspoon
Onion paste: 2 tablespoons
Garlic paste: 1 teaspoon
Tomatoes: 2, chopped fine
Green chilies: 3-4, chopped
Oil
Ghee/White butter: 1 teaspoon
Salt: To taste
Sugar: A pinch

Method:

1. Chop the greens finely and wash well. Boil until soft, then blend with the green chilies.
2. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a wok. Add the onion, ginger, and garlic pastes. Fry for a few minutes.
3. Add the chopped tomato and stir until the oil separates.
4. Add the blended greens, salt, and sugar. Keep stirring until the greens thicken. Turn off heat.
5. Add the ghee/white butter.
6. Serve hot with makki ki roti (recipe follows).

Makki ki Roti (Maizemeal/Cornmeal Bread):

Ingredients:

Maizemeal: 1 cup
Wheat flour: ½ cup
Radish: A small piece, grated
Green chili: 1, chopped fine
Coriander leaves: Few sprigs, chopped fine
Lukewarm water: Enough to bind the maizemeal into a soft yet firm dough.
Salt: To taste

Method:

1. Combine all the ingredients and bind into a soft yet firm dough. Add half of the wheat flour if needed.
2. Make small balls out of the dough. Use a rolling pin to flatten the balls into round breads or rotis. Keep the bread a little thick.
3. Place the roti on a warm griddle. Be careful; maizemeal dough tends to be a little brittle.
4. Fry on both sides until you get that nice golden hue.
5. Plop it straight to the plate and serve with hot sarson ka saag and a piece of jaggery. This is the traditional accompaniment.

Relish!

~ Sury

Mushrooming My Way Back...

2007-01-07T10:40:00.000+05:30

It's been a while, hasn't it? As I write this first proper foodie post of 2007, I have some Thank Yous to say. My gratitude to all of you who kept our humble blog listed on your blogrolls despite our unexplained absence; a big thank you to new friends who wished to exchange links with us (the links will be up with this post, I promise); much appreciation for all the kind comments that came in to our sporadic posts, reassuring us our blog hadn't yet been sucked up by a big black hole. Many thanks for staying our friends. :-)

I have missed the food blogging experience and have been every bit sore about it. I missed the encouragement and inspiration from fellow food bloggers, the propeller which fuelled my culinary adventures with such gusto. I hope to get back on that adventure trail with you all soon. That's what brought me back here to share with you my experiment with...

Achari mushroom. Achar is the Hindi word for pickle, as many of you may know. I had seen the recipe for Achari Paneer (cottage cheese) somewhere and thought of adapting the same for cooking mushrooms. The recipe is simple and uses the spices that usually go into the making of north Indian pickles. The experiment went well and produced a tongue-clicking, finger-licking dish. Here it is:

Achari Mushroom

Ingredients:

White button mushroom: 250 grams, cut into cubes or halves
Mustard seeds: 1/2 teaspoon
Fenugreek (methi) seeds: 1/2 teaspoon
Cumin (jeera) seeds: 1 teaspoon
Nigella (kalonji) seeds: 1/2 teaspoon
Fennel seeds: 1 teaspoon
Turmeric powder: 1 teaspoon
Yogurt: 1 cup (beaten well)
Onions: 2, chopped fine
Coriander/Mint leaves: 4 teaspoons, finely chopped
Green chili: 2-3, slit in the middle
Oil: 2 tablespoons
Sugar: 1/2 teaspoon
Salt: To taste

Method:

1. Heat oil in a wok and add the mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds, cumin seeds, nigella seeds, and cumin seeds.

2. When the seeds start spluttering, add the chopped onions and stir. Fry until they turn translucent.

3. Add the mushrooms

4. Add the beaten curd and mix well, stirring constantly. Cook for 2-3 minutes.

5. Add turmeric powder, salt and sugar. Mix well.

6. Garnish with green chilies, mint and coriander leaves.

7. Serve hot with roti/paratha/naan.

Achari mushroom tastes expectedly tangy (perfect for my palate) and takes no time to cook. If you are in a hurry and want to eat something delicious, this is the perfect item for you. Give it a try and do let me know how it turns out in your kitchen.

Happy cooking and hearty eating, all!

~ Sury

Happy New Year!

2007-01-01T10:52:00.000+05:30

Wishing all our friends a hearty and full-filling NEW YEAR!

Sury & Cesar

Happy Turkey Day! (yes, I mean Xmas)

2006-11-23T21:29:00.000+05:30

Long time no see! It's been a couple of crazy months for Sury and me, which has kept us away from our little food blog. We've kept it on our minds every day though, and we hope that now that we're back, some of you will still be around.

Did the title of this post catch you by surprise? Turkey day, this guy must be waaay behind. I know our readers in Uncle Sam's land are certainly thinking that way. Turkey is the traditional dish in Thanksgiving, one of America's most significative holidays, celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. Thousands of families get together, give thanks for the blessings they received during the year and enjoy the biggest feast of the year. As a matter of fact many American families celebrate Christmas with family and friends, children asleep waiting for Santa while the grownups share a quite evening with lots of lights, eggnog, cookies and carols.

But of course, the world is huge and the traditions vary. For starters we don't celebrate Thanksgiving in Peru. But we do have a feast one month later on Christmas Eve. And here too, turkey is the star.

So don't be shy, come in (it's sunny here, summer starting so no need for coats), sit at the table and let me show you what Christmas dinner looks like around here.

Us carnivore beings have an assortment of meat to choose from, from the traditional turkey, to glased ham, chicken roll or smoked pork...

Turkey Breast Slices

Glased Ham

Chicken Roll

Smoked Pork

Make sure to grab a scoop of that delicios Waldorf salad...

And if you are in for something sweet, the traditional apple puree is ready to serve...

Last but not least, we have an assortment of rice dishes...

Olive Rice
(rice, raisins, onions, black olives, pepper, pecans, bacon, Parmesan)

Arabian Rice
(rice, angel hair pasta, raisins, bacon, Coca Cola, pepper, pecans, paprika, sugar)

Christmas Rice
(rice, white onions, raisins, curry, mushrooms, celery, margarine, ham, pepper, pecans)

Now, if you are like me (my family is very small and we usually keep it very simple), you can grab a few cookies, a nice cup of hot chocolate and a slice of our traditional Panetón (fruitcake) with a generous spread of butter.

Our friend Sury will be also telling us about her own festivals and traditions and the traditional dishes that are present in India. what about you? How do you celebrate? What do you have?

All that's left for me to say is, Happy Holidays to everyone! Thanks for visiting :)

Now grab a plate and enjoy!

Cesar

Happy Diwali -:)

2006-10-21T10:36:00.000+05:30

Wishing a Bright and Safe Diwali to all our readers!

Happy Birthday!!!

2006-09-14T10:13:00.000+05:30

Dear Friends,

Please join me in wishing the co-author of this blog a very happy birthday.

MANY HAPPY RETURNS OF THE DAY, CESAR!

~ Sury

Green Bell Pepper stuffed with Kidney Beans

2006-09-10T10:23:00.000+05:30

Food enthusiasts don't just cook. They try to live food as much as they can. They read food books, spend hours on the Internet browsing through food sites and blogs, and watch food shows on the television. I do all of those; so even if I go on a hibernation here on the blog, I am not away from things culinary.

Discovery Travel & Living airs some fantastic foodie shows, one of which is Planet Food. The show features the cuisine of a country in each new episode, with the host sampling the best and most popular food items of that region. It's a zesty show, and you're almost there with the host, tasting the amazing fare on offer. I rarely miss it. And sometimes, I even cook some of the samples they show. Today's post is an account of one such adventurous venture that didn't go wrong. Thankfully.

This dish belongs to Mexico. It's roasted green bell pepper stuffed with kidney beans. You can use any other type of bean too; I used this one because it's widely available in India. And since it has some nutritional advantages to it, I am also entering it into Kalyn's Weekend Herb Blogging.

Like most beans, kidney beans are rich in the best sort of fiber - soluble fiber - which helps to eliminate cholesterol from the body. They are a good source of folate, potassium, iron, manganese, copper and zinc. As a high-potassium, low-sodium food they help reduce blood pressure. Not only are they low in fat, but when combined with grains, beans supply high quality protein which provides a healthy alternative to meat or other animal protein. Kidney beans also contain protease inhibitors which frustrate the development of cancerous cells.

Armed with those facts, we should now proceed to cook this deliciously simple dish, right? So let's get going!

Roasted Capsicum stuffed with Kidney Beans (Serves 2)

Ingredients:

Green Bell Pepper/Capsicum: 2 medium sized
Kidney beans: 1 1/2-2 cups
Onion: 1 large, coarsely chopped
Garlic: 4-5 big cloves, minced
Ginger: 1 inch block, grated
Tomato: 2 medium, chopped fine
Green chili: 1-2, finely chopped
Asafotedia/Heeng: A pinch
Mixed Italian herbs: 1/2 teaspoon
Salt: To taste
Oil

Method:

1. Wash the kidney beans in running water. Soak them in a pot and bring to a boil. Turn off the heat and let the beans soak for 5-6 hours.

2. Once the beans have been nicely soaked, cook them in a pressure cooker along with the onion, garlic, and ginger. Add some salt. Cook for 5-6 whistles. Turn off the heat.

3. Once the pressure has been released, take out the beans on a large bowl, with as little of the soup as possible.

4. Heat oil in a wok. Add the heeng, the chopped tomato, and the green chili. Fry until the oil gets separated.

6. Now add the kidney beans to this mix. Add a little of the water in which you earlier cooked it. Add the mixed herbs and some more salt if needed. Stir well. Cook until the water has evaporated. Turn off the heat and keep aside.

7. Wash the green bell pepper nicely. Cut the top part and scoop out the seeds. Now coat it with a layer of oil and roast it over fire. Let the skin turn all black. Don't worry, only the outer skin will get charred, the pepper will still remain nicely edible.

8. Turn off the heat. Let the peppers cool a bit. Now with the help of a knife, peel out the outer, charred layer of the pepper. Do this carefully, or you might end up slicing the pepper a bit deeper than desirable.

9. Now stuff the pepper with the cooked kidney beans with the help of a spoon. Fill it to the brim.

Bingo! Your pepper is ready to be eaten. Serve with roti or bread, or just eat as a snack. This tastes really nice. The soft and mushy beans are a great contrast to the crunchy bell pepper. Add to that the smoky flavour of the pepper itself. A complex layer of tastes packed within a compact food item. Do try it; you will be surprisingly delighted.

~ Sury

Garden Fish

2006-09-04T06:36:00.000+05:30

Our regular readers by now know I live in the coast of Peru where, of course, fish is an important and welcomed ingredient in many homes. It's interesting though that I was never such a big fan of fish. As a child I frowned whenever my mother made something apart from canned tuna... with one exception.

There was this dish I loved, it was called Garden Fish (I never knew why) and I always knew it was coming when I saw my mother cutting fish into those dice-sized cubes. This is a simple one for all the fish lovers, with an assortment of vegetables (carrots, peas, bell peppers). The fish cubes are previously fried and then mixed with the rest of the ingredients. You can serve it with some rice the way we do at home.

I have to say, after all these years I've changed my views towards fish, I actually love tuna and salmon and trout, but Garden Fish will forever be this tradition which never fails to bring back those childhood memories.

Wanna take a look at it?

Ingredients (for 6):

1 kg. fresh fish
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup bread powder
salt & pepper
1/2 cup oil
1 chopped med-size onion
1 tsp. minced garlic
1 green aji in stripes
1 med-size chopped tomato
1 red bell pepper in stripes
1 choclo (maize)
1 carrot
1/4 kg. peas
1/2 kg. potatoes

Preparation:

1. Season the fish with salt and pepper, cut in small cubes, dunk them in the bread powder and flour and fry.

2. In 3 tbsp. oil fry onion, garlic, ají, salt, pepper, tomato and half the bell pepper. When it's well cooked add the choclo grains and carrot; let cook for 15 minutes then add potatoes (and more water if needed). Cook on low heat.

3. Finally, add the fried fished cubes and the rest of the bell pepper; mix and remove from the heat.

I hope you get to try this evocative dish and I hope you enjoy it :)

Dig in!

Cesar

Something Corn

2006-08-09T19:10:00.000+05:30

Honest confession: I am not a fan of roasted corn on the cob. I can have them, but I don't crave them, and unlike my mother and brother, I seldom feel a dying urge to have them the moment I spot a street vendor selling bhutta.

Last week, I saw one such vendor passing by our house and brought a fresh (unroasted) corn on the cob from him. And then, I didn't have a clue what to do with it.

The heavens must have taken pity on me and decided to pull me through this corny wicket. Why else would I mention that I was looking for a simple corn recipe to SJ, my friend from Tennessee? SJ happens to be an editor and a food writer-lover. The moment he heard my question, he said "Have you tried fried corn?" Of course I hadn't. So my good friend from Tennessee relayed the recipe over IM and got me all excited.

This incredibly simple dish tastes amazing. So if you are looking for something to munch on with your evening tea, try this out. I highly recommend it.

Fried Corn (Serves Two)

Ingredients:
Corn on the cob: 1
Capsicum: 1 (chopped into small cubes)
Onion: 1, medium sized (chopped)
Garlic: 1 fat clove (finely chopped)
Tomato: 1 medium sized (finely chopped)
Mixed Italian Herbs: 1/2 teaspoon
Salt: To taste
Butter/Vegetable oil for frying

Method:
1. Boil the corn on the cob for about six minutes. Drain off water and keep in refrigerator for a day.
2. Next day: Fry the onion and garlic until onions are translucent.
3. Add the tomato and fry some more.
4. Add the capsicum and saute for a couple of minutes.
5. Now add the corn, taken off the cob to the above mix.
6. Add the herbs and salt.
7. Stir nicely for 3-4 minutes, letting the corn mix well with the rest of the ingredients.
8. Serve hot.

The final result far exceeded my expectations. Since this is one of the cheapest (not in terms of taste, only money) snacks, I shall be having it often. Thank you, SJ, for this zesty treat!

I hope you all can try it out too, and relish it as much as I did.

~ Sury

Back in Action (hopefully)

2006-08-05T01:24:00.000+05:30

Howdy Bloggers!

We've been experiencing some weird stuff lately. Our comments didn't work. Neither did the Permalinks. It looks as if this pair of clueless food lovers have found a way to fix these glitches. Let's hope they stick. We hope these troubles don't make you think twice about visiting us. You'll all be always welcomed here. So stick around, drop us a line and enjoy. Plenty of limadelhi to go around for a long time ;)

Cesar and Sury

Independence Day and a Dish for the Ocassion

2006-07-29T06:40:00.000+05:30

Hey, Bloggers. Happy 28th. Yup, for us in Peru it's a special ocassion because it is the day of our independence. This year the date is even more special because as of today we have a brand new president in office. Let's all wish that his period is one for progress an justice for us Peruvians.

So, Patriot Party (that's what we call today and tomorrow). Streets are decorated with the red and white flag -and not just streets, cars, houses, workstations-, people carry the red and white badges, and some trade their usual playlists for some Criollan music to get into the mood.

And of course, you can't have a real Patriot Party without Peruvian food. That's right. Starting breakfast with a traditional panetón you can expect a variety of traditional dishes to grace your palate. Anticuchos? Tequeños? Sounds really good. Something sweet? How about some Mazamorra? And take with you a glass of chicha while you're at it.

Yes, lots of traditional stuff out there. I'va had the chance to introduce these to you along the way. But this is Patriot Party! Time for the big guns. Time for the mother of all Peruvian dishes.

You guessed it. Gather around for a great Ceviche!

Ceviche is the Peruvian dish by excellence. Unique in the world (yeah, there have been attempts to make it in other places, but the real ceviche is as Peruvian as the flag) ceviche as you might know is fish based. But the key ingredient, the one that makes it Peruvian, is our lemon. I had the chance to talk to you about our lemons: small in size, extremely sour. Our lemon is so strong that it can "cook" the raw fish in a matter of hours, and charge it with a powerful taste. To this you add onions and for the commando-type aji and rocoto for a tongue-burning version. You then serve with an assortment of ingredients that make it more than a side-dish: lettuce, camote (sweet potato), choclo (maize), yuca, cancha and cilantro.

Of course, ceviche has many variations. You can have the simple one, the traditional black clam ceviche, or the Mixed Ceviche which includes an assortment of seafood.

And if you're feeling adventurous, try a glass of Tiger Milk. Tiger Milk is basically the pure juice of the ceviche, served as a drink. Strong, spicy and sour, this is what some people call "a beverage to arise the dead". Not only that, but it's a proven afrodisiac.

So now I bring you a simple ceviche recipe, but not without a necessary disclaimer: without Peruvian lemon, you'll only get an approximation. If you want to taste the real thing, come to Peru on your next vacation, visit one of our many seafood restaurants and ask for a nice, big ceviche tray. You'll remember it forever.

Ingredients:

200gr fresh white fish
1/2 onion, cut in long thin slices (juliene)
1/2 tbsp salt
Chopped aji
5 fresh Peruvian lemons (you'll squeeze them only when needed, not before)
Lettuce
Boiled maize (Choclo)
Camote

Preparation:

1. On a chopping board, clean the fish by removing all bones and dark parts. Chop it in small cubes and put those in a glass or ceramic bowl (**NOT plastic or aluminum**).
2. Peel and chop the onion and add to the fish. Add the aji and salt.
3. Squeeze the lemons over the fish. Mix with a steel spoon (**NOT wood**).
4. Let the fish rest. The lemon juice will "cook" the fish. This should happen over 3 or 4 hours. Stir every now and then.
5. When ready, serve with a bed of lettuce and choclo and camote slices.

And while you're at it, grab your glass of Pisco Sour! Happy 28th!

Cesar

A Prayer for Mumbai

2006-07-13T18:55:00.000+05:30

May the bloodshed end.

HELP:

Mumbai Help

Mumbai Police

Please take a moment to light an e-candle by clicking this CNN-IBN link. For every candle lit (no money required), the news channel will donate a rupee toward the relief of the blast victims. Thanks.

Hit the Heat with Potatoes and Greens

2006-07-08T22:18:00.000+05:30

This blog has not kept pace well with the rest of the food blogging world. The reason if you ask me is just one--summer. While I am aware that summer is a time for frolick across many European countries, in north India, it's living hell. Temperatures ranging between 40 degree C (106 F) to 47 C (113 F), unending power cuts, acute water scarcity, extreme humidity. The result? It leaves me listless and cranky, and food--eating or cooking--is the last thing on my mind.

However, just because I feel sad to be away from this blog and you all for long, I keep returning. I will, even if the walk is a little slow until the rains come.

And now, to cut the enervated rambling, here's the crux of the matter. Today's dish is Bengal's own comfort food, an item Bengalis might claim a patent for, just like the South of India can for Dosas and Idlis. It's a poppy-seed paste based dry dish, with potatoes and ridge gourd as the main ingredients. What else goes into it? Let's find out!

Alu-Jhinge Posto (Potato-Ridge Gourd in Poppy Seed Paste)

Ingredients:

Ridge gourd: 1, chopped into small pieces
Potato: 2, medium sized, cut in cubes
Poppy seeds paste: 2 tablespoons
Nigella: 1/2 teaspoon
Green chilli: 3-4, slit lengthwise
Salt, to taste
Oil

Method:

1. Heat oil in a wok and add the nigella seeds.
2. Add the potatoes and fry for 2-3 minutes. Now add the ridge gourd. Stir for another two minutes.
3. Add the poppy seeds paste.
4. Cover and cook, stirring in between.
5. Add half a cup of water and let simmer.
6. When potatoes are cooked, add salt and the slit green chillies.
7. Serve with hot rice.

Bengalis usually cook this using mustard oil, but you can use any vegetable oil. The taste of poppy seeds paste is unique and has a magnetic effect on the foodie subjected to it. So do give this very Bengali dish, a part of the culture's everyday fare, a try. And if you do, don't forget to let me know how you liked it.

And while we are at it, let this be my contribution to Weekend Herb Blogging, insituted by the famous Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen. This weekend, as Kalyn is off to San Fransisco for a trip, WHB is being hosted by Gabriella of the wonderful blog My Life As A Reluctant Housewife. All of you interested in learning about herbs from across the globe, peek into Gabriealla's blog for the round up.

Until the rains come...

~ Sury

Coming Home to Dal - JFI

2006-07-01T20:47:00.000+05:30

We have been really slacking as far as the housekeeping business of this blog goes. Please don't mind if the place looks somewhat dusty and neglected. Now that I am back in our blogging home, let me try and put everything in order so that you can sit around comfortably and enjoy some food.

What's on the menu, you ask? Something hot, comforting, and very Indian. Okay, that's vague. How about making it simple and straight? It's dal I am talking about.

Am I thankful I didn't forget to cook for this month's Jihva For Ingredients (JFI), hosted by the versatile Sailu. She chose dal or lentils as the theme, and I have brought a bowlful for you all. What's special about it? Well, it's different from the usual Bengali dals we cook at home, with the typical cumin or paanch-phoron tempering. Inspired by a recipe from a Sindhi Cookbook I recently added to my bookself, this dal is a delight to be cooked and relished over and over again. Don't go by my word. Try it for yourself, and you will know.

