thecookscottage

Carrot Cake with Fig Jam

Spicer College in Kirkee, run by the Seventh Day Adventists, has always had a food department . They teach their students food technology and catering and produce a crunchy peanut butter, soya milk, a muesli, frozen corn plus several goodies from their bakery section among which are lamington cake, doughnuts, date cake, brownies and carrot cake. In twenty years they have not varied their products and they are uniformly good, produced in small quantities and always sold out by the end of the day.
Since they are so reasonably priced with no frills whatsoever I always pick up something if I am passing by one of their outlets. (There is one in the Wonderland shopping arcade on Main Street).

My own carrot cake recipe adapted from one in "The Joy of Cooking" is a trifle better and I wanted to bake it again when I got hold of some organic khandsari (raw cane) sugar recently. It is made with oil and might be a bit healthier with the addition of the cane sugar instead of white sugar.

Ingredients

1 cup sifted flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsps baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon powder

2/3 cup sunflower oil
1 cup raw cane sugar
2 eggs

1 1/2 cups grated carrot (about 8 small ones)
1/4 cup walnuts and almond bits or any other nuts

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Oil 2 5" round cake tins and set aside. Grate the carrots, chop the nuts. In a mixing bowl sift all the dry ingredients together. In a seperate bowl pour in the oil, add the sugar and mix well. Beat the eggs and add to the oil and sugar mixture.When well mixed add the dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon, breaking up any lumps till completely incorporated into the oil mixture. Last of all stir in the walnuts and grated carrot and divide the mixture equally between the two prepared cake tins.
Bake in a hot oven for 20-25 minutes till done. Remove and cool on a wire rack. When cooled spread fig and walnut jam on the top of one cake and sandwich with the other. Decorate with slivers of carrot.

"The Joy of Cooking"
Irma Rombauer & Marion Rombauer Becker

Pomfret curry at Morjim

Morjim is one of the quieter beaches in North Goa and well worth a visit. We stayed at one of the few 'resorts ' there which consisted of some wooden shacks with attached baths open to the sky. Very nice. But the food was awful. This might have ruined the few days we had there but we were lucky to find the "Seahorse Restaurant" on the corner of the Morjim Mandrem crossroads.
Mandrem is known for the Olive Ridley turtles which nest and lay their eggs there. Hopefully this wonderful spot will not be ruined by shacks which have sprung up a little too close for comfort on the beach, several of them licenced out to a few Europeans( exceptions obviously) trying to make a quick buck by encroaching on the habitat of the very same attraction which has enabled them to earn a living in this beautiful place.

Anyhow about the "Seahorse". It is owned by the Shetgaunkars, a husband and wife team. Sujata does the cooking and Uday runs the bar, the little tandoori area and does the waiting on tables. The restaurant seats 20 people and is very popular amongst the locals which gives you an idea of the quality of the food.
The Shetgaunkars have been in the restaurant business for 15 years, having run the Residency restaurant in Margao. They then tried to start an eating place on Bogmalo beach, next to Joets, but the investment was too high, barely clearing a profit after the season's license and electricity bills were paid off. So they decided to come home and start anew in their own village. They have built a basic little place decorated with yellow mirror work lanterns and red check tablecloths complete with a TV showing Hindi soap operas, popular with the villagers who actually come for the welcome change of tandoori and chinese food which are on the menu, but don't want to miss out on their favourite programmes.

We had malai kebabs from the tandoor which were smooth as cream, and then opted for the Konkani cuisine. A pomfret curry cooked in a different way from the usual Goan style and a very nice dal fry which was out of this world with hot buttered naan.

Sujata will especially cook vegetables and fish or prawns in the Konkani style if ordered in advance. She shared the fish curry recipe with me.

Ingredients:

• 1 medium sized pomfret about 750 gms
• 1/2 coconut
• 5 flakes of garlic
• 1" fresh ginger
• 4 green chillies
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 4 large tomatoes.
• 1/2 tsp haldi /turmeric powder
• 1 tbsp jeera / cumin powder
• 4 red chillies
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 tbsp chopped green coriander

Chop the coconut roughly, peel garlic chop ginger and chillies. Combine all and grind into a paste in a blender. Cover the paste with 3 cups of hot water and set aside.

Slice the pomfret into thick slices. Chop the onion into fine slices. Break the red chillies into pieces and shake out the seeds. Blanch the tomatoes in hot water. Dunk in cold water and peel. Then chop into peices.

