Gastronomic tours with Swiss Cheese

Sweet and Sour vegetables with pears

2009-06-27T15:39:00.000-07:00

Last night a bunch of my old classmates dropped in for the evening. To mark the occasion, I decided to try something new. This recipe was the outcome. It's based on the sweet & sour recipe that my parents used to make while we were young, but I've used different spices.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp vegetable oil
4 tsp chinese 5 spice
sweet red chilli sauce to taste (I used thai)
hot chilli sauce to taste (I used maggi hot & sweet tomato chilli sauce)
2 tsp white vinegar
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup Straw mushrooms
1/4 cup baby corn
1/4 cup bamboo shoots
1/4 cup baby carrots
1/4 cup brocolli florets
1/4 cup cauliflower florets
1/4 cup tofu cubes
1/4 cup sliced pears (either canned or fresh but stewed to soften them)

Method:

Preheat a large skillet on high
Add the 2 tbsp oil and heat for 1 minute
Reduce heat to medium
Add the chinese five spice and fry it for 1 minute
Increase heat to high, add the tofu and stir fry until well coated with the oil and spice
Add in carrots, brocolli and cauliflower and stir fry until tender but not soft
Add in the mushrooms, baby corn and bamboo shoots and stir fry until all vegetables are coated
Add in the pears and mix well
Sprinkle vinegar and lemon juice into the skillet and mix it up
Add sweet red chilli sauce - 3tbsp is the base line, increase or decrease depending on desired sweetness level
Add hot chilli sauce - 3tbsp is the base line, increase or decrease depending on desired heat level
Stir fry for an additional one or two minutes
Reduce heat to medium for 1 minute, then cover skillet and reduce heat to low for another two minutes

Serve with of rice noodles or steamed rice.

Variations:

For a non-vegetarian option, add in shrimp, thinly sliced chicken or cubes of pork. If using shrimp, add it in after the pears, if using shrimp or pork, either pre-cook the meat and add it in after the pears, or add it in before the tofu and fry thoroughly for about 5 minutes.

Alternately, coat the shrimp, chicken or pork in a corn flour based batter and deep fry it before adding to the mix.

Chicken Marsala with Prunes

2008-06-15T07:15:00.000-07:00

I've tried this recipe a few times now, and I think I'm getting better at it. I've also made some of my own tweaks to suit my taste. It's probably not Chicken Marsala any more, so purists might not like me using the name, but hey, they don't have to eat it if they don't like.

Here's what I did:

Ingredients (serves 1):

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 chicken breast - skinless and boneless
1 cup of sliced mushrooms
1 clove of garlic finely chopped
¼ cup sweet Marsala wine
½ tsp salt
¼ cup chicken stock
1 tbsp all purpose flour
¼ cup pitted prunes (just for effect)
1 sprig of parseley

You can also add one small onion chopped up, which can be mixed with the garlic and mushrooms. Depends on your taste. I didn't use one because my onion sprouted.

I also made some couscous to have the chicken with, but you can use rice or mashed potatoes as well. Follow the instructions on the packet to make enough for one person.

Method:

Start by heating the oil in a slightly deep non-stick pan on medium high.
Fry the chicken breast for about 2 minutes on each side until it's lightly brown on both sides. While this is happening, heat up the chicken stock and wine to slightly above room temperature. 20 seconds in the microwave is generally enough.
Move the chicken to one side of the pan, and add the mushrooms and garlic (and onion if you have one) to the other side.
Fry the mushrooms until tender, but not too long that it turns brown. Stir often.
Add the wine, and bring to a boil. While this is happening, mix the salt and all purpose flour into the chicken stock. Mix it well into a paste.
Add the chicken stock mixture and bring to a boil again.
Add prunes, and reduce heat to low.
Cover and cook for 12-15 minutes until chicken is fully cooked (see that there are no pink portions inside)

Also cook your rice or couscous alongside the chicken so that it's ready at around the same time.

Serve chicken on top of couscous, add sauce, mushrooms and prunes over it allowing it to drip off to the side. Garnish with parsley.

Enjoy.

Let me know how it works out for you.

Pizza Eggs

2007-05-06T11:15:00.000-07:00

This was probably my first attempt at cooking. As a child, I loved eating fried eggs for breakfast, and sometimes for dinner too. I also loved pizza, and wondered if I could make a pizza on a fried egg rather than a bread base. Thus was born, the Pizza Egg.

