Baking glory -- double chocolate chip cookies, chicken patties and cheesestraws

I've been stuck at home for the last month, looking after the dogs and playing nurse to my Man Friday who's gone and fractured his leg. The heat of Delhi is also so unbearable currently, that you don't even feel like venturing out. So instead of cooking in the heat of the kitchen, I decided to put my oven to good use. I've spent the last week making chicken patties - just like my mom used to make for us for tiffin in school - and cheesestraws and yesterday I baked chocolate chip cookies for the first time. While the recipe didn't ask for grated cooking chocolate, I dumped in some because I had tons of it at home. You could always leave it out if you want.

CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

2 cups flour
1 cup butter
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup grated dark cooking chocolate

1 cup brown sugar (I powdered it, but it should work as well even if you don't)

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence

Sieve the flour and baking powder and salt together.

In another bowl, cream together the butter, sugar and eggs and vanilla essence. Then add the chocolate and the choco chips. 

Then mix in the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. It will take on a fudgy texture.

Prepare a baking tray with greased butter paper. Take a teaspoon and put a dollop of mixture around 3 inches apart on the tray. Make sure it's not too close because the mixture will flatten out and the biscuits will merge into each other if there's not enough space between them.

Place in a pre-heated oven, set at 190 degrees C for around 15 minutes. Take out, allow to cool on the baking sheet and then eat :) If the cookies have flattened and merged into each other, just break them at the division line with your hand. 

These turned out extremely chewy and fabulous, and perfect for a tea party. Especially if you serve them with home-made chicken patties and cheese straws.   

Easy pork chops with a yummy marinade

The mother will be visiting soon, so I decided to clean out my freezer and pre-marinate some stuff for her visit. So along with prepping a lasagna with some delicious meat sauce and a few vinaigrettes, I also decided to marinate some pork chops which I’ve been meaning to cook for a while. Here’s my easy-peasy recipe for really nice sticky sweet and tangy teriyaki style pork chops. Enjoy 

Ingredients


• 1/2 cup soy sauce


• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

 

• 2 teaspoons honey

• 2 teaspoons garlic powder

• 4 pork chops

Directions

Mix all the marinade ingredients together -- the soy sauce, vinegar, honey and garlic powder - in a bowl. Soak the chops in the marinade and place in a shallow dish with a cover. If you’re cooking the chops for a meal that day itself, marinate for at least 2 to 4 hours in the refrigerator. Otherwise if you’re going to cook it later, like I am, you can keep it in the marinade for up to 3-4 days and then cook it.

If you have a grill, lightly oil it. Grill the chops 5 to 8 minutes per side, for them to be medium rare. You can drizzle the remaining marinade over the chops while grilling for them to remain moist. If you don’t have a grill, use your non-stick frying pan.


Serve the chops with some nice garlic bread and a green salad.


Ta-dah!

Food for Thought catering and a jug of Pimm's

Well I'm back from what I felt was a much deserved break to recharge my batteries. And I'm back with a brand new venture, which is of course food-related. A friend of mine and I have decided to start a catering and party planning company called Food for Thought which will cater parties for a minimum of 5 people. We'll also help plan parties - themes, invites, decor, menu. The whole shebang. So if you know anyone in Gurgaon or even Delhi who might want to serve up some delicious home-cooked Bengali, continental, thai or burmese cuisine do let them know about us. They can check out our menu and website at http://foodforthoughtindia.blogspot.com/p/about.html or check out our facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Food-For-Thought-Catering-Party-Planning/218341524858777

And in the meantime, just to beat the heat, here's a quick recipe for my version of Pimm's:

Chop up a bunch of fruits. Whatever you have in the fridge. You should have at least 2 cups of chopped apples, grapes, half a lemon in circles and some strawberries. Also add some chopped cucumbers, without peeling the skin off.

Soak all the fruits in around 200 ml of bacardi/ vodka (basically one of the white alcohols)

Add a can of ginger beer and top up with 500 ml of Pimm's. Stir. Throw in a handful of mint leaves.

Lie back, sip and enjoy.  

White chocolate and orange cake with a cognac orange glaze

I had a bunch of white cooking chocolate with me and since I’m not a great fan of white chocolate, I’ve just been storing it for ages. The other day I decided that I might as well use the chocolate and bake something or the other. I came across this lovely recipe for white chocolate and orange cake which had only fresh ingredients. The main thing with baking is that you have to stick to measurements. It’s precise, an dmight seem clinical while you’re making it – but I find baking like magic. You put in all the strangest ingredients and the most magnificent cretaion pops out of the oven. It is a science, so just stick to the emasurements and you will be so happy with the result. The only thing I deviated from the original recipe on, was my addition of cognac – and it was a fabulous addition if I say so myself. The fresh orange juice and zest gives th cake a lovely tangy fragrance and taste and the cognac gives it a really ncie kick.