Sindhi Garlic Dal (Adapted from The Essential Sindhi Cookbook by Aroona Reejsinghani)

Ingredients:

Masoor Dal: 1 cup (heaped)
Cumin seeds: 1/2 teaspoon
Turmeric powder: A pinch
Ghee (clarified butter): 1 tablespoon
Oil: 1 tablespoon
Asafoetida: A pinch
Garlic paste: 1 teaspoon
Ginger paste: 1 teaspoon
Curry leaves: A sprig
Green chillies: 3-4, slit, lengthwise
Tomato puree: 1/2 cup
Water: 2 1/2 cups
Salt: To taste

Method:

1. Wash the dal. Soak it in water for an hour and drain.
2. In a heavy-bottomed pan put dal, turmeric, salt and water. Cook on high heat, bring to a boil and hower the heat. Cook for another 15-20 minutes, until soft.
3. Remove from heat, mash the dal and set aside.
4. In a pan heat oil and ghee and add cumin seeds and asafoetida. Add ginger and garlic pastes when the cumin seeds stop crackling. Stir fry for a few minutes.
5. Add tomato puree, green chillies, curry leaves. Mix well. Cook for another 5-6 minutes.
6. Add the mashed dal to the above mix. Stir well.
7. Serve hot.

I prefer to have this dal with rice, but I am sure it would go equally well with chapatis and paranthas. The garlic-curry leaves flavour blends in perfectly for this thick lentil soup. If ever there could be a living definition of comfort food, this would be it.

Let the slurping begin!

~ Sury

Remembering Grandma – I

2006-06-16T23:55:00.000+05:30

AMALTAS

It’s been more than fifteen years since I lost her, yet I still miss her cooking. Titti, as my brother and I used to call my maternal grandmother was a remarkable person. A writer with powerful wordsmith skills, she held equal dexterity in other departments—sewing, knitting, and of course cooking. She was also an active social worker. I miss her wisdom, her sunshine presence, her selfless love. And like I said in the beginning, I miss her cooking.

Titti was an innovator. Not only did she excel in preparing traditional recipes to perfection, she also often created splendid wonders out of seemingly ordinary and at times unusual ingredients.

And so it was with her experiment--successful, and oft-repeated--with Amaltas flowers. Whenever I see these resplendent yellow clusters, also known as golden showers, blowing through the hot Delhi summer breeze, I think of Titti. And I think of the delicious fritters she produced from these flowers.

So recently, when the prolific and talented Shilpa tagged me for the ten things I miss the most about my mother’s cooking, I thought of starting these posts about my grandma. You see, since my mother is right here with me, I don’t have to miss her cooking at all! But we both miss Titti’s full-of-love edible creations. Just last week, Ma thought of remembering my grandma by getting a bunch of Amaltas and frying some fritters off them.

Even though I enjoyed helping Titti make these delightful pakoras or fritters, I didn’t know Amaltas is the proud owner of several medicinal properties.

The ancient Indian system of medicine attributes medicinal properties to almost all parts of amaltas tree, but it is the pulp of its fruit which is considered as an excellent laxative. The amaltas’ pulp has a peculiar flavour and is sweet in taste and cold in effect. It also has digestive, anti-inflammatory, anti-pyretic and blood purifying properties. A strong purgative, the root of amaltas is used in various skin diseases, while its leaves form an important part of many ointments and poultices. The bark of the tree, which is known as sumari, has astringent properties. From this link.

Let me share with you all the simple recipe of Titti’s Amaltas fritters then. Since it fits the theme so well, this is also my entry for Kalyn’s Weekend Herb Blogging.

Titti’s Amaltas Fritters

Ingredients:

A bunch of freshly-plucked Amaltas blooms
Gram flour (besan): 2/3 cup
Green chili (chopped): 3-4
Nigella seeds (kalonji): 1/2 teaspoon
Salt, to taste
Water: 1 cup

Method:

1.Make a batter using the above ingredients. Make sure it has a thickish consistency, so you can make small fritters.
2. Heat oil in a wok and deep fry the fritters in batches.
3. Serve hot with chutney or ketchup or just like that.

Nothing special about the fritters, really. Yes, they do taste yummy, but then most fritters do, don’t they? It’s all about the memory for me. I miss Titti, but then she smiles back with the waves of the cascading Amaltas bunches.

~ Sury

Happy Birthday!!!!

2006-06-14T00:31:00.000+05:30

That's right! It's our very own Sury's birthday today! Best wishes blogger buddy, make room for all the yummy stuff. Party!!

Cesar

Pass the dip!

2006-06-09T08:11:00.000+05:30

Well, the date has come. Sports fans (particularly soccer fans) know what I'm talking about. Yup, it's the World Cup. I'm personally a wrestling guy myself (as Sury can testify with an eye-roll or two, lol) but I'm sure there are many among our blogger friends who are really excited about it.

So in the spirit of this big occassion, how about something you can enjoy while sitting in front of your TV. That's right, people. Take out the chips. The dip is on us tonight.

The key word is: avocados. Most of us know them, but then, many do not. A while back I spend and nice chat with Sury talking about this vegetable which for a number of reasons she had not had the chance to taste. Avocados (we call them palta in Peru) are green egg-shaped vegetables. The skin is hard and rough but extremely easy to peel if ripe. Actually you can take the whole skin of one half with one pull. It is soft inside with a very big circular pit in the center, which also comes off really easily. You can eat avocados in salad or you can make a paste with it for a number of preparations.

Which is exactly what we are going to do.

You guessed it. We're about to make guacamole.

So, separate a few minutes before the game. Pick one avocado, cut it in half, remove the skin and pit. Then, in a bowl, squash the avocado halves with a spoon or fork. Keep squashing and stirring until you end up with a uniform paste.

Next, chop up some red peppers, aji, onions, cilantro and add to the mix. Also mix some salt, garlic powder, pepper a dash of sugar and some seasoning powder. Finally squeeze one or two halves of lemon.

Stir everything together until it's all nicely blended.

That's it! And you are in time for the National Anthems.

Enjoy the dip, enjoy the game ;)

Cesar

Bhapa Doi - Bengali Dessert

2006-06-06T19:31:00.000+05:30

So we completed a year. With this blog, I mean. What a fun-filled ride it has been! What better way to celebrate this blog's anniversary than to bring something traditional? And how would it be if that something is also sweet? Good you say? Well, I agree.

Back in the nascent days of this blog (not that it's in any way grown up now), my talented writer friend Lisa once remarked, "Your blog needs more dessert items." Ouch! 'Seems like neither of the two bloggers who write this foodie journal have a well-cultured sweet tooth. But that shouldn't keep us from sharing the goodies with sugar lovers out there. Here's a good way to rectify this lack in this blog year then. With a traditional Bengali dessert.

Bhapa is steamed in Bengali and doi is yogurt. So there you have it--steamed yogurt. This is amongst the simplest of sweet dishes to whip up and easily amongst the yummiest. Don't let the simplicity underestimate its worth for you. In about ten days from now, this very Bengali sweet dish will be on the menu for the official celebrations of Britain's Queen Elizabeth's 80th birthday.

Shall we get to the whipping up process then?

Bhapa Doi (Steamed Yogurt)

Ingredients:

Natural yogurt: 100 grams
Condensed milk: 100 grams
Cardamom (crushed): 2-3

Method:

1. Take around 400 grams of natural yogurt and drain the water off it by hanging it in a fine cloth for at least 6-7 hours. You will get about 1/4 the original amount of yogurt.

2. Put the dehydrated yogurt in a large bowl. Add the condensed milk to it and whip. It should turn into a smooth paste. Take care to see there are no lumps.

3. Add the crushed cardamom and mix once more.

4. Place the curd mix inside a container with a lid.

5. Steam it for 15-20 minutes. I used the pressure cooker without the pressure vent device. I filled the cooker with some water, placed the container inside it, letting the water cover half of it.

6. Take curd mix off heat. Let it cool naturally.

7. Serve in room temperature or cold. You can cut it into pieces like I did or just scoop it up with a spoon and enjoy.

The texture of bhapa doi is cheesecake-like soft. The taste has a hint of yogurt and a creamy richness. Add to that the sweetness and the aroma of cardamom. It's a delight, which, if you bite into once, will pull you again and again.

All yours :)
Sury

P.S. In case I can't post another entry within this week, this is my contribution to Anthony's Curry Mela.

Blowing the Candle

2006-06-01T09:36:00.000+05:30

To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven

Today is the day for this blog to turn a year old. Just like every other purpose under heaven, it’s time, too. Time for us to reminisce some, celebrate some, and wonder ever more. Just what I find myself doing as I grin at the almost absurd, yet exhilarating outcomes of writing this blog.

So what’s been my biggest gain on becoming a food blogger? I learned to cook! Trust me, I am not kidding you. Before I started this blog with Cesar, my appreciation of food was limited to just polishing off food cooked by others. I was never pushed into the kitchen, and I never thought there was anything interesting in the act of cooking. In fact, one of my arguments against cooking used to be this: it takes hours to prepare elaborate meals, but how long does it take for people to chow down? Minutes.

This past year saw my attitude to cooking take a 180-degree turn. I realized how naïve I had been to think of cooking as uninteresting. It is anything but that. As I took baby steps into the land of pots and woks, ladles and serving spoons, spice mixes, and their aromas wafting about me, I knew it was love. Chopping vegetables as the view from the kitchen window—curry leaf and basil plants swinging with the breeze—greeted me with a smile, turned out to be a meditation most satisfying. And least philosophical.

To release raw vegetables into hot oil and see them bursting euphorically, turning colour within the wok was akin to the adventure of finding old, dusty boxes on some abandoned loft as a child. Adding salt, just the right amount, was pulling off a chemistry practical assignment to near perfection. And the feeling inside when others let out that wide, approving grin after tasting one of your creations? Heaven. You bet, cooking has had me entranced into its deliciously magical realm.

Cooking is at once child's play and adult joy.And, cooking done with care is an act of love

- Craig Clairborne

In this past year I bought a new chopping board, a knife, a mortar-pestle set—my playthings for the new sport I discovered. I learned cooking pasta for the first time at home (thank you, Cesar). I learned cooking meats, I learned different ways of chopping onions, I learned making vinaigrettes, I craved to buy an oven (still saving money for that), I surprised family members (“You can really cook, eh?”) and myself, I ran riot in the kitchen. I cooked.

The blog also opened a window of learning for me. I found out the fascinating regional variations of Indian food, I celebrated festivals of different Indian states with food bloggers across the world, I got a glimpse into cultures not known to me, herbs I have never smelled or tasted (thanks, Kalyn!), and edible delights that still remain shrouded in enticing mystery for me. I got the opportunity to join a wonderful food forum comprising members from all the inhabited continents (many thanks, Farid and Ji Young), which in turn has become my encyclopedia for exploring culinary cultures.

What started with two food-crazy friends setting up a little corner to share their eating exploits became a venue enriched by other food lovers—buoyant, knowledgeable, and suave. I have reasons to see this blog as more than just that. It has been a blessing. I have a reason to be grateful to all you wonderful fellow bloggers and readers. You all have been my inspiration. THANK YOU.

Sury

It was about a year ago when my dear friend Sury proposed a fun idea. You see, I met Sury two years ago in a writer’s community and it wasn’t long before we became the best of friends. We would get together on chat and talk about our days and share stuff about our countries, places we visited, people we came across… and, of course, stuff we ate.

For, you see, we just happen to come from two countries with huge culinary traditions. On one side—India in the East, with its different regions and flavors; on the other side—Peru in the “New World,” a place which became literally a food laboratory with the coming of the Spaniards, resulting in the breeding of unique ingredients.

So Sury says to me, how about we do a blog together? It was supposed to be a simple task, just sharing different dishes and traditions, anything to do with food. We’d be getting to know a bit more of each other. Plus, we would be training those writing muscles that need a constant workout.

Last June we published our first post, a little welcome for some of our friends. And the word spread. Suddenly more people were dropping by, reading about Biryani and Causa and Khandvi and Mazamorra and Patishapta pithey and Ají de Gallina. And those people liked what they found. Before we knew it, our number of visitors had multiplied in geometric progression.

Today we have constant visitors, people who come back regularly, drop comments, ask for recipes and share their doubts regarding some ingredient. We’ve been invited and have participated in a few blog events, such as the meme we did for New Year where Sury and I shared our particular favorites.

Did we expect any of this? No we didn’t. This was a little project between two friends. Are we happy with how it turned out? We are delighted. We are elated to have such wonderful visitors to our ‘big little blog’ and we jump at the chance to share even more. Because what we’ve gone through up till now, is just the tip of the iceberg. India and Peru have so much more to offer in the food field. So many things we want —so many things we feel we MUST—share with all of you.

Thank you for being part of our project. We want you to stick around, send us your comments, and share your thoughts.

All the best to all of you, friends, from two opposite sides of the world which have found a way to stay together for a long time to come.

Cesar

Book Cover and Smoked Eggplant

2006-05-26T19:25:00.000+05:30

Hi everyone!

It's good to be back again. Was I really gone? Um, not really; I just served an ultimatum to Cesar that I would be on a posting hiatus until he posted something here. It worked, eh? Just joking Cesar; don't glare at me. :P

To tell you the truth; this self-imposed staying-away wasn't easy. Fellow food bloggers, I have missed you all and your soul-tempting recipes. Now that I am back, be sure to find me find my trail in your blogs.

Yes, I did get a recipe for you all, but first something non-foodie. Please take a look at the cover for my debut book, Making Out in America, slated for release later this year.

My brother did the cover art for the book, so if you have any appreciation or criticism, do let me know. I will pass it on to him.

And now for the foodie stuff. Eggplant/brinjal lovers, get your pen and notepad ready. Here's an interesting version of Baingan Bharta or smoked and mashed eggplant. There is a Bengali touch in this version, and that comes by the way of poppy seed or posto paste. The end result is very similar to the usual bharta, yet, I found this simpler to cook. Let's get cooking then, shall we?

Begun Posto (Smoked Eggplant in Poppy Seeds Paste)

Ingredients:
Eggplant: 1 (round)
Dry red chilies: 2
Poppy seeds (ground into a paste): 2 tablespoons
Fenugreek seeds: 1/4 teaspoon
Garlic (minced): 1 tablespoon
Green chilie (slit lengthwise): 1
Turmeric: A pinch
Water: 1/4 cup
Salt to taste
Oil for cooking

Method:

1. Wash the eggplant. Smoke and roast it.
2. Remove eggplant from fire. Cool, mash and set aside.
3. Heat oil in a wok. Add the red chilies and fry for a minute or so.
4. Add the fenugreek seeds, garlic, and green chilie and stir until the garlic turns brown. Take care not to burn the garlic.
5. Add turmeric and water. Bring to a boil.
6. Lower the heat and add the mashed eggplant.
7. Add the poppy seeds paste and salt. Mix well and stir.
8. Cover and cook eggplant for about 20 minutes. Stir occasionally to prevent eggplant from sticking.
9. Remove from heat.
10. Serve hot.

Like the conventional bharta, this variation is best accompanied by hot paranthas or chapatis. And it's a recipe not likely to leave anyone disappointed. So do try it, and let me know how you liked it!

Sury

A Taste for Lemon

2006-05-21T07:47:00.000+05:30

Howdy fellow bloggers!

It's nice to be around here again. A series of reasons have kept me away from our blog but I'm always keeping ideas in my head waiting to find a few minutes to cme by and share them with you. There is so much to share on Peruvian Food and I'm not doing it justice. Shame on me.

So this time I thought about talking a little about another key ingredient in Peruvian food. I already talked about our aji, and now its time for our very unique lemon. Yup, the noble lemon. You must be thinking, what's so special about lemons? Well, as you may know fruits and vegetables come in all kinds of breeds and families. Most of you might be familiar with the American lemon. You know the type. They are yellow and big (around the size of a tennis ball) and have a sweet-sour flavor.

Peruvian lemon is a bit different. For starters its appearance. Our lemons are deep green and about the size of a golf ball. These lemons are extremely sour and they are the key element in national dishes such as the world famous ceviche (a post on ceviche is coming soon).Sufficee to say, you would never be able to make ceviche with American lemons, you'd just bemissingg out on the whole thing. This is the reason why every tourist who comes hear ismarveledd by this dish. You won't find it anywhere else in the world. Not ours. And the reason is very simple: only Peruvian lemon is strong enough to cook the raw fish ceviche is made with.

International chef Alfonso Pretell, who own one of the greatest fish restaurants in Peru called "Punta Sal" had this to say:

"Our lemon arrived with the (Spanish) conquest, but when it was sowed in our soil it acquired properties which can't be found anywhere else in the world: its flavor, its sourness, the amount of juice, the fine skin, the beautiful color, scent and size."

A bit of trivia: the biggest producer of Peruvian lemon is Tambogrande in Piura (north of Peru) which is responsible for 80% of the lemon consumed nationally.

So now that you know a bit more about this fruit, I can maybe interest you in a delicious dessert.Veryy simple to prepare it makes the most out of our sour friend. So without further delay, here is a littlerecipee for a great pie.

Lemon Pie

Ingredients:

Base:
- 2 cups crushed vanilla crackers
- 1/2 cup melted butter

Filling:
- 1 can condensed milk
- 1/4 cup lemon juice (our lemon ;) )
- 4 egg yolks

Topping:
- 4 egg whites
- 1/2 cup sugar

Preparation:

Mix crushed crackers and butter in a circular pyrex (heat resistant) mold and shape with the aid of the back of a spoon so as too make a "bed". This will be the base of your pie.

Mix all the filling ingredients and pour on top of the bed you just made.

Take this to the oven (350Âº F) for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and let it cool down completely (you should be able to hold the pyrex with your bare hands after it cools down).

Beat the egg whites with the sugar till they reach the "snow point". That is till they become a sort of foam (the volume will easily triple). This is what we call "merengue". Finally spread this "merengue" over the pie and simmer in the oven until the merengue takes a golden hue.

Enjoy and whenever u get to spot Peruvian lemons, grab a bunch!

Cesar

Jihva for Ingredients: Green Mango Chutney

2006-05-02T08:45:00.003+05:30

I admit I have been a late comer to this event. However, I am not squarely to blame for that. Between computer woes, my other blog, and a long power cut (yes, summer has arrived in India), I barely found time for helping Mother prepare my entry and take the pictures. But I am here now, and I promise not to keep you waiting on this one.

As I hopped my way around the blogs that entered the Jihva for Ingredients (JFI) event, hosted by the wonderful Indira of Mahanandi, I found a particular phrase echoing through most of them. It went thus: "When I first heard of JFI..." And so, to carry on with that refrain I have to say when I first heard of this very delicious new food blog event, I immediately thought of the green mango chutney that is a star attraction of any Bengali platter. Tempered with the typical Bengali spice-mix called panch phoron, this is a chutney that is usually served at the end of a meal and one that promises to keep you licking your fingers happily ever after.

Aamer Chatni (Green Mango Chutney)

Ingredients:

Green mangoes: Two, peeled and diced
Sugar: 300 grams
Salt: 3/4 teaspoon
Raisins

For tempering:
Ginger: 1 teaspoon, finlely julienned
Panch phoron (mix seeds of fenugreek, nigella, mustard, fennel, and cumin in equal measure): 1/2 teaspoon
Dry red chili: 1

Method:

1. Put the diced mango, sugar, raisins, and salt in a pressure cooker and cook until 3 whistles.
2. Take the cooker off the heat and let the pressure get released.
3. Heat oil in a wok and add the ingredients for tempering. Fry for a minute or two and immediately mix it with the boiled magoes.
4. Pressure cook again for one more whistle.
5. When the pressure is released, transfer into a container. Let it cool
6. Relish!

The tart taste of mangoes, along with its refreshing scent, when mixed with sugar and spiced with panch phoron, deliver a jelly-like chutney to remember.

Dip your finger ;)

Sury

A special note of thanks: To Anthony for providing the Menu category (see new sidebar feature) code, and to Cesar for painstakingly setting it up on the blog.

Summertime Refreshment

2006-04-29T19:58:00.000+05:30

I am back. To blogging and to Kalyn's Weekend Herb Blogging (WHB) too. And what better way to do that than bring a most delicious summer drink on the table? A drink, that besides being of delectable taste, also packs a punch in terms of nutrition. But first, a little about the fruit that yields this yummy drink.

Found all over the sub-Himalayan forests, and indeed across the whole of India, Bilwa or Bel (Aegle marmelos/Bengal quince) is a most sacred tree for Hindus. Its leaves and fruits form an integral part of the worship of Shiva--a part of the all-important Hindu trinity of gods. A symbol of fertility, all parts of the Bilwa tree contain medicinal properties. This article provides a wealth of information on the tree as well as the fruit.

Talking of the fruit, it too boasts of numerous health benefits. In fresh, half-ripe form, Bel is used as an antidote for treating diarrhea, hepatitis, TB, dysentery, and dyspepsia. Learn more about the fruit's healing power here.

