Jonesing for Indian

After two years spent almost entirely in College Station, Texas, it was safe to say that I was thoroughly disillusioned with what was served in the name of Indian food in the United States, to the point where I only sought it in homes. While there had been shining successes by few, notably by my brother-in-law and my good buddy Pratik, to determinedly find me good Indian food in the nation’s capital and New Jersey respectively, those brief interludes did little to shake my despondency since my trips to the East coast were few and far in between. Little did I know that I’d end up living in San Francisco, a superlative Mecca of cuisine. Somewhere in between the super-fancy restaurant found here and the “hole-in-the-wall” phenomenon that is also abundant is the kind of restaurant that promises nothing and in doing so, reconfigures what you’ve come to expect. Such was my feeling about the restaurant Chutney in San Francisco. There is nothing to distinguish it on the outside from any other restaurant in its vicinity but the Pakistani-Indian food it claims to deliver, it does so in aces. The food here is what most Indians would recognize as North Indian, a notable difference being the presence of beef, something you are highly unlikely to find in an Indian restaurant back home of this kind. I took one bite of the garlic naan and paneer tikka masala and was instantly transported in time and space. I had found heaven in the middle of one of the gritty neighbourhoods in the city.

As the one of the few Indians at my workplace who live in the city, I have been  asked several times what a good Indian restaurant to eat at is. My recommendation for this one has always been met with approval. Chutney boasts a fairly extensive menu and serves tons of things indelibly aligned with Indian food such as tikka masalas, biryanis and koftas. My favourite here is the tikka masala, chicken or paneer and their unbeatable garlic naan. Their preparation of baingan bharta (roasted eggplant) is very different from the way I, and several Indian friends, know it to be made, but is nevertheless very tasty. The palak paneer (or saag paneer as it is called there) is good enough to make you want to eat here every day. For some reason though, the ubiquitous aaloo gobi can be a bit temperamental and can sometimes come out with a double dose of chilli. Why this is the only dish they’ve been known to mess up, I don’t know, but you’ve been warned. On a good day, it tastes great. If it is your first time here, don’t forget to try the biryani. It’s not like the hyderabadi biryani Indians are used to but still a very good variation of it. It certainly isn’t cooked like I know, coming together much quicker than its supposed to, like a glorified pulao. Still it works and is very good. We know them well enough now to order the biryani with potatoes (because to me, a biryani HAS to have potatoes). Tried either way, it’s a great eat, with any meat of your choice. While I can speak authoritatively only of chicken, different friends have tried different meats and fish and have all been pleased with their orders. They have a host of specials that change every day, notable among which are the Chicken Kofta and the Chicken Kheema.

When I first learned of Chutney a good five years ago, it had little décor to speak of and an ancient, creaky exhaust system. The tandoor had created great grey smoky facades and eating in here always required a good, brisk airing after to get the acrid smell out of your hair and water for your eyes. Your clothes sadly couldn’t just do with an airing and had to be washed immediately. All this never stopped me from eating here. After a brisk fire broke out three or so years ago, rebuilding required a shiny new exhaust grill over the tandoor and some nice new paint and accessories. This makes it much easier to eat in.

garlic naan, paneer tikka masala & chicken kabab

This is, in my opinion, one of the best Pakistani-Indian restaurants in the city for the food and the price. Pakistani Indian food is subtle-ly different from Indian food. Something about the mixture of spices. Yet it is close enough to work when the craving hits you, no matter who you are. Vegetarians may take issue with all the kababs hanging up to be smoked, in which case you can happily take advantage of its take-away service (or delivery if you live close by). It is in the Tenderloin and it’s open late so I’ve been known to go there at all hours. But as the night advances the number of colourful characters you could meet there will grow as well. (A flaming pink-haired and utterly plastered Irish soccer fan once poked Amey in the ribs and asked him why he was so tall, then promptly turned and walked into a wall.) To me, that’s all part of the fun of living in the city. Also, an establishment claiming to serve Pakistani-Indian food will almost always be cheaper than one serving Indian food. I’m not sure why this is.

You can find Chutney on Jones Street between Geary and O’Farrell.

Going out

Friendly as I am with food in general, restaurants and I have almost always been on terms of an especial camaraderie. So many memories are created when you feast on foods in fine eating establishments in good company. My past is littered with events that allow sentences to begin with “Remember when K threw artichokes at Prof. H in Cheddars……?”  (no really, he did! That is the correct course of action when the professor in question throws you out of class for….but I digress.) Then there is the added comfort and convenience of someone else waiting on you and having to clear the table and do the dishes.  But wait; don’t go away thinking I’m some kind of eatery style snob. Some of the finest eating establishments I know provide you with the food, a paper napkin, a curt nod and expect you to make the best of it. I am intimately familiar with this type too and will happily adjust, if the food in question tastes first-rate and the napkin is clean. (Mama raised very germ-conscious children!) I don’t ask for much from a potential food provider.

