Bli's Indulgence

Lemon Meringue Tarts

2013-08-06T15:48:00.001+05:30

My farm grows the best lemons and limes. Perhaps its because of the all natural, no chemical fertilizers that we use. Oh, I don't really know why. It's not important. What IS important is that its RAINING limes and lemons in my farm and so, it's time to bake some fancy but easy Lemon Meringue tarts or pies!

I love lemon tarts! Give me a choice between chocolate tart and the lemon one, hands down I'll choose the lemon one every single time. The tangy-ness of the lemon pairs so well with the sweetness from the sugar in a way that your face will still contort to that expression of having bitten into something sharp tasting but at the same time your brain will be surprised from the pleasantness of it all.

There are three parts to this delicious dessert:

a) The tart crust

b) The lemon/lime filling

c) The meringue topping

The Tart Crust

Making of the tart crust is a fairly simple process and requires very few ingredients. This recipe makes 5-6 mini tarts (that is if you, like me, used a muffin tin in place of a tart tin.).

What you need to do is, using your fingers, rub 100 grams of flour with 50 grams of cubed small bits of cold cold butter, a small pinch of salt and a tablespoon of powdered sugar till the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Then add one egg yolk to the mix and form a dough.

Divide this dough into 5 or 6 (if you prefer your tarts with more crust, make 5 potions) equal potions and press each into a muffin mould, bringing it up on the sides. Then, using a fork, poke the crust all over and then cover the muffin tin with plastic and put it in the freezer for 10 minutes.

Bake at 180C (don't forget to preheat the oven first!) for 12-15 minutes or until the tops brown slightly. Take the tin out and let the cooked crusts cool completely in the tins.

The reason why we add cold cold butter instead of melted or room temperature butter is because those little bits of butter, when it hits the high oven temperature will result in a flaky, melt in your mouth crust. This is also the reason why we put the moulded uncooked tart doughs back in the freezer for 10 minutes before baking. You don't want the butter in the dough to melt more than it already has and also, the melted butter will have time to harden up a bit before we bake it in the oven.

Another thing to keep in mind is to not over mix the dough. Mix all the ingredients just until you combine them. Over mixing results in a crust that is tough, non flaky and frankly not delicious. What happens is that when you continue to mix the flour with wet ingredients (in this case the egg yolk and to some extent the butter) for a prolonged period of time, you activate the already present gluten in the flour and your crust will become more bread-like and elastic than flaky.

The Lemon/Lime Filling

Here, it's really difficult to come by lemons. Limes are more popular and used on a regular basis. So, even though this is a Lemon Meringue Pie, technically, It's a Lime Meringue Pie. I have made this with lemons and it tastes almost the same. The acidic citrus of the fruits are comparable and very similar in taste.

Take 4 Limes (If you're using Lemons, use 2) and grate its zest. To do this, you'll need a grater. Grate the outer skin of the lime till just before you see the white part of the lemon rind. Juice the lemons. In a separate bowl, mix 80 grams of icing sugar with 3.5 tablespoons of cornflour. Add a little water to this to form a thick liquid paste.

Bring 25 ml of water to a boil in a saucepan and add this water to the cornflour paste, mix and then put this cornflour mixture into the saucepan again and stir (use a heatproof whisk) continuously with the flame on low. Add the lemon zest and juice into the saucepan and stir. Then, take this mixture off the heat and add in 3 beaten egg yolks. Mix till the egg yolks are incorporated then bring it back on heat (low flame). Stir continuously till the mixture thickens then add 30 grams of room temperature butter (while stirring the mixture.) Keep stirring till you feel that the filling cannot thicken any more. Take it off the flame. Taste and add more icing sugar if you feel you want your filling to be sweeter. At this point, if you want the yellowness of the lemon filling to be like that of the store bought ones then please stir in a few drops of yellow food colouring. Either ways, it doesn't matter. To me that is.

The Meringue Topping

Honestly, this next step is just an over the top, eye catching, unnecessary flamboyance but since we DO have 4 egg whites from all that egg separating that we did (Hopefully you haven't thrown the whites out. Hopefully.), why not make something with that.

I already have a meringue recipe here on my blog so follow that and pipe it out on top of the lemon custard filling. Or just dot it in places as the meringue can be a bit too sweet for this pie.

The Assembly Line

Scoop the lemon filling into the tarts.

Dot the uncooked meringue on top on the custard.

Bake at 140C for 20 minutes or until the top is a few shades darker in color.

I recently bought a blow torch-because I'm awesome like that- and had been itching to try it on something. Hence the over-burnt the top of the meringues in this pie below. They weren't bad. Tasted like marshmallow when you roast them over pit fires. mmmm.

So there you have it. Lemon Meringue Pie. Do let em cool down completely before eating.

Cheers!

Chocolate Boozy Balls

2013-07-03T17:20:00.003+05:30

Hello there lovely people. Its 17:20 on a Wednesday and I am famished...That isn't saying anything grave as I am always famished. Anyway, I thought I'd start the evening by writing up a quick Christmas recipe. Yes, I know that it's more than half year past Christmas so you can imagine my surprise when I was looking through my photo album and I found photos after photos of these chocolate bonbons... Then I looked at all my blog posts since then and found that I hadn't uploaded this one yet!

