Remember cheese cubes? They were all the rage in the eighties – little creamy rectangles neatly encased in shiny foil wrapping. Growing up in India meant that there were only two or three brands of cheese available in markets. The most popular brand was of Amul – a processed cheese whose taste is an unforgettable part of my childhood memories (in soft focus!). Only later in life, when I sampled…
It even drives my experiments in the kitchen and many, in fact, most of my food-related ideas are born from it. I’m always seeking to discover unlikely ingredients that work magic together and bring out the best in the other. My attempts at baking bread are a part of this journey. I have been baking bread on and off for some years now and I admit my failures outnumber my…
Birthdays and bitter-sweet memories….one doesn’t exist without the other; a package deal if you like. Some birthdays are keenly awaited – milestones marked by big celebrations with family, friends and in some cases the entire village. Others sneak up on you as you go about your daily business, making you stop albeit briefly, to raise a toast and tick off another year on the calendar. And then there are birthdays…
Every time I have a dinner party I rummage through my recipe collection with grandiose plans of making decadent, rich and completely over-the-top desserts – rich cheesecakes, trifles topped with Himalayan mounds of whipped cream, syrupy gulab jamuns….the list is endless. But each time, I chicken out as my mental calorie counter kachinnnnggs crazily and poof! all thought of sweet gluttony vanish faster than I can say “Cake!”…
So, determined to end this tug-of-war, I decided to give a little to get a little (in simple terms, a healthy compromise). From my side I broke my meatless meal rule – but I did opt for very lean meat. And for his part he agreed to a ‘more veggies with a little meat’ dish (which was great!) The peace having been brokered, I made a Thai-style meatball and rice…
Try avocados and caramelised onions on toast. It’s a little bite of paradise, I promise. It’s a great go-to meal on lazy days when you want a yumminess with minimal effort. Slicing and caramelising the onions is about the only task that takes about 15 minutes (actually you can do the crossword while the onions acquire their golden tan). It’s just oil (any light oil will do), onions and a…
Wooing our sweet but finicky landlady was the motive behind baking these quick cookies. Just back from a long holiday, I was taking my time settling back into the daily routine, when our nice but neatnick landlady decided to drop in since she was passing through town. Despite being a fellow neatnick, I found myself experiencing an anxiety attack. After a few deep breaths and talking to myself to calm…
I like to keep things simple. But it’s not easy in a world that wants to complicate life with more. Going out for ice cream can be a nightmare – choosing between Haagen Dazs and Baskin Robbins; maybe consider frozen yoghurt, sorbet or gelato as well. Next step, flavours – fruity, cheesecakey, with chocolate chips, swirly…nuts? Do I want it in a cup (regular or large), normal or waffle cone?…
Ripe fruit and the poetry of John Keats – I don’t know when the association began (perhaps while drowning in the pleasure of his sensuous imagery during my literature classes in college in hot and dusty India, as far away from Keats’s England as one could get); but strangely it’s a concept that makes some kind of weird logic in my head. One of the high priests of the Romantic movement, Keats…
Yes it’s true, everything that celebrity chefs say on TV, and all the superlatives penned in cookbooks on the satisfaction of baking the perfect loaf of bread. After suffering many failed attempts at making bread, and ending up with stodgy blocks that could only be used in the construction of a building, I need a new dictionary of words to describe the warm glow of achievement that spread through my…