Roast chicken

 

OK so I confess. I didnt roast a turkey. I dont like turkey and I dont think my friends do either. But more importantly the thought of roasting a turkey scared me. What if I failed...my thanksgiving would have been ruined. So I took the safer way out and decided to roast a chicken instead. And I am glad I did because the chicken turned out to be pretty darn good.

And it was so simple. Here is what I did:

Ingredients

• 1 whole Chicken, Rinsed And Patted Dry
• 3/4 cups Butter, Softened
• Lemons
• Rosemary
• Salt And Pepper, to taste

Preparation Instructions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Zest lemons. Strip the leaves off of one of the rosemary sprigs and chop it up finely.

In a bowl, combine softened butter, lemon zest, rosemary, and salt and pepper to taste.

Use your fingers to smear the butter mixture all over the chicken, under the skin, and inside the cavity. Cut the lemons in half and squeeze the juice of one lemon all over the chicken. Place the lemon halves (if they'll fit!) and the some rosemary leaves into the cavity of the bird.

 

Place the chicken into the oven and roast it for 1 hour, 15 minutes or until done.

 

I put the chicken directly on the rack. I used the drippings to make gravy (drippings on veggies, flour, chicken stock and fillings from one sausage...boil until it thickens).

Both delicious.

 

And so simple.

 

 

Quinoa Salad

As a part of my Thanksgiving dinner I also made Quinoa salad. It was simple but quite good. Paired well with the other food that I made.

This is how I made it.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup quinoa
• 1 1/2 cups cold water
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup snow peas, shell peas, celery, or green beans
• 2 small carrots, peeled and sliced thin
• 1/2 green or red pepper, sliced thin
• 1 medium ripe tomato

Dressing:

• 2 Tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1/4 tsp salt

Directions:

Quinoa can be made ahead of time and refrigerated. Put quinoa with the water and salt in a pot. Cover the pot, bring to a full boil, turn the heat to low, and cook for 15 minutes. You know that the quinoa is done when there are small white threads coming out of the quinoa. Remove from heat and set aside to cool

You can either steam the carrots and green veg for 5 minutes or until tender-crisp, drain, rinse in cold water and drain again or you can have them fresh. Which is what I did. Chop the tomatoes. 

Blend dressing ingredients with a whisk.

Gently combine veggies, quinoa and dressing in a large bowl

Cover and chill, or serve immediately

Delicious healthy food

Simple Easy Cranberry Sauce

It was Thanksgiving week last week. I had some friends come over. And how can I have Thanksgiving without cranberry sauce? So I made some. And it was good. Simple and easy Cranberry Sauce.

 

I used:

1 packet of Trader Joes cranberries (about 2 cups of it)

1 cup orange juice. I juice Tropicana.

1 cup white sugar.

 

Bring sugar and OJ to a boil. Put in cranberries and let it boil till they pop. Cranberry sauce will thicken as it cools.

 

Serve.

 

Vietnamese cold coffee

Simple but delicious coffee

You need

Prepared Coffee - I use filter coffee.

Ice

Condensed milk

Pour the coffee over ice. Stir in condensed milk.

A small part of coffee heaven!

Honey Chicken Sriracha

Mono and me have re-discovered Sriracha. I mean Sriracha has always been a part of our lives for the past 3 years...but it has become indispensable these days. Like soy sauce. Once you start using it...you cant do without it!

For those who dont know what Sriracha is its a Thai hot sauce, made of chili pepper distilled vinegar, garlic, sugar, and salt. It is pretty hot...but not for people who are used to Indian food.

And the best part is you can add it to ANYTHING!!

So having said that I made some Honey Chicken Sriracha. And this is how..

Chicken Breast. Trim all fat.- 4

Honey- about 2 tablespoon

Yellow mustard - 2 tablespoon

Sriracha- 1 tablespoon

Lemon juice - 3 tablespoon

Mix the honey, mustard, sriracha and lemon juice and blend it well. Marinade the chicken in this and keep it for a day (or overnight) in the refrigerator.