I call these bonbons my Chocolate Boozy Balls because they really pack a punch...or two! They are basically a jazzed up version of the chocolate rum balls that you would probably find at your local bakery store but prettier with more of an ahem.. adult taste. You could substitute rum with tequila or even whisky if you don't particularly like the taste of rum. If you don't drink alcohol, then you could use some flavour substitute but you won't really get the warmth that a Chocolate Boozy Ball will give you on a cold winter's day.

Making this is quite simple.

It starts with you baking a batch of brownies. For my brownie recipe, please click here.

Usually, after you bake a cake or a batch of brownies, you would let it cool uncovered. However I found that if you cover the cooked brownies and then let it cool, it traps in all that moisture-that would have been otherwise evaporated-which in turn makes for the most amazing gooey, sticky brownies. This stickiness, according to me, is an essential part of this recipe. You may need to leave it overnight for it to cool down completely.

Following this, crumple all of your brownies into a bowl and drizzle some rum in it. The amount really depends on how strong you want your Boozy Balls to taste. I usually put a couple of tablespoons of rum in as I like them quite strong.

Following this, mash the brownies and rum mixture together till the rum coats every morsel of the crumpled brownies.

Mr. Old Monk looking down at the mashed Brownies!

Now, make ping pong size balls out of this and keep them aside.

Melt 120 grams of dark, good quality chocolate with 60 grams of double cream in the microwave at 20 second intervals. Chocolate burns easily, so every 20 seconds, take the cream and chocolate mixture out of the microwave and give it a stir. Continue heating the mixture in the microwave till all the chocolate has melted into the cream. Mix a tablespoon of rum in the chocolate mixture.

While the chocolate mixture is still warm, drop the chocolate balls into the molten chocolate, coating the surface of the chocolate balls.

Finally, place your ready chocolate boozy balls on a sheet pan or any container, in one layer. Let it stand this way for 5 minutes, following which, put the sheet pan into the freezer till the outer layer of chocolate has set. Wrap each Chocolate Boozy Ball with cling film and you are done.

In my experience, these Chocolate Boozy balls do not harden fully in the freezer so all you need to do is to take them out just 5 minutes before you want to serve them (just to take the frosty edge out). These treats last about 2 weeks in the fridge, although I can't be sure. Mine get over in a few hours.

Cheerios!

Not your Grocer's Commercial White Bread Loaf

2013-06-30T18:48:00.000+05:30

Ok. So it's not like we don't buy bread from the grocery store at-least once a week and it's definitely not like we are going to stop buying bread any-time soon. It's just that, when I flip the bread package around and read the the list of ingredients that it took to make that loaf of bread, I see the names of all these preservatives (which sounds like its written in some non human language) that are added to give bread a longer shelf life and I wonder just how fresh IS this loaf off bread and what AM I doing to myself by ingesting all these weird components.

Making bread isn't difficult at all. It is a little time consuming for sure as you have to proof your dough for a while. But if you have a free day then why not bake a loaf of some beautiful tasting bread?

At home you get to control the quality of ingredients. You get to choose what goes into the dough and you can envision the end product and how you would get to the end product. Having said that, it's not rocket science and you can bake a loaf using normal everyday ingredients.

Proof. That. Yeast

Being an avid baker, I always have yeast stored and in hand for my experiments. The thing about yeast though is that there are times when the yeast that you bought may already be dead before you add it your dough mix. Even if it hasn't reached its expiry date. So if you use that, you'd probably end up with a rock for a bread with none of the soft airy all so crucial bread centre.

To avoid this, always always always proof your yeast before baking. Even if your yeast package says that you can add it to the dough directly. 8 out of 10 times if you buy non expired yeast, you'll probably end up with really good bread... But what about those other 2 times? What if it was for a bread bake off? What if you wanted to show off your mad baking skills to Jamie Oliver when he popped over for tea? What about all the wasted ingredients? Not to mention the time and the energy (yours because of all that kneading. Electricity/Gas because of all that baking.)? Bottom line: Proof. That. yeast.

Proofing yeast is easy enough. You take lukewarm water and some sugar. Dissolve the sugar into the water. Add the yeast, stir it a bit and leave it for 5 minutes. Then, if you find that the yeast has created this layer of foam on the top, voilà! You are halfway there to a perfect loaf of bread. If not, repeat this entire process with yeast from a new pack (because all the yeast in the already opened pack is probably dead).

PS: Proofed or Activated yeast should look like so:

Bread Flour Vs. All Purpose Flour

The difference between bread flour and AP flour is that bread flour has more gluten forming protein in it which in turn means that the dough made from bread flour will be more elastic and you will thus need to use less flour to form a supple dough. This is not to say that you will not achieve good results out of ordinary AP flour. Just that it may not give you superfantabulous results. I use regular AP flour and in fact have never used bread flour (its so difficult to come by here where I live.). I still get amazing bread!

White Bread Loaf

Step1: Proofing the yeast

Proof the yeast using 1/2 cup of lukewarm water, 1 teaspoon of sugar and 1 tablespoon of yeast

The reason why we add sugar in the yeast proofing/activation process is because yeast like to feed off something. By adding sugar, you are giving it a feeding source so that it activates.

Step2: Creating a slurry

Activated Yeast Mixture

3/4 Teaspoon salt

3/4 cup of flour

Transfer the yeasty liquid mixture into a large bowl and mix in the salt and flour to create a slurry.

Cover and leave it to rest for an hour in a warm place (The warmest room in my house is the kitchen. I usually leave it on top on the oven. During the winter months, you could preheat your over to a temperature under 40 degrees Celsius, switch off the oven, place the covered bowl in there with the oven door slightly ajar).

