Chapter 3........... a good two weekends..... and a first time attemp.t that Stole the show ... Welcome to my world .... I am thrilled.

“This recipe  is so good I would love to have it on my menu when I have my restaurant”; A compliment i received from an aspiring restaurateur and a dear friend, now that’s something to savour and bask in the glory of, I am talking about the Chicken cordon bleu , a dish I bumped into while reading online and thought would give it a  try along with the other things I was cooking( after all my close friends were coming in for dinner, they would be brutal if I messed up but would encourage me to do better the next time ). I served it with some white wine Sauce, was good I must say ..A pat on my back …. J

The Saturday prior to this weekend was when the dinner really was, I am sorry it’s a late post but like I said at least I am posting. I had planned for a pretty extensive menu considering I was going to be cooking alone and I did have a damn dentist appointment on Saturday itself so everything had to be fit in. It’s another story I had to postpone the appointment for another day as I would never finish the cooking, if I had gone for it. So here is what was on the menu;

Starters:

Mince meat balls

Fish wrapped in banana leaf (yes on popular demand once again)

Grilled chicken with sauce suggested by a friend doing her Cordon bleu from London (I eventually didn’t make it as there would be too much food, so that’s for later)

Chicken Cordon Bleu …… The winner………………………………………………..Yeah Yeah Yeah

Main course:

Mutton Biryani with a thick curd and spice gravy and Raita,

Butter garlic Prawns.

Here we go, the ingredients were all procured on Friday evening in order to start the basic process a day in advance, remember I still had my dentist appointment till then. The alcohol was bought, in abundance, hey comm’on what did you think a Saturday night without alcohol, no one would turn up man. The basics for the biryani was laid out, mincemeat with all the spices were arranged and the fish was marinated in the required paste and spices as earlier mentioned to let the meat rest in the spice and absorb the flavours.

Saturday morning 7:30 it was when I actually started cooking , and that’s really early as its one of the two days I get to sleep late being a holiday, but then if you want to , you must do these things right ? I got going with the gravy of the Biryani first being the easiest I guess, and the meat for the biryani was steamed with the required spices bundled up in a cloth so that just the flavours are infused without any overpowering the taste. The meat was then strained from the stock and the stock reserved to cook the rice in it. Next step was to cook the rice which had been soaking in water for over an hour, the meat was added to it and the rice was cooked till it was done. For the garnish, some finely chopped onions were socked in milk (it makes the onion crispy when you fry them rather than making it soggy) and then sautéed in Ghee.

It was very close to 11 by then and that’s when I called my dentist and requested her to postpone the appointment. I knew with the fish , the mincemeat , the grilled chicken and the Cordon Bleu I would never finish before it was time for the guests to pour in, and I had mentioned earlier that I always get pulled up for being in the kitchen when people were over and I did not want that happening.

Next the mincemeat was made into small balls and fried in a heavy bottom pan till it was brown on all sides, this was to be served with coriander chutney, the basic ingredients added to the mincemeat was finely chopped onions , green chillies, paste of ginger and garlic, coriander powder and cumin powder. By now , after speaking to one of my friends had realised and decided that the chicken for the grill could go into the freezer as it would just mean too much food and hence too much waste. The fish was already ready to be wrapped hence I left it as the last thing to do, (an intelligent decision by any standard, you will get to know later why). I then went about finishing off the butter garlic prawns, a dish my friends say I have mastered , I mean give me a break , how can you go wrong with something that has oodles of butter and lots of garlic ….. and add to that the prawns, just divine. It’s simple really, a lot of butter is added to a pan, once that’s hot just added the chopped garlic to it followed by some spring onions and white pepper, and finally the prawn goes in just for a few minutes till it turn opaque. Ready it is, trust me it’s that simple… oh! Butter is the best thing made for the palate. So let’s quickly move to the show stopper The Chicken Cordon Bleu, God I am exited …J