Preheat oven to 375F. Once that is done put in the chicken for about 55 minutes. 

As a finishing touch, I broiled the chicken for 4 minutes once the chicken was done. 

Enjoy!

Croissant pudding...similar to the one Nigella makes

OK

So after a long time I took my Nigella cookbook out. And went through mountain-load of recipes! I came across the croissant pudding that I have been meaning to try out for a really really long time.

It needed among other things bourbon. Which I did not have. So I was like OK...lets make my own version of this! If you want the original recipe it can be found here.

So this is what I did

Ingredients

• 3/4 cups sugar. For me this was a bit too much, I will probably go with 1/2 cup next time. But with 3/4 it is slightly less sweet than an average pudding sold in the US.
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• About 1 cup milk. You can also use 1/2 cup milk and 1/2 cup heavy cream!
• 2 stale croissants (PS: Have you tried Croissants from Costco? They are heavenly...like truly heavenly)

And thats all you need.

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350F. Break croissant into pieces and put them in a oven proof dish.

In a small saucepan put in your sugar and 1 tablespoon water and stir in low heat till it melts. Once it melts increase the heat and let the sugar syrup become brown (stir continuously....sugar syrup browns very fast, and it burns even faster)

Once brown add the milk (and cream if you are using it). Stir continuously till the hardened sugar syrup dissolves completely. Add vanilla. (Cinnamon, nutmeg...other stuff)

Turn off heat.

In another container, whisk the eggs together. Add the eggs to the milk while whisking the milk continuously. Pour this egg milk mixture over the croissant.

Bake the entire thing for 20 minutes.

Serve.

We had this for breakfast with unsweetened coffee. Very hearty. Delicious.

This recipe is enough for 2 people!

Next time I will use bourbon! And maybe chocolate!

Come back for an update.

Sungurko Khuttako Achar

This is one of the receipes that Pooja gave me. I have made this one and its AWESOME.

This is the closest I can get to Pooja's home cooking. Oh I must write a post on food that I grew up eating. Not in my house. In Pooja's house. I used to take a detour while going home after school, just to eat in her place...OK. So now the knowledge is public!!

 

Anyway, here is what we need to do; and this one I quote Pooja:

 

"Ingredients:

Sungurko khutta (Pork trotters/feet)- 1 kg

Garlic sliced - 2 tbs

Ginger cut into thin strips - 2 tbs

Onion - 1 medium sliced

Tomatoes - 1 large sliced

Black jeera (OK I had to look up Wikipedia to see the english for this. Here are the English names  fennel flower, nutmeg flower, Roman coriander, blackseed or black caraway and finally black cumin. This is the star of the dish so do not miss this one out. Picture if the thing here.  Oh and btw when you use this to make Aludum..yum yum. I need to put that on this blog too) - 1 1/2 tsf

Green chillies - depends on how hot you want it

Tumeric - 1 tsf

Salt - to taste

Oil - 2 tbs

Method:

Cut pork feet into medium sized pieces. Rinse well. Boil for 3-4 minutes, rinse well and clean the feet thoroughly.

In a thick bottomed saucepan add all the ingredients except the black jeera, 1 tbs oil and the garlic.

Cook in medium heat adding a little water every now and then till cooked.

Once the meat is cooked to your liking, temper the black jeera and garlic in around 1 tbs oil and add to the pork."

 

And thats it! Delicious stuff...and of course if you have black dal and rice to go with this...perfection!!

My Philadelphia Trip- Continental Restaurant and Martini Bar

It has been sometime that I have written in my blog. I wont say I have not eaten good stuff while I am away. Its just that I have been eating decent food..and I have been on a diet. So well, I did not have much to write about. Until now.

So we decided that we need a vacation-at least a Mini-vacation. So we decided to visit Philadelphia over the weekend. We have a good friend there so we thought it would be fun to visit the city as well as him. So we went. Since this is a food blog I am not going to say much about the city. But this much I have to say. Philadelphia has this old city charm which was fascinating to see...especially in America. Words like quaint, pretty, charming, etc floated in my head in every street and every corner in the city. Even Mono got carried away and called some coffee shop 'cute'. It was hilarious. There were some portions in the city which distinctly reminded me of Darjeeling. Maybe it was the Brit connection. Basically we had a lot of fun in the city.

