Wishin’

It has been slow going for the last couple of weeks. I’m still reeling from the double whammy of a cold and a badly sprained neck. Have been dreaming of things I’m going to get to once I’m better. Things like pie….

…and the wonderful farmers’ market full of soul sustaining breads and freshly baked autumn treats

…and the amazing heat that my unseasonal chillies are holding in temporary safe keeping for us, that I haven’t quite gotten around to using up..

…of heading back to the shops..

…and getting the very last few days at my favourite outdoor cafés before winter settles in..

I’ve been dreaming of blazing sunshine not so much because I miss it, simply because it isn’t around any more. You know I not-so-secretly love the cool weather. Looking forward to the change of seasons, fall and winter…

..but mostly I’ve been sitting here looking through my books

…holding out on cooking, writing and being out and about till I’m a bit better…

..it has to be soon. The city calls out stronger and louder than the fog horns on the Bay…

But I’m taking the time to let the healing go its pace….

I know I’ll soon be back in the ‘green’ of things.

Pearfest

*This post came up here a lee-tle late. I was a bit under the weather.*

So I know it’s Halloween and everyone is obsessed with all things scary and icky. I love the idea but I don’t do scary or icky very well. I’m hopeless. I’d be like that colleague of mine at work who tried to prank me with a wormy apple but dissolved into helpless laughter before he got four words into his prank.

I also don’t get the yucky food schtick. Gross food, for me, is sacrilege. I’m going to grow up someday to be the mom who’s a real party pooper in this regard. I cannot get behind “blood-and-guts” potatoes or “barf soup” or even “jellyworms”. No, no and no! Why go through this when you can freak a kid out simply by dishing them a bowl of spinach soup? I did once though it was not my intention. Suffice to say that my nephew runs a mile away when he sees anything green in my hands.

So believe me when I say it was not my intention to mess up the plating of this dessert that I want to tell you about today. Really it wasn’t. My attempts at emulating Pollock were ill-fated from the start, as they would be since I am in fact, a far cry from absolutely any kind of painter. Sad really, because the dessert is fabulous, easy and divinely delicious. Try not to be put off by the drowning-in-chocolate sauce scenario. The gremlins of Halloween are cackling with glee somewhere at the irony.

I found this recipe in one of my perennial reads, Nigel Slater’s Real Food.  If I ever fall into the depths of depression, I have left standing instructions that I must be forced to read Nigel Slater, along with every copy of Wodehouse that I own, with a dose of Bill Waterson for good measure. Also prescribed are marathon sittings of Friends, Spin City and Will and Grace. But I don’t think it will ever come to that because Nigel Slater will be quite enough. His are words that balance conservation with excess, and he proposes both with equal fervour. While I mostly follow the dictates of my own scattered palette when it comes to things I like, he is the only recipe writer who has a good chance of actually having me follow him down his rabbit hole, in the curious Alice way, not because I have to, but because I couldn’t resist. In the delectable chapter on chocolate in this collection lies this elfin recipe, with about the same amount of magic you would expect from a mythical woodland creature. Dazzled by the showings of pie and soufflé around it, you’d be tempted to give this one a miss. But you shouldn’t, it wouldn’t be there unless it belonged.

My impetus to try this was the acquisition of a bar of the exquisite Valrhona Manjari (a chocolate lover’s high, this) and a few in-season-yet-not-quite-all-there pears. The pears clinched it really. Never has there been a fruit better suited to be subjected to the treatment prescribed here. Having had a perfect pear possibly once in my life, I’m always hoping to repeat that moment of sweet bliss but am inevitably disappointed. The perfect pear is such a rare thing and if you blink, it will go from raw and woody to over-ripe and fermented. My apartment is always bucking the time-space continuum when it comes to produce going from raw to so-done-last-week… pears don’t stand even an unsporting chance.

To go along with the pears, you have this luscious chocolate. Of course any chocolate will do, but Valrhona is something special. That I will never be a Valrhona virgin again is sad, sad thing. I bought the bar to cook with but Amey and I ended up eating at least a quarter of the bar just so. This chocolate is one of those smooth melters that slowly melt into a rich, unctuous puddle of yum. They pair fabulously with the pears.

Pears with Florentine Cream
adapted from Nigel Slater’s Real Food

Pears – 3, of medium size, cut into halves and cored
Water – about 4 cups
Lemon juice – of half a lemon
Vanilla extract – 1 tsp plus a few drops for the cream
Whipping Cream – about half a cup
Sugar – 1/2 cup
Cinnamon – a couple of sticks
Green cardamom – a couple of pods
Amaretti or similar biscuits, amount to your liking- Heat the water, then dissolve the sugar in it to make a simple syrup. To the syrup, add the cardamom, cinnamon, a teaspoon of vanilla extract and lemon juice. Bring to a boil and then turn down to a simmer.
- Add the pear halves to the simmering syrup and cover to poach gently until the pears are soft but still hold their shape. A knife should be able to run through without resistance. When they are done, pick them out of the liquid and let cool on the counter. When they are no longer warm, put them in the fridge to chill for about a half hour.
- Heat some water in a pot. Cut some pieces of the chocolate and place them in a bowl that sits above the pot of water like a double boiler. Gently let the steam melt the chocolate into liquid.
- In a bowl, add a few drops of vanilla essence to the cream and whip until it just barely holds its shape.
- Pound the amaretti into small gravel.
- To assemble, place the pear halves on a plate cut side up and dollop a decent amount of whipped cream into the cored hollow. Drizzle as much chocolate as you like onto the cream. Sprinkle some of the bashed-up amaretti on top. Serve immediately.

Cook’s notes:-
Simple yet unbelievably satisfying, this dessert is a cinch to make. I may never have an uncooked pear again. Simply poaching in a syrup for fifteen odd minutes or so turns the pears into something sublime. Even my pear-hating husband turned into a lover. The drizzled melted chocolate solidifies into small bits all over and there is a lovely textural contrast from the amaretti. Keep decent chunks of these. For the first plate you see above, we almost ground them into powder and it was lost in dessert somewhere. Coarse gravel is a much better textural offset. Nigel Slater doesn’t ask for the spices in the syrup. He does ask for a vanilla bean which I did not have, hence the spice addition. It worked well enough. Boiling brings out delicate hints of spice that more robust cooking methods run amok through. A little orange or rose water might bring complement this dish well too.

Though this ended up looking like a Halloween scarefest, it really was anything but. Your kids might prefer it in its messy version even, but it’s an excellent adult dessert. When you’re scrambling around cooking for a party, it would be one of the easiest desserts to serve. You could dish out some vanilla ice-cream instead of the whipped cream if you prefer…and make lots. Your guests will thank you.

Growing pains

When I started this blog earlier this year, Amey took up a hobby he’s always had a latent interest in.

We’re short on the square footage so all he could have for his first foray into gardening was the little window ledge above our kitchen sink. I like to think my blog naming choice factored into what his first project was. But truth be told, that was decided by some really hot (we’re talking bright lights flashing all over the Scoville scale) chillies we happened to find at the Indian store one day. He carefully saved the seeds from capsaicin riddled beauties and tossed them into a seedling pot with a fervent prayer.