Ingredients:
- 1 or 2 eggs
- 1 or 2 tomatoes diced
- Cocktail sausages, chopped into thin slices
- Salami, cut into strips
- Sliced cheese, cut into strips
- Salt
- Tomato Ketchup
- 1 tbsp cooking oil (your choice of oil)

Some people may want to skip the oil and use a non-stick pan, but I don't really reccommend that. It just doesn't taste the same, and you won't get an egg spitting without oil.

Keep all your ingredients ready before you start cooking. Things move really fast once you start. You may want to pre-fry the salami and sausages if you prefer.

Method:
1. Heat the oil in a frying pan, then turn the flame to low
2. Break the eggs and slide them onto the pan in quick succession
3. Add the diced tomatoes, sliced salami and sausages onto the surface of the eggs while they're still liquid.
4. Allow to fry for a till the egg sets and holds onto the meat and tomatoes.
5. Add ketchup.
6. Add cheese strips over the top, and allow to melt.
7. Turn off the flame, add salt to taste and serve.

Variations:
If you'd rather not have the yolk in a liquid state, you can do one of two things. Either flip the egg for a bit after everything has set. This can be tough since the tomatoes will start to leak. Alternately, break the yolk while adding ingredients.

If you have kids at home, try this variation on eggs. They might just love it.

Junglee Pulao

2006-04-29T11:44:00.000-07:00

One of my favourite dishes as a child was Junglee Pulao. My uncle used to make it for us every now and then. The way he made it, the rice would be slightly overcooked and soggy, and I liked it that way. I wouldn't tolerate soggy rice in any other dish, but for junglee pulao, it couldn't have been any other way.

Today, waking up all groggy and hungry at lunch time, I started thinking about what to make. First thought about biryani. Then realised that I was way too hungry to wait till it was done. Decided to go the shortcut and try the famous junglee pulao. I used mushrooms and potatoes, but you can also use mutton and other vegetables. Stay away from sweet vegetables though, because they add weirdness to the taste.

Ingredients (serves one):
- 2 tsp jeera powder
- 1 tsp coriander powder
- 1/2 tsp haldi powder
- 1 tsp chilli powder
- 1/2 tsp garam masala
- 2 tsp salt
- pepper optional, to taste (I didn't include any)
- 250gm curd
- 1 cup rice, washed
- 2 cups water
- 2 cloves
- 2 cardamoms
- 1 packet button mushrooms chopped up
- 2 large potatoes cut into 6 pieces each
- 1.5 tbsp sunflower oil

Method:
1. Heat the oil in a pressure cooker
2. Add the chilli powder, jeera powder, haldi powder and coriander powder
3. At the same time, boil the water in a saucepan and add the salt to it
4. Once the masalas have fried and you can really smell it, add the mushrooms and potatoes
5. Mix it around a bit until the water from the mushrooms comes out and they start cooking in it
6. Add the rice
7. Add boiling water
8. Mix and allow to boil for a bit
9. Add curd and garam masala
10. Close the pressure cooker and leave it on high flame for one whistle and then 2-3 minutes on medium flame.

Once all steam has escaped (you may need to let some of it out if you're ready to eat), open the cooker and serve.

Other variations include using mutton instead of mushrooms. In that case, you need to fry the mutton for a little longer before you add the potatoes, and leave the pressure on for 2 whistles, You may also want to fry onions and tomatoes and ginger-garlic paste with the meat/mushrooms. Experiment with different combinations for different flavours.

You can get interesting flavours by adding various kinds of nuts. My favourite would be pine seed, slightly roasted.

If you want it more spicy, add pepper.

Try it and let me know how you like it.

Rich fruit Christmas Cake

2005-12-29T23:51:00.000-08:00

Today's recipe is by my guest blogger Sneha, aka bluesmuse.

Hello everyone! Seasons Greetings to all.

Making Christmas sweets is a family tradition and Christmas Cake is a big part of it. Earlier in the week, Phil's dad, the very talented Chef Eric had prepared most of the goodies. He was helped at a few stages by his niece Sabrina and by me. This year Phil and I decided to make the Christmas Cake. You should know now that I've never made a fruit cake before, yea I've baked lots of cakes but, they were relatively simple chocolate or pineapple or brownies. Nevertheless, I was extremely excited to make the cake. Mainly because the fruits would be soaked in rum or sherry and after baking the various juices of the fruits and of the spices added, along with the alcohol feels like heaven in your mouth!
Ok before this gets too long, I'll start with the recipe.

This is the recipe for the Rich Fruit Christmas Cake. There is also an option for making the Economical Fruit Cake. The recipe for both remains the same, the only difference being, that the quantities of the fruits added in the Economical is roughly half of the one in the Rich Fruit cake.

Christmas Cake.