Touching briefly on a pet peeve of mine, here in the US, things are different from India when it comes to the actual restaurant space. Good (read expensive) restaurants in India are magnificent in their opulence. Scale, proportion, sound control and material are used with liberal abandon to make you feel like the money you are spending is worth it. And it does achieve its objective often. That is not necessarily the case with expensive restaurants here, especially in cities. You can end up spending a fortune in a tiny little joint where there isn’t enough room on the table for your food, the salt shaker and the customary single flower vase; and the noise levels require you to play the lets-see-whose-louder-game with the table next to you. These are restaurants, mind you, not clubs. You expect it from one but get horrible headaches and rising blood pressure when you find it in another. The higher the price tag on such an experience, the more robbed you feel. While restaurants here have introduced me to several different worlds, culinarily speaking, the designer in me wonders what they were thinking. I’m sure there’s a strata of uber-expensive restaurants that might offer me this, but those would probably be as inaccessible to most people, as they are to me.

Regardless, there are a host of wonderful restaurants out, no matter what country you are in. And that’s a good thing when you can’t be bothered to cook. In future posts, I will share some of the ones I’ve been to.

Also….raising my glass  to the seasonal teeth-rattling we had today. This earthquake was exceptionally perky in the city. Escaped near-loss of finger nail when set-square came crashing down on hand. Stats say magnitude 4.3, bit north of Morgan Hill. Nothing to get your noodles in a knot about.

A curry from any other place….

Look anywhere these days and you’ll see individuals, entities and whole countries cutting back. The current economic crisis has proving to be critical enough that no one escape unscathed. I work in the downtown area in San Francisco, and remember marvelling at the fact that even on work day nights, the mall next door used to be teeming with life, shoppers and lollygaggers galore. In recent times,  the mall has the hush of a museum, the various shops looking like so many exhibits as we all walk by in a self-imposed mode of look-but-don’t-touch. This is easily emphasized by the fact that there aren’t that many stores as there once were, patches of dark are added to the retail tapestry all over as stores kick the bucket, sometimes stealing suddenly and quietly away into the night. Architecture and construction has been summarily decimated by the economy. As part of the belt tightening at my workplace, discretionary spending has been severely reduced. Lunch & Learns have taken up the ‘bring-your-own’ slogan definitively. There are no team lunches. Our team has come up with a good idea to work with this, in keeping with the bring-your-own theme. We have become our own caterers.

Once a month, the team meets to discuss ideas and current issues pertaining to the profession and what we do. This is different from working team meetings because the talk is not just restricted to the project at hand. It is an essential part of team building which we all appreciate at a time when communication is key. Plus there is nothing like bonding over food. This element was essentially renewed when my team-mate  P.K suggested that she cook for this month’s meeting. P.K is a Malaysian native, who has lived in several places all over the world. She has a great sense of humour and is wonderful to work with. At the end of a long Wednesday, the smell of her chicken curry was intensely appetizing. She made a delicious silver noodle salad to accompany it, and served it alongside what Malaysians call roti-platha (and what Indians would call paratha, one of our forms of bread). I learned just how similar Malaysian food can be to Indian food and how delicious. Swooning over this curry as I did, P.K and I had an engaging conversation after the meeting about how she made it. She graciously presented me with a packet of my very own Malaysian meat spice mix the next day that I tried out as soon as I could, that very weekend. For a long time lover of curries, I am ecstatic to find a new one I love. I love how this country continues to engage in a diversity very different from the one I knew back home.

This curry is mild and flavourful, an ideal dish not only to serve with the parathas, but also over basmati or jasmine rice. At home, we ate ours over couscous and it worked just as well. A key to this curry (as is mostly the case with curries) is the spice mix, which has subtle differences from the Indian ones I know. The emphasis is on gentle flavours and there is almost no heat in its original form. My addition of chilli powder only slightly altered this, but not enough to change the dish. P.K had no potatoes in hers, I add some to mine. This didn’t affect the flavours of the final dish, but the potatoes in the luscious gravy were something else! I believe you can use any meat here that you choose. The curry mix will work for all kinds. I’m told there is a spicier one for fish. The mix has a variety of spices in it like pepper and coriander seeds; it even includes dal.
Most curries I make are coconut-based, something Amey is not extremely fond of. He loved this one.

P.K’s Malaysian Chicken Curry
Serves 3-4

Chicken – boneless, skinless, 16 oz , cubed small-ly
Red Onion – 1 large, sliced
Tomato – 1, chopped
Potatoes – I large or 2 small, chopped into medium size pieces
Garlic – 4 cloves, finely minced
Ginger – an inch, finely minced
Curry Leaves – 8-9
Cashews -  ground into powder, 1/2 cup
Chilli Powder – 1 tsp
Malaysian Meat spice mix – about 1/4 of the pack
Canola Oil – 3 tbsps
Salt, to taste

Whole spices:-
Cinnamon – 2 sticks
Cloves – 3-4
Black Cardamom – 1-2 pods
Star Anise – 2 pods
Fennel – 1/2 tsp
Cumin – 1/2 tsp

- Heat oil in a pan. Add the whole spices to the oil and fry a bit. Then add the curry leaves, onion and tomato and fry until the onion is translucent.
- Add the chicken, ginger and garlic and stir for a couple of minutes. Then add enough water to cook the chicken and the salt. Cover and cook for 10 minutes.
- Uncover, then add potatoes, the Malaysian spice mix and chilli powder. Cover once more and boil until the potatoes are cooked through.
- Next, add the ground cashews and a cup more of water. Bring down to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes more.
- Garnish with cilantro if desired.

