This may come across as weird but here goes. I have always been intimidated by beef.

I still eat it though. I love the way a beef stew smells wholesome and robust. I enjoy the way a rare steak gives away under the pressure of my teeth. Having been brought up in a liberal Hindu family, eating beef is not really uncommon on this  side of the Chowdhury legacy. But eating it somehow makes me feel reckless. Just ordering a New York strip makes me feel as if I dare to defy all the pundits, gurus and holy men who’ve made it blasphemous for us to murder cows and then, just to rub their noses in it, I brazenly pop a humongous cheeseburger patty into my mouth and chew hungrily while frowning comically at them.

In spite of all this noisy beef-eating I’m still in awe of it. Mostly because I never know what to do with it.

Beef, asparagus, meringues and raspberries. These are just a few things that I’ve felt this way about. I’ve read through a hundred recipes involving at least one of these and I’ve never had the will-power (I’m deliberately not using the word ‘courage’ here) to make any of them. I’d eat any of those in a heartbeat though.

Now if I had to try out some clueless psychiatry, I would blame it on my childhood. I didn’t ‘grow up’ eating any of those things mentioned above, and that is probably why I feel uncomfortable whenever I’m presented with the prospect of using any one of them in a dish. Though I must say at this point, that I have spent the last three summers with my head in vats of raspberries, and last year I willed myself to learn how to make a mean pavlova.

But beef?

Beef, is still slumped in his high-backed winged armchair, the corners of his lips drooping downwards, silently staring at me with his heavy-lidded eyes.

Getting to be a pro at handling beef is definitely going to take some time and if I’m asked to cook a steak soon, I’d probably spent the rest of day whining and flailing about in the kitchen without achieving any damn thing. So, as soon as I got some time away from all the sweetness, I was up for a challenge. Sort of. I knew I had to bite the bullet and take a chance with something huge…not wimpy hamburgers made out of mince beef. But something more refined and complicated. And then it came forth — a boeuf bourgignon recipe…from a couple of French women, naturally.

First it was Julia Child warbling instructions at me. And then there was Clotilde Dusoulier, with her wide-eyed smile waving at me with a copy of Chocolate & Zucchini. I also consulted Robert Carrier and then set off to chart my own route.

This Burgundian beef stew cloaked in light amber is only slightly less relaxing that a quick chicken soup. I pleasantly stand corrected for thinking that the process would be complicated. The result was rich in texture and deep in flavour, that was induced by the cognac I used instead of red wine, even while my stock was running out. The bacon plays a huge role, even considering that I used just a couple of strips of it. But the cake is taken away by the chocolate. My hand slipped (*wink*) as I was adding the cocoa powder and I added a teaspoon more than was required. Heavenly. I would suggest you to allow your hand to slip as well. Served with a side of steamed rice the meaty stew is perfect to warm the cockles of your heart.

Well then. Bring it on, beef.

Boeuf Bourgignon
From a variety of sources including Julia Child, Clotilde Dusoulier and Robert Carrier

The wine used can be a good Burgundy, a young Chianti or even Pinot Noir. I’ve used Renault cognac here. Different recipes use different amounts of wine and beef stock, and then there are recipes which don’t use stock at all. Ideally use equal amounts of red wine and beef stock (about 2-3 cups each). However, since I ran out of cognac, the recipe below uses only about 1 cup of it.
The beef chunks need to be dried in paper towels; any dampness will prevent them from browning. The consistency of the stew depends on your taste really. i wanted something runny instead of thick and gravy-like so I added about 1 tablespoon of flour. If you require the gravy to be thick, increase the amount of flour to 2 tablespoons and for the last 20 minutes of cooking time in the oven, remove the lid and turn up the oven temperature.
Boeuf Bourgignon is best with steamed rice or crusty bread. Can be served with buttered noodles as well.

1 pound button mushrooms, quartered
2 tbsp butter
2 strips of un-smoked bacon, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil or vegetable oil
3 pounds well-trimmed boneless beef chuck, cut into 2″ cubes
1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped
2 medium shallots, finely chopped
2 medium carrots, sliced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 tbsp flour (see head note)
1 cup cognac, (see head note)
3 cups beef stock (see head note)
2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 teaspoons fresh thyme
1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves, roughly chopped
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 bay leaf

Preheat oven to 160 °C (325 °F).

In a pan sauté the mushrooms in butter till brown and soft. Keep aside.

