It was like love at first bite, the minute I bit into my plate of Moussaka in this Mediterranean restaurant in Hyderabad, the taste imprinting itself on my mind, and refusing to let me be till I try it out myself. Traditionally made with minced meat, lamb or beef, this is a classic Greek dish served as main course along with some crusty bread.
I, of course, decided to try a vegetarian version of this, even replacing the feta cheese and eliminating the egg from the bechamel sauce.
Oooh. I am drooling as I am typing this. Yes. Really. ;-)
So what does one do when one’s house is full of sweet smelling , very expensive Alphonsoes, and when the said one is the only person in the household to enjoy them? Well, that person will resort to extreme measures as freezing the fruit, though one has always believed that eating the mangoes fresh is the best way to eat them.
Our Sunday evening routine is simple. I ask the husband what he wants to eat, knowing fully well that the answer doesn’t change. Its always Lemon Rice and Curd Rice, both exactly the same way he likes to eat. If he is feeling magnanimous , he sometimes asks me to make my Huliogare, but that is a very rare case. So imagine how I must’ve grinned when he asked me to make anything I liked, but added the condition that he was in a mood for some rice. Oh yeah, rice it will be, I thought to myself as I grinned the evil grin, and went on to make this Risotto.
Technically, this is rice. And it has all the South Indian flavours too, the slight sweet and tart taste of the raw mangoes, the flavour of the bell peppers and enough spice to please a South Indian. So, I indeed cooked rice. ;-)