The active yeast will start feeding off the flour, fermenting it in the process and will release carbon dioxide. After an hour, your slurry should be risen to at least double and be slightly bubbly.

Step3: Oil

I usually add one of two tablespoon of oil (more out of habit than necessity). You can totally skip this step if you want but I somehow prefer the texture that oil gives to the bread. You could also try using different infused oils like rosemary oil or garlic oil and then accentuate taste of the bread by mixing in some rosemary or garlic in the dough.

For this particular bread I used some rosemary infused oil. I took a handful of dried rosemary and about 4 cloves of garlic and mashed them together in a mortar and pestle. I then added about 1/4 cup of regular non flavoured oil (I used sunflower oil) and continued to mash the rosemary and garlic into the oil for about 5 minutes. Since I was going for the je ne sais quoi factor, I didn't want my bread loaf to be too pronounced with the flavour of rosemary and garlic so I strained the mixture over a muslin cloth and squeezed out as much of the oil as I could. In total I got a bit more than 2 tablespoons of oil out of the mixture. If you are using just regular oil, I would not suggest adding not more than 2 tablespoons of oil.

This is what I ended up with:

Step4: Adding the remaining flour

After you mix in the oil into the slurry, add in the flour, 1/4 cup at a time and mix. Once you reach the stage when you cannot possibly continue using the fork, switch over to your hands and start kneading the dough. To get a supple dough I think I used a bit less than 1.5 cups of flour at this stage. In total you should knead the dough for 5-7 minutes. You will then get a smooth, baby-bum-bum type of springy dough. Then, oil the bottom surface of your bowl, place the dough in it and then oil the surface of the dough as well. Cover and leave to rise for 1 hour in a warm place.

Step4: Shaping the bread

If you don't have a loaf pan, you could just use a baking sheet and roll out the risen dough (carefully! Try not to deflate the dough too much!) into a ball and place it on the said baking sheet. Make sure that all your seams are on the bottom of the dough ball. I have a bread pan so I rolled my dough into a cylinder shape. Again, cover and let it rise for 30 - 40 minutes till it's doubled in size.

Step5: Bake!

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees Celsius. Place the now risen dough inside the over and reduce the temperature to 220 degrees Celsius. Bake for 20 minutes. The top should be browned and should sound hollow when you tap on it.

Let this cool completely in the pan then slice it and serve with butter or jam or anything your heart desires!

EnJoY!

Homemade Pizza

2013-05-19T20:16:00.001+05:30

So weird. I made this huge ball of dough today thinking that I'd make some Chinese Pork Buns but the yeast never got activated so my dough did not rise.

Never the less, the person that I am, I went ahead with making this beautiful Asian Style Pork mince filling with ginger, garlic, sesame seed oil etc. It was delicious. So I tried steaming 3-4 buns just to see if I could still manage an edible bun but of course, dead yeast equals a stuffed hard flour ball.

So, I decided to bake a pizza instead using the dough.

Naturally, due to the faulty dough, I could make only a thin crusy pizza. So I thinned out the dough as much as I could without tearing it and baked it with all its toppings at 250 degrees for 12 minutes.

This pizza was sectioned off into 4 parts, each with a different topping.

It came out quite well! Although next time I think ill preheat the pizza plate before I shift the pizza base onto it so that I get a crunchier crust.

I still have a whole pizza worth of dough left. Mebbe ill make a chocolate pizza next...

---------------------------------
Continuation: Wednesday, 22 May, 2012: My brother and I made another pizza using the leftover dough.

Can't go wrong with a Pepperoni Pizza! Excuse the burnt ends. Thats just how we like our pizzas.

Chocolateria San Churro: Seven Layer Chocolate cake

2013-05-01T18:32:00.001+05:30

So last October my father got my birthday cake from here.

Here is their 7 layer chocolate cake. HEAVEN.

Click here for their zomato page.

Cheese Straws

2013-02-24T15:18:00.000+05:30

I am a huge fan of Chef John of foodwishes.com and, the other day, he posted a youtube video of this really simple way of baking cheese straws which, like all of Chef John's creations, I had to make immediately. Only, I'm not a big fan of the puff pastry that the local store carries so I decided to use some filo (phyllo?) pastry. Also, unlike chef John, I didn't really use a lot of cheese, I used Doritos Nachos in cheese flavor (I was actually looking for a packet of Cheetos but couldn't find any, else I would have used that instead.).

I apologize for the out of focus pictures as, the freelance photographer that i had hired (read: my sister) couldn't be bothered to wake up to take the said photos. DOES ANYONE ELSE WANT THE JOB?

To make 4 Cheese Straws

Step One:

Take the packet of Filo Pastry out of the freezer and let it defrost at room temperature. Take out 4 sheets of pastry and keep it aside.

Take half a can of Doritos Nachos (or cheese Cheetos) in cheese flavor (about 50 gms) and, using a food processor, mix it till the chips turn into fine powder. Add half teaspoon of salt, 1/3 teaspoon of red chilli powder and about 2 tablespoons of dried oregano and give the entire concoction a brief whirl in the food processor. Just till everything is blended. Divide into 5 equal parts.

Melt 50 grams of butter.

Grate 50 grams of Cheddar (or any strong cheese) cheese and divide into 4 equal portions.

