You eat with your eyes....

True, isnt't it? It's all about the presentation of your food. Simply put, if you like the way the food looks, the chances of you giving it a go are pretty high. It's true for children too. Parents go through a lot of effort to make the food for the wee ones look interesting - 'cos if they are fascinated by the look of their dinner, they will certainly give it a go. Ofcourse, we adults aren't any different. Put a nice clean plate of food. Infact, a friend last night mentioned something she had prepared for dinner once. A simple salad dish of mozzarella, tomatoes with a pesto dressing....now, how gorgeous is that...Imagine the colours on the White plate - Red ripe tomatoes with White mozzarella and topped with a Green pesto dressing - now, who, wouldn't want to eat that? This is what I mean by making your food look beautiful.

This leads to why nothing better than using plain white plates for serving your food. One can see the beautiful contrasts of food on it - too much pattern on a plate, or bright colours kind of take the focus away from the food - a bit of injustice to the cook.

Another thing of simple garnishes - I am not talking about towers of garnishes, but simple herb garnishes do make the food look appetising straight away. Imagine eating a simple Mushroom Risotto in a deep white bowl- now, won't a little green something, maybe a bit of parsley or some deep green extra virgin olive oil drizzle on top make the dish a bit more attractive right away?

Some cooks are of the very strong opinion that you should always garnish with the ingredients of your dish - then people know exactly has gone in the dish - quite right, I say, especially if one can't make out the ingredients easily. WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get). On this note, I leave you today with a little recipe of a simple dish using vibrant colours to enhance its presentation.

Poha (Flaked Rice Salad) - Serves 2

Ingredients
1 cup flaked rice (available in any Asian grocery shop)
1 cup peas
1 red onion, finely sliced
1/2 tsp turmeric powder (available in most supermarkets or any Asian grocery shop)
1 red tomato, de-seeded, finely chopped
1/2 cup roasted peanuts, roughly crushed
juice of 1 lemon
handful of coriander, finely chopped
1 green chilli, de-seeded and finely chopped
1 tbsp olive oil/vegetable oil
2 tbsps milk
salt to taste

Method
- wash the flaked rice in cold water in a sieve
- add the oil to a hot pan
- add the onions and cook until transparent
- add the turmeric powder
- add the peas and saute for about a minute
- add the flaked rice and mix thoroughly with the other peas and onions
- add the milk to moisten it and cover and cook for about 2 - 3 minutes
- now add the tomatoes, chilli and the peanuts
- add the salt
- sprinkle the lemon juice
- garnish with some finely chopped coriander (all over ) and a wedge of lemon on the side
- serve on a white plate

Imagine eating this yummy Poha out of a white plate - the gorgeous colours of the yellow poha with green coriander, red tomatoes, creamish peanuts and the yellow wedge of lemon just make it so lovely. Promise to post some pictures soon. Do try this dish - is simple, healthy and good for you - doesn't take more than 10 minutes to make and so, so pretty..........

Just Pasta

Hope you all had a great weekend. Well, I certainly did. We were over at a friend's house for lunch and I had the best pasta ever. I mean, we all know that pasta has got to be al dente, and then ofcourse now their is the wholemeal variety available. I know of some people who honestly think that it is rubbish, but I don't really mind the difference. I have got used to it. To be honest, I do like the firmness in the texture of wholemeal pasta - is rather nice. Nothing worse than over-cooked pasta - ghastly! and nothing more comforting than proper pasta (I mean not wholemeal) with just garlic, cherry tomatoes and onions. Oh yes, and the pasta has to be linguine (like spaghetti, but better) - with some good extra virgin olive oil. Good Comfort food, that it. Feel satisfied after eating that.

Well, coming back to the point of the best pasta I've ever had over the weekend. It was plain old Penne with Arriabata sauce (but with a slight difference). My friend's take on the traditional recipe was to use sun-dried tomatoes along with the fresh ones - just gives an immense depth to the tomato flavours. Also, she roasted the fresh tomatoes - and that just added more sweetness to the sauce. I loved it - so, courtesy of my friend, here goes the recipe. I do believe that a recipe (unless you are baking ofcourse!) is not meant to be followed as written - It's just a guideline - so, make modifications to suit your taste.

