Food, Culinary And Recipe Blog

Ingredients:

• 5 medium sized prawns, shelled and de-veined
• 1 stick lemon grass
• Lemon zest of 1 lime
• 3 tsp lemon juice
• 1 tbs fresh cream
• 1 tbs white wine (optional)
• Salt to taste
• ½ tsp chopped onions
• ½ tsp butter
• A few crisp arugula or iceburg lettuce leaves

Method

Saute onions in butter till they are glossy. Add white wine, lemon zest, and lemon grass. Add 1 cup of water. Simmer for 10 minutes. Add prawns and salt to the boiling lemon flavored stock, reduce flame and simmer for two to three minutes till prawns are just done. Remove prawns to a platter and keep aside. Reduce the cooking liquid till it is of syrupy consistency, add cream. Strain, put the prawns back into the reduced stock, simmer for half a minute, add lemon juice. Check and correct the seasoning. Arrange the prawns around arugula/crisp lettuce leaves, pour sauce on top of the prawns and serve immediately.

Most people love eating different types of foods except those who suffer from the wrong conception that food causes gaining huge weights. But here, I am not going to discuss or argue about food and its relation with weight loss or gain.

Instead, I am going to present to my readers some mysterious facts, trivia and history that you might have not known earlier.

1. The first ice-cream soda was sold in 1874 in the U.S.
2. There are more than 10,000 varieties of tomatoes in the world.
3. China uses 45 billion chopsticks per year. 25 million trees are chopped down to make the sticks.
4. The Chinese first discovered the tea. actually, it was a Chinese Emperor who first tasted the brew in 2737 B.C. when some tea leafs accidentally blew into a pot of boiling water.
5. Did you know that an onion, apple and potato all have the same taste? The difference in flavor are caused by their smell!!

I hope you have enjoyed reading these interesting facts about food.

Growing demand for quality wines in India and Russia has made Champagne a scarce commodity for other countries. The situation has reached to such a stage that, if production is not increased significantly over the next few months, Britain might have to do rationing for the mother of all wine. The restrictive French law, which limits the area that produces champagne is also hampering supply.

To tackle the situation France government has initiated a process to include 40 more villages in the exclusive list of  champagne quality grapes producing area through amendment of a 1927 law AOC (”appellation d’origine controlee”). At present the area is limited to only 35,000 hectares.

Industry figures indicate that import of champagne from India has been growing over triple digit figure and that of from China and Russia in the high forties. In total France exported 150 million of bottles last year and French themselves drank roughly around 188 million bottles.

As usual, here is another great recipe for a great Eastern dish called  “Norther Thai Squash Soup With Banana Flower” .

Ingredients:  

• 300gm butternut squash
• 1 litre vegetable stock
• 1 cup beans, cut into small pieces
• 50gm banana flower (optional)
• 1tbs Thai fish sauce
• 25 raw shrimps
• A bunch of fresh basil
• 150gm shallots sliced
• 2 fresh green chillies, seeded and finely chopped
• /2 tsp  shrimp paste

Method:

first make a chilli paste by making a puree or pounding the shallots, green chillies and shrimp paste together. Add salt to taste. Now dice the squash into  neat cubes. Heat the stock gently in a large pan. Stir in the chilli paste. Add the squash, beans and banana flower. Bring to boil and cook for 15 minutes. Add the fish sauce, shrimps and basil. Bring to simmer point, and then simmer for three minutes. Serve in bowls accompanied by rice.

You are done!

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ kg spare ribs

• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 medium sized onions, diced
• 2 tbs butter
• 1 cup chopped tomatoes
• 1 celery stick, chopped
• 1 cup ketchup
• 1 ½ tbs grated jaggery
• ½ tsp Tabasco sauce
• A pinch of dry mustard
• 2 cups stock (chicken or mutton)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Rub ribs with garlic/ place in a baking pan and roast for 30 minutes at 350 degree F. Cook onion in butter. Add the remaining ingredients and stir. Cover and simmer for one hour. Pour sauce over the ribs. Cook for 45 minutes more, basting frequently. Serve with a green salad.

Done.

Our endeavor is to collect recipes of delicious Indian items and present them to our valued visitors who love Indian delicacies.

So here goes another Indian delicacy- “Butter Chicken With Almonds”

Ingredients :-

• 1 tandoori chicken
• 1 kg tomato
• 1-inch piece of ginger
• 2 medium sized onions, finely chopped
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 tbs kasuri methi
• 2 tbs tomato ketchup
• 1tsp red chilli powder
• 100 gms cream
• 50 gms butter
• 50 gms almond
• Green chillies
• Salt to taste

The Method:-

Make your almond paste. Puree the tomatoes and ginger together. Heat the butter, and fry the almond paste. Add a bay leaf, and the onions. Fry them for two minutes. Now add the tomato-ginger paste, slat and red chilli. Cook for a while. Put the ketchup, add the tandoori chicken to the sauce and simmer for 5-7 minutes. Now add the cream. Simmer for 2 minutes. Dry roast kasuri methi on a tawa, crush it with your hands and add to the chicken. Garnish with the green chillies.

You can have your chicken now.

As told by Rahul Verma on Graphiti Magazine.

Here is how to make a delicious Indian Dish

The Recipe

For the chicken:

1) Ingredients:

• 1 breast of chicken, boneless
• 1 leg piece of chicken, minced
• 1 tbs chopped garlic
• 1tbs grated cheese (as preferred)
• 2tbs olive oil
• Salt and pepper taste

Red Capsicum Pesto

• 1 red capsicum chopped
• 1tbs chopped garlic
• 1 piece chopped walnut
• ½ cup olive oil
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.

Method for red Capsicum Pesto

Combined red capsicum, garlic with walnut in a food processor, add olive oil in a constant stream while the processor is on . Add cheese and seasoning.

Method for Yellow Capsicum Pesto

Same as above, but use yellow capsicum instead of red capsicum.

Basil and Pine nut Pesto

• 2 cups fresh basil leaves
• ½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/3 cup pine nuts
• 3 medium sized garlic cloves, minced
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Method for Basil and Pine nut pesto

Combine the basil with the pine nuts, pulse a few times I a food processor. Add the garlic, pulse a few times more. Slowly add the olive oil in a constant stream with the motor running. Add the grated cheese and pulse again until blended. Add a pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.

Method for Chicken

Marinate chicken mince with chopped parsley, garlic, grated cheese and seasoning. With a steak hammer beat the chicken breast and make into escalope. Fill the escalope with the mince of chicken and fold into like a sausage or roulade. In a non-sticky frying pan, heat olive oil and grill the roulade turning all the side until golden brown. Slice the chicken roulade and put into a serving dish and surround it with the different flavored pesto sauces.

Can be accompanied by buttered pasta or steamed rice.

Source: GRAPHITI, The Telegraph Magazine.