Serve with bread or rice.

Cooks notes:
This spice mix is available ready-made though you could make it yourself, I’m sure. You can buy it here. P.K said she had a hard time finding it in shops in and around the Bay area. Maybe it is available more easily where you live. Curry in the Indian sense is not a powder, it is the finished dish which generally employs a vegetable or protein in a liquid carrier. (I think my Altonese is showing!) In the Indian sense, a sauce is purely liquid, like Alfredo,and poured over something else, while gravy is the base of any curry-like dish, where it is integrally a part of the flavour. I learned that in the US the opposite is valid. The curry spice mix is available in several combinations and is limited only by your imagination. This one has ground dal in it.

I used white meat here, P.K had used dark and hers was probably the wiser choice. But that is putting too fine a point on it. Either will do in a pinch. Curry leaves are available easily in any Asian (especially Indian) stores. If whole spices in the food you eat aren’t your thing, you can grind them together into a powder before you use them. And don’t be too hung up on having each spice. While a missing spice will slightly alter the flavour, the beauty of a curry is that it works, no matter what.

Brand new world

For me, starting grad school was synonymous with starting a life in the United States. Everything was new, from trains inside airports that transported you around it to wide open spaces with not a sign of life. The latter was a novel and jarring experience. Almost anywhere in India, you always see people. In Texas, you can go miles and miles without seeing so much as an armadillo. I remember sitting at my window, jet-lagged and missing home on my first day in, hoping to see anything that moved. Even the trees wouldn’t stir. My room-mates were out and I don’t think I have ever felt so alone on a blazing, bright sunny day.

I missed Bombay a lot, including and importantly, the food. Everything with which I was familiar looked similar in the US, but was completely different. The sole Indian restaurant in College Station was a joke; everything was watered down to an extreme. Chinese food was unrecognizable, with hardly a dish on the menu being the same as the ones I knew at home. The nearest grocery store/market was over two miles away. And giving in to the urge to convert everything I bought into rupees made me freak out. (100 rupees for a mere pound of potatoes, are you *#@!! kidding me??) Also portions had my head spinning. A burrito joint called Free Bird, while serving some pretty decent burritos, had a regular size burrito that was humongous (and that was the smallest size!). A couple of days of eating out on such fare and the local McDonald’s and we were done. After scaring up various pots and pans and loading up on groceries, thanks to helpful college seniors, we began the task of organizing food at home.

back home, I had loved the idea of cooking and had tried my hand at a decent share of stuff but had never needed to cook on a daily basis. The kitchen was really my mother’s domain. I’d never been more than a sous-chef at best, irregularly at that, playing chef on the rare occasions she was unwell. The sudden task of dealing with daily meals, paying bills and grad school was unbelievably trying. Quick food became a goal to strive for, with a strong concentration for familiar and cheap (we were, after all, foreign students in a foreign country, and it was 50 rupees to the dollar at the time).

One of the first things Indian babies are fed is rice, first in the form of a soft paste, eventually graduating to rice with milk. The adult and significantly more flavourful version of this is dahi-bhat (curd & rice) which some, like my husband, possess the capacity to consume daily basis. It is supremely easy, quick and cheap to throw together. The yoghurt gets tempered with various ingredients, depending on where you from in India, but any of the combinations result in a lovely, mildly spiced rice dish. Pair this with a batata bharit (potato mash), the kind that my mom put together, and you could be forgiven for feeling like a small child having a grown-uppish meal. It was a little slice of heaven between classes and we were home in a brand new world!

My mom’s Dahi-bhat with Potato-bharit
Serves 2-3

For the rice:-
Basmati (or other long-grain) Rice – 2 cups, cooked
Yoghurt – 3-3 1/2 cups
Salt – 1 tsp or to taste

For tempering:
Canola or Peanut Oil – 1 tbsp
Dried Red Chillies – 4-5
Mustrd Seeds – 1 tsp
Cumin – 1 tsp
Cury Leaves – 7-8
Asafoetida – a pinch
Urad Dal (Black Gram) – 1 tsp

For the potatoes:-
Potatoes – 2 large, boiled and mashed
Onion – a half, diced
Green Chillies – 3-4, finely chopped
Salt, to taste

For rice:
- Put the rice in a large bowl. Add the yoghurt and mix to combine.
- Heat a small pan and add the oil. To this, add curry leaves, mustard seeds, cumin, black gram, asafoetida and red chillies, broken into smaller pieces. Add these in the order stated on low heat. Temper until chillies are almost black, but not burnt.
 - Move off the heat and add straight to the rice and yoghurt mixture. Add salt add and stir in thoroughly until mixed.