However, what we enjoyed the most there was the food. Day 1 we reached a little late so we just grabbed some beer (by we I mean Mono and Carter, while I sipped on my Diet Coke). And after that we went to have some dinner. We had some pretty good sandwiches. But it was Day 2 when we started our culinary journey in Philly.

We went in for brunch at this place called Continental Restaurant and Martini Bar. This was one of the restaurants that we went to under restaurant.com deals (For more on these kinds of Deals visit Carter's blog here). Anyway, since we were told that the portion sizes were pretty large, we decided to share 2 entrees between the 3 of us. And I am glad we did, because for most parts the orders were pretty large. Anyway, we had french toast with caramelized banana; and omlettes with applewood bacon and cheddar. It was awesome. The french toast caramelized bananas were sooo good.  The french toast was not soggy. One of the best french toasts I have ever had. And somehow they managed to make the bananas have the right amount of sweetness. It was delicious. We wolfed it down. And the omlettes were ...it was light and fluffy and had bits of delicious bacon in it. What can I say...no one really goes wrong with bacon. But this was just...really good.

They had a whole section of dessert, but we ended up not having them because we were quite full by the time we were done. There was also a martini bar in the place, which seemed pretty popular. And then there were plans of coming back later on. Somehow we never managed to...but  then that was only because Philly had SOOO much more to offer.

One thing is for sure. This place. I will be going back to when I go back. Maybe we will get some dessert and martini then.

July 4th with an all American burger

OK...somehow the 4th of July fever caught on and Mono and me decided to go all American with our food today. 

We started the day with pancakes and blueberry syrup, but then decided that nothing screams 4th of July more than Burgers and Beer.

So I made burgers. It was really good. And a lot healthier than what we would eat in restaurants. I took the receipe from food network website and then tweaked it of course. The original receipe can be found here. My version, which was made of chicken and halved went something like this:

Ingredients:

For Red Onion Compote

1/4 cup water

1 cup beer

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 red onions, sliced

Salt and ground black pepper

Bring water, beer, brown sugar, and red onions to a boil after seasoning with salt and pepper then reduce to a simmer. Simmer, stirring occasionally until the mixture thickens and reduces to about 2 cups. Transfer to a bowl and set aside to cool completely.

·        

For Burgers:

1 pound ground chicken

1/4 cup beer

2 tablespoons chicken rub

little shredded 5 cheese mix

Romaine lettuce

4 hamburger rolls, toasted

Mix together the ground chicken, beer and grill seasoning. Shape the chicken into 4 equal portions and flatten each portion. Place 2 tablespoons of cheese in the center of each and wrap the edges around the cheese to form a ball. Flatten each ball into patties. Place on platter and cover. Refrigerate if not cooking immediately.

Set up grill or indoor grill pan for direct cooking over medium-high heat. When ready to start grilling, oil the grate. Place patties on the hot oiled grill and cook 4 to 5 minutes per side for medium. Serve over lettuce on toasted buns topped with red onion compote.

Good results. Pictures do no justice to the burger!!

Online Menu

A short post on something I dont like.

A restaurant putting up their menus online. So I agree that it is useful to have a look at the menu to see how the food is, how much it will cost...etc etc. But for me it takes the charm out of going to a restaurant.

For me dining out is a shared experience. As is all good things in life. You go out..you look at the menu together. Discuss what each item may be...ask for the waiter's opinion. All in a package. Looking at the menu before hand gets you biased. I feel that if I have made up my mind about what I am going to eat beforehand I dont usually listen to the waiter/server. And I feel that ways I miss out on the good stuff.

Sadly. I still look at the menus online.  

Ayiti

So recently I was in Haiti for some work. I want to write about the food there.

