Something for Nancy

Okay, so each time I've posted (this year a bit more irregularly than last), I've kind of jammed my Indianized recipes or twisted Indian recipes down your throats whether you liked it or not. Today I thought, I'll start with an Italian one, for my friend Nancy, who loves Italian (food I mean, men, I'm sure) and also Asian food.  
   A couple of days earlier, after a long hanging out session with Nancy in her lovely La Jolla home, I somehow managed to return to my apartment with a bunch of parsley, oranges, lemons and avocados from her garden. Don't ask me how, but that's what happens when you go to Nancy's. No, you don't steal from her garden, she just hands these beautiful veggies to you.
   So I thought, how about making something that I know she's good at making, but something that I have been hesitant to try. No reason, but the first time I had this dish, it was dry, too cheesy and the rice was undercooked. And I was told that it was how it always tastes. Did. Not. Like. It. And I like pretty much everything. Risotto. So, I tried it again in Portland. And it was AMAZING. And no, I don't have images of it, I ate it up way too fast for the camera to capture it. But I can tell you where it was. A place called Equinox on North Shaver, Portland--it's a small place, with a patio, and cozy dining area, all built with recycled materials. If you are planning a trip to the Pacific Northwest, give this place a try--fresh local ingredients, with a keen respect for vegetarian, vegan as well as meat eating customers.
   And since I don't have a photo of that restaurant itself, how about just a cool Portland shot? Like this one at the Saturday Old Town Market.

And not to miss the most wonderful Voodoo doughnut shop that is just decadent, crazy and a Portland must-do and has nothing to do with this blog:

   Okay, enough digression. Risotto with Shitake Mushrooms (a mix of Italian with Asian mushrooms, and of course, par-boiled rice is the Indian aspect to it). Did you know, Shitake mushrooms have been cultivated in China, Korea and Japan since pre-historic times? And that they grow only in cold places, so San Diego may not be the place to start a shitake farm? Did you even think you'd get a history/agriculture lesson from a food blog? Hah. Anyway, the mushrooms have a fragrance, and a texture that adds a lot of body to the risotto, so it's a good addition (in my opinion) to the Italian dish.

 

Ingredients
1 cup par-boiled rice
Optional: 1/4 cup barley and spelt mixed
1 cup grated (good) parmesan cheese
1 1/2 tsp vegetable broth mix added to 3 cups water, or
3 cups vegetable broth
2 cups roughly chopped mushrooms
1 cup sliced white onions 
4 tbsp chopped parsley
1 tbsp (or more) garlic, chopped
1 tsp ground pepper
salt to taste
2 tbsp grapesed oil
1 tbsp melted butter

 

Recipe

• In a big pot, boil the broth. Check for salt. If it's too salty (some pre-made broth mixes are oversalted), dilute it with water.
• In a pan, add the oil and butter on medium low. Cook the onions, and then the mushrooms, till they are browned. Add the garlic, sauté some more.
• Bring the pan off the fire once the vegetables are cooked. You can substitute this with asparagus, salmon, carrots, you name it.
• Cook the rice in the broth on medium-low flame. Once all the broth is absorbed in the rice, stir in the mushroom/onion/garlic mix.
• Keep stirring (the mixture, not yourself). Add the parsley. Your kitchen should smell very nice or else, you've done something wrong.
• Add the cheese at the end. Switch off the gas, stir the pot some more.
• Add more parsley, sprinkle some ground black pepper, more salt (if you want to get high blood pressure) and enjoy the dish warm!

 

Serves (at least) two.

Mine looked like this:

Anyway, if you really want a closeup of the same, this is what it looks like when it's hot, steaming:

     And like I said, I'm sure Nancy has made this multiple times, but it's worked for me this time. So I am a risotto convert.

     Happy Birthday, Nancy, enjoy!

Updates and Such

     How have you been? It's been a crazy few weeks--food foraging (not really) in India, in search of Chinese food in Kolkata, hard drives crashing, losing photos in that crash, silent mental breakdowns with even quieter panic attacks...that's been me for a few weeks.
    Anyway, to start with the start, wanted to share a neat little blog with you. Click on it and enjoy the site: It's called A Taste of Savoie --the photos are amazing and so's the blog. Let me know what you think.
     On another note--last month and the beginning of this one, I was in New Delhi and Kolkata--and yes, all I did was eat.
A representative image would be this:

    And no, I didn't eat the girls. That's Dilli Haat. More on that in the next post. But yes, it was a colorful, beautiful, crazily busy, and a surprisingly fun (food) trip. And did I mention the food?

Anyway, it was more than a cappuccino, and yes, it was at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. And fascinating because I am in a reverse-culture shock mode right now with all these Americanisms flourishing in India.






     Okay, back to food, and food that I enjoy. At Kolkata's Chinatown, thread chicken--basically, wonton skins-wrapped chicken--yum.