Ingredients:

225g/8oz seedless raisins
225g/8oz currants
225g/8oz sultanas
100g/4oz chopped mixed peel (this is the tutty-fruity that is available in the market)
50g/2oz almonds/ cashew nuts, ground or finely chopped
50g/2oz glacé cherries, quartered, washed and dried
grated rind of 1 lemon
225g/8oz butter
175g/6oz light or dark soft brown sugar
4 eggs
225g/8oz plain flour
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon mixed spice
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
good pinch of ground nutmeg
2 tablespoons brandy, sherry or lemon juice. We used lemon juice.
3-4 tablespoon brandy (optional)

Method

Mix together the dried fruits, peel, almonds or cashew nuts, cherries and lemon rind.
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and creamy.
Beat in the eggs one at a time following each with a tablespoon of flour.
Sift the remaining flour with salt and spices and fold into the creamed mixture followed by brandy, sherry or lemon juice. Add the fruit mixture and combine well.
Turn into a greased and lined 20 cm/8 inch round or 18 cm/7 inch square cake tin, level the top, then make a slight hollow in the centre. Careful not to make it too deep as this doesn't rise much and you might end up with a deflated cake
Wrap several thicknesses of brown paper or newspaper round the outside of the tin and bake in a pre-heated oven for 3 1/2 - 3 3/4 hours or until skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. If the cake mixture does not fit into one container and you have to use two, do not keep in the oven for the specified time. Instead check after 2 1/2 hours and keep back only if required.
Another way of knowing that your cake is done when, you can smell it.
Cool in the tin, then turn out on to a wire rack. Store in a airtight container or wrapped in foil until required.
If using extra brandy, pierce the cake all over with a fine skewer and drizzle 3-4 tablespoons brandy over it before storing. Instead of brandy, you can also use orange juice with rum. I suggest that you do this when the cake is considerably warm. If you wait till later then the cake might get too dry and crumbly.

In fact, this is what happened with us. We thought that the cake mixture would not fit into one container. So, we put it in two different ones. But, we still kept it in the oven for the specified time. As a result it got overcooked. Next we decided to let it cool and then add the additional fruit juice and rum. This was another mistake because, first of all, our cake was overcooked and dry and, by cooling further we lost all chance of making it moist and juicy. By this time I was really upset, thinking that I had made a complete disaster of the Christmas cake.
Just then Chef Eric came to the rescue. He took the smaller cake which hadn't been cut and brushed on the juice and rum mixture. He then let it soak in and then put it in the microwave for 15 seconds with a break of 3-4 mins between each cycle. This heated up the cake and allowed the juices to soak in. After repeating this cycle 15-20 times, we had a perfect juicy yummy Christmas Cake!!!

The entire procedure was documented with pictures, so go see them.

Mushroom stew

2005-10-13T23:28:00.000-07:00

A couple of nights ago, I reached home after midnight, really hungry. Had a packet of mushrooms in the fridge - I keep them frozen to retain the moisture, and some kotmir (coriander) and pudina (mint) leaves. Decided to try some experimentation.

Now, the thing about mushrooms (button mushrooms), is that they have a lot of water in them, and they almost never require any additional liquid to cook in... well, it depends. If you use whole mushrooms, then it takes a while for the liquid to come out, if you use chopped mushrooms, the liquid comes out pretty quickly.

So, let's get started.

Ingredients:
- 1 cup button mushrooms cut into quarters
- 1/2 bunch each of coriander and mint leaves, chopped up
- Parmesan cheese or 1 slice of fat-free/low-fat cheese
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1 tsp freshly ground pepper powder

Method:
1. Put the mushrooms into a saucepan/wok on low flame, and stir for a bit till a little liquid comes out of them. You may want to add a little (very little) water just to keep the vessel from overheating.
2. Add salt to the water, stir, and cover the dish once enough liquid is out.
3. Leave covered for about a minute, then add pepper, and the coriander and mint leaves, and stir a bit till it's well mixed.
4. Add the cheese and stir till completely melted.
5. Cover the pan and leave to simmer for a minute or two, and then turn off the flame with the pan still covered (this is to stop the steam from escaping).

Uncover the dish when you're ready to eat. Serve in a bowl, and eat with fresh appams.

Indian Coffee House

2005-09-27T12:48:00.000-07:00

Indian Coffee House - first floor
Originally uploaded by bluesmoon.

The India Coffee House is a chain of coffee houses across India. I believe they started in Calcutta over a century ago and spread out from there.

This is a place that one can go to to get cheap coffee and snacks. As interns in Mumbai we used to frequent the place for lunch. In bangalore it's a good place for a bunch of friends to just hang out and chat. You get the bill even before your order arrives, but that's part of the charm of the place.