A slow two weeks went by with no results…

After a frantic consultation with the omnipresent gods of instruction on the WWW, we came to the conclusion that (thanks to some quite flawed direction from yours truly) he had put the seeds too deep into the soil. Careful digging unearthed a couple of sprouted seedlings struggling to find daylight. Words of reproach and apology were bandied at large and the seedlings were replanted just barely beneath the surface of the soil.

They responded joyfully to their lives being saved by pushing out lovely green shoots in a couple of days. Since then, the ‘Cheeky Chilli’ plants, as they came to be unescapably christened, have never looked back. They moved from strength to strength and put out two fine young plants which grew happily for a while. Despite misgivings on the part of our local gardening store assistant,  Amey moved both seedlings together to a larger pot. He was worried that their roots being completely entangled, both might die if he tried to separate them.

The plants grew quite a bit more, than stopped. No new leaves, no sign of flowers. More internet research ensued. The plants had to be separated for them to grow. Amey gave in and closely cropped the roots of one plant to make sure the other one sustained less damage. He planted the second one in another pot just in case. I’m happy to report that both patients survived the ordeal and are thriving. The larger of the two has responded to all of his TLC by producing the most perfect little flower bud you ever saw, which turned into the most marvellous little chilli. That first harvested chilli didn’t quite manage to make it to the recipe we had planned for it. But I can say that it was one of the sweetest (in a manner of speaking) chillies I’ve ever bitten into.

The fruit had strong, flavourful heat with a wonderful crunch. I managed to restrain myself with the following few and used them in a version of a potato vegetable today. The simple nature of this recipe allows the flavours of the chilli to shine. The soft and mushy potato is the perfect foil for the searing heat of the chilli, mellowing it as it mixes through.

A hearty twice-cooked potato vegetable

Potatoes – 6, medium sized, a waxy variety
Red onion – 1, medium, slivered
Tomato – 1, cut into a 1/2″ dice
Green chillies (Thai or Serrano) – 2 to 3, chopped fine (4-5 if the chillies are milder)
Curry leaves – 5 to 6
Mustard seeds – 1 tsp
Turmeric – 1/2 tsp
Asafoetida – a pinch
Fenugreek – 1/2 tsp (optional)
Coriander – small handful of leaves, chopped fine
Salt to taste

- Boil potatoes. Peel upon cooling and chop into 1/2″ to 3/4″ cubes.
- Heat oil in a non-stick pan. Temper with mustard seeds. When the seeds start to splutter, add curry leaves, asafoetida, turmeric and green chillies. Add fenugreek, if using.
- Add onions and sauté until they are golden.
- Add tomatoes and fry for a couple of minutes. Add the potato pieces. Season with salt and toss gently to mix well. Cover and let cook for five to ten minutes.
- Garnish with coriander leaves.

Serve with chapati or other similar flatbread.

Notes:
We’ve eaten this dish often, but never with an ingredient harvested moments before they went into the pan. Maybe it was the vested effort but it seemed to us that chillies had the same zing before, a certain je ne sais quoi that they delivered straight into the food. There was a vibrancy of heat that I did not believe three young chillies could deliver.The recipe is delicious and since you are more than likely to use store bought chillies for this , I venture to suggest that you use 4-5. They are the primary flavouring medium here for bland potato canvas.

Amey has since moved on to develop his little ledge garden. We now have rosemary and thyme jostling for sunlight next to the chilli plants. He also grew some basil earlier but it flowered while we were away on a short trip and the leaves went an unpalatable bitter. Sad, but basil grows like a weed so we know that it will grow easily next year. What we discovered was that with some attention and know-how, you can grow things in the smallest of places. There is amazing pleasure and satisfaction in eating something you’ve seen grow before your very eyes. The experience has also raised our respect for farmers who choose organic methods of scale farming. That must truly be a job you have to be completely involved in, with hard work involved.

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Happy Diwali!

It’s Diwali…the festival of lights! Everywhere in India, diyas and electric lights brighten homes, turning night into day. This is a time for family and friends, festivities and merriment; wonderful food eaten next to flickering lights while enjoying shimmering and stentorian firecrackers…. an annual celebration of the triumph of light over darkness.

All these years, I’ve succumbed to the time-saving promise of the microwave pedha and quick-fix barfi. Not to take anything away from these convenient modern versions, but there is something to be said for the traditional fare, the ritual of planning your time and variety in the weeks before the festival, preparing to cook various Diwali delicacies, aside from the regular cooking of lunches and dinner. I thought I’d give this route a shot this time. I’ve been cooking for a while now. How hard could all of this be, right?

*Sigghh*

A behind-the-scenes look at this setting would reveal harried women everywhere frantically juggling several balls in order to bring the idyllic celebration scene to reality. The mad dash to clean the house and work their way through the back-breaking work of doling out all kinds of festival sweets. The recipes are simple but the work tedious and involved. It is important to get mixtures, roasts and temperatures just right. These golden equations have come into existence through years of trials and evolution of modes of cooking. Messing around can at best create a variation that could work, but at worst, could result in unmitigated disaster. Patience is really not my forte and I’m not one with much upper-arm strength. This was a rigorous schooling in stretching both.

First there was the fact that I did not plan this well at all. Since the decision to make faral (traditional sweets made for festivals by the people of Maharashtra in India) was made pretty much last minute, I had to commit to doing a bunch of things rather quickly. For instance, realistically, what could be made before the holiday was through? I decided on shankarpali (a sweet made with flour, clarified butter and sugar) and also on besan (chickpea flour) and rava (semolina) laddoos. Mulling over methods and recipes, I thought these would take the least amount of time.

Then ingredients had to be sourced, and even though this was an attempt at the traditional, compromises had to be made. One involved the use of all-purpose flour. There was no such thing when I was growing up in India. There was whole-wheat flour, the one used in chapatis, the one with a high fiber content. Then there was maida, a type of flour akin to cake flour, more finely-milled with greater gluten. Most sweets made with flour ask for the latter or a mixture of both. All-purpose flour makes a remarkably decent substitute. There was a mad dash for raisins and cashews and copious amounts of sugar and whole milk, easily gotten but not something I keep around.

I found out rather early in the process that these sweets certainly require room to work on, something my tiny kitchen doesn’t have. Though I don’t do it all the time, in this case a mise en place would have been tremendously useful. But when your counter-space is packed to such capacity that finding room to put down a teaspoon is problematic, you have to make do without such things to ease the process. Then there was the fact that I had chosen to work at a time at which I couldn’t pick up the phone and call my mom, so there were no trusted recipes to fall back on. There was nothing in our files on these sweets. I guess our mothers never thought we’d embark on such ambitious sideline projects that did not show up in daily eating. Or maybe they were just hinting we stay away from trying it. I can see why.

Indian sweets are rich and decadent by definition. They take copious amounts of ghee (clarified butter) and sugar. The rest of the ingredients that shuffle around probably wouldn’t make it on anyone’s healthy ingredient list. But there is a time and place for them. Amey and I agreed this was definitely it. We tackled the shankarpali first, little diamond shaped pastry bits that put up a winning fight against all attempts on my part to make them healthier. The dough itself takes a good amount of ghee, but we thought we’d try and bake them to cut out the frying oil requirement; an attempt that failed dismally. They came out done like hard candy, not something your are looking for here. What you are looking for is a shortbread type bite, one that can only be achieved by frying them in oil till they are golden. That gives you a wonderful melting piece. There is work involved in kneading of the dough and the rolling, the cutting and the frying and the standing around for all these things to happen. The recipe I worked with was good but not great which is why I decided against sharing it. (Update: I tried a second recipe, which was very good. All I adjusted was the sugar to make the recipe a bit sweeter. Thanks to Happy Burp!)

