Exotic Meals

When cooking is a pain, salad is the better option and happy that I like salads because it is just boil and mix.

Last night I went for marketing and brought lots of veggies. When I was back home after shopping, I organized everything immediately, boiled those small potatoes and steamed corn and fresh mung.

In the morning I was ready to make salad for me. Mixed boiled potatoes, steamed mung and steamed corn, added sprouts, tomatoes, cucumber, bell pepper and carrots, added dried herbs, lime juice and salt, mixed little mustard oil and served with millet crackers and dip.

I make small quantity of dip at a time. Normally my friends use hung yogurt. But I just take a normal yogurt, add cream cheese. Next add black pepper, salt and dried herbs and little bit of coriander leaves.

I just had salad and noodles soup. It’s a complete meal and I kinda enjoy it, a day without too much of masalas and no headache of cooking too.

Who is Coming over for Dinner?

When I can’t think what to cook or too lazy to cook, I opt for Chinese. Why? Because it is the most tastiest and nutritious food that I can think of and it takes me just fifteen minutes to prepare it. My fridge is always stocked with fresh and canned vegetables, lotsa sauces and some dried mushrooms too. Initially, during my trips abroad, I would pick up too much food stuff from the supermarkets, most of packet would rot, exceeding their expiry dates, and there were some soup and sauces packets, bought blindly, would lie unopened for years, but now I am glad that we get everything here in Mumbai and I can do just weekly shopping in small quantities.


There is a small store close by, which stocks all the exotic foods. This week I picked up firm tofu (there were other types too like silky tofu and soft tofu, but thats for later), some fresh mushrooms, and Japanese Soba noodles (On the packet of this soba noodles it says that it is a traditional style buckwheat and wheat flour noodles with a nutty taste, I was buying it for first time. One packet only, see, economical? yeah?))

Now this tofu is really very tricky. Tofu is actually the Chinese cousin/version of cottage cheese (Italian) or Paneer (Indian). The method of making it is also same except that it is made from soya milk. Get it? But it is rich cousin, mind you and little ‘light’ to eat, melts in the mouth, a great source of high-quality protein, rich in B-vitamins, iron and an excellent source of calcium. The best way to use the firm tofu is to wash it with water, squeeze it out and then marinate it before using. Tofu acts like a sponge and it sucks in the juices of marinated ingredients. Since I am going to use it in Chinese, I have marinated in garlic, ginger and vegetable stock cubes. Okay, I have stored in my fridge, so for next two days I must eat Chinese if I have to finish it in two days. Of course, I will add in soup once and another time I will make salad, can’t have same stuff every day. Isn’t it?

But just now, what I had was quite tasty. It looked dull because I didn’t add colorful veggies like reds and greens (my friends always adds red and green peppers, but its okay if I don’t add when I am making only for self) but it was tasty.

Its so simple to make. why do my friends make such a fuss while cooking? So much drama over nothing!!

In the oil, I added crushed garlic and then I just stir fried shallots, mushrooms, bean sprouts green chilly and corn. Then added these boiled Soba noodles and tofu. Next added Teriyaki sauce, soya sauce, sesame oil and chilly sauce.and Voila!

Wait, let me take one more spoonful. chomp! chomp! burp!

And yeah, I made dip too. I just added garlic, ginger, salt, wasabi, dried herbs into curd. Mixed it and hung it for three hours, squeezing out the water. Then added olive oil to give a glossy look.

Yummy. When you come to visit me, I shall make for you too.

Book Launch’“Marwari Vegetarian Cooking’ by Sanjeev Kapoor

Serving the snacks and drink at the book launch is quite rare but not so rare if the launch is for a cookery book. Yes, that is what is so special about attending just that. I was delighted to eat 'Mawa Gujiya' and 'kanji 'drink and the recipes were right there in the book, although while we sipped the drink, the recipes was also read out. The ingredients that made this drink so tasty were crushed musturd powder, red chillie powder, salt and water, yummy....so very delicious, I am drooling yet again.

Attended the book launch of’ Marwari Vegetarian Cooking’ by Sanjeev Kapoor at Crossword at Linking road.

When asked what had inspired him to write such a book, he said that even if five people enquired him about the recipe of a particular region of cooking, he is inspired enough to write, since he is then sure that there is demand for such recipes. Being a graduate in a culinary art, difficult dishes, he said, come easy to him, it was the simple dishes that are difficult to cook and he is known to try every dish before he writes the recipe, tasting each dish and writing in a very simple language so that even a beginner can try their hands on cooking and be successful in this art. In this book he has a punch line after every recipe and that is what makes it so interesting.

At the end of the session I bought 2 copies autographed by him hoping (secretedly) that some day, I will be signing my own published book on cookery perhaps…..