Step Two:

Roll out the Filo pastry sheet on aluminium foil, brush its entire top surface with the melted butter and, keeping a 1/2 cm margin free on the shorter rectangle side of the pastry, line it with one portion of the grated cheese as in the picture below. Sprinkle a portion of the Doritos mixture onto the surface and pat it into place.

Step Three:

Starting from the grated cheese side, roll up the pastry into a straw.

Step Four:

Repeat the above steps to make 4 Straws.

Step Five:

Brush the outer surface of the straws with melted butter. Sprinkle the remaining 5th portion of the Doritos mixture onto the aluminium foil and coat the outer surface of the straws well. Place on an oven proof wire/grill rack.

Quite aware that these aren't on wire racks.. yet

Step Six:

Preheat the oven to 180C and bake your straws on top of the wire racks for 17-20 minutes or until the crust is gold brown and your entire house smells of Doritos.

Step Seven:

Take your straws out of the oven and let them cool down for 1/2 hour.

And there you have it, Cheese straws. They look equally impressive in a glass.

Happy B'day to me!

2012-10-17T08:38:00.000+05:30

Another year, another birthday gone. Turning 25 can be hard on a woman who still thinks of herself as a carefree 16 year old. When did I become old enough to have a job, earn money, live by myself? It's a bit scary when you think about your life and how everything you do has consequences.

Having said that, this birthday was really bittersweet. I flew home (buying your own ticket, even an Indigo airline ticket, bought at the last minute can cost you a bomb. I miss Ryanair. £15 return ticket, Glasgow to Milan? Yes pls!) for a few days of much needed pampering only to find out that my dog had aged a few years since the last time I saw him 2 months ago. Poor thing can't stand up from a sleeping position until someone helps him up...

It's funny how cake makes everything okay. Dad ordered this massive 5 layer chocolate cake from this Spanish-Australian chocolate shop in GK-II called Chocolateria San Churro. It was the most delicious thing ever! The chocolate itself, apparently imported from Spain, just tastes so different from the stuff you get at other bakeries. Almost like there was a hint of some herb in it. I can't describe it. This shop even had Churros! I mean, where else in New Delhi can you get Churros? Seriously?

I'm sure everyone wants to see the beast that was this cake so look no further! They even had these artistic white chocolate sheets on the sides and the top.

On the morning of my birthday, mum and I went to Emporio Mall where she bought me this patent leather Louis Vuitton wallet that I had been wanting since a year ago! That was such a nice surprise. I'm not putting up a picture of that though. Because this is a food blog. Not a high fashion accessories blog.

Anyway, post that, we went for lunch at this Japanese restaurant called Izakaya at DLF Promenade. Delicious. Every Japanese food lover needs to go there at-least once. They have the most amazing Bentos.

They also have really good sushi. Let me post a picture of the sushi patter that we indulged in.

I have nothing left to say except this: Can't wait for my next milestone birthday!

Just a Box of Chocolates

2012-10-08T05:19:00.001+05:30

Bought this make-your-own-box of chocolates from Bliss at UB City in Bangalore. Best chocolates ever!

One of them was this chilli chocolate and wow, so smooth and the chilli tang just hits the back of your throat without overpowering the taste of chocolate! Another favorite of mine was the Passion Fruit chocolate. The tiny yellow one.

I still have a few of these babies left (will power ppl!!!). Hmm... perhaps its time to try the heart shaped strawberry chocolate...

Futomaki

2012-05-20T09:58:00.001+05:30

Found this place accidently while exploring Hauz Khas Village.

Really small take away place with only 6-7 sushi rolls variety. But really delicious. They even have vegetarian sushi!

A must visit!

High Tea at Elma Bakery

2012-05-05T15:26:00.001+05:30

Mum n I went for tea today at Elma Bakery in Hauz Khas Village.

This is what we got:

Breakfast fit for a Princess

2012-04-23T06:36:00.001+05:30

I love love love it when family members go and come back from Japan because that usually means delicious goodies for us!

For example: Right now I have two types of dangos in my fridge and a jar of grandma's umeboshi in my cupboard. Delicious stuff!

Anyway, the sasa-dongoes are a favourite of mine. I especially love the smell of the bamboo leaves wrapped around it and the green colour of the dangoes.

What a great way to start the day! Sasa-dangoes and a cheese omlette!

Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf

2012-04-10T18:26:00.001+05:30

What a nice way to escape the stormy weather!

Watching people getting soaked outside while you enjoy a cuppa at an award winning coffee house in an award winning mall!

Can life get any better?

PS: The Philly Cheesecake (not in the picture) is to die for!

Sigh.

Afternoon Tea

2012-04-09T18:13:00.001+05:30

Nothing like a cup of green tea in the afternoon with your mum.

Lunch at Izakaya

2012-04-06T18:53:00.001+05:30

My friends and I went to Izakaya at DLF Promenade and had a girly lunch there.

This here is the Pork Cutlet Bento. Can you say Delicious?

Egg n Soldiers

2012-04-06T08:43:00.001+05:30

Originally, there were four soldiers but my dad ate one of them...

PS: The 6 minute Egg Boiling Technique really works!!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

2012-04-03T19:36:00.001+05:30

Completed six months at Egon Zehnder and I thought I'd celebrate by baking something for my colleagues! Not that I need an occasion to bake...
Plus one person at work went so far as to pretend it was her birthday. Sigh.

Saturday is Family Banana Pancakes Day!

2012-03-24T09:52:00.001+05:30

Delicious banana pancakes taste better with friends and family!

