Date Palm Jaggery Cheese Cake

Some time ago I read about an imaginative Bengali lady who gave fresh life to Nolen Gurer Sandesh ( it’s a delicate cottage cheese confection sweetened with date palm jaggery or nolen gur) by blending them with full fat cream and baking. Now why would anyone want to re- do this most perfect of sweet dishes, you might ask. The reason is simple – excess!

(You know how Bongs love their sweets, not just in quantity, but also quality. Not for your average Bengali the loudly sugary olfactory sense clogging sweets of the rest of India. Bengali sweets to meet that standard must be delicate and gently aromatic. Even our fried dough sweets like Goja and khaja are more delicate than their other Indian counterparts. No seriously, not boasting because I’m a bong!  Okay, to come back to my imaginative Bengali lady -

Even the most sweet tooth afflicted Bengali can have an excess of sweets, delivered during any one of our 1001 festivals and special occasions. So what does a good housewife do with the extra and excess? She reinvents them. Turns them into something new. So this lady blended her sandesh with cream and baked the mixture in a moderate oven until the top looked deliciously caramel and a satay stick or cocktail stick came out clean.

So easy! I can do it, I told myself. Except the problem is my location. I live in Chennai’s Southern outskirts. This city has an excellent Bengali sweet shop called Durga Sweets, started by a (who else?!) Bengali gentleman who craved Bengali sweets. Durga Sweets is located in Anna Nagar, North Chennai. That is a two-hour journey for me by car on a week day. Weekends would be kinder, but getting the other half to go all that way, doesn’t happen so often.

So what was a sweet mongering Bong Mom like me to do?

Luckily I had the main ingredient – the Nolen Gur! Lovingly brought back by my loving better half (in the previous para he was “other half”) and lovingly stored by me in the fridge – bad place for gur, but I rather have hardened gur than spoiled gur. So I went out and bought 200 gms of any old paneer. And 200 gms Amul Cream in a tetra pack. Added around 100 gms of my gur, approximately until the colour looked right. Blended the lot and poured into a greased Pyrex dish. Baked in a conventional oven on moderate to lowish for half an hour and voila. It was nice.  Not a real cheese cake, but can call it that because I used Indian cottage cheese or paneer! The best part is it’s quick and easy and good enough to satiate my craving for a Bengali sweet.

Date Gur/Jaggery Cheese Cake

Wasabi Ice Cream

Okay, before I get down to my post below, a few words of apology. I had begun writing this early last week, and then for some reason got stuck with other things. My long and much neglected food blog deserves better treatment. Truth be told, it’s because of the pressure to produce photographs; everybody knows that food blogs need photos more than other blogs. And that’s the biggest bother for me.  I rarely remember to take photos when I am cooking. And I only start writing after I’ve done with my day’s cooking and other home related work. And then I sit and feel guilty that I don’t have photographs to substantiate my recipes and food experience etc. Another thing that happens when I haven’t fed my blog in a while, the whole thing gets into starvation mode and cannot digest words. I literally stop writing. But I love my polyphagous poltergeist, I really do.

♥♥♥

 I had to return to Teppan, because previous experience, the week before, wasn’t as satisfying as I had visualised it to be. Except for the dessert. It was a desert that threw me completely off the set, tried and tested path! Wasabi ice cream. Sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it? I mean there you have ice cream, a cold, sweet creamy dessert in a plethora of flavours. And then you have this nose snorting, head spinning pungency of Wasabi, whose taste you can only enjoy in the minutest of pinches. Impossible that the two can at all be combined. But combined they were at Teppan and the result was a marvelous success. Deliciously, but not over powering in its sweetness, with the grainy-ness of hand churned ice cream, the scoop of Wasabi Ice cream brought out an underlying saltness with a hint of wasabi pungency. Just a hint, and that made it magic.

At least for me. They also had green tea ice cream. But I had to return for the wasabi. And the fact that my palate still craved more sushi, and not the grill that Teppan does so dramatically.

I am quite a regular at Benjarong Thai restaurant, where the Teppan is also housed. I remember landing up at Benjarong once, last year and on discovering that a Japanese Sushi and Grill had opened up stairs had literally taken two steps at a time to get there. I wasn’t disappointed. Besides who would have thought our good old Chennai would actually serve sushi made by Filipino chefs trained in Japan? Since then Teppan has grown, more adventurous and more confident. They have added to their repertoire, and will soon also have spirited beverages to go with the Negiri, Make, sushi, sashimi etc. Unless of course the government withdraws, fingers crossed!