Heat the oil and fry the onions till golden brown. Add the fish slices and fry lightly for a few mintes till brown . Remove.To the same oil add the chopped , peeled tomatoes, the cumin, haldi, red chilli bits and salt. When the tomatoes have dissolved add the coconut paste and water. Cook the paste for ten minutes. Add the fish slices and cook for another 5 minutes. Add a coriander , give the curry a good stir and serve with rice.

It is a bit of a walk from the beach to the Sea Horse but well worth it.The Shevgaunkars make you feel right at home.

Oh, Oh, Oatmeal Cookies

I have been searching all the general stores around to find a source for Khandsari. No luck till yesterday. Chandan's , at the end of M.G. Road has turned out to be a great place for so many types of flours and jaggery and spices. For a number of reasons I hadn't been there for years ...parking being the main problem. Before Dorabjee's it used to be THE place for all types of provisions. Typical of all general stores then, it was crammed from floor to ceiling with hundreds and thousands of things which could hardly be seen and the staircase was a death trap, a fall off point for suicidal housewives.Then the place became too small to accomodate everything and there were a host of other hassles. Things were redesigned and the groceries came downstairs and it has become self help. Now I think it well worth the trouble to go there again. Look what I uncovered.
Raw Khandsari sugar! It is marketed by Sunil Vehele whose company is called  Mahalaxmi Trade Links. He imports the khandsari from Cuba ! Besides this he he also sells organic indigenous red and brown rice from Bhimashankar which he buys on a barter system from the adivasis /tribals there. He also stocks organic jaggery and barley from Maharashtra and wheat puffs made from organic wheat from Holland. Ok so though I do support cooking globally and eating locally grown foods, I am quite happy to find that the wheat puffs are minus the chemical crap  the stuff is usually be covered with.
The Khandsari has less calories than sugar, it is a natural sweetener and is sulphur and chemical free. I bought a couple of kilos and immediately got set to try out Elise's grandmothers recipe for Oatmeal Cookies.

By making a few changes to the original recipe, using 2 cups of khandsari sugar instead of the one cup of brown and one cup of white sugar and adding a 1/2 tsp of nutmeg and 1 and 1/2 tsps of cinnamon (instead of the tablespoon recommended, as I'm sure that must be a mistake) made them just delicious.
It took 20 minutes in my oven at 350 degrees as I gave each cookie one big heaped tablespoon of the mix and I had to use a rather thick baking sheet. The general idea is to let the cookie get slightly brown on the edges and thats enough to cook it while keeping it chewy. Elise's recipe made 36 good sized cookies which are fast diminishing.

A Bout de Souffle

This morning I decided to teach N how to make something different for dessert. She usually makes either kheer or halwa. Rice kheer, vermicelli kheer, this kheer that kheer. We were all fed up of kheer. So I thought I'd teach her a chocolate souffle. We got all the ingredients together and then proceeded to put them together. I think it was as much of a breathtaking experience for her as it was for me when I saw 'Breathless' for the first time.

First of all Jean Paul Belmondo, and then those jump cuts! There we were, as students, trying to piece shots together, in continuity exercises , to make some order out of the disorder of life and then Godard turns it all on its head and us with it.This had the effect of making some film students think they had no need for the tried and tested forms of the cinematic language. They gave up, then and there, the effort of making sense; with the result that some never ever did. Jump cuts are now part of history, like morphing , and are used all the time in even the most ordinary films. They has become part of the language. You don't think twice if the hero is present in one scene one minute and in an entirely different one the next.Viewers are visually sophisticated enough to fill in the blanks of the story, to figure out why our hero has moved and even perhaps how he has moved from one to the other.They don't question the lack of continuity in space or even of time in cinema anymore.The visual world has expanded and grown so rapidly and with it our perceptions and understanding of it.
But that first time, even though it was a good two decades after the film had been made (so starved were we of new visual material in this part of the world) , -we were winded when we left the dark old Prabhat theatre and walked into the bright sunshine , all silent with astonishment after being exposed to such a fresh talent as Godard's. I will never forget it.
N must have felt the same with the chocolate souffle she made. I explained to her, as best as I could the meaning of souffle...and found she got it immediately when I acted it out. Like the yoga pranayam "sheetali.To fill with (cool) air.
Unfortunately she gave the whole mixture a jolly good stir, while it was setting, in what she thought was a a smart way to prevent the gelatine from gradually falling to the bottom, and when I returned it was absolutely 'A Bout de Souffle'.
Oh well. We will try again tomorrow.

