Month: October 2014

Sunday Brunch @ HIGH Ultra Lounge

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Sunday brunches are sure shot ways of letting all your diet plans go down the drain, or in this case go down a flute of champagne. Over indulgence aside, the sheer variety of cuisines laid out like a smorgasbord of sin is enough to send my head reeling. And with zero will power when it comes to the amount of food I consume – I’m walking on dangerous territory. So getting to HIGH Ultra Lounge for their Sunday Brunch was guided by two important aspects – a. They focus on just Asian fare which is definitely lighter than our ghee laden kormas and b. The absolutely fabulous cocktails their main man Guru dishes out. What’s a Sunday brunch without some tipple eh?

Old Fashioned Carrot Cake

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If someone told me a couple of years ago, that I’d be making a carrot cake at home and polishing it off with joy, I would have guffawed. First of all Carrots Cakes are so old fashioned. It reminds me of somebody’s grandmother baking it and inviting her bridge friends over for tea. I don’t really remember ever ordering it myself at the local bakery or even trying to make it at home. If I was offered Carrot Cake at a friend’s place I would vehemently refuse a slice. A Cake with veggies in it was clearly not my idea of dessert.  

Porcini Mushroom Risotto

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Let’s face it – porcini mushrooms are expensive. It’s not something that finds its way into my grocery list AT ALL. But there are odd days (when the salary account has been credited) that one is inclined to feel generous. So I picked up a teeny tiny bottle of it for half a thousand rupees. When coming up with an idea to use it judiciously – a Porcini Mushroom Risotto was a no brainer. The mushrooms would lend themselves nicely to being slowly rehydrated while cooking the risotto and the flavor and color would permeate the stock. And to be fair, just half a cup of Porcini mushrooms is more than enough to make that risotto praise worthy. Cooking risotto is like barbequing something – you have to hang around. The stock has to be poured in ladle by ladle while the rice absorbs the liquid and gets plump. And you need to use your intuition and your tasting spoon to know when it’s ready. Lucky for you, I use a fail-safe risotto recipe that …

Weekday Hunger Pangs @ Dalma

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My blog might be replete with posts of eating out at fancy places but trust me that’s restricted to once or twice a week. The rest of the times (ok, I do eat out a lot) are confined to no-frills places with simple but satisfying meals. A restaurant that sees me going back a couple of times every month, ever since I moved to Koramangala, is the Odiya restaurant called Dalma. I was first introduced to the secrets of this place by an Odiya colleague who insisted I try their absolutely scrumptious Rasagullas. After listening to (in length) the story of how the rosagulla actually originated in Odisha and how the Bengali’s usurped this sweet, made it whiter and more spongy and popularized it as their own, I was more than intrigued to taste the original one. And so one fine day, a couple of years ago I stepped into the building at the Titan Eye signal that declares in bold red font – Dalma, tasteful Odishan cuisine. Orissa and West Bengal are located next …

Easy Grilled Chicken with Pasta

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The grill pan is one of my favorite kitchen treasures. It lets me (almost) replicate the look and taste of an outside grill, right on my stove-top. I’m all for shortcuts and making life easier, so you well know how this fits into my lifestyle 😉 Another thing that makes life easier is ready-made sauces – for the life of me, I can’t imagine slow simmering some BBQ sauce over 12-14 hours! I have better things to do, like read a juicy cookbook or go grocery shopping for exciting ingredients! Now, there’s two kinds of grocery shopping I indulge in. The first one is running to the local kirana store (doubles up as exercise) for curry leaves or a loaf of bread and the second is where I make a huge list and plan an exciting day at a large and well stocked supermarket. (yes, I’m sad like that). Foodhall @ 1MG Road, has been a regular haunt to pick up all things interesting – wasabi paste…check, gnocchi…check, tarragon vinegar…check, Ras-El-Hanout…check, an elephant…check (ok, just …