The uniform worn by the waiters hasn't changed ever, and the walls are sprinkled with old posters.

Chatpatta Chicken

2005-08-16T14:12:00.000-07:00

This one's my own invention, prompted by one of Tahir's incessant cries of, "I'm still hungry". I call it Chatpatta chicken because it tastes almost like Bhel Puri, and is ready in just about 10 minutes.

To start with, we don't actually cook any chicken, but use pre-cooked chicken sausages. Chicken salami works too. I also added in a bunch of mushrooms for fun.

Ingredients (serves 4):
- 4 large chicken sausages (frankfurter sausages are good, but a little firmer)
- half a packet of mushrooms, washed well
- optionally, 100gms soya nuggets (cooked, but this will add some 20 minutes to preparation time).
- half a cup of bhelpuri sauce (you can make this or buy it readymade)

Remember, for bhelpuri sauce, the taste is in the tamarind.

Procedure:
1. chop up the sausages and mushrooms to a manageable size
2. heat up a wok/kadai on a medium flame.
3. Drop the mushrooms and chicken (and soya nuggets if you have them) in, stir around for a couple of seconds, and then add the sauce.
4. Mix well, turn to low flame and cover the Wok.
5. Bring to a boil and let it simmer for about 5 minutes.
6. Open the lid, mix around a bit more.
7. Serve hot, eat with Appams.

Soya Nugget Biryani

2005-08-03T10:54:00.000-07:00

This has been a long time coming. It's one of those dishes that one doesn't find in recipe books. It just happens when you're on a restricted diet, but still crave for good food.

I started with the basics for mutton biryani, but used soya nuggets instead of meat. The result was very tasty.

Ingredients:

- Basmati Rice
- Soya Nuggets
How much of the above you need depends on how many people you're going to serve. The rest of my recipe will assume 3 cups of rice and 400gm soya nuggets.

- 2 tsp chilli powder
- 2 tsp jeera (cumin) powder
- 2 tsp garam masala
- 1 tsp turmeric powder
- 5 tsp coriander powder
- 4 ripe tomatoes diced
- 1 or 2 onions cut into small pieces
- 2 tbsp ginger-garlic paste (make your own for best effect)
- 2 chopped up green chillies (optional, use if you want it spicy)
- half a cup of curd
- one bunch coriander leaves, chopped up
- one bunch mint leaves, chopped up
- 3 cardamom pods
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 1 tbsp sunflower oil
- some raisins
- some almonds
- salt to taste

Procedure:

Now, you can do four things in parallel, but make sure that you're done with the nuggets and rice before you actually need each of these.

1. Cook the rice till it's about three quarter ready. Cook it with the cinnamon and cardamom, some salt, and a sprinkling of mint, but no oil.

2. Prepare the nuggets for cooking. This involves boiling them for 10 minutes, then squeezing out, rinsing in cold water and squeezing out again.

3. boil the almonds to remove the skins and cut into slices.

4. Start cooking the masalas. This is the elaborate step.

1. Heat a pan till it is of suitable temperature for oil (ie, fling a drop of water at it and it should sizzle off immediately)
2. pour the oil in, and heat it for a couple of seconds.
3. Add the onions, and fry till light brown
4. Add the ginger-garlic paste and fry for 2 minutes
5. Add in the chilli powder, coriander powder, turmeric powder and jeera powder and chillies. fry for about 30 seconds, and add in the salt.
6. Add the diced tomatoes, and stir fry the whole thing for 3 minutes.

I hope your soya nuggets are ready at this point, because you need them now.

7. Add in the soya nuggets and mix well. It will start to get really dry, but don't panic. Let it simmer for a minute or so.
8. Add in the curd, garam masala, chopped up coriander and chopped up mint (you may want to save a little mint and coriander for the raita).
9. Mix well. The curd should make the whole thing watery again.

Ok, the biryani curry is ready, and I hope your rice is too, because this is where you need it.

10. Take a baking dish, or a large vessel that can be sealed.
11. Put a layer of rice at the bottom, then a layer of soya nuggets, then another layer of rice.
You can carry on like this as long as you have enough matter to layer, just make sure the top most layer is rice and sufficiently thick. I've found that adding a layer of boiled potatoes (with or without their jackets) also helps. You can deep fry the potatoes if you like it better that way, but do it in really really hot oil.
12. Add the raisins and almonds on the top (you may want to stir fry them first, but I like to stay off frying as much as possible).
13. seal the dish and pop it into the oven at a very high temperature (I used 250°) for about 15 to 20 minutes.

