Summer Salad – Avocado and Bacon Salad with Tomato Dressing
Posted: June 1, 2012 Filed under: Salads | Tags: avocado, bacon, salad, salad dressing, summer, tomato dressing Leave a comment »Salads can serve as a meal and are the best bet during summers. What better way to use seasonal fruits and veggies to supplement your diet.
I love avocados and that the fruit camouflages really well when added in a salad or sandwich or in rice paper rolls. As a kid, I would see some of them mix sugar with their avocado mix to have it plain. I detested it! However, I liked it when my mother would mix avocado with other fruits to give the fruits a creamy coating. How I miss it now!
The addition of bacon to give it a crunch. However, the vegetarians can negate it. The original recipe also calls for some cheese. Avoid using feta, it’s flavour conflicts with bacon. You don’t want anything messing around with your bacon
.
Ingredients for salad
10-15 medium sized salad leaves (rocket, lettuce)washed and pat dried or dried in a salad spinner
2 -4 crispy bacon strips, torn in bits
1/2 avocado, cut in strips
few raw red onion rings
mozzarella or amul cheese for garnish (optional)
Ingredients for dressing
3 medium sized tomatoes, lightly cooked, de-seeded and skinned
1 garlic clove
1tsp red wine vinegar
1/2tbs olive oil
pepper & salt to taste
Grind all the ingredients for the dressing and refrigerate.
Break salad leaves and arrange them at the bottom of the salad plate or bowl. Add avocado, onion, bacon and garnish with bacon bits. Add the chilled dressing just before serving. The remaining dressing can be refrigerated for a week. Serve with some bread slashed with some butter or just dip into the dressing. Serves one.
I like my chicken free range…..
Posted: May 16, 2012 Filed under: Reviews | Tags: broiler, free range chicken, free-range eggs, gauti, how to cook chicken, nati koli, organic chicken 2 Comments »Free range chicken (nati koli or gauti) are allowed to roam freely and are not coped up in a cage like factory-style farming. Many free-range chickens are allowed to roam free to eat bugs, seeds, berries and other natural vegetation. The chickens may come home to roost in a coop at night, or they may be essentially wild and roost in trees or any place they feel is safe. They are fed natural food in an natural habitat. This leads to a much leaner chicken, fat free and free from any injected chemicals.
The advantages of free range is that it has less fat, is juicy, thin and has translucent skin, taste and firm flesh but not tough. However, the cost of a free range chicken will be much more than a broiler. Free range chicken is difficult to find in our Indian supermarkets but the eggs are now available in many stores. You can check with you’re local chicken shop. I did a post/recipe on free range eggs recently and here it is.
Spot the difference: free range (left) & broiler (right)
Organic chickens are not only free to roam but are also fed grains which are organic. They are also certified as organic. They cost much more than the free range or the broiler and I haven’t come across anyone in India producing enough to supply to large scale supermarkets.
Benefits of free range or organic vs broiler:
- One serving of organic, free-range chicken provides you with more protein than a serving of conventional chicken.
- Organic, free-range chicken provides healthier levels of saturated fat and the most beneficial levels of polyunsaturated fat, omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids.
- Purchasing organic chicken ensures that you and your family are not ingesting unnecessary antibiotics that may lead to antibiotic-resistant infections.
Read more on benefits of free range chicken
- Free range has lean meat and it means that the slower cooking yields better results.
- It is advisable to cook the chicken at a temperature of 165 degrees. I would suggest to use a meat thermometer to check if you’re free range is under cooked or over cooked.
- Marinating the chicken (or chicken breasts in particular) with beer for several hours helps to tenderize for grilling or barbecuing.
- Also remember that a perfect cooked chicken has a lot to do with it’s size, pieces followed by internal temperature until you’re comfortable with the time required to cook the chicken – it is often more than the regular chicken recipes.
Personally I prefer free range to broiler because of the taste. A nati koli saaru (chicken curry available in South) won’t be the same when cooked with a broiler. I discovered that free-range, REALLY DO have superior meat – they aren’t just the same product with a different price – they are VERY different meats! I’ve noticed that people who have been brought up on or have been exposed to rural India are aware of the taste and cooking techniques a lot more than the ones who have been only brought up on broilers. Eating free range eggs or chicken is more of a conscience and is left to you to compare notes.