PS: And heeeeeere's the recipe:

Chocolate Souffle Attempt 2.

Ingredients

1 tbsp sugar 4 tbsp water 2 eggs
3 tbs cocoa
2 tbsp butter
200 gms sweetened condensed / evaporated milk
3/4 tbsp plain gelatine
2 tbsp warm water

Heat water and add sugar. Mix till combined. Seperate the yolk from the white of the eggs. Beat the yolks and then add the sugar syrup.Now add the condensed milk to the egg yolk mixture and stir well. In a double boiler melt the butter and add the cocoa powder. Mix well. Do not let the cocoa burn. (You can also use 75 gms of dark chocolate instead.)Add to the egg yolk and milk. Stir well. Melt the gelatine in two tablespoons of warm water and add to the mixture. Last of all beat the egg whites and gently fold into the whole. Set in fridge. Do not stir.

Pyaz Bhindi Bhaji- Onion Okra Vegetable

There are all sorts of expert suggestions to stop okra from going slimy. One piece of advice is to wash and dry the vegetable well before cutting or slicing it. Thats what I do. Another is to sharpen the stem end to a point before you cook it. Never tried that. Sounds like too much trouble.
Some say not to puncture the pods else the juice will be released and the whole dish will be thickened and slimy. Not true if the recipe does not call for any sauce anyhow. I top and tail each pod and it doesn't make the slightest difference to the final result. But then most of the ways in which I cook bhindi is by sauteeing it or cooking it with a tablespoon of water at the most .
It is important to buy okra which is not old or limp or woody, too long or too dark green. 2-3 inch pods are the best.
As always what follows is an effortless recipe for okra, or lady's fingers, bhend,bhendi, dharosh, bendakai, vendakka, bendakaya,vendakai, or whatever you call it in your language.

Ingredients

500 gms bhindi / okra
2 green chillies
2 large onions.
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp dhania / coriander powder
A pinch of haldi / turmeric
A pinch of salt

Wash and dry the bhindi. Top and tail the pods. Slit and deseed the green chillies.Chop onions in the length. Heat the oil in a kadhai, and fry the chillies first. When they are soft add the onions and fry till slighlty done and not too brown.The pieces should keep their shape and have a bit of bite at the end. Add the coriander powder and haldi and stir a couple of times. Now add the bhindi, cover tightly and cook on low heat for about 15 minutes stirring in between if necessary to prevent it sticking to the bottom of the kadhai. Add a bit of salt and thats that. Yummy with rice or chapathi or bread.

Lila Cafe in Baga,Goa

When in Goa do as the Goans do. Eat prawn curry and rice or fish curry and rice or crab curry and rice or chicken curry and rice or pork vindaloo and rice or...anyhow you get the gist if it. I cannot get tired of Goan food as long as I make a huuuge salad from time to time. The cafes are getting a bit better in that they offer vegetables too, at least a few of them do. The management/ owners at most seaside shacks are quite happy to make up an order not on the menu. I tell them to lightly boil a mixed lot of seasonal vegetables and pour a teaspoon of chopped garlic sauteed in oil over them. Then sprinkle with a generous pinch of black pepper and bit of salt. It goes perfectly with the hot curry and you get your daily veggie intake.

There are those who tire easily of the hot stuff and want a serious change. You have little Italian pizza joints and so on but for something completely different head to Lila Cafe on the banks of the Baga river, going inland from the sea at Baga along the Arpora stretch via the tunnel bridge and past Micheala's banner. She used to be a midwife and now does piercings.

Lila Cafe is owned and run by Elisabeth Saal , who has lived in Goa for over 20 years and began the Coconut Inn at Candolim many years ago before it was sold. She is constantly around the cafe keeping an eye on everything . She does breakfasts, brunches, lunches and teas and makes delicious pumpernickel, whole wheat, and other German breads. Though the place sometimes seems to be a Lonely German Osho'ites Club, the friendly waiters serve other customers quite happily.

On the menu is simple, familiar Sour Cabbage and Mash potatoes, Roesti, Hungarian Goulash, Spaetzle, Sour Beef dumplings, Ratatouille with Rice, Brown Bean Salad, Smoked King Fish with salad, Avocado with Prawns, Aubergine Pate and other such fairly European dishes. The best was the Mango Cheesecake which I had to wait three days to taste as it was always sold out. They also have a Chocolate Mousse which is nice and several other sweet dishes.
The kitchen is spanking clean, the breads are worth buying to take home and there is a jewellery shop at the back for those who are fed up of food.