    And a favorite at South Ex New Delhi's most famous Bengali Sweet Market--the savory part, the best in the world, chole bhature (छोले भठूरे):

     And yes, we're not talking low-salt, nutritious, low-oil, non-fried, non-greasy food. But c'mon, how can you resist this? I go home just for that! Anyway, thought I'd give you a preview on what you'll see from my trip in the next few quite frequent posts: Chicken biryani, zarda, आर (aar) fish curry, Wenger's pineapple pastries, Keventer's milkshakes, Dilli Haat's food and dance shows...you get the picture.

     Finally, to end, don't know if you caught this, but there's my mug with my Masala Scrambled Eggs recipe on Good Bite.

    I'll be back soon, till then, hope your week's going great, and hope you're enjoying yourself--the snow, the sunshine, the fog...wherever you are!

Make it a Spicy 2010!

Happy 2010! Hope this year you're able to do everything you always planned on--take a trip, get that degree, earn millions, be healthy, stay healthy, eat at the restaurant you always wanted to, laugh a lot, laugh everyday, write that book, be patient, sing that song, cook for friends, make new friends, keep old friends, be nice everyday, fight nice when you need to...you know all the things you wanted to do and be but life and time got in the way...yes, those things.

     We took this break to hang out in San Diego and decided to go to our favorite soup haunt. It's a Mongolian hotpot restaurant. No, don't groan. It isn't a large cast-iron skillet noisy joint with all-you-can-eat veggies and meat. That's a Mongolian all-you-can-eat place. (Just because you heard Mongolian, huh? Shame on you!) This is soup and fun stuff like that, cooked on a burner right at your table, and you get to choose your own soup broth (vegetarian, beef, half and half, pretty neat). The restaurant is called Little Sheep Hot Pot and I'll wait till you stop laughing. We did the same when we heard of this place. What does little sheep have to do with soup unless they're in it (yikes!)? And we're dealing with a vegetarian spouse here, so, that wouldn't have worked. But Little Sheep has a wonderfully flavorful all vegetarian soup broth as well as non-vegetarian options. It's apparently quite popular in China, and there's reason why. The spices are so interesting--gojiberries, galangal, chinese ginger, star anise, four types of pepper, a hundred berries I don't have a clue what they are, mushrooms, I mean...it's really fun if it's slightly cold and you're in the mood for soup.

     Little Sheep in San Diego's located in a strip mall in Clairemont Mesa Boulevard, and you could easily miss it. But inside, the restaurant is impressively huge, and mostly and usually filled with families who are serious about soup. Man, no one even looks up from their plates, it's that good.

     So we went. Sanjay, who was fighting a cold, and being the manly man that he is, told the server, "We would like extra spices in our vegetarian soup broth". The server nodded, no expression. I should have known. (You know where this is going, right?). Anyway, here's how our soup looked when it showed up:

     You have to admit, it's pretty. Look at the spring onions, the mushrooms, the berries...and we were planning on adding tofu, watercress and more mushrooms to this. It was supposed to be fun. Well, we then fished out the red chilies that Sanjay obviously had expressly requested. This is the proof:

     And we fished out even more as the soup boiled in chilies slowly releasing their chiliness (that's a new word you learned in 2010). At least a hundred fiery red chilies waving hello at us. Oy.

     Chicken that I am, I tried one bowl and gave up. And believe me, it's my favorite soup place! But I don't give up that easily, so I moved to their salad, an order that I placed (no spiciness requests were allowed this time!).

     They have a very interesting wood fungus salad that's infused with seasme oil, tons of garlic (yeah, maybe not a first date kind of salad if that's what you're worried about, but garlic's good for you!). It goes really well with soup, especially the 'non-spicy' kind.

     I had two orders of the same while Sanjay, the manly man, had the soup to himself (maybe that was his plan all along...hmmm, didn't think of it that way!).

     Anyway, here's Little Sheep HotPot's salad:

The celery and baked tofu along with the wood fungus is really flavorful and a fun dish with their green tea.

     I've made my own twisted version of the same. So, here it is:

Twisted Wood Fungus Salad

Ingredients

1 packet dried wood fungus

Tofu (half a packet, cubed, optional)

4 large garlic cloves, grated

4 tbsp spring onions, chopped

1/2 cup diced carrots (optional)

2 tbsp sesame oil

1 tsp chili hot oil

2 tbsp lemon juice

salt to taste

Recipe

Boil the wood fungus for about 5 minutes in salt water, drain, cool

Mix the wood fungus with garlic, tofu, spring onions
Toss in more tofu, carrots if need be
Add chili and sesame oil and mix the salad
Add salt to taste
Squirt lemon juice and mix again
Chill for about an hour in the fridge (not you, the salad, silly!)
Serve with soup or as an appetizer

     See, it's simple, isn't it? All you need to do is go to any Vietnamese or Chinese store and ask them for the dried fungus. You can even get dried shitake mushrooms that you could soak in water for about an hour or so and toss that in too. This is what mine looked like:

     So that was our greatly spicy start, and hope you enjoy the new year with new, exciting and fun foods, good health, and fun times!

     More in a bit, till then, enjoy!