Do try it - finger licking good ! The recipe below is for 2 people:

Ingredients
Linguine /Spaghetti
8 fresh tomatoes (vine-ripened, if available)
4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 red onion, finely chopped
1 red chilli, finely chopped (if you don't like the heat, then de-seed and take the stem off)
5 -6 pieces of sun-dried tomatoes (ready to eat variety)
1 tbsp tomato ketchup (apparently, a secret ingredient in most chef's kitchens)
sea salt to taste
1 bunch of fresh basil leaves
2 tbsp olive oil for cooking


Method

- Roast the tomatoes by placing them in the oven (in a baking dish) with some sea salt, pepper and thyme (Medium oven about 150 deg Cent or so for about 25 mins )

- Add oil to a hot pan (please do not heat up the oil)
- Quickly add the onions and cook until transparent
- The add the garlic (nothing worse than burnt garlic - so watch)
- Add the roasted tomatoes to the pan (with all the juices as well)
- Add the chilli
- Add the ketchup and the seasoning
- Now, add the sun-dried tomatoes
- Cook for about 15 mins or just until the sauce looks just right
- Blitz with a hand blender to achieve a no-bits consistency

- Bring a large pan of water to boil
- Add salt (Infact, Italians say that the water in which you cook the pasta should taste like the Mediterranean)
- Add the pasta and cook until just al dente
- Drain the water (don't try really hard to get rid of all the cooking water - leave some in the pasta)

-Now, add the pasta to the sauce (Italians say never do it the other way round - so, listen!)
- Top with fresh basil (chop just before adding, or it can go black at the edges)

Enjoy with a nice green salad... until next time...Happy Eating!

So, Whats cooking today? I better get my act together and fix a meal too... I really wish Shivek could invent "Rotis on trees"....he'll be my best friend for life:-) I think I better stop repeating this...the more difficult I find making rotis, the more I end up making them...thanks to all the wonderful cooks I hire (I honestly am a failure at that) and my fantabulous work timings.

Waiting to hear more on your business venture...but get your act together girl...get going....you can do it....and all of us know that.

Last evening I was craving Yellow thai curry(Jungle yellow curry as it is called at Geoffery's)....so got there....and had it to my heart's content (the portions are really small now)....wish I could cook that too....mind sharing that recipe? I know you'd have that up ur sleeve too....so waiting to hear from you. Till then....ciao and hugs as always

50% Success Achieved

I do believe I have great ideas up my sleeve - it's just the implementation aspect - which is kind of tricky and I havn't been able to get a tight hold of it yet. Well, I can assure you guys, the goal isn't very far now. I can almost see the finishing line now. Didn't I warn you earlier that I am an optimist? One of my school teacher's said years ago that to be successful in life one needs to know the goal, the destination. The reason being that if you don't know where you want to go, then how on earth are you going to find the way. No SatNav/GPS can help you in that situation either :-). So, I humbly tell myself that I am 50% successful already, as I know my goal, my destination is clear to me. I need to just define a path to get there. A cafe in India - A cafe which becomes the soul of the people - a cafe that understands the soul of its customers, understands what makes them tick. A cafe - to which all the roads will lead to. I need to stop now - I could go on and on.....but, I can't take the risk of putting my blog readers to sleep, can I?

What else done one need to get a cafe going? Perhaps some money, a place, some staff, some food and ofcourse the almighty customer. I am sort of sorted on the food front, staff won't be an issue either. The most challenging areas are generation of capital and finding a location. We'll sort that too. Then ofcourse, I will need to call out to folk and invite them to be my customers.

Time to close this post and a little something for you on this hot summer's day. All my customers used to to love this (will tell you about this venture at a later date)


Mung and Vegetable Salad (for 2)

Ingredients
1 cup of mung beans (washed)
1/2 red onion, finely chopped
1/2 red pepper, de-seeded and finely chopped
1/4 cucumber, de-seeded and finely chopped
1 cup coriander, finely chopped
1/2 pomegranate seeds
1 black cardomom
1 tsp chat masala (available in asian stores)

Dressing
sea salt
Juice of 1 lime
1 tsp finely chopped coriander
1" ginger, finely sliced (long slices)
1" green chilli, de-seeded and finely sliced (long slices)

Method
1. Boil the mung beans in water with the whole black cardomom until just cooked (al dente)
2. Once the beans are cooked, cook on high heat until all the water evaporates
3. Add the chat masala and cook on low heat for about 1 min. This gives a nutty texture.
4. When the beans are cooled, add all the veg
5. Prepare the dressing, by mixing all the ingredients of the dressing together
6. Add the dressing just before serving

Hope you enjoy this. Everybody I have made it for, absolutely loves it.