Kebabs and Kurries at ITC Grand Central
Posted: May 14, 2012 Filed under: Reviews | Tags: Awadhi, Dum, Grand Central, ITC, Kurries, Mughlai, Murg, Quormas Leave a comment »I have always visited ITC Grand Central for conferences and never for food. Hence this time when Megha and I were invited to get a taste of the new menu created by Kebabs and Curries, we were set to make a full night, belly up. Surprisingly pleasant weather was due and we came back home satisfactorily full but not choked!
ITC opened its first hotel in 1975 called the Chola Sheraton (My Fortune) at Chennai, what they also did at the time; was to order a Speyside Single Malt whiskey cast in oak barrels and brewed specially for ITC called ITC Glenfiddich! A taste of this smoothness can only be had at the ITC hotels and is highly recommended.
While you enter ITC Grand Central, do pay attention to the exquisitely carved snippets of Mumbai history which are engraved in the architecture of the hotel. From the clock tower to the fountain and the life size frame and photo album at the entrance, Mumbai has been set into this beautiful hotel. A walk through the corridor to the restaurant reveals a host of awards that the hotel has won from conservation to food.
At the end of the corridor, ‘Kebabs and Kurries’ is setup as three divisions of seating called the quila, maidaan and kheema (community dining area). While the divisions are quite clear the comprehension may not be so pronounced. ‘Quila’ has bright lighting and comfortable chairs for a dinner and hence was a natural choice. The restaurant does have a lot of space and can accommodate a ‘daawat’ (meaning: invitation, historically to a wedding or large number of people to dine in).
Chef Ishmeet Singh Kapoor takes us through the immense detailing in the menu; which has been broken down into the meaning of each category and makes it easy to choose, rather than go through an endless list of items which may need assistance to decipher, main course from aperitif. He also goes on to show us that the last page contains english translations and origins of each category of cuisine. I found this very useful to both Indians and foreigners who are still not acquainted with the origins of north Indian cuisine.
The restaurant offers a variety of dishes from tandoor prepared with an iron tandoor, and pather (stone) grills along with angethis and tawa to Quormas, Qaliyas, Do Piaza and Salan. Off course with Awadhi and Mughlai cuisine naans and biryani complete the meal.
We were initiated with a rose flavoured pomegranate welcome drink, refreshing taste, light and preferably sipped.
A platter of kebabs followed.
While my main attraction was the Sikandari Raan, I was pleasantly mesmerized with the Murg Shami and Dum Ke Bhole. Murg Shami is a chicken patty that is flavoured with sweet spices and stuffed with tangy raw mango cooked on a tawa. It melts in your mouth with a savoury feel but sweet taste with a crunch. Dum Ke Bhole, particularly important for vegetarians who visit, is a paneer roll stuffed with a blend of carrots, capsicum and cheese but not before dipping it in creamy saffron batter and cooked on a tawa. In short, I preferred the ‘tawa’ dishes to the ‘angethi’.
While the Sabut Lobster was quite an eye full, marinated in yogurt, black cumin and carom seeds, the flavours were hard to get while the lobster itself was a tad squeaky. I love seafood and was hoping this was not a perfect representation of the extensive seafood menu with Jumbo Jhinga, rohu and fillets, trust my experience was an aberration.
From the top RHS corner on the pic above.
Qorma: Koh-e-Awadh
The chef’s own recipe that is created by exposing lamb shanks dum cooked in their own cardamom tinged juices and marrow finished with saffron. This has been a succulently pleasurable experience. The bite is tender and flavourful; no, it does not melt but lingers in your mouth and every bite takes you closer to wanting more.
Do Piaza: Ghost Hari Mirch
Single bone chops tossed into green herbs and whole spices with garden chillies. A dash of lemon to vinegar the meat. I am rather sensitive to mutton and have always been skeptical of ordering mutton due to it being rubbery or less tender. The meat was a let down, but let that not cloud my judgement, the dishes were well cooked and definitely provide justice to the Hyderabad cooking techniques.
Guchhi Dara
Diced Kashmiri morels and green peas simmered in asafoetida flavoured golden yogurt gravy enriched with khoya! You cannot go wrong with a dish that uses khoya and yogurt gravy with green peas. Sounds just as good as it tasted. A perfect accompaniment for Warqi Paratha (prepared by flour balls layered into a tower of smaller flour balls and beaten down into a clay oven).
A special mention goes to the Dal Bukhara cooked overnight and beautifully crafted into a not to miss dish that butters your palate with the taste of great cuisine brought in by the Mughals from central Asia.