I choose not to speak about the besan laddoos. A badly written recipe and lack of thinking things through on my part resulted in besan laddoos entirely too buttery for my liking. No one who ate them complained, but they aren’t the way they taste in my memory. The star of the entire effort however, were the rava-coconut laddoos. Delicious, crumbly, with the crunch of the nuts contrasting perfectly with the bite of the coconut and tangy raisins, by some quirky twist these turned out exactly like I remember my mom’s to be. These are the things I wish I had the time and inclination to make in batches at different times of the year. Just so I would have them around to pop them in my mouth whenever the mood strikes me.

Rava-coconut laddoos
Makes 30 to 35 laddoos depending on size

Coarse semolina (sooji or rava) – 3 cups
Sugar – 2 cups
Dry coconut powder – 1 cup
Green cardamom (elaichi) powder – 2 tbsp
Clarified butter (ghee) – 4 tbsp
Water – 3/4 cup for sugar syrup
Saffron – a good pinch
Raisins – 1/4 cup
Raw pistachio bits – 1/3 cup

- Prepare a large tray or platter to lay out the laddoos.
- In a saucepan, combine the sugar and water. Dissolve and heat to make a sugar syrup. When the sugar is dissolved, add the saffron to the liquid.
- Soak the raisins in some very hot water for five minutes, then drain.
- Heat ghee gently in a non-stick pan at just under medium heat. Add the semolina and fry until it turns a pinkish brown.
- Add the coconut and cardamom powders and fry for a several more minutes.
- Mix the semolina and coconut mixture into the sugar syrup. Move this off the heat.
- Mix in the nuts and the soaked raisins and keeping stirring to bring everything together into a thick mixture.
- When it is just about cool enough to handle, but still warm, start to roll out spheres about 3/4″ to 1″ in diameter. This may require some pressure to compact it. Place the laddoos to cool and set on the platter. Continue until the entire mixture is used up.

Cook’s notes:
Be prepared to devote some time and muscle power to these sweet delights. It is not such a bad thing if you think of it as prior exercise to offset the eating of the laddoos. I had forgotten how much I love these until I took a bite. Most kinds of nuts would work here. Amey and I even discussed using pine nuts, a far from traditional choice, but one that I think would have worked quite well. Avoid walnuts though, they don’t quite work. There is a slight bitterness they have that clashes with the other flavours. You can choose to leave the raisins out if you like. I find I like the teensy burst of tangy moisture of the soaked raisins. I know some variations include a fresh coconut or a self-grated dry coconut, but the coconut powder is the perfect thing to use here. Being of the same size as the semolina grains, it integrates perfectly into the mix.

Maybe this recipe was all I should have attempted. But Amey didn’t think everything else was as unsuccessful as I thought it was. Faral is meant to be shared with friends and neighbours. So we handed out some gifts. We made these lovely little packages for our friends. Happy Diwali guys!!

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Food firsts..

I remember I had a sort of foodie aha! moment as a kid, the first time I was playing around with a rind of orange. I twisted it and it squirted out this sour-bitter yet wonderfully fragrant oil at me. I didn’t know about orange zest then but I do remember wondering whether it had any uses. Along similar lines, I’ve since wondered about many things… foodwise (I use that term loosely, after all one man’s idea of food is another man’s recurring nightmare)

So who was it who first…

…looked at a snail and thought, “Mmmm, that looks like good eats!”

…looked at the truffles pigs dug out and ate and thought, “Well, if it’s good enough for the pig….”

…had the guts to try tomatoes again for the first time after they had been declared poisonous.

…thought that burning his food would make it more edible.

…thought that the inside of a yam would be good to eat (despite the itchy, outer skin).

…got double-dog dared into trying durian for the first time (this one I really wonder about since chefs have likened the smell to soiled diapers)

…had such a dearth of food that he kept working with an artichoke until he found a part of it that he could eat.

…ate a blowfish without knowing the Russian roulette that eating the fish involved….and lived to tell the tale.

…had the guts to try armadillo or snake OR cockroaches (my personal nightmare!)

…looked at flour and thought, “Hmm, I’m sure if I mixed that with water and live organisms, I’d be onto something!”

…thought that mixing raw egg yolks, oil and lemon juice would result in something delicious.

…decided to take a chance on the underground stem of the potato when it became apparent that the rest of it was obviously poisonous.

…decided that vanllla was ‘plain’ despite the fact “this rare pod grows on an orchid that can only be pollinated one day a year, the seeds of which can germinate only in the presence of a certain fungus and which contains tons of flavors and aroma bases” (adapted from Alton Brown’s Good Eats feature on Vanilla)

…were the test subjects for mushroom varieties (“oh this one kills people…bad! This one only makes him lose his eyebrows…good!)

…was so starved that he decided friends are food.

…let his grapes go so bad that they fermented and then was desperate enough to press the undesirable looking leftovers and drink the results.

Some of these I have filed under the label of ‘when desperate, man will eat anything to survive.’ Others, like with durian, I’ve come to realize are a personal preference. Some people love durian, other loathe it. Some questions have been answered by what I think is one of the most brilliant food shows ever, Alton Brown’s Good Eats. But I don’t think he will tackle the less mainstream question, like blowfish…or crocodile..thank god! Regarding the wine wonderment, I’m not necessarily its biggest fan, picky as I am about the kinds I like. The ones I like turn out to be the sweet kinds more often than not, like this moscato…

..which we poured over these casaba melons we bought at the local Safeway.

Casaba melons aren’t as fragrant or sweet as some other varieties. So we halved the melon, scraped out the seeds and then cut its succulent insides into chunks. These we bunged into the fridge for cooling a bit, then we tossed the pieces with some sugar, mint and a teensy bit of Limoncello to help develop the flavour.

The moscato, which was fruity and seriously sweet, paired very well, with the melon. The pieces of fruit just sopped up all the wine and then transferred some of their melony goodness to it to transform the wine into a divine sweet nectar, making for a decadent dessert.

This was seriously good enough for me to think “Who needs ice-cream or brownies when you can have melons in moscato?” A question asked in vain, I know. Life would be so unbearable without ice-cream. Note to self: Try melons in a sweet wine ice-cream!

Lemoncholy

When life tosses you lemons, what do you do? If you are anything like me, I guess you do your damnedest to lob them right back. The problem is, in this little game you have going on, life is almost always the stronger player, and it is harder to play that googly you just got tossed, especially if you weren’t expecting it. You blink and you miss, the bat kisses air, or worse, you hit the ball in a completely different direction, and not a good one. This is why you learn to make lemonade. (Not blinking would also be a good skill to learn, but “Constant vigilance!” à la Mad-eye Moody would be rather tiresome after a while.) Better to hold on to that lemon for a bit while you decide what to do with it. Lumbering about blindly never did anyone any good.

In case you are wondering, this is not how cricket is played. But we’re not talking about cricket so much as we are about lemons. In our house, we could go without milk and bread but there will always be lemons in the house…lemons and limes. My husband loves them more than he loves his guitar and his camera and that is saying something. Amey’s love of all thing sour is legendary. He adores lemons, loves limes, is enthralled by vinegars. His idea of ‘improving the flavour’ of any dish involves adding one of these ingredients. He is the only person I know whose fried rice is actually vinegar rice. If we had grown up in the United States, his favourite candy would have been Sour Patch kids, hands down, no contest.