The recipe asked you to get equal portions of chicken breasts , hams and cheese, the chicken is then supposed to be placed between greased paper and beaten down with a steak hammer, the problem , I could neither find a steak hammer nor any greased paper. So here is what I did, I placed the chicken breasts on the chopping board and beat it down with a steel ladle evenly till it was thin enough but didn’t tear. This was garnished with some white pepper and a slice of ham was placed over it and finished off with a cheese slice, I rolled it all up and secured it with a tooth pick and kept it in the fridge for a bit to rest. Once done these rolls were rolled up in a batter of egg and milk and finally in bread crumbs. Now here I had chosen to mix the bread crumbs with thyme, basil and rosemary, (worked fine for me). The rolls were sautéed in regular oil for a bit and placed in a baking dish. Once all the rolls were done , I made the white wine sauce with simple butter and flour and added some wine and seasoning to it, the rolls were topped with this sauce and baked for ten minutes and  ta’da  the master piece was ready ….. Kudos…..A dish you must try if you want to entertain people …… it’s got bloody load of panache to rock a food lover’s world.

It was late evening by the time I was done with this and I had to set up the place before people walked in, so I let the fish be, thank fully one of my friends dropped in early to help me do that. She laid out the table and set up the living room beautifully before she left to go finish some work and join in later( God bless her for that). The first couple arrived in early as promised and here is why it was a brilliant decision to let the fish wait for the last, the lady volunteered to wrap the fish up so that I could get ready for evening. And, an evening it was ……. It started off slowly … but as the evening picked up … so did the alcohol and the food …. Of course the compliments as well… ha ha, ok ok I know I am boasting, but it’s just me reading or writing it so that’s cool. Eventually the music picked up and people hit the floor dancing their hearts out. It was simply outstanding. Later in the night we sat down to sing songs and believe you me I have some really gifted friends so it was perfect icing on the cake, thank God I don’t even try as I am atrocious. I prefer to stick to entertaining and feeding them so that they can return the favour by ending the evening perfectly for me with their melodious voice.

An outstanding day it was …… really was…. Way to go man.

Coming forward to this weekend, I wanted to keep it relatively simple, a mutton dish that was going to be a twist from the traditional one I always make taught by mom, with steam rice and a simple salad of onions tomatoes and chillies. The mutton was to be made in absolute dry roasted spices, as I did not want to use any packed spice for the same. The mutton was first marinated in mustard oil, lemon, turmeric and red chillies overnight. The dry roasted spices had nutmeg, cardamom both black and green, mace, bay leaves, cloves and red chillies. It was to be ground in a mortar and pestle to retain their coarse nature, but I didn’t have one so I chose to use the blender. To start the process post the preparation, mustard oil was first heated and to it fresh ginger garlic paste was added and fried till it was slightly brown, then the mutton with all the ingredients it was marinated in was sautéed with it for a while and the ground spices were added to it and this was allowed to cook on low heat for over 30 minutes stirring occasionally. The gravy was made by blending curd (to avoid granulation), fresh cream and fried onions (prepared in advance). This paste was added to the mutton and it was further cooked for another 20 minutes before finally seasoning it with fresh coriander and boiled eggs. I was told it was good, I guess I have an encouraging bunch of friends because they keep me going by their appreciative and critical comments.

A good two weekends we could say? The coming weekend happens to be a long one and a few of us do plan to go out but if we don’t I shall be making lunch one of the days. Shall keep you posted about the developments…  Till then … be good …… Take care…… J

Chapter 2......... The bounce back................ Somewhat i think...

Two posts in a day, I am already patting my back……… well I had a lot of catching up to do and that too without any further postponing ,but do you really want me around, I wonder, alright I will do it for myself like I said I would. The heavy weekend got over and we all started getting back to our lives, we all began to think of all the wonderful things that the little one showed us and smiled about it. It was time that I didn’t wait for the weekend to come so that I could cook again and I did get the opportunity to do the same.

