Let's Catch Up!

This weekend is a catch my breath kind of weekend. The time when I take a breather from work, from the adventure that is yet to unfold. A time to enjoy snow and tramping around in it to feel the crystals crunching noisily under my boots. A time to feel time passing by instead of always trying to catch up with it. A time to give my laptop its well deserved holiday. A time to pop into the kitchen to create something I love and share it with the world instead of keeping the photos hidden in my laptop.

Last night, my husband taught me to make a Chicken Saltimboca with some smoked cheddar melted  on it. He used to eat the dish occassionally when he lived in Boston all those years ago, as a single man. It was a restaurant dish, to be had in one of the tiny North End restaurants, which weren't as expensive as the last time we visited. You could make it at home, but at our home we stayed away from fatty food as much as we could, especially bacon!

Definitely not a great photo, blame two tipsy cooks for the sloppy presentation!

But this time we decided to release the tight hold on our stomachs and indulge. He layered the bacon on the salted-and-peppered chicken cutlets and I whacked them with a rolling pin to fuse the bacon and chicken together. Then as he melted butter, I lightly floured the chicken cutlets, first bacon side and then the other. As the chicken browned, he opened a bottle of champagne. We had hardly toasted and sipped when the chicken was done and we needed to make the sauce. I decided to toss the mushrooms in the same pan, with a last minute addition of some butter, to make the sauce. A Marsala type sauce for the Saltimbocca. He made rice with aromatic spices - cardamom, cinnamon - and dried fruits and nuts. The pilaf's fragrance competed with the sizzling bacon and steadily browning chicken.

A memorable meal, need I add? I got the recipe from the Whole Foods website.

At the end of the meal, we shared dessert. A layered mousse cake from Whole Foods. Perfect!

What did you do this weekend?

Cooking for One Instead of Table for One

When I'm not drooling over the food pics in Eric Gower's cookbook, I'm reading Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant - an anthology of one-person cooking articles from really creative people (writers, filmmakers, teachers, foodies) in diverse fields. I'm not too surprised to find comfort food - in different forms - ranging from recipes with canned black beans to poached eggs over asparagus, scrambled eggs on toast topped with truffle oil, polenta to a layered salmon, shallots and lentils dish. It's not just an amazing recipe book, it's a great comfort read - something to read in bed with a bowl of ice cream.

My comfort food was the Macaroni stir fry recipe - even if it happens that I'm missing a few ingredients, eggs, onions and pasta are always available along with my spice rack. In fact, eggs are very personal to me and my first choice when cooking a meal for myself. They're super easy and fun to eat, try scrambling them with rice or pasta or just over toast, they're very comforting and uncomplicated. I've even eaten boiled egg sandwiches with mustard and thousand island dressing for dinner alone, which prompted my husband to look in the fridge to see if everything in there rotted beyond recognition.

I love that these writers are all emphasizing on the simple things that are very self-indulgent, you'd make them because you want to pig out and not share. They're just as pampering if not more than the meals we make for dinner parties or for special weekends alone with your sweetie. I love that this book exists to take away the depressive air around 'Meals for One'.

Book: Alone In The Kitchen With An Eggplant - Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone

Edited by Jenni Ferrari-Adler

Written by a lot of talented, creative people who love themselves 

Reading Cookbooks....

I've grown up loving to read cookbooks and always find it relaxing to just pore through recipes like I'm reading a novel. It's not an activity I can do for hours but its always a good break for me as I try to mentally match the ingredients to the ones I have in the fridge.

This is a great match for me:



The Breakaway Cook - Eric Gower


I can read this for hours and the recipes aren't that long. In fact, he has already done and excelled at what I'm just attempting to do. If I can bring the same passion to what I cook everyday perhaps Indian cuisine can get there instead of being more intimidating to people who don't necessarily want to or love to cook. Indian curries and spices are a little daunting to the people around here, so much that I ensure that my home isn't greasy-smelling or feel like just too many spices died here. I cannot tolerate too spicy or food that tries to disguise its original, natural flavour by being overly preserved. The minute I bit into carrots and beans that had been tossed in just garlic and olive oil, I nearly cried for not having figured it out years earlier when olive oil had started to become fashionable in India.

Ok, now after a big ol' diversion into me, let's get back to the book. There's a website too:
http://www.breakawaycook.com/

There are words which really arouse my interest: umeboshi (or Japanese pickled 'plums' - he explains that they're actually apricots), maccha salt, ume vinegar, a lot of Japanese words. Then there are the absolutely interest-sparking recipes, for example, a Habanero fried rice with mangoes, pasta with a sauce of peas and onions, lamb chops sprinkled with lavender, and a recipe that made me borrow the book - Clay-Pot Ginger Pork with Figs and Pickled Fennel - just the pic of it makes me feel all cozy and wonderful inside as if it's a wondrous comfort food that I grew up eating. I would love to go to a mom and pop's restaurant and order that with a side of rice. Looking at the image fills me with all these feelings.

Do check his website to get a feel. It first felt like he was secretly cheffing away in this cookbook while giving the impression these things are easy when they're not, but I started reading the recipes before I even checked it out. They're well within my reach and I am glad that someone wanted to do that. We get more time to actually pay attention to the compliments that follow and the awed looks one gets when one tells them the truth - that it took no time at all to make!

Book: The Breakaway Cook

Author: Eric Gower

It's really awesome!

Bean and Cabbage Soup



Bean and Cabbage Soup
(Slightly tweaked from the original recipe - Mario Batali's Tuscan Cabbage and Bean Soup)

I got the recipe for this soup from Mario Batali's book 'Molto Italiano' and tweaked it to whatever I had on hand at home. It's a warm winter vegetable soup, made with cabbages and other vegetables, a few spices and cannellini beans. I've always wanted to make a hearty soup with as few spices as possible - something with restaurant quality - and I've never had on hand stock - chicken or veggie - neither would I want to make one from scratch (no time to do it). Which is why the combination of mild spices, tomato paste, greens and leek worked to make this soup delicious and healthy.

To get the original soup recipe, please pick up the Mario Batali book from your library.

If you'd like my version of it, read on.

Ingredients:

1 cup chopped cabbage
1 cup chopped spinach
1 can ready-cooked cannellini beans
1 yellow onion chopped (not too fine but small pieces)
1 leek chopped (same as the onion)
1 garlic pod sliced thinly
1 bay leaf
2 medium sized carrots sliced into circles
2 small potatoes chopped into cubes
1/2 teaspoon paprika or pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground roasted coriander seeds
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 pinches Italian seasoning (mix of dried herbs)
Finely shredded parmesan as topping
Water
Olive oil

Method:

Add olive oil to a stock pot and heat it for a while (should not smoke). Add the onion, leek, carrots, potatoes, garlic, bay leaf, Italian seasoning and stir together. Leave it to cook for 5 minutes on medium heat.

Add cabbage and spinach and combine. Add paprika/pepper, ground coriander and combine. Let it cook on medium heat until the leafy veggies wilt (I added very little water) - it should take around 10 minutes. Add the salt, tomato paste and let it mix well. Let it cook together for a few minutes.

Add the cannellini beans and water to the mixture, until the level of the water is about a few inches over the mixture (the soup can be as thick or thin as you like). Increase the heat until the soup boils. Reduce heat to medium to let the soup simmer for around 45 minutes.

Once done, remove from heat, pour into soup bowls and enjoy with a topping of shredded parmesan. Or a dollop of creme fraiche!

Serves:  4 people