College, while offering him several freedoms, also put in his sights, front and center, the tamarind and green mango vendor’s cart. This guy showed up with his cart, rain or shine, with kayris (green mangoes) just before summer and tamarind all year round.  While other kids were busy with restaurants, Amey snacked happily on morsels of green mango dressed in salt and chilli. The vendor knew him by name and had his order ready when he saw him coming. This guy was happily immersed in salt and sourness while the rest of the kids were flirting with alcohol.

Being married to someone who likes sour food and likes to cook comes with its challenges. He used it on everything with a heavy-handed abandon reminiscent of Paula Deen and butter. It took some time for me to convince him that not everyone thinks of lime juice as a staple. Granted his culinary quirk is way healthier than butter, but let me tell you, there is such a thing as too much acidity in your food. You will not know this until you have someone squeeze a whole lime into your plate of dal and rice…or make you a hot dog that could pass the litmus test. A chilli fiend and a lime fanatic…our early days in cooking bought some sore trials to its consumption for both of us. The years have taught us well, w-ell, maybe they have taught him better. I can still be heavy handed with the chilli. Amey, however, has honed his handling of the acid and citrus to a fine slant. Granted, he still puts too much vinegar on his rice. But now, it is his own plate of rice. He has learned that there is your own palette and that of others. More importantly, he has also found that he appreciates the subtlety of citrus as much as he enjoys the more in-your-face flavours.

One of his early experimentations was a take on a lemon cream sauce. A dish he loves to eat when we are out is the Chicken Tequila Fettucine served at California Pizza Kitchen. That pasta dish made him happy enough to try a version with cream and citrus on his own. Born out of this was a lemon-cream sauce. With some serious, careful honing, something I rarely have patience with, he has perfected the sauce. It is creamy, unctuous, just tart enough to make the presence of the lemon felt strongly but not overwhelmingly. A gentle, soothing sauce with a burst of refreshing flavour to bring sunshine to the most gloomy day.

Broken Linguine with mushrooms in a lemon, cream and thyme sauce
Serves 3-4

Garlic – 6 cloves, chopped fine
Red Onion – 1/2, diced fine OR Shallot – 2, diced fine
Thyme – 1 tbsp of leaves
Lemon zest – 1 fruit
Lemon juice – 1/2 of one fruit
Dried porcini or wild mushrooms – 1/2 cup (chanterelles would be excellent here)
Cream – 1/2 cup
Sausage (optional) – 2, diced
Cayenne pepper – 1/2 tsp
Orange Flower Honey – 1/2 tsp (use regular honey if you don’t have this)
Linguine – 3/4 box
Olive oil – 2 tbsp
Salt and pepper to taste
Parmesan for grating over

- Reconstitute the dry mushrooms in about a cup and half of boiled hot water. Set aside for about fifteen minutes until the mushrooms go soft and the water has become a rich, brown broth.
- Bring a large pot of generously salted water to a boil. Break the linguine into three pieces and throw into the pot. Boil pasta as per directions on box.
- Meanwhile, Heat the oil in a shallow pan on medium low. Add the garlic and fry until slightly brown.
- Add the onions and saute until translucent. Add the thyme.
- Roughly chop the reconstituted mushrooms and add to the pan, along with the broth. Mix to incorporate, then bring to a boil.
- Add the lemon juice and zest and cayenne pepper. Season with salt and pepper.
- Stir in the cream. Season with salt and pepper.
- Reduce heat and simmer the sauce for a bit and let reduce slightly. Add the honey and mix it in.
- Drain the pasta and return it to the pot. Add the sauce and toss together to coat the strands of pasta.

Serve with a fresh grating of Parmesan over each dish, along with some fresh ground pepper.

Cook’s notes:-
This sauce originated in a pure lemon and cream version, which made for some sticky pasta incidents. We tried variations with half-and-half, wine and vegetable and chicken broths. There was no definite depth of dimension until we started to use the mushroom broth (which, by the way, is now a favourite ingredient in our cooking). Amey balanced the flavours with some orange blossom honey which he’s partial to. Its citrus notes worked wonderfully in this sauce, making it one of the most delicious pasta sauces I’ve eaten. He’s also tried variations with other herbs. While they all work with varying degrees of success, we both agree that thyme works best, gently infusing and disappearing into the sauce more completely than anything else. Also it is great as an additional garnish.

What else you put into the pasta is entirely up to you. Shreds of roast chicken would be great, as would bacon. Leave the meat out completely and you have a vegetarian version. Strips of sautéed peppers, steamed asparagus or artichoke hearts would be brilliant with this sauce. I love to put sun-dried bits of tomato on mine. This is the sauce I will ask for more often than others when Amey decides to make pasta. To him, it is also an appreciation of how he and his tastebuds have evolved.

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Pushing polenta

Today, I woke up to a cat. Not my cat. I don’t have a cat. I wish I had a cat. Or a dog. I’m not particular on that point. I just wish I had a pet.  You may be wondering “Why is she making a big deal out of this? Cats, they’ve been around humans for millenia, haven’t they? It’s not like she came face-to-face with a dinosaur!” (That would have been some conversation starter, wouldn’t it? “Today, I met Barney. The real thing my dear! And you know, he’s more vivid mauve than purple, positively fuchsia!”)

Now that we’ve got that cleared up, on with the tale. As I was saying, on waking today, I came face-to-face with a cat. The sighting at close quarters was strange for a couple of reasons. First, I’d just woken from a strange dream involving Superman, the Incredible Hulk, the Cheshire cat and the Mad Hatter cooking together (I suspect this had something to do with watching too much TV and consuming some questionable leftover pie much too late last night, but I’m always glad when Johnny Depp shows up in my dream life, especially since he will never be there in the waking one…sigh). The last elusive image I had in my head was a cat grinning over a steaming pot, just before I woke from my weird shallows of slumber. I stumbled drowsily into the kitchen for a warm cuppa and rolled up the window shades to see a calm, grey tabby just sitting there, staring at me with perfect equanimity. As you can imagine, the feeling was surreal. Second, this would be an absolute first cat sighting for me in the environs of my apartment building. I’ve seen them sitting at windows as I pass by other places in the city. But, to my chagrin, these places are never around me. Not one person in the vicinity has ever had a cat as far as I can see. (I live around some pet-hating landlords.) Yet here was this one, an honest-to-goodness, fluffy grey cat with white socks, pale green-grey eyes and a lovely grey-white-black tail curled comfortably around her.

We stared at each other for a bit, motionless and silent. The cat kindly let me get a hold of my scattered senses; she seemed to have decided that any sudden moves might send me over the edge. Then slowly, deliberately, she lifted her paw in a half-greeting and then proceeded to give it a thorough washing. When she was done, she looked up and seemed a bit miffed that I still hadn’t moved. Her feline gestures seemed to suggest a slight impatience with the human. She got up gracefully, stretched in that mind-bogglingly flexible way that only cats can, and padded her way on silent paws to the edge of the lobby roof where she sat, giving me a reproachful look and a plaintive miaow. “Here I am,” she seemed to say, “out in the cold at your window and you won’t even offer me some milk! What would your mother say?” (My mother, while assiduously denying animals room and board, is nevertheless a famous feeder of stray cats. Famous. Ask any of our neighbours.) That look jolted me right out of my stupor. It was reminiscent of my nephew when he was younger and was told he couldn’t have any chocolate. Just so woeful. I looked about for some milk for her, but realised that if she had it, then me and Amey would have to do without. Telling my husband this early in the morning that he can’t have any milk (“because the cat asked for some”) might cause him to look about on how to get me committed. He’s a bear when he hasn’t had his morning coffee. So in the interest of my well-being, I tentatively offered her the last bit of the questionable pie.

