Presto Pasta – in Creamy Mustard Sauce

Sometimes I go through the phases in which get hooked on something and have to eat it day in and out, more often than not a visit to Café Leopold does that to me…then for days I crave for the rich creamy taste – but then I cant have the creamy sauces for the sake of my ever-growing waist, so it’s a double whammy! To make something at home, I searched and searched and then adapted a recipe from Heart and Hearth to suit my Bengali sensibilities.

The Pasta – in Creamy Mustard Sauce


1 pack pasta around 300 gms (Macaroni, Fuseli, whole wheat...just any pasta u fancy) cooked al-dente

1.5 cup milk

2 tbsp English mustard sauce

1 packet button mushrooms, chopped

½ broccolis (for that green velvety colour and crunch)

2 stalk green onion, coarsely chopped

Salt and white pepper to taste

1 tbsp Cheddar (or any sharp cheese as a topping)

1 tbsp coarsely chopped parsley (as a garnish)

Method

1. Thaw broccoli, then stir fry the mushrooms and broccoli in a cooking pan until slightly browned and cooked yet crunchy.

2. Sauté the green onion until softened. Add in half of the stir fried button mushrooms. Turn off the heat and add the milk and sauce is thick and bubbly. Mix the Cheese till it melts.

3. Sprinkle salt and white pepper as per your liking

4. Serve hot and sprinkle the chopped parsley on top.

The pasta sauce is tangy and bursting with flavors of mushroom and fresh parsley. The original recipe calls for bacon bits on top – so if you want add fried bits of meat/seafood on top for added flavor. Being a vegetarian, I omitted that part. For Xtra zing you can add more of the mustard sauce!

An evening at Colaba :: Café Leopold :: Mumbai

When it comes to picking one place out of the hoards we have in Mumbai, I can think of only one – Café Leopold. warm, buzzin, welcoming, forever crowded and always celebratory….Ahh..the foods’ delicious too…Though I don’t like too many variations with my beer, crisp toasted peanuts, fried baby corn and french fries would be my regulars (yeah I’m so boring at times!), somehow a wide selection and happy faces compel me to order for a variant here. Whenever we visit Leopold we order for a pitcher , the regular accompaniments’, the chef’s special and wait for magic to happen on our table . This time we ordered for fried eggs, stir fried veggies with extra broccoli and cheese (yumm!), pasta carbonara and dinner rolls. Once the food arrives there is always competition to eat – which makes me a super failure at taking food pics, will the empty dishes do any good?...

The penalty we pay for visiting Cafe Leopold is having to endure an insanely full tummy, and a velvety creamy pasta taste stuck the lips – if you too like us favour pasta over the rest .

Meal for two with beer : 700

India's first Ice bar :: 21 Fahrenheit :: Mumbai

India's first Ice bar :: 21 Fahrenheit :: Mumbai

Visiting an all ice bar was had its own charm for my 20 something brother. We were looking for an apt place to celebrate my husband’s new job – in a new city, and the place had to match our spirits. With that intent the 21 Fahrenheit was voted for. Needless to add – my brother was super excited.

A first of its kind in the country, the place boasted of an all ice bar at -6degree C , with special winter coats , gloves and boots for the pubbers. Along with the ice bar – which was a bit of a put off in January we opted for the pan Asian open kitchen restaurant and the food did not disappoint us. Albeit steeply priced and lesser than the usual portion size (which indeed was a dampener), the food was cooked to perfection.

The complimentary appetizer was a treat to the eyes. The bite size assorted fries were teeny morsels, much too less to whet the appetite of three hungry Diners, nevertheless it was fun to nibble on the free food. We ordered the Teppanyaki grilled vegetable which was served with a choice of delectable sauces, the sweet n sour peanut dip being the best, the dish was indeed one of the finest accompaniment to the Chilled beer and frozen Margarita.

Devoid of music and steeping prices prompted us to leave a bit sooner than expected! All I can say – that the place is good for one time experience and have a swig or two, would not recommend it for a full fledged dining experience.