Personally, I am very fond of Bel. It's inexpesive, tasty, and memory-filled. One of my typical summer vacation activities during school years used to be getting a bel broken by someone (the fruit has a hard exterior and needs some mettle for dismantling) and scooping out the soft, sticky pulp with a spoon. I would just have it like that, without any ado. And dare I say, this favourite fruit of Lord Shiva, did indeed taste divine. It has a sweet fragrance and the taste is naturally sweet. The unchweable and bitter seed did pose a bit of hindrance, but I overcame that with my persistent interest in eating the scooped-up pulp.

I can't recall exactly when my rustic manner of eating a disintegrated Bel graduated into relishing this amazing drink made from it. However, the graduation has surely been most rewarding. Let me waste no more time then to introduce you to one of my favourite summertime concoctions.

Beler Pana/Bel Lassi (Bel drink with yogurt) [For a single serving]

Ingredients:

Bel pulp: 2 tablespoons (Scoop out the pulp, mash it, remove the seeds, and strain to get a smooth pulp)
Natural Yogurt: 2 tablespoons
Sugar: 1 1/2 tablespoons
Water: 1 cup
Ice cubes

Method:

1. Take Bel pulp and yogurt in a glass. Add sugar and beat the mixture well. Make sure there aren't any lumps.
2. Add water and mix well.
3. Add the ice cubes.
4. Cheers!

If you can get hold of this fruit, do try this aromatic drink. You are likely to fall for the rich, sweet taste and vow to enjoy it all through the hot weather.

Chill!

Sury

Regarding Comments

2006-04-22T00:05:00.000+05:30

This is to let all our wonderful readers know that the comments settings of this blog doesn't allow us to post anonymous comments. So when you post us a comment, please leave your name in the box given.

In the present scheme of things, the anonymous comments do come to our inbox, but won't get published. When I try to publish them, I get an error message.

From time to time, we keep receiving some wonderful anonymous comments, but unfortunately we can't post them. So please leave your name the next time you comment.

Thanks for everyone's lovely comments in the blog. It's what keeps us going :).

Sury

Citrus, Luscious, Sweet

2006-04-18T21:12:00.000+05:30

For me, that is a combination to die for, when it comes to desserts.

In my previous post I sent out best wishes for the Bengali new year, which we welcomed last Saturday. In keeping with the very Indian tradition of greeting any auspicious or joyous occasion with something sweet, I have brought a dessert as my first blog offering in the new year. As you can guess by now, it's not just sweet though, but also juicy and refreshing.

It is komlalebur payesh or orange-milk pudding I am talking about. I have mentioned in some previous posts that I am not much of a sweet lover. I stand by that statement. This dessert comes in as a bit of exception though. How so? Because it uses my most-loved fruit as a main ingredient! Easy to make, this pudding is zestful, sweet (of course), and aromatic. A perfect finale for summertime meals.

Komlalebur Payesh (Orange-Milk Pudding)

Ingredients:

Oranges: 4-5
Condensed Milk: 1 can
Milk: 2 tablespoons
Sugar: To taste (Since the condensed milk is sweet, I didn't add any extra sugar. You can, as per your taste though)
Cardamom powder: 1/2 teaspoon
Chopped almonds/cashews/pistachios

Method:

1. Peel the oranges. De-skin and de-seed them.
2. Put the orange pulp in a bowl and keep aside.

3. In a separate bowl, pour the condensed milk and the milk. Whisk well. Add more sugar if you want at this stage.
4. Now add the orange pulp and cardamom powder to the milk base and lightly stir it.
5. Put the chopped nuts and refrigerate.
6. Serve chilled.

If you are a sweet lover, unlike me, you will love this. If you are an orange-lover, like me, you will want to eat it again. And again.

And of course the open secret is, since this is amongst the simplest of desserts to make, it won't even hurt to go for repeat performances.

Shall we? Dig in, I mean ;)

Sury

Shubho Nobo Borsho!

2006-04-15T07:45:00.000+05:30

That would be Happy New Year, when translated. Today is the first day of the Bengali calendar, the first month being Boishakh. It is a day when new business enterprises are launched and also when business people open new ledger books, called Haal Khata. Ganesha, the god who bestows good fortune is worshipped and customers are requested to settle their previous dues. Everyone also gets free refreshments in the form of sweets and other savouries from the businessmen.

In fact, it is considered auspicious to start anything new on this day. Youngsters are often encouraged to make pledges to study harder throughout the year to come or hone other skills on this first day of the year.

Poila Boishakh, or the first of Boishakh has a special place in my heart. It's a day when we wear new clothes, feast on good food, and enjoy cultural functions. A day to spread cheer all around. A time when young people pay respect to their elders by touching their feet. The elders in turn shower their blessings to the younger generation.

So here's wishing all of you a wonderful Poila Boishakh and a great year to follow :).

Sury

Note: That image is of a stitch pattern indigenous to Bengal. It's an embroidered quilt known as Nakshi Kantha. The motifs are taken from everyday life in rural Bengal and are done by ordinary womenfolk of the region. These quilts are also an example of thrift as pieces of old cloth are stitched together to produce something new.

¡Muchas Gracias!...

2006-04-10T18:13:00.000+05:30

...dear fellow food bloggers :). Ever since we started this blog, my life has been a feast. And not just virtually. Really. Not only have I been having a wonderful time relshing the delectable treats on offer on food blogs such as yours, I have also had some fantastic culinary explorations by way of cooking your recipes and enjoying the bites for real.

It doesn't hurt to post some of these mouthwatering phenomenas as they turned out in my kitchen. Please forgive me if the photographs don't do justice to the actual dishes. I am terrible with the camera. As for taste, I can give you the testimony of a devoted food lover (yours truly) that these are gems you would like to produce again and again. What's more, they are easy to prepare. With many thanks then, here we go:

1. Cesar's Peruvian Rice Chicken. Prone to experimenting, I added a dash of lemon grass to Cesar's list of ingredients. If you are a chicken lover, you have to try this. Lovely taste of peppers, peas, corn, chili (it's a pity we don't get aji here), all blending with the succulent chicken and delicious rice.

2. Brinjal-Ginger Curry from Indira's Mahanandi. Ever since I saw the recipe and her terrific image, I knew I had to make this. It took me a while to finally get to it, but the result was delightful all the same. The taste of ginger and coriander was new to me in a brinjal preparation, and I did like it a lot. I used green brinjals in place of the violet ones. I don't think that altered the taste too much though, because I am going to make this quite often now. Thanks Indira :)

3. Cesar's Tuna Pasta. This one was long overdue, and when I finally couldn't wait anymore, I went ahead and made it with spirali instead of the bow-tie Cesar suggested. But hey, what's cooking without a little creative license? Since the first time I made it, it's been much in demand at our home. You can tell why ;)

4. Anthony is one person I can always trust for recipes. His confident stance, passion for cooking, and mature taste buds are probably the reason behind that. Well, I must say, this self-proclaimed Maharaja of bachelor cooking doesn't have any reason to be modest. For his recipe delivers 100% to attest to that self proclamation. I tried his Green Moong Khichdi the other night for dinner and was bowled over by its deliciousness. And I didn't even add a dollop of ghee or butter to the hot khichdi. It still tasted finger-licking delish. Definitely something I will come back to often.

5. And to round off this mouthwatering spread, what could be better than a very Indian dessert? A big thank you to Ashwini for sharing the recipe of Lapshi. It turned out rather nice, and I reckon there's quite a bit of nutrition packed in it too. All sweet lovers out there, don't miss this one.

It was a joy to savour all these unknown treats, and I know there will be many more explorations in the times to come. I do feel a little dwarfed in the midst of such seasond kitchen experts as you all, but as long as I can try out such lovely food, I am not complaining. I am just smiling--with a mouthful or three ;)

Sury

Peruvian Dish: Papa a la Huancaína

2006-04-03T04:55:00.000+05:30

Time for another glance at Peruvian food. So far I've given you an idea of some desserts (like Mazamorra, Alfajores or Milk Rice), some Chifa, some Causa, and even some Pisco Sour. Now it's time to get even more traditional.

This time I bring you one of our most famous entreés, typical from the city of Lima, where I'm from. This dish is yet another prove that many Peruvian dishes aren't really difficult to make, but the flavor they pack, that's something else. In this case you basically need our old buddy Ají, some white cheese (we call it "fresh cheese") and our noble potato. Yup, one of our major contributions to the world of food, potatoes in Peru are abundant in countless forms. We can't run this blog, without potatoes having their own post.

The time has come.

Our dish today: Papa a la Huancaína ("Huancayan" Potato)

Papa a la Huancaína is a cold entrée, a key dish of Criollan food (the food from Lima) and one of the most beloved. It is basically cooked potatoes served with a cream made with cheese and aji.

How it all began:

The history behind this dish goes back many years ago, during the construction of a railroad from the capital city Lima to the mountain area. This enormous work was in charge of a number of crews that worked at 2000 m.a.s.l. You can imagine how a project of this magnitude can wear down even the toughest worker.In consequence, people (especially women) from the Huancayan population would approach the crews with meals for lunch. Among these people, one woman stuck out because of the dish she brought: nice potatoes with a delicious cheese-based sauce and some hard-boiled egg pieces. The sauce consisted of crushed cheese mixed with minced "rocoto" (a sort of aji) and diluted with some milk. This particular dish was a hit and crews would expect this woman's arrival, calling out:

"A que hora llega la papa de la Huancaína" (What time does the Huancayan's potato arrive?)

With time, the recipe evolved. Rocoto was changed for ají and oil began to be included in the preparation. With the advance of technology, the ingredients began to be mixed with the aid of blenders, in contrast to the original mortars. However, one thing did not change, and that was the uniqueness of this dish.

The following is a simple recipe for Papa a la Huancaína:

Ingredients:

1 kg potatoes
4 green ají
1 tbsp. sugar
500 gr. fresh cheese
1 cup milk
3 lemons
2 eggs
oil
lettuce leaves
parsley
salt and pepper
10 olives

Preparation:

Boil the aji (no seeds) with sugar; remove after boiling and then blend with egg-yolks, cheese, milk, lemon and oil. Add salt. Use this sauce over previously cooked (boiled) potatoes over a bed of lettuce leaves. Decorate with half a hard-boiled egg and olives.

Simple, huh? Give it a try, and when you do, let us know how it went.

Enjoy!

Cesar

Weekend Herb Blogging: Red Beet

2006-03-25T21:02:00.000+05:30

I am returning to Weekend Herb Blogging (WHB), hosted by Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen, after a long while. This is one event I always feel glad to attend, and even when I can't participate, I make sure to read the entries that come in week after week. Thanks to Kalyn for creating a platform that helps us get acquainted with an amazing array of fruits, vegetables and herbs from across the globe.

My entry for this week is the red delight called beet. While researching for my post, I came across some wonderful facts about this root. In ancient times, Romans used it to cure fever and constipation, besides other diseases. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, advocated the use of beet leaves as a binding for wounds.

Among the sweetest of vegetables, beetroot has considerable amounts of Vitamin C in the root area, while the upper portion contains a good amount of Vitamin A. The health benefits of beet include protection against heart disease, congenital defects and certain types of cancer, mainly colon cancer. More information on this power-packed root can be found here.

My recipe using beetroot is a yummy snack called beet chops. This is similar to fish chop I blogged about earlier, except for the stuffing, which, as you can guess, is made of beet. Well, that's the main ingredient. I also used some carrots in my recipe. This is a popular snack item of Bengali cuisine and tastes delish. Let's get down to it then?

Beet Chop:

Ingredients:

Beet: 2-3 big, grated
Carrot: 2 big, grated
Bay leaves: 2
Tomato: 2, pureed
Garam masala powder (Dry grounded cardamom, cloves and cinnamon): ½ tsp
Cumin seeds: ½ tsp
Ghee (clarified butter): 1 tsp
Raisins, cashew nuts
Salt to taste
Oil for frying
And a paste of:
2 onions
1 inch ginger block
6-8 garlic cloves

For outer cover:
Potatoes: 4-5 big, boiled, mashed
Bread slices: 3-4
Egg: 1
Bread crumbs
Salt, pepper

Method:

The Stuffing:

1. Heat oil in a wok and add the cumin seeds and bay leaves.
2. Add the onion-ginger-garlic paste and garam masala powder. Stir a bit.
3. When the masala starts drying, add the grated beet and carrot. Stir well. Add salt.
4. Lower heat, cover and cook for 15-20 minutes or until the water starts drying.
5. Remove cover, stir constantly, and add the ghee. Let the mix dry completely.
6. Add the raisins and cashew nuts and mix well.

Your stuffing is ready. Remove from heat and let it cool.

Making the Chop:

1. Mix the mashed potatoes, bread slices, salt and pepper. Add an egg and bind into a dough.
2. Take a roundel of the dough and make a cavity.
3. Fill the cavity with the stuffing and seal the edges.
4. Shape into a chop (we made round ones; you can give it an oval shape too, or make it flatter, if you like).
5. Roll the chop over bread crumbs and deep fry them in batches.
6. Serve hot with onion rings and tomatoes or sauces/chutneys of your choice.

The chop is extremely delicious what with the soft and sweet texture of the beet alongside the savoury taste of potato, bread and salt. It's one of my favourite snacks, and I hope you will savour it too. Enjoy!

Sury

Weekend with Prawns

2006-03-21T20:40:00.000+05:30

Yes, yes, I know it’s Tuesday. But for a seasoned procrastinator like me, posting a weekend report two days later is most expected (insert blush icon here). However, when the report itself is tasty, we can afford to overlook the details, can’t we?

So last weekend saw me working with prawns in the kitchen. For two completely different end products belonging to different cuisines. The first was Fettuccine pasta with prawns and a simple olive oil sauce. The credit for this one goes to Cesar. In fact, I should give him the credit for introducing me to pasta in the first place. In cooking terms that is. I had tasted pasta in restaurants on a few occasions, but making it at home looked like a distant possibility. Until Cesar came along to share some of his home-grown expertise that is.

Anyhow, getting back to the weekend track, this easy-to-make pasta dish tastes surprisingly nice and is amongst the healthiest. Although I did make a few changes to suit my convenience, the essence of it was retained because of the main ingredient; you guessed it right—prawn. Let me share the original recipe with you first.

Shrimp Fettuccine:

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons olive oil
2 tbsp. choped parsley
1 teaspoon grated lemon skin
1/2 kg fettuccine
3 minced garlic cloves
1/4 cup white wine
Salt & pepper
1/2 kg shrimp

Method:

1. In a bowl mix two tbsp oil with parsley, lemon skin, salt & pepper.
2. Boil the fettuccine (in water with salt) and cook till al dente.
3. Join the pasta with the sauce from step 1 and put aside
4. In high temperature, heat up the rest of the oil and fry the shrimps for a minute. Then add garlic and heat for another minute.
5. Add white wine and cook, always stirring, for another 40 secs
6. Pour this on the fettuccine (put aside on step 3), mix well and serve immediately.

Cesar’s Tips:
• If you want a stronger flavor, you can add some basil leaves (no stems) during the final seconds of cooking the shrimp. Mix with the pasta and serve.
• For a better flavor, you can use freshly-crushed pepper.

My tweaks:

I used bigger-sized prawns, cut into smaller pieces. I also replaced parsley with fresh mint and coriander leaves. The taste was superb! And finally, I used vinegar in place of white wine. The last tweak is probably a travesty of the original recipe, but I didn’t want the non-availability of white wine to be a reason for staying away from relishing this dish indefinitely.

The end result was yummy to say the least. This is easily going to rate as one of my favourite pasta recipes. So do give it a try!

The other prawn delight I cooked over the weekend was Prawns Jalfrezi. I have been meaning to make this ever since I saw this post on VKN’s blog. I followed his instructions diligently, barring the addition of soya sauce. As reliable as VKN’s recipes are, this one was a hit at our home. Thanks, VKN!

I sure look forward to many more such delicious weekends. Don’t you? :P

Sury

Springtime Riot aka Holi

2006-03-16T15:12:00.000+05:30

Image courtesy: www.dialindia.com

If you are born in India and grow up here, you inevitably have a tough yet fun time keeping pace with festivals. There’s a saying in Bengali, “Baro mashe taro parban,” which literally translates to “Thirteen festivals in twelve months.” It’s a figurative way to say there are more festivals in this land than there are months in the calendar or seasons in the air.

And one of the wildest and most loved Indian festivals is Holi, which ushers in the spring season. If you didn’t know already, the highlight of this festival is colours. Colours that follow no disciplinary limits, no aesthetic codes, no regional, caste, class or religious barriers. Colours that you get smeared with wildly, whether or not you enjoy being splashed so. For on this one day, everything is allowed. And just in case you twitched your eyebrows to express resentment at such ribald behaviour, you will get a fresh dose of smearing with the slogan “bura na mano, holi hai!” (Don’t mind, it’s holi.) Traditionally, the festival is celebrated on the day after the full moon in March every year.

The Folklore:

Like most Indian festivals, Holi has its own set of legends, and traditions born out of these are followed to this day. Of the many holi stories, two are most popular.

The first one surrounds the myth of the demon king Hiranyakashyap and his son Prahlad. According to the legend, the demon king had commanded all his subjects to worship him and no one else. However, his own son, Parhlad defied him and turned an ardent devotee of Lord Vishnu (the sustainer in the Hindu trinity).

Unable to make his son follow his diktat, Hiranyakashyap made repeated attempts to kill Prahlad. When none of them worked, he turned to his sister Holika. She had been blessed with a boon that made her body immune to fire. So the ploy hatched by the demon king and his sister saw Holika entering a burning pyre with Prahlad on her lap.

However, what Holika overlooked in her attempt to kill her nephew was that the boon worked only when she entered fire alone, not with someone. Prahlad on the other hand, kept chanting Vishnu’s name as the flames raged on. In the end, Holika was burnt to ashes while Prahlad came out unscathed.

To this day, effigies of Holika are burned to symbolize the victory of good over evil. Huge bonfires are lit and in some regions of India, people even offer harvest produce to the fire.

The second folklore revolves around the eternal romance of Lord Krishna and his beloved Radha. As a child, Krishna was known for his mischief. One day, he went to his mother Yashoda and complained how nature had been unfair in making him dark and Radha so fair. To humour the young Krishna, Yashoda told him to go and smear Radha’s face with colour. And so, armed with the license of motherly lenience, Krishna promptly went and applied colour on Radha’s face so as to make her like himself. Krishna’s prank of splashing Radha and her girlfriends with pichkaris (water jets) caught on the fancy of local people and is now a full-fledged Holi tradition. Children are particularly fond of the pichkaris and they come in every shape and colour.

Image courtesy: www.masters-gallery.com

The Frolick:

My earliest memories of Holi are filling up balloons with coloured water and hurling them at my friends. Being a dimwit, I was the one who came drenched after the play. As for my water balloons, well, my missiles almost always missed the mark and left potential victims unblemished. Sigh. This unfair victimization could be one reason, I started disliking Holi as I grew up. One particular year took my distaste to a new height. That year we went to one of our relatives houses to play Holi. Along with colours, dry and wet, they smeared a weird concoction all over my head—colours mixed with anti-lice oil! As someone who has long hair that takes ages to be rid of colour, I can tell you, that wasn’t nice. Not nice at all.

As un-holi as I have grown up to be (I usually keep in hiding inside my room, to the best of my ability), it amuses me no end to see my brother on Holi every year. He loves playing it with his equally wild friends. He would typically leave the house in the morning donning a spotless white t-shirt. By evening, when he makes a return, you won’t recognize him, for he turns into a ghostly spectacle. The spotless white gets transformed into a multicoloured, disfigured, beyond-abstract piece of art.

The Food:

Holi is big in North India. It’s one of the two biggest festivals in fact (the other one is Diwali). Suffices to say, food forms an important part of the festivities. Traditionally, bhang an intoxicating herb, extracted from the leaves and buds of cannabis, takes the lead in edible preparations. It is consumed in different ways, all equally potent—in a milky-nutty drink called thandai, fried into fritters, and made into chewy little balls called golees.

Other traditional Holi foods include puran poli (sweet stuffed pancake), kanji ke vade (lentil patties), gujia (sweet stuffed pastries), and malpua (fried pancakes dipped into sugar syrup).

I cooked a rare non-veg dish that manages to sneak into the above list. It was easy to make and tasted rather nice too.

Meat Kofta Curry:

Ingredients:

For kofta or meatballs:

Minced Mutton: 400 gms
Ginger-garlic paste: 1 tsp
Coriander leaves: 1 tsp (finely chopped)
Mint leaves: ½ tsp (finely chopped)
Garam Masala: ½ tsp
Black pepper powder: ½ tsp
Salt

For Curry:

Onions: 2, chopped
Bay leaves: 2
Ginger-garlic paste: 1 tsp
Tomato puree: 1 tbsp
Turmeric: A pinch
Garam masala: ½ tsp
Salt

Method:

1. Mix the minced meat with the other ingredients for the kofta and keep aside.
2. Heat oil in a wok and fry the onions till light brown.
3. Add the bay leaves, ginger-garlic paste, tomato puree, turmeric and salt. Fry well.
4. Add two glasses of water (or less if you want a thicker gravy) to the wok and bring it to a boil.
5. Make balls out of the minced meat mixture and start dropping them into the gravy.
6. Turn the flame low, cover and allow cooking until the koftas are done.
7. Add a pinch of garam masala just before removing from heat.
8. Serve with hot plain rice or chapatti/parantha.