Dessert: Shaan-e-Aam
Alphanso mangoes, the king of fruits is pureed and frozen onto a rasgulla that floats in rabdi and crowned with a golden leaf served on a glass filled with crushed ice.
Could not resist re-ordering the dessert even after this wholesome meal. This is a must have dessert and ITC Kebabs and Kurries prides itself with this dessert that obviously sells like air-conditioners in summer.
Thanks to Arundhati Ghosh for making the evening a pleasant experience with opulence and grace.
Jackfruit - a wonder fruit & a recipe
Posted: May 13, 2012 Filed under: Desserts | Tags: coorg, jackfruit, kerala, kheer, natural mantra, payasam Leave a comment » Reblogged from NaturalMantra.com:
Jackfruit is known as the wonder fruit because of it’s numerous uses and benefits. Jackfruit was once, the staple food of Coorg, when paddy was not sufficient for consumption. Jackfruit trees are commonly seen in Coorg, to provide shade to cardamom or black pepper. The coffee plantations, bordering forest areas face the problem of elephant menace due to their fondness for the fruit.
Food at Coral – dinner with strangers
Posted: May 6, 2012 Filed under: Inspirations, Reviews | Tags: bandra, bandra bungalow, coral, mumbai, networking dinner in mumbai, pandi curry, prahlad kakkar, supper club 4 Comments »Roasted herbed potatoes & chickpea salad
Coral is based on the concept of a Salon ( “sal-lawn”). A salon is a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine taste and increase their knowledge of the participants through conversation.
Coral is set in a bungalow sponsored by Prahlad Kakkar creating an ambiance; by cutting off from traffic and noise of busy Mumbai with flowing conversations over good food and drink. Coral dinners are facilitated by my husband, Pawan and me. I love to cook and Pawan came up with the idea of bringing in food and conversations together and thus Coral was born.
Muhallebi rice flour based dessert
It’s been a year since we started Coral and I’ve enjoyed setting up various menus. The idea is to focus on different cuisine, serving a 4 course meal. We want to provide a home cooked meal, native to a region that we may have never visited but possesses a culture that is brought out through its cuisine. It can be a dish from Pandi curry from Coorg or Muhallebi from Turkey.
Pandi curry with kadambuttu (rice balls)
Coming up with the menu can be a tough task and especially when I have not tasted the cuisine recently. I try to include dishes that you don’t get easily in Mumbai and some that are inspired. Sometimes non availability of ingredients, requires substitution to bring it as close to it’s authentic taste. Recently we had Indonesian as the theme and it was challenging. I’ve never tasted an authentic Indonesian meal and the closest would have been a nasi goreng. Indonesian is close to Malay food. Flavours are very simple – lemon grass, galangal/ginger, coconut, plam or coconut sugar. Blogs have always been my major source of information and inspirations. I’ve always been asked about the menu and how did I manage to get the recipes – the credit goes mostly to blogs. Getting the right information and creating a satisfying palate to go with our guests is a task that I’m trying to perfect.
Chilled avocado milkshake shots (made with palm sugar & coconut cream), Indonesian Corn Fritters (Perkedel Jagung), Indonesian fried chicken with crunchy flakes served with sambal terasi (red chili paste) &Yellow rice combo – Coconut milk & lemon grass flavoured rice served with chicken rendang & shredded fried egg
Rujak Serut – chilled mixed fruit salad (jackfruit, mango & Malay apple) served with Indonesian dressing – palm sugar, tamarind paste, lime and coconut
Here is the FB page in case you’re interested in knowing about Coral dinners. Post by various guests who experienced Coral – Rushina Munshaw Ghildiyal, Eats, Feeds & Digs & Mizohican.
Weekend lunch – Prawn & Mung Pilaf
Posted: April 4, 2012 Filed under: Mains/Non-Veg, Mains/Veg | Tags: indian cooking, indian rice dishes, mint, pilav, prawn, prawn pulav, pulav Leave a comment »I like to cook during weekends. It helps me rejuvenate and slow down my pace by self indulging in what I love doing. The aromatic flavours blending in my kitchen is like a therapy to my soul.
Indian cooking, if managed well without over dosing of spices can be quite an indulgence. Pulav/ Pilaf is more like a special comfort food in Indian homes. It is usually made when one wants to eat something special or is bored of the same old mundane menu. Every household will have a special massala or spice mix that they use in this special rice preparation. I on the other hand, use only whole spice mix instead of commonly used powdered mix. I always like to flavour my pulav with heaps of fresh mint leaves which is cooked along with rice, meat/fish or veggies.