For bharit:
- Put the cooled mashed potato in a bowl and add to it, the chilli and the diced onions.
- Season liberally with salt and stir in, folding over until thoroughly incorporated.

Serve immediately.

Cook’s notes:
This mixture of spices is more of a rule of thumb rather than a fixed rule. The red chillies, mustard seeds and curry leaves are important here for the tempering. Use the other spices as per availability. The Urad dal will add a fantastic crunch and bite to this dish. The black part could be misleading as this is a white dal, but you’ll see why if you read the link about it in the ingredients. As with most Indian food, the red chillies and curry leaves are expected to be put aside and not eaten. They have already done their job and passed their smoky flavour to the oil and the dish. However, if you are anything like me, you’d eat the chillies anyway.

Blue for cheese

One of the (many!) enjoyable things about living in San Francisco is the easy access to a great variety of cheese. I don’t mean the stuff near the deli at the supermarket, though that’s fine in a pinch. I mean the lovely varieties of artisan cheeses that are available here. One of my favourite ones is Cowgirl Creamery’s Pepato, a wonderful peppery sheep’s milk cheese which is mmmyummmmy all by itself. I can wax lyrical for volumes just about this cheese, but that would mean digressing, so…. putting dream cheese away in fantasy fridge to focus back on the topic at hand.

I like to shop for food like some women like to shop for shoes. I can spend hours wandering around food, gawking at all the wares. I think dogs who stare dolefully at dining tables must be more subtle than I am. Fanatical about hygiene though I may be, I have no problem shmushing my face into cheese counters and such to get a better look at what’s inside. The more expensive the store, the longer I will linger, since the thrifty part of me will engage in long arguments with the part that wants to buy half the store.  The compromise is Greedy Guts get an eyeful of everything she’s not going to have. If you see someone with vacant eyes, staring supposedly aimlessly at the counter while you try to get at the clotted cream around her, forgive me for being in your way, but now you know why.

Sometimes though, the staring brings with it inspiration. On a particularly late night grocery shopping trip, where my thoughts were also on the night’s dinner, I sampled a wonderful gorgonzola. It has been ages since I ate some and wondered if I could put it into a salad. But the cold night demanded something warm and so gorgonzola pasta was born.

This pasta is wonderfully warm on a cold night. The star here is the cheese so make sure you use a variety you like. It is a sort of adult mac-n-cheese. I’m sure it would have been even better with a couple of minutes under a whacking hot broiler, but we were ravenous. The walnuts added a wonderful counter-texture and taste, their warm, nutty flavour melding with the cheese. But then I love the addition of nuts to starchy dishes. I claim no patents for inventing this. I googled Gorgonzola sauce the next day and got tons of hits. Practically everything has been done before by greater minds than mine. On a cold and wet night, after a long day, it was comforting and soothing dish to enjoy.

Whole wheat pasta with walnuts and gorgonzola sauce.
Serves 2-4

Whole-wheat Penne (or your favourite sturdy shaped pasta) – Half a box
Walnuts – a large handful, chopped and briefly toasted
Gorgonzola cheese – 1 cup, crumbled into smaller pieces
Half-and-half – 1 cup
White wine or Champagne Vinegar – a glug or so of the bottle
Honey – 1 tsp
Butter – 1 tsp
Garlic – 3 cloves, finely minced
All-Purpose flour – 1 tsp
Salt to taste, if required
Good grinding of black pepper
Basil – torn into pieces, 1 giant handful a person.
Parmesan for topping

- Boil the pasta as directed with a liberal seasoning of salt added to the boiling water. 
- Toast the walnuts for a couple of minutes and put aside.
- Melt the butter in a saucepan and saute the garlic.
- Add the flour to start a basic roux.
- When lightly browned, slowly add in the half-and-half and stir in to incorporate into a thickish sauce.
- Melt the gorgonzola cheese into this sauce, all the while whisking briskly. When everything comes together into a velvety fluid mixture, add the white wine and whisk further, finishing with the honey. Stir to incorporate into a cohesive sauce, using some pasta water to thin it out if necessary.
- Drain the boiled pasta and add to the prepared sauce. Mix thoroughly until all of the pasta is cloaked with the sauce.
- Add the toasted walnuts and ladle portions into serving dish.
- Season with pepper, top lavishly with the basil and serve.

Cook’s notes:
The basil here is not a garnish, but an integral part of the dish (though the photo was taken before I made that decision). The flavour contrasted against that of the sharp sauce but came together into a wonderfully complementary dish. The honey adds a sweetish note. I used orange flower honey here and touch of a Riesling that I had already open. A dry wine would also probably work but it might need to be balanced further. This was a dish that’s perfect for a quick weekend supper on colder days.