Last Sunday I made it a ladies night and landed up with two other friends. One of them, a Bengali like me, would have nothing but sushi. A proposal to which I heartily agreed. But my other friend was a vegetarian, and that worried me. What if they couldn’t serve something she would enjoy? I needn’t have worried. Their vegetarian fare was just as good! Our vegetarian friend generously shared her Yasai No Guriro with us, a deliciously unusual combination of flavours including mango on sea weed. The two of literally gorged on Tuna Batera Maki, Sarada Batera Maki and Sake Maki. There was one item, a beef dish which didn’t quite turn tender. The chefs immediately replaced it with the most tender slices of seared beef with a side of vegetables that I’ve tasted in a long while. Niku is beef in Japanese, but I’ve forgotten the full name – yes a slap in the head for not writing earlier!

Our meal didn’t end there. How can any meal end without dessert. So we made a bee line for their dessert buffet. Yes, Teppan offers a dessert buffet. Until recently it was eat-as-much-as-you-want, but now they have fixed it to five helpings of any. This is a good decision as people were taking  as much as their plates could hold and then wasting. The dessert menu comprises mainly mousse and souffles in small individual cups, some of them with cake bases. There are also tarts with fruit and chocolate filling. One of the best was a chocolate dessert; very chocolatey, with a chewiness that gave it a Brownie like texture in the mouth. I ate from the buffet and ordered my Wasabi ice cream. Unlike the price-friendly dessert buffet, the wasabi ice cream is steep at INR Rs 160/- for a small scoop. I loved the taste so didn’t really regret. But I do wish  they had embellished the scoop with some other things, that would complement the ice cream and also make it more colourful. The chefs need to work out what garnishes and bases would go best with their wasabi ice cream.

All in all it was lovely, in capital letters. The service is good and the ambience chic, and the staff polite, friendly and helpful. So if you’re in Chennai now, drop in. Tepan has a festival on until the 25th of March.

Tokaji!

The Tokaji has come home. A precious gift from my writer friend Priti Aisola the author of See Paris for Me.

Tokaji Aszu

I have an emotional link with Tokaji. The first time I tasted this rare sweet wine was at the home of a French friend and his lovely Hungarian wife. It was love at first sip, and when he explained the background of the Tokaji to me and my husband, I realised that we had become special to them.

The Tokaji Aszu is a wine that was much favoured by the Hungarian royal family and till today is served on special occasions. A deep golden, almost sunset orange, Tokaji Aszu is sweet and brings with it the aroma of peaches, apricots and other (temperate zone) sumer fruits. It’s not cloyingly sweet, but has a refreshing balance between acidity and excessive sweetness. I am relatively new as far as my precious Tokaji goes, having tasted it only on two or three occasions, all of them at our French friend’s home, whose table always overflowed with good food and great conversation. But I googled and here are two links:

http://tokaji.com/

http://www.finestandrarest.com/tokaji.html

As I enjoy and learn more about this wine, I’ll post here. Priti had told me earlier that this bottle was a 3 puttonyos, a number that denotes the measurement of residual sugar in the wine. As far as I remember, the one I’d had before was very sweet, so that must have been five or six puttonyos. The process of making this Hungarian beauty is just as beautiful, but I won’t get into all of that. The links I provided above should be enough.

And when December comes, and my children are home with me, and it’s time to get the smallest turkey in the frozen food store, I’ll open my precious bottle. Have to enjoy it with my son and daughter and of course hubby. And after that, every sip from my bottle of Tokaji will be a toast to Priti and her husband Ravi.

Got time? Watch Food Videos!

Crepes are not yet my thing.  Neither are dosais. I don’t have a proper pan for either crepes or dosais.   I can and do make utthapams and pancakes, the latter more often, especially when the kids are home. I make my own batter, but when in a hurry will easily settle for Betty Crocker. However not making crepes and dosais doesn’t stop me from enjoying these two dishes which are absolute opposites and yet share the same cooking principle. Both have endless possibilities by way of fillings and accompaniments. Both are perfect examples of aesthetically and tastebud wise delicious! To cut the preamble short. If you’re like me, you’ll enjoy these two videos.

I liked the chef of the dosai video. He was friendly and made the whole process look simple and delicious at the same time. His recipes were precise and his demonstration vivid. The site is interesting as well.

Dosai Video

And yes, yes. I know I know, my Tamil pals are going to snigger. It’s a pleasure incidentally to watch a dosa being cooked, my ignorance apart!

The video on making crepes is very instructive and clear, and long! But you’ll enjoy watching it too. The crepes didn’t seem so thin or well-shaped, but afterwards when he made the Suzette, mm! That was art and food all right!

Crepe Video

And here’s one more video. Crepe made the French way, it’s savoury! Watch and you’ll see how dosais and crepes are cousins! 