Daal Pakoras Before Christmas

Hope you're in the Christmas spirit by now. Am assuming the packing of gifts, the drinking of wine, the eating of chocolates and all things dessert have peaked or close to peaking right about now, huh? This year, it's been quite a mellow holiday season for me, just the way I like it. In case you didn't know, I like boring. Excitement isn't good for the heart, or your stomach. And I live for what I put in my stomach! Anyway, back to food. I thought, how about sharing yet another appetizer recipe, and a quick and easy one at that? In fact, how about using up yesterday's lentils that you don't really want to eat, but can't bear to throw because, hey, it's daal (दाल) and who throws out daal?

     This is what I learnt from my mother. She had innovative ways of fixing fresh meals from leftovers, and she'd tell us, yes, it's a new appetizer. Or she'd say, it's a very popular and well-known dish (she never did clarify where it was popular, and I was too intrigued with the food to care to ask!), and I couldn't wait to eat it. So when I looked in my fridge and found a bowl of day-old lentils, this is what I came up with.
Daal Pakoras with Coriander Chutney 
Serves 2 (two very hungry souls)

 Ingredients
1 cup cooked daal/lentils (use moong, or masoor daal)
1 tbsp whole wheat
2 green chilies, chopped
1 purple onion (medium), diced
2 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp coriander powder
2 tsp Kashmiri chili powder
salt and pepper to taste
2 tbsp grapeseed oil
4 tbsp chopped coriander leaves
2 tsp lime juice (optional)

Recipe

• Strain the lentils so most of the liquid is separated. Use a sieve if need be.
• Add the whole wheat to make the mixture thick. Add more if needed.
• Add half the onion, cumin, coriander, chili powder along with half the green chiles and half the coriander leaves.
• Mix the ingredients well, and mash the lentils with a spoon while mixing.
• Make flat round balls of the daal pakora, and place them on a plate
• Heat the oil in a cast-iron skillet.
• Saute the daal pakoras, making sure they don't touch.
• Add more oil if need be, but since you're using a cast-iron skillet, you should need less, that's the idea.
• Transfer the cooked pakoras to a bowl, sprinkle coriander leaves and green chilies as garnish.
• Season with pepper (optional)
• Spice it up with lime juice (optional)
• Eat with fresh coriander chutney.

     My favorite memory of home has been eating pakoras with a hot cup of tea when it's raining outside and there isn't much to do but eat and make my sister's life hell. I'm not sure what your memories of good times are, but make daal pakoras, and you'll know what I mean when you bite into one.
     Enjoy, and happy holidays!

Good Bite Appetizers: Dhoklas

I know, you don't have to say it. I studied at a Catholic school for crying out loud. Guilt is part of my being. Yes, I disappeared for a couple of weeks. Yes, I ignored the blog, sorry. No excuses, I just did. Anyway, hope you've been well. How's the holiday season treating you? For me, I've decided, gifts will be handmade (mostly), cards, handmade and food homemade for this year. Why? I ask, why not? I remember when we were kids how excited we'd be if we went out to a restaurant. It was because it wasn't a regular thing, it was a treat. Now we either don't have time, or it's easier to buy food from outside. In fact, I think children would balk if they found out their birthday cakes didn't come from Costco! Anyway, that's the reason why I thought, let's go back to how we started. When did I last receive a holiday card (and no, holiday letters don't count), that someone made especially for me? Hmmmm.
     Meanwhile, re: food, I got an email from Good Bite . It's a neat little website on food, conversation and recipes, asking me to contribute some Indian recipes. That was such a challenge that I was in a fear-coma for weeks--what Indian recipes? Why? Which is better? What if they hate it? If you get to their site you'll see beautifully photographed food, easy recipes, and fun conversations. So here's my contribution.
   What I decided today was to talk appetizers. Invaribly, people are busy during this time, wrapping gifts, buying expensive stuff, meeting at expensive restaurants, but what if, what if we made appetizers at home? Lots and lots of them? So, here's the plan--for the next few days till the new year, I'll post a few recipes, all appetizers that if you eat a lot of, it's a meal! But if you eat just a bit, then you just might be one of the few who doesn't gain multiple lbs around the holidays, how's that? Oh, and I'll post a few desserts too--why not, it's the holidays!
    So, today's is Dhoklas from Gujarat. I learnt this from my cousin's wife, Shakuntala Boudi, who was Gujarati, but learnt to cook the best Bangla food ever. I've twisted it some, so it's more spicy than what people are used to, but you can tone it down based on what you can handle.
Ingredients
1 cup besan (बेसन), garbanzo bean flour
1 and a 1/2 tsp semolina (or cream of wheat)
1 tsp sugar
2 and a 1/2 tsp green chili-ginger paste
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp red chili powder
salt to taste
1 and 1/2 tsp Eno's fruit salt (or 1 tsp baking powder, and 1/2 tsp baking soda)
For tempering
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp sesame seeds
2 slit lengthwise, green chilies
1/4 tsp asafoetida (hing, हिंग)
1 tbsp oil
2 tbsp coriander leaves, chopped
Recipe:

• Mix the ingredients, minus Eno's fruit salt, with minimal water. It should be a thick paste.
• Add the fruit salt, sprinkle a few drops of water and mix well (instantly, as it starts to froth).
• Pour the mixture into a greased steel bowl, and steam in a pressure cooker for 10 minutes.
• Remove the dhoklas from the bowl and place on a plate to cool.
• Heat the oil and add the green chilies, hing, sesame and mustard seeds. Stir as the seeds pop.
• Add the this mixture on top of the dhoklas.
• Garnish with coriander leaves.
• Cut into squares (dhoklas, not yourself!).
• Serve with tamarind and coriander chutneys.