In a deep-bottomed pot/cesserole, sauté the bacon in 1 tbsp oil over moderate heat for 2 to 3 minutes to brown lightly. Remove to a side dish with a slotted spoon. Reheat the pan until fat is almost smoking before you sauté the beef. Sauté the beef in the bacon fat in batches making sure not to crowd the pieces (the pieces need to brown on all sides, not sweat). Add the browned pieces of beef to the bacon. Lower the heat to medium. In the same fat, add the onions, shallots and carrots. Cook till the carrots soften. Add the cooked veggies to the beef and bacon. Pour out the sautéing fat.

Return beef to the casserole. Then sprinkle on the flour and toss to coat the beef lightly with the flour. Stir everything around till the flour is cooked and no white traces of it remain. Add the bacon and veggies and season with salt and pepper.  Stir in the cognac and enough stock so that the meat is barely covered. Add the garlic, thyme, parsley, tomato paste and bay leaf. Bring to simmer on top of the stove. Cover the casserole and set it in the oven. Cook for 2 1/2 to 3 hours. About 1 hour into the cooking add the mushrooms and stir in the cocoa powder. Return to the oven. The stew is done when the meat is fork-soft.

There is nothing special about Tuesdays. They’re not like Mondays that get grumbled about. They’re not like Fridays that get looked forward to, and they most definitely cannot compare up to the weekends. Even Wednesdays have their chance at being referred to as midweek. And Thursdays too have their significance when we’re all at work in full swing. Tuesdays are sandwiched somewhere in between all this mayhem like an extra in an action movie.

This Tuesday and the last however have been quite momentous. Last Tuesday we made impromptu dinner plans to eat out, always the best kind, after an especially trying day that included work and a half-hearted evening walk that ended in semi-pulled hamstrings. The weather made it worse by being indecisive and twitchy, irritatingly a la Bella Swan. So naturally, the only thing to provide a stiff remedy to that kind of horror, is food. We headed to Flame & Grill, only another one of Anjan Chakraborty’s culinary babies.

A spitting grille sits pretty at the center of each table nestling white hot pieces of charcoal. Pretty soon the waiter dawdles over politely to arrange 5 or 6 hot iron rods with knobby wooden handles, or sheeks, that’s wrapped with either meat, chicken or fish. The smoke from the grill keeps the sheeks hot till we fork the food onto our plates, dunk each morsel into a tongue-clucking coriander sauce and we bite into them risking burning the roofs of our mouths.

The empty rods are soon replenished with more tandoorean glory and the process repeats itself, till we’re too full to even go and peruse the contents of the buffet. We’ve rarely ever made it to the buffet table. Though the length of their kebab menu isn’t long or innovative enough, it is hard to complain about shortcomings when we’re busy stuffing our faces with succulent yogurt-softened pieces of chicken reshmi kebabs. All of that leads to appeased stomachs, satiated minds and a very good night of sleep.

Today’s Tuesday however, has left me gobsmacked with a discovery. My mother, my own flesh and blood has declared that she is not too fond of pesto. And THAT my dear friends is nothing short of sacrilege! I did not think that such heresy could be hidden deep in the all-consuming appetite of my family.

The first thing I did in the morning was to pull out a batch of mini cakes topped with spoonfuls of cream cheese. A request from Arpi and also something for my single friends to look forward to. We singletons don’t really mind Valentine’s Day. But then how could anyone mind it if there was a whole lot of booze, kilos of chocolate and some dirty hip-gyration involved. It would definitely be a significant improvement from at least two V-Day celebrations I’ve experienced in the past. The first included a classmate in college in our first year coming up to me a declaring his friendship to me. When I pointed out that the red rose he had handed to me signified love, he quickly explained that the nearest florist was all out of yellow roses (yellow roses being the true signs of friendship). The second V-Day was three years later, when I spent all of five hours on the phone with a charming Naval Officer that I was in love with, cooing sweet nothings. In retrospect, they were nothing, as I would come to realize the very next year.

But I digress. Hours after I had poked and prodded the cheese knobs atop the cakelets, I came home lugging groceries, that included a jar of pesto and wholewheat spaghetti, my mother said something from her room that sounded a lot like too pungent and oily. She could have been referring to a number of things but she wasn’t. Gasp! I pacified myself by remembering the fact that all the Italian food she’s ever had included spag-bol and wood-oven baked thin-crust pizzas…which she seemed to have enjoyed immensely. Anything pasta that’s ever been made in our house has always been served robed heavily with cheese or saline tomato sauce. I briefly had visions of me making a garlic-scented spaghetti dish speckled with pink cubes of salmon that my Vietnamese housemate had taught me when we were living in Nottingham. I imagined my mother sniffing softly at it, putting a small forkful into her mouth, chewing tentatively and then…magic. Her skepticism would melt away, an expression of pleasure would take over her face and she would declare that Italian cuisine was worth living and dying for.

