What Passes for Burritos

When you think of burritos, if you do, do you think of something which loosely resembles above? Good. We are then on the same page.

At lunch hour today, I trotted off to the canteen and started scouring the place for viable alternatives. At the "Off Beat" counter, I espied something called "Mexican Set", which consisted of burritos. With the above in my mind's eye, it sounded like an attractive option. Accordingly I tried to make an order. The man at the counter clarifies - "4 or 5? " . Turns out 5 was quesadillas and 4 was burritos, my original idea. Contrary to my nature, I stuck with my original choice of 4.

After waiting for about a quarter of an hour, my order was done. What I see has me momentarily speechless. Being the polite person that I am, I quietly took myself off, order and all, to find a vacant spot. But then I could not reconcile it with my conscience to swallow that outrage. I marched right back and declared - "No offense, but stuffed rice, (chinese fried rice at that) in chapatis doesn't a "burrito" make". "If you want to see what burritos look like do a google image search!" "These! - are not burritos".

Having thus sufficiently impressed my point I made my strategic retreat. I do not know whether they are gonna google burritos, but I did my bit to ensure that when humanity goes looking for above, they are not subjected to below!

The red bits in the middle? That's "Salsa". Oh! and I'm still shuddering to think what might have been presented in the name of no. 5 - quesadillas.

A Lonely Valentine's and Myriad Reminisces of Experiments Past

Sushi's away visiting (the) King of Prussia. It's Valentine's with a 12 hour time zone difference. I'm sharing a kitchen with dad. He does a lot of back seat driving, or more appropriately, "over the shoulder ladle stirring", even as he pretends he's letting me cook. We have frequent ingredient impasses and this puts me in a nostalgic mood. Just last week, I was sowing my own wild oats in my own kitchen. Here then, in chronological order are reminisces of my experiments in the past month -

1) The beans that might have softened Sushi's stand on Veggies.
Remember Tiger Prawn Malai Curry? Here. I thought, what works for the prawns might possibly work for the beans too. Steamed french beans, some roasted peanuts, coconut milk, even a dash of garlic n ginger and onion paste all went in to the pan. I might add at this point that I had the full blessings of Tarla Dalal, whose idea this was in the first place. What's not to like? Apparently not, for Sushi nearly bursts into tears and says I am never ever to do this to him again. Oh well.

2) Fresh Fruit - but add some calories first.


Picture this (though the picture ain't nearly so great), succulent, ripe, in all their pink-ness strawberries. Little green leaves left in to add some colour contrast and the fruit chopped into quarters. Whipped cream in a bowl with generous quantities of sugar. Then the pink and green co-mingles with the fluffy white. Ummmmmmm..."droolicious"!

3) The health conscious risotto.



You leave the cheese out and make the risotto. What's that? I haven't yet spoken about the art and craft of risotto making on these pages? Uh-oh... Easy really. Boneless chicken pieces, stir fried along with onions and chopped garlic and anything else which sounds Italian. Olives, for instance, belong with risotto, being most definitely Italian and to be discovered at great bargains in the kirana shop below my apartment. (Which is not to say, that they can't be had elsewhere.). Mushrooms, which for some reason remind me of gondolas in Venice can be thrown in too. The most exotic part is the rice - it's cooked in chicken broth instead of water. The twain are then mixed and if you are feeling reckless, or not breaking the weighing machine, go ahead, throw in a cup or two of grated cheese. Stir everything around until it's creamy enough..and watch Sushi's eyes sparkle behind his glasses.

You might not be able to do that last bit, the eye sparkling behind glasses bit, becos after all he's my valentine, not yours. Despair not though, because you might still have a great risotto to share with..someone, anyone.

It was a Merry and Slightly Overworked Christmas

And I want to write about it now while I'm still in the same year! Well, my family were invited over for dinner. Cradle babe and Water man (that's her man) were the guests of honour. We all agreed to a dress code - red and white. We added green as an option at the last minute to represent mistletoe and also because Sushi has no reds or whites in his wardrobe that's suitable for an evening of merry making. I decided to go with red and white both in honour of Santa Claus and my increasing girth.

Prawns in malai curry were on offer and so was Popeye Chicken. I baked my (trying to be) moist chocolate cake and whipped up some Egg Nog in keeping with the spirit of the season. That explains, why it was a slightly overworked Christmas for us.

The Egg Nog? OOoooohhh yeeeaahhhh! I discovered this last year, but the blog wasn't born then, which it is now. So without further ado, let me explain just how I whip up the egg nog.

Well, in a cup of milk, I add some cloves and nutmeg and vanilla essence, until the milk gets fairly aromatic without having come to a boil. Then, I add 2 egg yolks to half a cup of sugar and blend until the egg yolks go from being yellow to being lemon (as in the colour not the taste).