This was reasonably easy to make and tasted rather nice. I will be making it more often. I hope you do too :)

Sury

HOLI Hai!

2006-03-15T13:06:00.000+05:30

We wish all our readers a fun-filled and vibrant Holi! Splash!!!

Chicken Aji

2006-03-08T19:09:00.000+05:30

Hello to all our fellow bloggers/readers!

It's been a while since Sury and I posted something. A number of things showed up for both of us, none of them bad. Quite the contrary, some happy events but very demanding and time consuming. However here we are, back to the kitchen with a glimpse at our faraway (but not for that distant) cultures.

This time, in bringing you a variation of yet another typical dish from my city Lima. This one is a favorite and a key piece in Criollan Food. It's name is Ají de Gallina, which could translate to Chicken Ají.

The history of Ají de Gallina could be traced back to the French Revolution (1789) which brought in Europe the bloom of new forms of politics, economics and, of course, traditions; new ways of thinking, new spiritual tendencias and certainly new cooking. Many of the noblemen's cooks lost their jobs after the Revolution and so decided to travel to the New World, bringing to this side of the world new recipes and techniques. These cooks were hired by the Criollan class as a way of demonstrating their wealth to the Spanish.

One of these techniques consisted in the "shredding" of meats (before that meat was usually served in large pieces, something which dated back to Inca times). Hen went through this process and served in a different way which included a concoction of chopped almonds, nuts and water that was mixed with these hen threads and later cooked with a sauce of garlic, pepper and onions. These would be the early beginings of our Ají de Gallina.

Ají de Gallina consists of creating a sort of spicy paste. White bread (the kind you make toast with) soaked in milk is what gives the paste it's thickness and texture. Ají is later added to become the key flavor ingredient. On the other side you have a boiled chicken breast (this dish uses only the breast) which you later have to "shred", that is you start pulling thin threads with your hand, bit by bit until you end up with a plate of chicken threads. Ají de Gallina is usually served over a bed of potatos, with rice on the side and decorated with hard-boiled egg wedges and a black olive.

The recipe I'm bringing today is a variation (one of many). It includes pecans for a slighter sweeter, more present, flavor.

So here we go:

Ingredients (for 4):

3 slices of white bread
3/4 cup milk
1 chicken breast
2 sticks of celery
1 laurel leaf
3 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 tbsp. minced garlic
1 chopped onion
5 tbsp. minced Green Ají
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
5 tbsp. chopped pecans
4 cooked yellow potatoes*
2 hard-boiled eggs
4 black olives
1 tbsp. chopped parsley
salt & pepper

* A whole chapter (a whole book actually) could be written about potatoes in Peru. Potatoes were one of our biggest contribution to the world and the available varieties are endless. It might be really difficult to get yellow potatoes, I guess you can try to find them, we've been exporting after all. If not you can use another type.

Preparation:

1. Soak the bread in the milk for a few hours (all morning) then blend (with a blender, if possible).
2. Cook the chicken breast by boiling it in water with the celery sticks, laurel leaf, and salt.
3. Let the chicken cool down inside it's broth. When it's cold, shred it by pulling thin threads until all the breast is shredded. Keep the broth!
4. Heat the oil in a skillet and add the minced garlic and onion.
5. After 5 minutes add ají.
6. Cook for 2 more minutes and add the blended bread. Add salt and pepper.
7. Little by little, pour one cup of broth you saved. If you notice the mix too thick, add more broth. Cook for a few minutes, always stirring.
8. Add the chicken threads, parmesan and pecans. Take out of the heat for a while so the ingredients can integrate themselves.
9. Serve over potato slices. Decorate with hard-boiled egg wedges and olives.
10. You can sprinkle some chopped parsley on top.

Try it and let us know how it went :)

Next time I will talk a bit more about potatoes and bring another key dish in Criollan Food: Papa a la huancaína.

Enjoy!

Cesar

Cooking for Love...And a bit of Celebration

2006-02-23T22:31:00.000+05:30

First up, a bit of bragging. This may not be the relevant space to discuss it, but I can hardly restrain myself from sharing the good news with the readers of this blog. I am on my way to becoming a published writer. :P. My debut book, titled Making Out in America, is slated for release in the coming few months. The book happened as a result of my personal experiences with American slang and colloquialisms at an online writing chat room. My publisher, Cavern Press was so nice as to provide me with a website . It’s my joy to share it with you.

So that was the celebration part. As for love, well it’s the singular element that governs the entire universe. Isn’t it love to see a fresh new morning everyday; isn’t it love to see squirrels jumping jolly, scurrying for nuts in the park; isn’t it love to see an infant smile without any apparent reason; isn’t it love to see your cat throwing mock tantrums; isn’t it love to see seasons change so seamlessly, spring after winter, summer after spring, refreshing monsoon showers after the searing summer heat?

Love can also be silly, impulsive, impractical. For it was the love of food that led Cesar and me to start this blog. We had no readers apart from each other back then, but we had no remorse over that either. Because silly is a whole lot of fun! It is also better any day than serious and somber.

So when I saw love to be Meena’s theme for From My Rasoi (FMR) this month, I knew what I had to cook. It had to be something my family members loved to eat; it also had to be something my blog partner would pounce upon, given the opportunity. Of the numerous treats I have shared with Cesar virtually, he voted most spontaneously and vigorously for two things—momos and biryani. The second choice is a family favourite (tell me one non-vegetarian who doesn’t like biryani) and hence it wasn’t tough to decide my entry for this month’s lovable FMR event.

This is the first time I was attempting biryani. Also the first time I was going to make Mirchi ka Salan with it—the uniquely Hyderabadi spicy concoction that is such an integral accompaniment to biryani in the southern region.

I had made preparations (at least mentally) for cooking this combination, days in advance. For this, I fished out the recipe that looked authentic (in terms of the spice blend and the cooking method). I must say the result was excellent. For your perusal, this is the link.

And this is what the salan looked like:

For the biryani, since I am such a greenhorn to the kitchen premises, I looked for an easily manageable recipe. After going through a lot of online ones, I finally settled for one that was in the catalogue of the new pressure cooker we recently bought! It looked pretty doable for my liking, and even though biryani could be daunting even to seasoned practitioners, I was confident of dishing out decent-tasting mutton-rice preparation.

And so I followed to recipe to the hilt. I marinated the mutton with all of these for four hours: Beaten curd, ginger-garlic paste, cumin powder, garam masala, lime juice, chopped tomatoes, caramelized onion, chopped green chillies, and salt.

4 hours later:

Took the mutton out, lightly fried some sliced potatoes, and added to the mutton mix.

Next I put the cooker on heat, boiled water and added whole green cardamoms, cinnamon, cloves, a bayleaf and the rice to it. Brought it to full pressure on high heat and removed from fire immediately. Drained it into a colander and cleaned the cooker, wiping it dry. This was the point when my mother warned me that I should not cook the rice on full pressure. I defied her. And suffered. Coming to that later…

It was time for the mutton. I heated oil and ghee in the cooker and put the marinated mutton mix. Stirred it for a while and added a little water. Removed it from heat, placed the ¾ cooked rice even over the meat, added saffron-milk and closed the lid. Now I brought this to full pressure on high heat and cooked it for another 10 minutes on low heat.

Opened cooker and yup, my mother’s heeding glared at me. The rice was overcooked, appearing more like khichri than biryani. My day-long venture in the kitchen had met with a mini disaster. But wait! The taste was brilliant (no credit to me, the spices did the trick) and it was very well received at home.

So does that count as a legitimate entry? I hope so. Even if the rice grains were not well apart as is must for true biryani, the preparation had love. All those hours I spent in the kitchen were so joyful, just because this was going to be a hearty treat—a treat from the heart. And what if the end result wasn’t picture perfect? Ultimately, cooking for love is cooking with love. And in that respect, I did a good job.

With love :)

Sury

India Calling

2006-02-19T15:05:00.000+05:30

Foodie events hosted by Indian bloggers

Let me start with a disclaimer. I know this is an Indo-Peruvian blog and thus not restricted to things Indian. But I write this post with the kind approval of Cesar. At the same time, we are also shouting out to other food bloggers from South America, if there are any. Do send us your URL; we will be more than happy to link you and spread the word!

Over the past few months of blogging, I have been hooked to the wide array of Indian food blogs out there. The variety these blogs bring is as diverse as the landscape and indeed foodscape of India itself. I have learned tremendously from all these wonderful journals, and the journey continues.

So this is just to give a heads up to fellow food bloggers about events hosted by Indian food bloggers. These make for a great way to learn about Indian cuisine and are also fun to take part in. So what are we waiting for? Let’s begin the show right away.

1. From My Rasoi: Hosted by Meenakshi, whose blog Hooked on Heat recently won the award for Best New Indie Blog (Yay, Meena!), this is a theme-based event held every month. The first two events garnered a huge response and the excitement just keeps growing with each new episode. There are still a few days left for you to send in entries for this month’s episode. For details, hop over to Meena’s blog here .

2. Virtual Cooking Competition: None other than the Chef de Cuisine of the immensely popular blog My Dhaba brings this quarterly contest for food bloggers from the world over. The theme for the first contest is Appetizers (any cuisine). Deadline is March 31, so cook up your best entry. Find details here .

3. Curry Mela: And finally, from the self-proclaimed (and Sury-endorsed) Maharaja of bachelor cooking, Anthony , comes this veritable weekend feast. In this, Anthony painstakingly presents a mouthwatering line-up of recipes and entries he selects from Indian and International blogs through the week. He is always on the lookout for tempting recipes, so if you come across one while hopping blogs, please send him the link. Curry Mela is a round-up no food lover would like to miss. Go check it out now!

Here’s to a joyous continuation of these super events with the hope for more to join in the show. Cheers!

Sury

Celebrating Sweetness

2006-02-17T20:01:00.000+05:30

Recently I wrote about how the harvest of rice in Bengal brings with itself celebrations involving some very special delicacies, a lot of them for the sweet-tooth prone. One of these mouth-watering sweet dishes is this dessert made with sweet potato.

The filling is more or less the same as the one used for patishapta pithey . A subtle difference in the outer coating and the style of cooking, and you have a completely new dessert, one that can give some stiff competition to gulab jamoon even (try it and you will trust me).

So how about we get to the brass-tacks?

Ranga Alur Puli (Sweet potato dessert)

Ingredients:

For Puli Dough:

Sweet potatoes: 500 gms
Flour: 1 ½ tablespoons

For Stuffing:

Milk: ½ litre
Sugar: 1 tablespoon
Raisins
Coconut: ½ (grated)
Cardamom (green): 2-3

For Syrup:

Sugar: 1 cup
Water: 1 cup

Oil for frying

Method:

The Puli Dough:

Wash the potatoes and boil them until soft. Peel and mash. Add the flour and knead into dough. Keep aside.

The Stuffing:

Bring the milk to a boil by adding a tablespoon of sugar in it. When the milk starts to thicken, add the coconut and the raisins and condense it to a thick, sticky consistency. Remove from head and add crushed cardamoms. Let it cool.
The Syrup:

Add a cup of sugar to a cup of water and bring this to a boil. The syrup should be of medium consistency. Let it cool.

Making the pulis:

1. Take a small portion of the dough in your hands and flatten it. Make a cavity in the centre and fill it with a little of the stuffing.
2. Seal the edges of the dough and give it the shape of a puli (see image). Repeat with the rest of the dough.
3. Heat a lot of oil in a wok and deep fry the pulis in batches.
4. Remove from oil as pulis start browning.
5. Dip the pulis into the syrup carefully, one by one.
6. Serve hot or cold.

Not born with a sweet tooth, I don’t enjoy sweet potatoes…except for this sweet! This is truly a joy—the soft outer cover of potatoes and the creamy filling mesmerizing your gastronomic senses.

Prove me wrong! :P

Sury

Doi Machh/Fish curry in yogurt sauce

2006-02-10T14:15:00.000+05:30

It’s been a while since I have blogged about fish. That’s a shame for a non-vegetarian whose primary affinity is with fish. So here’s a post to make amends. Doi machh or curd fish is a delicacy in Bengal and its surrounding eastern states. It’s fairly easy to make and tastes yummy--mostly tart, with a hint of sweet.

The best part about this fish curry is its health value. In the recipe I am going to share with you, the fish isn’t fried and thus retains its nutrients. And although it is simple to cook, the end product is a creamy, delicious curry; just the perfect accompaniment to freshly made steamed rice.

Here goes:

Doi Machh/Curd Fish

Ingredients:

Fish: 1 kg, cut into pieces
Plain yogurt (curd): 500 gms
Onions- 2, big
Garlic: 8-10 cloves
Ginger: 1 small block
Sugar: ¾ teaspoon
Turmeric: ½ teaspoon
Cumin seeds: ½ teaspoon
Raisins
Garam Masala powder (Dry grind green cardamoms, cloves, and cinnamon): 1 teaspoon
Bay leaves: 2
Cinnamon sticks: 2
Cloves: 3-4
Cardamom (green): 4-5
Dry red chillies: 2
Salt
Oil

Method:

1. Wash the fish pieces and keep aside.
2. Grind the onions, garlic, and ginger into a fine paste.
3. Beat the yogurt well. Add the onion-garlic-ginger paste, turmeric powder, red chillies and raisins to it.
4. Marinate the fish in the yogurt mix for about 15-20 minutes.
5. Heat oil in a wok. Add the cumin seeds, bay leaves, cloves, cardamoms, and cinnamon sticks.
6. Add the marinated fish to the oil. Add the sugar and salt to taste.
7. Stir a bit. Cover and cook for about 10-15 minutes.
8. Remove cover and check if the fish is tender.
9. Add the garam masala powder. Stir lightly, taking care not to break the fish pieces. Turn off the heat.
10. Serve with hot, plain rice!

This is one of my favourite fish curries and I can assure all fish lovers they will relish every bite of it. Check out for yourself :)

Sury

Happy Pisco Sour Day!!

2006-02-03T22:53:00.000+05:30

February 4th is a special day for us Peruvians and since it has to do with something edible I can't let the opportunity pass to share with all of you. On this date we celebrate Pisco Sour Day.

Pisco is our national liquor, a source of pride for us Peruvians. Peru is a very important producer of liquor, especially wine and of course Pisco. We have very big and important vineyards in Ica (south of Lima where I live) and our Pisco has become internationally recognized.

It hasn't been easy for us, Pisco was in the middle of a tug of war with a neighbor country who claimed it belonged to them. Fortunately things were set straight and everyone now knows... Pisco is Peruvian!!

Pisco is the base of our most famous drink, Pisco Sour. No foreigner who visits Peru can leave without tasting this unique lemony beverage, and it is even given as a welcome drink in many of our finest restaurants. I cannot let the day go by without sharing with all of you the Pisco Sour recipe. You will of course need Pisco, which might be difficult to get, but do look for it. Also this drink uses our lemons, not the big American lemons, these are smaller (the size of table tennis balls) and much more sour.

Let's get to it!

Ingredients:

3 parts of Pisco
2 parts of sugar
1 part of lemon juice
1 egg white
Ice
Cinnamon

Preparation:

Mix Pisco with sugar and lemon juice in a blender, then add the egg white and ice until the level reaches 3/4 of the blender's flask and blend.

That's it! Serve it and sprinkle a little cinammon on top.

Say, Happy Pisco Day! and bottoms up :)

Enjoy!

Cesar

Keeping the Embers Burning

2006-02-01T09:34:00.000+05:30

Anthony tagged me for a common cold remedy meme. Glad to share my tips with you all. They are simple, but effective.

By Indian tropical standards, it gets pretty cold in New Delhi. This is a region marked by extremes of weather--both hot and cold. So every winter, almost all Delhiites become suceptible to those cold attacks. And wisdom says medication helps just as much as the absence of it. With medication your cold will abate in a week; without it, in seven days.

Me, I am healthy otherwise (a bit too healthy perhaps, lol) and the immune system seems just fine to dodge most ailments. But the cold grips me too once in a while, and you guessed it right, I don't enjoy that.

So with the onset of winter this season, I was targetted by the cold monster one morning. When the tissues started pershing in dozens, I knew it was time to enter the combat zone. I decided to chase the cold away in a day; I couldn't bear it longer than that. So besides some chicken soup, this is what I had at regular intervals during the day:

Hot Lemonade with crushed ginger and pepper

In a glass of lukewarm water, add the juice of half a lime, some crushed ginger and freshly crushed black pepper. Add sugar to your liking and a pinch of salt. Drink 3-4 times in the day.

What actually happens when we get cold attacks is that the immune system becomes weaker and this in turn disturbs the body's balance. So the best solution is to consume things that generate heat. Or as Ayurveda says, keeping the body's fire burning. I make use of the ginger root and black pepper for this. And for strengthening my immune system, I rely on Vitamin C coming from the Citrus.

And how can I do without a cup of hot adrak (ginger in Hindi) chai? Cold or no cold, this is welcome all winter. This is how I make my cup of

Ginger tea

Put some crushed ginger into a cup of water, with 3-4 teaspoons milk added to it. Bring this to a boil. Turn off heat and put about a teaspoon of tea leaves. Cover the teapot and let the tea leaves brew for around 4-5 minutes. Now strain into a cup and add sugar.

Sip hot!

Believe me, my cold was gone the next morning. The box of tissues still has a good many left in it ;)

Sury

PS: After writing this post, I forgot I also had to tag five more bloggers. So here we go: Ashwini , Lulu , Paz , Rowena , and Deccanheffalump . Let's beat the cold monster together!

COMMENT MODERATION ENABLED

2006-01-28T19:59:00.000+05:30

Over the past 72 hours I have had enough of online poker, casino and pharmacy spamming the comment section of this blog. I know it would be futile to suggest to the spammers to get a life, so I have to perforce go for the only other option--enabling the comment moderation feature.

This is just to let all our wonderful readers know to please continue posting your comments and not fret if they don't show up immediately :P. They eventually will and they are always precious to us.

So please don't stop your compliments and castigations :)

Sury

Peas...fully :)

2006-01-25T14:57:00.000+05:30

Let me admit right in the beginning (and I fear crucifixion for this), I was never an ardent pea admirer. I do realize peas are very popular among a lot of food lovers, but I never found them that special. I remember when as children my brother and I used to help Ma shell out peas, Dada (my brother) would always keep popping them into his mouth, unable to resist the temptation. I imitated him a couple of times and wondered why he found them so tasty; I never did.

At the same time, I don’t abhor peas either. This versatile green grain often found its way into a whole range of foods—from curries, to pulao, salads, and I never minded eating it. But mostly, I remained indifferent to its existence and didn’t think any more of it than a mere side (if I may dare say that) ingredient.

However, there are a couple of things we make with this green pod that have no substitute at all. And those bowl me over as well. These are peas parantha and peas kachori—two delightful wonders to be had in the winters. So it is with great joy that I bring motorshutir (peas in Bangla) kachuri or peas kachori for this month’s From My Rasoi theme—breakfast. . The event, hosted by the talented Meena of Hooked on Heat has already proved to be scrumptious affair.

And so here is something for a comfort breakfast, preferably to be savoured on a lazy weekend morning.

Motorshutir Kachuri/Peas Kachori

Ingredients:

For filling:

Peas: 500 gms
Ginger: 25 gms
Green chilli: 2-3
Cumin seeds: 1 teaspoon
Asafoetida (hing) powder: A pinch
Salt
Oil: 1 tablespoon

For Kachori (pancake) dough:

Flour: 1 kg
Baking powder: ½ teaspoon
Salt
Oil: 2 tablespoons

Oil for frying kachoris

Method:

Step I: The filling:

1. Shell out the peas or use frozen ones and wash them.
2. Add some salt, chopped ginger, chopped green chillies to the peas and blend into a fine paste. Add a little water if required.
3. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a skillet and drop the cumin seeds and asafoetida (hing) powder.
4. When the cumin seeds begin to splutter, add the peas paste and keep stirring, until the water dries out and the oil starts separating.
5. Keep aside and let it cool.

Step II: The kachori dough:

1. Sift flour into a bowl. Add the baking powder, a little salt, and two tablespoons of oil in it. Mix well.
2. Add water and knead into a tight dough of medium consistency (dough should be neither too soft nor too hard).

The grand finale: Making the kachoris:

1. Make small balls from the dough. Roll each ball within your palms, make a cavity and fill it with a teaspoon of the filling.
2. Close the ball and smoothen it by rolling within the palms.
3. Using a rolling pin, roll the balls out into small pancakes.
4. Deep fry until golden brown
5. Serve hot with any chutney/pickle.

Perfect comfort food for a winter morning. And if there’s a cup of hot chai to accompany it, that would be perfection perfected, no?

Take a bite!

Sury

Celebrating Harvest

2006-01-18T00:14:00.000+05:30

January must be special. Not only does it herald a new year as per the Western calendar, it also brings cheer on the faces of farmers across many Indian states, mostly coastal. For this is the harvest season for paddy. In the middle of the month, farming communities in many states along India’s coastline celebrate the fruits of their labour, quite literally. These include states from Eastern, Western, and Southern India.