French Crepe

I’m not done yet, heh! Here’s one more, on sweet or Vella dosai!

Vella Dosai

Bye, I’m hungry!

FM in My Kitchen and All That…

Odd that I’ve been neglecting my foodblog! Odd because I’m always writing in it in my head, and yet have not been entering this room, my virtual kitchen and food tours for so many months. And I am grateful for my latest subscriber for jogging me out of my inertia. Thank you Chinmaya!

So there’s radio in my kitchen now. Funny that I took so long to get this inexpensive little thing that adds so much charm and depth to my daily life in the kitchen. The likliest reason probably is our hitherto intinerant life, which seems to have dropped anchor here in Chennai. But fingers crossed, you never know when the next transfer orders might land. But coming back to radio, FM gives me company, conversation and music as I go about making up low-calorie food for the hubby and I, because we were so bad when the children were home, and now we both need to lose weight and get healthy. Especially me! I wish I could say I am succeeding! Oh bother! They should invent a chocolate flavoured pill that champs on fat inside you! 

My food experiences in the summer were eclectic if anything. Chennai has great restaurants these days, catering to cravings for authentic Japanese, Thai, French, Lebanese, Greek, Iranian/West Asian to name a few. Hotels hold food festivals that include Indonesian and Malay cuisine. All of this is a good sign. However fresh oysters are still a rarity, as in almost invisible, in Chennai.

When the children come home for the summer, we eat all the tasty things we oughtn’t to. It’s my fault. I am too tired to rustle up low fat, low sugar food for us two after cooking up everything from steak to cheese cake to Indian and especially Bengali classic dishes. My trips to the little veggie shop in front of Nilgiris in Besant Nagar  become a twice weekly affair, because that’s the one place I know in Chennai that sells fresh herbs and vegetables like zucchini, assortment of lettuces and cabbages, brussels sprouts and leeks. In Chennai these are expensive, but I reason that cooking at home is always cheaper than eating out (until I just HAVE to go out to eat - at least once a week! ). It’s also a pleasure to sit down as a family and eat good things, fresh and hot off the oven. Now of course there’ll be another four-month break before the children’s meals are cooked here. Maybe my son will be home for a week during Dussera. Maybe I’ll lose enough weight by then to indulge without feeling too guilty!

Anyway it’s good to be back. Dying to share my recent adventures and experiences here. Stay, please, and thank you.

Raw Fish Salad

Bengalis love fish is a cliché. Bengalis eat raw fish? Two do I know, since last Sunday!

We ate lunch at the home of the Dauphins who are from France. They love fish. So fish was on the menu as a raw fish salad. Now I have never eaten raw fish salad, even though I have wolfed down sashimi, sushi, wafer thin salmon in a sandwich and of course shellfish like oysters.  But regular fish, that too raw, and here in Chennai? I was in for a very pleasant surprise!

 As far as I know Red Snapper is the more commonly used fish for this dish, or that could be a South Asian preference. Our friends prefer Tuna.They couldn’t get the best Tuna that day so they settled for Seer fish, which comes closest to Tuna in terms of texture, colour and taste. Chennai also has an abundance of fresh Seer, even just caught ones. Seer fish is one of the most value for money fishes as far as I am concerned. It is a very meaty fish with firm yet soft flesh; can be sliced, diced, filleted and cut into steaks that can be wafer thin, as the locals seem to prefer or chunky. Because Seer is a large fish, and has a single vertebral bone, it is easy to serve boneless – a boon for those who eat their fish with instruments, unlike finger licking types like us! :)

The Sparkling Sula

 

Our lunch started with an aperitif  of sparkling Sula that was made to blush by Didier Dauphin, our host, with a dram of berry liqueur per glass. Fresh olives made a lovely accompaniment to our aperitif.

Having whetted our appetites thus we zoomed into the lunch table. Summery fresh was the theme with Tabouleh, zucchini and eggplant wraps and the star of the table our raw fish salad, with fresh crusty bread, a variation of guacamole and a platter of assorted cheeses, all washed down with a summery Sula Red.

Tabouleh in front, flanked by the plate of zucchini and eggplant wraps, and the raw fish salad is far away. I took this before we began eating!

 

Another view of the eggplant and zucchini wraps, this time the fish salad is closer!

The cheese and bread before they came to the table.

The last bit of awesome raw fish salad that I saved on my plate for the last!

Two of Berta and Didier’s beautiful daughters played a game of name the cheese with eyes closed after lunch. That’s a delicious game to play!