Now, I used a handi, and I sealed it with wheat dough. You know that it's done when your dough starts to burn. You can also eat the dough later. Kids love it :)

Break open the seal and smell your biryani.

Now for the raita. I normally make a simple tomato-cucumber raita with curd and salt. This time I decided to experiment a bit, and added a sprinkling of mint and coriander. The result was amazing, and my raita was a hit with all those who tried it. Just mix everything together in a bowl, and refridgerate.

Serve the biryani hot and raita cold.

Sweet and Sour Prawns

2005-02-26T09:24:00.000-08:00

Had prawns. Had idea what. Had no idea how.

Decided that I wanted to make either sweet and sour prawns or garlic prawns, but didn't know how to make either. Called up dad. He gave me a rough recipe over the phone. All quantities were "to taste", so I decided to give it a try.

Ingredients:

Prawns (200gms)
Tomato Ketchup (to taste)
Pineapple Juice (to taste)
Salt, Sugar, Chilli Powder, Ginger Garlic paste
Vinegar (optional, again, to taste)
Soya Sauce (1 tsp)
Corn flour/Maida (refined wheat flour)
Carrots, cauliflower, spring onions (quantity as you see fit)

Method:

Chop up carrots into longish slices (diagonally is nice). Break onions into petals.
Keep prawns ready (not frozen or cold, should be at room temperature)
Mix tomato ketchup and Pineapple juice, adding to taste in a saucepan
Heat on low flame
Add salt, sugar, chilli powder and ginger-garlic paste
Mix in some corn flour or maida to increase thickness. Stir continuously to avoid forming lumps. Keep stirring until it turns translucent.
Add in vinegar if necessary for taste and soya sauce.
Add in prawns
Add in carrots
Bring to a boil while stirring continuously. Boil for about 5-10 minutes depending on freshness of prawns.
Simmer to get rid of excess liquid if necessary.

I made a few mistakes though. I used frozen prawns and they weren't completely defrosted when I put them in, so they didn't cook completely. The sauce however turned out well.

Other options:

Pre-boil the prawns, or deep fry them in a batter made out of maida/corn flour and bound with egg (you can use just the egg white if you don't want the yolk).

Walking down Seppings Road, Bangalore

2005-01-15T04:34:00.000-08:00

At about 3:45pm, Tahir and I went looking for lunch. The initial plan was to go down to MG Road and eat somewhere there, but as we walked down St. John's Church road, I noticed a road that neither of us had ever been down. Turned onto Seppings road and decided to enter the first eating place we found.

The first one was Tea Corner, and we got in there and had tea (Tahir says it was brown milk). 2 glasses for Rs.5.

Moved on from there, and came across a large temple. I'm unable to pronounce the name, or remember the spelling, but it started with M and ended with amma. We entered a south indian restaurant soon after and had two plates Idli Vada - Rs.16.

Went on a bit more and got into Tea house. Had 2 glasses tea and some biscuits for Rs.8.

At this point Tahir was too full to eat anymore, although I could have stopped for pani puri or something else.

After that just walked down, taking random turns, and ended up near commercial street, from where we knew our way to MG Road.

Macroons (Cashew and Coconut)

2004-12-31T03:56:00.000-08:00

This Christmas, my dad taught me to make Macroons. They're surprisingly simple and quick to prepare and require very little practice. Here's the recipe.

Ingredients:
- 250gm powdered sugar
- 125gm broken cashew nuts
- 1tsp baking powder
- white of one egg (and perhaps a tad more)
- 1tsp vanilla essence

10 step procedure:
1. Mix the sugar and baking powder, and pass through a strainer to get rid of lumps. Break all lumps into powder. It has to be really powdery. Strain twice.
2. Pour into a bowl, add vanilla essence, and the white of one egg.
3. Mix all egg and sugar is a single mass, thick, but flowing.
4. If the mixture is too dry, add one more teaspoon of egg white.
5. Add cashew nuts, mix again.

6. Take a baking dish, place butter paper on the base, and sprinkle powder sugar to cover it completely
7. Drop 1tsp blobs at equal intervals on the butter paper, leaving space for expansion.
8. Put into a preheated oven at 165°C for 5-7 minutes until it starts to turn brown.
9. Take the dish out, turn it around, and put it back in for another 5-7 minutes.
10. Take dish out, cool, and remove macroons from the butter paper, ready to eat.

NOTE: Do not beat up the albumen (egg white). Pour it in as it comes out off the egg.

Also known as Macaroons.