Dinner for two with one drink: 1700

A journey into the heart of Chandni Chowk :: Parathewali Gali :: New Delhi

A visit to the Chandni Chowk is must to feel the pulse of Delhi , Walking through its narrow arteries on a summery Saturday noon – and you sense that siesta is the last thing on the minds of the busy traders. You stop here, you gaze at the goodies, and you give a stunned stare, hardly any onlookers. Perhaps most people have on the 'end of the day moolah earned blinders' and don't have that kind of time to bother. Perhaps Darwin’s theory of adaptation is at work here – where people become accustomed to being crowded by people, all over, all day. All said and done—its fun. A different experience.

We went there to participate in a friends wedding trousseau shopping, and the reward for all that hard work was of course food. Naturally, the last stop to our Chandni chowk sojourn had to be parathe wali gali. So much has already been written and talked about the ubiquitous parathas, and I can hardly do justice to the paeans. All I can say is the parathas are no-where near to the regular ones we are used to having. It’s a savoury sin, deep fried roundels of well rolled out kneaded flour , stuffed with your choice of stuffing. And Voila! What a choice they offer – from dry fruit stuffing the bitter karela they have it all. The serve the parathas with one curried vegetable and one dry vegetable, plus a sweet chutney. In case you can stomach more—order for a sweet lassi from the shop next door. The waiters will happily oblige you with lassi at your table. That day we ordered – matar + methi + paneer +alu + gobhi parathas all served with unlimited serving of the veggies, and for sweets we pre-purchased the famous Jalebi. What more can one ask for. We just digged in!

The Parathas were cooked right in front of us – the cooks displayed an amazing cookery feat which involved a combination of swiftness, care, clout, innovation, sincerity and many other things that we totally undermine when it comes to an age-old job of just cooking and serving …and we all agree, its much more than that.

Meal for two : 150 Rs

An evening at YOKO :: Mumbai

Back after a long haul. Agree that I love cooking, a hundred times more than gorging on what is served to me without moving a limb. Perhaps, I’m a behind the scene person… nevertheless a recent visit to Yoko in Mumbai left me asking for more! more of their delectable food. Our order was the usual: Steak Sizzler with Mushroom, cream and cheese, one noodle sizzler, a side of baked bean on bread, egg club sandwich, all washed down by refreshingly cold ice tea. It was just another day of eating out and we weren’t expecting something unusual , BUT it turned out to be olfactory treat, our gastronomic indulgence began the moment the food was laid before us. The ‘sizzle’ beckoned us to taste food; the uprising smoke almost fired up the anticipation…and then we slowed ourselves down to appreciate the charred aroma of the juicy steak, veiled by crisp fries and sautéed spinach and so much more.

The smokey environment was initially a bit of put off, especially emanating from a non-smoking non drinking family restaurant, however no-one was complaining. From the moment you sit down to place your order – the smelling taste is put to action. Food aside, the beverage section is sparsely populated with choices, although full justice has been done to the listings. This is one of the few restaurants where the peach Ice tea smells and tastes of real Peaches.

Dessert – we could not make it to that far …just order the main course, and I promise that you'll be richly rewarded - just like we were.

Approx price for meal for two - 700.

No Bake Chocolate Pie

Every once in a while we all face scenarios wherein we have to cater to guests which puts our patience and skill of cooking to test. So it goes, yesterday it was mine and hubby’s turn. We thought of individually catering to the tastes of 6 different guests, and all of them with own dietary needs and requests, and an uneven age group ranging from four to forty!

Initially it felt more like the doing the 'science of maths' than the 'art of cooking'-> taking headcount, scribbling down the menu and the process involved tedious arithmetic of adding and subtracting, buying ingredients after taking the existing stock into account and finally getting down to business of cooking -> multiplying the recipes meant for two to cater eight! Who says cooking is a dumb housewives job! My mind is still droned in all these numbers. However, the numbers cant surely take into account the sounds of laughter orchestrated with the tinkling of glasses which filled our house yesterday , the fussy four year old’s enchantment with ‘gems’ on her dessert and the happy burp of the filed tummy. Feels incredible! So I gather, its art after all.