Then I quickly snapped out of it when she came out of her room. I blamed this punch-to-the-plexus on her limited experience of Italian cuisine and was greeted by a nonchalant shrug.  She only needs to taste some really good pasta, I told myself and silently frowned at Tuesday for being unpredictable.

Chocolate and Fennel Seed Cakelets

The recipe doubles easily to make two rich and moist layers for a layer cake. You could also multiply the quantities specified for every ingredient by 1.5 to make a single-layered cake. The baking time increase for about 15 minutes if baked as a single-layered cake. The ground fennel seeds are obviously optional and can easily be done away with. I generally use whole fennel seeds, dry-roast them in a non-stick pan on medium heat till they give of a woody smell and cool them immediately, before grinding them into fine powder. The oil used is sunflower oil, but any odourless, taste-less vegetable oil will do.

1/2 cup of all-purpose flour
1/4 cup of ground almonds
1/4 cup of cocoa powder
1 tbsp of ground fennel seeds
Pinch of salt
1 1/4 tsp of baking powder
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup of caster sugar
80ml of vegetable oil
80ml of sour cream or well-stirred yogurt
Softened cream cheese, to garnish

Pre-heat oven to 180 deg C and grease four medium-sized ramekins. Combine flour, ground almonds, cocoa powder, fennel powder (if using any), salt and baking powder, in a bowl with a fork. Whisk eggs, vanilla, sugar, oil and sour curd (or yogurt) in a bigger bowl till the sugar dissolves. Pour the flour mixture into this egg mixture and mix till just combined. Do not overwork the mixture. Pour into prepped ramekins and bake for about 15-20 minutes or till the center is set. Cool on racks and top with cream cheese before serving.

I think I left you quite abruptly with the last post and a large serving of strong coffee cake. I had meant to elaborate a little on how we fawn over big fat Indian weddings, but lately I’ve been terrified at the thought of them. The problem with attending any Indian wedding when you’re on this side of twenty-seven is that every auntiji and grandmother you come across at the party automatically expects you to be answerable to them about your own non-existent marriage plans. While the lack of a prospective groom is always the first observation, they soon move onto more pressing matters, such as how I’m heading for thirty and how I should take a chapter out of my friends’ lives; find an obedient, bespectacled, USA-based Bengali banker or rocket scientist, settle down and breed more bespectacled rice-and-curry-inhaling Bengalis. It doesn’t really help that according to Indian standards I’m bordering on becoming a certified man-repeller. The conversation soon turns awkward with the annoying mention of the horror-inducing, forever-ticking body clock. Before long they make me sound like a ticking bomb and stare at me as if I would explode at any second. Cue end of conversation.

After a week of ceremony-laden schedule, we’ve spent the last two days going easy on our tummies with boiled sausages, roasted eggplants in a newly-acquired vinaigrette. And luscious chocolate wafers. But let’s go into that in sometime. We also spent most of the weekend at the Book Fair, weaving our way through the crowd, from book stall to book stall, stopping only to inspect rare editions on display at stall windows or to exclaim at old Wren & Martin’s grammar books in their red paperbacks. Before long I realized that I was hovering over certain specific shops more than the others — those that had been my childhood favourites. Shops in which I had discovered Miss Frank’s diary and Dahl’s Madeleine.

After a long dusty day that felt almost like a treasure hunt interrupted with several cups of coffee and a couple of very greasy chicken pasties, we trudged back home heaving under a large shopper full of books. Among them were Salman Rushdie’s Shalimar the Clown which automatically detoured to my brother’s room before I could even start on it, Trisha Ashley’s Chocolate Wishes, The Mainland China Cookbook by Anjan Chakraborty. The next day I went back and faced a mini dust-storm to bring back Molly Birnbaum’s Season to Taste, The Calcutta Cookbook, Kitchen Counter Cooking School by the always fabulous Kathleen Flinn and Dan Brown’s  Digital Fortress.