Other macroon recipes:
Coconut Macroons
Coconut Macroons
Almond Macroons

Update:
I did try coconut macroons, but my attempt flopped. Dad tried it while I was away, and his came out really well. Here's his recipe:

Ingredients:
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 cup self raising flour
- 1 grated coconut (not dessicated) - should not be moist
- one egg
- 1tsp vanilla essence
- nuts or raisins if desired

10 step procedure:
1. Mix the sugar and self raising flour, and pass through a strainer to get rid of lumps. Break all lumps into powder. It has to be really powdery. Strain twice.
2. Pour into a bowl, add vanilla essence
3. Beat up the egg thoroughly, and add it to the mixture.
4. Mix all egg and sugar is a single mass, thick, but flowing.
5. Add coconut, mix lightly (the coconut will leak moisture if you get too rough)
6. Add nuts and raisins if desired

7. Take a baking dish, place butter paper on the base, and sprinkle powder sugar to cover it completely
8. Drop 1tsp blobs at equal intervals on the butter paper, leaving space for expansion.
9. Put into a preheated oven at 130°C for 20 minutes until it starts to turn brown.
10. Take dish out, cool, and remove macroons from the butter paper, ready to eat.

Note the differences: full egg, beat up, 130°C, 20 mins

La gastronomie française

2004-09-26T09:12:00.000-07:00

Que mangent les Français ? Que boivent-ils ? Le petit déjeuner, le déjeuner, le dîner, la vie quotidienne, les occasions spéciales... Quels sont les différents plats auxquels ils s'intéressent ? C'est un sujet qui m'intrigue beaucoup. J'ai donc posé ces questions à mes amis sur l'internet. J'ai aussi trouvé des sites avec des recettes françaises. Cet article est une compilation des réponses des internautes.

Le petit déjeuner

Les Français sont un peu étranges. Pour le petit déjeuner, ils mangent : des tartines, des brioches, des croissants, des baguettes avec du beurre, de la confiture, et des pains au chocolat. Je ai trouvé un peu bizarre cette coutume de manger du chocolat pour le petit déjeuner, mais pour eux, peut-être est-ce normal.

Le petit déjeuner est un petit repas et les gens ne mangent pas trop pour ce repas du matin.

Ils prennent le petit déjeuner en buvant du café, du chocolat ou du thé, mais le thé est plus rare. Il y en a aussi qui boivent du jus d'orange.

Dans les cafés, un petit déjeuner typique est constitué d'une boisson chaude, d'un croissant et d'un jus d'orange.

On mange le petit déjeuner après s'être levé.

Le déjeuner

C'est le repas le plus solide de la journée.

Pour le déjeuner, ils mangent des baguettes, du pâté ou une salade, du poisson, des saucisses, du poulet ou une autre sorte de viande, des légumes ou des féculents, un laitage (comme du fromage ou du yaourt), un peu de vin, et du pain.

L'ordre des plats est important. D'abord, l'entrée, puis un plat principal (viande/poisson/oeuf + légumes), en finissant avec le fromage et/ou un dessert.

Le déjeuner est pris entre 12h et 13h ou entre 15h et 16h. Ça dépend de la région.

Le dîner

Le dîner surtout permet de se réunir tous ensemble. C'est vraiment le repas familial de référence. On le prend souvent en regardant le journal télévisé de 20h.

Il n'y a pas beaucoup de différences entre le repas de midi et celui du soir. Ça consiste en viande, soupe ou poulet. Le dîner est moins copieux que le déjeuner.

Le dessert

Je ne connais pas beaucoup de desserts de France, mais quelqu'un m'a dit que les clafoutis aux cerises sont assez délicieux. J'ai trouvé cette recette, qui met l'eau à la bouche. Il y a aussi d'autres desserts comme les cerises en vin rouge, qui contiennent beaucoup de fruits méditerranéens.

Le fromage

Un exposé sur la gastronomie française n'est pas complet sans parler des fromages et des vins. Il y a plus de 500 variétés de fromage en France. Le Roquefort, appelé le roi des fromages, est un des plus fameux. Les autres sont le Valençay, le Comté, le Brie, et oui, le Camembert.

Le vin

Les vins les plus réputés sont ceux des régions de Bordeaux et de Bourgogne. Ceux d'Alsace et du Val de Loire qui sont blanc et sec m'intéressent. Et qui ne connaît pas le Champagne ?

Différentes régions, différentes cuisines

Dans le Sud-est, du côté de Marseille et Nice, c'est de la cuisine méditerranéenne. Beaucoup d'huile d'olive et aussi du poisson parce que la région est près de la mer. La spécialité de Marseille, c'est la bouillabaisse, une soupe de poissons qui doit cuire très longtemps.

Un peu au nord, il y a Lyon, dont les spécialités sont assez axées sur la charcuterie, avec en particulier l'andouillette (une saucisse à base de tripes) et la rosette (un gros saucisson).

