Mango Mousse

A king asked a sage to explain the Truth. In response the sage asked the king how he would convey the taste of a mango to someone who had never eaten anything sweet. No matter how hard the king tried, he could not adequately describe the flavor of the fruit, and, in frustration, he demanded of the sage "Tell me then, how would you describe it?" The sage picked up a mango and handed it to the king saying "This is very sweet. Try eating it!"

Summers are here. 

The good part is that the layers are off- but more recently- I have discovered that this is my not so favorite time of the year. The peak of the allergy season, the health issues, and there is a dull limp in the air that just seems to bring everyone/everything down? Where is the freshness of summer like it used to be?

However, one of the nicer things about summer is the Mangoes. Luckily, being in Delhi, we get the best variety of mangoes through the year, and that is something I truly cherish about the summers. And, I am one of those people who can eat a mango a day to keep the doctor away! My childhood training from Dad, has me equipped to recognize the variety of mangoes available, the time of the year they come in and how best to eat them. We had a stash of wonderful alphonso mangoes, which I utilized quite aptly, if I may say so- in the form of a mango mousse. Alphonso mangoes come from the western India belt, and are known for their pulpy nature and a dark yellow colour. I have come to learn over many years, that the best use of an Alphonso is in the form of a milk shake. In more recent times, I have used it for a mango cheesecake and icecream too- truly, it is a fruit to be used in its pulpy form.

We had a formal dinner for my K side of the family- and I planned to utilize the fruits available for desserts. Since it was my parents anniversary as well, A cake was planned along with some sort of a shot dessert helping. I went in for the strawberry shortcake, for its fanciful look, and decided to use the mangoes for a mango mousse. The recipe is adapted from the Chocolate Mousse here. Original can be found here. I have never had such wonderful feedback for a dessert that was literally made in about 20 minutes. Even people who don’t have a sweet tooth- could not stop raving. This dessert is a definite recommendation for a light sweet bite!

Strawberry Cream Cheese Tarts

The New Year has begun with a lot of cooking. The posts have been coming in often and my blog is going to have almost 2000 hits- and I have finally embarked on the photography, learning nuances along the way. Food has been crucial to the beginning of the year, and that too, far beyond the blog.

               To cut a long story short, along with faraway tips, I decided to make dessert for the BIL who was travelling to India. The icing on the cake was that he was not familiar with my cooking- and even this blog. And I just need an excuse to spend half a day, puttering about in the kitchen, thoroughly enjoying the experience. The start point was that he would like something with fruits, and Ak came to the rescue by suggesting mini-tartlets. Tarts are perfect for dessert, as everyone can pick up their own mini-helping and they look pretty and delightful. Also, i personally feel- as someone baking tarts, I would love to serve an assortment with varied fillings. For some reason- they seem healthier too, maybe because of their fruity nature. My quest for the right tart began as I hunted for a sure-shot recipe that would work. I looked at 2 of my favorite Bloggers-Tartelette...on the sweet side of life (I love Helen’s styling and Photography-and am usually oohing- and aahing, when I read her posts) and Passionate about Baking (My daily ritual- or at least as often as she posts- Deeba is one of the most inspiring women…I haven’t met her and have only written to her once- but I love what she has done with Food Blogging here in India and the idea of making everything as pure as possible. She is very inspiring and I really hope that someday I can, be half as good as her.) 

             The dish was decided, I was going to make tartlets with strawberries and cream. I decided to go back to the Ipad Baking App, which I totally swear by. I used the tart recipe here, removed the almonds from it, and added some cinnamon instead. Most often, tarts are made with fresh fruits, and the mixed berry tarts seen so often are almost impossible to make here- no wild berries or blackberries available easily and I didn’t want to go down the tinned variety route. For the filling, I experimented a bit and decided to use a combination of cream and cheese- next time I may just use cream cheese instead! I had the wonderful goat’s cheese with cinnamon and berries still lying in the fridge, and so I decided to use a bit of it and hence, added the cinnamon in the tart base to compliment the cheese. The results were astonishing. The goat’s cheese added a wonderful consistency and flavor to the filling, a glimpse of cranberries and the slightly cheesy sweetness with a hint of cinnamon was quite wintery. I always thought strawberries and cream was a winner; the discovery of the addition of cinnamon has been interesting. The audience thought it was quite professional, and during the delay in actually putting up the post, I have already made the tarts twice over. That I assume, would be success enough J

              Disclaimer; this is the first post- where the photography is entirely by yours truly, except for the one grand finale, which Ak shot to wrap it up. I am quite pleased with the results- for which I give credit to the wonderful new lens.