Hey!!!! Loved reading the blog...will surely come back and contribute

Here's to your success....hugs

Another afternoon spent drinking coffee......

I can't think of creative ideas when at home. Too many distractions at home - the ringing of the phone, the ironing basket screaming for some TLC, too many snacks waiting to be consumed etc. So, I got ready, armed with my notebook and a pen and hit the coffee shop - I have to say, what was missing was a nice sleek laptop - preferably a MAC. Ideas, would have just pored in and maybe, all right just a big maybe, a cafe filled with mouth watering food would be up and running by now. However, I shall not blame it on the lack of resources.

So, in my favourite coffee place which is Costa, I sat with a large coffee and a blueberry muffin, hoping for ideas to pour into my head so that I could then record them into my notebook. To be honest, the environment did help - and there were some fantabulous ideas of food that I could possibly serve in my cafe. Thought of delicious fillings in a Panini/wrap - ideas kept pouring and I kept recording them in my little notebook - promising to move them on to the computer ASAP. Thought people can choose what they want as fillings in their wraps/paninis - but then it occurred to me that my dream cafe would just end up being like a Subway. No offence to Subway, but there are far too many Subways in Delhi. Sorry, I am just about to sound like a snob, but I did want my dream cafe to be slightly more up market - so, I trashed all that I had written and promised to start afresh over another cup of coffee the following day, hoping for THE idea to come to me.

I will leave you today with this delicious recipe of a finger-licking good Panini:

Ingredients
Fresh Ciabatta bread
Pitted Black Olives
3 - 4 sun-dried tomatoes
1 jalapeño peppers, chopped
2 chunks of fresh buffalo milk mozzarella cheese
1 tbsps of balsamic vinegar
Handful for rocket leaves

Method
1. Slightly brush the ciabatta bread with olive oil and place on the griddle pan for 1-2 mins on each side
2. Marinate the olives, jalapeño peppers, mozzarella and the sun-dried tomatoes in balsamic vinegar for about 20 minutes
3. Place the marinated mixture on the griddled bread
4. Add the rocket leaves

Enjoy - nothing unusual, but amazingly good.

How it all started?

Well, the title makes it sound like how the great big venture started - but no, not yet - I guess what i am trying to say is how my dream was born. I've always wanted to work for myself, trying to conquer the food world, but then laziness has won all along so far. It was about two years ago that I said to myself "Just go ahead and create a food heaven that people visit every single day". So, thought of thousands, all right, that is bit of an stretch to the story, but surely thought of 10 - 20 different ideas of what to serve in my cafe. Hot Delicious wraps to smoothies - just the best - making Delhites healthy and happy. Never really managed to get the finance bit sorted - and then had a slight problem too. I live in the UK, and I wanted to run a cafe in India - 'cos that is where I want to be be, where my heart and soul already live - really, just wanted to join them - but, wasnt meant to be - well, atleast hasn't happened so far. Have not given up hope - am still working on that - never give up they say - don't they? will keep u all posted.

I keep wondering that are there any more people out there like me who want to go back to India - nothing wrong with living in the UK, but then nothing to beat being back home. Especially in this day and age when India is fast moving ahead - ofcourse with poverty, corruption by its side - but then, which country is perfect? Let me know, if you know of any.

Since I am talking of a cafe, let me end this post with a recipe of a nice healthy snack:

Aubergine and Sweet Potato Circle Chips

Ingredients
1 large aubergine, washed & chopped into thin circles
1 large sweet potato, washed & chopped into thin circles
sea salt to taste
pepper
cayenne pepper
2 tbsps olive oil

Method
1. Dry the washed vegetables
2. In a bowl mix all the ingredients together
3. Bake in a high oven (200 degrees Centigrade) for about 25 mins or until they are crisp

Enjoy them on the side with either wraps or sandwiches.