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Few snacks are as wholly satisfying as guac and tortilla chips.

For tortillas:
4 tortillas (pick your favourite)
2-3 tsp cooking oil (your favourite)

Procedure:
Stack the tortillas and coat one side of each with a little oil. Cut them into sections using a pizza cutter. Lay the pieces on a baking tray and bake them in an oven at 375 degrees for 10 minutes. Flip them over halfway through and check that they are not getting burnt. Repeat if necessary. Healthy tortilla chips.

For guacamole:
4 avocados, peeled, cored and roughly chopped
1 tomato diced
1 onion finely chopped
juice of one lemon (optional)
1 tsp mexican hot sauce
salt to taste

Method:
Add all ingredients in a mixing bowl….squoosh to the desired consistency. There you go!

I don’t even remember the time when I started dreaming about a good kitchen knife. I recently bought a set of four knives with a knife block, but the past several days, I have been drooling over the idea of owning a santoku knife. I checked out a couple of them in the stores and the price range was very broad. I have never used one before, so I wanted to try out a moderately priced one to see if I really like it, before investing in a more expensive one.



I bought one this evening, and loved using it for the first time. I think one of my favourite parts is how you can scoop up cut veggies into your hand using the knife.

This is a real comfort food recipe and a very easy one to make. I tried looking for the provenance of the recipe, but was not really able to find anything concrete. Drop me a line if you know about its origins. This dish is usually cooked with ground beef, but we decided to use ground chicken instead.

Ingredients:
1 store bought pack of ground chicken
1 store bought pie crust
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 large onion
2 tsp freshly ground cumin powder
3/4 cup fresh corn
1 red bell pepper diced
1 cup tomato sauce (puree)
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tbsp cooking oil
1 tsp hot sauce
salt to taste

Procedure:
Heat oil in a pan, and add the chopped onions and garlic. Saute till the onions are translucent. Add the cumin powder and sauté for a minute. Add the ground chicken and keep stirring till the minced chicken is white. Continue to stir making sure there are no lumps. Add the diced bell pepper, corn and tomato sauce and stir well till the tomato sauce is well soaked into the mixture. Add the hot sauce and cook for a minute.

Carefully arrange the pie crust in a baking tray/vessel. Pour the mixture on to the crust. Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes. Top with the shredded sharp cheddar and bake for 10 more minutes.

This is an improvisation on a brilliant mango ice-cream recipe that we have tried and loved. With a cool improvisation, it turns into an awesome kulfi recipe.

Ingredients:

1 can condensed milk
1 and a half cans evaporated milk
1 box cool whip
half cup almonds, pistachios and cashews
1 tsp ground cardamoms

Grind the dry-fruits in a food processor into a fine consistency. Mix all ingredients together along with the ground dryfruits in a large vessel till they form a thick smooth paste. Make sure there are no lumps. Freeze for at least 8 hours. Garnish with raisins.

PS: For the original mango ice-cream recipe, replace the evaporated milk with a tin of mango pulp (aamras), and avoid the dryfruits. I promise, it is the best mango ice-cream I have ever eaten.

Vichyssoise soup is a thick vegetable based soup that is very often served cold.  There is some debate about whether this soup is a French or an American creation. This soup can be served both  hot and cold, but I wanted to cook it because I had never tried a cold soup before. The following is the recipe:

सामग्री (serves 5)

1 leek

1 bunch scallions

1 large zuccini

1 red potato

1/4 head cabbage

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

2 tsp sugar

salt to taste

1/2 cup whole milk (I used this instead of heavy cream)

2 and a half cups water (or chicken broth)

1/2 stick butter

1 tbsp cooking oil (use your favourite)

विधि

Roughly chop all the vegetables and keep aside. In a large saucepan, add the butter, oil and ground nutmeg. Let the butter melt. Add all the chopped vegetables, salt and sugar and stir till the vegetables start to cook. Add the milk and water and bring to boil. Reduce the flame to medium and simmer covered for 20 minutes.

Remove the pan from the flame. Use a hand-blender to blend the contents of the pan to form a think soup like consistency. If you don’t have a hand blender, use a tabletop blender or food processor. Fill only up to 1/3 the capacity of the blender at a time. Refrigerate the soup for at-least four hours.

Before serving, check seasoning, and stir in some heavy cream if you like (or not, if you are afraid of the calorie mafia. you can also substitute heavy cream by whole milk). Garnish with freshly chopped parsley. Serve with toasted baguette.