     I like to serve dhoklas with chutney. But Gujaratis, I'm sure, would be dismayed to hear that. Usually it's served with rasa, or a liquid soak of the dhoklas, so it's moist. You can do that too if you want. I find that a little too sweet (the rasa has jaggery, and tamarind along with chilies and turmeric, which makes it more sweet than savory) for my taste, but you could modify that if you want, or if you like sweet, just follow any Tarla Dalal recipe.
    And all you need with this (in my opinion), is a good hot cup of tea!
     More recipes to follow, enjoy!

Of Masalas and Boxes

Happy Turkey Day everybody!
     Though I'm sure turkeys aren't feeling the happiness right about now. It's one of those times when you wonder why you eat meat. Okay, maybe not you, I do. But one needs conflict, I guess. This one's mine, and I'm not judging. So, if you're making turkey, try organic. If you're into tofurkey, congratulations, and have fun. I'm making none of those. This day is mine--meaning, all I'll do is eat.
     Last week I had a small Indo-food demo/dinner for Marcie's friends. Very polite people, they said the right things--it's wonderful, it's great, yum. So, despite being suspicious, I'll say they enjoyed the dal, the butter chicken, shrimp, cauliflower, peas pulao and vermicelli pudding. I know, I should learn to say, thank you. I'm working on it, I am!
     Anyway, most of you should have these recipes, but email me if you don't.
An interesting thing happened at the Bunker Bash. More than the food, the group was fascinated with the masala box, the anjala potti as the South Indians call it. I have mine filled with North Indian spices:

And I do agree--the colors are fascinating, textures and smells even more so. For a daily cook/chef, it's easy to forget or get used to these interesting ingredients that make up Indian curries. जीरा Jeera, or cumin, is used whole (साबुत), or as powder. I use a lot of haldi (हल्दी), turmeric powder, chili powder, and garam masala (गरम मसाला) and ground coriander seeds or dhaniya (धनिया). In addition, others may have mustard seeds, coriander seeds, with sides of rasam or sambhar powder. Gujaratis use a lot of cumin-coriander powder where both of them are mixed together. My mother used to grind cinnamon, cloves and cardamom (C-cubed) into the Bengali fresh garam masala powder, that I do too these days. Yes, I'm turning into my mother, I admit.

     The questions that came with the curiosity about the anjala potti got me thinking--why do we use these spices, and why are they stored in such tiny containers? Scientifically, it does make sense though. In India, with the hot weather, spices can go bad easily, lose their flavor especially if you're storing them next to your stove. So, the bulk spices are kept elsewhere, preferably cold, and for each cooking round, you use this potti (it's not potty, so, grow up). In the olden golden days, turmeric was used (and still is), as an antiseptic, on wounds, and even before baths. I remember we applied fresh turmeric paste on our bodies when we were children, and then scrubbed it off before Saraswati Pujo, and waited impatiently for the priest to finish praying so we could stuff our faces with luchi-begun, fried pooris, and eggplant (recipe to follow in a bit). Ma used to check our palms and behind our ears--if the pale-yellow turmeric stain had seeped in, then we'd taken our shower. If there were remnants of turmeric paste, that meant lunch had to wait till we'd washed that off!

Now, back to my anjala potti--

     Turmeric is used in Indian cooking not only for medicinal purposes, but gives a fresh taste to vegetables. When mixed with chilies or chilli powder, it takes on a different tone. Green chilies has the active enzyme capsaicin, which activates receptors in the brain to allow the heart rate to increase, increasing the metabolism rate, which is what you want when you're eating a ton of food. Chilli powder, is usually a shade of red, is dried, and again, used in Indian cooking, for increasing metabolism, fighting inflammation and when mixed with turmeric, is a double-attack on fat (metabolism). Cumin's been considered to be good for digestion, (also anise seeds), and allows for the body's detox mechanism to activate. Coriander, is another nutritional herb/seed, often used for digestion, 'anti-diabetic', and cholesterol-lowering spice in Ayurveda.

     I know it's a lot of science and medicine today, but it's fascinating to know that for centuries, Indian cooking has been quite a science and obviously designed to be good for you. If only we learnt to lay off the cream and butter! I'd love to hear what your anjala potti has, and if you have pictures to share, even better.

     Next time, maybe I'll talk about fresh herbs that I've incorporated into my food--non-Indian ones too--rosemary, parsley, sage, basil, coriander. There's a reason people have been using them for centuries. We just forgot why.