Randomness

When the wave of ‘25 random things about You’  tagged to me on Facebook, I had a hard time trying to come up with them. Maybe I have to work at the memory thing or at coalescing thoughts enough to form a cohesive list. Once done though, it was surprising to see how many of them had to do with food. This took me a while. Here goes….

1. I love spicy food. I have been known to eat chillies raw.
2. I love Indian, Indian Chinese (I kid you not, it is its own fabulous cuisine), Mexican, Thai and Italian food in that order. The only thing topping all of these is my mom’s food. No one cooks like her. NO ONE!
3. I hate fish, but the smell of fish being fried the Goan way by my mom is pretty high on my list of favourite smells.
4. I have lots of cook books but I’ve never followed a recipe completely, except when I’m baking. I learned early that you can’t muck around with that.
5. I miss Bade Miya and Ling’s Pavillion more than I can say.
6. I flipped my first omlette when I was 10, made my first mayonnaise at 12.
7. Being in the US taught me to appreciate milder cuisines like French. Though it is not a favourite, before then, I’d have been loath to even try it.
8. I could never value religion over human life. Religious fervor is the scariest thing I know.
9. My last meal wish would be a proper Chicken Shwarma like they make in the U.A.E and a Veggie Frankie.
10. Everything is better with Maggi’s Hot and Sweet Tomato Chilli Sauce (it is different!). (Or this green habernero sauce I discovered in Michigan of all places!)
11. I love to drive. The destination doesn’t matter as much as the trip.
12. I am highly thankful I wasn’t an only child. I am also thankful I am the middle child.
13. My elder sister taught me to read and ride the bicycle (and not to do it at the same time.
14. I find the evolution of various cuisines fascinating. I often wonder what Indian food was like before chillies were introduced to it 400-500 years ago. Also if China is (apparently) the largest potato producer in the world, why are there very few, if any, potato dishes in Chinese restaurants??
15. My fondest wishes are to see the Pyramids of Egypt and to learn to fly a plane.
16. My best friend from school and my best friend in college share the same birthday, down to the year. My best friend in college is now my husband.
17. I love languages. I am fluent in three (spoken and written), and haltingly speak and understand three others.
18. I love dogs. I love cats. I’ve turned my husband into a dog lover. We are working on cats now.

Not my husband or my dog

19.  I adore Michael J. Fox. I think I was 10 when I first saw Back to the Future.
20. I need books and music like I need air to breathe.
21. I am deeply interested in astronomy, geography and history.
22. I grew up near the sea and live near the ocean now. The two years I spent away from it drove me stir-crazy.
23. I love roller coasters. I think I’d love sky-diving. This is despite the fact that I have some degree of vertigo.
24. I understand why texting is the way it is but it bothers me when people write everything that way.
25. The insularity I see in some communities foreign to a region surprises me. Why leave your country when you want to spend all your time only with people from it?

Cake for so many reasons

There are days when grey skies and rainy days are fine by me. I love them when I’m sitting at home and don’t have anywhere to be.  These are the days that things at home that have been clamouring for my attention for a while, but haven’t been critical enough to actually get it, get done. Stuff like sorting out books, reorganizing a closet or shelf. But there is also a lovely indolent element to these times. They are the best days for curling up on the couch and doing nothing other than reading a good book or watching a bad movie. Amey and I love to sleep in when we have such weather. But that Sunday I was up uncharacteristically bright and early. I sat by the window and watch the rain come down while a steaming cup of cocoa warmed my hands. As strains of Reo Speedwagon’s Can’t Fight this feeling filled the room (I always get a bit nostalgic and retro when it rains and I don’t know what it is about this song and the rain, they just fit), I watched the rain falling down my window, tracing the drops as they formed briefly-lived lines on the pane. Rains in San Francisco aren’t like ones in Bombay where the terrifyingly dark skies open and a deluge of water pours down. This is gentle pattering down of water from slate skies. I could still see the traffic on Bay street clearly enough to read license plates, something that would never happen in Bombay rains. Nevertheless, rain it was, rhythmically falling and bringing the calming feeling of facetious isolation that it brings for me. The same feeling I get when I am by myself in a crowd.

Draining my cup of cocoa left me me suddenly bereft of the warm cup in my hands. It also turned my thoughts to the week ahead, as Sunday mornings inevitably do. I used to groan at the thought of that early Monday morning. Monday blues used to hit me a whole day earlier.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my job and my workplace, working as I do with fun people. It is Mondays that are the problem. Like the kid sticking his fingers in his ears and singing to drown out words he doesn’t want to hear, early on in my career I would shut my mind to the thought of Monday and try to push it far back as much as possible, thereby ensuring a full fledged gloom attack by Sunday night. These days I deal with it a lot better (cue in peals of hysterical laughter from my husband).This time though the thought of Monday brightened me considerably as it came with thoughts of cake.