Prawn pilaf is one of my favourite. I sometimes add peas for visual and taste. This time I twisted the recipe a little by adding in some sprouted mung. It didn’t change the taste but it did add some crunch to my dish along with fried onions. Did I tell you that I love fried onions in my pulav. It is not a traditional practice to add fried onions but hey who said you have to follow rules….
Ingredients for prawn & mung pilaf
250gms long grained rice or basmati rice
250gms medium sized prawns – cleaned, shelled and de-veined
1/2 cup sprouted mung (raw)
1 cup fresh mint leaves – cleaned without any stalks
1 cup finely chopped onions
1/2 cup finely chopped tomatoes
For tempering – 1/2tsp cumin seeds, 1 bay leaf, 4 -6 cloves, 2 cardamon, 1/2inch cinnamon, 2 star anise
2tbs sunflower oil
1tbs ghee
1tbs ginger garlic paste
1/2tsp turmeric powder
1/2tbs coriander powder
1/2tsp chilli powder
salt to taste
fried onions for garnish
Heat oil/ghee in a rice (electric) cooker or a pressure cooker. Season with all the dry spices. Add ginger garlic paste, onions and cook until soft. Add tomatoes, prawns, mint and all the powdered spices and mix well. Add 1/2 cup of water and bring it to a light boil. Add rice, water and salt. Close the lid of the pressure cooker and allow it to cook. Turn off the heat after two whistles and allow it to sit for 15 minutes before serving. Transfer into a serving bowl or plate and garnish with some fried onions. Serve hot with raitha and mirchi ka salan. Serves 4.
Dum Pukht
Posted: March 24, 2012 Filed under: Reviews | Tags: Awadhi, biryani, Dum Pukht, ghazal, ITC Maratha, nawaabi, Rushina Leave a comment »There is a distinct difference between being ‘called’ and being ‘invited’.
The ITC Maratha – exudes a radiance of being an establishment that services opulence with a touch of royalty. One has to experience the subtle nature of minor acts that create the word “royalty” to completely comprehend its difference.
When the staff is able to mark a slight change in goblets that look alike, with only a few millimetres of height to mark them apart! or to have personalized menu cards. Service is a game to the staff at Dum Pukht at which they seem to be winners all the way.
Rushina from a perfect bite graciously invited Megha and me to a dinner at the ITC Maratha restaurant, Dum Pukht which has been recently renovated. A few hours later I received a personalized invite to which a confirmation was necessary to attend. At no point did Rini and Aishwaria (our hosts for the evening) allow us to believe that we were less than royalty.
Image Courtesy: Saee Koranne Khandekar
Dum means to breathe in and Saee Koranne-Khandekar did exactly that when she saw the cutlery. Pukht means to cook, and this is done by trapping aromas and flavours by sealing the cooking utensils and ensuring slow cooking over a low flame. Dum pukht style of cooking is traced to Awadh in Lucknow, north India. Kurush and Rhea quite familiar with history and geography of Awadhi cuisine gave us quite an account of its history and corrugated by Rashmi Uday Singh, attribute it to a famine in Awadh that brought about this style of cooking!!
Our plates were decorated with Dum Pukht Kakori and Sheek Nilofari – Mix of puffed lotus seeds and lotus stem, falovoured with fresh herbs, mace and green cardamom, grilled on a skewer and sprinkled with aromatic masala. Sounds as delectable as it tasted. Nikhil Merchant kept clicking away with his DSLR at everything that swayed below the aromatic smoke. This was not an obsession with pictures but one that captured quite a culinary atmosphere.
The nawaabi cuisine is exemplified in the entire menu from shorba, qorma, salan to biryani and meetha. It is quite a challenge to compete the menu. I recommend the Shorba, one spoon in and lift your head only once the plate is empty. While the Hyderabadi Biryani may have biased me against the Biryani, it is still a beautiful sight to watch the bubble of flour covering the biryani.
Sankarson Banerjee, more acquainted with north indian nawaabi cuisine points out the variety available with nawaabs when compared to the Nizams. We both agree that classical music cannot be a substitute for ghazals in Dum Pukht.
