Happy New Year......

Enough and more has been said about soups. Warms the body and comforts the soul. Equally popular among dieters and foodies. Technically an appetizer but can be tweaked to make it a main course dish.

Mercury has been dropping steadfastly and soups continue to hold forte at my dinner table. It is therefore obvious that my posts too would center around them. A soup and sandwich combo is also way easier to put together( with fewer dirty dishes at the end) than most other meals.

This time it is mushroom which I love in any form, pizza topping, as Chinese chilli, Indian curries, in pulaos. Actually in just about anything. The World though is clearly divided into two groups, those who love mushrooms and those who hate the vegetable. Thankfully for me even the boys love mushroom, in terms of popularity Broccoli tends to be a notch higher.

Mushroom Soup

Ingredients

Mushroom: 200 grams/one packet of mushroom, chop them fine

Onions: 2/3 medium sized ones chopped

Milk: 1 cup

Salt: To taste

Pepper: 2 tsps, freshly ground

Oil: 1 tsp

Method

Quite like how you make the Cream of Broccoli soup except that here you puree only part of the mushrooms.

Heat oil in a kadai, add the onions and fry till they turn glassy. Next add the mushrooms and fry for a few minutes.

Scoop out a little bit from this( about 2 tbsps) and puree it in a blender. Add it back to the kadai. Add one cup of milk and one cup of water. Give it a boil and then simmer on low. Add some salt and pepper to it. If you like your soup even thicker you could add a tsp of maida or cornflour to the same.

Serve hot.

Add some boiled, cubed chicken to the leftover mushroom soup, thicken it a little more with the flour and you have your very own Chicken Stroganoff, with hardly any effort.

This is my last post for the year. Wishing all of you a very happy food-filled year ahead.

Bon Apetit and Happy Cooking!

Going Green....

Come Winter and soup becomes an integral part of our dinner menu. And when you are making a soup every evening you want it to both look and taste different from what you made the previous day. Variety helps make the meal more interesting, "soup of the day", becomes the topic of discussion around the dinner table( keeps the boys from squabbling) and these days provides 'fodder' for my posts. There are times when I get so excited with my new find that I forget to click a picture. By the time I realize this, it is all gone.

Typically a clear chicken soup works best for that stuffed nose and sore throat. Add some boiled noodles/wantons or vegetables to that and you have a complete meal.

When it comes to vegetarian soups the thick, creamy ones tend to be more popular. They have more body and are quite filling. You could make a thick soup with just about anything; potato, broccoli, mushroom, cauliflower, peas etc.

Broccoli soup is quick to make and has a rich, creamy texture. My husband insists I have added some cream when there really is none. As with most other soups this goes well with a warm salad and some garlic bread/soup sticks

Cream of Broccoli Soup

Ingredients

Broccoli: 1 small sized, cut into small sizes florets.

Milk: 1 cup

Onions: 2 medium sized, finely chopped

Salt: 1 tsp

Pepper: 1 tsp

Butter: 1 tsp

Method

Heat the butter in a kadai. Add the onions and saute till the onions turn glassy. Add the Broccoli. Saute for a while. Add the salt and pepper. Cover and cook till done. Allow it to cool down. Keep a few small pieces for the garnish and puree the rest in the mixie.

Put this mixture back on the stove. Add one cup of water and one cup of milk. Mix well and cook on slow flame for about 10 minutes. Garnish with the fried Broccoli and serve hot.

The soup looks a beautiful light green color and cues health. You could substitute the butter with some olive oil or any other refined oil.

There is nothing like a steaming hot bowl of soup on a cold winter night or a damp rainy one. It comforts from within. You feel its warmth as it flows down the throat and leaves you satiated. But if you were me, you would be asking for more.

Bon Apetit and Happy Cooking!

I strike GOLD.....

Yoo! Hoo! My 50th post. I have done it, I have done it, I have done it.

I had set myself a target of 50 posts before the year ended and here I am with my 50th.

Blogging is therapeutic( I am sure all my fellow bloggers agree) and food blogs are way beyond recipes, cooking and eating. They capture food memories, reminiscence about old times, connect up with friends, help you relax, inspire you to cook more, make you feel more confident to experiment etc. etc. etc. In short a happier me.

My focus when I started writing the blog were the recipes. Today I enjoy writing the food stories that accompany these recipes. The drama I create lets me relive a part of my childhood/youth or capture my present.

My post 'Yan can cook', 'Julie and Julia' were about my initiation into cooking. A few good laughs among family/friends about those initial disasters followed. A big Thank you to all those who patiently put up with my cooking and encouraged me to try harder. I am at it.

Comfort Food was all about comforting childhood memories( through food of course). Memories that invoke a sense of nostalgia and security even years later. They also remind me about my early exposure to cuisines beyond that of my own region.

I particularly enjoyed writing the post Quick Gun Murugan. It was different from my other posts not just by the conspicuous absence of a recipe but also( and more importantly so) it is a post that unites two different generations through food. My Dad and his fondness for Idlis AND my son and his love for the same. Dad passed away four years ago but it almost feels that a little bit of Dad's love for Idlis lives through my son.

For my Golden Jubilee post I shall write about yet another family favorite, Moussaka. I first sampled Moussaka at my friend K's place. K is a good friend and a wonderful cook. Someone who serves Patishapta (a traditional Bengali sweet) with a rich plum sauce and layers her cheese cakes with notun guder(jaggery) mishti doi( sweet curd). Over the years K and I have exchanges recipes, indulged in a lot of food talk but the one recipe that I instantly associate with K is Moussaka.