A colleague at work asks “Where’s my cake?” every day recently. I can’t remember how it began or when. I don’t even remember why. I don’t have any sort of reputation as a baker at work. I do seem to supply them easily at birthdays, though not necessarily baked by me. I have some excellent sources. Our receptionist’s girlfriend is one of them, Ruta, baker extraordinaire. Then there is Dianda’s, the bakery with a dark rum cake that would make even Jack Sparrow believe that there are better things to do with rum than just drinking the stuff. I had agreed to supply a cake as requested and figured it may a well be on that Monday. Plus there is something amazing and warm about the smell of a cake baking on rainy day.  I had found an excellent recipe for a yoghurt cake on Epicurious that I was itching to try.

This cake is dense and crumbly, a luxurious coffee-cake. It takes oil as a fat of choice, not butter, which was a good thing since I didn’t have any at home that day. The batter starts off as a big old mess when the dry and wet ingredients come together but some deft whisking brought the whole thing together rather well. I baked my cake in a deepish pie pan. It was too lazy a day to be hauling step ladders. and my well-meaning husband had moved my cake pans on to a high shelf to make more room in the lower cupboards, forgetting that they were easy for his six-foot-three frame to reach but impossible for my five-foot-five. The red pie pie dish brought it’s own cheer to the party. The cake was ready from scratch in an easy 55 minutes, just about the time Amey came yawning out to the kitchen . I cut him a couple of deep yellow slices after it cooled and covered the rest in a syrup made from the fruit and a chocolate icing I made up as he made appreciative noises over his plate. I took it work and unveiled it to my happy colleague the next day, and the rest of my team who loved it. My colleague declared himself completely sated and said he wouldn’t ask for cake anymore. But now, the rest of the team does

French Yoghurt Cake with Orange Zest
Adapted from Epicurious. Serves 8 large pieces or 14 small

All-Purpose flour – 1 1/2 cups, unbleached
Baking Powder – 2 teaspoons
Plain low-fat Yoghurt – 1 cup
Sugar – 1 cup
Eggs – 3 large
Zest of 1 orange
Vegetable Oil – 1/2 cup
Pinch of salt

For the syrup.
Oranges – 2, juiced
Orange flower honey – 3 spoons, slightly warmed.
Orange liqueur – 2 tsp

For the icing
Semisweet Chocolate – I bar, broken into pieces
Heavy Cream – 1/4 cup
healthy swig of Orange Liqueur

- Heat the oven to 325°F.
- Combine the sugar, eggs and yoghurt in a large bowl and whip using hand mixer (as I did) or fold together with a spatula until it comes together.
- Sift in the flour and baking powder and add the zest and salt and mix.
- Add the oil. At this point it will look like the mess I mentioned but continue mixing and it will all be incorporated into a cohesive batter.
- Line the bottom of a cake pan with buttered sides and pour the batter into this.
- Then move cake pan into oven and bake for about 40 minutes until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Take out of the oven and let cool a bit before turning it on to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Mix the orange juice and honey in a small bowl and pour this over the cooled cake. The dense crumb of the cake will absorb this easily.

For the icing:
- Boil some water in a vessel and place another one over it such that the boiling water does not touch the bottom of the vessel above it.
- In this, add the cream and melt the chocolate pieces.
- When the chocolate is melted, add the Citronge and mix together.

Pour icing over cooled cake where it will fall to drape it like a chocolate cloak.

Cooks’ notes:
If you are tempted to use olive oil here instead of the requisite vegetable oil, don’t, as olive oil has a strong taste that might overpower the cake. I used canola oil. Also I used orange zest instead of lemon and low fat yoghurt instead of whole milk. I juiced the orange and made a light syrup of it with some orange flower honey and couple of teaspoons of liqueur. The cooled cake drank it up and asked for more. I provided for the lack of marmalade glaze with the bittersweet chocolate and Citronge icing I made up. It all worked splendidly!

Breaking bread

It’s funny how things about you change through life. At this point I’m an owl and drag myself out of bed in the morning. As a child I was an early bird, also the studious sort (read: nerd, I wear the badge proudly). There was many a morning before some test where I was springing out of bed at 5.00 am to study (not because I wasn’t prepared but because I wanted to revise it for the nth time. Read: uber-nerd!) I’d sit in the kitchen so as not to disturb my sister who I shared a room with. I’d open the kitchen window, look out into the dark, quiet street with the street lamp some distance away and then open my books on the kitchen table. There was a wonderful peace to that time of day that allowed me to get a lot done. There was a main road and a market nearby which must have been in full swing by then, but the new day didn’t touch my little space yet. That wasn’t until the mullah at a nearby mosque took up the clarion call of the morning prayer at dawn. Though I’m not a Muslim, the musicality of that prayer has always been soothing to me, uttered peacefully as it is. I’d goad myself to be done with my work before then because I knew my mom would be in the kitchen before it was done and me and my books would need to clear out to get ready for school.

Mom always insisted on a cooked breakfast in our tummies before we went about our day. So pretty soon in the morning, there would be lovely aromas drifting out of the kitchen. After her customary cup of tea (fully required to be awake and coherent by all members of my family except me), she’d finish up the breakfast she’d prepped the earlier night. On rare days that she was under the weather or running late, it would be buttered toast or corn flakes.