Now begins the tricky part. The milk mixture needs to be added to the lemony yolks mixture and the whole should be heated at very low heat until it starts to resemble custard. It is at this point that no matter how hard I stir, I start to get little omeletlets. Then, I hurriedly take it off the gas and try to mash out as best as I can, the omelet tendencies.

Next, I take out my seasonal jug from its place in the back of the cupboard and pour the above, sort of custardy mixture into it. The refrigerator does its thing for the next hour or two. As a last step, pour in 1 cup of cream (sinfulllll), blend gently, add a further pinch of nutmeg and refrigerate until your guests are in sight. Then, you serve them the egg nog in little glasses and observe reactions...

Hope you had a merry christmas too.

Tiger Prawns Prowling in Malai Curry

This one was discovered while roaming the streets in Kolkatta at a little known (by me at least) restaurant near the junction that lead to Baligunj from someplace - in Kolkatta. (I didn't spend too many days in the town). The point is that this little known restaurant near the junction that lead to Baligunj from someplace in Kokatta served a dish that has me smiling wistfully at the memory as I type this nearly a month later.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you - "Tiger Prawn Malai Curry". It comprises of succulent jumbo prawns in a pristine white curry that gives you no inkling as to the delicacy and depth of its flavour. That you discover only when you shovel in the first mouthful along with rice. Then you start drooling all over the table and desperately demanding of the maitre'd - "Coconut Milk! It is coconut milk isn't it?". Alarmed, the maitre'd asks you to get a grip on yourself - "Calm down, calm down lady. Yes, it is coconut milk. It's anything you want it to be" .

With that as my first clue, I started researching the net for ways to recreate the experience at home. Sure enough, most recipes started out with coconut milk, but the photos showed not one trace of the pristine white colour, quite the opposite in fact. So, I do the only logical thing I can think of - leave out all ingredients that would add more than a slight suspicion of colour to the curry or substitute with neutral hued alternatives. Red chili, for example, makes way for single whole green chili. The onions are not browned, they are made into a paste. Turmeric powder is a strict no no. Garam masala powder is allowed because it disappears into the depths of the curry, adding flavour, but leaving no trace of colour. The other ingredients would be garlic paste, fresh garlic paste if you please, salt and the biggest prawns that you can get hold of.

Malai? Interesting that you should ask that, I was wondering along the same lines too and the explanation is simple really. Around 2 centuries ago (or is it 3 now), the British landed on our shores. The East India company was not their only import. They also brought along with them "Prawn Malay curry" from Malaysia. (I'm not perfectly sure what they were doing in Malaysia in the first place. Perhaps they made a pit stop on their way over to India.) Well then, in India, the "Malay" became "Malai" and that basically explains the utter lack of any actual malai in the curry.

The dish assembles really fast once you are done prepping your ingredients. First add a green chili, slit down the middle, to oil in a kadhai on fire. That adds a little zing and starts things rolling. Next goes in the onion paste and garlic paste. A dash of garam masala, saute a bit, some salt, and pour in two small tetra packs of coconut milk for 250gm of prawn. Speaking of prawns, I like to fry them a bit, just a little bit, beforehand with lemon and salt mixed in. This is to get rid of any odour that might later bother you. That pretty much wraps up the dish. Add the prawns to the curry, let it simmer a bit and you are good to go.

I do believe, I'm close to recreating the Kol curry. So far Sushi and me and Mrs DP have sampled it and given it a thumbs up. I'd say it's pretty safe to try if you are not one of those unfortunate people who are allergic to sea food.

Realisation of The Hyderabadi Biryani

Cradle babe got wed last week and I am a little disoriented since then. I'm happy for her, but you see, to me she's still the babe in the cradle, which is why, I must now talk about how the Hyderabadi Biryani was realised in my kitchen. For there is nothing quite like talk of good food to set your bearings straight!

So, the story goes back about 29 years. Ever since (and perhaps even before) I sprouted my first set of teeth, I have had dad cooking and feeding me what he calls "Hyderabadi Biryani". Legend also says that the first official sentence I lisped was, "First you must brown the onions". Intention here is not to brag, but to emphasize how deeply rooted in my upbringing the biryani always has been and hence was only a matter of time before I'd introduce it in my own kitchen.

I'm glad to report that this has been by far the most resounding success of the Sushi-Sashimi kitchen. When he first tasted it, Sushi, he was moved enough to...oh never mind, let's cut to the chase shall we.

First you must locate a goat with a hind leg, then have the butcher chop it(the hind leg) into medium sized pieces. You then get your prize home, wash the pieces thoroughly and tuck them away in the refrigerator. Next, we grab some glossy, green, firm, green chili - about 18 whole chillies for 1 kg of mutton. You need to then divide them in 3 groups and slice them three different ways. The first group simply has the heads chopped off, the 2nd is slit down the middle, the 3rd is slit down the middle too and de-seeded. Please excuse the brutality, but it really was necessary to the story. I'll even rate this offering PG.

