Christmas, a time for creative foods, friends and family! This year we speant our Christmas day with my daughter's in-laws. It was a barbeque lunch and I was tasked with salads for the family. I had to prep the salads and take them over in containers and assemble them just before lunch. So I hunted for salads that could be put together quick, looked spectacular and tasted fantastic. Have a look at this salad - doesn't it say festive in bold letters?
There can never be enough salads when you are entertaining for Christmas. Here in Australia we have hot Decembers - and hence the need for cool and cold salads. Recently we met at a friend's house for a pre - Christmas get together and everyone brought something to share. I was tasked with getting a rice salad to share and I researched to get a perfect one.
I found a salad on line and added my own twist to it. Having recently returned from Turkey, I had with me a couple of bottles of precious Nar eksisi - or pomegranate molasses. Pomegranate Molasses is dark burgundy in colour and is sour with a slight hint of sweetness. It is the equivalent of tamarind in my South Indian cooking.
It pairs well with roasts and makes a great salad dressing. You dont need to add too much of it, a tablespoon of it gives life to the flavours on your plate.
You might know them as fish cakes, patties, or rissoles—but back home, we call them fish cutlets. And once you’re used to a name, it’s hard to change! Whatever you call them, these little bites are bursting with bold flavours and a satisfying crunch.
I hadn’t made them in ages. Then, the other day, when we visited my friend Anto, she served her homemade fish cutlets—and wow, they hit the spot. Inspired, I whipped up a batch over the weekend, and honestly, they’re easier than you think.
Melbourne's CBD features some amazing laneways that are famous for iconic artwork, cozy bars, tempting dessert lounges and an array of restaurants that feature food from all over the world. One of them is called the Daughter-in-Law and they call themselves the "unauthentic Australian Indian cuisine." When our friend visited from India, we decided to check this place out. I was pleasantly surprised to see all the "ghenda phool" garlands - and it immediately reminded us of the time when we had been to Delhi with this same friend to purchase these garlands for our daughter's wedding. How fitting that we selected a restaurant that reminded us of those days!
We ordered the food and one of the items in the menu was the Kerala pepper beef short ribs. This dish was easily my favorite on the night - may be because I am biased towards Kerala cuisine, but that aside, I was determined to try it out at home.
It is surprisingly easy to make and I came very close to what was served that night, so I am very pleased with myself. It can be an easy dinner when you plan to study or work in the garden. It doesn't require constant monitoring and it can be served with store bought pita bread, naans or rice. I served it with Kerala parotta.
What can I bring you for your birthday, my dear, I asked my daughter. And she says to me, can you please make some sausage rolls as I am planning to have a brunch at home with cup cakes and a few other things. So I was on the hunt for yet another sausage roll recipe. Recipe Tin Eats never disappoints - so I used her recipe as her base and added a couple of my own ingredients and changed around the ingredients and the quantities a bit. Sausage rolls are forgiving - and if you get the basics right and a good quality puff pastry, you cant really go wrong.
Pork and fennel are a good combination and so I used a lot of fennel and also chilli to give it a kick. I have feeling I will be making this again!
The first season of Masterchef was something that I would drop all tasks to watch without fail. Over the years, I just got tired of watching it; the thrill was no longer there. Until - I saw Sarah Todd, and her posts on instagram. I started to follow her, mainly because she was in India and posting so many Indian dishes that I had never heard of. Qubani ka Meetha is one of those - and I know she made it look 5 star in the show, but I wanted to taste the original because I have never heard of it - leave alone taste it!
Since the show I researched it and found out that apricots or qubani were introduced to India during the Mughal era and was enjoyed by the Royals as it was an expensive fruit. It slowly found its was to the South of India, where it became a signature dish of Hyderabadi cuisine. These days it is served in Hyderabadi weddings - and the best part is it is easy to cook. All you need is dried apricots and sugar.
The 1980s - and in my dorm in University. We all look forward to the girls coming back after holidays, because each of them would be carrying jars and packets of goodies from their homes to last for a couple of months in the dreary hostel. The food in the hostel was bland and tasteless and it was these packages that helped us ford meal times. One such item brought from Andhra Pradesh was my friend Shobha's tomato pickle or tomato thokku. Nothing would even warrant a second look until the whole jar was devoured by us for breakfast lunch and dinner. This pickle can be had with rice, dosa, idli or even roti - that is how versatile it was. Sweet, salty, tangy, spicy, hot and with an underlying umami, this pickle really had it all. May be it was the Andhra organic tomatoes or may be it was the Andhra spicy chillies - but visions of this jar still makes my mouth water. I have long since lost touch with my room mate Shobha, but in my heart I still think of her and her loving mother who made this for our enjoyment - bless them!
Pictured: A jar of cherry tomato thokku near my almost dead tomato plant - getting ready to say goodbye for winter!
A quick, easy and healthy dessert, if you have it on its own; or a little indulgent with icecream - or if you would like to have it with yogurt, you can have it for breakfast too. I had it on its own and I was just testing the recipe out to see if I would make it again. I would definitely make it again - it looks spectacular, and it tastes nice. When you present it, it looks like you have gone through a lot of trouble making it. This is also a recipe where you can play with the pears, cheeses and nuts to make the final outcome sweet or savoury so you can serve it as a dessert or an entree. The sweetness of the pear, along with a touch of saltiness from the feta, the honey and nuts all add to the textures and flavours of this dish.
I had picked a fresh zucchini from the garden and wanted to put it to use immediately. I used only about 300 grams of the zucchini - I still had about 400 grams left over that I barbequed for dinner the next day. The taste of something that you have grown - picked fresh off the plant and cooked to perfection is something you cannot really describe. It is an emotion - a feeling of immense satisfaction and joy.
This dish pairs well with a chinese fried rice and is very quick to put together, including the prep time.