A nice place to spend an hour or two looking at the lazy river and the mad motorcyclists who cut like a knife through the perfect landscape on the road that, unfortunately, passes between the cafe and the creek.

Lila Cafe
Pumpernickel Health Food Pvt Ltd
House no 566, Baga
Calangute 403 528
Bardez, GOA
Tel: 0832 2279843
Open 9 a.m.- 6 p.m.

Floyd on Indian Food- Forgettable

Watching 'Floyd on France' many years ago, as a rerun in India, was a revelation. That someone could make food so interesting and amusing was new to me and he was a partly responsible for my  greater involvement in the subject. All that tongue in cheek France bashing was in good humour and without bite.
Compare that enlightening experience of food on the box to 'Floyd's India', shot in 2001 for Channel 5 in the UK, but being shown in India for the first time. It is now running on the Discovery Travel and Living channel (before Kylie Kwong comes up with her 'French buttah' and 'say solt'), and it has been a catastrophic failure.
The nice thing about Keith Floyd in earlier BBC series was his joie de vivre, his obvious love of the food he presented and the relish with which he drank copious amounts of wine while cooking. His disregard for the politically correct and the documentary form was all part of the show and it WAS a show, but with significant things to say about a cuisine and ways of approaching it.
Floyd on India, is dismal. He looks miserable, hot and bothered. He cooks in the open air, to do away with the need for lights and keep production costs low, on ugly setups without the slightest regard for display. And the food! Oh my God, the food he cooks is ghastly.
Anyone who knows a little bit about Indian food will find the way in which he flings in the 'Tyumeric' horrifying. With an abandon which is uncalled for. He obviously knows nothing about the ingredient, its properties or taste. He never cooks the onions, he adds sour ingredients before the spices are cooked and he makes a hundred and one unforgiveable faux pas.  The food and the series make an altogetherunappetising mash.
He never bothers to taste his concoctions and that is telling. Not even a little lick of the finger. And he is always in such a hurry. Can't blame him really. Who wouldn't want to get out of that burning sun.
He so obviously hates the whole venture from start to finish. He even looks as if he detests Indian food. I don't know if the recipes in the book which accompanies the series are any good. But a word of caution to all those who hope to pick up something about Indian cuisine by watching this series...forget it. Nobody I know uses spices in the way he does. Nor can you possibly savour any of the food the way he cooks it. "Ugh" is my honest opinion.

Khau Swe and the Duchess

Delhi was relatively cool. The rains had stopped and it was wonderful meeting old friends in new surroundings. Many have moved to kinder places, with roads not potholes, and quiet streets, patrolled by friendly dogs that are fed daily by several animal lovers. People come in cars or on scooters or walking with milk, biscuits, rice and other fresh goodies for them. It showed that Delhiites have a soft corner for animals and a level of prosperity not common to other citizens of India. Though the frontier mentality remains, with aggressive men and buses that careen around with intent to kill, it is always refreshing to see the gardens of Lutyens' Delhi and the tall trees bordering the elegant wide roads.
Many new restaurants have opened since I went there last, some of them very good, serving authentic Italian, Thai or Mediterranean food.
The best food we had was home cooked, naturally. It was the vegetarian fare we ate at the place of a friend, a writer of books on Indian religion, history and spirituality, who teaches yoga in a beautiful space built for the purpose. The room is cool and generates calm.The air reverberates gently with the sound of our mantras.
She has taught her cook some wonderful dishes over the years and we stuffed ourselves quite shamelessly at lunch and dinner. Duchess, the cook, is so named because she has such aristocratic features and a very dignified bearing. I am just so grateful to be served tea by her, which is always perfect, with a pod of elaichi / cardamom, a teaspoon of sugar, topped up with half a cup of milk and half a cup of water, zapped in the microwave for 90 seconds and served in an impeccable porcelain cup.
While being a Malayalee, there is something a bit oriental about the Duchess. Her high cheekbones add to her sophisticated looks. And then at lunch I understood. She made us Khau Swe, or Kauk Soi as it is sometimes spelled. A recipe from Burma ( now Myanmar) where she was born. She made it vegetarian with carrots and potatoes and capsicum, but told me that chicken is the main ingredient and most Burmese eat it that way.
We all liked it so much that I took down the recipe to share ...it has something so Indian yet South Asian about it. Like the Duchess herself.