I have my roots in the Eastern Indian state of Bengal, and although I was born and bred in a city, I grew up hearing tales from my grandma about how she and her siblings would celebrate poush sankranti (as the festival is known in Bengal). She would tell me of the special types of desserts, called pithey and puli in Bengali, the older womenfolk of the house prepared to celebrate sankranti. The same desserts which titti (that’s what I used to call my granny) made with loving care for us. Patishapta pithey (rolled pancake stuffed with milk and coconut filling), shajer pithey (pancake steamed in moulds), gokul pithey (coconut pastry, dipped in flour, fried and dipped in sugar syrup), ranga alur puli (fried sweet potato dessert) , muger puli (made of moong dal or yellow moong lentil)…Notably, most of the preparations use the harvest produce—rice, coconut, date palm juice and jaggery.

Food is vital to our sustenance, and a good harvest is always reason for joyous celebrations. And so even in urban India, and indeed in Indian households across the world, the traditions are still honoured and these delicious specialty sankranti items prepared with reverence and joy.

Patishapta pithey is a personal favourite of mine and I am glad I can share the recipe with you. It does require a bit of home grown skill, but don’t let that daunt you. With a bit of practice and a lot of passion, you can master the craft of making this wonderful sweet dish.

Patishapta pithey

Ingredients:

I For patishapta batter:

Flour: 4 cups
Rice flour: 2 cups
Milk: ½ litre
Sugar: ½ cup

II For Filling:

Milk 1 litre
Coconut: 1 freshly grated
Sugar: 4-5 tablespoons
Raisins

To make the filling:

Bring the milk to boil. Add the sugar and coconut and reduce the milk to about one fourth the quantity. Now add the raisins and stir some. Keep aside for cooling. The filling should be dry.

Method:

1. Make a batter using ingredients of I. The batter should be smooth, of an even consistency, neither too thick nor too thin.
2. Grease a griddle or tawa with a drop of oil. Swirl the griddle around for the oil to spread.
3. Spread 2 tablespoons of the batter on the griddle and swirl the griddle again to spread the batter evenly.
4. When the patishapta starts browning a bit around the edges, place a teaspoonful of the filling lengthwise at one end.
5. Fold the patishapta with the filling carefully from one end to the other.
6. Remove from griddle.
7. Serve hot or cold—it tastes equally delightful. Although when hot, the pithey has a softer texture and tastes just heavenly.

A slice of tradition; a moment to celebrate the tremendous hard work farmers put in round the year to bring us the food we so take for granted. Hats off to all those sons of the soil!

Sury

Simple is Beautiful

2006-01-15T10:17:00.000+05:30

This weekend, I am returning to Weekend Herb Blogging (WHB), hosted by Kalyn. For my second entry into this very fun and informative event, I brought a vegetable that I doubt is scarce or rare anywhere. On the contrary, it is very popular across different cultures. Yes, bunnies love it and a lot of humans too. Carrot, it is.

One reason I like the WHB concept so much is the amount of fun learning it brings with itself. Before I decided to write this entry, I didn’t know there were two categories of carrots – Eastern and Western. Neither did I know that this root vegetable was first cultivated in Afghanistan and brought to the Mediterranean some 2000 years ago. My knowledge of the red/orange root was limited to the fact that it was great for your eyes. It sure is, but this sweet vegetable packs quite a few surprises within its slender frame. Health benefits of carrots include boosting immunity, reducing the risk of heart ailments and high blood pressure, healing wounds, cleansing the liver, fighting infection, and improving muscle and skin health. To learn more on this very edible and nutritious veggie, read this article at the Carrot Museum and this one at Wiki.

The recipe I have using carrot is extremely simple, easy to cook, and wonderful in taste. I learned it quite by accident, while watching Madhur Jaffrey’s “Flavours of India” on Discovery Travel & Living. This particular episode featured her traveling to the Western Indian state of Gujarat, which is predominantly vegetarian.

I cooked the carrot dish with a slight variation (by adding just one new ingredient), and was delighted at the result. I don’t know the traditional/regional name for this dish, so calling all Gujarati readers out there to help me with that! For now, we can just call it carrots stir fried with green chilly. Just as simple and unassuming as it sounds, trust me.

Carrots Stir Fried with Green Chilli:

Ingredients:

Carrots- 4-6, Julienned
Green chillies- 3-4, slit in the middle
Mustard seeds – ½ teaspoon
Curry Leaves (my added ingredient) – 1 sprig
Lime - 1
Salt
Oil for frying-- 1 ½ tablespoon

Method:

1. Wash the carrots, chillies and curry leaves and drain excess water off carrots.
2. Heat oil in a skillet and drop the mustard seeds.
3. When the seeds splutter, add the carrots, chillies, and curry leaves. Mix in nicely.
4. Cook till the water from carrot dries out and they turn tender.
5. Add the lime juice and salt and stir for some more time.
6. Serve hot with chapatti, parantha, bread or as a side dish to rice.

As simple as it is to make, this dish tastes great. The sweetness of the carrots and the tanginess of lime juice blend in perfectly with the mustard seed and curry leaves flavour. It was a huge hit at our home.

Here’s hoping you like it as much as I did :)

Sury

PS: Kalyn’s blog is also in contention for the Best of Blogs award. You could find the link to vote on her blog. Here’s wishing all the best to you, Kalyn!

Alfajores - Redux

2006-01-14T20:45:00.000+05:30

A while back I posted about a typical dessert from my city called "Alfajores". You might remember them, those "cookie sanwiches" with blancmange and lots of powdered sugar on top. Well a few people have asked me to post the actual recipe to make these and, although it has taken me a while (blush) I finally have it here.

There are many ways to make these. The recipe I bring is a very tasty one with a slight modification, it includes some grated lemon skin which wil give the alfajores a very discreet, very nice taste. However, the star of this recipe, and the key to making great alfajores, is a special kind of flour we call maicena. Maicena, also known as cornflour or corn starch (fécula de maiz) is a very sticky bright white powder which will give the alfajores a cream/yellow color and a very unique texture (softer than a cookie but solid enough not to crumble).

So, let's do it :)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup cornflour
2 teaspoons baking powder
100grms. margarine
1/4 cup powder sugar
2 egg yolks
1 teaspoon grated lemon skin
shredded coconut

Preparation:

1. Sift flour, cornflour and baking powder together.
2. Beat margarine with powdered sugar until the mix has a creamy texture.
3. Add yolks, one by one, and little by little add the fine ingredients (from step one) and the grated lemon skin.
4. Make a ball of this dough and let it rest for 20 minutes (TIP: Don't leave the dough inside the mixer's glass recipient, better leave it on a table)
5. Scatter some flour on a flat surface and using a rolling pin work on the dough until it is 1/2cm (about a fifth of an inch) thick. Then cut circles of 5cm diameter (2 inches).
6. Bake the circles until they are not quite brown. Let them cool down completely. Once they are cold, make little sandwiches with blancmange (manjarblanco). Learn how to prepare it here.
7. You can seal the edges with blancmange and then roll the alfajor over shredded coconut.

So there it is, try them and let me know how it went :D Enjoy!!

Cesar

Eid Mubarak!

2006-01-11T21:29:00.000+05:30

The lovely Eid moon, captured from a certain New Delhi terrace.

Pasta with red sauce

2006-01-09T20:26:00.000+05:30

Hey there everyone!

Hoping you all had great holidays. With all the xmas and new year's craze, I wasn't able to bring my last dish in the series of my pasta posts, but don't think I forgot :)

This one might be the easiest of the lot. It's a simple dish of pasta with red sauce, but the secret to this sauce is in the flavor. This one is a bit spicier than the usual.

For this dish, you will need a few things. First of all, see if you can get elbow-shaped pasta. However if you can't, no problem, it goes great with elbows, fussili, tubes or even simple spaghetti.

Next, you need to get spaghetti sauce, which will be used as a base. In Peru we call this sauce "Tuco" and it's made by the people in Maggi/Nestle. It's a salty red sauce with little chunks of meat. I imagine you can use Ragu or something similar.

So, let's get to it :D

Ingredients:

1/2 kg. pasta (elbow-shaped preferred)
3 liters water with 4 spoons of salt
2 tins of Tuco (spaghetti sauce) - each tin is about 250gr
1/2 cup Ketchup
1 chopped aji
3 chopped garlic cloves
1 tablespoon oil
2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup water
salt to taste

Preparation:

-Boil the pasta in the 3 liters of water. The usual procedure. Then rinse.

-In a pot put the spaghetti sauce (tuco), oil, ketchup, parsley, garlic, aji, water (the 1/2 cup), salt and heat until it boils.

- Serve the pasta with this sauce. Spread a generous amount of parmesan cheese.

Voilá. You should get something that looks like this (you can see I used both elbows and tubes):

Hope you enjoyed these pasta dishes I've been sharing with you. These are some of my favorite. Try them at home and be sure to let us know how it went :)

Bon apettit !

Cesar

Wow!

2006-01-06T19:06:00.000+05:30

As I peeked into the inbox for this blog, a sweet email smiled back. It said,

Congratulations!!!

Our editors have selected your newsfeed to be featured in one of our Top 10 Sources sites. You can view the site that features your feeds by clicking here.

Sweet!

The site's About page says:

"At Top 10 Sources, we publish a daily "Top 10" site of the best newsfeeds on the Internet. Each day, our team of editors picks a topic.

Then, we find the ten best sources on the Net on that topic that offer newsfeeds- whether they're blogs, mainstream media, or anybody else publishing great stuff online. We subscribe to their RSS feeds and present them to you in a fresh, new site using our aggregator technology."

Aren't we honoured? It sure feels good to get surprises like that and share the virtual stage with 9 other phenomenal Indian food blogs. Do check the link to see all of them!

And lest I forget, thanks to the Top 10 Sources editors :)

Sury

The chill is biting...

2006-01-04T18:35:00.001+05:30

and the weatherman says, this is going to be one of the severest winters hitting Delhi. That became evident no sooner than the new year rolled in. The sun playing hooky far too often, steely cold waves, and even a light drizzle earlier this week--winter has started showing its harsh face to us.

All you want to have in such a season is something hot. If it's also fried and crispy, would you complain? I certainly wouldn't. And so I made this little wintry treat to bite off the chill with mugfuls of hot chai to accompany it. Egg lovers, do join me for this savoury indulgence. It can be made in minutes, so let's get frying!

Egg Pakoda

Ingredients:

Eggs - 4-5, hard boiled, mashed
Potato - 2 medium sized, boiled and mashed
Bread slcies - 3-4
Onion - 1 medium sized, chopped fine
Garlic - 4-6 cloves, chopped fine
Green chilli - 2-3, chopped (or more if you want it hotter)
Tomato ketchup - 1 tablespoon
Green chilli sauce - 1 tablespoon
Mustard powder - 1 tablespoon
Salt, pepper
Bread crumbs
Oil for frying

Method:

1. Bind all the ingredients except bread crumbs and oil. Make a tight dough.
2. Take a small portion into your palms and give it a shape of your choice.
3. Cover the pakora with bread crumbs
4. Heat oil in a skillet/frying pan and fry the pakoras.
5. Serve with kecthup/salad.

We had them with ginger pickle and the combination was perfect. This is certainly something I will be making more this winter. The dipping mercury is commanding me to, after all!

I hope you like it too :)

Sury

Happy New Year!

2006-01-01T13:01:00.000+05:30

May this year be filled with mirth, love, and peace for planet earth. May this be the year when wealth, care, and food are distributed wisely :)

SEASON'S GREETINGS!

2005-12-25T12:18:00.000+05:30

Wishing Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year to all our wonderful readers!

Meme from the Two Worlds

2005-12-24T22:59:00.000+05:30

So we got tagged. The You are What you Eat meme has been doing the rounds of the food blogsphere for a while now, and came to us by way of the funny Doc of Gluttony is No Sin (sheesh, can you believe a doc advocating that!!!) and the lovely Lulu of Lulu Loves Manhattan (soon to be London). When both of them tagged Sury, she decided since this is a joint blog, it was only natural that the meme should be a joint exercise as well. So Cesar and Sury got down jogging their food memory cells. Here are the delish results:

Cesar’s Top 10 Favourite Foods:

1. xBerry cheesecake (strawberry, raspberry, blackberry): Nothing like a nice big slice of fresh berry cheesecake. Any berry will do form me. I learnt to appreciate this dessert in my adulthood. Funny, when I was a kid I always wondered what “cheesecake” was all about. I tried it finally and now I can’t have enough.

2. Shrimp Spaghetti!!!!! Ran into this one in a little seafood restaurant I usually attend with my family. Being a pasta lover my aunt recommended I try one of the spaghetti dishes. Reluctantly I did and now it’s the only thing I eat when I go there. Delicious spaghetti with a generous amount of warm thick shrimp sauce. Mouthwatering even as I type.

3. Pizza (with pineapple or with meat): Yep, fast food junkie here. Well not that much these days but a nice Hawaian Pizza is always well received. We usually go to Pizza Hut on Saturdays after grocery shopping and enjoy one of these. Been a while for me. Can’t wait to have one.

4. Wantan: A crispy delight from our Chifa cuisine. Chifa is the offspring of Chinese food blending with Criollan food here in Lima, Peru. Wantan is a square of pasta dough with pork in the center, folded like a handkerchief and deep fried. With sweet sauce or in Kam Lu Wantan, it’s a vice.

5. Chaufa Rice: Another dish from the Chifa cuisine. You can’t have chifa without at least a little bowl of Chaufa Rice.

6. Trout: This is one of my favorite homemade dishes. Grilled trouts with a parsley and garlic sauce. Perfect for a quiet Sunday afternoon at home.

7. Chicha: Yep. I live in Lima and here nothing is more refreshing than a large glass of cold Chicha. And if there’s some mazamorra beside it, even better.

8. Panetón: Xmas times is here and traditions here are as strong as in the rest of the world. We don’t usually have dinner here at midnight as most families do, since we are just two. However we do get together for some hot chocolate, some cookies and cake and of course, a few slices of our delicious Paneton (Italian fruitcake) with a generous spread of butter.

9. Anticuchos: You can place your bets and see how many of these you can have on one go. I’ve lost count. Delicious blocks of beef heart on a stick, with spicy sauce. Typical Peruvian food at it’s best. Come to Barranco in the city of Lima and taste some of the best.

10. Tequeños: Appetizer anyone? Grab the guacamole and dive into these delicious cheese-filled sticks made with the same dough used to make wantan. Excellent while waiting for the main course.

Sury’s Top 10 Favourite Foods:

1. Fish: Regular readers of this blog would know my fish fetish. As a Bengali I have done my community proud at least in this respect—relishing my fish. I love fish in any form, fried, in curry or steamed. Oh, and I prefer freshwater fish to sea fish, probably because I grew up eating the former more. Of all the varieties Bengalis eat, I love Hilsa the most. Easily the king of the fish community, Hilsa when steamed in mustard sauce is a delight I couldn’t ever resist.

2. Biryani & Kabab: A non-vegetarian Indian has to have this on her list, no? The enticing aroma of Biryani and the heavenly taste of the best of kababs like Galawati, which melt in your mouth—this is my idea of a grand lunch or dinner. For me, the Biryani should be just as the masters devised it—fragrant fine rice with tender chunks of meat served steaming hot into your plate. Simply majestic.

3. Chaat: You can probably gauge my love of chaat from the title of this blog, eh? Yes, I make no bones about the fact that I devour chaat. Golgappa is my favourite, followed by sev puri and aloo chaat. Delhi has some delectable chaat-serving places, and if I only had to love the city for this one reason, I would. Incidentally, I also like the Bengali version of golgappa called “phuchka”—it’s a different take on the snack alright, but tickles the taste buds just as good.

4. Chettinad chicken with appam: I got introduced to this wonderful combination when a friend I was visiting in Mumbai took me to a South Indian restaurant there. Till then, I had no idea that there were any meat preparations from down south (yes, you can beat my ignorant self for that), since we always had idly, dosas and utthapams in South Indian restaurants. So I can’t thank my Mumbai friend enough for introducing me to this awesome chicken dish…and to appam. This has to rank as one of my all-time favourite foods.

5. Luchi with anything: I sinfully love luchi. This is a fried soft flour pancake; much like puris, except only white flour or maida (and no atta) is used for this. It’s a delicacy in Bengal, a must-to-serve item during special occasions and when guests are over. I can have luchi with just about anything—mutton curry, alur-dom (potato curried gravy), or even begun bhaja (fried eggplants). If you ever invite me for luchi, please forget to keep a count on how many you serve me. Because I invariably lose count while eating these. :P

6. Momo: I remember we were in college when a couple of our batch mates asked us to try these at one of the momo joints nearby. A group of us went to test out this strange-sounding food item and came back disappointed. Yes, we tried both the steamed and fried versions of momos (flour dumplings filled with minced chicken/mutton/pork) and didn’t like the taste of either. In fact, we bought some fresh cucumber for changing the bad taste. How and when this momo aversion got reversed, I don’t remember, but now it is something, I can never grow tired of. Hot steamed chicken or pork momos are my favourite, served with hot red chili sauce and steaming soup. Ahh, perfect for a winter day!

7. Eggs: In any form, except raw perhaps. This was my favourite food in my childhood days. I had a friend in school who got a boiled egg as part of her lunch every day and it was an unsaid pact between us that we would exchange our tiffin boxes during lunchtime. She was a generous soul that thought nothing of parting with her egg daily in lieu of my non-eggy (and thus boring for me) lunch. Hard boiled or soft, poached or omeletted, in curry or in egg rolls, this supremely versatile and lip-smacking food item ranks very highly in my scheme of things.

8. Orange: A small childhood episode made orange my favourite fruit forever. I was having a delicious apple offered by an aunt who came visiting us. A toddler then, I was enjoying every bit of my apple while prancing around the front porch, when my brother, a couple of years older to me, came by. Seeing me enjoy so merrily, he wanted an apple too, but sadly, aunt had given the last one she had to me. So just to pacify my on-the-brink-of-crying brother, my aunt gave him an orange. And would you believe, as he peeled that off to get the luscious fruit out, the smell captivated me for a lifetime. Every winter, I eagerly wait for this wonderful citrus to come to the markets and its refreshing scent and delightful taste always keep me craving for more.

9. Gulab jamoon/jalebi: Incorrigibly sinful. That’s what I become when faced with the prospect of eating these two Indian sweets. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, but hot gulab jamoons and jalebis served with thick, creamy rabri—these are surely not meant to be resisted or refrained from. Nah, not at all. And so I won’t, no matter what the weighing machine tells me!

10. Cheesecake: So yes, there’s something common in Sury and Cesar’s favourite food list. The first time I tasted cheesecake was when brother brought home a slice for me some years back. “But where is the cake in this?” I wondered as I dug into the creamy enigma. I have since graduated in my appreciation of cheesecakes and settled on blueberry as my favourite. Every bite a mesmerizing delight—to be savoured slowly and softly…I haven’t tasted raspberry yet, so that’s something Cesar can always treat me to. Hint, hint!

That then is our You are What you Eat meme. You now know what to organize for when inviting us, don’t you? Lol. Well, it was a whole lot of fun for us putting together this meme. Hope you liked it too :) Now, we have to tag five more foodie bloggers, so here we go: Jeanne of World on a Plate (our first food blogger friend), Marc of Mental Masala, Parna of Foodie’s Bar, Farid of Algerian Cuisine, and Prabir Ghose of Indian Sweets. Tell us about your favourite foods you all, we want to dig right in!

Cesar & Sury

Tuna Pasta

2005-12-19T23:21:00.000+05:30

Hi again! Following with Pasta Month here is a very simple one that can get you out of a fix. For this dish you will need a special type of pasta called "bowties". The reason for this is... well they are shaped like so.

So this being a quick ad easy dish, let's not wait any more and get right to it ;)

Ingredients:

1/2 kg bowtie pasta (small bowties)
1/4 cup butter
3/4 cup chopped onion
oregano
salt & pepper
1 tomato (peeled and chopped)
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 can of tuna
1 cup of evaporated milk
3/4 cup parmesan cheese

Preparation:

- Take a pan and melt butter, then fry the onion with oregano, tomato paste, tomato, salt and pepper.

- Add the tuna (be sure to shred it with a fork after taking it out of the can so it's not in chunks) and milk. Mix with the pasta and serve with plenty parmesan.

Told ya it was easy! Dig in and pass it on!!

Cesar

Explosions in the Kitchen and the Explosive Green Noodle

2005-12-16T15:48:00.000+05:30

I am so glad I started this blog. It was a spur-of-the-moment, whimsical idea that occurred one morning as Cesar (it was nighttime for him) and I were having our umpteenth chat on food. The idea was just to keep a record of the food-talk we shared; hence, the blog.

Little did I know that within six months of its creation, I would take a 180 degree turn from being kitchen shy to being obsessed about cooking and discovering hidden joys in it. For this, I must thank the vast community of food bloggers from across the globe who, with their words, images, and passion, have introduced me to the euphoria and epiphanies of culinary adventures.

So I saw it as a sweet coincidence that soon after I started frequenting the kitchen to cook up the new recipes I learned from the various wonderful blogs I read everyday, a new toy entered our kitchen premises.