And small wee teeny tiny ones are best for sharing...especially with friends who insist that they don't want a full peice...but instead end up eating more than 50% OF YOUR PEICE! Now you don't have to give them yours!

Friday Work Breakfast Routine

2012-03-23T07:41:00.001+05:30

A great way to start the day before the weekend! Recommended!

Walnut Pie - Never In My Life Again Am I Making Caramel From Scratch!

2012-02-29T21:11:00.000+05:30

I had the world's best Walnut pie recently at the coffee shop of The Qutab Hotel here in New Delhi. It was just beautiful the way the caramel was so smooth and well, caramelly - there is no other way to describe caramel okay?- but still not so overpowering that you couldn't taste the nutty bitterness of the walnuts. It was perfect.

Having never made a pie ever in my entire life, I thought, you know what? Why not a walnut pie? What could go wrong? It's just pie crust, walnuts and caramel right? Right?... Wrong!

Everything that could go wrong did go wrong and more! Old Murphy was really looking down hard on me from wherever he was hiding!

First, the sugar for the caramel burned because I, who-had-never-made-caramel-in-my-life-ever thought: Puh-lease! That sugar is going to take AGES to melt. Let me go pee... Wrong decision. When I came back, not only did my kitchen resemble an industrial meat smoker but alas, my caramel had brunt to a crisp!

Round two! This time! This time, I wasnt going to made the same mistake! So I watched my caramel like a hawk watches it's prey, waiting for the right moment to swoop in for the kill. And when my sugar melted into this deep amber, almost creamy looking liquid, I was happy. Hey! The worst part was over right? Right? Wrong!

Then, it was time to add the milk to the caramel to make it toffee like. Ho Hum, what could go wrong? Could the cold cold milk turn my beautiful caramel into HARD CANDY?????? Why yes, in fact, yes it could! apparently, you cannot wait, even a second after pouring in the milk and you must instead whisk the caramel profusely WHILE stirring in the milk. WHY HADN'T ANYONE EVER MENTIONED THIS TO ME BEFORE???

So there I was, with my hard sugar candy and on top of that, the layer of milk and just when I was about to give up, I recalled this one Chopped episode where one of the chefs had faced the same problem and she just let the hard candy melt all over again over a very low flame. Could this work? Of course, I thought, if a professionally trained chef could do it, so could I right? Right? WRONG!

Because of course the milk in my caramel curdled.

Sigh.

By then, I had no patience what-so-ever. and I was giving up on my dream of re-creating that delicious walnut pie. I thought, half heartedly, lets see what we can do with this...this...thing... So, after adding the other requisite ingredients, and deciding that no, adding those things did not help at all, I sieved my caramel through a fine mesh strainer, ruining my mother's tea strainer for ever! BUT, the resultant liquid was finer and smoother than the earlier curdled crap! I mean, yes, it wasn't as smooth as I would have liked it to be but it wasn't bad AND, most importantly, it tasted great!

So phew, I was done with the caramel. The rest was quite easy really. especially with a store bought pastry dough. Here's the recipe for the caramel.

You will need:

Melt one cup of brown sugar. When it's all melted like so:

....whisk in a cup of milk. Be careful about hot sugar splatter. You do not want hot molten sugar on your skin. Trust me....I speak from experience.

...Then, off the heat, whisk in two egg yolks into the caramel. Careful. You don't want scrambled egg-y caramel! Then get it back on heat and keep whisking till it becomes a bit thick. Add in a tablespoon of flour dissolved in a tablespoon of milk and whisk the caramel till it becomes thicker. Finally, whisk in a teaspoon of vanilla and about 3 tablespoons of butter. Keep this aside to cool till we finish with our pie dough.

Now, I made my own pie dough. I mean, when you look at it, you can tell that it's home-made. It's not perfect and thus I refuse to give you the recipe for the same. You can take a peek at the dough though --Ha! Ha! Dough Though! Get it?

My Dough before I rolled it out:

My dough before I baked it. This recipe requires the crust to be baked before hand so make sure to do the same.

....

While the crust is baking in the oven, mix a cup of walnuts into the caramel. Then after the crust is baked and cooled, add in the walnut caramel mixture. And there you have it...

.... easy Walnut Pie.

Crusty Loaf Bread

2012-02-05T16:03:00.000+05:30

And I'm back!

The other day, I baked a loaf of crusty bread to go with this red wine meat dish that we were having for dinner. The plan was to put up a post on the bread BUT! The family gobbled it up before I even had a chance to get my camera for the final baked bread shot!

They say that good things should be consumed in moderate measures. But Gluttonous people like me don't necessarily adhere to that saying. Perhaps baking two loafs of bread within a span of 3 days may seem a bit excessive to some but come on! Who cares? Keep it, freeze it or give some to your pet dog! My dog, for instance, loved my crusty bread! He kept following me and sniffing the dough-and-baked-bread scented air from the minute I got the dough together to the minute I sliced the bread!

The really good thing about this bread is that it doesn't use much fat or oil. Except for about a teaspoon of butter, some oil for greasing the pan so that the dough doesn't stick to it while it rises and while it bakes and about another teaspoon to brush over the bread once its done.

This recipe makes a large bread loaf. To be honest, I would use this recipe again and make bread rolls because the crust on this thing is just so heavenly and I can totally see me putting a slice of cheese, some bacon or ham and pickles on this. Yum!