     Thought I'd end with my favorite shrimp dish I like to make. It takes all of 10 minutes to cook (20 mins to marinate). Tandoori shrimp with bellpeppers. I've shared the tandoori paste recipe in an earlier post, so, check that out. For the medium-size shrimp, marinate 50-75 of them in the paste, with 1-2 tbsp oil, chili powder (1 tbsp), salt to taste for about 20 minutes. Cut 2 green bellpeppers longitudinally, and saute them in a cast-iron pan with 1-2 tbsp oil. Plate them, and then saute the shrimp in the leftover oil for 3-5 minutes. Plate and add a dash of lemon juice. Eat with naan or tandoori roti.

Enjoy, and hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Bunker Bash This Weekend!

Quick note --
I'm cooking for Marcie's friends at The Bunker in downtown San Diego this weekend. Am quite excited and fearful, which is a good combination, for there's no need to be arrogant about dal makhani to turn out silky and spicy each time you make it. Also, Murphy's law--the one time things will be disastrous, will be this one. And if Marcie's friends are reading this, you've been forewarned :o)
Will post pictures soon, should it turn out okay. If not, oh well, I'll still post pictures.

Till then, ponder on this cake, and let me know if you want the recipe.
More to follow, till then, enjoy!

A Hick/Snob in New York

Okay, so this post is late, I know. But hey, last week this time, I was in NYC! Yes, very lovely, very cold, very rude. Sure you all know about people there being bruque and busy. But this is my experience. I know, they have very little desire to exercise their face muscles and smile (a little) once in a while. The only exchange (the entire time!) I had with a random stranger was at a coffee shop where he made a mistake (afterall, 'tall' means small, even though it sounds like it's a HUGE cup of coffee, and everyone, absolutely EVERYONE, in Manhattan knows that!:o)), and so was embarrassed enough to make an apologetic face at me and say, "Oh, well, my brain isn't functioning, of course I knew tall versus grande!" To which I had to console him with a, "Who cares? Just ask for a small coffee, it's okay...no?" Apparently that wasn't the right answer, for the barista glared at me into silence. I broke the cardinal rule--New Yorkers don't make eye contact, don't smile and definitely don't talk, chitchat or banter for no reason. To think I'd lived in that state when I landed in this country sixteen years ago and still smile a bit too much. Obviously the CA sun's made my brain soft. I have become one of those always-smiling-like-an-idiot Californians! So, that was my 2c venting on non-smiling New Yorkers. (But wait, just like a late-night informercial, there's more!)

     The city itself is beautiful. The hustle, the noise, the sirens, the $5 'pashmina' shawls....it's got personality, character, personality (wait, I said that already!). It has a purpose, everyone looks very important, rushing to very important places, and everyone has that vacant look in their eyes, and really, truly don't want to make eye contact (or else something really bad might happen), and everyone's on their respective iPods, iPhones or Blackberries and they really need to discuss the discussion they had a few minutes back so they can schedule another discussion at yet another street crossing even though they may be on their respective phones standing next to each other waiting for the light to change. Is it just me? Are these people really that important? If you're not important, you shouldn't be there? That's what I got for eavesdropping, I guess.
Of course, besides all that, there are the museums. And MoMA is one of my favorites. I used to go there in the 90s, from grad school (schlepping from Long Island when the trains moved slower than we could run!), and so it was going down memory lane. Some views of MoMA, and the cathedral next door:

I'd thought this Warhol image (part of the soup collection) was so much bigger. That's what happens when you imagine New York. Things may not be big, they just appear to be.

     Here's one of my favorites, a Rauschenberg--and yes, it is an actual bed! A decade and a half ago, this wasn't enclosed in glass, and yes, I did touch it, and yes, the security people did yell at me and glare at me like all New Yorkers usually do. So it was amusing to think they put that glass case up to stop me from touching it again. But if there's one museum you have to go to when you're in NYC, MoMA is it. (I'm sure you know that already, and go on, roll your eyes as you read advice from a hick).

     I managed to hang out in St. Patrick's Cathedral too--I love churches. Don't ask me why, and don't analyze me either. I love the architecture, and the huge space inside them, and this cathedral is gorgeous.

And while I was there, I heard the commotion outside, for it was Veterans' Day, and 5th Avenue had a festive look, for it was parade time. The traffic was controlled, the security tight (these guys know what to do), and military people from different generations and wars were everywhere. School kids paraded down the street, and the WTC flag passed by too. The hick was ultra-impressed (jaw-dropped, waving-at-veterans-wildly-for-no-reason-kind-of-impressed).

The NYC police officer is a blur, yes, I know. He was moving way too fast! Not sure if the bagpipers could have guarded the borders much in those skirts flying around, so the police had to take over, I guess. Fun parade really.