Image courtesy: Rhea Mitra Dalal
200 years of mastery in slow cooking can fill you up like the Bara Imambara without a resentment. Now all you need is a great dessert, but the desserts leave me wondering if the middle class exists? Either too sweet or hardly any – perhaps meant for a more western dinner.
The joy of a great dinner comes with great company and intelligent conversation. Thanks Rushina, Rina and Aishwaria for organising a blessed evening.
Being an entrepreneur (part 1)
Posted: February 27, 2012 Filed under: Inspirations | Tags: being an entrepreneur, entrepreneur 2 Comments »I have so many things running in my head that it’s not funny anymore. It has driven me out of my comfy bed, late in the night to come out and share with you about what I’m feeling.
It’s been a year (well almost) stepping into the shoes of ‘being an entrepreneur’. It took me a year to come out and write about my feelings not because it didn’t matter but because I thought that I wasn’t ‘ready’.
A year (or even few months) back I didn’t even know whether I could call myself an ‘entrepreneur’. I always thought that I’m not ready for it..maybe not yet. But now I feel different. Different because I want to blog more and share my experiences with you and not bury my emotions of good and bad times that I have had.
Being from an architectural background and not practising it for sometime was a ‘ Big’ deal for me at one point. My family and friends thought that I was a lost soul and that I wasted five years of studies for what – Cooking?!
When I started off my gig at the Farmer’s Market selling bottled products and making simple salads for people to relish. I realised that I was enjoying myself more than what I have done anything else in my life. The experimentation with products and cuisines is what got me started to start a small brand of my own – i2cook.
After the experimentation and getting some audience to taste what I cook – the next big question was – what next?
I chose a line with no experience what so ever and no one in the family doing the same thing. I just dived into the pool of ‘Retail’ – like they say there is always some room for more
.
Dealers, suppliers, payments, manufacturing, prospecting, pitching is all that life has been since I started. Sounds boring but trust me I never felt bored. I did have short bursts of frustration, when people would keep me hanging for months to just give an answer – not now, maybe later…. Arghhh.
But there have been some good times – when your family and friends realise that this is the only thing you want to do and start encouraging you. I have met some amazing people who saw something in me even before I was confident of myself, as a cook. I thank them from the bottom of my heart because people like them have kept me going.
Entrepreneurship is not an easy ride and it took me almost a year to call one myself. Everyone has their up’s and downs, mood swings or one of those pessimistic moments, but at the bottom of it all ‘Passion’ can only make you work and deal with anything that comes your way.
Goodnight and look forward to share more experiences with you.
Salt to taste
Posted: February 25, 2012 Filed under: Reviews | Tags: auroville, black salt, conscious food, eco farms, flavoured salts, navdanya, rock salt, sea salt Leave a comment »Image source: Unp
My encounter with different types of salts (non-iodized) available in India has been recent and I thought that it will be good to share the same with you.
When I started using organic products, like most people I was not aware of different sources from where I can buy most of my supplies. Now things are more progressive! Most of the big supermarkets and gourmet stores stack up Indian salts along with some imported ones. I find the imported ones too expensive for my pocket and I think I’m going to try to make some of my flavoured ones at home soon
. Meanwhile have a look at some of the varieties that I’ve tried.
Rock Salt
Very essential ingredient in my kitchen. I’ve been off refined/iodised salt when I was introduced to rock salt. It is used in all my daily cooking Indian or Western. You can also use them virtually in all your cooking like a regular salt and can be used as a table salt too.
Brands that I have used for rock salt – Conscious food and Eco farms.
Sea Salt
I’m slowly getting used to this salt. It’s a little moist salt and takes time to judge as to how much to use. Sea salt can be used in pickles, salads or in baking. You can also use them in gourmet cooking if you are up for some flavoured salts, Heidi’s recipe for citrus salt.
If you are interested in making your own salt, try this! I wouldn’t dare to make some in Mumbai.
Brands that I have used for sea salt – Conscious food
Himalayan Salt Crystals
The crystals are pale pink in colour. However, when I grounded them they were more of pale white. It can be used similar to the table salt
Brands that I have used for sea salt – I bought some from a store in Auroville.
Black Salt a.k.a Kala Namak
An unrefined pinkish looking salt, found in both crystals and powder form. It is mostly used in Indian cooking like juices and chats.
Brand that I have used for black salt – Navdanya
So next time when you shop around, you know what to look for
.
Some interesting salty reads…..
What kind of salts matter in your cooking
Debate between rock salt and sea salt



