Read through the recipe before you begin. It may seem like a lot of work, but it goes together quickly. Don’t substitute the fresh orange juice with the carton one, it really won’t give the same taste.

Ingredients:

·         1 large orange

·         2 cups all-purpose flour

·         1 tsp baking soda

·         1 tsp salt

·         1/2 cup butter, at room temperature

·         1 cup granulated sugar

·         2 large eggs, at room temperature

·         1/4 cup fresh orange juice

·         3/4 cup yoghurt

·         1 cup white chocolate grated

·         Orange zest (about 1 tbsp)

Glaze:

·         1/4 cup orange marmalade – I used Kissan, but if you have any other kind just use it

·         2 Tbsp butter

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 350 F or around 200 C. Prepare a 9 x 13-inch baking pan with butter and dust with flour.

Remove the zest from the orange (should be about 1 tablespoon) and set aside. Make sure you don’t get any of the pith in your zester (that’s the white inside part of the orange which is really bitter). Juice the orange (should be about 1/3 cup), reserving the juice for use in the recipe.

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, beating into the mixture. Beat in 1/4 cup orange juice (reserve the rest for icing) and yoghurt.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Fold in the orange zest and keep mixing till the mixture is well-blended.

Pour into prepared baking pan. Sprinkle white chocolate chips on top of the batter. If they do not sink in, tap pan gently once on the counter. Bake 20 to 25 minutes until lightly browned and the cake is done. Stick a knife in the centre and if it comes out clean, it’s done.

Glaze:
While the cake is baking, melt orange marmalade and butter in the microwave about 45 seconds. Stir it and then add around a large peg of cognac – good quality cognac.

I of course forgot to dust the cake tin with flour, so as I took the cake out of the over I immediately flipped it out of the baking tray – and much to my joy, it came out in one piece and perfectly.

Brush this glaze over the top of the warm cake as soon as it comes out of the oven. Then let the cake cool and cut it into small squares. It’s been a fabulous hit with all my friends and even I wowed myself with how wonderful it tasted.

Pardon the picture, but I took it with my mobile phone.

Raja Mircha and the bestest pork curry ever

It’s definitely been a while since I last posted a recipe and the only excuse is that I’ve been terribly busy with the restaurant.  But enough of excuses. On to more important topics.

Just the other day, my driver who has been on leave for a couple of weeks and hails from Assam, returned with a brilliant gift for me – a bushel of raja mircha or bhoot jolakia a.k.a the spiciest chili in India. In an effort to preserve and relish them for as long as possible, I first dried them on the roof in the burning Delhi sun and then proceeded to think of how and what to cook with them.

The main word of caution while using raja mircha is that it is bloody spicy, so you don’t want to use more than one chili for a kg of meat. It does have a divine taste and fragrance all its own though and you don’t need to add too many spices as a result. Also, if you have a low tolerance for spice, this is not the ingredient for you.

So now that I had my hands on a raja mircha, I decided that the best thing to cook with it was a nice Naga spicy pork curry, which I’ve cooked for the first time. And I must say, you’ll be left licking your plate clean. Two of the best parts of this recipe are that first, you don’t use a smidgen of oil. And second, there’s no bamboo shoot used in it, which makes it more palatable for me as I haven’t really developed a taste for bamboo shoot yet.

So here goes, just follow the recipe and I promise you you’ll be licking your plate clean.  Also, for best results get hold of really good quality pork with a generous layer of fat.

Ingredients:

·         Pork 1 kg with meat and fat, cut into small chunks

·         Garlic crushed: 1 ½ tablespoons

·         Ginger: 1 ½ tablespoons

·         Salt to taste

·         One raja mircha fresh or smoked and dried

·         Tomatoes 400 gms pureed

Serves 4

Preparation
Wash the pork and soak it in 2 tbsps of white vinegar. Puree the tomatoes and keep aside along with crushed garlic and ginger.

Method
Put the pork along with the vinegar in a thick bottomed pan, add salt to taste, add half a glass of water and let it cook until half done. I also chopped some potataoes and added it to the pork while it was boiling. But you can leave it out if you want. Then add the tomato puree, ginger and garlic and let the pork cook until tender. When it is almost done, add the raja chilli and stir until the pork is cooked and tender. The curry will be a bright red thick gravy.
This tasted perfect with steamed rice. Enjoy.