And now, onto the food. That's where the snob part comes in. No, before you judge me, I've always loved the food there. What's not to love? But this time, man, did we pick the bad ones! The first one was a Zagat rated Thai place (Holy Basil) in East Village. The decor was great, ambience better, service (almost) smiling. It was great. It couldn't be bad. This is New York! But they didn't have any soup that was vegetarian. I watched Sanjay's face drop. The poor vegetarian had nothing to eat in New York. This was unheard of. We've always managed his vegetarian dishes anywhere, even in carnivorous Brasil. Finally, we got a Pad Thai for him which was edible but nothing great. And then, adventurous Ms. Hick i.e. me, decided to go for scallops and shrimp in red curry. Just one phrase to describe this--grit and dirt in the scallops. I mean, I'm usually quite submissive, and I was that evening. Did I return the plate? No. Did I curse them? No. Did I swallow the gritty scallops. Yes. But I think it was more out of shock (and utter disappointment) rather than anything else. New York serves the best food--what just happened?

   Anyway, that was redeemed in the theater district. Went to Tramonti, a small Italian restaurant between 8th and 9th on 46th, the pizza was fresh, the pasta (house special) light and sauce, a delight. The olive oil was gorgeous, a light taste that went well with their bread and the service was impeccable, even though it's right in the middle of tourist territory. It was wonderful. Yay for New York.

    The vegetarian found his place too. Ate the best falafel wraps at a busy almost-fastfood yet organic and fresh place, Crisp. Their motto is, "Crisp is fresh, and fresh is what Crisp lives by". It was light, a whole lot of food, and some of the best falafels I've tasted in a while. Try their African wrap if you get the chance.

     On the way back, Sanjay took some photos of a lively New York night--

And I thought to myself, you know, I'd forgotten how beautiful this city really is. So instead of looking for ways to tell you all how different it is or its people are from where I live, I should just sit back and just enjoy how charming it is. So, yes, the hick survived New York, and the snob slunk back home. If you are planning a trip there this winter, maybe around Christmas, then take the time, smile lots at random strangers (and throw them off!), breathe in the crisp city air, and enjoy!

A LoCal SoCal Butter Chicken

Today, the post will be slightly different. We'll go straight to the point. So, thought I'd start with the image. That should say it all, eh?
     We Bengalis usually don't make chicken with butter so much. We're more of a chicken with potatoes in turmeric and tomatoes curry type of clan. Butter Chicken is primarily a North Indian dish, and most Indian restaurants here carry this as standard staple. Most restaurants also carry butter paneer and really, the flavor profile is nothing to talk about. Just by dunking meat or cheese in cream and butter doesn't make it great. It just makes it heavy and greasy. My theory is that in North India, when it was really cold in the olden Mughal days, eating something with ghee (घी) helped warm people, especially with rotis (रोटी). But here, in the US (and even in India), we're not exposed to cold nights really, it doesn't make sense to eat mounds of chicken drenched in cream. So, my advice when you make this dish--eat less, and enjoy each morsel. I'm sure it'll be difficult to resist but at least you can pretend to try, right?
    So as a twist to the southern California region where I live, I've titled this chicken a "low-cal" one--it's not true. It's made here, so SoCal. But it's low-calorie only compared to what is the 'real' butter chicken.
     I usually don't make Butter Chicken as often as I'd like to eat it primarily because of the butter and cream that's needed to make it really delicious. So I thought of other ways to make it as good, or close enough as guilt-free as possible. This is my version, slightly (only slightly low-fat).

Butter Chicken (hopefully, lower fat)
Ingredients:
8-10 pieces chicken (breasts, and thighs, preferably some with bones)
1 cup yogurt
4 medium tomatoes, diced
2 medium onions, grated
4 tbsp heavy cream
3 tsp garam masala
2 tsp turmeric
3 tsp coriander powder
2 tsp chilli powder
2 tsp cumin powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
1/2 tsp cloves, ground
5-6 green cardamom, crushed
3 green chilies, chopped
1/2 inch ginger, grated
5-6 garlic cloves, chopped
3-4 tbsp घी ghee
3-4 tbsp butter
4 tbsp oil for cooking
salt to taste
2 tbsp coriander leaves, chopped for garnish
Recipe

• Add a little oil (1 tsp or so) to the chicken pieces in a glass bowl, followed by grated onions, yogurt, cumin, coriander, turmeric, garam masala, half the cloves/cardamom/cinnamon (3Cs), 1 green chilie, half the garlic and ginger with salt
• Mix well, and marinate the chicken in the refrigerator for about 1-3 hours
• Heat oil in a skillet, and brown/braise each chicken piece so it looks half-cooked (it should brown). Note: if you want the high fat, high calorie recipe, mix in butter with the oil
• Drain excess oil off the chicken
• Use the same pan to cook the rest of the 3Cs, with cumin, coriander, chilies, tomatoes and ginger/garlic
• Once the tomatoes are cooked well, add in the grated onions from the marinade (remove all the liquid by squeezing each handful of onions in) along with 2 tbsp cream and part of the yogurt marinade. Cook for at least 4-5 minutes so the sauce base is thick.
• Add the chicken, and lower flame to medium-low, cover the pan. Cook on a slow fire for 20 minutes or so. Keep checking so the bottom doesn't catch. The chicken is done when the sauce is thick, and the chicken is cooked through.
• Add a dash of ghee and cream at the end
• Garnish with coriander leaves
• Serve hot with white rice or naan bread

It should look somewhat like this, really.