I should probably, at this stage, wax lyrical about my favourite Chinese restaurant of all time. I am and always will be, without a doubt, a Chinese-takeaway girl than a fish-n-chips one. And even though I haven’t yet stepped foot in China, something that’s on my bucket list, Mainland China’s food is by far the best Chinese food I’ve had both in India and UK. My brother having been the only one in the family whose ever visited the US of A, easily chooses Mainland China over any Chinese restaurant he’s visited there. And although, by the looks of it, a few of their dishes do use copious amounts of cornflour, owner Anjan Chakraborty does quite a good job of briefing over the different Chinese provinces and their food habits and respective flavour profiles and a simple list of vital Chinese ingredients before starting on the recipes. I skimmed over the cookbook reluctantly before deciding to start on on Trisha Ashley’s book. 12 am in the morning really isn’t the ideal time to start reading a cookbook packed with stuff that can make you a ravenous lunatic, unless you’re willing to tackle the dish-washing at the end of it all. But let me quickly say that the spring onion pancakes on the first page of Starters already look promising.

The wafers that nursed me through all the stress of someone else’s wedding are from Alice Medrich’s Pure Dessert (that I found on Smitten Kitchen) and trust me, they don’t need much convincing to make or eat. And this is coming from someone who’s never, I repeat never, made anything remotely resembling cookies or biscuits or crisps or…well, you get the idea. The dough is brought together much like that of a Pâte Sucrée’s, which would, in the past, have intimidated me but there’s honestly nothing to shy away from. The cocoa powder in it is what makes the wafer and is also what made me sigh. A good-quality cocoa, something from Valrhona or Ghirardelli is suggested. The recipe mentions using 3 tbsp of milk, which works fine when you’re bringing it together in a food processor. However, since I made it by hand, I required almost double (5-6tbsp) the amount of milk.

Chocolate Wafers
from Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich via Smitten Kitchen

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup + 2 tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 3/4 sticks (175gm) unsalted butter, slightly softened
6 tbsp whole milk
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Pulse flour, cocoa, sugar, salt and baking soda in the food processor several times till their mixed well. Cut the butter into 10-12 cubes and add them to the flour mixture. Pulse several times till the mixture looks like coarse sand. Combine the milk and vanilla in a small cup. With the processor running, add the milk mixture and continue to pulse until the mixture clumps around the blade or the sides of the bowl. Transfer the dough to a large bowl and knead a few times to make sure it is evenly blended. Form the dough into a log about 2 inches in diameter. Wrap the log in cling film or foil and refrigerate for at least one hour or till firm enough to slice neatly.

If you’re making the dough by hand, like me:
Sieve flour, cocoa, sugar, salt and baking soda in a bowl. Mix well with a fork. Rub the cubes of butter into the flour mix with your fingers, as you would while making pie dough, till the mixture resembles coarse sand. Add the milk tablespoon by tablespoon till the mixture just come together. Like the recipe states, I needed about 5-6 tablespoons of milk, but you might require less. Do not overwork the dough. Gather into a log, wrap and chill as mentioned above.

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Cut the log of dough into slices about 1/4 inch thick and place them one inch apart on the lined sheets. Bake for 12-15 minutes. The cookies will puff up a little and deflate and they’ll be done  1 to 1 1/2 minutes after they deflate. Cool the cookies on racks. The cookies turn crisp on cooling completely. If they still remain a little spongy in the middle they haven’t been baked long enough. Pop them into the oven for a couple more minutes and then cool again. Grab a book and sink into the bed with a handful of them.

The cookies will stay in an airtight container for a couple of weeks and can be frozen for up to two months.

I must say that drafting an unnecessarily long ‘About’ page was not the original plan. But in my defense, I was high on an exceptionally strong dose of frozen chocolate, and I’m nearing insanity with the wedding season upon us.
The best part of attending a wedding is when you discuss the food on your way back home. I don’t really know about the rest of the world, but we Indians like to sample each dish served at the reception, complain about the dessert, gossip about the budget dedicated to the catering and all in all have a full-on executive meeting on dissecting the menu. We haven’t really had anything home-cooked since last week. Indian weddings do not last hours…they last for days and its a little about the bride’s trousseau, a little about running around making sure the flowers are set up, the caterer knows what to do and monitoring who the car has to pick up from the airport. But mostly its about food. For the last few days its been fried fish, steamed fish in mustard sauce, yogurt chicken, mutton curry, fried rice, pilaf, luchi, naan, dal, grilled prawns, Mughlai chicken, an array of ice-cream, the best of Bengali sweetmeats and paan, of course. Followed by heavy doses of antacid. And I still found time to bake for you.