After a very crazy Monday and Tuesday I got off work early on Wednesday, I guess I wanted to cook so I planned the day in a way I could finish work as well as do my bit of cooking. Did I forget to mention, that my boss was hitching a ride to the workplace for the last two days and he too cooks to an extent, hence it was fun unwinding discussing recipes. He told me some really interesting ones. Those that registered the most was “Keema” (minced meat), Bhetki  Patori(fish wrapped with spices and baked in banana leaf) and capsicum stuffed with prawns. I was only too inspired to get on with it and cook some of it, so I chose the first two and let the third one be for now. I chose Keema primarily because I always ended up messing it up and his recipe did sound like a winner. Once again the same two friends were to be over for dinner, sweet of them as they come every time I call them to give their valuable inputs or just be a scapegoat to my crazy fascination for cooking. I was also informed that there would be three other friends who would be joining so that made the task all the more difficult, performance pressure you see,(didn’t know two of them all too well, but that was inspiring) and after the last debacle I was very keen to get back on top of things and keep myself inspired.

So, after work I headed out to procure the ingredients for the dinner, the plan was to go for the spicy Keema , a medium spiced fish with Paratha’s (Indian bread) which of course I cannot make as yet and would just have to buy it. Getting the minced meat was easy; the tough part was getting the right hard flesh fish for the Banana wrapped rolls. I didn’t not get what I wanted but eventually settled for Basa (it did the job eventually).

This is how it went; the minced meat was first drained of any water and then marinated in ginger, garlic, crushed green chillies, a little curd and a drop of vinegar. While this happened, onions were sautéed separately with red whole chillies and crushed garlic. Once browned, spices were added to it and this was deglazed with a little tomato puree. When it became a thick paste with the consistency that I liked the meat was added to it and cooked for an hour on low flame. Once the meat started cooking all I had to do was stir it occasionally, so I set out to prepare the fish. For this you have to first prepare a paste of crushed green chillies, mustard seeds, ginger, garlic and grated coconut with a pinch of coriander powder and a pinch of cumin powder, just mix all of it in a blender and it’s done. I just had to make sure it was a thick gooey paste so that it coated the fish well. I left the fish in it for ten minutes in the refrigerator so that the paste just binds around the fish well. In between that time I made my banana leaf pieces in which I was to wrap the fish eventually. The tough part here was to make sure that the leaves did not tear when I tied the wrap with a string to hold it all together. Behold my luck, what I feared came true almost immediately, it tore and tore most of the time so I had to add a double coating to most of the pieces.(I later learned that if you boil the banana leaf for a bit before using it, it will work just fine). This was then just put on the microwave tray but not before basting it with some oil, and applying oil on the tray as well, the mode was changed to convection and the fish baked for 30 minutes, turning it around after 15 minutes. I was told that it is done in 12 to 15 minutes, but I wasn’t too sure so why take the risk. And paid off, it did. Since, I had done most of the work before the guests walked in I could for a change spend relatively more time with them, which I for some reason am not able to do and they are in the kitchen drinking to give me company. I have been chided for it and have tried to work towards improving on it. Plus this recipe didn’t require me to be in the kitchen all the time, so that helped.

We had our round of drinks and some more food had to be called for as the initial plan wasn’t for 7 people, what was heartening though was to see that the food made at home was preferred over the ordered food. The fish I was told was excellently done and that it melted in the mouth. The keema was good to taste but I thought of the comparative review and all it meant was that the keema could be worked upon some more. They loved the food though and I was happy after the disaster.

I did get some of the leftovers to work the next day and they loved it here too, in fact the man who had given me the recipe was pretty impressed. I now plan to do a lunch on Saturday for some of my friends. The menu is still to be planned but I do plan for more than two dishes. I hope I can pull it off, wish me luck …. 

Chapter 1..........I know I have Deviated but this one is a Dedication.................

Hey , I am back , I thought I’d do it some other day , but didn’t want to procrastinate what I started on the first weekend itself should I, I promised to myself I would write and talk about the experience so here I am .

It was a really wet weekend with heavy showers, hence I was in the mood for some mutton/lamb, I had been reading and working around some recipes and figuring out what should I go with … A rack of lamb with apple sauce sounded tempting, so did a barbecued leg of lamb, but the flavour in my mouth was more for some spicy food, more so as the people I had planned to eat with were for the spicy bit, so I chose to do up some “Mutton Barra”( its barbecued mutton pieces) and a spicy soupy dish called “Kunna”.

