THE FOOD WILL MEND YOUR HEART...........

Its gloomy, its rainning  and its evening half past 5 and way too dark for this hour of the day. Well, its Saturday 9th July 2011 and its been 39 days i am back from Melbourne, back to Mumbai, India, my own home country. Have "Come back for good" sounds preety good  but doesn't really feels that good. I am back now, writing my blog after a good long break of six months. My last blog was on December, for Christmas and i was really excited to write another new blog after the christmas, unfortunately couldn't write.

Life is way too complicated and unpredictable as we think it to be. Life changes in a blink of  an eye. When bad luck strikes and your about to face a very bad time in life you start doing blunders and make such mistakes which confronts you to your bad luck. I took the decision of coming back which was sounding very rational to me, despite of all my friends telling me that its avery wrong decision. But when bad luck strikes you tend to make all rash and wrong decisions. I had my own reasons to leave Australia, reasons like visa and the changing situations of international students. I found it useless to stay back, thinking that i am wasting time and money. I had no idea that i will miss my life and the friends i made in Melbourne. I was happy just like a child. I just couldn't figure out the consequences.

I came back , but during my journey from Melbourne to Mumbai i started realising that what have i left behind. I left behind my heart, i left behind a house that i made my home with love, care and dedication, left behind all the memories lived in that house in that city. I have seen my good and my bad days in Melbourne. I studied hard and worked much more harder to achieve my dreams. Went out of my way to do hard work at my work place just so that one day i aquire my dreams.

I reached Mumbai but there were still hopes for me, hopes for me to see the same dreams which i left behind in Melbourne. I wanted to work it out, But it was only posible with help of some people whom i completelty trusted. But all of a sudden my dreams came tumbling out of my eyes with my tears. All of a sudden the truth was revealing and people started betraying. I could see sudden changes in people which was really not expected. Suddenly all doors of hopes were closing for me, people started turning there back on me. I also started feeling that even the most safest place in this world "HOME" was giving me a sense of insecurity. Time changes everything, its been three years i lived in Australia so, a lot of things changed for me, people had already priortised things in their lives in India. I never realised but dont know when i started getting the sense of belonging towards Australia. A house or a place makes you feel good only when there are people around whom you care and they care for you too.

There were reasons for me to feel so strong about Melbourne, reasons apart from my work and my career or friends............HUH...................I think I wrote quite a lot, wrote things which was just  not important to be shared in my blog. But my blog is very important to me and I can't lie to it. Though I would now like to stop spilling my heart out and show you guys the beautiful part of my life which still is FOOD....lots of food :-) temptation, mouth watering recipes.

So, today it's 15th August afternoon 3:26 p.m Independence Day!!!!! Everybody is enjoying this day as it's a public holiday with a long weekend. I believe that for me the best way to celebrate this day would be by liberating myself from within......breaking free from everything that is holding me back, trying to forget people whose memories are haunting me and not letting me forgive and forget them. I am dealing with my own self and i know i will win, as i always did. I use to say this to someone very dear to me that....Things will only happen to you if U LET THEM HAPPEN TO YOU............whether it is good or bad...........alas!!! I did not follow it. I'd let bad things happen to me, I'd let people hurt me by letting them know that they have the strength to hurt me, I'd let people pass judgements on me and believing that they are right. I can't believe I can't even take a decision of which phone to buy and i am wondering around asking people on facebook, writing status updates "CONFUSED...........WHICH PHONE TO BUY" don't I know what do i really want????? YES!!! i do know. I want to buy Nokia X7 without any second thought as i have always been loyal to Nokia and find it lucky ( call me superstitious) and user friendly. So, now I would like to start believing what i said to my friend and let good things happen to me, and what could be more good than surrendering oneself to Food.......

To start with.......I'll complete my blog today and win your heart with some lip smacking food. Without any further wait, I'll start penning down the recipes. My recipe for today will be a mix of Indian and Western cuisine :-)

STUFFED POMFRET FRY (A KOKAN CUISINE FROM INDIA)

4 (200 gms each)      Pomfrets

1 tsp                         Green chilli paste

2 tsp                         Ginger-garlic paste

1/4 tsp                      Turmeric powder

Salt to taste

2 tbspn                    Lemon juice

Semilina (rava)      Go by the eye ( as per required)

Oil to shallow fry

FOR STUFFING

1 cup                       Coconut scrapped

7-8                           Green chillies chopped

1/2 small bunch      Fresh coriander leaves chopped

2inch                       Ginger roughly chopped

METHOD:

Wash and clean the fish. Make green chilli paste, ginger-garlic paste, turmeric powder, salt and 1 tblspn of lemon juice and apply all over the fish and let marinate for an hour or so. Make slits on both sides of the fish and give a cut on the top to create a pocket for the stuffing. Grind scraped coconut, green chillies, coriander leaves and ginger into a fine chutney. Add the remaining lemon juice and salt to taste and mix well. Stuff some chutney into the pockets of each fish and also apply on all sides of the fish. Heat a flat griddle (tawa). Roll the fish in semolina and place on the griddle. Put little oil to shallow fry and cover and cook for 2-3 mins. Turn the fish and cook on the other side with some more oil till done. Follow the same for all the fish. Serve HOTtttttttttttttttttt!!! It goes very well with Solkadi. Mumbaikars....i am sure you know what i mean by Solkadi. If some one wants the recipe of Solkadi can write to me and I'll pen it down for you. 

