quichentell, Author at Quichentell

Chicken and Rice Ball Bowl with Chilly Garlic Mustard Greens

I wanted a bowl of calm. A spoonful of a Zen garden with limpid, darkly-soothing pools of elegantly standing lily pads and gracefully gliding, vermilion-flashing koi. If only I could partake of that invisible yet fluid harmony between the visual, the smell and the taste that I had experienced in many Asian meals. I felt I had been unable to achieve that beautiful balance in similar home-cooked dishes. This time I was determined…

May 7, 2015 By quichentell

Poultry & Meat/ Recipes

Ghost Chilli-Rubbed Roast Beef

Who am I in terms of food? What do I cook and what do I like to eat? These questions bothered me plenty when I first started blogging and still do from time to time. The truth is that I cook all kinds of food from all over the world if I can get my hands on the ingredients. And I certainly like to eat my way through life. To…

April 15, 2015 By quichentell

Desserts & Sweets/ Recipes

Mango Upside Down Cake With Lime Syrup

There’s no way you can escape Kama’s (the Hindu God of love) arrows wreathed in mango-blossoms. Stories of his hapless, lovestruck victims, which include gods, goddesses, emperors and subjects alike litter the pages of Hindu mythology and literature. He chose his weapon wisely. The mango’s power of seduction is legendary. To us Hindus, it is a deliciously apt metaphor for knowledge, beauty, bountiful blessings, sexuality and fertility. We festoon our doorways with fragrant…

April 2, 2015 By quichentell

Bread/ Recipes

Four Seed Bread

Sanding down chairs last week, I discovered exquisitely-grained wood beneath layers of paint and decided to keep them unpainted. I also chose to retain weather-beaten wooden beams instead of plastic beams (masquerading as wood), that promised to give my garden benches a low-maintenance makeover. The contractor was disappointed with my choices but thinking about them later, it struck me that in both cases, I chose the wood for its honesty.…

March 26, 2015 By quichentell

Bread/ Breakfast/ Recipes

Savoury Whole Wheat And Rye Flour Muffins With Butternut Squash, Bacon And Feta

Grasses stand tall and cosmos congregate alongside our car, waving summer farewell. On the road, we drive past farm stalls beckoning us with their green roofs and white porches. Crates of avocado, mango and squash conspire with homemade honey and fresh cheese to lure us in. Not surprisingly, I succumb. And loaded up with a couple of golden butternut squash, a boxful of avos and a block of cheese, continue…

March 25, 2015 By quichentell

Bread/ Recipes

Whole Wheat Focaccia With Cherry Tomato and Chorizo

Bread and wine, cheese and fruit, a picnic under the trees, bare feet, lush grass, eyes squinting at the sun, a slow and happy drowsiness spreading through me as I see the world with new, hopeful and mellow eyes. Sometimes I manage to slip away, other times I inhabit my daydreams and often when the real world gets heavy, cooking the food to suit my reveries is escape enough.…

December 3, 2014 By quichentell

Appetisers, Soups & Salads/ Poultry & Meat/ Recipes

South Indian Style Chicken Liver Pepper Fry

You can be a breast person or a leg-lover. A few may even be wingmen or women. But you can be sure nobody wants to be a friend to chopped liver. This delicious, nutrient-packed and inexpensive part of a chicken has always been treated like the ugly step sister. I think chicken livers deserve a second chance. It’s time to push aside the pates and bring on the pepper. Spices…

December 1, 2014 By quichentell

Poultry & Meat/ Recipes

Shepherd’s Pie With Rosemary-Scented Potatoes

I have a memory. A cold winter evening in a small town in Bihar, North India in the early 1980s, Mom, Dad and me sitting around our sunmica-topped dining table eating shepherd’s pie. This old English favourite was new to us but we loved it. A rustic dish, it was my mother’s attempt at ‘Continental’ cuisine. Meat and potatoes, yes, but with dollops of butter, a hint of Worcestershire, lashings…

November 6, 2014 By quichentell

Poultry & Meat/ Recipes

Chicken and Plantain Moqueca

Summer is early and the rains are reluctant. Chameleon-like, green plantains change colour in less than twelve hours as I think of ways to cook with them before they go to mush. Although, ripe plantains and bananas make great milkshakes, banana bread and cupcakes, my palate craves something savoury. In Kerala, in South India, they have countless ways of cooking both green and ripe plantains – from crunchy, completely addictive…

October 9, 2014 By quichentell

Appetisers, Soups & Salads/ Poultry & Meat/ Recipes

Coffee and Paprika Rubbed Grilled Chicken

Rain on the phone in another continent, leaks into my ear, a hypnotizing drip-drip slowly flooding my brain. Drowned memories float up. Striped paper boats born from ripped pages of school notebooks, plastic raincoats smelling like a wrestler’s underarms, wrinkly toes squeaking in brimming school shoes and earthworms sneaking in through bathroom drains. In a different time, cups of coffee, seaside strolls, hormones and anticipation in the theatre of the…

August 5, 2014 By quichentell

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