Thanking the turkey and digging into some Chicken in Orange Sauce

It’s Thanksgiving and the perfect time to be cooking up a delicious duck l’orange. Now this is a Calcutta favourite – and one of mine as well. And no other dish looks as lovely as a whole roasted duck, hot out of the oven, glistening in a rich orange sauce. The mixture of bitter-sweetness of the orange sauce and the ginger juliennes adds a unique taste to the dish. It’s also the perfect season for juicy sweet oranges, which helps make it as organic a dish as you can possibly whip up -- of course for most of us the fruits will come from the neighbourhood vegetable vendor and not a tree, but at least we know our intentions are good.

But since we can’t get our hands on a good duck usually or won’t eat duck –here’s a recipe for Chicken in Orange Sauce, which is almost as nice to eat and definitely much easier to cook.

Chicken in orange sauce

1 chicken – around 1.5 kg, cut into 12 pieces

1/2 tsp salt, to tase

1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

¼ cup flour

1/3 cup oil

½ cup chilli sauce/ any spicy sweet sauce (I sometimes use a dash of chili flakes and a 1/2 cup of white wine instead of chili sauce)

2 capsicums (chopped)

1 tsp garlic paste

1 tsp prepared mustard (Colman’s mustard powder is the best)

1 cup orange juice (freshly squeezed)

1 tbsp dark brown sugar

2 tbsp soya sauce

2 oranges, sliced into rings


Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees.

In a bowl mix the flour, salt and pepper. Dredge chicken parts in the mixture. Place a heavy saucepan over moderate heat. Pour in the oil and lightly brown the chicken pieces. Then arrange the chicken in a baking dish – which you can also serve it in, like a casserole.

In a separate pan, place the remaining ingredients other than the orange slices and allow to simmer over low heat for about five to seven minutes – you’ll figure out it’s done as all the ingredients look well-blended. Keep stirring now and then. Taste and adjust the salt, keeping in mind that the chicken has already been salted.

Pour this sauce over the chicken pieces, cover with foil – if using a casserole then with a lid -- and place in the oven. Bake the chicken until it is tender, usually takes around an hour. Keep checking the chicken, you could inset a knife in it and to see hwo tender it is. The juices running out of it should be white and not pink. After an hour, place the orange slices on the chicken, remove the lid and bake for another 10 minutes. There should be a fair amount of sauce in the pan by now.

Remove from the oven and serve with either rice or thick bread, buttered potatoes and a green salad.

Viva o Viva - where the crabs are the way God intended them to be

Well it's been ages since I left a post, and there's no other excuse other than the fact that I've been lazy and a little too busy at the restaurant. But a fabulous meal, just yesterday, at someone else's restaurant has give me the much needed kick on the rear to write a new post.

I love Goan food, especially sorpotel and vindaloo and a nice fish curry, but sadly for me there are NO Goan restaurants worth their salt in Delhi. Till now, that is. I'd read a lovely article about this new chef-led restaurant in the recently opened Goa Niwas. The review was written by Rahul Verma, who I have high regard for because he loves my restaurant also.

A friend of mine, Radha and I made the trek to Chanakyapuri and found Goa Niwas, which has a strange deserted air about it. Like a ghost motel -- only a very fancy one, littered with beautiful installation pieces and horrible chintz covered furniture.

I'd called up the chef the day before and asked whether we needed a reservation, to which he tut-tuted and said no. So here we were in a large airy room with neon green plastic chairs and Mario Miranda placemats and a menu written on those fancy new blackboards on which you can write with a marker. A table of foreigners were already seated at a table and then there was us. Orders were only taken once the Chef had entered the restaurant, after visiting the fish market. And then what a spread we had.

Prawn peri peri (unlike what I've ever had even in Goa, this was dry and fried), Goan fish curry, rawa fried fish and the most humungous sized and delicious crab rechad I have ever seen or tasted. Both the fish dishes and the prawn were exteremly well flavoured and the prawn especially was really fresh. Like bona fide Bengalis we chewed up the heads you see, and they were just lovely and fresh and full of eggs and brain. (I'm sure I've made a few people hurl while reading this sentence, but seafood lovers will understand our joy). With streaming nostrils and no hankies, Radha and I could not have been happier.

The chef looked a little scared by our order though, but I think I noticed a glint of admiration in his eyes when he saw we'd polished off almost everything. The best part was the bill - a grand total of Rs 900. I still can't figure out how the crab was just 300 bucks though, but ours' was not to question why. Ours' was but to eat and die, very happily.

No pork came our way because he hadn't bought any pork that day. Another good sign -- all the produce is fresh. So, another visit is in the offing - just so we can catch the piggy who came back from the market. When you visit just make sure the chef is in, or you won't get any food. I'm still wondering what the table of tourists ate though, because they kept repeating loudly that they wanted the vegetarian thali. Poor buggers.

The crab picture given below is of the Brown Sahib Kankrar Dalna/ crab curry.

Cooking a lovely pomegranate chicken now -- will post the recipe if it turns out well.