To a cup of warm water (not hot water, you do not want to kill the yeast!) dissolve 1/2 teaspoon of sugar and then add a teaspoon of yeast. Keep it aside for 5 minutes. Add 1.5 cups of flour and about a teaspoon of butter, cutting it into small bits first. Mix.

Add more flour, a little by little, till the dough is no longer sticky. I think, in total, I used a bit more than 500 grams of flour. I used a spoon to mix the flour into the dough but midway it became too difficult and tiring to mix it that way. So I used my hands! Which was very eerie but satisfying to say the least.

The dough coming together

Soon, you should have a non sticky dough. Knead this dough for a few minutes to develop gluten...

...and then, what the heck, slap the dough in your clean kitchen counter a few times (fun!).

Once the dough is smooth, place it in a large greased container (the container should be able to hold at least 3 times the volume of the dough) and let it rise (cover the container!) in a warm place for about an hour and half or until it doubles in volume. Then, punch (ah! What a stress buster!) the dough to release the trapped air, let it rise again and then punch it again!

Finally, let the dough rise in the container, for 8 hours or overnight in the fridge ...

After the overnight rise

...Then, transfer it into a greased loaf tin and (you guessed it!) let it rise for an hour.

Bake the dough at 180C for half an hour or till the bread sounds hollow when tapped. Remove it from the tin and return it to the oven for 15 minutes, upside down, to give the underside of the bread time to harden. Then, take it out of the oven, flip it right side up, brush the top and the sides with melted butter and return to the oven for 5 minutes. Take it out of the oven and place it on a cooling rack. Slice and enjoy!

Swamped at work

2011-10-06T07:08:00.001+05:30

No new post today. Sorry! Yes I am aware that it's been almost two weeks but I'm still getting used to the whole waking up at 4.30 am thing- because work (YES, you heard me right) starts at 7. 30 am and the cab picks me up at 6.00 am.

Anyway, I thought I'd leave you a link to my sister's blog. She's awesome at making 'nothing' sound fancy.

This is HER blog address: http://drabserendipity.blogspot.com/

Enjoy! I'll be back for more probably this weekend.

xo

Natsu Matsuri- Japanese Summer Festival

2011-09-25T14:45:00.000+05:30

Being bi-racial and multi-cultural has got to be the coolest thing in the world. The number of situations that you get to experience on a daily basis is mindblogging to a one race, one culture person.

As a Japanese-Indian hybrid of sorts, not only do I have the option of participating in hundreds of Indian functions and festivals dedicated to the Hindu Gods, the harvest etc, but I also get to learn about this other part of me that, although not as dominant in my day to day life, is still unquestioningly there.

Take the Natsu Matsuri (Japanese Summer Festival) for example. How many people, outside of Japan, get to experience things like that? I can't imagine my life without the annual Natsu Matsuri festival at The Japanese School in New Delhi. Girls dressed in yukatas, the array of delicious Japanese dishes all laid out in their individual stalls, the odori at dusk and the finalmente: The fireworks. It's my favourite festival of all time because of the apparent community-hood, the giving and the sharing, the sea of Japanese and half-Japanese faces and because of the food (c'mon, this is a food blog... what did you expect?).

This year, Natsu Matsuri was celebrated on the 24th of September and it was spectacular. Although I think they should change the name of the festival from "Summer Festival" to "Food Festival" because a) it is celebrated here in India towards the end September when it's almost Autumn (wait, does Delhi have an autumn or any season other than summer?) and b) it's more like a five-hour long pigging out session with bits of festivities added in for the day to qualify as a festival.

Anyway, I'm going to let the photos speak for the festival. There is a short fireworks video towards the end of this post. I think that's my favourite part of the festival...kind of like a pre mini diwali.

Japanese Paper Lanterns

My sister in her Yukata and
her Kare-pan-man mask

Takoyaki - Octopus in grilled batter balls

Dumplings

The queue for the yakitori

Yakitori skewers on the grill

Squid with Japanese mayonnaise (the best mayonnaise :) )

Daifuku: Sweet mochi balls with red bean paste

Oh yeh! Yum-Oh!

Pork Skewers, Ramen and Daifuku

Edamame

Crushed Ice with different flavours!

Goldfish Fishing:)

My sister's friend caught that one

The Summer Festival Dance

My friend, my sister's friend and my sister
goofing around in their Karepan man and
Melonpanna masks

:))

Prawn Dumplings - Har Gow

2011-09-17T22:03:00.000+05:30

It's really unfortunate that many shopkeepers do not stock up on wheat starch. It's a discriminatory practice, if you ask me. Discriminatory to those who might have a sudden craving to make prawn Har Gow dumplings but cannot do so because there is no way of obtaining the main ingredient for the dumpling shell.

So, as I do in many cases, I analysed and came up with a solution...a substitute if you please. The question I had to ask myself was this: What do I substitute in place of wheat starch to get that translucent dumpling wrapper that I love so much? For the longest time - Okay, about 10 minutes- I couldn't think of any substitute. But then I looked at various photos of the Har Gow dumpling dough and it appeared to be whiter than most doughs. It was like a large quantity of clumped up white facepaint. Then, I looked around the house for the whitest flour I could find, which turned out to be arrowroot flour. So, I decided to experiment with that.

Prawn Har Gow made with Arrowroot flour

Recipe for the Arrowroot flour based Har Gow dumplings

The Filling

You need 200 grams of de-shelled, de-veined prawns.