Now, since I’m running late for the next party, I’ll quickly deal with this seriously strong coffee cake before I go.

Coffee, Cinnamon and Cardamom Cake
1 1/2 cups of plain all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 pinch salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cardamom
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tbsp instant coffee powder
1 cup granulated white sugar
1/2 cup strongly brewed espresso
1/2 cup vegetable oil (like canola or sunflower)
3 eggs
Pre-heat the oven to 170 deg C. In a large bowl whisk together the sugar, espresso, oil and eggs till the sugar dissolves. In a smaller bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, cardamom, cocoa powder and coffee together. Mix well with a fork. Add the dry ingredients into the wet and stir till everything is just combined. Pour in a greased 8-9″ baking tin and bake for 35-40 minutes or till a toothpick inserted through the center comes out clean. Top with some cream cheese frosting and grated chocolate after the cake’s cooled. I find that resting the cake in the refrigerator for a couple of hours before serving makes it infinitely better.

Cream Cheese Frosting
100gm (1 stick) unsalted butter
100gm cream cheese
1 3/4 cups powdered sugar
1 tbsp vanilla extract
Whisk together the butter and cream cheese till pale and creamy. It is best if you use an electric beater since whisking by hand would be a little tedious. Beat in the sugar spoonful by spoonful till its combined well. Beat in the vanilla essence.

Like everything watched in the dark, on a computer screen with the volume on the lowest setting, this chocolate sorbet could easily make you bite your lips. It’s the kind that makes you want to roll it around inside your mouth and take it to bed.

Honestly, I’m more likely to turn to my dear friends Ben & Jerry, or a tub of Green & Black’s than make ice-cream at home. I’ve never owned an ice-cream machine and I never spent my childhood summers churning an ice-cream-making crank by hand. In 2008, one sweat-laden summer afternoon after working on a project for 24 hours – without sleep, I must add – my friend Aditya convinced me to make some custard for his experimental white chocolate and cinnamon ice-cream (now that I think of it, its almost weird how many people around me are always whipping up food on a whim).  I dozed off halfway through his instructions while he toiled away at it. My making the custard was an achievement, considering back then, the only other thing I could make apart from custard, was coffee.  Five hours later I woke up to a buff-colored something that tasted more of salt than sugar. It has been almost four years since then and Aditya has moved on from instructing lazy architecture students to managing financial trading teams, and I have moved on to lustier things. Like this chocolate sorbet.

As a half-hearted confession, I must admit that I’ve yearned to try my hand at this sorbet for quite a long time; ever since spotting it over at Clotilde Dusoulier’s, actually. And the recipe belongs to ice-cream whisperer David Lebovitz. Two very strong reasons why I shouldn’t have waited this long. But apparently, my pantry needed to be stocked with both cocoa powder and dark chocolate at the same time, which somehow, unbelievably, it wasn’t so far. I know, I can’t believe it either.

Adding to that misfortune, the weather has angrily nipping at our ankles all this week. It needed quite a bit of persuasion from Arpi, she of the delectable chicken-cheese balls, the reinforced dowry and my partner in cake-making, to make me find the time to potter through my pantry. I’m pleased to report that there is a tin of cocoa powder rolling about at the back of the kitchen cupboard and I have a bar of dark chocolate lurking in the refrigerator as well. Let’s change into something racy and wait in breathless anticipation till the sorbet sets.

Kindly be warned – this particular charmer is not for the faint-hearted.

Getting intimidated, although undesirable, can sometimes keep you grounded. Especially so if you happen to be the headstrong cannot-be-saddle-broken wild-child of the family. Lately however, I’ve been experiencing some intimidation – from my cousin Arpita. Just a couple of months older to me, almost motherly and with a raucous laugh, she, when it comes to cooking, sits at the opposite end of the spectrum from me. She matured in the kitchen department and filled out her pots and pans when we were nearing adulthood, much before I did.