Breakfast in India is mostly savoury, not sweet. In my family, it was almost never sweet. In fact, the college coffee shop was a shock to my system when I first came to the United States. It is something I still haven’t adjusted to. Bagels are my only option and often, they aren’t much of one. Often I’d put on my school uniform to come out and find the smell of onion and chilli wafting in the air. One of my favourite morning breakfasts was and still is Pavacha chivda (torn bread with potatoes and onions). This makes a damn fine supper too though.

This is best made with older bread. This is a good way to use bread that has hardened a bit because you didn’t use it in a day or two. When I was a child in Bombay the choices in bread were white, brown and milk (sweet bread mostly for younger kids). It’s best made from anything other than sliced bread as that can be too soft to stand up to the cooking process. But I remember my mom using some  sliced ‘Wibs’ white bread and fortifying it with fresh ‘broon’ (hard rusky bread) she bought from the early morning pavwalla (bread baker/seller) who made his rounds on a bicycle every morning. Here in San Francisco, I use a sourdough boule, preferably at least a day or two old, though with sourdough I find even one a few hours old works. I use a boule simply because it makes the right quantity for me. Use any shape you have. The recipe demands a few healthy twists of lemon at the end and I find that using sourdough eliminates the need for that. Anything too mealy will not work, so whole grain bread with coarse grains in it may not be the best thing here. I once made this from Della Fattoria’s Rosemary and Meyer Lemon Bread and it tasted fantastic. (I did this out of desperation as the bread was a week old. It is not a use I would recommend of this absolutely delicious artisan bread).

My mom’s Pavacha Chivda
Pav is bread in Marathi (my mother tongue). Chivda means a mixture of ingredients. Makes 4-5 servings.

Sourdough boule – 1 (or other hearty bread of your choice)
Red Onion – 1 ½ medium, finely diced.
Waxy Potatoes – 2-3 medium sized
Tomato – 1
Serrano or Thai Chillies – 4-5, finely chopped (or less, according to your taste)
Cumin – 1 ½ tsp
Mustard Seeds – 1 ½ tsp
Haldi (turmeric powder) – 1 tsp
Asafoetida – A pinch
Kadipatta (curry leaves) – 3-4
Oil – one turn of the pan
Salt to taste (or about 1 tbsp)
Cilantro – 4 tbsp, finely chopped

Optional.
Fresh Coconut – 4 tbsp grated

- Take the sourdough bread and tear into smallish pieces (small enough to fit in a pinch between your forefinger and thumb.
- Heat the oil in a pan or dutch oven. When it is hot, temper it with mustard seeds, cumin, curry leaves, turmeric powder and chillies. Fry for a minute.
- Add the onion. Fry this until the onion is translucent.
- Add the tomato. Fry together until the oil separates.
- While the onion is frying, cut the potatoes. They can be sliced or cubed. They will take time accordingly to cook up.
- Add to the separated oil and tomato mixture and fry until the potatoes are completely cooked.
- Add salt to taste and mix.
-Add the torn pieces of bread and mix completely until the bread has taken on a lovely lemon yellow colour. If you leave it on low heat a little longer, some of the bread will caramelize and crunch up nicely.

Take off the heat and serve piping hot into a bowl. Squeeze a bit of lemon or lime over the dish and garnish with cilantro and grated coconut, if available.

Looking back

Sometimes it’s hard to quantify what I see as my food heritage. I’m a British national of Indian origin whose palette for all practical purposes developed and matured in India. My mom is an absolutely tops cook with remarkably adventurous tastes for an Indian woman of her generation and happily absorbed all new culinary experiences that 70s- England had to offer in the time she lived there. She very fondly remembers food she ate there, as do my elder sister and dad. Growing up listening to them reminisce about the food they ate when they lived there, I am to this day, confused when I hear that English cooking is supposedly awful. I mean, how bad can it be when three people with wonderful palettes (scratch that, two people, my dad will eat anything appreciatively, he’s easy to please) thought it was pretty good? I mean to go there and find out for myself someday. Meanwhile I find the recipes by English cooks that I try are holding their own, so even despite skepticism for the early brainwashing, I’m inclined to agree with my family.

My mother’s mother is a sublime cook and there are things that my grandma’s experienced hand can turn out that just never taste exactly that way when I cook them. My grandma raised three children. The two daughters are both great cooks, something they both shrug away saying it was expected of their generation. But my uncle going into catering was unusual for the time. He has the same great palette and his food is nothing short of exceptional. This family knows food.

Growing up in a family like this meant that you started an early love affair with food, or at least with eating it. My siblings, cousins and I were always a well-fed bunch, though we were picky. But there was always something everyone could eat served at the table (though we rarely ate at that table). I remember begging my mom to be allowed to help when I was a child and was extremely excited about the first time I was allowed to boil noodles, make chapatti dough and make an omlette. My enthusiasm waned a bit over my teen years as other things like college came to the fore. But the interest never did.