Where I live, the only way you get fresh prawns is if you go to a stinky fish shop and you know me, I'm so not the stinky fish shop kind of girl. I buy my stuff frozen. Of course, when they thaw, they do tend to shrink a bit in size and release some of their liquid. But all it all, I think they are worth it especially since they are frozen right after they are caught so, in comparison, they are fresher than the apparent fresh ones in the shops!

Cut each prawn into 3-4 pieces and then sandwich them between plastic wrap and mash them with a masher. Then, remove the mashed prawns from the wrapper and finely chop them up.

Put the prawns into a bowl, add half inch of grated ginger, one clove of grated garlic, a tablespoon of finely diced bamboo shoot (this is optional but most har gows that I have had come with bits of bamboo shoots in them. You can get bamboo shoots at INA market. Don't forget to rinse them first as most bamboo shoots come preserved in salt), two teaspoons of soya sauce, a teaspoon of sesame oil and 1/2 teaspoon of cornflour and mix till well combined.

The Dough

This dough makes about 14 dumplings.

Add 70 grams of arrowroot flour (or 70 grams of wheat starch, if you can find it) and 20 grams of cornflour (corn starch) to a bowl with a pinch of salt and 1.5 tablespoons of vegetable oil. Bring about 105 ml of water to a boil and add the hot water into the bowl of flour and mix well till it resembles a very wet dough. Leave it uncovered for about 5 minutes and then, knead the dough. If on kneading you feel that the dough is a bit too wet, sprinkle some arrowroot flour on the dough and knead till you get a dough ball like below.

The White Arrowroot flour dough

Separate into 14 equal parts and form into flat circles of around 3.5 inch to 4 inch in diameter. Make sure you try to roll out the dough as thin as possible to get that fine translucency. As you can see from the picture below, I cannot roll out doughs to save my life!

Making the Dumpling

The easiest way to fill these wrappers would be to add about 3/4th of a teaspoon of the filling into the middle of each wrapper, to fold them into semicircles and closing the seams of the wrapper. But you can also do it like in the picture below. Also, since the base for my wrappers is arrowroot flour and not wheat starch, there is one noticeable difference in the final Har Gow: It is not as translucent as I would have liked it to be. But, hey, you play with the cards you are dealt with right?

Pre-steamed dumplings

Steam in a steamer for 6-8 minutes or until the prawns turn pink-ish.

Enjoy!

Sweet as Apple Pie

2011-09-09T06:51:00.000+05:30

It's apple season here and there are plenty of fruit carts selling them in New Delhi. My favourite fruit cart (haha, yes I have a favourite!) is the one parked right outside The Mother's International School- The best school in India! Fellow ahem 'Mother's Blossoms' would agree!- So today, when i passed the cart by, I swear to God, I could smell Granny Smith Apples in the air and that made my mouth water with the tart reminder of their not so sweet flavour, which I love. I bought two kilograms of the fruit and then got a scolding from mum because, well, one her way back home, she had also bought a kilogram of apples! How was I supposed to know! ! !

And so, to cut a long story short, I decided to bake a tart. Only, I don't really like the whole process of moulding pastry into a tart pan because the fluted edges never seem to want my pastry to mould into it so I decided to give my apple tart just a base. No sides. Damn it, if anyone complains about how a tart cannot be a tart without the fluted edges, go! Shoo! This recipe isn't for you.

God, just got distracted by a few links that a friend sent me about the mentos in diet coke trick? Wait, I'll put up the youtube link here and here ... Akanksha (my sister), beware!

The Recipe

For this tart ( or, ah-hem, my version of tart with a giant shortcrust cookie base - yeah, that got your attention didn't it?) you need: A giant shortcrust cookie, filling and thin apple slices...and a few other things that I'm sure you have around the house like: Erm... Garam Masala?

Giant Shortcrust Cookie

The easiest way to make a savoury shortcrust pastry is by following this foolproof recipe of Gordon Ramsey's: 4 parts flour to 2 parts butter to 1 part water (in millilitres, not grams) and a pinch of salt. So, if you're using 400 grams of flour, you will need 200 grams of butter and 100 ml of water, and a pinch of salt. You can use a food processor and combine everything till it comes together and then you could finish forming the dough by hand. This pastry is great for chicken pot pies (I need to make that sometime), spinach and ricotta cheese pie or even for a shortcrust pizza but... do you see the theme here? It's not good for sweet pies! You need a sweet crust if you're going to put something sweet in it! Duh! Also, I like my (sweet) pastry crust flaky and buttery and I tend to not get that right texture if I add too much of water into my dough.

So, to make this shortcrust dough you need to blend 100 grams of flour, 40 grams of caster sugar, 50 grams of cold, cold butter (cut into cubes) and the tiniest pinch of salt into a food processor or a mixer and pulse till the butter is almost fully incorporated into the flour and sugar and the mixture resembles damn sand. Transfer into a bowl, add an egg yolk and a tablespoon of water, mix and form into a ball like so:

The dough may not come together easily.
Don't worry, just make a rough ball.

Chill this (wrapped in plastic wrap or in a airtight container) in the fridge for an hour to relax and harden the dough.