Yesterday we tried tons of new recipes, and some were truly a HIT and surprisingly they took so little time to make, here is one of my personal favourites adapted from Aayis Recipe.

No bake Chocolate Pie

With guest list which comprises of anyone under 5: chocolate is a must , or so my instincts told me and the smile on my little guests face confirmed my doubts.

So here is the easy no bake choclate pie recipe, which is sure to bring a smile on your little ones face too.

Ingredients:
3 packs of Parle G (or any glucose biscuit)
2 heaped tbsp cocoa powder (sugarless)
½ cup chocolate chips (optional)
1 tsp instant coffee
1 cup fresh cream
1/2 cup warm milk
1 cup granulated sugar
Sugar dust/Gems for sprinkling on top

Method:
If you are using glucose biscuit, try and fetch a rectangular or square large bottomed pie vessel to keep up with the shape of the biscuit. Line the pie dish with 2 layers of biscuits and soak them with 1/4 cup milk.

In a separate bowl, mix sugar, chocolate chips vanilla and cream. Mix slowly to get a uniform mixture. Add sugar as per your taste. Drizzle this mixture on the soaked biscuits. Top it with a biscuit line up again. Repeat the process.

Serve chilled, not frozen. .

Eating in Vs Eating out: Easy Vegetarian Soup

Eating out is more of hobby for most people these days, and then after relentless pursuing of this hobby for years it becomes a habit. I used to belong to one of these ‘eating out bandwagons’ till I almost caved in to the agony of bad taste and started cooking. I have had months when I would eat out at least 25 days, its Grosse, unhealthy, and ridiculously expensive…not that I have actually spent my whole bank balance on those eat out sessions – it used to be mostly apples, fresh juice , lassi, fruit platter from the juice corner and a vegetarian sandwich from the deli counter…but now as I look back, I know that I’m really sick of the salad sandwich at the deli section, salad (in my sandwich) meant roundels of raw cucumber, onion and tomato, sprinkled with some salt and oregano spice, trapped between two innocuous slices of brown bread. Trust me, if was like swallowing torture, by the time I would finish the slices would have gotten damp and the vegetables limp. The cheese grilled was no better either; it used to be nice when hot but then again, If I were to be a few minutes late, chewing would be a struggle. It got so Cheeeewy that even my molars hurt. Not to mention, the effect it had on my waistline. My jeans’ refused to hold my belly and butt together and if did force them to obey me, ‘POP’ would go my buttons! So I knew I had to stop.

So, yeah, I've been making a lot of soups lately – best part is you slurp on it as a warm starter and freeze the leftover(if any!), and later use it to add flavour and nutrition to curried dishes for an elaborate meal. It's easy to portion out.

Today I used Bottle gourd. For me everyday it’s a different vegetable for a different flavour, but I used bottle gourd all the more due to its health benefits , which I came to know courtesy Baba Ramdev and his sermons regarding Lauki. Cooking becomes all the more better if it promises to add that extra dash of vitality to your and your family’s health. Isn’t it?

What I used:

Ingredients:

1 small bottle gourd (lauki) or 2 large cups chopped in large chunks.

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp ginger and 1 tsp garlic (freshly pounded or roughly chopped)

1 onion

2 tomatoes

Salt and green chillies to taste

2 tsp corn flour mixed in cold water

For garnishing: 1 onion fried, ½ cup roasted croutons and freshly chopped coriander leaves

Fill the pressure pan with a beer mug's worth of bottle gourd, 1 onion, tomato, green chillies, ginger, garlic into with 2 cups of water, cook until soft and mushy approx 4 whistles.

Cool and grind the above mixer along with all masalas and salt in the mixer. Now strain to remove all big seeds and ginger juliennes. Oh, don't run the blender for more than a minute.

Fry the onions till pink and add the above. Whisk the corn flour in water till its lump free and add to the boiling lauki soup, to thicken it. Stirring continuously. Remove from fire once you are happy with the consistency of the soup.

Pour in individual bowls and garnish with croutons and coriander. Serve piping hot! With a dollop of butter on top (if you pleaseJ).

Freeze the rest of the untarnished soup, and add it to thicken and spike your curries.