Lemon Chicken Risotto

I am very enthused these days; maybe it’s the festive xmasý spirit or that I can see some changes on the blog or maybe it is just the end of the year. A year that has more or less been good; good is an understatement, I should say fabulous. Yes, there have been changes- big changes- and hiccups, but overall, it has been quite nice. Touche’…  Since I have been feeling satisfied with myself, I have also decided not to work much anymore till the 1^st now. That’s my treat to myself; of course I have to go to work for one more day this week, but that will be my last working day for the year! Instead, I had decided to focus on my energies on making one complex dish for Ak, before I signed off the blog for the year. Since Ak was the one who initiated this whole blog, and set it up to make me actually do it, I thought I had to do something fancy, and unexpected. Hence- the risotto. Now, SC, SG and PM are aware of the tomato and basil risotto (and i think i have very good reviews from them :p and i owe them one again!), that I think I have managed to cook reasonably, quite a few times, but I hadn’t really tried a complex recipe. I remembered Ak ‘looooving’ the Lemon Chicken Risotto, sometime when we were out for Dinner, and thought maybe this could be ‘the unpredicted one’. 

                Risottos are considered to be complicated; because it’s very easy to overcook or under cook. Also, the time taken to cook it, is considerably more than an average meal, since it included just standing and watching, refilling with stock and then waiting again for it to cook a little more. I have always been very skeptical of cooking a risotto, because no matter how many times you have made one before, one could still easily go wrong. To prevent that from happening, I thought I should use a tried and tested recipe, since I was also going to add chicken. My first halt was a cookbook on Italian cooking- Nothing; and then began my search online. I found a lemon risotto, a prawn risotto, a chicken risotto, an asparagus risooto, but NOT a lemon chicken Risotto. I searched keenly, but to no avail, since most recipes I found did either not have wine or no lemon or no chicken. I now had newfound regard for the Lemon Chicken Risotto; it seemed like a rare, unusual recipe. I returned to one of my favourite cooks, Nigella, and used the recipe for a Lemon risotto as a base which I planned to tweak (the original can be found here). Even though I reduced the quantities a bit, this recipe is definitely for 3 and not for 2!

                 The Risotto was a winner. Ak was ‘impressed’, so much so, that he brought out some wine in order to commemorate. In this wonderfully cold weather, this surely was more than just comfort food.

p.s. A tip: The recipe does take about 45 minutes to cook. I would suggest, keep a snack handy, for one would surely feel hungry while standing there, watching it cook. We had some magnificent Cranberry Goats Cheese, which was sent by SIL- Totally festive, and delectable. Thanks for the Xmas Goodies!

p.p.s I am not much of an egg person, especially when the yolk is used uncooked. Therefore, I skipped the Egg from the recipe. Feel free to use it though. Also, I skipped the celery, since I had run out of it!

Apple Pie Parcels- More Puff Pastry!

Garfield: I love the smell of Cinnamon Apple in the morning. It smells like victory. 

The world may think I am crazy, but nothing satisfies my heart more than a nice, fancy, slightly elaborate dessert; a combination of warm and cold/ of sweet and savoury. My last post may have been an overdose of puff pastry- all the excess that I tried to make use of. But I didn’t stop there!

On this cold and wintery night, while I was at it, celebrating with puff pastry, how could I not make some dessert? Apart from the few Chocolat Twisties, I definitely wanted to try something else. Since, I was also on the using up the excess mode, I decided to use an apple that was screaming at me from the fridge. The Christmas spirit was in the air, and I thought why not make something with some spices. I love the IPad Baking App- someday I hope to try out the all the recipes. For anyone with an ipad, you must download this app here. 