Moussaka is a three layered main course Greek Dish. Yes, the name does make you feel curious to know a little more but it is the taste, the combination of all those various flavors that tips the scales.

Moussaka

You could also make this with regular leftover keema cooked the Indian way.

Ingredients

Keema or mince: 500 grams

Onions: 2 finely chopped

Tomato puree: 3/4 tbsp

Garlic: chopped fine

Potatoes: 3/4

Brinjals: 1 large( Buy the bharta baigan which does not have seeds).

Oil: 1 tbsp( I use Olive oil)

Eggs: 2

Curd: 200 grams

Oregano: 1 tsp

Method

Boil the potatoes and cut them into thick roundels. Cut the Brinjal into thick roundels and shallow fry them with a little bit of salt.

Heat some oil, add the finely chopped onion, fry till the onion turns glassy. Next add the garlic and fry for a few minutes. Add the keema and saute for 4/5 minutes. Next add the tomato puree, salt and oregano and continue to cook. Cover and cook till done. With very fine mince this should not take more than ten minutes. Please note that the mince would also get cooked after you have assembled the dish and put it in the oven to bake.

Once the mince is done start layering the dish. Use a deep bottom dish as there would be six layers in all. Use potato as the bottom layer, top with brinjal and then the cooked mince. Repeat. Do not press the layers down. There should be some gap for the egg and curd mixture to seep through.

Next beat the curd and egg with some salt and pepper. Pour over the potato, brinjal and mince layers. Allow it to settle down.

Bake at 200 degree centigrade for 30/45 minutes with both upper and lower coils on. The dish should brown lightly.

Serve it with a clear soup and some garlic bread/bread sticks.

Note: It definitely tastes better than it looks in the picture. I am working on my plating and photography skills. Please bear with me

If making it as part of your entertainment menu, I would recommend making the mince/boiling the potatoes and shallow frying the brinjals a day earlier. You could assemble and set the dish to bake about an hour before your guests are scheduled to arrive.

Like I mentioned earlier my family loves Moussaka. Come to think of it most of my other blog posts are also family favorites. That makes us quite a foodie family, doesn't it? They are my constant inspiration to try out new dishes. This week, it has been a hattrick. My new finds include Pinacorn salad( even a variation with some french beans, boiled pasta and cubed paneer), Mushroom soup and Tom Yam Soup(made from scratch and with lemon grass from my kitchen garden).

Bon Apetit and Happy Cooking!

P.S: Hope to upload 100 posts over the next one year. So wish me good luck. Cheers!

What's in a name....? With apologies to William Shakespeare

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." (Romeo and Juliet)

I am sorry but this Shakespearian logic definitely does not extend to food. As with 'plating' or presentation of a dish, the name definitely heightens interest.

I have often noticed that the more complex the name, the more intrigued you are about the contents of the dish. So if you were to tell a group that you were making Moussaka the response would be Wow! and then quickly followed by "Hey, but what is that?" Would you have got a similar response had you for example said I am making Keema Alu Baigan( the key ingredients of Moussaka).

When it comes to naming their dishes the French take the cake( with the icing). Creme Brulee, Mango Gateux, Crepes Sucrees and so it goes on. Just hearing these names makes me do a flip and I go awesome. But unless you are into food or French, you would at a restaurant call the steward point to the dish in the menu card and say: "I want one of that."

The Mughals too have done well for themselves when it comes to naming their food. The names are so attractive that you are very often tempted to try out the dish. Nargisi Kofta, Dum Murgh, Murgh Noorjehani, Shahi Kaju Aloo(Prefix any dish with Shahi and complexion changes) and so on. Some names also have associations with either a person or place or event and thus more character. Ledikeni is a Bengali sweet that was created for Lady Canning to celebrate her birthday.

I was at a cousin's place last week and the menu included a corn salad. American sweet corn dishes are gaining popularity ever since the Modern Trade outlets started stocking them. Now they are also available quite easily at your local vegetable shop. The salad looked interesting, tasted really nice but it was the name that finally did the trick. It was called Pinacorn salad. There was an exotic feel to the name, a certain lilt to it. So some quick sms exchanges, some searches and the dish made its way to our dinner table soon thereafter.

Pinacorn Salad

Ingredients

American Sweet Corn: 200 grams

Tinned pineapple slices: 2/3

Walnuts: 3/4, crush them with your hand

Lettuce: 1 bunch( tear half to add to the salad and use the rest for the garnish)

Thousand island dressing( you could also make this by mixing tomato ketchup and finely chopped onions to some mayo): 2/3 tbsp. I use the brand Cremica.

Method

Mix the ingredients together. Layer the serving dish with some lettuce. Serve the salad on this bed of lettuce.

I am told this salad stays well for a long time so if you are having people over for dinner you can make this well in advance. Would also be good as a lunch box option. The salad has a nice sweet and sour taste. The walnuts and lettuce give it a nice crunchy feel.

A great tasting salad without the usual mess of peeling and chopping.

To make this a complete meal you could add a handful of boiled pasta and some blanched tender beans.

Bon Apetit and Happy Cooking!

P.S: Watch out for the Moussaka post. This one tastes as good as it sounds :-)