While I’m allergic to recipes, she would hang herself promptly before deviating from one. She was also the first one to develop social skills. I have spent countless afternoons as a kid, discussing domestic chores around a dollhouse and she in turn educated me on how to make a sixth-grader, who knew his way around a bubble-gum (so naturally a total hottie by our standards), fall in love with me. Since then I’ve made up for all that I lacked in sixth-grade, my standards have changed and I have, on occasions, even dispensed dating advice to her. I am also a mildly more experienced baker than her. But, I am still envious of her ability to whip up a gorgeous biryani while she fries chicken-cheese balls at the same time. She would easily do brilliantly in the marriage market with those mad skills under her wings

Lately, I have been trying my hand at authentic Indian cooking, high time I did I suppose, she’s dispensed valuable advice on meat marination and ground masala mixes. It has also been raining in Kolkata non-stop for the last four days and that calls for some serious rainy-day activity. Winter’s being an unbelievably bad sport and damp and chilly days like the ones we’ve been having require piping hot pakodas, steaming cups of milky tea and a couple of experimental cakes. Experimental, being the key word here.

The yogurt cake was a milestone of sorts. After I made it, I wanted to keep a go-to base cake in my repertoire and started looking for a good pound cake (or otherwise) recipe that can be made to twist and turn to my satisfaction, act as a stable support to a vast variety of flavours. And after going through a host of culinary goddesses from Ina to Donna, I managed to concoct a formula for myself. Now, it is admittedly dicey to experiment with baking, unless you have a firm grasp of how butter, eggs and flour react to each other, precisely the reason anyone would stick firmly to their measuring cups and scales. But Saturday morning saw Arpi and me slavishly whisking cake batters and staring into the oven door till late evening. By the end of the day we had a very densely crumbed clementine cake, a success by its own standards considering how the last time went, and a slightly oily upside-down pineapple cake, both laced around the same recipe. The second time around we cut the amount of butter down, added some rosemary and clapped our flour-coated hands with joy when it slid out of the cake-tin shyly.

Upside-down Pineapple Cake
adapted from all sorts of recipes

As a compulsive chocoholic, I added 2 tbsp of cocoa powder sifted in with the flour. This is totally optional, so I haven’t included it in the recipe below.

Caramel is obviously tricky. Or at least, I find it so, given the amount of disasters it has put me through. More importantly, caramel can smell fear. So the less confident you are, the more finicky it gets. In the beginning I used to make caramel on a double-boiler, so you can easily try that. If you already have your own way of making it, by all means, do that. It is also important not to stir it when it starts bubbling. But keep an eye on it, it turns bitter when overcooked.

I use this old-fashioned aluminum cake tin that my Mum inherited from my Grandma and it can easily sit on top of a stove fire, which, as I understand, many cake-tins cannot. In that case, prepare your cake tin by brushing the inner surfaces with butter or oil. Keep aside. Make the rosemary-caramel in a separate pan and pour it into the cake tin. Arrange the fruit tightly and pour the cake mixture on top.

The recipe below uses oil, but feel free to substitute that with 100gm (1 stick) of unsalted butter. If you do use butter, however, the method changes slightly. You would need to soften the butter at room temperature and then cream it with the sugar till light and fluffy. Add the eggs (also kept at room temperature) one by one, whisking to incorporate after each addition. When the eggs are fully incorporated, add milk and vanilla. Mix. Fold in dry ingredients as mentioned below.

The pineapple can easily be replaced with pears or apples.

1 medium-sized pineapple,
2 tbsp unsalted butter,
3 1/2 tbsp granulated white sugar,
1 tsp of dried rosemary (or 2 tsp of fresh rosemary leaves),
1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour,
2 tsp baking powder,
Pinch of salt,
3 eggs,
1/2 cup of tasteless vegetable oil (like castor oil or groundnut oil),
1/2 cup of milk,
1 cup caster sugar,
2 tsp of vanilla extract,
Double cream, whipped (optional)

Peel and clean the pineapple and slice it into 1/2 slices. Remove the cores of each slice. In a 8-9″ cake-tin/flan mold sprinkle sugar evenly and plop the butter in the middle. Over low heat, melt the sugar and butter together stirring till the caramel starts bubbling at the edges. Stop stirring and only tilt the pan in all directions so that the heat is evenly distributed all over, till the caramel turns amber in colour. Sprinkle the rosemary over evenly. Arrange the pineapple slices in a decorative manner and spoon a little bit of the caramel over each slice. Take the tin off heat and cool a bit. With a pastry brush, brush the sides of the tin lightly with oil or butter.
Pre-heat the oven to 180 deg C. Sift in flour, salt and baking powder in a medium-sized bowl. In a larger bowl, whisk together the eggs, oil, milk, sugar and vanilla extract till the sugar dissolves. Add dry mix to wet mix and whisk gently together. Do not overwork the mixture. Pour into the tin with the caramel in it. Bake for about 30-35 minutes, depending on how your oven behaves, or till a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool the cake in the tin itself and turn out on a serving plate/cake-stand, pineapple side up. Serve with softly whipped cream.