She sniffed at it with suspicion, then proceeded to consume it with a rather browbeaten air, as will a guest when his hostess insists he try something he can’t stand, but is too polite to refuse. The deed done, she licked her whiskers clean and then proceeded to chew her tail in a gentle, abstracted fashion for a few minutes. Then, quite suddenly, with the air of the end of a performance, she stretched with an athlete’s commitment and took off, gracefully jumping onto a tree from the roof as she proceeded to make her way to the ground. Then, with a slow blink of those green eyes, she was gone, quite as suddenly as she had appeared into my life. No forwarding address, no P.O Box Number. Disconsolate, I could only hope she made her way home safely before the traffic picked up for the morning. This early morning event left me craving something warm, comforting and nourishing for a meal. With daydreams of having my own cat (or dog) someday, I thumbed through the books for inspiration. That’s when I spied this little recipe for polenta.

Polenta came into my culinary horizon fairly recently. There was a grilled version of polenta I ate as an appetizer at Greens restaurant that I fell head-over-heels in love with. The way you feel when you meet the one and wonder where they’ve been your entire life. Polenta is made rather easily from cornmeal and has a way of firming up as it cools down. This porridge is then sliced and browned on a skillet or toasted in the oven until its outsides crisp up a bit. It tastes of mushed up corn and is a blank palette for any number of flavours that you can throw at it. At Greens, I ate it with some mushrooms and it was one of the most delectable things I’ve ever eaten. This recipe was different. It called for the gentle poaching of ingredients in cream while you cooked, cooled and grilled the polenta. Some gorgonzola cheese and walnuts rounded out the flavours. A warming gem of a dish. It leaves you with the same contentment you get from having a warm and purring cat sitting on your lap.

Polenta and Walnuts with a Gorgonzola and herbed cream sauce
Adapted from Annie Sommerville’s Everyday Greens
Serves 3 to 4 as an entrée, maybe twice as many as an appetizer

For the polenta:
Water – 4 cups
Cornmeal – 1 cup
Olive oil – 2 tbsp
Parmesan cheese – 1/4 cup, grated
A quick two gratings of nutmeg and cardamom
Salt and pepper to taste

For the sauce:
Half-and half OR skimmed milk – 1 cup
Cream – 1 cup
Red onion – 1/2, sliced fine
Garlic cloves – 3 to 4, smashed with the flat of a knife, paper skins left on,
Bay leaf – 1
Fresh Thyme sprigs – 2
Fresh oregano sprig – 1
Sage – 3 leaves
Gorgonzola cheese – 3/4 cup, crumbled
Kasseri or Fontina cheese – 1/4 cup, grated
Walnut pieces – 1/2 cup, toasted
Basil leaves – a half-handful, chopped into a chiffonade

To make the polenta:
- In a saucepan, bring the water to a boil. Salt the water, then add the cornmeal. Lower the heat a bit to gently cook the polenta until it smoothly thickens, about 20 minutes or so.
- When the polenta is cooked, take it off the heat. Stir in the pepper, nutmeg, cardamom and olive oil.
- Pour into a 9″x15″ dish and allow it to cool. Upon cooling, slice the polenta into  six or eight squares (which can be cut into triangles if the dish is to be an appetizer).

To make the sauce:
- Combine the cream, milk, onion, garlic and herbs in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring it to a boil and then lower the heat to simmer the sauce. Allow the sauce to reduce slightly, cooking for about 15 minutes.
- Strain the cream sauce, then return to the saucepan. Add half the Gorgonzola cheese to it, whisking it in to melt, over low heat. Season with salt and pepper as needed.

To assemble the dish:
- While the sauce is cooking, pour a little olive oil onto a skillet. Lightly crisp the polenta slices on the skillet until golden brown. Alternatively you could place the slices with some olive oil into a pre-heated oven at 325°F for 15-20 minutes.
- Place a couple of square (or a couple of triangles) on a plate . Sprinkle some Fontina (or Kasseri) and some of the reserved Gorgonzola on the slices, then ladle over some of the sauce. Sprinkle with some of the walnut pieces and a generous amount of basil. Enjoy right away!

Cook’s notes:
I like lots of basil. So I didn’t didn’t bother with a chiffonade. Annie Sommerville suggests plating the polenta on a plate of arugula. I might have used it if I had it, or I would have used some watercress. Turned out I didn’t have any, so I just made up for the lack of it with lots of basil. (After the pictures, the dish went all green). The cooking of the sauce threw me a bit. I’ve never poached onions in cream before…to be frank, I’ve never poached onions in anything before. I’ve always browned them in oil or had them raw. The poaching here gently brings out the essence of the onion, herbs and the garlic. Sure, it all gets discarded but it has passed some of its soul onto the cream. It leaves behind a very luxurious, fragrant sauce that’s a real treat with the crisped polenta.

This is certainly a rich dish, but satisfying and very good with just the salad. As an appetizer, I would serve small individual portions to ensure that my guests save some room for the main course. A couple of pieces stacked together should do. The polenta can be made a day ahead, sliced and placed into the fridge. When required they can then be crisped on the skillet before assembly. One bite of this takes you to a warm, happy time. Mine I imagine, would be curled up on a sofa, with a book and my cat, if I had a cat.

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A nourishing noodle

I was dismayed to find autumn creep up on me rather unexpectedly this year. I kept thinking it was a while, wrapped up as I was in the corn and berries and peas, a very cozy place to be. Yet before I knew it, the days began getting shorter and shadows longer. We are already in mid-September and the good strawberries are all gone. Everywhere I turn I see the pumpkins that are being shoved on to me by eager retailers. The more I want to tuck the advent of Halloween to the farthest corners of my mind, the more I see it everywhere. The slow creeping in of the Bay area Indian summer has only just begun. While I will enjoy the sunshine, I know I’ll hate the heat, thanks to the unwelcome consensus some older folk had of not adding air-conditioning to apartments in the Northwest. Bidding goodbye to favourite foods, incumbent sleepless nights in stifling heat, all these simultaneous realizations just brought me down. Marvin, he of the paranoid android fame, has nothing on me. Such depth of depression can only be fought by deep seas of comfort. The kind that only a generous helping of comforting carbs can provide. Enter the versatile noodle.