Since I was there for a long time I got to taste local food. The staple diet there is rice and beans. And fried everything else..ha ha. OK so I had a lot of fried chicken. They told me that they boiled the chicken to cook it first and then they boiled it. Nothing special about either the rice or chicken...in fact in some places the chicken was quite greasy. However, the water that was left over after boiling the chicken in it...I guess we could call it stock..They made some kind of sauce with it. That was just awesome...specially when paired with rice. And of course, there was the fried as well as boiled plantains. All regular stuff. With lots of fruits for dessert and fresh juice!

This was boiled carrots and potato...with mayonnaise. Highway to heart attack!

Fried chicken and plantains...expressway to heart attack

Rice with beans..simple, staple food

The sauce...Yummmm!!

OK..so on the last day of my stay in Haiti, I went to this restaurant. It was in Petite Reviere de Nippes and I cannot remember the name of the place even to save my life! But this is what happened. I went in with another girl from the clinic for dinner and also because we were meeting this guy...Mike! He said the fish was real good in the place so I ordered fish. In the meantime, I ordered Prestige Beer

Now normally I am not a big fan of beer...but you see I was in Haiti. I was willing to try stuff (except maybe cat...which I was told is a delicacy here). But everyone told me about Prestige, about how it had won 2008 World Beer Cup. So I was like..OK let me try. And I am glad I did. It was light, not bitter...and sort of nutty tasting beer. Very very good. I wanted to get some back for Mono..sadly I had just one carry on. Next time surely! I just found out that they also won 2012 Beer Cup. So ya...truly good beer. And this one comes from a non beer-drinker. OK enough of beer...Next. 

Moonshine. Sugarcane based. 80% alcohol. Illegal in US. Took a shot. ALL of it vanished in my mouth. Got me drunk. Enough said!

And lastly, along with all that alcohol I had this fish. Again, I dont eat fish. But Mike convinced me that it was the best fish he had ever had, and that people swore by the fish. So I was like...OK Sure...and I was happy. Very very happy. It was Rock fish. And it was grilled. Lemony, tangy tasting divinity. It had no sea food smell...Not just the best fish I have ever eaten, but one of the best food I have ever had. I wish however they had not served it with french fries. I wish they had something more local...But who cares? The fish was a meal in itself. I repeat. It was divine. 

So overall I had a good time. Good food, good alcohol, great company (I missed Mono) and the sea. What more could a person want? 

Peruvian Chicken

I have been lazy lately. Either I have not been cooking, or I have been cooking simple stuff. I have not even been eating out...I guess I have officially become a bum!!

However, on Sunday we went out to eat. It was this hole of a place, with an unimaginative name..."Peruvian Chicken". The food however was anything but! It was one of the better cooked chicken in the country.

They serve you either whole chicken, 1/2 chicken, or 1/4 chicken. I took 1/4. It came with a side of rice and salad. Rice was cooked with peas, very bland...it went well with the chicken. The salad was a simple cabbage and carrot salad with dressing which had mint in it! The mint dressing could also be used for chicken. But the chicken...that was so good! It was roasted over charcoal. And the way way it fell off its bones, I am assuming it was roasted for sometime. Maybe even more than 12 hour. Whatever they did to it, the flavors were good...and went right till the insides of the chicken. It had a woody (in a nice way) taste, and the skin was crisp. Yumm, yumm. 

Oh and by the way, I ordered a coconut juice for my drink. It was not intentional but the two went well!

I need to go back to the place again!

Oyster @ Hank's

So, we have moved to Alexandria, VA. There is a place here called King's Street...and what a feast the King has laid out for us!!

OK, enough of theatrics. So in King's Street there is a restaurant called Hank's Oyster Bar. And that is where I had my first oyster. It was oyster with lemon and butter. Mono told me that is how everyone has oysters. Of course I was a little squeamish at first; the thought of raw sea food was not very appetizing. But Mono dared me into trying it out! And I did; and I am glad! It was delicious! A little spongy, and it tasted of the sea. Salty and fresh. And the lemon and butter really added on to the flavor! Would I have oysters again? Hell..yes!