Tangy Taste

My friend, Aanchal Adukia, send me a SMS inviting me for demonstration of dips, dressing and salads. Naturally I was interested and decided to go and it was really worth it. My niece and I travelled for nearly an hour to reach her Malad residence. Her table was laden with all kinds of sauces and chopped veggies. On our arrival she served us a chilled drink made from ice tea, which had chopped apples, strawberries and squashed mint leaves. This was very refreshing. We sat on the dinning table and watched as she started demonstrating each dish. One tip she gave was that for mixing of salad, dips or dressing, it should be done in glass containers and it should be chilled before serving. She made three types of dips namely mango creamer, garlic and dill delite and parsley and parmesan dips These dips can be had with wafers, or vegetables like cucumber, carrots, radish, etc. Interesting way of serving these dishes are to keep the veggies strips in stripes along the long plate and insert a small cups of dips in between. Sounds interesting? hmmn! Then she went on to make three different types of dressings like Italian extravaganza, Miami blues and Island Myst. Of the three I enjoyed Italian extravaganza the most and loved the mustard flavor in it. In any dressing the common things that are used are olive oil, vinegar, salt, sugar and pepper. We can make the dressing or dips and store it in glass containers for more than one week…so that is good news for a lazy person like me, hahahaha, (pss.. actually I am not lazy at all) The salads were the most important part of this demonstration, and it just involves chopping and mixing. What is most important is the correct combination to get its rich taste. Some had walnuts in it and some had chestnuts, some had apples and some pomegranate…..the trick is the combination……. The next best part arrived when we sat down to taste…well I didn’t just taste, I ate and ate, till I was sure that I would not require any more helping….. And of course I skipped dinner……

Cooking is so easy...Anybody Can Cook...... Even a Rat!!

“What? Go for a children’s film? Are you mad? Won’t it look funny going for children’s film without any kids?” I said when my friend suggested that we go for Ratatouille. But as always, I can never win an argument. She had one hundred and one reasons to tell me that it was a good movie to watch. Ratatoille is indeed a great movie, and I have not stopped talking about it. I think it is a masterpiece and I will be very disappointed if it goes unnoticed at next Oscars. It is a story of Remy, a thin blue rat who lives with his unruly rodent clan in the French countryside. He finds himself torn between these two commitments as the film opens. While his family lives on stealing and feeding on garbage, Remy dreams of cooking the best food and becoming a famous chef. He has a great gift of smell and taste, and he knows he is different from the clan. He can read and understand human language, watches TV cookery show by legendary Monsieur Gasteau, the famous Parisian chef, and is inspired by his book called ‘Anyone can cook’ When separated from his family during a cooking mishap, Remy winds up in Paris, near a restaurant once presided over by the legendary chef, and he can’t resist sneaking in and spicing up a vat of soup; credit for the delicious dish goes to the poor garbage boy, Linguini (Lou Romano), a clumsy, stammering type with no talent for cooking, who is immediately ordered by conniving head chef Skinner (Ian Holm) to reproduce his success. The story is very engrossing and the genius of Brad Bird shines through in the way the story unfolds – seamlessly- and the thought that has gone into the smallest of detail, with a strong message that if you dream and work hard, things may happen to you irrespective of your backgound or the odds that you belong to different species. The entire film is a captivating visual delight, as fluid shifts between human and rodent perspective. A must-see film, don’t miss it.

Kheema Cutlets.

I buy kheema from market and decide to make a snack. I want to make something different. I am expecting guest and they want to try something new. Should I make Shami kababs? Now everybody makes Shami kababs, and that is so trite. I like to be creative in my cooking. My guests always expect me to. I always make every dish, just once. It is my inability to re-produce the same dish. (however, a painter cannot repeat the same strokes, can they? and I treat cooking an art ) That is why I cannot repeat the same taste. My brother says, enjoy this dish and don’t ask for a repeat, she will never reproduce it. (and he is right) I think that’s the reason I don’t work in a restaurant, nor have opened one, because everything has to be measured and cooked to produce same taste. (How do they do that?) I have tried many times but I still cannot reproduce same taste. I decide to find some innovative recipe from a book. I have so many recipee books on my bookshelf. But it is always the same. I feast my eyes at all the recipes and admire the glossy pictures, sometimes drooling over them, but I am always short of one or two ingredient and then my mood is fused. After going through endless recipe books, I am still undecided. The Indian recipes are same, with little variation here and there, and now-a-days I don’t like too much masalas. In Chinese book there are hardly any recipes for kheema. Damn it. I decide to make one of my own style. Dekha jaye ga! My methods are simple and easy. (I don’t like to spend too much time in the kitchen. I just grind together onion, garlic, ginger, chillies. Mix them into the kheema. Then add soya souce, chopped basil leaves, corn floor, some soaked bread, rosemary leaves, parsley. I mix it well and bind it into firm patties and steam it. After steaming, I flatten it; dip it in egg batter and shallow fry. I serve it with salad and French fries. I stand in a corner and watch my guest. They have sliced the patties and are about to eat it. I turn my head; covering my ears, look at them from the corner of my eyes, as they slowly munch on the morsel, juice filling their mouth and a grateful belch. They are asking me for a recipe!