All posts filed under: Recipes

Cranberry & Chocolate Chip Wholewheat Muffins

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Cranberries are not grown in India. So all those gorgeous recipes with Cranberries in them were pushed to the back, because let’s face it – I don’t want to pay an arm and a leg to import them. Nor do I want to grab onto someone else’s arm or leg and beg them to get some from their trip abroad. The dried version however IS available here and I recently happened to pick some up for the heck of it. Foodhall offeres two types – one that looks all red and juicy (which is what I would expect a cranberry to be) and the other which looks like a mini blueberry. Of course I gravitated to the more familiar one, only to be told that they were not whole cranberries and are treated to some extent, with sugar and color to make them pretty and sweeter. I took the bait and bought the more expensive but tart, Whole Cranberries. The idea was to keep them at my work desk and have them as a snack, …

Fizzy Batter Fried Fish

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Chemistry was an exciting subject in school – at least the part that required us to don lab coats and act like scientists. No matter that the only thing we were actually allowed to do, is heat some substances (washing soda/ copper sulphate) and note down the properties. I don’t want to give you the spiel about how recreating a recipe is nothing but chemistry, but in this case it’s true. I was supposed to use carbonated water or soda, in combination with soda bicarbonate powder to get the desired ‘fizziness’ to make the batter light and crispy. It’s anticlimactic that the actual reaction was nowhere near the explosion that I expected, but more of a tame bubble bath! But the end product was right as promised – crisp, light and almost see-through-lace like batter. Now that’s an experiment recipe worth repeating. Fizzy Batter Fried Fish Prep time: 20 mins Cook time: 10 mins Serves 4 What you need: 125 gms Plain Flour 1 tsp bicarbonate of Soda/ baking soda 1 tsp Paprika 150ml cold, …

Coq Au Vin for easy entertaining

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I have not been lazy. The fact that my last blog post was a month and a half ago should not lead you to the obvious conclusion. The reason for not posting is because most of my cooking these days is done in the evening. That leads to the sad fact that there is no natural light to shoot my pictures. (This is the only time I wish I lived in a temperate region where the sun sets late!). This leads to me not posting the recipes because I always feel a recipe is enhanced by pictures. (Which is why I struggle to buy cookbook without pictures, unless it was something monumental like the Larousse Gastronomique!) I make Coq Au Vin pretty often. That’s because it’s easy, can be made in large quantities, it freezes well and the leftovers always taste more brilliant than the day you actually make it. Another more practical reason is to use up leftover wine. (Not that there is too much, but the rare occasions of opening two bottles for …

Two ways to be Feta Chic – Salad and Appetizer

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Feta is a brined soft cheese, made from sheep (and goats milk) and is very popular in Greek cuisine. It looks like paneer but is much softer, grainier and tangier. While the most popular way of using feta is in a Greek Salad – this cheese has the ability to shine in many other dishes. I picked up a slab of Feta this week and was hard pressed to find a recipe that does it justice. I wanted Feta to be the star of the dish and not just a supporting element. After many frustrating hours of searching my recipe books and the internet, I just decided to use it in a Watermelon and Arugula (Rocket) Salad. Besides, I had recently learnt how to deseed a watermelon and I was itching to see if it works. (It does – Instructables shows you how!). The salad is an amazing medley of tastes and textures – sweet and crispy watermelon, crunchy and peppery arugula and finally creamy and salty feta, dressed with silky honey and olive oil. …

Tandoori Chicken – without a Tandoor

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I don’t make Tandoori Chicken at home. When you can order the same off the restaurant across the road, it somehow seems pointless. Especially because the restaurant boasts of a tandoor (clay oven) and I don’t. And I would be a fraud to make this at home and call it ‘tandoori’ chicken when in fact – there was no tandoor to make it in! So after struggling with this notion and willfully desisting from even venturing in that direction – the co-resident broke all the rules. He was having a barbeque party and could I please marinate some chicken for it? Sure I said, ‘What marinade do you want?’ Tandoori marinade, he cooed.  *Gasp, splutter, shaking the head in disbelief and denial*. Why don’t you just buy it off *insert name of restaurant here*, I asked. Because for a barbeque party you need to barbeque, not buy stuff and besides it’s not like you will be grilling it, just marinating it, he insisted. Sigh… that logic was sound and I’m a true believer in good …

Guacamole – Mexican Avacado Dip

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Guacamole (gwaka – mo – lee) is part of Mexican cuisine that originated with the Aztecs. It essentially means a sauce (mole) made with ahucatyl (avocado). Its popularity spiked with American football games and now it’s a household dip of choice in America! India is just warming up to the idea of guacamole as Mexican cuisine gains popularity. When I was a little kid, my dad used to mash up avocados with sugar and we used to enjoy them chilled. We called it Butter Fruit Ice Cream 🙂 So I am already a big fan! I love guacamole but it is really difficult to make. The difficulty arises not in the process but in the sourcing of ripe avocados. There have been more than a dozen times that I have come home happy with avocados and then been a grouch when I cut into them and realized they are unripe or a brown slimy mess! And seriously there are no failsafe options to figure this out. Every time I cut into an unripe avocado, I …

Ham and Cheese Crepes

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I have been super busy the past two months. Just completed a very big and very important project in life that will serve as a retirement cushion. So pretty stoked! But what that necessarily entailed, was me not having time for the small pleasures in life – like cooking something exciting and blogging about it. The co-resident plays football every Saturday morning and comes home ravenously hungry. I got up early today and decided to make a decadent breakfast for him, to make up for all the days in the past few weeks that he has had to eat Maggi noodles! A ham and cheese crepe is a very nice way of saying thank you don’t you think?     Ham and Cheese Crepes Prep time:10 mins Cooking time: 15 mins Serves 4-6 What you need: For the Crepe 1 cup all-purpose flour (maida) 1 Egg 1 cup + 2 Tbsp Milk ¼ tsp Salt Butter – for greasing the pan For the filling 2 eggs, beaten 200 gms Ham, sliced 6 slices of Cheese …

Chicken Ghee Roast (Warning – It’s Red Hot!)

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Why am I giving you a recipe for a crazy-red-hot dish in the middle of summer? Have I lost my bonkers (and my taste buds)? Ahem ahem… that was a nice opening spiel, don’t you think? Now, getting down to business. If you think about it – all the ‘hottest’ food in the world comes from the ‘hottest’ places. Mexico, Indonesia, Andhra Pradesh, Nagaland…all famous for foods that send you running, to pack your tongue with ice! Logically, you would expect these people to be sipping on watermelon juice and eating a cucumber salad and not trying to replicate the external temperature assault, internally! So why do they do it? The wisdom of ages pours forth now (actually this is a result of being a closet trivia junkie!). Spicy food is your best bet to cool down. Capsaicin, the chemical in all spicy food is in cahoots with our central nervous system to help regulate the temperature in our body. It starts by increasing the blood circulation and dilating capillaries – resulting in more of …