We then mix some g-g paste in curd, add half of each kind of chili groups, salt, garam masala and half a cup of lemon juice. Then we go find the mutton tucked away in the refrigerator, add it to the above mixture. Let it sit nice and quiet for the next 3 hours.

In the mean time, any guesses? Well, as even a 4 year old would be able to tell - brown the onions! Set them aside. We progress now, to my favourite and the most aromatic and exotic part of the entire preparation - in a big pateela, set a large volume of water to boil. Drop in the remainder of the chilies, cloves, bay leaves, cardamom, cinnamon, and general things of that genre along with salt. When the water is boiling, in goes rice. It comes out in the next 10 minutes flat, because we don't want the rice to be more than 2/3rds cooked at this point. The way to check for 2/3rd cooked-ness is to bite through a grain of rice to make sure that your teeth sink in only up to 2/3rds of the thickness of the grain. It's a bit tricky at first, but when you get the knack for it, you wouldn't even need a ruler to test.

The last step is to assemble everything together. First the mental calorie calculator needs to be switched off. Then pour in ghee or oil to a depth of about 1 cm at the bottom of the pateela. Next the mutton pieces are arranged at the bottom. The remaining curd from the marinade is poured on top, rice (2/3rd cooked) goes next. Plenty of chopped coriander leaves are sprinkled on top of the rice for garnish (Cradle babe hates coriander). Your pateela would need to be sealed off with its lid. I even use dough to make sure the lid stays stuck in place.

The rice-ghee-mutton-coriander assembly should now be put on fire. Dad always uses real charcoal fire, but all that mess daunts me, so I go for the trusty gas stove. 10 minutes on high, the next 10 minutes on medium, and 10 minutes after that on indirect heating - you are now all set to tuck in!

You're welcome, it's totally been my pleasure.

The Austerity Drive

I haven't posted here in quite some time. Now, part of the reason for that is I was actually busy cooking. Let's see, there was the Hyderabadi mutton Biryani made authentic daddy style. Then, lasagna, which wasn't too bad I'm inclined to think, considering that I was improvising heavily, trying to leave the tomatoes out of the lasagna.

Then, one day realisation dawned that we seemed to be living only to eat. I for one think that's a perfectly sound principle to base your life on, but when the weighing machine starts to shudder every time you want to check in, you know it's time for some stringent measures.

Hence, we have started, what we call the "Austerity Drive". We cut down on everything, beverages, chapatis, and yes even meat :( My refrigerator is choc - a - bloc with healthy greens. It is slowly staring to look totally innocent of beer. The little steel drum that sits in my kitchen - what I call my "larder" now contains all above board items such as soya bean nuggets, and things that can be sprouted when you put them in water. (Sob!)

Now, it's important that we don't deny ourselves the occasional treat..which is why I'm googling "Prawn malai curry' even as I write this. Speaking of writing, I hope to be filling these - pages, so to say, with details of the biryani and the lasagna. If we can't eat 'em, we can at least talk of 'em!

Here's to the success of the Austerity drive.

Kanda Pohe - a metaphor for Blind Dates

The Maharashtrians among us wouldn't blink at that title, but for the "non", let me explain -

In an arranged marriage scenario, when the prospective bride and family visit the prospective groom's house to size him up (or vice versa), the hosts typically offer Kanda pohe to the guests, among other things. The match making proceedings happen over a plate of Kanda Pohe and hence the metaphor.

Back in the days when me and my girl buddies were on the marriage market, it was commonplace to compare notes on the out come of our respective Kanda Pohe at the end of the week/month/day. "But you don't really do Kanda Pohe, you go on dates" , they'd say. Well, admittedly my Kanda Pohe had the appearance of blind dates, because my action plan involved meeting the guy over coffee/lunch/dinner depending on how well things were going, rather than the entire clan getting involved from the word 'go'. All the same, these blind kanda pohe were really focused, serious stuff as opposed to 'date' dates. I had a mental list (presumably the guys had theirs too) of the must have, nice to have and must not have criteria against which I was sizing up prospectives for my arranged marriage.

It was over one such metaphorical Kanda Pohe that I met Sushi, and here we are...married. I believe, the actual dish we ate ran more on the lines of butter chicken and daal tadka.

Back to the tangible Kanda Pohe though. I made this over breakfast one weekend. Simple really. You take about a cup of Pohe and soak it in water.(Pohe is beaten rice, beaten so that it absorbs cold water too. You can actually see it expanding visibly when u soak it in a cup of water for about 15 minutes). You then add some veggies in a kadahi (potatoes and peas will do) after chopping them fine. Don't forget the Kanda (onion) because that's the raison d'etre of the poha. Also don't forget to add oil in the kadahi before putting the veg in (almost forgot to mention that. Phew!)After the veggies are done, stir in the soaked (and bloated) pohe. Then add in turmeric and salt..and voila you are good to go.

Doesn't sound like much..but trust me, it makes a pretty neat meal. Perfect, now I see, for breaking the ice - "Er..nice pohe. So what are your hobbies?"