     I hope the dish turns out well when you make it. Try to reduce the amount of cream and butter in this. I guarantee you, it'll still taste good if it's primarily yogurt instead of cream, more oil instead of butter.

     Trust me, and enjoy!

All Things Italian

They're showing my favorite movie, "Gladiator" on TNT as I write this. I can't even type I'm so giddy with excitement. And no, I don't need you all to look down upon me for liking this cheesy movie, but I LOVE it. And Maximus is my favorite name. No discussions, that's that.

     Anyway, speaking of Gladiator, Europe and cheese...our little San Diego has a little Italy with the best gelato place (Cafe Italiano) that I need to dedicate a whole blog to, so I won't go there, but Sanjay and I did visit Little Italy a couple of weekends back since it was their little Festa (or festival) with the gesso artists' paintings all down India Street. It also helps that they named a street after our country so we go there as if Indians need to be represented on India Street in Little Italy.
     Yes, it isn't NYC or Boston, but hey, we have Italians here, and the fried foods, the pizzas, cannolis...all things so bad and yet so good...yes, they were all there too. We were good though, we just walked around, but come on, it's Festa and it's Little Italy. Succumb we did. To Cafe Zucchero. Their napoleans, fried iris, chocolate cheesecakes...everything decadent.
     But the prime attraction were the paintings--these are chalk art pieces drawn the same day and erased the next. And were they gorgeous. Here are a few:

If you didn't know any better, you'd think this was real...or at least an oil painting, right?

And this one was gorgeous--you can see the street crack through it too, and yet it's quite something!

     What with all things Italiano, I came home in the spirit of Italy and pulled out everything I could to make an Italian meal. Of course we had only 5 basil leaves, no pine nuts, hardly any cheese...Murphy's law, right? Wrong. This was my turn to twist all the Indian ingredients I had into a somewhat Italian meal.

Orzo with pesto sauce, and olives. How's that?

Pesto Sauce:

Note: I substituted coriander leaves instead of basil, walnuts instead of pine nuts. I'm sure you can try the same with almonds, though the taste will be slightly different.

Ingredients

5 cups chopped coriander leaves

1 cup chopped walnuts

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/2 cup Parmeggiano Reggiano

5 cloves garlic

1 medium green chili pepper

1 tsp ground pepper

salt to taste

Recipe

Mix above ingredients in a blender and slowly pour olive oil while blending till the mixture becomes a thick paste. Use it as a spread, or in your favorite pasta. Store leftover pesto sauce in an airtight container in the fridge for 2 weeks or so.

Now, once the pesto sauce was made, I rummaged through our many plastic containers and discovered we had a packet of orzo pasta. Orzo looks somewhat like rice, and precisely for that reason, the rice foodie that I am, orzo is one of my favorite pastas. I haven't tried to make anything else besides Italian pasts dishes with orzo, but I have a strong feeling I soon will. When I do, I'll let you know.

Till then, here's my recipe for Orzo Pasta--

Ingredients

2 cups cooked orzo pasta

1/2 cup chopped purple onions

2 cloves garlic

3 tbsp parmeggiano reggiano

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

2 tbsp chopped olives (black or green, your choice)

2 tbsp olive oil

3-4 tbsp pesto sauce

salt to taste

Recipe

• Heat the oil in a skillet, add in onions, and garlic till they brown
• Add the pasta, coat it with the oil
• Follow that with the olives
• Season with salt and pepper
• Mix in the pesto sauce, remove from flame
• Follow that with cheese, your choice, how much
• Serve with a healthy sprinkle of cheese, black pepper and maybe more pesto sauce

Note: You can add in chicken, shrimp or vegetables like bell peppers, tomatoes and such to the orzo too

     This is my effort--

And yes, I used black olives because I LOVE Trader Joe's sliced black olives. Nothing could be better unless you get olives from Italy. Nothing...except maybe "Gladiator".

 While we're still in Italy, here are a few more gesso paintings.

Enjoy!

Halloween Desi Style or Olan

Of course we have no Halloween. But we've been here for over a decade and a half, so, really, I'm not sure what 'we' have or what 'we' are. So last year, finally, I gave into the Halloween spirit--no I didn't dress up as Jason or the Scream guy, I carved my first pumpkin. It was quite an event since I had no idea how labor-intensive the process is. This is what the grinning guy looked like:

I know, quite pathetic. But besides that, I'm all for cooking pumpkin, desi style. In the eastern states, pumpkins are sauteed with kaala jeera (काला जीरा) and purple onions as a dry curry with dried red chilies. In southern India, pumpkins are dunked in sambhar or vettal kozhumba quite often. In this country, however, pumpkins are used primarily to scare people and in desserts (interesting combination, huh?)
So, in the holiday spirit, I decided to share a pumpkin recipe, that's neither scary, nor pathetic. Olan--It's from Kerala, a southern state (with a 100% literacy rate--which means, everyone is educated. Now why I had to tell you that, I'm not sure, but I'm filled with facts and info that really have nothing to do with food, and I had to share that with you). Anyway, here it is:
Kerala Olan
Ingredients
3 cups chopped pumpkin, (cubes)
1/2 cup black eyed beans, cooked (or soaked overnight)
1 cup coconut milk
1 large green chilie chopped
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tbsp coconut oil
7-8 curry leaves
1 dry red chilie, for tempering
salt to taste
grapeseed oil for tempering
Recipe