Apart from oysters we had some Calamari (the biggest ones I had ever seen) and some lamb chops (yes in a sea food restaurant). The lamb chops were good...only problem was they got me rare when I asked for well done. But well the chops were good so I let them go! I dont exactly remember what was the side with the lambs...thats sad because I know whatever I had was good.

And dessert? I played it safe. Chocolate mousse. Wasn't out of the world; was quite good actually!

Overall, a good dinner.

I need to go back again!

Lebanese Taverna

Well...it was hubby darling's birthday on the 11th and we sure needed to celebrate...but on a budget.

So what better way than to go to yelp and find out the right place to do exactly that?

The most popular choice, for Mediterranean food was...well...someplace that closed at 9. And since it was 8 46PM we sure as hell were not going to make it! Good thing...because then we ended up in 4 and half star rated "Lebanese Taverna". And what a place we ended up at!!

Let me start with the negative thing first. The place is so DAMN difficult to find!! Its in Inner Harbor no doubt, but the GPS makes you go someplace which is about a block away from the restaurant. This is probably because the restaurant is in a place where you cant take your car...which is a good thing because they have outside seating. But its only uphill once you reach the restaurant. The hostess is so friendly, that you instantly like the place. Once you are seated you get an equally friendly waitress...be prepared to pay a hefty tip. You will want to :)

The food was awesome..of course. We had Chicken Shawarmas for appetizers. They offer fresh pita bread (by fresh I mean fresh off the oven....HOT!!) with your drinks. They dont have too many non-alcoholic drinks-just juices. I heard Guava and of course that was my obvious choice. And surprise surprise...it was fresh guava juice...not the pink tainted Real juice stuff...and Mono had some alcohol based drink. Let me ask him to give you his thought on the drink

"I chose  Arak over wine and beer as this was a traditional Lebanese drink. It was a clear drink, almost looked like Vodka, but tasted nothing like it.  It had a strong flavor of Anise which made the drink almost taste spicy. An interesting thing about this particular drink was as soon as you add water or ice to it, the color of the liquid changes to milky white. Overall I would highly recommend this drink"

Ah well...I guess someone had fun on his b'day night!

Anyway...food as I mentioned was delicious. We had the shawarmas as our appetizers and followed it by lamb chops (the dish was called masawi). Lamb chops cooked to perfection....My only let down in food were the bakhlavas. But that is not LTs fault. I have an Egyptian friend who makes Bakhlavas...and I swear NOTHING tastes as good as those ones. So well...However having said that LTs Bakhlavas were not too bad either...

Overall a very very good dining experience! Cant wait to go back to this place again.

Rotisserie Chicken

Never under-estimate the Rotisserie Chicken. I bought some in Safeway. They were delicious yesterday, when I had them paired with cucumber salad. The lightly flavored,  chicken was so tender, it came off the bones. One of the better things that I have put in my mouth lately.

Will try making something out of the leftovers. Lets see how this goes!

Herbs and spices

Found a wonderful wonderful list. Just what everyone needs,
Check this CNN site on different types of herbs and spices!

Subway Sandwiches

This blog is not just about food I make. It is about stuff that I love eating too. And right now there is nothing that I love more than Subway sandwiches. Not just any sandwich. 

Here is what my order ALWAYS is

6 inch. Jalapeño bread (sometimes I use Parmesan Oregano or Italian Herb). Buffalo chicken and American cheese. Toasted. With cucumber, jalapeños, olive, the spicy tomato mix, green pepper and honey mustard sauce.

$4.51 of pure awesomeness.

PS: I tried foot long sandwich for the same thing. It was too much. I tried other sandwiches. It was not as great. 

DAMN!! Now I want that sandwich again!

Blog-Life has been updated

OK,

So I just finished cut-copy and pasting all my recipes from before. From now on I shall have my new recipes here. Of course that will be with better spelling, better grammer and definitely better idea of measurements for people who want to make what I have made.