A simple mixer-grinder; no big deal. But I was thrilled to the bits nevertheless. This is the first time this immensely talented gadget has entered our house, since all these years, my mother staunchly opposed buying it, vouching for her time-tested grinding stone. My mother has an exceptional ability to prevent her life from getting easier, or she is phobic to gadgets—either way, for years, my and my brother’s requests to let us buy a mixer-grinder were vetoed. And we meekly obeyed…Until this November, when my brother decided to defy Ma’s marching orders anyway and came home with this brand new toy for me.

I had been looking to put the machine to good use, and along came a recipe that asked me to do exactly that! Cesar’s (find adjective/s later) Pesto Pasta recipe! I like spinach a lot, so I could sense I was going to like the dish. Cooking spaghetti was completely new to me though, and I did take step-by-step instructions from my patient Peruvian friend for the same.

Okay, so for my Pesto, I changed a few things. First, instead of pecans, which I didn’t have, I used cashew nuts. Second, I went a little easy (only a little) on the cheese, and finally, I used ordinary (liquid) milk instead of evaporated milk. As I put the milk and nuts into the blender and turned on the switch, I was aghast. The thundering uproar created by the machine was no less than explosions in my kitchen. A novice who was using this gadget for the first time, the booming sound made me wonder if the lid wouldn’t actually pop off the blender and fly across like a disc…My imagination was stopped in the tracks for good when I turned it off to look for the result. Wow. A thick green, fresh sauce with a warm, cheese smell. Next, I cooked the spaghetti to perfection (must be sheer chance).

As I grabbed my plate of pesto spaghetti (named “Green Noodle” by the 10-year old nephew of my friend who, too made it a few days after me) and tasted the first forkful, I was delighted. It was a wonderful salty, cheese-ey, spinach taste that gave a whole new dimension to the pasta. My friend found it delicious too.

Not only that, I went on to make a salad using the sauce as a dressing. For this, I just stir fried some carrots, cauliflower, spring onions and garlic with a little salt and pepper and poured the green sauce over it. Tasted great (never mind the fuzzy picture).

I had a great time with Pesto and I definitely recommend it to all pasta lovers. To Cesar, I have just one question: Isn’t my green greener than yours? :P

Sury

Small Note of Apology

2005-12-14T12:01:00.000+05:30

A couple of days back, I had deactivated the Comment Moderation option and turned on the Word Verification feature on this blog. The idea is not to block comments, only to prevent unnecessary spam. However, just now I discovered that the new settings wasn't allowing comments to show at all! I tried posting a comment, but it didn't show up. That's when I turned off the Word Verification feature and posted my comment again. This time, it did show up. Could it be that the Blogger settings are not fully compatible with this template? I have no idea.

My apologies to anyone who tried posting comments to the blog in the past few days. It seems all is fine now, so do feel free to shower us with your bouquets or brickbats. We love to hear from you :)

Sury

PS: In case you still face a problem, please drop us an email and we'll try to fix the problem asap.

A Little Fishful Indulgence

2005-12-13T15:58:00.000+05:30

Here in New Delhi, we don’t get to see all the four seasons as clearly as perhaps in some other parts of the world. However, two seasons are most pronounced here, and are felt to the extreme: summer and winter. Although I was born in the middle of scorching Delhi summer, I dread the heat around that time. A winter in Delhi however, is a different story. I enjoy this season a lot. For all the chill and biting cold wave it brings, it also offers a lot of sunshine, opportunities for spending time outdoors (you can’t even imagine doing that in the volcanic Delhi summer), and…and…ha, you guessed it—loads of good food.

So when I saw the theme for the From My Rasoi event hosted by Meena of Hooked on Heat was Winter, I knew I had chanced upon a very valid reason to become a sinful foodie. Thanks, Meena!

What I came up with for the event is made of something I religiously love eating—fish. This incredibly tasty snack is called Fish Chop and is something of a specialty in Calcutta (now Kolkata). Chop is basically an oval-shaped deep fried snack, the outer layer of which has potato, and the inner layer or stuffing can have anything—fish, meat, or vegetables. The one we make today has a fish filling sure to get the taste buds of all fish lovers tickling. So without further ado, let’s get cooking!

Fish Chop:

Ingredients:

The Outer Layer (Cover):

Potatoes: 4-6 medium (boiled)
Bread: 4-5 slices
Salt: To taste
Pepper: To taste
Eggs: 3-4 (beaten)
Bread Crumbs

The Inner Layer (Filling):

Fish: 500 gms (Sea fish, with only a spine works the best. Try Bhetki or Pomfret)
Onion: 2 medium
Garlic: 8-10 cloves
Ginger: Small block
Green chilli: 4-5
(Grind the above four ingredients into a paste)
Tomato Puree: 1 Tablespoon
Garam Masala Powder: 1 teaspoon

Method:

1. Mash the boiled potatoes. Dip the bread slices in milk and mix with the mashed potatoes. Add salt and pepper and knead into a dough. Keep aside.
2. Boil the de-scaled fish. De-skin and remove the bones. Mash it nicely.
3. Heat oil in a skillet. Put the ginger-garlic-onion-chili paste and fry until it turns colour a bit. Add some salt, tomato puree, garam masala powder and mix well. Fry for a few more minutes.
4. Now add the mashed fish into this spice mix and cook nicely, stirring until the oil starts separating. Keep stirring to prevent the fish from sticking to the bottom of the skillet.
5. When the fish mixture turns dry, turn off the heat. Your filling is ready.
6. Take a small ball-sized portion of the potato dough in your palms, press and make a cavity.
7. Fill in the cavity with the fish filling and close the ends of the dough.
8. Give it an oval shape using your hands.
9. Dip the chop into the beaten eggs and roll it over the bread crumbs.
10. Deep fry the chop.
11. Garnish with tomato and onion rings.
12. Serve hot!

Mmmm…simply impossible to resist. Just typing out the recipe makes me crave a couple of chops. Lol, I did say it had some sinful connotations to it. But then that’s what winter is all about—living it up with sinfully tasteful food!

This then is my contribution to From My Rasoi this month. Freshly fried fish chops with a cup of adrak chai (ginger tea).

Can you possibly resist that? :P

Sury

Carbonara Spaghetti

2005-12-11T21:27:00.000+05:30

All right, pasta lovers!

Since I received kudos on my previous post I decided to make December pasta month and thus will bring a different recipe every week. I hope you enjoyed pesto sauce, one of my personal favorites. This time I bring one even easier to make, a treat for those who want a little meat on their plate.

The star of today's show is bacon. Yup, those crispy strips we love to have on Sunday morning. The secret of this sauce is that you don't need oil. The sauce uses the natural grease which the bacon releases when heated up.

So without further delay... grab your cook hat and "I'm Tryin'" apron and let's get busy...

Spaghetti with Carbonara Sauce

Ingredients

1/2 kg. Spaghetti
150 gr Bacon strips (raw)
3 cloves of garlic
1/3 cup chopped onion (chopped really tiny)
1/2 white wine
2/3 cup cream (we call it milk cream or sour cream)
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/4 tsp. black pepper
2 eggs
1 dash nutmeg

Preparation:

Put the bacon in a cold skillet, along with garlic (the cloves should be whole, not chopped) and onion. Remember you won't need oil. Heat up until it turns brownish then remove the cloves with a fork.

Separately, mix in a bowl eggs, milk cream and pepper. Pour this mix in the skillet and add the wine. Stir a bit till it turns creamy.

The tricky part is to calculate your time so that both your spaghetti and the sauce are ready approximately at the same time. The next step is simply to join the spaghetti and the sauce, use two forks to mix them well. And that's it!! Add nutmeg and serve with lots of parmesan cheese.

A brief word on spaghetti:

Some of our foreign friends have asked me about preparing the spaghetti itself. The process is very simple. Boil 4-6 cups of water (with about a teaspoon of salt). Once the water is boiling put the spaghetti in the pot. DO NOT BREAK THEM. As they heat up they will bend. Help them with a kitchen fork by stirring slowly. Make sure your water is boiling all the time. Sometimes when you add the spaghetti, the water stops bubbling. Raise the temperature a bit, and then lower it once you get it boiling again. You should cook the spaghetti at medium temperature average. Depending on how cooked yo want your spaghetti, this takes place in 9-11 minutes. Most people prefer "al dente". Thsi means, that point where the pasta is not raw anymore but still has a nice hard contexture. Once the time is passed, rinse to get rid of the water. Voilá!

And a tip. If some spaghetti is leftover (better if it hasn't been mixed with sauce) you can later boil some water and drop in this prepared pasta for 5 minutes. It will taste as freshly made.

Enjoy and tell us about it :)

Cesar

View from Kitchen

2005-12-08T13:57:00.000+05:30

Our kitchen overlooks our humble backyard, which we carelessly tend to. I love working on the counter, looking out to the basil, curry leaves plant and other assortment of green friends basking in the morning glow of the sun.

Sury

Pesto Time

2005-12-05T20:55:00.000+05:30

Ok, pasta lovers, this one is for you. Lately we've been talking about herbs in the blog so how about we continue doing so. For those who already know what pesto is, you know which one I will mention. For those who don't... well... I'm talking about basil. Taht's right. Behind every pesto sauce is basil (in some regions this is called albahaca or St. Joseph's wart) as well as it's close relative, spinach. What is pesto? Well it's a green sauce for spaghetti. If you are tired of your pomarolla (tomato-based) sauce give this a try, I guarantee you will enjoy the new flavor.

Ingredients:

1/2 kg. Spaghetti
3 tablespoons oil
1 chopped white onion
salt & pepper
1/2 tbsp. garlic
1/4 kg. spinach ()
100 gr. fresh cheese (white cheese)
1 small tie of basil
10 brazilian nuts (we also use pecans)
1/2 cup of evaporated milk (the one you need to add water to)

Preparation:

First of all, boil some water and then put both the basil and spinach into this water. Leave there for less than a minute and take them out. This is called "bleaching". (they will not actually turn white but that is the name) ;)

In a pan put the oil, onion and garlic. Fry till they turn brownish.

In a blender (if you have the small plastic container for the blender do it there instead of in the the large glass container) put the milk and nuts and blend. Then add the cheese, the spinach, basil, the mix of garlic and onion, salt and pepper. Blend again. The result will be a thick green mix. Pour this mix on your spaghetti and make sure you add lots of parmesan.

That's it! Easy and delicious. Try it and let us know :) Enjoy!

Cesar

Weekend Herb Blogging: GINGER

2005-12-04T09:23:00.000+05:30

This post is of special significance. It’s our first participation in a blog event. Kalyn, of Kalyn’s Kitchen holds this wonderful weekly event called Weekend Herb Blogging (WHB) in which bloggers from all over the world write about herbs and post recipes using those herbs. Isn’t that a cool idea?

This week, I have come with the powerful and flavourful root—ginger. I belong to the state of Bengal in eastern India and in our cuisine, ginger has a very important place. In fact, most of the diverse Indian cuisines use the ginger root. Kashmiri cuisine uses dry ginger and its powder extensively in its array of mouth-watering dishes. Going by the range of benefits ginger packs within itself, I am not complaining.

According to an ancient Indian saying, all good things are found in ginger. Quite a bit of truth in that. During winters, ginger works as a magic herb to fight nasty cold attacks across many Indian homes. Grated ginger with honey and freshly-crushed black pepper, ginger and basil juice, and my favourite milk-sugar tea (or chai as we call it) with a dash of ginger in it—all these are part of the cold-busting arsenal in Indian households.

Ginger is also effective against digestive disorders, respiratory disorders, aches and pains, skin disorders, and motion sickness. Read more on this wonder root here.

For this week’s WHB, I am presenting a simple yet great tasting ginger pickle. Pretty easy to make once you’ve julienned it fine.

Ginger Pickle in Lime Juice:

Ingredients:

Ginger – 300 gms
Lime - 300 gms
Salt – 50 gms (the salt is both for taste as well as for preserving the pickle).

Method:

1. Julinne the ginger real fine and put in a bowl.
2. Add the juice of the limes to the ginger.
3. Add salt.

Voila! Your pickle is ready. Store in a jar and keep in sunlight for a few days for the ginger to nicely soak in the lime juice.

This pickle is very popular at our home and goes well with any and every kind of meal. The lime juice lends it a refreshing touch and also tempers the strong flavour of ginger.

This has to be one of those (rare) healthy pickles. So do try it out if you can. You won’t regret :)

Sury

Peruvian Rice and chicken

2005-12-02T23:33:00.000+05:30

Seeing that my dear friend Sury is putting me to shame ;) I decided to come back with a few easy Peruvian recipes. One of these is a very simple yet very tasty dish called "Arroz con pollo", basically rice with chicken. I previously wrote about Chaufa rice. Peru, Lima specially, is a place where people eat rice on a daily basis, mostly plain (white) but also in rice-based dishes.

So how about we go to it?

Rice with chicken

8 chicken pieces
1/2 cup oil
1 med-sized onion chopped
3 chopped garlic cloves
1/2 cup green ají (blended / liquified)
1 cup chopped culantro
2 red bell peppers (one chopped, the other one in long thn rows for decoration)
3 cups rice
1 cup peas
1/2 cup of corn "teeth" (the edible part of the corn) - (our corn is white and it's called choclo)
2 1/2 cups boiling water
1/2 cup beer
salt & pepper

A brief word on "ají"

Most Peruvians love their food to be hot. In many countries this effect is achieved with chili peppers. Although this vegetable is available to us (not in abundance but you can find if you look for it) Peruvian cuisine has a key ingredient. This ingredient is a special kind of pepper called "ají". Although there are different forms of ají, the most used are Ají Verde (green aji) and Aji Panca (red ají). Green aji (which ironically is not green but orange) can be found fresh while red ají is usually found dried or in powder. Here are a couple pics for you to recognize it:

A brief word on culantro:

The key to the flavor of this dish is a herb called "culantro". It is very similar to parsley but with a very strong odor and smaller leaves:

Culantro is not only what brings most of the flavor, but your dish will take this nice green color. Other names for this herb are cilantro or coriander.

A brief word on choclo:

Here in Peru we eat a variety of corn which is white instead of yellow. It's name is "choclo":

Preparation:

- Fry the chicken pieces with salta and pepper in hot oil. Once fried, leave them aside.

- In the same oil fry the garlic, onion, aji and culantro until they take on a brown color.

- Put the chicken pieces back in the mix, stir, add beer and continue to cook until the chicken is done.

- Remove the chicken pieces but don't let them cool down.

- Add rice, peas, choclo and pepper (the chopped one)

- Add the water, taste for flavor and cook for 20 minutes until the rice is done.

- Serve the rice with hot chicken and decorate with the long pepper rows.

Hope you can try it. Let us know if you did ;)

Cesar

Mocha of the flowery (not caffeine) kind

2005-12-02T00:18:00.000+05:30

Exotic you say? Nay. Approach any Bengali on the subject and they will tell you banana flower curry or mochar ghonto is a traditional feature of their platter. It’s interesting to note that Bengalis cook and consume all parts of the banana plant. The fruit itself of course, in both ripe and unripe forms; the flower, known as (by now you must have figured) mocha in Bengali; and the white stem, which Bengalis call thor. So what about the leaf, you want to know. Well, it has a special place too—as a serving plate, and as a wrapping in which some ethnic Bengali dishes such as fish paturi are cooked. While looking for more resources on this flower/vegetable on the Internet, I learned it is eaten as a vegetable in many Asian countries.

This is what it looks like when you remove the petals. See the florets tucked on to the body of the flower? Those are the stars of our featured dish.

And here’s how the florets look when you separate/pluck them from the body of the flower.

So there. A mocha lover to the core, I can vouch for the deliciousness of this dish. However, preparing it requires some devotion and patience. You have to clean each floret (and there are hundreds in a single flower, trust me), by picking out a soft stem and a little transparent film-like cover from them. The finished product makes up for all the hard work though.

Mochar Ghonto/Banana Flower Curry:

Ingredients:

Mocha/Banana flower – 1
Potato – 1 big, peeled and cubed
Black chick peas – ½ cup
Cumin seeds – ½ teaspoon
Cumin + Coriander powder – 1 teaspoon
Coconut grated – 1 tablespoon
Turmeric powder – ½ teaspoon
Ginger paste – 1 teaspoon
Bay leaves – 2
Garam Masala (Grind green cardamoms, cloves and cinnamon into a thick paste by adding a little water)
Ghee – 1 teaspoon
Salt – To taste
Sugar – To taste
Mustard oil for cooking

Method:

1. Clean the mocha florets and soak them in salt water overnight. This is a very important step since these florets have this sticky matter, which gives a bitter taste if the salt-water soaking part is skipped. So this step is a MUST.
2. Soak the black chick peas overnight and boil them the next day.
3. Wash the soaked florets nicely and chop them fine. Then boil them and strain in a separate vessel.
4. Heat oil in a skillet and fry the cubed potato pieces. When they turn a little brown, remove from oil.
5. In the same oil put cumin seeds and bay leaves.
6. When the cumin seeds begin to splutter, add cumin-coriander powder, turmeric powder, ginger paste, salt and sugar. Fry a bit and add a little water. Lower the heat.
7. When the oil starts separating from the spices, add the boiled mocha florets, boiled chickpeas and the half-fried potato cubes. Add some more salt, if required.
8. Cover the skillet and let the curry cook on low heat for about 5-7 minutes.
9. Remove cover and stir the mix. When the potato is cooked and moisture has left the mocha florets, add ghee and the garam masala paste.
10. Remove from fire, garnish with grated/shredded coconut and green chillies.
11. Serve hot with rice/chapatti/parantha.

Hope you enjoy :)

Sury

French Beans with Grams and Coconut

2005-11-28T12:52:00.000+05:30

This was a dish I had been craving for some years now. I first tasted it when C, a Keralite friend brought it for lunch at my first workplace. I liked the taste of coconut in the beans; it was distinctly different from the potato-beans with cumin seeds, usually cooked in our kitchen. But what I liked the most about C’s recipe was the crunchiness of the beans, even after they had been cooked nicely. So recently when I found this recipe on Lokpriya, the link for which I got from Nupur’s blog (thanks, Nupur), I was ready to jump with joy…okay, not that dramatic, but I was delighted all the same.

These green beans are full of nutritive value, and so when I saw the chance to make a dish out of them that tasted good as well, I grabbed it with both hands. The beans are a storehouse of Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Vitamin A, manganese, and iron. They help strengthening your bones, protect your heart, provide prevention against colon cancer, give you a good skin, and boost your memory. For more details, read this.

Recipe for French Beans with Grams and Coconut:

Ingredients:

French beans – a bunch, chopped
Grated coconut – 2 Tablespoons (I didn’t have fresh coconut on the day and substituted it with coconut powder. The result was just as yummy though).
Urad Dal – 1 Teaspoon
Chana Dal – 1 Teaspoon
Curry leaves – 10-15
Cumin seeds – ½ Teaspoon
Mustard seeds – ½ Teaspoon
Dry red chili – 1
Asafoetida (hing) powder – a pinch
Oil
Salt to taste

Method:

1. Heat oil in skillet and add mustard seeds, cumin seeds, the two types of grams or dal, red chili, hing powder and curry leaves.

2. When mustard seeds begin to splutter, add the chopped beans and salt to taste. Add a little water, cover the skillet, and cook on low heat until beans are tender.

3. Add the grated coconut/coconut powder, mix well, and serve hot with parantha or chapatti.

Relish!

Sury

Wonder Citrus – Amla or Indian Gooseberry

2005-11-25T10:22:00.000+05:30

It is mind-boggling to think of the multitude of nutrition-rich as well as delicious herbs, fruits and vegetables that are found in India. Growing up here, we tend to take these for granted. Until someone points out how power-packed they are.

Well, that’s how I feel when I think of this citrus fruit. Since childhood, we grew up seeing it in its myriad forms, yet never once stopped to find out about its properties or benefits. Until very recently that is.

Found all over the Indian sub-continent, Amla is the most potent source of natural (not synthetic) Vitamin C. The Vitamin found in the fruit isn’t destroyed by heat or light and is more easily assimilated by the body than its synthetic variant. Find more on the amla here and here.

Amla lends its versatility to a number of tasty concoctions from pickles, to juice, to perhaps its most famous avatar—amla murabba. As much as I like relishing the murabbas, having been born with a sour tooth, my favourite is the Amla pickle my grandma so lovingly made in a mustard oil base with spices similar to those used in the north Indian mango pickle.

It is said that to derive the most out of this gem of a fruit, it’s best to eat it in raw form. So just about a couple of years back, my mother came up with this innovative idea (not sure how original this is, but at our home, it was a novel idea alright) to eat Amla. Here’s how:

Ingredients:

Amla – 3-4
Green chili – 2
Salt to taste

Method:

Just grate the amla and the green chili. Remove the amla seeds. Add some salt to the amla-chili mix. Your chutney/pickle is ready!

This must be made fresh. Goes very well with the regular roti/rice meals. And is one of the best ways to stock Vitamin C in your body—both amla and green chili being prime sources of the Vitamin.

Yet another way we have it is boil the amla, mash it into a pulp, add green chili, salt and a dash of mustard oil with it and have it with freshly made, hot plain rice. Much like what Anthony mentioned in his Mashed Potato post, except, as you can see, the amla version we make is much simpler, in the sense it requires lesser ingredients. But if you have a taste for sour, you will love it.