Today I think it’s safe to say that, despite our parents’ strong fears that we would be contrary, the next generation has turned into pretty good cooks. My cousin took up the cause of food like his dad and is a chef in New Zealand. His sister is a deft hand at cooking. Both my sisters are good cooks with different styles influenced by mom but all their own. My aunt’s daughter lives in Bangladesh and wields a mean chicken curry. And my husband thinks I’m an awesome cook. I think he’s biased.

Brownies for a cold day

March madness has begun! No, I don’t mean the annual basketball mania. I mean the seasonal scramble when spring is not quite here and we’re doing everything in our power to force it here, if only to be pointedly told by Mom Nature that it will get here when it gets here.

Earlier last week, my friends R & R announced that they would be in the Bay area with their adorable tot T on Saturday and requested a round-up of the ol’ college gang. Ever eager to do so, the bunch of us looked up the weather, whooped in glee as it promised to be warm(ish) and sunny and decided to meet at Fort Kronkite for the first picnic of the year. Our wonderfully laid plans were summarily thwarted as Saturday dawned as a blustery, cold day. The weather websites had changed their forecasts without notice and now promised no sunshine. After trading several phone calls, Amey, V and I bravely trudged on to Fort Kronkite, only to be driven back by gale worthy winds. As V regretfully contemplated his decision to wear shorts that day, Amey hurriedly called and urged the rest of our friends not to cross the Golden Gate and stay in the city. We’d meet instead in Golden Gate Park.

We found a sheltered nook near Stow lake, laid out our blankets and proceeded to gorge on our potluck picnic, trying hard to be oblivious to the incredulous stares of people walking by. All I can say is thank God for blankets and the wonderfully warm, gooey chocolatey brownies I’d baked.

These brownies came together really quickly early Saturday morning while Amey was trading those phone calls on weather updates. The recipe is from Jamie Oliver’s Cooking with Jamie, one of my favourite cookbooks. I love his recipes and his rabid enthusiam for food, incredibly infectious. (He’s easily one of my favourite chefs and I was recently thrilled to discover we also share a birthday. May be I can be as good with food too someday!) The smell of these brownies baking early in the morning filled my apartment with a wonderful aroma, the kind I remember out of baking class in school, a room I never wanted to be near in the period just before the lunch bell ’cause it smelled so good! It’s the kind of smell that makes you disregard all good sense as you court third-degree burns trying to get at the pan while it’s still in the oven. Soft and crumbly, yet impossibly gooey and scrumptious, these brownies were a huge hit with all of us, ending the wonderful motley meal we had in the park in a sublime crescendo. And you know what? Unbearably cold days disappear into the background when you are in the company of good friends and good food!

Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen Chocolate Brownies
Adapted from Cooking with Jamie. Makes 8-10 large according to the book but I made 25 smaller pieces. Let me assure you there were several seconds and thirds.

Unsalted Butter – 1 cup plus 2 tbsps
Dark Chocolate (70% cocoa solids) – 7 oz good quality
Cocoa Powder – 3/4 cup
All-Purpose flower – 1/2 cup
Baking Powder – 1 tsp
Superfine Sugar – 1 3/4 cup
Eggs – 4, large (Jamie urges you to use free-range or organic, as would I.)

Optional
Dried Sour Cherries – 2 1/2 oz
Walnuts – 1 1/3 oz, chopped
Zest of 1 orange
Crême Fraîche – 9 fl oz

- Preheat your oven to 350° F.
- Line a brownie pan with parchment paper.
- Sift together the all-purpose flour, cocoa powder and baking powder in a bowl.
- Set up a double boiler on the stove with simmering water in the lower bowl and a bowl on top, taking care that the water does not touch the underside of the bowl above.
- In the top bowl, melt the butter and the chocolate and mix until smooth. Once this has melted, add the cherries/nuts if you are using them.
- To this mixture, slowly add the sifted flours and stir until converted into a smooth batter. I used my trusty single spinner electric hand mixer.
- Pour into the prepared pan and bake in the oven for 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the center of pan comes out with just a few crumbs. It should not be completely dry as you would want one inserted into a cake to be.

Allow to cool, in the pan and then for a few minutes out of it before cutting. Serve by themselves or with the crême fraîche

Cook’s notes:
I’ve been dying to use my new Citronge liqueur so added that to these brownies. It served to complement the orange zest and gave the brownies a wonderful zing. Also since I couldn’t find 70% dark chocolate I used a combination of Ghiradelli’s 100% dark and bittersweet chocolates. Eating a tiny piece of the 100% dark made me gag. But since the chocolates were already in the batter, I couldn’t change anything except pray it would be sweet enough. I’ve eaten brownies that were sweeter but no one complained these weren’t sweet enough I used dried cherries for the first time in my cooking and used walnuts as they are my nut of choice in sweets. I whipped some cream with some orange zest and Citronge to dollop atop the brownies instead of the crême fraîche. It think it worked well.