I am, and always will be, a sucker for noodles, from any and all cultures. Slurpilicious egg noodles, feathery angel hair or rice noodles, crackling vermicelli, rich ramen; they all weave a spell on me. One glimpse of a plate or bowl of their enriched goodness and I’m lost in their uniform strands. Noodles lured me into the world of Chinese cuisine and I’ve never turned back since. I moved on to happily discover that most cultures had their own brand of noodles. But be they made of flour and egg, or rice, or wheat, I unequivocally love them all. There is something soothing, calming even, about a mouthful of pasta sopped in sauce, or a satisfying ritual of slurping up a bowl of Chinese noodles or Italian spaghetti. As a child, I remember masala Maggi noodles being my answer every time mom said she wasn’t sure what to cook for dinner. I would inhale a packet as a post-school snack with equal unbridled joy. Some of my most favourite memories involve rainy days and Maggi noodles. These were days when you went to school in the pouring rain, doing your damnedest to avoid getting splashed by cars. You sat through lessons, flinching at the lightning and jumping at the inevitable crack of thunder that followed, all the while just wishing you’d never left home. (Some part of your brain also marvelled at the repeated proof that light travels faster than sound…yours didn’t? Well, just nerdy ol’ me then!) Then at four in the afternoon you trudged through the now-pool-like puddles back home, too tired to avoid getting splashed this time. But then you arrived home and were lucky to have your mum there, with dry towels and something hot to eat. But if you were luckier still, she was out running an errand. Because then you got to make your own snack.

If she was out, there was hot milk in warming mugs, a pot of water on the stove and a note saying you could make a snack for yourself, with heaping warnings to b-e-v-e-r-y-c-a-r-e-f-u-l with fire. You peeled out of wet clothes into something warm & dry, made sure the kid sister had done the same and was staying out of trouble, (a minor feat since she made up for my lack of trouble by being twice as troublesome; who says there isn’t balance in the world?) watching cartoons with her mug of Bournvita. Then, you headed to the kitchen. There, with mom not hovering over your shoulder, you could decide whether your noodles were going to have peas or tomatoes or carrots or soy, and there were no arguments over having them plain if you so wished. After (carefully) prepping the veggies, you (carefully! since you were very obedient and responsible) boiled the water, cracked the two-minute noodles and shook the tastemaker into the water, added the extras and waited the eight to ten minutes it took for all of it to actually come together. Then you carefully ladled the noodles into two plates, slathered your own with tomato-chilli sauce (because really what doesn’t taste better with it? It’s like bacon for vegetarians) and put some ketchup on your sister’s since she wasn’t addicted to chilli like weirdo you. You called her for her plate and then made your way to the other room where it was quiet, the only sound being the pitter-patter of the rain. You grabbed a favourite Enid Blyton or Nancy Drew and sat on the sofa, slurping down the barely steaming noodles, chasing around the peas with your fork absorbed in your book in this heaven of warmth and security. The rain cocooned everything and was, quite suddenly now, more friend than antagonist, at least until you had to go to school again the next day. Those days seem so far away now and though my repertoire of noodle preparation has certainly expanded, the feeling that eating it brings is almost still quite the same. The early love of ramen has also filled me with curiosity to try all kinds of noodles. To battle the fall blues, I decided to try to rekindle a good mood with soba.

I’d bought a packet of soba, wanting to try out a recipe I’d read on Orangette, the kind that you just know will be fabulous when you read about it. The fact that I’d never eaten soba didn’t faze me one bit. I’ve never met a noodle I didn’t like. Soba are Japanese style thin noodles served warm in broth or cold with some dipping sauce. They taste a bit nutty with a nice bite. I had also bought this jar of sunflower seed butter to try. This is much more fluid than peanut butter at room temperature so I thought of using it in this recipe since it seemed well on its way to make a good sauce already. It has a milder flavour in comparison to peanut butter which worked really well as a sauce base. The old habit of chucking vegetables at my noodles also kicks in automatically and before I knew it I had chopped some of what I had at home, the last of some asparagus, a celery stalk or two and some scallions. The heat of the chilli combined with the nutty sunflower butter provided the lifting of spirits that I was looking for. I now have a new recipe added to my list of comfort foods.

Soba in a Nut-Chilli sauce
Adapted from Orangette
Serves 2-3

Soba noodles – 1/2 to 3/4 pound
Sunflower seed butter – 1/2 cup
Lemon – 1, zest and juice
Indian Chilli Sauce – 2 tbsp (alternatively use Sriracha or Sambal Olek – 1 tbsp)
Mayonnaise – 3 tsp
Hoisin – 1/2 tsp (optional)
Soy sauce – 2 tsp
Garlic – 3 cloves, finely minced
Ginger – 1/2”, cut into fine matchsticks
Celery – 2 stalks, diced small
Asparagus – 3 stalks, chopped small
Scallions – 2-3, chopped small
Sesame seeds – 1-1/2 tsp
Dark Sesame oil – 1/2 to 1 tbsp
Salt, if needed
Coriander for garnish

- To a saucepan on medium heat, add the sesame oil. Toss in the ginger and garlic and saute for a minute or so.
- Add the scallions, asparagus & celery and saute (until the asparagus is cooked, about 5 to 7 minutes if the asparagus is small). Move the veggies off the heat.
- Toast the sesame seeds and place aside.
- In a large bowl, prepare the sauce by combining the sunflower seed butter, chilli sauce, soy sauce, mayonnaise, hoisin, lemon zest and lemon juice. Stir to mix.
- Bring a large pot of water to boil. Then add the soba noodle bunches and turn the heat down to a simmer. Gently boil the noodles for about three minutes. Then drain the noodles in a colander and give them a quick wash under cold running water to remove excess starch off the strands, gently separating the strands.
- Place portions of  the noodles into the large bowl containing the sauce and gently toss to coat all the noodles with the sauce, adding more and incorporating until you have the right sauce-to-noodle proportions to your liking. Sprinkle over the sesame seeds.

Heap generous amounts into bowls and garnish with coriander (cilantro) to serve.

Cook’s notes:-
The soba is delicious, a bit chewy than most noodles, similar (though bit more al dente) to whole wheat spaghetti. Giving it that quick gentle wash in cold water makes the noodles barely warm when you toss them in the sauce. The nuttiness of the sunflower seed butter gathers a little sweetness from the mayo and hoisin, tartness from the lemon juice and combines with the chilli sauce to form a luscious sweet-and-sour sauce with a passive heat that you just feel at the back of your throat. This is a truly customizable recipe so by all means, feel free to throw in your own substitutions. I think some sort of nut butter and the lemon juice is key here. The rest of the ingredients could change around in quantity and inclusion (even without the hoisin and mayo for example, this is a marvellous sauce.) Molly of Orangette worried about over dressing the noodles. Amey and I could have happily gobbled up more sauce, so I guess this point is entirely dependant on your own tastes. The crunch of sesame seed was too subtle a contrast in texture for me. The next time I intend to add crushed peanuts. Also, I’ll add some carrots, they will really go well with this sauce.

I love developing on my childhood taste of food, it changes but never quite entirely. The chilli in the sauce kept me from putting in tomato-chilli sauce this time, but only just. Reminiscing like this also sometimes makes me wish I’d had a more fun with the food making times, like setting my Mom’s kitchen calendar on fire. But then maybe she wouldn’t have let me into the kitchen after that! My reminisces also get me thinking about you, dear reader. What are some of your favourite childhood food memories?