I started about preparing on a Saturday (it was a Sunday lunch plan) since the mutton for the Barra had to be marinated a day in advance. I was in the process of doing that when I got a call that a very dear friend whose cat was ill wasn’t going to recover and will have to be put to sleep. Incidentally this was the same person coming over for the lunch the next day. I just had to be there then, so, I left everything the way it was and rushed.

It was a rainy night when this small little thing, a stray, walked up to my friend while he was on his way up home and looked at him with those take me home eyes, he couldn’t resist and brought her home looking to nurse and feed her and let her go the next day, his sister and also a friend who wasn’t really a cat person freaked out and didn’t know what to do for the next twenty four hours, but as the story goes , she couldn’t do without her for the next three years. The pretty little thing gradually grew into a bundle of joy and mischief not only in their lives but the lives of people who met her. I met her two years back and not being a cat person myself, didn’t know how to react but over a period of time it was just a pleasure to see her turn into a Diva that she was. It was absolutely hilarious at times when you would see her sitting at the weirdest of places , imagine, when the bar arrived at home she was figuring out a way to get into the space made to hold wine bottles, unsuccessfully of course. The house help was so fond of her that there would be days when she would just eat out some chicken from his plate and he would feel she shares his dinner and consider himself honoured. And believe you me I can go on and on. Anyways this little large actually enormous bundle of “bratness” and mischief was a little ill and was being treated for it for a while , but this jerk of a vet gave her the wrong medication which affected her kidneys beyond repair. Saturday it was when she had to be put to sleep rather than let her suffer any further, somewhere our selfish self never wants to let go of what we love, but she had selflessly given everyone around a reason to be happy and smile and it was by no means she deserved what she was going through. She was a happy, proud and extremely (lovingly) arrogant Cat and it was best that she remains that in all our memories even after her. . The poor child had to live it up for almost close to a week and even when she finally was really weak and just couldn’t fight any further, a day before she left us all, she got up one last time and demanded her food letting everyone know that this is how I would like to be remembered. Saturday it was.
One of the toughest things in life to do is hold fort for people you love, after they have lost someone so dear, believe me I have lived it. We hadn’t let go as yet though, and sadly our city does not have a pet cemetery, and we wanted her to have a farewell she righty deserved. Once again it was a rainy day just like the one when she had come home and the sky poured its heart out as she bid her final good bye. Her ashes today adorns the church , the ocean , my car and every place  she every lived and was her highness of. I have by God’s grace never lost someone really dear to me to the extent of taking the ashes to the river or the ocean, either I was too small or later truly blessed. But I will never forget the ashes being washed of my hands by the waves , and the waves engulfing her forever actually I wouldn’t be surprised if she engulfed the waves instead, believe me she still is very capable of that . R.I.P Bugsy (that’s her name), everyone around you, loved you in some way or the other, but if every one of them look back, ‘you’ without saying a word made each one of them smile through happy, sad, weak, strong actually any situation cause that’s what you were, a bundle of Joy, and you gave it without asking for anything in return other than attacking the food, OFCOURSE.

 Has a Tornado ever made you smile? I have had the privilege to see, live, know and experience one.

Ok, getting back to where we left, I did manage to convince both of them to come out of the house and spend some time at my place, have some food which they agreed to. It was as it is, just going from one home to another. And how did the food turn out? Well, way beyond what I expected it to, it was bad for my liking. The chops weren’t marinated well enough; I have made it in the past and have done way better. I wonder at time why do I experiment with a recipe that’s already worked for me , I mean marinating in ginger, garlic, vinegar, raw papaya and curd worked brilliantly for me, but no I had to experiment and go absolutely wrong. In simple words it just wasn’t good enough to get any further mention here. The Kunna was still ok, the meat was really well cooked and the spices were coming out just right, you could taste the different choice of spices so yes I would say, I liked the taste to an extent, but the garnish of lemon slices, julienne ginger and chillies was a bad bad bad choice, they should be there, but, served separately for people to use the garnish as per their choice. I guess the food you make reflects the state of mind as well, and as good a stress buster as cooking may be it reflected the sombre mood. I hope to do better next time, and since I had promised I would write after I have cooked, well I already have and I did keep my promise of doing better. But that, in a bit …………..