À l'est, dans la Savoie, les plus grandes spécialités sont à base de fromage : fondue au fromage, raclette, tartiflette.

Une des viandes les plus utilisées dans la cuisine du sud-ouest est le canard. Pour la cuisson là-bas, on utilise très souvent la graisse d'oie ou de canard.

En plein centre de la France, est situé Auvergne, une région plutôt montagneuse et paysanne où l'on aime les plats qui les tiennent chaud en hiver ; avec par exemple la potée ou l'aligot.

En Bretagne, les spécialités sont les galettes et les crêpes. Les crêpes bretonnes sont de grande taille, et la pâte est très fine ; elles sont cuites sur une grande plaque ronde.

À Paris, il n'y a pas de spécialité, mais il y a des gens de tout le pays, et ils viennent avec leur cuisine. Pour goûter les différentes cuisines, il ne faut pas faire une tour de France. On peut également rester à Paris.

De nos jours, beaucoup de gens qui travaillent n'ont pas le temps de manger. Ils prennent des sandwiches ou bien achètent leurs repas chez MacDo. Il y a aussi les cuisines d'autres parties du monde comme l'Asie, le proche Orient et aussi l'Afrique du nord.

Je voudrais bien aller en France pour goûter les spécialités de ce pays.

Sushi

2004-05-12T07:34:00.000-07:00

Yes, I had sushi for dinner tonight. Dinner lasted several hours, and came in many courses.

We went to a not 100% traditional Japanese restaurant. Had to sit cross legged on the floor. The first dish was octopus and prawns. They might have been boiled - I'm not sure, but was quite palatable. The sauces were also good. They serve a single platter for every table of four, and we occupied four tables. This was accompanied with a kind of seafood porridge/thick soup, and a bowl of salad.

Just as the octopus and prawns got over, a vessel of boiling water was brought in, and cockles in it. You can sip of the water with your spoon, or pick out the cockles from the shells using your chopsticks.

While that was still boiling, a pan of mushrooms and gingerly seeds (til) was brought in. It was similar to the pan on which sizzlers are served. The musrooms were finished in quicktime.

The next dish was crabcake - or some kind of seafood pie with macaroni and cheese.

After that came this plate with 4 balls of noodles and some seafood curry in the centre.

In the meantime we got in some local wine - made of Korean Olives. The Korean word is Soljungmae - IIRC. It's quite sweetish - tastes like almonds almost, and has 4 olives at the bottom - we later turned made martinis out of the wine.

The next dish was the first course of sushi. A large platter with balls made of grated white radish and green leaves surrounding it. The raw fish was placed on the balls - about 4 slices per ball. In the centre were two other types of fish - all raw. You eat it with the sauce that you have in front of you. Pick it up with the chopsticks, dip it into the sauce and eat it.

How did it taste - quite a bit like the sauce actually. Texture wise it was halfway between crunchy and rubberry. I liked it, not sure how well I'll digest it though.

After we were done with the fish, they brought in some more shell fish - this time all raw. I could not identify any of it, but I think one of them was oyster. These weren't completely to my liking, but I tried one of each type just to be sure.

Once we were through with that, they brought in fried eel. This was the first time I'd eaten eel, and it was quite tasty.

It's quite hard to find out what I'm eating because my friends know the Korean word for the dish, but not everyone knows the English word. In most cases they describe it to me and I try and figure out what it is - then someone says, "Yes", because he's heard it called that before, and I know that I'm right. Otherwise I can only guess.

The last dish was a surprise - and what made the restaurant not 100% Japanese. Rice and vegetables with fish eggs, and Kimchi. The rice-veg-fish eggs combo was served in a bowl placed on a sizzler platter. Yes it was good. There was some seafood soup that accompanied that, but it wasn't very good and no one had more than a taste of it.

After all that we went down to a second restaurant for a couple of beers. In India when you go out for alcohol you generally get some kind of chatna like channa or fried moong or masala papad with it. In Korea you get fruit and popcorn. All kinds of fruit.

We had watermelon, yellow melon, canteloupe, kiwi fruit, banana, apple, plums, cherry tomatoes (In Korea tomatoes are exclusively fruits), and oranges. The fruits here are huge - seriously huge. I have never seen fruits this size anywhere in India.

Anyway, we left the beer place around 10pm, and headed back. Now off to sleep.

To break from the rule, today was a rainy day. The first rainy week day I've experienced here in Korea. Apparently the rain is acidic so everyone has an umbrella.

