Nov 28, 2010

Oven-dried Tomatoes

 

The other day I was blog-hopping and bumped into this post by PurpleFoodie. Having always loved the taste of sun-dried tomatoes, I immediately tried this on half-a dozen tomatoes that I had in the fridge, and lo.. they were ready – my own first batch of oven-dried tomatoes.

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They tasted awesome, and yes, this was what was left by the time I got around to photograph them. That is a testimony of how good they were! :) I haven’t used them in a pasta or a pizza yet, but I plan to make another batch soon and use them for that purpose.

The only deterrent, if at all, that can stop me from making these would be the time. It takes atleast 2-3 hrs of prep time, and 2 hrs of electricity and oven running. For all that effort, it seems like a little return :)

Nov 26, 2010

Tomato Pasta Cheese Bake

 

Readers to this blog, by now would have known my love for anything which would be remotely related to pasta, right? :)

So one evening, I was wondering what to eat, and as usual my mind suggested I make pasta. But having had pasta for the major part of the week, I knew the husband would crib if I fed him the same thing again. Some googling and some imagination led me to this recipe, and I immediately tried it.

And as usual, the husband told me that it was the best pasta I ever baked! :) (He does that for every new pasta recipe I make, always the same words! :))

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Ingredients:

1 5’x5’ baking pan. I used a Borosil glass one
4 tomatoes, cut into quarter pieces
4 tbsp Olive oil
1 tbsp each of Oregano, Sage and Basil dried herbs
1 tbsp chilli flakes
Sea salt – To taste
1 cup boiled and made pasta. I used whole-wheat penne and fusilli.
Britannia Masala Mania cheese cube – 1, cut into pieces
2 tbsp shredded mozzarella cheese
Crumbs out of 1 wheat bread slice

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200C
2. Place the quarter-cut tomatoes in the baking pan, sprinkle the herbs , chilli flakes and sea salt on the tomatoes. Drizzle this with the olive oil and bake for about 15-20 mins, or till the tomatoes are cooked, and are mashable
3. Once baked/cooked, mash the tomatoes into a sauce-like paste, with a spoon.
4. Mix the crumbs and the shredded mozzarella into this paste. This would thicken the sauce, if its too watery.
5. Add the cooked pasta into this paste, mix well.
6. Top this with the Britannia cheese pieces. Alternatively you can use cheddar also, but I love the flavours in this cheese, though its processed.
7. Bake for 10 mins, or till the cheese pieces turn into a golden brown. They are a serious treat! :)
8. Enjoy this pasta as it is or with a slice of warm bread.

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The above pic is from the second time, when I used some zucchinis(I cooked them in olive oil and some herbs separately, and added after I mashed the tomatoes) and whole-wheat penne. I loved this version also equally. I even stored it to eat it as breakfast the next day, and it tasted better the next day.

Nov 24, 2010

Winey tales & Winemaking – Day 1


I tasted my first ever home-made wine when I was exactly 18 yrs old. :) It was when my married-cousin(the word married is important here. In our family, girls are allowed to do anything they want only after they are married:) ) decided that I was old enough to have wine, that she shared the wine she made with me, and I, in turn, shared it with my 15-yr old brother. We’d drink it chup-chup-ke coz alcohol and daaru-talk was strictly prohibited in our house and that is how we finished the whole bottle Akka shared with me. But then, Mom always knew we were drinking it, and she surprisingly didn't have a problem with it, may be because she thought that since it was home-made, it wouldn’t be alcoholic or something. Back then, I didn’t know what getting high meant, but looking back now, I am almost sure that did give us a little high. It was either the alcohol in the wine or the sugar-high, but it sure did feel good. Yeah… I started young :P

The next time I drank wine was around 10 yrs later, I fell in love with it. It was the sweet port wine that S got from Goa, and that became my sole reason to visit Goa henceforth. It was the one thing I asked people to get me from Goa, and the only thing I carried every time I visited that place. After this interest in wine, I tried the wines made by the Nasik wine yards, but never quite liked the taste of any of them. All of them were too sweet and acidic to my taste, and I stuck to my port wine, till Sangria happened! :)

The first-ever time I tasted this nectar was in Hong Kong, in one of the organic cafes of Sohos, and that was it! I got hooked. Seeing my excitement every time the word Sangria was uttered, the husband took it upon himself to make Sangria for me at home, and with practice he grew great at it. He also could not get the taste of the Sangria we first had, but nevertheless, it was the best I had in all of Hyd. The juices he mixes to the wines, and the powders to add spice, make it unique and tasty every time he makes it, and this became the preferred way to have wine in our house, for us both and for the guests we entertain.
After that initial escapade with home-made-wine, the thought didnt even cross my head for years. Only when S told me that his aunt was a master-wine-maker, and that she used to supply the whole family with bottles and bottles of her-much-famed-wine, did the thought of making my own wine strike me. On one of the family outings, I asked the dear lady how she did it, and if she would be kind enough to teach me how to make it. She agreed almost immediately, and that got the whole family excited! (Yeah, even I didn’t know we were a family of Bewdas :P ) This talk happened in June 2010, when she was about to leave to the US, and since it wasn’t the right season for grapes, we decided to postpone the grand activity till Dec, when she returns and when the grapes are sweet.