Coming back to the subject of this post: the raw fish salad, I am definitely going to make it one of these days. Some years ago I had read somewhere that it is not really raw, because the intense marinate of lemon juice actually cooks the fish, as in alters it. The lemon juice takes away the fishy odour, which anyway is almost non-existent in freshly fresh fish, and also makes it softer. The addition of herbs, like coriander/cilantro fo the Asian version removes any residual odour and coconut milk adds sweetness. However I think if one uses fish like Norwegian Salmon, there would be no need to use coconut milk; in fact coconut milk would take away from it. But this is my guess.That apart,  if Salmon is used, thin slices would be fine, and less time soaking in the lemon juice as well. Salmon is always best eaten raw or as close to raw as possible. I have cooked Norwegian salmon and found I prefer it in its natural state, though steaks of this lovely fish, quickly seared and served hot is great too! 

 

As I said, I have never made raw fish salad before. That however is not going to stop me from making my own bowl, but in order to do that I have to find the most perfectly fresh fish, preferably just caught. I don’t mind getting down and dirty with my fish. Fishmongers hate me for my belly prodding, gill turning, fish caressing ways. I also insist on getting my Hilsa whole, with only the scales removed by the fish monger, preferring to chop it up at home after sluicing it with cold tap water until I am satisfied that it is clean. The Hilsa is a highly aromatic and flavourful fish and  it is sacrilege to cut the fish and wash it as this drains some of its succulence away! Did I just talk about the Hilsa? Now I wonder how a raw Hilsa salad would taste, (after the arduous task of removing the fine bones from this king of Asian fish). That would be fusion fish at its sexiest or what!  

 

 

Beaujolais Nouveau 2010 – A Chennai Experience

Last Friday saw a celebration of Beaujolais Nouveau at Sheraton Park Hotel, hosted by The Wine Academy of India.  Occasions like these are full of glittering guests and plenty of expatriates. Not being able to find anything remotely suitable to wear since I had gained too many kgs. lately I went there  looking suitably grungy. And just to spite me my significant other looked smart, suave and sexy, which is not a very difficult thing for him when he bothers to dress up! No photographs for this occasion, because as a guest I felt it would be rude to behave like a journo. I wish I had taken one of the wine though. Beaujolais Nouveau 2010 was the star of the show.

Luscious red and fresh, this Beaujolais Nouveau from Maison Louis Jardot Beaujolais Villages had a  light aroma. I delayed sipping my first, swirling it round and round in the jumbo size glass  (more like stemmed water glasses if you ask me), and did succeed in getting a pleasant berry and spice whiff. I am no expert and it’s been almost a week (yes I know I should have posted much earlier!), so I’m afraid I don’t have details. Warm on the palate, yet crisp and pleasant is how I would describe it. Made from Gamay grapes Beaujolais Nouveau is not very tannic and  not complex; it’s just an easy happy wine that you could keep sipping.

A tour around the victual tables took me from spinach, tomato and mushroom crostinis, to roast chicken with gravy, roast mutton shank with gravy – which was excellent, a variety of cheeses including our favourite blue - Roquefort (favourite because that’s the only one we get in Chennai, and I have been eating too much of it lately!), a few smoked cheeses, a variety of salads and veggies (the usual ones – zucchini, broccoli, baby corn etc. fringed and frilled with a variety of lettuces) and prawns, baby octopus, calamari and oo la la oysters! My oo la la turned sour when I inelegantly prodded the oysters. They were dead, served on a bed of rubbery looking things instead of ice and without lemons. My significant other sternly told me to count my blessings. There are no oyster farms in India and any that came must have travelled a long distance, too long to survive. Point taken. And further, to do the chefs at Sheraton Park credit, these dead oysters looked juicy and almost alive. In other words they were still fresh, though dead. A far cry from the horrifyingly cold congealed rubbery things I had to eat at The Raintree a couple of years ago (No! I have not forgiven them!). There were plenty of vegetarian choices, but I don’t remember what they were.  The food range could accommodate white and red wines, in fact more white than red, if you discount the solitary mutton shank dish, but because it was Beaujolais Nouveau, a friendly easy-going wine, everything worked, right up to the dessert.

The dessert comprised a range of fruit flavoured mousses, and something else made of coconut. I don’t know why restaurants and hotels in Chennai always serve mousse, surely there are endless other dessert options! I found all the mousses pretty bland, except for the strawberry one, which was okay. It seemed to me that in their endeavour to get the texture just right the chefs had forgotten about flavour. Flavour, including aroma, is an important element in a fruity mousse, and that must come from the basic mousse itself and not the decoration or bits of other things embedded in it.  But before I sound like a carping crone, they were nice, and the not so nice parts were washed down by the very enjoyable Beaujolais Nouveau.  I can well understand why this happy wine is partied about all over the world!