• Pressure cook the pumpkin cubes with the green chilie, and a little coconut oil with salt
• Add the beans to the cooked pumpkins, let the water evaporate
• Add half the coconut milk and simmer
• In another pan, heat the rest of the coconut oil with grapeseed oil and add the mustard seeds, red chilie, curry leaves
• Once the mustard seeds start popping add the pumpkin/bean mixture to the oil and cook for 2-4 minutes
• Adjust the liquid in the olan by reducing the water and adding more coconut milk if need be (the dish should be slightly liquid, like a thick (very thick) soup)
• Add a dash of coconut oil before serving
• Serve hot with rice

     The first time I had olan, it was like magic. It's a very simple dish, and yet, tastes fantastic. If you have the energy to chop pumpkins into cubes, you should try to make this dish. It's that good. Really. Till then, happy Halloween, and enjoy!

An Indian French Toast Day

A few weekends back we decided to breakfast at one of La Jolla's very happening breakfast places. I say we 'decided', because weekends fly by and suddenly Monday looms its ugly head at us and usually we've spent 48 hours staring at Top Chef or Law and Order (don't ask) or E! investigative special re-runs. I say 'we', because heck, well, it's easier to spread the blame than just say, well, it was me, and my TV and I like it that way. So, yeah, anyway, going at a decent time for brunch and actually ordering breakfast for me was a big feat indeed.
     Nestled in southern California, The Cottage is known as 'Old La Jolla's Favorite Beachside Bungalow', serving casual SoCal cuisine, and known as one of the best breakfast places in this country. And I can eat breakfast for dinner, that's how much I love breakfast. And yes, I realize I just used 'breakfast' in each sentence a 100 times!
     The restaurant recommended their world famous stuffed French toast--brioche bread marinated with egg batter, stuffed with strawberries and marscapone cheese. "You won't go wrrronngg, ma'zaam!" said the very cute, and very young and most likely French waiter. (I'm not the only one saying it, Sanjay agrees to, though he's most likely forgotten by now). Anyway, the food, I mean, OF COURSE it was great. We knew it would be as soon as we read the description (after waiting an hour to be seated...that's how popular this place is).
     The order came out looking like this--isn't it gorgeous?

A typical French Toast recipe (not The Cottage's) is:
Ingredients
2-3 slices of thick brioche bread
3 eggs, or egg whites, whipped
3-4 tbsp heavy cream
3 tbsp whole milk
3 tsp sugar/honey
butter/oil for cooking


For the filling
5-10 strawberries, sliced
2 tbsp sugar, or honey
3 tbsp marscapone cheese
Recipe

• Mix the cream and milk with the beaten eggs, add the sugar/honey
• Soak the bread, one slice at a time, slowly allowing the batter to be absorbed by the bread
• Heat a cast-iron pan, add 1-2 tbsp butter/oil, cook each side of the bread about 2-3 minutes (do not overcook). The bread should brown a little.
• Be sure the eggs are cooked through (raw eggs aren't exciting, except to bacteria, and you're not bacteria or bacterium)
• Cook for 2-3 minutes in the oven at around 350 deg C
• Mix the strawberries with sugar/honey and cheese
• Add them into the bread, fold over
• Dust powdered sugar over the bread
• Serve with butter, honey or maple syrup

     In India, we're used to savory French toast. I mean, it's just so different that I think we should just call it Indian toast. It's just that different. It's salty, spicy, and served with ketchup, right? That's what I was used to. So, while the French toast was exciting, Indian (French) toast has wonderful memories attached--of lazy Indian breakfasts, or even as appetizers with tea in the evenings. Here's my take on this:
Indian (French) Toast
Ingredients
3-4 white bread (or brown), sliced into triangles
4 eggs, beaten
2 medium chilies, sliced
1/2 medium purple onions, diced
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp coriander leaves
salt to taste
3 tbsp grapeseed oil
Side:
3 medium pototoes, grated
1 chili, chopped
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin powder
salt to taste
coriander leaves for garnish
Recipe:

• Prepare the egg mixture adding onions, spices, chilies and salt
• Dunk the bread triangles in the egg mixture, and let soak for 2 minutes
• Heat the oil in a cast-iron skillet and cook the bread triangles
• Again, be sure to cook them well (half-cooked eggs are just not good. Not good at all.)
• Cook both sides for about 2 minutes each side
• Place them on paper towels to remove excess oil and transfer onto a plate
• In the same skillet, add the grated potatoes, chilies, cumin, salt and cook them for 3-4 minutes
• Potatoes should cook quickly, but again, once crispy on one side, be sure to cook it by stirring them
• Remove from pan, remove excess oil, and transfer them to the bread plate
• Garnish with coriander leaves

   The Indian French toast should look like this (or better)

Make a hot cup of tea to go with this.

Enjoy!