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Bread winner

Baking was something I didn’t really get to think about when I was younger. Bread was something you got pre-sliced from the market or from the pav walla (travelling bread seller) who made his rounds on on his bicycle in the mornings; cake was best left in the hands of the experts. Sure I’d been making making the dough for chapatis (a staple Indian flat bread) since in my teens. And there were the rare puris and parathas, but that was it really. Then I came to this country; kitchens here came equipped complete with oven, and people around me discoursed on bread baking and the wonder of warm loaves coming out of the kitchen as part of normal routine. Friends in grad school baked as means of stress relief and down in Texas, everyone knew how to bake their own biscuits and pies. It made me feel like a bit like I did on the first day of architecture school, lost and completely out of my element. Sure, I could wield a frying pan with the best of them but I had less of an idea what to do with a loaf tin. Antithetical ideas like sweet potato pie made my mind spin (a sweet vegetable pie? really?)… And biscuits, why on earth would someone call those heavenly savoury light bread-like creations biscuits? Biscuits come out of a tin or packets of butter paper and are sweet! It was a whole new world!

I was extremely ambivalent about trying all this on my own. First, it sounded a bit tedious and very easy to mess up (working the flour just right, bread dough different from pastry dough, all the mixing and measuring, cold butter, warm water…argh!); secondly, I was really not looking to make cooking more pulled out than I make it. I’m not one of those people who finds cooking therapeutic and relaxing. I’m downright nasty in the kitchen if you try to interfere with my weird work method. Cooking to me is adventurous and exciting; there is wonder in seeing things come together. But adventure and relaxation do not mix. A picnic in the park, it is not. So more years went by, with me standing in the sidelines as far as baking was concerned, cheering away at the accomplishments of others but very undecided about trying it for myself. I predicted disaster and so kept putting it off for other things I knew I could attempt successfully. My sister though, urged me to give it a shot. “Start with something simple…” she said, “like a box cake from the supermarket.” I decided it couldn’t hurt to try. If I messed it up, I’d chalk it up to experience. Good thing too, because the experience went very well. Those Betty Crocker boxes are genius, even belligerent cavemen could turn out cakes like cordon bleu chefs. There was warm comfort in a pan with that cake. Even though all I did was add some oil and eggs to it, there was a feeling of serious accomplishment when I pulled the fluffy chocolate cake out of that oven. It was the kind of euphoric feeling I’ll never forget, the nudge I needed to dive headlong into this well-heated world. I grew from strength to strength; mixing and stirring and ladling things like a happy little baker. There were cakes and brownies and cookies, even pies. There were some misses but also there were hits, hits that roared up the charts. (My favourite compliment was relayed to me by my elder sister a year ago. She told me my nephew refuses to eat commercial apple pie, claiming the only one he liked was the one his aunt made…er..that’s me…my nephew likes my apple pie best, isn’t he the sweetest little munchkin?? Wait, don’t tell him I said that. He’s fifteen now, he won’t like being called the sweetest little munchkin, w-ell, at least he’ll never acknowledge it.)

The one thing I still felt unsure around, was bread. All the talk of ‘starters’ and feeding the starter and being concerned about its well-being and mucking about with yeast; yeah, all that  just seemed like too much work. But you have to try something before you knock it. I was nervous about trying this culinary adventure without some guidance from experience. So many questions! So I signed up for a bread making class at the Tante Marie Cooking school in San Francisco, a school, I discovered, that I had lived nary a block from, without knowing it for almost five years! (Such is life no?) The instructor for the day’s class was a wonderful chef called Jim Dodge, who made the class fun and educational. He taught us about starters and blooming yeast and different kinds of bread. More importantly to me, he painstakingly worked with me to break my set-in-concrete habit of kneading dough into tomorrow, like I would for chapatis. Chapati dough can take a lot of beating ..er..kneading. Bread dough, I learned, is more gently kneaded and sort of shaped at the same time, with not as much heavy pressure as I’m used to wielding. Ok, no pressure at all really, you do as little kneading as possible after the dough has come together. We also learned the importance of letting the dough rest and rise, scoring the loaf (to give the bread some expansion paths so it doesn’t crack elsewhere) and the lovely hollow thunk it produces when it is perfectly baked and you knock on it. All this was in the wonderful home and garden of the lovely Tante Marie herself, Mary Risley. I made some lovely new friends and was richer in not only in experience, but in sourdough starter from Jim Dodge’s mother lode, several recipes and two of the loveliest loaves of sourdough bread you ever saw. My very own, very first, baked breads. Warm and crackly and smelling of herbs and heaven!

Still I was right about the amount of work. I forgot all about feeding my starter and it died a tragic death alarmingly soon. I have no stand mixer and realised I was very tense about working the dough entirely by hand once I was on my own. The recipes I’d so happily acquired sat forlornly on my kitchen counter, with me still a bit nervous about trying them out. A few weeks ago though, Amey gave me a good talking to. What is the point of taking a class and not even trying to do it on my own? My pointing out lack of kitchen equipment didn’t work either. I was sternly reminded that man didn’t come out of the primordial soup armed with stand mixers, and that bread had been around almost since then. Finding myself unable to argue with that bit of logic, I turned to my trusted cookbooks for an easy recipe I could try without fear of assured disaster.  And there it was, tucked away in Tyler Florence’s beauty of a book, this recipe for focaccia. What immediately appealed to me was the complete absence of a starter. Several authors assure you that bakers are happy to hand you some of theirs. I was in no mood to test out this theory. And then, there is the fact that this is focaccia. It is my favourite kind of bread. I love the soft yielding bite and slightly dense texture of this bread. The recipe seemed pretty doable, armed with my fairly new knowledge of bread as I was. I’m glad I tried it. This one’s a hit that will stay on the charts a lo-ong time.

Herbed Focaccia with Caramelized Onion & Goat Cheese
Adapted from Tyler Florence’s Stirring the Pot
Makes 8 slices/servings

For the dough:
Unbleached all-purpose flour – 3 1/2 cups
Dry active yeast – 2 tsp
Honey – 2 tsp
Salt- 1 tsp
Fresh thyme leaves – 1 tsp
Dried oregano – 1 tsp
Ancho chilli powder – 1 tsp
Olive Oil – 1 tbsp
Warm water – 1 cup

For the topping:
Red onions – 4, medium, cut into slivers
Goat cheese – about 2 oz
Parmesan cheese – 2 to 3 tbsp, shredded
Balsamic vinegar – a turn of the pan
Olive oil – 2 tbsp
Salt and pepper to taste

- Dissolve the honey in the warm water, then gently stir in the yeast. Place aside for 5 to 10 minutes. If the yeast are active, there will be some foam on the surface of the water.
- Sift the flour and salt into a bowl. Add the thyme leaves, dried oregano and ancho chilli powder.
- Slowly add in the warm water with yeast, stirring to combine together. When all the water has been incorporated, knead the mixture into a sticky dough.
- On the counter or on a base, sprinkle some flour. Pat the dough onto the surface and knead well, until the stickiness of the dough reduces considerably. Knead the dough for a bit until smoothish to the touch. Then add a tablespoon of oil and finish kneading the dough to develop a smooth surface. Punch the dough to flatten a bit, then fold it onto itself loosely.
- Place the dough in a bowl. Cover with a towel and keep in a warm place for about an hour for the dough to rise.
- Meanwhile, heat the remaining oil in a large pan on medium heat. Toss in the slivers of onion and toss to coat.
- Season well with salt and pepper. Mix well and then let the onions caramelize to a rusty gold, then to a deep purple. This should take about 30 minutes. About 10 minutes before they are done, pour in the balsamic vinegar and toss with the onions to coat.
- Check the dough at about an hour. It should be considerably larger, about twice its original size.
- Layer some parchment paper onto a baking sheet and rub it with some olive oil. Put the dough out on the pan and push it out to the edges with your fingers to flatten it out onto the pan, about 1/2” or so thick. Dimple the surface of the dough gently with your fingers.
- Cover the flattened dough with plastic wrap, then the towel and set aside for 15 minutes.
- Set the oven to heat at 400°F.
- Uncover the dough. Spread out the caramelized onions out to cover the surface of the dough. Crumble the goat cheese over the onions. Sprinkle the parmesan cheese over the entire surface.
- Place into the heated oven and bake for about 15 to 20 minutes, until the bread goes golden brown.