Almost a year ago, right about this time, I was getting ready to move to London. A new job, a new place, new friends and old. It seemed daunting and exciting at the same time, although, to be honest at the time I wasn’t really feeling anything. Instead of frazzling up, my mind just went into this Zero G-ish trance. I packed the boxes, I paid the bills, spoke to my future landlord, printed out my appointment letter and booked tickets. The last day was a quiet one, even as I rushed through the house folding this and stuffing that. And all through it I kept thinking why I wasn’t more nervous. Every job was tucked away neatly in their places when my taxi came to take me to Nottingham Central. And yet, it didn’t seem like I’d done anything in a conscious effort. I think this is what people mean when they say ‘Auto-Pilot Mode’.

But I did leave Nottingham with a last disaster. It was 1 am in the morning, and there was a grapefruit and orange cake in the oven. The only problem however was sleep. Or the lack of it. I hadn’t slept for 48 hours at that point, and my calculations went haywire. Lost in weight-to-volume conversions, I used the wrong amount of everything, from butter to flour to eggs and orange juice. The result deceptively appeared successful, as evident by the photograph I took of it then. The cake was anything but. It made a squeaky noise as I cut into it. And more alarmingly, there were no crumbs. It was a monolithic body of a pinkish hue, with the sort of texture that erasers have. It was laid to rest in the garbage.

Its a been a year since then. Its a little after lunch now, and I’m sitting with my legs propped up on the futon again, watching an especially gruesome episode of CSI. Its a quiet afternoon again with the exception of the soft tick-tick of the oven timer. I have a clementine cake in the oven and I will let you know how it goes this time.

Between the last time that I had my cozy breakfast and now, I’ve been bombarded with lamb kebabs, yogurt cakes and a session of brazen drink-mixing that only 21 year-old co-eds excel in. And then New year’s Day started with Chinese food. Home-cooked versions of takeout favourites, but a shameless indulgence no doubt, considering the fact the most of us are — or were – planning to eat healthy in the New Year. There go our resolutions, flying out the window.

I’ve been reading Mark Kurlansky’s Choice Cuts and I have to say that the book has more than enough gems of food accounts. Right now he’s talking about one of Anton Chekhov’s pieces on an eight-course menu for journalists:

(1) a glass of vodka
(2) daily shchi [cabbage soup] and yesterday’s kasha
(3)  two glasses of vodka
(4) suckling pig with horseradish
(5) 3 glasses of vodka
(6) horse radish, cayenne pepper and soy sauce
(7) 4 glasses of vodka
(8) 7 bottles of beer

Sounds like my kind of people.

I will talk to you about Chinese food of course. Sooner or later we need to have that conversation. Mostly because there is no sun up or sun down in my house without a thought to Chinese cuisine. We’re true blue Indians, who’ve taken traditional Chinese cooking under our wings, molded and melded it to our liking. Stretched, flattened and twisted it according to our taste buds and made it our own. Ever since the first Chinese family cooked in Kolkata’s historical Chinatown, our noses caught the whiff of soy sauce, and we dragged our grumbling tummies to their home for a taste of their food. And then there was no looking back. I promise to tell you in detail how Chinese food fits into our mostly-Indian kitchen, but for now, this recipe for pork with Bok Choy should keep you full.

This is very quickly turning out to be a food blog.

Braised Pork with Bok Choy

The recipe sits close to my heart. Late nights, or early mornings, in Nottingham, were spent drooping over the pit of doom that was my thesis, while I wrestled with job applications at the same time. Sleep was almost non-existent. Ladytron dominated my playlist and whenever despair loomed, I would trudge down to the kitchen and stir some pork up with soy sauce. And pretty soon while shopping for more pork, I chanced upon a couple of bok choy bulbs sitting vibrantly green and pretty in the produce section. Didn’t take long for me to put the two together.
The recipe calls for Xiaoxing wine and rice wine vinegar. But honestly, I’m not a stickler and you can easily improvise. You can easily use good quality white wine and plain fruit vinegar if you have those on hand. Also, even though I haven’t used spring onions in this version, you could easily use 2-3, chopped. Add them along with the garlic and ginger. To fry, any tasteless vegetable oil will do. I use peanut oil. Lastly, I do not usually add salt at all because of all the soy sauce in it.