Though I have given this suggestion to Ishu Di (I hope she starts blogging soon...her food is simply out of this world), I will also try to write about some of the nice places that I have eaten at. That ways, one wont always be stuck with what I make. I will try and rate the place too.

I am excited again!!

Super Simple Cake

OK this was such an easy one to do....I wonder why I didn't do it before.

The ingredients

• Flour...about a cup
• 1 tin condensed milk
• About 50 grams butter....unsalted of course
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 tbsp baking powder

Preheat oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.Melt butter.Let it cool but don't let it solidify (makes mixing the ingredients easier.Whip the eggs together...I just used the food processor.Then put all of this and the rest of the ingredients in a bowl.Mix them well so that no lumps are formed.Grease a baking pan well.Pour the batter in.Bake for about 30-35 minutes...you know what to do with a toothpick.

Avocado Grape and Lentil Salad

I made this salad one evening at around 11 o clock when I was SO hungry I could have eaten a horse.And I am so glad I did because this has become my favorite salad till date.Super easy to make....super tasty and super healthy.

This is what you need

• zest of 2 lemon (which is nothing but grated outer covering of the lemon)
• cucumber
• red pepper
• red grapes (no problem if you don't have red grapes....green grapes are just fine...its just that adding the red grapes gives the salad a delicious colour)
• green grapes
• avocados
• lemon juice
• extra virgin olive oil
• salt to taste.
• any lentil...I used masur....red lentil.

Take some water and bring it to a boil.Add some salt to this water and boil the lentil in it till they are just done and not mushy.Boil them and drain them just like you would do a pasta.Set them aside to cool.

For the dressing...take the Olive oil, juice of the lemon and salt to taste and whip them together well.

For the rest of the veggies chop them to bite sizes...or whatever size you want and mix them well...add the cooled lentil and the dressing.Mix and enjoy.

YUMMMMM....like I said.The bestest Salad ever!!

Parsi dish with lentils and potato

One of those days when I had a carbs craving....

OK the stuff I used were the day to day stuff that is found in any Indian kitchen, viz,

mung dal...about 1 cup.I didn't know what mung dal in English was so I have attached a picture of it here.Tell me what these are called in English OK?

Some water to boil the mung dal in.

OK take the 2 together.And boil it for about 30 minutes so that the dal is cooked but not soft.After they are done drain and set aside.

Next we need,

• Around 5 medium sized potatoes peeled and diced to about 2 inch cubes.
• Some oil
• Cumin seed
• About 4 large green chilies finely chopped (yes the dish is REALLY hot)
• about 4 garlic cloves...chopped
• Some amount of ginger....grated
• Some turmeric...powder one.For yellow colour in the food.
• Some chili powder (as much as you can take)
• Salt to taste
• Some sugar (Bengali's use a lot of sugar in their food.Even in their meats....I used to laugh at them...and would even go as much as to say 'ewwww' you people don't know how to cook.But I added sugar to this this...and now I swear by sugar in all my dishes.Of course for health reasons I wont put sugar in ALL the food I cook.But there will be sugar in my special meals...the flavour changes when you put sugar in the meal..try and then see)
• Some curry leaves
• About 1 and half cup tomato puree
• Cumin seed powder
• Cilantro/Dhania to garnish

OK so now heat the pan and pour some oil in it.When the oil is very hot....fuming...add the cumin see till it starts popping.I love the smell of cumin in HOT oil...reminds me of my grandmother :) Anyways once the cumin is done add the chillies ginger and garlic....stir continuously else the 3 will burn.To this add turmeric....just a little.Once this mixture had been cooked in high flame add the tomato puree.Add salt to taste and about 1/2 tbsp of sugar.Add the chili powder as well.OK now once the tomato is done add the potatoes in...and cook it thoroughly.You can also parboil the potatoes and put them in ....but I like to cook the potatoes in the sauce so that the flavour goes in well..Anyways if you decide to cook the potato in the sauce then you should add a little water at a time so that you don't burn anything.When the potatoes are almost done add the mung dal in it.Add a little water and cook till the potatoes are completely done.

The consistency of the food should be gravy like.