Don’t be shy to try!

Sury

Of Fish, Chili, and a Little China in India

2005-11-18T09:27:00.000+05:30

Lima has returned to these corners. With the irresistable Turron even! Yummy. Welcome back to your own blog, Cesar! (Sorry, couldn’t resist being a little mean, C).

Getting back to food in the earnest; this week I found the recipe for a simple-to-cook dish, which can be best described a spin off of Chinese cuisine. Sometime back, Cesar wrote about Chaufa rice and referred to the manner in which Chinese food got improvised in Peru. From talking to friends from different parts of the world, I have come to observe, that’s the deal with Chinese food. It has penetrated almost every corner of the globe, and nearly in all those corners it has taken on the flavour of the region, flexibly lending itself to the local eating and cooking ethos, and generating interesting if a bit distorted geographical variations. This to some extent explains why the dish I cooked, Chili Fish, is probably a brainchild of some Chinese cuisine loving Bengali. I mentioned earlier how fish and Bengal are inseparable.

However, Chinese association with Bengal goes back a long way. In the late 18th century, a Chinese called Young Atchew (what an interesting name—Young at-chew…) landed in the city of Calcutta, the capital of West Bengal. He wanted to try his luck at setting up a sugar mill in the city and even though he made an effort in that direction, he ran out of luck, mainly because of scarcity of funds and labourers deserting his enterprise. Three years later, Atchew died a disenchanted man and his tomb now serves as a pilgrimage site for Calcutta’s Chinese populace. However, the influx of the Chinese into the city did not stop. In the World War II years and later during the Chinese Revolution of 1949, a sizeable number of Chinese reached the shores of Bengal, and made it their home. Of the areas in Calcutta where they settled, no place bears the insignia of Chinese culture better than Tangra, situated in the eastern part of the city. Here, you will still find authentic vignettes of Chinese life, be it during traditional festivals like the Chinese New Year or in the many restaurants run by Chinese. Calcuttans love the cuisine and I know many Bengalis outside Calcutta, who while visiting the city, make it point to dine in an authentic Chinese food joint.

Little wonder then, that Chinese influence rubbed off on the Bengali palette and even made its mark on the local wok and griddle. My attempt at making Chili-fish paid off nicely, and for all fish lovers reading this, this is a recipe you must try, for its sheer ease of making. The good taste comes as a happy bonus though.

Chili Fish

Ingredients:

* 500 g bhetki fish (bhetki machh)—This is a non-scaly sea fish. You could substitute it with Pomfret too.
* 1 onion, diced
* 1 green pepper, chopped into cubes
* 2 green chillies (You could use more, depending on your liking)
* 1 tbsp vinegar
* 3 tbsp Soya sauce
* 1 tbsp tomato sauce
* ¼ cup water
* Oil for frying
* Salt to taste

Method

* Wash and cut fish into 2 inch pieces. Rub fish pieces with salt.
* Heat oil in a skillet. Add fishes and fry lightly. Caution: Since bhetki has no scales, the pieces tend to jump in the oil while you fry them. A tip is to put the fish pieces into the oil, lower the flame, cover the skillet and let the fish cook. Open the lid and keep turning the sides a few times. Once it’s lightly fried, keep the fish pieces aside.
* Add the diced onion to the same oil and fry till transparent.
* Add green chillies and green pepper. Stir fry for about 2-3 minutes.
* Add Soya sauce and water. Add tomato sauce, vinegar and salt.
* Add fish. Cover and cook for around 5 minutes until the gravy is thick.
* Serve hot with plain rice.

Once you get the ingredients together, making this dish is a matter of minutes. And the result is surprisingly yummy. Try and test (taste too) for yourself!

Sury

The November October Tradition

2005-11-15T06:03:00.000+05:30

Been a while since I've been here but don't think I'm gone. Busy eating I guess :P Seriously, this past month was especially significative for Peruvians (for those who don't know yet, I'm from Peru). October is what we call "Purple Month" and it is the festivity of the "Lord of Miracles". The story behind this tradition is fascinating but it is the effect what leaves people speechless. During the month of October, thousands of Peruvians go to the Church in Nazarenas to have a glimpse and pray to the image of the Christ of Pachacamilla (an image which was painted by a Mulato back in a little town that later was destroyed by two earthquakes, none of which could bring down the wall where the image was). Three days are of the utmost importance, for it is here when a duplicate image is carried out of the church in procession. The number of people who follow this image is uncountable. An enormous trail of people dressed in purple habits follow this 2-ton image (carried by the brotherhood of the Lord of Miracles) for blocks.

But this is not the only October tradition for us Peruvians. Along with is comes the bullfights (frowned by many, loved by others), the day of criollan music (the typical music from Lima) and of course... food! Yes, this is a food blog. And so I bring you our typical irresistible October dessert: Turrón.

Yes, if there is a dish that immediately makes us think of all the October traditions, that is Turrón. It basically consists of a sort of very compact dessert, with lots of honey and color sprinkles on top. The secret to the taste of turron is an ingredient called anise.

Turrón is a little piece of engineering. The dough is made into a number of bars. A number of these bars are placed next to each other, making a base. You then pour some honey (we use an fruit called chancaca which is really sweet) on top of the bars, then you repeat this operation to make two more stories. You finish by coating thw top with a generous portion of honey and lots of color sprinkles. Here there are some little sugar shapes (stars, moons, hearts).

If you ever get the chance, try it. You won't regret it.

Enjoy!

Cesar

Real SWEET sweet smile...

2005-11-13T00:21:00.000+05:30

Diwali, the sparkling Indian festival of candles and fireworks, just went by. It's followed by another festival called bhai-duj. It's known as bhai-phota in Bengal and is marked by sisters putting a mark on their brothers' forehead, with wishes for their safety and well being. Since childhood, I have looked forward to this day for the delightful stuff my mother makes that day.

The enormously tempting fare almost always comprises luchi (check out this space for that one)along with chholar dal and begun bhaja or fried eggplants. And that is followed by some mouthwatering traditional sweets my mother makes so painstakingly.

Pantua is one such. Almost the same as the famous Indian dessert gulab jamun, the only difference with making pantua is the use of cottage cheese or paneer/chhena in it. Making gulab jamuns isn't tough anymore, what with the grocery stores flooded with premade mixes. But if you want the traditional taste, soft and blissful, try out this recipe.

Pantua: Steps with Ingredients:

1. Make paneer/chhena made from 1 litre skimmed milk: To do this, bring the milk to a boil and squeeze in the juice of one whole lemon in it. The milk would solidfy and float on the top of the vessel. Cool it and pour into a cotton cloth pouch. Hang the pouch to drain the water out of the paneer.

2. 150 gms of homemade khoya: For this, my mother adds some sugar (use discretion) and raisins into the milk and boils it on slow flame, until the milk turns into a sticky solid state. Keep stirring so it doesn't get burnt.

3. Mash the paneer, with the water drained out, into a paste-like consistency. Ma does this with her hands and it takes a fair amount of patience...Okay, now add the khoya to this and mash some more.

4. Divide this mixture into 8 equal parts. Take flour equalling one of these parts, add a teaspoon of baking powder and a teaspoon of ghee in it. Now bring all the 8 parts together and add the flour mixture into it. Make a dough.

5. Make small balls of the dough. Take each ball, make a well in its centre with your finger. Put a seed of black cardamom and one grain of misri or sugar crystal in the well and remake the ball by rolling it in your palms.

6. Sugar syrup: Take about 500 gms of sugar and four cups of water in it. Bring to a boil, but make sure the syrup isn't too thick.

7. Deep fry the balls in oil or ghee.

8. Pick them up and dip into the sugar syrup. Let the balls soak in the syrup and...

9. SERVE!

Another sweet Ma makes is a typical Bengali dessert called lobongo-lotika. This is basically a pastry made of flour, filled with khoya or condensed, dry milk and raisins, and sealed with a lobongo or clove stick. I don't have a sweet tooth, but this is one dessert I really savour. So here's sharing it with you all :)

Lobongo-lotika: Steps and Ingredients:

1. Make khoya in the same way as for pantua (see step 2 of Pantua above). You could add some shredded coconut to it for taste.

2. Take about 250 gms flour, add some water, a couple of tablespoonfuls of ghee and knead a dough, of a consistency neither too hard or soft. Divide the dough into about 8 portions.

3. Roll the portions into small puris. Put a tablespoon of the khoya mixed with raisins in the middle of the puri. Now fold it into a rectangle and seal with a clove stick in the centre. You can put even 2 sticks so it holds better.

4. Deep fry the rectangles.

5. Take 250 gms of sugar, add a cup of water in it and bring to a boil to make a thick syrup.

6. Now dip the fried lobogo lotikas or rectangles in the sugar syrup.

7. Serve cold.

Note: You can add some rose water into the sugar syrup for both the above desserts.

Try these and share with others. I am sure some hearty smiles will fly back in your general direction.

Sury

Cuisine Camaraderie

2005-11-10T12:03:00.000+05:30

Well, I doubt any of these items are even remotely Indian, but they sure were a delight to savour. I was treated to this delish platter during a recent lunch invitation from a friend. Thanks for the good time and good-er food, A.

On the plate are pasta cooked with basil, garlic, and tomatoes, grilled pork with orange and water chestnut, spiked with liberal rum sprinkling, and roasted cauliflower. The cucumber salad (with a vinegar-oil-garlic dressing) and pineapple juice proved just the right accompaniments for the appetizing meal.

I am glad I accepted the lunch offer. What better way to catch up with a friend than over food? A being the great gourmet and gourmand he is, proved his mettle--from peeling garlic, to cooking the delights and washing the dishes in the end. I came back from the lunch with a hearty stomach, and highly impressed with A's all-round skills.

Bon Appetit!

Sury

Think Food

2005-11-05T19:00:00.000+05:30

Image courtesy: http://www.indianfoodsco.com/

I found this interesting resource on Indian food. Worth the reading time of Indian food admirers and food lovers in general. The section on Bengali Cuisine is here. I myself learned a lot of new things about the food of my region.

Happy eating, er...reading ;)

Sury

Chaat I -- Gol Gappa

2005-11-03T09:19:00.000+05:30

Okay, the camera returneth, and so do I. With the first of our series on Chaat. Uniquely Indian, chaat comprises snacks that are lip-smacking in taste and easy on the wallet. Deadly combination for the majority there, and that explains the enormous popularity of chaat across the country. Chaat is also ubiquitous--you will find it on streets sold by vendors, in small restaurants, and even in five star hotels. For a while, they have also become a regular feature of the menu for social occasions such as weddings and other parties. Indeed, it's one of the best representatives of popular culture in India.

Delhi prides itself on its chaat, and I am lucky to have tasted the best of it, all over town. The snack we talk about today, Gol Gappa is an especially potent, high-voltage snack. What exactly is it? Let me see if I can explain it in plain terms. Basically, you have these spherical, deep-fried, puffed balls made from a dough of either wheat flour or semolina.

The balls are hollow inside, and that is how the magic of gol gappa happens. Here's how. When you go to the chaat vendor and ask for a plate of gol gappa, he would typically serve you around 6-8 of the flour balls. With his deft hands he would prepare the following concoction for you: Pierce the ball with the index finger to get a hole, then fill the inside of the ball with three delightful ingredients--yogurt, cubed, boiled potatoes, saunth or a thick, sweet chutney made of tamarind and sugar. Then, he would dip this filled-up ball into a green liquid--water flavoured with mint and lime.

All done within seconds and off it goes into your plate or leaf bowl. You just lift it real fast and gulp it, and whoa! The tangy sweet-sour combination along with the crispiness of the ball or gappa itself...smirking joy, bursting inside the food pipe. Once you have finished your plate, you get bowls full of the green water free of cost. It's an excellent digestive, what with mint and lime in it. It's also very refreshing, especially in summers, when the vendors put huge chunks of ice into the container holding the water.

Gol gappa is my personal favourite among all chaat items. I still remember the first time I had them. I was eight or nine and saw some neighbourhood ladies having this peculiar snack on the street across my house. Too tempted to resist, I went to join them. However, since I had no money, the only thing I could ask for was the green water. The usual practice is to taste the water first (much like testing the waters, eh?), and then, based on how fresh and delicious it is, go for the real gappas. The moment I had the water, I felt as if I had been electrocuted. My throat wasn't used to the knocking chilli punch that came by way of gulping the green liquid (yes, that's another important feature--chilli). It wasn't a pleasant experience, to say the least.

However, there was something irresistable about that eletrifying liquid, and I had to return to it. Soon, the very sight of gol gappas became like a magnet for me. I have got down from a public bus at an unknown stop simply because I spotted a gol gappa vendor, I have made numerous detours while returning home from work, just to go to a snack shop where they sold gol gappas, I have teamed up with an equally chaat-crazy colleague to go and snack on these ping-pong (the size of a gol gappa ball) delights on far too many evenings than was warranted. And the best of all...

a few years back, when a long time school friend bagged a high-profile job, he came over to give me the good news and offered to give me a treat. "What would you prefer," He asked. "Indian, or Chinese?" Looking at him sheepishly I said, "Umm, T, would you mind treating me to gol gappas?" T was taken aback. Here he was, ready to treat me in the best of restuarants in town, and I just wanted to have a plate of gol gappas?

Yep. That's the extent of my love for the gappas. If you haven't tasted one yet, go do it now! You won't take long to join my creed, I assure you.

Chaat away!

Sury

PS: In Hindi, the word "chaat" literally means to lick.

Angry Camera, Starving Blog

2005-10-20T08:58:00.000+05:30

Warning: This is a non-food post.

I have been a little inactive in posting around here in a while. Blame it on technology. About 10 days back, my beloved digicam just stopped working, and thus I am left without any aid to capture delicious (or even bland) shots to post here.

So while I go on a war footing to get my camera repaired (yes, wish me lots of luck), I am hoping we'd be able to savour some delectable stuff off Cesar's plate in the days to come.

Cesar, hint, hint...

Happy eating, everyone!

Sury

Peruvian dessert - Alfajores

2005-10-03T09:05:00.000+05:30

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Lima is home of a huge variety of traditional desserts. I already showed you Mazamorra which is made out of our very peculiar purple maize. This time I want to introduce you to a very different dessert, an easy delight for all the people who enjoy baking every once in a while.

I remember when I was a little boy. I was an only child and lived alone with my mother so every weekend she'd take me to the mall where she had her hair done. After they were done with her, on our way to the car, we'd stop by a bakery and most of the times she's buy me a treat which was very sweet, very tasty. I'd receive it onside a napkin pocket and I'd go at it trying not to make too much of a mess.

I'm talkin about the alfajor. Basically an alfajor is nothing for than a sandwich of sorts, at least that is the principle. You are not using bread nor jam here. The key ingredient to the alfajor is blancmange (what we in Peru know as manjarblanco). For those who have never heard of it, like my friend Sury, blancmange or manjarblanco is basicaly cooked condensed milk. You take a can of Nestle condensed milk, put it inside a pot with boiling water and two hours later when you open the can you will see that the milk is thicker... and brown. This is blancmange.

The other part of the alfajor are the "lids", mainly two cookie like discs. You make a wheat flour based dough, let it rest, then go back and work the dough with a rolling pin (as if you were preparing the crust for a pie). When your dough is flat and nice (1/2 cm thick) you take a round cutter (or a glass) and u cut several discs. Make sure you cut in pairs. Put them on a tray, pinch them with a fork so they don't inflate, and take to the oven. After about half an hour you take them out of the oven and you let them cool down completely.

The making of the alfajor itself is very simple. Just imagine you are eating a cracker with jam. Take a knife, scoop up some blancmange and spread it onto a lid. For best results the blancmange should be thick. You do this with another lid and then bring them together as if it was a sandwich. Then just make sure you clean the edges. Finally, the finishing touches. Powdered sugar, tons of it. Sprinkle it generously on both sides of the alfajor till it's completely white. Another finishing touch: shredded coconut. Put some on a plate and roll the edge of the lfajor so the coconut sticks to the blancmange. And there you go. You can also try adding a bit of shredded lemon skin to ur dough mix and you'll get alfajores with a very tasty hint of sour.

Make them big, or tiny. I've seen then small as a nickel or big as a coaster; perfectly round or with little protrusions, like an asterisk or star. Whichever shape and size, dig in. You will like them.

Cesar

2005-09-18T23:37:00.000+05:30

Steamed Hilsa in Mustard sauce

Ilish Relish

2005-09-18T21:59:00.000+05:30

Let me make it very clear. I am an incurable fish lover. For someone who is born in a Bengali family, that's almost a given. Bengal, a coastal state, prides itself on its culture, of which food is a big part. Bengali cuisine is marked by versatility and deliciousness, with dishes, both vegetarian and non-vegetarian coming aplenty to satiate one's palate. However, if one had to define Bengali food, it would be just two words: sweets,and...why, FISH! (I know you got that, I did mention coastal in the very beginning).

Being a riverine state, Bengal is home to a range of fishes. Most are freshwater (found in rivers and ponds), although seafood is also a favourite with Bengalis. But if you asked them to pick the best of the lot, 90% or more will take only one name--Hilsa. Known as Ilish in Bengali, it is undoubtedly the king of fish in both Indian state of Bengal and the country of Bangladesh (which was a part of undivided, pre-independence India). It is a good-sized scaly fish, the freshest of which shine with silver pride.

As mouthwatering as it tastes, tackling a piece of Hilsa on the plate can be tricky. The reason? It's numberless thin bones that take time and practice to sift through, before you can enjoy the meat. Even with my years of Ilish savouring, I once had a nasty experience with the bones. One night, as I gulped a chunk of the fish without care, the bones stuck inside my throat, giving me a week's agony. Even drinking water was hard during those seven days. You would think that should diminish my Ilish fetish. Not by a long shot...

There are a few ways in which Hilsa is cooked (not a lot of variations with this fish). One dish is to simply fry the fish and then cook it into a light, watery broth with turmeric, black cumin, and green chilli. Another recipe, one which remains my favourite through the years, is Hilsa steamed in a thick mustard sauce. It is very easy to make and is an excellent way to retain the essence of the fish. Since the fish isn't fried, its original taste is preserved along with the strong mustard flavour. Enjoy!

Nothing fishy about it, really.

Sury

Chifa I: Chaufa Rice

2005-09-04T08:00:00.000+05:30

As you might have implied from my previous posts, Peru is a very interesting place when you talk about food. However, apart from our huge contribution to the world, many things came into ours and the result was very unique. One of those combinations came from the introduction of Chinese food. Peruvians gave it their own spin and created what we know as "Chifa".

Chifa is a part of us, and it's not strange that restaurants that serve this food (Chifas) are always packed. We have all sorts of them, from the very cheap (you can find a Chifa anywhere, no matter how small it is) to the very exclusive and tastier in Capon Street (our very own Chinatown).

Among the most traditional Chifa dishes, there is Wan Tan, noodles and of course, Chaufa Rice. The secret to chaufa rice is Soy Sauce and you serve with chopped pork or chicken... it's a must at every table.

However Chaufa Rice is not just for restaurants. It's a dish so simple that anyone can make it at home without much fuss. All you need is to take a pan and heat up some chopped spring onions (white part separated from green part), diced ham, maybe some chopped red bell peppers (for color) and your choice of meat (can be chicken, pork or even shrimp). Once you have it you add an egg at the center and mix. Then you just prepare rice as you normally do and you add the stuff in the pan plus soy sauce and you stir till it gets this nice brown color.

That's it! The result? Take a look:

Try it, and when you come down to Peru, make sure you go to a good Chifa, and get some Inka Kola for drinks (more on that soon).

Enjoy!

Cesar

The Brilliance of Biryani

2005-08-21T13:37:00.000+05:30

What a horrendous blogger I have been. Starving all ye food lovers for so long. Well, you can rest assured something finger-licking had been cooking all this while. Yes, nothing less than the spicy, aromatic delight from the Indian subcontinent--Biryani.

If we look at its main ingredients, rice and meat (it could be any meat, but mutton and chicken are the most used in India), biryani doesn't come across as such a unique dish. After all, there are so many culinary cultures across the world that cook rice and meat together, aren't there? Yes, but biryani still remains unique because of the detail that goes into it--the type of rice grain (it has to be Basmati, the fine, long-grain variety grown in the Indian subcontinent), the different spices, the way in which the meat is cooked. Also interesting is to see the variety of this rice-meat phenomenon. Why? Because the biryani kept changing in taste and flavour as it travelled through different regions in India.

Although there are many stories about the origin of biryani, the most plausible one seems to be that it was brought to India by the Mongol conquerer, Taimur the Lame from Persia, when he invaded India in the 14th century. "Birian" means fried before cooking in Persian.

However, once it landed here, the biryani was nurtured and made more and more flavourful by the Mughal dynasty in India. From the northernmost reaches of India, to its southernmost shores, and from its eastern corners to its western boundaries, biryani is cooked everywhere, taking in the spices, cooking styles, and flavours of the regions where it's prepared.