Lunch Thai-m

2004-05-07T07:32:00.000-07:00

Today's lunch was at a Thai restaurant in the POSCO building. POSCO is to Asia what TISCO is to India (irrelevant fact). Anyway, if you're Managalorean (and Rohan D'Sa and I have been exchanging several of these Mangi related posts), then you'll be able to identify with thai food. The currys are very similar, and yes, there is meat in them.

As usual, rice was served in a separate bowl to each person. Everything else was placed in the centre of the table. Yellow prawn gravy - and the prawns are quite large (no, not jumbo tiger prawns) - made with a generous dash of coconut milk I'm sure, was placed at the centre, along with some kind of chilly beef (with seriously huge red and green chillys cut into thin slices). There was also prawn fried rice, and some kind of meat fried in batter - I did not ask what it was.

The food was tasty. I managed to eat it all with my chopsticks. The most interesting thing was that even the Thai restaurants in Korea serve Kimchi.

As is true with most restaurants here (and in the US too), coke, fanta, etc., come with unlimited refills.

The restaurant was quite a walk away, and we sort of digested the food on the way back. I practiced reading the names of all the restaurants on the way.

The Korean word for rice is Pap. The Thai word for the same is Pad. Quite different from Chawal, and cooked slightly differently too.

Dinner cooked on the table

2004-05-07T06:02:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we went for dinner to a restaurant in the Hyundai dept store building. It was on the 9th floor. Had the same veg dish that we'd had on Wednesday, but this time with a fried egg on the top. The others had a kind of meat-noodle soup.

They bring this large steel bowl with a plain soup - looks like clear brown water. This is placed on a flame in the centre of the table. They then add vegetables and spices (the standard ginger-garlic paste). Then the meat is added, and finally the noodles. I guess each is added based on how much time it takes to cook. The meat is really thin slices and red when they put it in, but brown when it comes out.

It is then served into bowls.

Once done, they add a bowl of rice into whatever soup remains in the steel bowl. That's mixed around, and then they add what looked like seaweed. Finally, an egg is broken into the mixture and mixed up with it. The egg had an orange shell, and I was told that it was a chicken's egg.

It's all mixed up and served into smaller bowls. The flame is still on throughout. It tastes good, although I think the seaweed has a funny taste - I can only describe the taste as "purple" - go figure (well, if you were to take LSD, then that taste would have caused you to see the colour purple all over (and I'm in no way telling people to go take LSD)).

It was quite an interesting dinner. On the side I've been amusing various koreans with my "hangul reading ability".

Lunch was at TGIF's. The standard TGIF fare.

Food in Bangalore

2004-04-19T06:39:00.000-07:00

Is there any place in bangalore where I can get good non-veg food? Kheema Paav and stuf like that.

Went to Pizza Fort the other day, and ordered a fried chicken meal. Tip - don't have the chicken there. If it had any taste it would have been overpriced, but it didn't, so let's not even talk about the price.

Saturday's lunch was at this place at Brigade road called Kohinoor. I had veg kofta and Kerala paratha. Couldn't see the difference between that and other parathas. The Koftas were filling, but that's about it. Price wise, you get what you pay for. Recommendation - unless you're starving, walk on by (and if you're not on foot, well why the heck are you looking that way?)

Sunday dinner was at Hyderabadi Biryani on Richmond Road. Had Egg biryani there. Would have preferred trying Chicken or Mutton, but since I was the only person eating, I thought it would be too much. I think I should go there and try it out again. This place isn't for you if you're vegetarian, or if you're easily turned off by unhygienic looking places. I would also not recommend the water there, but YMMV.

Sometime last week, we visited a place called Santrupti or something like that. It's just off MG Road, take a left from Trinity Circle. Food was pretty good. A couple of the guys had thalis, I had a kind of Pulao, don't remember what I ordered for, but I think I got a Kashmiri pulao. Yathin had a chole batura... and the batura was huuuuge. Food was good IMO. The pulao would have fed two persons, and it was cheap. Recommended.

Swadistha is an Andhra place at Mittal Tower. Relatively cheap Andhra thali, reasonably spicy, so keep the curd rice for the end. Um, eat there, don't eat there. No loss.

Ullas - first floor, utility building, MG Road. Good south indian food, and only good food is south indian. Don't order anything north indian there. Masala dosa was good, but they're inconsistent with where they put the butter. Wada sambar was good too. Worth a try. Go there. Not too expensive. View from the window's not that great though.

The only other time I ate out was Thursday night at the office. We ordered parathas. I had two gobi (since I'd already had methi, and aloo on the two days before, and was going to have daal on the following sunday).

Umm, well, if anyone knows where I can get kheema paav, let me know.