I cook Cause it makes me happy.... Inspired I am.

I had this film on my hard disc for a while now called “Julie and Julia”, I am certain most of you must be aware of it, so last night I sat down to finally watch it. It had wonderful performances from Julie Powell and the power house Meryl Streep. The film was a treat to watch with its subtle comedy, the passion of two women who like to cook, the determination shown by both, but most importantly it was outstandingly inspiring for a lazy bum (sorry for the use of profanity, but I would rather call myself that, my blog after all) like me who procrastinates everything and just doesn’t end up finishing whatever he really wants to do. It’s funny and weird how the film made me want to actually wake up and do something that makes me truly happy, and cooking does and I have a plan in my head too, OK Seriously I now really sound inspired. Common people I am here writing during my work hours give me some due for it. So what’s the plan, well well well I am still to figure that out as I can’t set myself a 365 days target for a certain number of recipes, I work 5 days a week and its crazy at times, plus I live alone so who do I cook for every day, so I shall start with 2 days a week of serious experimentation and I shall write about it, and let’s see where we go. Maybe, nowhere, but I’d still be cooking and still writing about it. That’s a whole lot of achievement in itself.

Early days

I am not a cook by profession or chance or necessity or opportunity, I am a cook made from the love of food, being intrigued by the work that goes into preparing anything that stirs the various gastronomic sensation of your palate. It all started watching my mom cook at home and it was incredible to watch her go meticulously with every ingredient for every recipe, the most outstanding bit , it tasted like Heaven each time. Not that I got to watch this very often as I have lived all my life in a hostel so this was always a holiday treat , the food for me and the cooking for mom , as she wanted to feel her only child new dishes everything I landed up for a holiday. She would learn new recipes and make it for me; I guess I get that from her as I like doing the same with people around me. All this always kept me intrigued about food and how interesting experimenting with it could get.

This phase was soon followed by me doing my Graduations and Post graduations, when I used to live with flatmates and trying my hand at elementary cooking , at times to lower the cost of a party(trust me cooking at home is the cheapest and the most classic way to entertain guests), at times cause I had just learned something from mom but mostly to show off , and thanks to really loving and at times lying(with a good heart) friends I got to do that more often than not. But, it was generally a once in three month’s thing that I would do.  Then, came a time when I was living alone and working 5 days a week, with no time for myself, I also was in a city where I had no friends and nothing to do. At that point of time I had a friend who would find it intriguing the way I spoke about food and the love for it, it was she who then spoke me into seriously cooking for myself and anyone who came over , to the extent of mailing me recipes for me to try. I soon realised after doing it over and over again that I had started to enjoy these experimentations. In fact it was a major stress buster after a long weeks work; it still is that way after over 6 years. Over this period of six years I have evolved from that and looked for cuisines and recipes online, read about them, tried some , (remember I am not trained) so plating the food isn’t my forte , but I try. I also started watching a lot of shows on television and learning about food and of course my bookshelf now boasts of a lot of books on Cooking. Hey this could be a plan? If I end up cooking half the recipes in all the books I have with me, I would have done a world of good to myself and my love for what I like. It was in fact during the last couple of years in my life when another very close friend of mine focused into this attribute of mine, and insisted that I try more , that I experiment more with this funny belief that I was born to be a Chef , I’d like to be called a cook more though , and she believes that one day I will have a place of my own , but that’s when it happens, till then it’s going to be cooking and writing here and hoping someone will read it randomly without me having to ask and inspire me to do more. Till then I shall do it for myself…..

Here begins my dream too, …… and I want to finish this one…. Along the way , I shall figure out what it exactly is …………….. So wish me luck people. J