Lucknow, which was a prime Mughal bastion in north India, saw the emergence of Lucknowi or Awadhi biryani. When the British invaded India, this biryani travelled to Calcutta (now Kolkata), the capital of Bengal, in eastern India. There, it entered the kitchen of ordinary folks, who replaced the meat with potatoes. And that's how biryani in Calcutta still has potatoes in it. Along with the meat and rice of course.

This heavenly delicacy made its journey down south, when the Mughal emperor, Aurangzeb invaded the south. He installed an authority figure called the Nizam ul Mulk there, who emerged as the ruler of the southern Indian province of Hyderabad later. It was in the Nizam's kitchen that the famous Hyderabadi biryani had its origins. There are two main kinds of H'badi biryani--Katchi biryani, in which the meat is marinated in curd (yoghurt) and then steamed with the rice; and Pakki biryani, which has the meat cooked first with all the different spices, and then the rice is simmered with the gravy of the cooked meat and is sealed in an earthen pot with saffron.

How will you know if you cooked the perfect biryani? Here are a couple of tips:

1) It should be aromatic. With Basmati rice and all those fragrant spices, that shouldn't be a trouble.

and here's the more important one:

2)Drop a handful of biryani (okay, a spoonful would do) on a hard surface. If no two grains of rice stick to each other, pat yourself on the back. Your biryani has cleared the age-old test.

Bismillah! (meaning, the beginning of all good things, in Arabic)

Sury

Peruvian dessert: mazamorra

2005-08-07T07:08:00.000+05:30

Been a while since we've been here. That's just because we've been having some tasty stuff we wanted to share. As you might or might not know last week was the anniversary of the Independence of Peru. So naturally it was a good opportunity to have some typical Peruvian dishes.

This time I want to talk about too dishes, a drink and a dessert which have one thing in common. That thing is purple maize. Yup, you read well. It's not a figurative thing either. It is actual purple maize which might seem very odd, even surreal for people in other parts of the world, but which brings Peruvians a secret delight for it represents one of our most representative drinks: chicha morada (purple chicha).

As you can see from the picture, purple maize has a very intense color and that is enhanced when it's boiled. It tints the water with this very, very dark hue of purple resulting in a delicious drink. The maize is put in water (some people put the bare cobs and the grains, others put it with the grains still attaced to the cob) along with some pineapple skin, sometimes apple skin, depends on the flavor you want. After you boil it (some people boil it twice until the grain of the corn bursts and can't shed any more color) you drain it. The result is chicha. Let it cool down and you will have one of the tastier, most refreshing drinks on the planet.

But that is not all there is to purple maize, because chicha is just the first step to a traditional Lima dessert called Mazamorra morada. Mazamorra is something between jello and pudding. It's made using chicha and adding some fruit like cubed apples and a Peruvian fruit called membrillo (sort of apple which is very very sour). Membrillo has this unique characteristic, the fruit is usually covered by this grey froth. When you go to the market, the thicker the froth, be better the fruit. So anyway, apple, membrillo (sour fruits) and also dry fruits (guindones, guindas, huesillos) Guindones are like very big raisins with a pit; Huesillos are basically little dry peaches. To give it consistency we use a special kind of flour, sweet potato flour. Others use a similar prodcut called chuño.

So there you go, dig in, enjoy but be careful not to stain your clothes, because if you get a purple stain, it's a battle to remember.

Cesar

2005-07-23T14:22:00.000+05:30

Some Poha for you.

Poha--Indian Delicacy

2005-07-23T13:13:00.000+05:30

The saga of rice continues. Only this time, it's a different version -- flattened rice known as Chirva, Chira or Poha in different parts of India. This beaten rice is a versatile snack item in the eastern, western and southern regions of India. For the purpose of this entry let's call it poha.

Mainly a breakfast feature, poha can be had in different ways. One way is to soak it in water (becomes mushy), add milk, sugar and fruits to it (mainly bananas or mangoes). Or you can use yogurt in place of milk.

Deep fried poha, with a generous dose of peanuts and a dash of salt and pepper is one of my favourtie tea-time snacks. This can also be preserved in jars over a brief period of time.

However, the dish I like the most made of this grain is itself called Poha. It belongs to the western Indian state of Maharashtra and has become a highly popular snack all over India. It's simple to make and there are a few variations. Here's one my mother makes at home to delight my tastebuds every now and then.

Wash the uncooked poha and let it dry. Heat oil in a pan and add some mustard seeds. When they begin to splutter, add vegetables like peas, beans, carrots, green chillies, a bit of ginger, chopped tomatoes and shredded coconut. Add salt and turmeric. Mix well and cook on low heat. When you see the water drying, add the poha and stir it to mix with the rest of the ingredients for about 2-3 minutes. Take it out on a plate and garnish with more chooped green chillies, shredded coconut and curry leaves.

Serve hot, and if you're hosting me, I would prefer a cup of tea with it.

Enjoy!

Sury

Mission Milk Rice

2005-07-22T23:43:00.000+05:30

Hurray! The first cultural exchange via this blog happened last week. Since the Milk Rice recipe sounded so easy to make, I decided to try it out. For a food-lover who is kitchen-shy (yes, I admit), preparing any delicacy is not short of a feat. And the simple-sounding Milk Rice was no exception.

To begin with, I didn't put enough water in the pan for the rice to boil nicely. So there was a bit of delay getting the rice fully cooked. Next was emptying the condensed milk tin into the rice. Fairly simple you would say, eh? Well, you should have seen the war between the tin and self. It was a battle royale, and to my frustration, the tin can kept winning. An enormous struggle and a dozen bad words against the tin company later, I could finally extract its contents. Phew! The big part of the fight was over. Now it was just a matter of adding those cups of water to cook the rice and milk. This time, I went a little overboard. The result? Those of you who cook can well imagine--the rice took ages getting condensed like Cesar had suggested. At one point I wondered if it would thicken at all (call me stupid, I really won't mind). To my wonder and amazement, it actually did! That's when I added pistachios to it. Then, turning off the fire, I sprinkled the jewel on the crown--cinnamon powder.

I was apprehensive how it would be received by the sweet-tooth public I was going to subject with it. My first victim...er, taster was a friend who came for lunch with us. Her reaction? Delight and an immediate demand for the recipe. Voila! She made my day. More tasters followed and the reactions were equally sweet (literally). For me the biggest compliment was that the entire lot I made (and I made a LOT) was polished off by various sweet-lovers, and that I myself got to taste just a little.

Just so you know, I would like to tell you India has a number of desserts using milk and rice. The only difference is we use regular milk instead of the condensed version used in Cesar's recipe.

Payesh

is one such, famous in Bengal, my home state. Do check it out.

SWEET!

Peruvian Dish - Milk Rice

2005-07-14T07:12:00.000+05:30

Ok, this is an easy one even sucky cooks like me can work out. This is a typical dish from Lima (the capital city in the coast of Peru). Lima is famous for a large variety of desserts all of which are pretty simple and very sweet.

Milk Rice (Arroz con Leche) is basically white rice with condensed milk. Yes, that's it. You cook some white rice (1/2 cup), preferable a type with a thick grain with a dash of salt and a cinammon splinter (for those who dont know how to cook rice... hey it happens to the best of us, just drop it into boling water (1 1/2 cups) until the water is absorbed, takes like 5 minutes). Once the rice is soft and dry you add a can of condensed milk and then add 3 cans of water (using the empty can of condensed milk). Then just cook on a low fire stirring every now and then until it's thick. A cool variation is to drop some shredded cocont into the mix and some raisins. Serve warm (or cold, it's tasty anyway really). Sprinkle powder cinammon on top.

Try it sometime :)

2005-07-10T17:48:00.000+05:30

Ripe Chausa

Mango Mania

2005-07-10T16:41:00.000+05:30

Climb up the stairs every morning and evening to arrive on the open terrace, meet friends from the neighbouring apartments as they moved to their terraces too, and pluck unripe mangoes from the tree that had its branches reaching out to our terrace area--this was among my favourite summer vacation activites when I was in junior school.

After we had collected a bunch of small-sized unripe mangoes, we would peel them off with a knife, cut them into small pieces and smear them with salt and red chilly powder for a terrace feast. The extreme sourness of the mangoes added that extra punch we needed for summertime goofing off.

Mangoes then, are one of my earliest images of the summer season. I never remember plucking a ripe mango on the terrace though. The ripe ones, we bought from the market. Back then, we had no fridge and the mangoes would be soaked in a bucket of water. You could take one out peel it nicely and savour it with a fork, or, as we were more prone to do, you just picked one out of the bucket, used your nails to take off the skin, and just bit into the juicy flesh. Mmm...pure joy, dripping from the fruit and into your mouth. Once I had finished relishing almost the entire fruit and came to the hard seed part, I would suck vigorously, until the last bit of juice was drained off it. My sessions with the fruit rarely stopped at one mango, back in my younger days...

It's not just me though. Come summer, the whole of India is gripped by a severe mango fever. The country produces more than 30 different types of the fruit--all with a distinct flavour and smell. In fact even the word Mango comes for the Tamil (one of India's earliest languages) word "Man Kay".

The types we grew up on are Dussheri, Langda, Safeda and Chausa, all produced mostly in northern India. It's really tough for me to pick a favourite amongst these. For if Dussheri allures with its sweetness, Langda entices with its refreshing smell and tangy flavour. Over the years though, I have veered towards the Chausa, for it's unfailing deliciousness. I share with you a few slices of the same here.

The best compliment I have heard for this king of fruits comes from the legendary Urdu poet, Mirza Ghalib. It is said once when the poet was enjoying mangoes in the company of his friens, a donkey came by them. After sniffing around a bit, the animal just walked away. So the only person in the group who didn't eat mangoes remarked that even donkeys don't eat mangoes.

"Yes," replied Ghalib. "Only donkeys don't eat mangoes." Expectedly, there was an uproar of laughter.

No offence to donkeys, by the way ;)

Apple Dessert

2005-06-27T23:25:00.000+05:30

Here's a very simple dessert we usually make at home for after lunch. You basically need a couple of big apples, not too sweet. You cut the hearts out but making sure you don't do it completely (do not peel the skin). That way you will be left with a small central cavity. You fill the cavity with a couple teaspoons of brown sugar, you add a dash of oporto (Port Wine) and you finish with some cinammon. Take them to the microwave for 4 minutes (we use this plastic containers special for microwave, shaped as apples, lol). Once the time is up, take them out of the microwave, open the containers and wait a little while so they are not too hot. Grab a spoon and dig in! Simple, easy to do, but very tasty. Try it sometime!

2-Minute Magic

2005-06-25T13:06:00.000+05:30

It's funny how you never get to do some kid-stuff when you are a kid, but suddenly, when you're grown up (and beyond), you stumble upon those things. As a child, I never played with teddy bears. One simple reason was we couldn't affort investing much into toys and so I could only appreciate teddys at friends' houses. Then, just a couple of years ago, a few American friends started gifting me a second childhood. On any and every occasion--be it a birthday, Christmas or anything else, the would send me these huge teddy bears. At one point it looked like I had to build a new room to house all these furry friends...

Okay, this isn't a Return-to-Innocence blog, so let me cut the toy talk. The reason I mentioned that is the food I am going to talk about now is another item immensely popular with children in India. It's called Maggi Noodles. A Nestle company brand, Maggi has a range of products, from soups, to ketchups, pickles and more. But the noodles remain the most popular in India. So much so that if you say the word Maggi here, it automatically comes to mean the noodles. The reason for the popularity? For one it's easy to cook--takes just 2 minutes to make a packet of Maggi noodles. For another, it tastes yum.

So, as a child, I never had much Maggi. But things changed when I started working. I heard about the glory of this snack from some bachelor colleagues and decided I had to try it. And, did I like it? In fact I felt ashamed, it hadn't entered our kitchen for so long!

The thing about Maggi noodles is it's versatility. There are just so many different ways you can cook it. If you're short of time, you just boil some water, add the noodles and the tastemaker, and bingo, your meal is ready in two minutes. If however, you want to relish it a bit more, add some scrambled eggs with onions in the boiled noodle. And if you want it even more sinfully delightful, cook eggs with some onions and veggies like capsicum, peas, cauliflower/broccoli, and beans and then put the boiled noodles (with tastemaker added) to this mix. Cook for some more minutes and...mmm, you have a hot, divine plate of noodles you just won't be able to resist.

No surprise Maggi (noodles, of course) is ever so popular with children here. And some grown up children too (yours truly).

NOTE: Image courtesy, www.panindia.com

2005-06-19T20:14:00.000+05:30

Khandvi Rolls, garnished with coconut shreds, fresh coriander, and pomegranate seeds. Take a bite!

Khandvi -- Simply Savoury

2005-06-19T19:47:00.000+05:30

Time for a traditional Indian dish then. I guess you already know this, but let me reiterate, India is a BIG country. And the diversity of the different states and regions is just mind boggling, even for someone like me who was born here. So, things are no different when it comes to food and eating habits across regions--huge differences. And that's the best part. No matter what, your taste buds would never get tired of sampling the same fare again and again.

This dish I am going to talk about now, comes from the western Indian state of Gujarat. Gujarati food is mostly vegetarian, yet very unusual from cuisines in the rest of the country, and rather delicious at the same time. One of all time favourites is the Gujarati snack called Khandvi. This is a fairly unpretentious looking dish. Soft rolls made with gram flour and garnished with finely-shredded coconut and fresh coriander leaves.

What I like about Khandvi is it's light on the stomach, not very spicy, yet extremely delicious. And simple though it may seem, it's not all that easy to make. That's not to dissuade you from trying it though. The sheer scrumptiousness should be enough reason to try it out at home. In fact, I even found a recipe so you could that.

http://www.vanzayouth.com/gujfood/khandvi.html

Enjoy!

2005-06-18T06:52:00.000+05:30

Homemade Causa stuffed with tuna fish and vegetables.

Peruvian dish: Causa Rellena (stuffed causa)

2005-06-18T06:20:00.000+05:30

Alright. This is something I've been wanting to do for a while, tell a bit about some very traditional dishes from my country, in particular from Lima which is where I live. This time we'll take a glance at the causa.

Before I talk about causa I need to get something clear. Peru is home of the potato. We have an uncountable diversity of this root, and many types of it can only be found here. One of these is the "yellow potato". Smaller than a regular "white" potato, the yellow potato is unique. It has a brown skin and it's surface has a lot of dents instead of being completely smooth. Think of many small balls of playdoh stuck together. Our yellow potato not only produces dishes which are (for obvious reasons) more colorful, but is much softer, which makes it excellent to mash.

Causa starts as mashed potatos. You cook the taters and then you press them until this "dough" results. Then comes the traditional part. You add lemon to the dough (again, Peruvian lemon, not the usual kind which are big and sweet; our lemons are the size of ping pong balls and are very sour) and then you add a special type of pepper called ají. The result is a very compact, very bright dough with this unique hot-sour taste.

From what I've been able to gather, causa was eaten by our ancestors (prehispanic cultures), back when potatoes were a very, very, important part of meals (not that they are not today). Back then it was made only with potatoes and aji. When the Spanish arrived they brought lemon. When that lemon was planted on our soil it resulted in this unique breed I mentioed above.

The origins of today's dish causa rellena is much fuzzier however. According to some, back in the days of our independence (1821), the women from Lima served a variation of the causa; it had been stuffed. The people who enjoyed the feast didn't know what it was and they asked for a name. When no one replied, it is said they exclaimed "For the cause!" and thus the name causa (cause) was adopted.

Nowadays there are many ways you can prepare stuffed causa (our causa rellena). You can use chicken, fish, vegetable, seafood, the list goes on and on.

So now you know. When you come to Lima, Peru make sure you ask for it (my recomendation, try the crab filling, it's delicious).

Pass the ... lemon!

Shrimp Sunday

2005-06-13T06:59:00.001+05:30

About a month ago, for Mother's Day actually, me and my family went to this little sea food restaurant where I ordered Shrimp Fettuccini, not really knowing what I was getting into. The result however was delicious and since them I've been dying to go back and order that dish again.

Today I kind of satisfied that craving for shrimp fettuccini, albeit at home. We ran into this recipe a couple days ago, very simple to make so we had a go at it today. It's very different from the one we had at the restaurant but this version was also great. The pasta is mixed with two preparations, one of them has parsley and olive oil, the other has shrimp, garlic and white wine. Mix them up and you get this watermouthing delight.

Stick around, for soon I'll be talking about totally Peruvian dishes (before my compratiots banish me from the country). Meanwhile, have a go at this Sunday dish.

Pass the ... (mmm)... Parmesan!!

2005-06-12T01:24:00.000+05:30

New craving! These delicious Danish breads are new at our local store. Stuffed with apple. Great at any time of the day.

Chinese Delight

2005-06-12T00:10:00.000+05:30

On the platter is noodles, shredded lamb, Mongolian style, some spring rolls (invisible from here) and a bit of kimchee salad. Wash it down with the coke. Keep eating ;)

2005-06-08T22:41:00.000+05:30

So sweet :)

Snacking in the heat

2005-06-08T21:24:00.000+05:30

Here's some trivia for those who don't know this. If the word cha(a)t in the title of this blog intrigues you, here's the key to the mystery. Chaat is a hugely loved snack available in Delhi. In fact, it's one of the trademarks of the city itself. Like many snacks that are hard-to-resist for the tongue, chaat too, is by definition unhealthy.

Today, after work, an office friend and I went for a chaat session. As a true Delhiite I am a passionate chaat lover (watch this space for more). You can gauge that from the fact that I teamed up with my colleague to indulge in it when the temperature outside was a blistering 44 degree Celcius (111 F) (I am not joking). Well, the chaat today wasn't all that tempting, and the pictures I took aren't all that great either. So I will not yet talk at length about what chaat is. I want to show you images when I do.

Following the chaat, I went into a bookshop looking for a book I've been planning to read. Tough luck here too. But there was a silver lining...a candy shop just next to the bookstore! Both my friend and I decided to give in to silliness and bought a packet each of candies. Yum stuff. Hard to resist and harder to share. I will, though. Just control yourself a bit there...easy on sugar, okay?

PS: I read the "don't like fish that much" statement. Et tu, Cesar-e? I really need to save money now. To buy that head-smacking equipment, I mean...laptop ;)

2005-06-06T03:02:00.000+05:30

There you go, served with rice and potatoes.

2005-06-06T03:01:00.000+05:30

Trout on the grill. Almost done!

Trout Day

2005-06-06T02:47:00.000+05:30

Ok, I will say it out loud. I don't like fish that much (at this point Sury is ready to smack me on the head with a laptop). However I must say I have a preference for red fish instead of white fish. You know, tuna, salmon, trout...

So it's Sunday and we bought a nice couple of trouts, they sell them already gutted and opened, ready to grill. The grill is one of my secret passions. I'm terrible in the kitchen but I like using my grill and this is a simple thing to do. You only grill the trout 5 minutes on the meat side and 2 minutes on the skin side and voila! You serve it with this really good sauce made with parsley and garlic. A real treat. We serve it with white rice with some corn. We use choclo, a sort of white maize... think corn on the cob, only white instead of yellowish. It takes this cream color once it's coked. Really nice.

Meanwhile apple pie is on the way. My mother makes a great apple pie and I can't wait to cut a slice this evening, might be nothing left for tomorrow, lol.

Shortly I'll be talking about where this passion for grilling came from. Actually it has to do with cooking shows on tv. You'll get more in a future post :)

Pass the gravy!

cesarcarlos

2005-06-05T07:13:00.000+05:30

This was a treat Cesar once sent me, albeit virtually. Waffles aren't part of regular food here in India, and this sure looks inviting!

2005-06-05T05:30:00.000+05:30

Caiguas as they look in their natural state.

Dinner at midnight

2005-06-05T00:19:00.000+05:30

So... my first blog ever!

My friend Sury thought it would be a nice idea doing this blog together and I couldn't agree more. It's hard to keep track of the times we've stayed up (we're on opposite sides of the world so someone is staying up late at some point) chatting about dishes one of us is familiar with but the other isn't.

We're always asking each other "did you have dinner yet"? Just last night, as Sury was creating our blog, I was nuking my dinner. She was starting a fresh day while it was 11 p.m. here. Yup, late for dinner. I'm a bit of a procrastinator when it comes to dinner. Since night is the time I usually use to read or chat or work on the computer, many times it's close to midnight when I walk into the kitchen.

So once again, when Sury asked what I was having, we started one of our usual conversations. Sometimes dinner can be something simple and universal; others, it can be odd and very local.

Yesterday I had something called Picante de Caigua. Caiguas are vegetables. They are usually eaten stuffed, since they are hollow, although yesterday I was having them chopped in rings, with a kind of hot sauce with shredded nuts. You never it caiguas by themselevs, since they are bitter, although I am one of those step-eaters many people can't tolerate, lol. By step-eater I mean I eat my plate in sections.

A very typical use of caigua is to stuff them with chopped meat, corn, black olives, etc. At home we have a variation of this, we stuff them with tuna. We eat them with rice (rice is served with a lot of dishes in Peru) and sometimes (not my personal choice) with sweet potatoes.

So, there you have it. A first look at what food can be lie on this part of the world. We'll keep bringing you more insightful glances at our different traditions. India and Peru are countries with a LOT of food history, and we want to share it with everyone who wants to read about it.

Pass the gravy!

cesarcarlos