I had seen the chocolate filo parcels here, which looked very tempting. As always, since I didn’t have the filo pastry, I decided to make Apple Pie parcels- with Puff pastry instead. Since I was in a mood to celebrate, I even decided to make a dip as an accompaniment- a cinnamon dip to celebrate the victory. The end product was magnificent, if I may say so myself. Ak loved it, and so much so, we decided to call over the other AK (the brother), to have a taste of this wonderful discovery. AK has always never liked the apple pie that I have baked- primarily because of the crust. But this time, He approved it too! So much so, that he wanted to take a doggy bag home for breakfast (alongwith some puff pastry wraps).

Overall, an extremely gratifying meal to celebrate the victory!

p.s. Feel Free to use the leftover dip as an accompaniment to other desserts, I would recommend a brownie or if you are feeling lazy like me the next day, when the parcels have run out- just pour over some chocos/cereal...to have a healthy breakfast/dessert.

Finally, The Strawberry Shortcake

I think I am coming to terms with this blog. Maybe, very soon I will stop ranting about how I didn’t want to really write about what I cooked and how I needed to take that step to get up and actually write. I just realised that every few weeks, when I haven’t managed to write something, I find myself thinking of trying something new and writing about it. My life has transformed into something new- a new routine, and a lot to do. Winter is also here, along with the wedding season- I love this time of the year. The meeting people- sometimes pleasant and sometimes not so much, the music, the dressing up, the highly celebrated traditional Indian wedding ceremonies, sometimes over the top- I love it all. Although it just means, that we are hardly eating at home. Therefore, the opportunity to cook is reduced tremendously. I think, very soon, I will do a simple post about regular dal-chawal; comfort food that I always find myself turning to, after a few days of eating out.

         Coming back to the blog, today’s post however, is the much talked about and the 'repeatedly mentioned on this blog' strawberry cake. I have permission from K aunty to share this recipe with others and she really wants other people to enjoy it too! So here it is; I hope to perfect it soon…

“Doubtless God could have made a better berry (than the strawberry), but doubtless God never did”

William Butler

Magnum Opus- guest post by Ak

I often wonder what sort of background music would be appropriate for the bits in life where we are doing really awesome stuff. Maybe you should let this music play while you read this post about the awesomeness yesterday.

The reason why T is not writing this post is that she writes this blog for the joy of cooking. She loves the process, the mixing with hands, the transformation of ingredients. She enjoys the thousand little subtleties that make her cooking different from everyone else. It is a relaxation, a therapeutic release that results in something beautiful. Something that can be taken up at will and at a convenient time.

Yesterday, though, was an event. It called for good food, to be prepared in large quantities, for lots of people. The people mix was reasonable eclectic - a little less than half were vegetarians, some of whom would not even have eggs - some would enjoy their drink and eat later, some would want to be fed as soon as they entered. It also called for birthday cake, which we could have easily outsourced along with the rest of the food - a recommendation of mine that was put down almost immediately - There would be cooking - lots of cooking and T would do it.

So we fixed a menu for 20 people and here it is:

Strawberry Shortcake

I remember watching an episode of Masterchef, where the contestants were asked to recreate the one food memory that they had. If I had to ever do this, there would be numerous; but if I had to ever think of that one moment that initiated my fondness for cooking, it would be the strawberry shortcake. While I was in school, birthdays were big. And each year, K’s birthday (one of my very old friends from school) would bring along a wonderful strawberry shortcake, which was her favourite, and her mum would bake it year after year. It really was the prettiest cake I could imagine, gorgeous and sinful. Maybe my obsession with pink also has its roots there. I would see that cake and wonder if ever in life, I would  be able to bake anything remotely close to 'the strawberry shortcake'. As years passed, I did start baking myself, but never found the courage to try it out. It would cross my mind each year, on 23^rd Jan J and each time I would see strawberries, or when I would speak to K, I would determine to muster up the courage to try it. In fact, even when I met K’s mom a few years back in the US, I remember discussing the memory of the short cake. Like many other things in life, Fear of failure prevented me from taking the plunge.