Ingredients:

1 200 gm packet of noodles, either rice or egg noodles.

1 kg chicken, skinned and cut into 6 pieces.
2 1/2 cups of milk made from 1 coconut.
2 onions
6 cloves of garlic
1 inch of fresh ginger
2 green chillies
1 tbsp of vegetable oil
1/2 tsp of haldi/ turmeric
2 tablespoons of besan/ chickpea flour
Lime Juice
Salt

4 tbsp of green coriander chopped.
4 spring onions chopped
4 eggs boiled and cut into 8 pieces each
1 lemon cut into 8 pieces

Boil the noodles, drain and set aside.

Pressure cook the chicken for 5 minutes at high heat ( about 2 whisltes). Let it cool and remove all the bones. Cut into cubes and reserve the stock. In a blender grind the coconut till it makes a paste, add a cup of hot water to the paste and blend it again. Strain the milk from the coconut and return the paste to the blender. Add another cup and a half of hot water and repeat the process. Strain through a fine wire strainer or through muslin.
Grind the onions, garlic, ginger,and chillies into a paste in a blender. Heat oil and fry the paste till the oil seperates from the mixture. Add the turmeric and the chicken. Fry for a few minutes then add the stock and the coconut milk. Make a paste of the chickpea flour and add slowly to the curry, stirring continuously so it does not become lumpy. Cook for ten minutes .When the mixture thickens add a tablepoon of lime juice and salt to taste.

Chop the corainder, spring onions and eggs and serve in seperate bowls along with the noodles and the curry. Each takes as much noodles , fresh herbs and eggs as they like and pours the chicken curry on top. Squeeze a bit of the lemon on top. Delicious!

Of Gandh Raj and other living treasures

"Jyotsna Ben,

Just the other day a friend brought for me some special nimboos that I had introduced him to. You may know these; they are called 'Dahanu' Nimboos, as they are also grown there. They are unique as they have this lovely subtle flavour which renders everything very special with just one squeeze ! .... Sadly, I am not so lucky to find them often in the bhaji markets. But some rare vendors, who cater to Parsi clientele , keep them. They are largish ( compared to our normal limbu) and deep green in colour. When cut, they are a deep yellow inside and the juice, for it's flavour, as I said, is very very special!
Better still are their cousins in Calcutta, used commonly by the Bengalis. These they call the "Gandh Raj" ( a typical Bong will pronounce it "Gondho Raaj" ). They are aromatically more endowed and are something to die for ! So next time when R is visiting Cal, ask him to fetch you some and you'll know what you were missing! These Gandh Raj come closest to the Thai Nimboos you know as the Kaffir Lime.They are the ultimate in citrus gifts to mankind. They are really out of this world. Their flavour is truly heavenly and even the Kaffir Lime leaves are equally aromatic. The Tom Yum soup and so many of their wonderful curries can never be the same without them. Well then there are other Nimboos in the world including the Sicilian Lime and others...Apropos the different Rasas as they are described in the Indian Natya Shastra:the ras from these Nimboos are worthy of the same exalted place in the Paak Shastras ! Next time some sharing on the great Topli Paneer. Do you know it? Cheers to all that! Mahen"

Not a lot of people know that one of the best photograpers in India today is a gourmet cook . I am always grateful to Mahendra Sinh for sharing his deep knowlege and understanding of Indian cuisine and his pleasure in the food and wine of the world. He makes the simplest dish fantastic because his sensibilities are so attuned to the slightest note that each spice adds and he does not like noise.
Mahen, as any acquaintance of his will tell you, does not suffer fools gladly and in ringing tones will denounce misinformation, generalisations, and all half baked ideas based on inadequate facts. I am inclined to add my two paise bit to his castigation of the pompous and the pedestrian especially when they masquerade as art. And anybody in India, who follows the history and happenings of our arts today, knows how many "creations' are cliche, copied or kitsch.
His own work is wrested out of years of experience, of study and of observation. His own deep respect for the greats of photography from whom he has learnt is like a touching genuflection in their direction of all that is fine in creative arts. His work takes its place firmly in the evolution of photography in India and the world and in my opinion he stands head and shoulders above the rest .
Now about the "Gondho Raaj". It was a revelation. Gentle, not bitter, with a subtlety of taste not normally associated with lime. A teaspoon of the juice in a dal raises it to yummydom, a grating of the rind on baked fish makes it utterly delicious.
Thanks again Mahen.