Yes, that is right. Beer can be, and is used in a lot of dishes. If you think that is strange, read this. Apart from what you will read on that page, let me tell you that beer adds a very distinct flavor to your food that is unlike anything you might have tasted before.

We will call this particular recipe squash and tofu in thai(?) peanut sauce and serve it on top of egg noodles.

Ingredients (serves 2)

1. 2 nests egg noodles
2. 4 medium sized yellow squash
3. 1 cup diced tofu (preferably tofu patties that you get in the Asian store)
4. 2/3 cup bitter-ish lager
5. 5-6 cloves garlic
6. 1 large onion
7. 1/2 cup peanut butter
8. 1 can coconut milk
9. 1 tsp fish sauce
10. 1/2 tsp chili garlic paste
11. 1 and half tsp curry powder
12. 1 lemon
13. salt to taste

• One thing I learned about cooking tofu is that you must marinate tofu in advance if you want it to soak all the flavors. Mix 1/3 cup beer (we used bitterish lager) with the juice of 1 lemon, crushed garlic from about 3-4 cloves, 1 tbsp sugar and 1 tsp of curry powder (important ingredient!). Marinate diced yellow squash and diced tofu in this mixture for 2 hours or more in the refrigerator. Preserve this marinate for later use. Do not discard.

• In a pan, add finely chopped onions, and saute till they are translucent. Add crushed garlic from 1-2 cloves and saute for a minute. Add 1/2 tsp of curry powder and saute for a couple of more minutes.

• In a large bowl, mix a can of coconut milk, 1 tbsp sugar, 1 tbsp lemon juice, 1/3 cup beer, 1/2 cup peanut butter, and 1 tsp fish sauce (you can find this at your nearby Asian store. substitute by soy sauce if you can’t find it). Add the leftover marinate.

• Add this mixture to the pan with onions. Add salt to taste, and 1/2 tsp chili garlic paste. Add the marinated tofu and squash. Cook till the gravy attains the desired consistency. Serve on top of egg noodles.

Do you remember this scene from Julie and Julia? After watching it, I felt that poaching an egg requires some kind of black magic, and that it is extremely difficult for you to poach an egg without an egg poacher. I checked out a book by Jamie Oliver, and his advice was similar to that of Julia Child (as in the video). A google search gives you a tonne of conflicting advise. Finally, I found a way that has always worked for me:

• Take lots of water in a saucepan and bring it to a light boil. Add a teaspoon of salt, and a teaspoon of the secret ingredient: vinegar. Vinegar helps the egg white to cook as soon as the egg is dropped into the water. This is what helps you avoid the disastrous “scrambled egg soup”.

• Now reduce the flame a little so that the water is not boiling hard. When the water is relatively calm, use a spoon to twirl the water in the pan so as to create a mini-whirlpool.

• Gently crack an egg, taking care not to break the yolk; and drop it into the center of the whirlpool. Drop the egg from close to the surface of the water.

• That’s it. Waiting and watching: the only two things you need to do. No need to push the egg-white around. You will notice that the egg starts to cook immediately as it falls into the water, and it starts to congeal around the yolk. Cooking time varies between 90 seconds to three minutes depending on how well done you want it to be.

• Use a slotted spoon to gently scoop the cooked egg from the pan. Serve it on some good toasted bread (for those in Baltimore, try the raisin pumpernickel from Atwaters)

As a graduate Indian student in the US, my weekend meals are a not a deterministic phenomenon. Cooking turns on weekdays are a regular thing on the schedule, but one meal I always enjoy, and hence look forward to, is the Sunday morning breakfast/brunch (depending on the time of waking up). Moreover, the whole act of cooking together in the morning is an entertaining prospect in itself.

We are big fans of cooking eggs for breakfast. And why not? The number of really good breakfast dishes you can make with eggs, and other commonly available ingredients is just plain delightful. I think half the fun in cooking eggs is sometimes not knowing till the end, how it is going to turn out. I revel in the suspense of whether this is going to turn out to be an omelette or part-scrambled.

The uncertainty at all times is due to the unpredictable nature of some of the frying pans we use.A good quality frying pan always lets you cleanly slide your cooked eggs on to the plate. I just love it when that happens. But if your frying pan is old, then it may be a bit of an effort taking the eggs off the pan, and you may not get everything in one piece.

Anyway, enough said about the dynamics of eggs and pans. Lets cook breakfast for two.First up, the eggs. You will need six eggs (6 whites and 3 yolks for those who are inclined). Add some salt and black pepper powder and beat them up till they are real nice and fluffy. Add a little milk if you wish.

Next, take a couple of button mushrooms. Chop them up into bite size pieces.