To be served with chappatis/rotis.

OK like I have mentioned before I don't like saying add 1/2 tsp this and 3/4 tbsp that...the flavours and the taste is entirely up to you.Even once a week in the kitchen is enough to teach you how much to add what??

Flan

OK before I made this thing I didn't know 2 things...

1. Flan is a super-easy to make Mexican sweet dish

2.There are things called evaporated milk which is available in cans.I looked up Wikipedia...turns out its a milk in which 60 percent water has been removed.That means...if you boil milk for real long, till it turns real think, that's evaporated milk.OK?

So lets get started

You need:

3/4 cup sugar

About 250 ml evaporated milk

About one can condensed milk (Milkmaid).I don't use the entire can.I cheat and pour it on the dish and leave a lot behind so that I can lick it off as I cook...I know.I am disgusting....but I cant help it.I LOVE milkmaid :)

3 eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F

Put the sugar into a heavy bottomed dish (that you will be using later to bake in, so make sure its oven safe) spread it evenly and heat the dish.Directly over gas.So that the sugar starts melting (caramelizing).Make sure you stir the sugar occasionally.Once the sugar melts it will start turning brownish.Don't let it burn...just brown.Remove from heat when it becomes that colour and leave it to cool.With a spoon coat the sides of the dish a little with the syrup.

Now put the rest of the ingredients together in a bowl and mix it well.Put this mixture over the caramelized sugar (be sure that the sugar is cold).

Now put this vessel in a water bath.You know...bigger vessel with about 1 inch boiling water.

Now bake this entire thing for about 45-50 minutes. I had a little bit of mix left with me so I tried making that in simple water bath..instead of baking it.Turns out, it doesn't work.Not in the same time anyways....maybe it will if you boil it longer.But boiling for over an hour is a pain...and i firmly believe in 'save energy save life'...so make life more comfortable.just bake this thing.

After the mixture gets all firm remove it carefully from the water bath.Cool.

Put the flan in the fridge for minimum 4 hours before serving.

To serve just invert the flan onto the serving dish.There will be liquid in the dessert so make sure the serving dish isn't a flat plate ...

PS: I found the dish a bit TOO sweet for my taste.So well adjust accordingly.Just the caramelizing sugar though.Nothing else.

Buttermilk Roast Chicken

OK so the picture looks sad....there are just 2 pieces there.The thing is we forgot to take pictures and we realised this only when we had these 2 pieces left

Anyways here's what I used :

chicken..drumsticks preferred but you can use any fleshy chicken i suppose.6 pieces is enough for 2 people :)

1 cup buttermilk....curd and water in equal parts.mix well.that's Indian buttermilk i suppose.That's what i used anyways.

Vegetable oil.

Garlic

Chillies

Salt

Ground cumin...jeera.

Maple syrup (now the thing is...since i bought this syrup i have a big bottle of it....the concept of small bottles is unheard of in the US....pity; but ya...since i have this bottle the next few days i ll b making a lot of things which has maple syrup in it)

So this is what you do:

Put the chicken drumstick and the buttermilk together in a bowl and mix.put a little bit oil to it.Now peel 2 garlic cloves...2 pieces of garlic and smash it.I saw Nigella do it with a flat part of the knife so i do the same.you can use your fist if you want...but i strongly advice against it.So after you smash the garlic once put it in the bowl too.Now chop the chillies real fine and put it in.Salt to taste and about 1/2 tablespoon maple syrup (yes I had to buy a bottle of it for 1/2 tbsp) put it all in and mix well.

Cover it up and put it overnight in the fridge.If possible stir it once in between.

OK here's the thing.The book I was reading from asked me just to pick the pieces up and roast it.But there seemed too much of buttermilk mix to waste...so well,,,i went ahead and poured it all in....

anyways so preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.line a baking dish with aluminum foil.put everything (chicken mix i mean) in.pour in a little oil over the chicken.Roast for about 30 minutes.

Serve.We had it without anything else...oh ya I had maaza and Mono had White wine.but well...no food side dish.

Yummm