1kg pork shoulder, cut into chunks
1/2 cup of all-purpose flour, sifted
3-4 tbsp of vegetable oil, to fry
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tbsp minced ginger
1 red chili, chopped
1/2 cup of light soy sauce
1/4 cup of dark soy sauce
3 tbsp of rice wine vinegar
3 tbsp of Xiaoxing wine
1 Tbsp of granulated white sugar
1 medium sized bok choy
Salt, to taste (optional, if you like it too salty, which I doubt you do)

Gently pull apart the leaves of the the bok choy. Wash and dry them. In a big bowl, sift in the flour and add in the pork chunks. Tumble them in the flour till all the chunks are coated evenly with flour. Lay out the chunks on a baking sheet after shaking off excess flour. Heat oil in a non-stick skillet. Test the oil by dropping a little flour into it. If it sizzles, its ready. Add the pork and quickly stir-fry for 4-5 minutes till the pieces have browned. Lower the heat to medium. Add the garlic, ginger and chili and cook for another minute just to take the rawness out of them. Add the the two soy sauces, wine, vinegar and sugar and stir to combine. Lower the heat. Add the bok choy leaves in a layer on top. Cover and braise for about 15 minutes. Remove the cover and stir the wilted leaves into the sauce. Taste and adjust, adding sugar or vinegar, if necessary. Serve piping hot over steamed white rice.

So this year, instead of battling the crowds tonight, we decided to get it over with yesterday. And untrue to my real colours, on a whimsy, I inadvertently agreed to sitting under the hairdresser’s mercy as he stuck blue extensions to my curls and stretched them straight. And then I slathered my lips with black lipstick. I didn’t think I had it in me.

The night was a blur. Pretty much a regular routine with a few tequila shots more than I’d like to admit to. The only exception was a good-looking man, probably in his mid-thirties, with visibly thinning hair who raised his glass at me from a nearby couch. In return, I gifted him with a tight-lipped smile which might or might not have made me look slightly constipated.

Its a little after noon right now, and I’m sitting munching on crostinis with my hair slathered in coconut oil and wrapped up in a hot towel, trying to get rid of residual glue. Hopefully everything will return to normal before the dinner party tonight. Yes I enjoyed blue hair, marginally less than the time when my head faintly resembled the inside of a purple potato. But, I honestly don’t think that the black lipstick is going to come out of my beaded purse anytime soon.  Nightclubbing, however, is definitely not off the list. Come next year, the next calorie-loaded birthday or the next man with heartache on his wake, I’ll be ready to shimmy again. Meanwhile, let’s just eat already.

Have a happy new year folks!

Crab and Tomato Crostini

Generally sandwiches for breakfast are preferred over crostinis where I’m from. But this one plays off of what we had for our Christmas dinner. I had frozen fish-sticks in my freezer which I’ve used here, but feel free to use fresh or tinned crab meat, which, would probably taste better. Also if you’re using tinned crab, drain off the liquid before cooking.

Slices of French or Italian baguette
1 tbsp unsalted butter + enough to butter both sides of each baguette slice
1 tbsp olive oil + enough to drizzle some extra on the finished crostini
250gm of fresh or tinned crab meat
2 tomatoes, chopped
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1/4 tsp of dried thyme
Salt, to taste
Cracked black pepper, to taste
Tabasco sauce, if you like it hot
Freshly chopped coriander leaves, to garnish

Heat the butter and oil in a non-stick skillet. Add the garlic when the butter melts. Stir till it starts turning colour. Add the tomatoes, crab meat, Worcestershire sauce and thyme. Stir well and cook over medium heat for 4-5 minutes. Add salt to taste. Keep aside to cool.

Heat a griddle pan. Butter both sides of each baguette slice. When the griddle pan is hot enough, plop the pieces on the pan. Each side would need about a minute or minute and half to brown up at the edges. There is no need to continuously flip the slices. Flipping them once is enough. Transfer on to a plate.

Top the slices with the crab mixture. Sprinkle cracked black pepper on top. Drizzle with a few drops of Tabasco sauce and a generous doze of olive oil. Serve with a garnish of chopped coriander leaves.

]]> http://thesubjectivist.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/blue-hair-black-lipstick-crab-crostini-and-lots-of-dancing/feed/ 3 Amrita Blue hair, black lipstick and lots of dancing crab and tomato crostinis