Its almost December now, and she will be coming back soon. As much as I am excited to try it with her, the little imp in me wanted to try her own version of wine. The visit to the farmer’s market yielded in a good purchase of grapes, the time seemed right and hence this attempt.
I was clear on a couple of things before I started to make my wine -

1. I was not going to make the simple recipe that Akka used to make wine with. Hers was to add 1 kg of grapes with 1 kg of sugar and one packet of yeast. And keep it in a plastic bucket for a week, and then sieve it and bottle it. Simple it did sound, but the taste would still be that of grape juice which is not what I wanted.

2. S is allergic to the sulphites in the wine. We discovered this after he fell sick every single time we had wine during our stay in Hong Kong, and with a little research and experimentation, we discovered it had to do with the wine. Hence, I was certain that I was not going to use the sulphite tablets in my wine.
3. All the recipes I read online for wine-making had yeast in it. Now, I wasn’t sure where to get wine yeast in Hyd, and didn’t have the patience to wait till I get it. Since mine is not on an enterprise level, I wanted a recipe which did not use any yeast, and I got this one, which I followed.
I mashed the 1/2 kg grapes with my hands, and removed the seeds as much as I could and filled the juice and pulp into the two broad-mouthed-bottles I had cleaned earlier.
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Fingers-crossed with anticipation, I am going to wait for the juice and pulp to ferment for the 7 days. The next step is to remove the mold, dilute the juice with two parts of distilled water, and add sugar. It would ferment more later. All this fermentation would happen with the yeast and bacteria present in the grapes alone, with nothing external. I love the fact that this would be almost-natural.

Once I see that this step is crossed without any hitches, am gonna get more grapes and start a second batch.
God, please let this experiment passs, and most of all, please give us the restraint to not drink it before its completely done. That is for the next couple of months! Sigh! :)

Nov 23, 2010

Guava Kebab

 

Growing up, guava is the least favourite of all the fruits in our house. We all knew that it was good for health and all, but the seedy and hard texture of the fruit,and its near-neutral taste have been huge turn-offs forever. The only variety that was given any interest was the one with pink center, but that too was for the looks and never the taste. As I grew up, and read up on the nutrients in this fruit, I kept on thinking on how to include it in the diet atleast once in a week, and this dish came as a total pleasant-life-saver-surprise for that need.

The other day, I was lunching at the Great Indian Kebab Factory with my team. It was the lunch buffet, and that was when I tasted this dish. It was called fruit chat, and he served Pineapple and Guava grilled in some masala. It wasn’t the first time I was eating pineapple as a savoury (I’ve always loved the smoked pineapple panna at Sahib Sindh Sultan and the pineapple-vodka pizza in Little Italy) but eating a savoury version of guava was a total bumper. And my, did I love it. I asked for a second, third and a fourth helping of the guava pieces, and even licked my fingers as I finished it. I loved it so much that the taste stuck to my tongue, and my mind started wondering how exactly it was made.

This evening, fresh from my outing at the farmer’s market, I had a couple of good guavas at hand, and lots of time to try something new too. Giving some reins to the imagination, I quickly made a marinade of whatever nice and spicy was at hand, and cut the guava into pieces, and grilled it. The result was a lip-smacking kebab, which though didnt taste like the one I ate at the TGIKF, but was good to be served as a starter when friends come over.

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Ingredients:

1 measure cumin powder
1 measure coriander powder
1/2 measure dry ginger powder
1/2 measure chilli powder
Sea salt – to taste
Orange juice – just enough to make a paste out of the above ingredients
1 guava – cut to 1 inch pieces

Method:
1. Pre-heat the over to 215C
2. Mix all the above ingredients except guava into a thick paste.
3. Put the guava pieces into the paste, and roll it, so that the paste coats the piece. You can also marinate the guava in the paste for 2-3 hrs.
4. In a baking tray , bake these pieces at 200C for 15 mins.
5. Let it cool for a minute or two, and dig in ! :)

Variations:
You can also add ginger-garlic paste, green-chilli-coriander paste also to the marinate , but in my opinion, the paste should be tangy in taste. Only then the chatpata-flavor of the kebab will burst in your mouth as you eat it.