Fire up your frying pan now, and add some extra virgin olive oil (any cooking oil in your kitchen will do). Throw in the mushrooms and sauté till they are slightly brown.Remember that mushrooms cook really quickly; so you don’t want to overcook them. Add a teaspoon of ginger and garlic paste, and continue to sauté.

Add some chopped spinach to the pan, if you have any, and continue to sauté till the spinach seems to be cooked (this does not take more than a few minutes). She taught me to do the following: use a pair of ordinary kitchen scissors to chop the spinach right over the pan for small quantities. It is quick, easy and clean.

After doing this for a couple of minutes, add the eggs to the pan. Hold the handle of the pan and shake it a little so that the veggies and the eggs are spread evenly and form a uniform coat.

Let it cook for a minute or so, and then add a few pieces of mozzarella cheese into the pan. Any kind of cheese that mixes/melts easily will do. We like trying out different varieties of cheese. The last time it was goat cheese. The mexican three cheese blend that you get in the grocery store is also great for adding to eggs.

Now reduce the heat to low flame, cover the pan and let it cook for a couple of minutes till the eggs are a lot less runny. You still want to keep them a bit runny in the end – don’t overcook.

In the meantime, lets make some smoothie. Nothing better than something healthy to drink along with your eggs. Take some oatmeal in a bowl, add double the quantity of water, and cook it in the microwave for 3 minutes. Take a blender, add the cooked oatmeal, a bunch of blueberries (any berries of your choice will work),a banana cut into pieces, and a generous quantity of yoghurt.Blend for a couple of seconds.

Then add some milk and some maple syrup to taste (honey works just as well). Continue to blend till you get a smooth consistency. Pour into glasses. Meanwhile, keep checking on the eggs once in a while.

We like them when they are still a wee bit runny. Lob off a piece of butter on top of your omelette and let it melt. Use a table knife (or wooden spatula) to cut it into slices while still in the pan.

Finally, toast a few slices of some really good bread from your local bakery. For those in Baltimore, she highly recommends (and I endorse) the sunflower flaxseed bread from Atwaters. Enjoy your meal!

I love food, and I love cooking for pleasure. I am always on the lookout for easy to do recipes that I can try on weekends. Nowadays, if I don’t try cooking something new on a weekend, I feel a little disappointed; especially after I got a new microwave oven.
Microwave ovens are real cool things. They make cooking nice and fun, and owning one opens you to a completely new vista of dishes that you normally cannot do without one. Only last week I tried baking a couple of pizzas, and it came out pretty good for a first time. I could never try out things like pizzas and muffins without an oven. Besides being able to bake, you can really speed up your cooking when you microwave.
Now today is a typical sunday. I wake up and find that there is nothing for breakfast. Typical opportunity to notch up something nice. So, I decided to make a grilled sandwich variation today for breakfast.
Now there are some things that you must always have at home if you want to avoid the irritation of actually going down to the grocery shop when you want to cook something: potatoes, tomatoes, and onions are an absolute must. Even if you are not trying to do something fancy, these things are required almost everyday at home. Since I wanted to make sandwiches, I wanted bread, butter, cheese and capsicums. Thankfully my brother got these things for me while I did my initial chopping and frying. This is when I realized that one should always have butter and cheese at home (atleast I should).

I wanted sprouted moong dal, but there was no time for that. I checked my fridge and I luckily found boiled potatoes. Good. You always need some good binding agent when making sandwich. So, I peeled the potatoes, mashed them and put them in a wok. Added a dash of salt, red chilly powder, and a little oil. Then I fried this mixture for a while cos I don’t like the raw smell of boiled potatoes.
I chopped the tomatoes, onions, and capsicum into small equal sized pieces. Added a dash of salt and pepper and microwaved them for 1 minute at 100% power. (Boy I really like the smell of those crisp capsicums when they are very slightly cooked.)
Next I applied some butter on a bread slice and spread some of my boiled potato mixture on it. Topped this with some of my tomato, capsicum, and onion mixture and sprinkled some grated cheese on it. Note that this is an open sandwich, in the sense that it is only a single slice of bread without one on the top of my stuffing (?) mixture.
Now this was ready to be grilled for about 10 minutes (or till the cheese melts). Boy, when the 10 minutes were over, and when I opened the door to the oven, I was greeted by an inviting smell of crispy capsicums and melted cheese. It turned out pretty good….crispy bread with a nice topping of veggies bound by the layer of mashed potatoes, topped by melted cheese.
Served with some ketchup and accompanied by some coke….a perfect start to a nice Sunday.