The Filling

I love cinnamon, cloves and star anise. It reminds me of Christmas. Okay, not Christmas per se because well, I live in a household with one Hindu parent, one Buddhist parent and three (including me) very non-religious children. I guess these spices remind me of Nigella's Christmas Kitchen and of the Glasgow Christmas Market. But anyway, my point about cinnamon, cloves and star anise is that you can usually find these ground up in garam masala. So yeah, I used garam masala in my apple tart filling :)

Peel one large Granny Smith apple or any tart-ish apple you can get. Okay, you may use a red sweet apple but don't blame me when you get a tooth ache and the dentist needs to drill your tooth (which reminds me: Must make an appointment with the dentist to close that hole in my tooth - Also called as a cavity). Cut into quarters, remove the seeds and the tough non yummy inner bits and dice the apple into 1cm square bits- no need to be exact. Put this in a sauce pan on medium high heat, add a teaspoon of garam masala (or a teaspoon in total of a mixture of cinnamon powder, clove powder, star anise powder and green cardamom seeds powder), a teaspoon more of cinnamon powder and 7-9 pieces of Cashew nuts (chopped into small bits). Mix and add half a cup of water and 2 tablespoons of sugar. Stir till the sugar dissolves, turn the heat on low and let the water evaporate completely while stirring occasionally. Keep aside to cool for a bit.

The Apple Tart filling.

Apple Slices

Peel another Granny Smith apple, core the apple and quarter the apple. Now, using a Mandoline slicer, slice the apples into thin strips. If you don't have a slicer, use a knife, pretend you're Martha Stewart and slice the apples into fine wedges.

Cut apples tend to brown very fast if left in the open air so
make sure you do this part when the cookie is baking in the oven

Assembling the Tart

While the apple filling is cooling, preheat the oven to 200C, take the dough out of the fridge and place in on a cookie sheet or on a oven proof sheet covered with aluminium foil and, using the base of your hands, flatten into a rough circle with a diameter of 8-9 inches.

Prick the pastry a few times with a toothpick (so that the pastry doesn't puff up) and bake at 200C for 10 minutes or until the edges just start to turn brown.

When the pastry starts to brown on the edges, take it out...

...distribute the filling on the pastry evenly, leaving a border of half an inch...

...pile on the sliced apples...

...dust the apple tops with cinnamon sugar (one teaspoon of cinnamon with 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar)...

...and bake for 20 minutes on 200C.

The final result! Enjoy!

Let the apple tart cool for at least 5 minutes before slicing.
Try not to refrigerate else the apples will become soggy.

Of snails, oriental supermarkets and dumplings

2011-09-06T11:09:00.002+05:30

Last Christmas, my good friend Divya gifted me a Julia Child cookbook: Mastering the Art of French Cooking. This book is very versatile and everything in it is so beautifully explained. I get inspired by this book everytime I pick it up to read a recipe or two. Yes, it may sound weird that I read a cookbook for pleasure but the book is written like it were a story book. You can feel the hearts and souls of Julia, Louisette and Simone poured into this book.

What I love about this book is that, by understanding the basic techniques of food preparation, you can literally master any dish- be it roast chicken or an apple tart.

Also, this book confirmed my sneaky suspicion that, to make food taste good, you need butter. Hey, if you don't believe me, watch French Food Safari. They use artery clogging amounts of butter! They start with butter, they add butter to thicken the sauce and they use butter as a finishing touch. It's a wonder how French Women stay so lean!

Never the less, French food isn't my favourite cuisine in the world. Yes, I know that the cuisine is now protected by UNESCO (you can read more about that in the NY Times article here) but, there are some French preparations that I can't get my head around...like snails for example...even though they are- most of the times- prepared in butter based sauces. I think that the main reason for my not wanting to eat snails has less to do with the fact that they are snails and more to do with the fact there is a nursery rhyme in Japan about snails that has been engraved into my head ever since I was a baby. Although, having said that, I did eat some Chinese style sea snails once (accidently, let me assure you) when I had gone out for dinner with my Chinese friends in Glasgow. It tasted like woody mushrooms. And I thought it was in fact a dish of sautéed mushrooms till I asked one of my friends and she said something in Mandarin, which I didn't understand, so she drew me a picture of a snail on a piece of paper. Did I freak out? Yes, I did. Sigh.

If snail is something that I never want to try again, ever in my life, dumpling has got to be the one thing that I could eat everyday of my life. I tried making pork Baozi a few days ago and it was great. Only, my dumpling wrapping technique isn't all that awesome so, when I perfect that, I'll have the recipe up on this blog. But you can get perfectly good frozen dumplings at any oriental store. There is this huge See Woo Oriental Store in Glasgow that I frequented- at least once a month- for my oriental food purchases and pleasures. Where else can you find Asahi beer, fresh seafood, xiao xing rice wine, frozen dumplings, Chinese Char Siu, ramen and Pocky chocolate sticks all under one roof? Seriously! If you live in Glasgow, you have to go there. You will end up spending upwards of £50 per visit but it's worth it.

The closest thing to See Woo in New Delhi is the Yamatoya Japanese Store in Sarfdarjung Enclave Market. Mum usually stocks up on certain things from there like Japanese Kewpie Mayonnaise- which is just so much better that most other brands of mayonnaise-, karashi mustard, udon noodles, natto, beef, nihono ramen, konnyaku and asuki... sigh...Must.Go.Buy.Meiji.Chocolate.

Too bad that the recent Fukushima Nuclear Plant disaster is still affecting Japanese food imports into the country because the last time I went to Yamatoya, the shelves were almost empty and there were only Korean Ramyun packets left in the store. Which is just sad to say the least. More so because Shin Ramyun tastes nothing like Japanese Ramen.

Anyway, I think I'm going to go and bake an apple cake today. Hopefully, it'll turn out okay :)