   

GARLIC AND ROSEMARY MACKEREL (AN ITALIAN DISH)

1 tblsp           Olive oil

30gm             Butter

2 cloves        Galrlics crushed

4 large         Mackerel cutlets or any cut you like (preferably a fillet)

3 tblsp         Lemon juice

2 tsp            Fresh Rosemary, 1/2 tsp dry rosemary leaves

Freshly ground black pepper, salt to taste ( very little as there is butter added to eat)

Heat oil and butter in a large frying pan and cook garlic for 1 min. Add the fish and cook for about 3-4 mins each side until browned. Pour lemon juice over and sprinkle with rosemary. Season to taste with black peppercorn and salt. Cover and simmer for 5-8 mins or until done.

TIP: please dont leave the beautiful dish alone...........accompany it with a nice glass of Sauvignon blanc or preferably a Chardonnay......Cheers ;-)

MURGI GOTA MOSHLA / CHICKEN COOKED WITH WHOLE SPICES ( A BENGALI DISG FROM INDIA)

1 meduim chicken around 750gms in medium sized pieces

5-6 medium sized onions finely sliced

100gm Ghee

150 gms Dahi/ Curd/ Yogurt

6 large kashmiri chillies

4 Bay leaves

6-7 Cloves

12 Peppercorns

60gm Ginger, finely sliced

60gm garlic finely sliced

BELOW IS OPTIONAL

200gms dahi/ curd

Salt to taste                                               

A pinch saffron soaked in a tbspn of milk

METHOD:

Mix together ina big cooking vessel or kadai, all the ingredients except saffron. Leave to marinate for an hour (overnight would be good enough) turning from time to time. Whe ready for cooking, cover the vessel with tight fitting lid with foil to comletely seal. Place over a very slow fire and cook for 2 hours. Remove from fire, remove foil and uncover the vessel. Stir chicken and taste if done, Cover again and seal it foil and place it in a pre heated oven of 275F to 300F and cook for another half an hour till chicken is tender ( you can do the same in a very low flame if you don't have an oven). Remove from oven, uncover and strir the saffron soaked in milk into the curry.

Serve it hot with Rice or Puris / Luchi ( an sort of deep fried Indian bread)

BURGUNDY STYLE CHICKEN STEW

1 kg chicken diced or cut into any shape or size of your preference

2-3 onions chopped

4-5 cloves garlic, chopped

1/2 tsp chopped rosemary

100 gms carrots diced

30 gm flour

175ml red wine

3 tbsp tomato paste

Demi glace sauce originaly using but here it is optional as this sauce is made of veal stock and sauce espagnole which is one of the five mother sauces of the classical French Cuisine. Her it I'll let use a normal chicken stock.

Bouquet Garni for chicken stock: It's a bundle of  tied together with string amd mainly used to prepare soup, stocks and different kind of stews.

1/2 lt chicken stock

2 bay leaves

1 tsp parsley chopped

60 ml oil

METHOD:

In a suacepan heat oil and saute bay leaves, onion and garlic till translucent.

Add rosemary

Add the chicken pieces saute till the exterior is seared.

Sprinkle the flour over and cooked till brown roux* is formed.

Put the tomato paste and the red wine. Stir well.

Add the carrots and stock. Cook till the chicken is well done.

Finish with the Demi Glace if your using or just sprinkle chopped parsley.

Serve it HOT.

ROUX*a mixture of butter and flour used in making sauces.

WHITE CHOCOLATE MOUSSE WITH PASSIONFRUIT & RASPBERRY.

6 egg white

6 egg yolk

300gms white chocolate chopped into small pieces

passionfruit pulp of 10 passionfruit or canned ones will do.

2 pints of raspberries

METHOD:

Melt the chopped white chocolate in a double boiler. Whisk the egg whites till stiff. Take off the chocolate from the boiler and put the egg yolks and passionfruit pulp and mix it. Stir in the whisked egg white in it. Align some serving glasses and put some raspberries and then slowely pour the white chocolate mousse on top. garnish it with 2-3 raspberries. Put it in the fridge for 3-4 hours.

SHAHI TUKDA ( AN INDIAN DESERT FROM ROYAL HOUSE CUISINE)

1 lt full cream milk

1 can condensed milk

1tsp cardomom

6-8 slices of bread diagonally cut and the sides as well

1/2 cup raisins or sultanas

Ghee to deep fry the bread

Blanched almond slivers to garnish

Saffron for garnish

Edible color optional

METHOD:

Mix the milk and condensed milk in a thick bottomed pan and boil till it reduces to half. Stir frequently to prevent burning. Whe its done add the cardomom. If you want to thicken the milk more than add 1 tsp cornflour to 1/4 cup of water and slowely stir in the milk while its on fire. get it down from the fire. Heat the ghee on medium flame. Deep fry the pieces of bread in it, till they are crisp and golden. Drain on paper towels.In the same ghee saute the raisins till puffed. Put a layer of bread pieces at the bottom of a flat serving dish and top with the thickened milk mixture. Keep repeating the procedure till all the bread and the thickened milk is used. granish it with raisin and almond slivers. Chill for an hour an serve.

So, here I pen up, Bidding a Bye for now. Though it took a lot of time and a hell lot of enthusiasm to finsih this blog. I wish I can keep coming up with much more and better contents for my blog and make a my blog a success. Wish me luck and i wish you a happy cooking!!!! and........................

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY................JAI HIND :-)