Serve by itself or with a side salad.

Cook’s notes:-
This is the kind of bread recipe that is totally geared towards the novice bread baker. Even though I’d done something this once under supervision before, I believe someone who doesn’t know the first thing about bread baking can do it, as long as they have the initiative and some amount of patience. I switched out the sugar for some honey and messed around with herbs and ancho chilli powder, but it all really worked in the recipe. The house smelled warm and inviting and I saw so many passersby glance at the building windows as I sat reading there while the bread baked. We really had a hard time waiting for this one to cool down because our senses kept demanding we try the bread right way. The bread bakes nice and golden and the entire thing is like a very thick crust pizza, totally amazing and very delicious. The cheese melted in fluffy little puddles all over the burgundy onion and was a wonderful tart counterbalance to the sweetness of the onions. There was just a bit of heat in the dough from the chilli powder, which worked very well with the key flavours of cheese and onion.

The texture of the bread is dense and yielding. My technique, or lack thereof, didn’t seem to have mattered one way or another, since whatever I did seemed to have worked. This is the kind of recipe you work at as you sort through other stuff on the weekend, cleaning out a closet, doing laundry or some such thing. As you get done with your task, the bread comes out of the oven and a meal is ready. Watch out for burns as people try to grab pieces before the bread has time to cool. If you manage to get slices on to a plate, this would go really well with a leafy salad, maybe with some walnuts (which I think might work really well sprinkled on the bread too). It does quite well by itself too though, it is quite filling. This would make excellent picnic fare. We ate it standing in the kitchen over the baking sheet, dropping crumbs everywhere. Not one piece made it anywhere near a plate!

Unlike me, give this one a try sooner rather than later. You will be mighty pleased with the results. With the advent of autumn, your kitchen will appreciate the warmth as well. I was glad the bread baking experience was a successful one. At a point in the process, when the bread was in the oven and the aroma enveloped me like a hug from my mum, I took a deep breath, sighed and realised that cooking can be, well and truly, comforting. That is even better than it being relaxing.

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Good & clear

Labor day weekend is almost done as I write this. Can’t say it was one of the best ones. Friday night saw us spend a lovely evening with friends, but after that it all went downhill. I haven’t been in this much trouble with the gods of sniffles in years. The weather in the city has been yoyo-ing between searing hot days and cold nights and while the week was tough, I succumbed to it, good and proper this weekend. Between the sniffing and the sneezing, it was hard to find the inclination to cook or eat these past three days. Mostly I just spent the days on the couch, swathed in tissue and reading my collection of Jane Austen. There is something curiously bracing about reading of long rambling walks among the countryside, of solitary thought and of a simpler time (though not so much to the people that lived in it, I imagine). But it might have not been the best thing to read at this time. My impatience for the protagonists of the novel to get their act together and move along only aggravated my already low spirits. This is not how a long weekend should be for anyone. Thankfully though, the one bright spot, there was soup.

It may seem incongruous to speak of hot weather and soup in the same sentence, but in my life there is never a wrong time for soup. Especially when it this simple, soul-cheering fair, packed chock-full of immunity boosting vegetables. There are various claims it makes of being a clear soup, though I’m not quite sure this falls in that category. In my head the words clair zoop are always pronounced in the nasal tones of a French maitre d’ out of a 60’s movie…but I digress. I don’t think it is a clear soup because I can’t see through it. But then whoever said that I definitively know what a clear soup is? Certainly not me.

This is a vegetable broth-based soup, with celery and carrots and cabbage among other things. On account of the soy sauce and the vinegar in it, it has been christened a Chinese clear soup by Amey’s family. It would certainly not be out of place served as a precursor to a Chinese meal, the flavours here are pretty consistent with that cuisine. However, the umami of the soy and clear tang of vinegar combine with the mingled flavour of various vegetables to make this a soup that can hold body and soul together very well indeed. In my case it was the beginning and end of several of my weekend meals. I kept asking Amey to make fresh batches of it. For some reason, in an allergy fogged world, these flavours were the only ones that didn’t taste like cardboard. And as far as its health benefits, my mom would approve. Especially since she wasn’t here to fuss over her sick child. I miss her terribly when I’m sick. But Amey and his soup were wonderful at taking care of me too.

Vegetable clear soup
Makes 4 to 6 servings

(All the vegetables below to be chopped into similar bite-sized pieces)

Capsicum or green pepper – 1 , cored and diced
Celery – 2 stalks, diced
Carrots – 2, diced
Cauliflower – 1/2, broken into florets and chopped
Green Beans – 1 cup, chopped
Cabbage – 1/2, diced
Scallions – 1 bunch, chopped
Broccoli – 1 cup florets, chopped
Vegetable Stock – 3 to 4 cups
Vinegar – 1/4 cup
Canola Oil – 2 tbsps
Sesame Oil – 1/2 tsp
Soy Sauce – 2 tbsp
Corn Flour – 1/2 tbsp
Ajinomoto – a pinch (optional)
Salt to taste

- Parboil the vegetables.
- Heat the canola oil in a large pot. Saute parboiled vegetables for a few minutes.
- Add sesame oil, salt, soy sauce and ajinomoto if using. Saute for a few more minutes.
- Add vinegar and the vegetable stock and heat.
- Combine the corn flour and a little of the warm stock from the pot to make a light paste in a small bowl. Add this to the soup pot and mix well. Cover and bring the soup to a boil.
- Lower heat and simmer the soup until vegetables are cooked.

Serve with chilli vinegar and maybe cilantro for garnish.

Cook’s notes:

Quite frankly, regardless of the ingredients list,  this is a clear-out-your-fridge kind of soup, which means that practically any kind of vegetable would work fine in here. I’m a strong supporter of carrots in this soup. They add a lovely counter-balance to the vinegar and soy sauce. The sauce I speak of here is the Indian soy sauce variety. Remember to watch the salt if you use the American supermarket kind. They are certainly saltier. The ajinomoto here is optional. (I know this is a touchy subject with tons of discourse on it. I read this article on it recently. By all means, do not use it if you don’t want to.)

Very often, we will also boil some noodles and add them to this, making it a sort of all-in-one meal, a noodle-in-vegetable soup delight. If you do this make sure you start the noodles in separate boiling water but drain them and stir them in with this soup to let them finish cooking. They will absorb the flavoured broth and take on a light brown sheen that will complement the flavour and colour of the soup (which by the way, will be the colour of dark root beer). If it is all just too much vegetable for you, add any bits of cooked meat you may have on hand. Chicken would work particularly well. Keep the pieces small and consistent with the rest of it and they will work just fine.

This is a lovely soup for fall, when the weather turns cooler. In my case, I’m always happy to have it on my plate, rain, shine or sniffles.