Hello everyone

Valentines is round the corner and we have decided to conduct a workshop for those who are interested to learn how to cook and bake.

Perfect for Valentine’s Day: Join us for a unique chocolate tasting and cooking experience that’s sure to be both romantic and memorable. You and your partner will heat up the kitchen as you learn cooking techniques and prepare an array of international gourmet items with hands-on instructions.

The menu will include an appetizer, salad and desserts!
WHEN: 12/13th of Feb, 2011 1pm – 2:30pm and 3:30pm- 5pm
COST: 2500 for couple
WHERE: Market Café, 8, Middle Lane, Khan Market, Delhi

We have designed fresh seasonal menus for the event. Guests don’t need cooking experience to attend. The price includes cooking instruction by me,recipes using the finest, freshest ingredients, copies of the recipes, chocolates, and the camaraderie of cooking with new friends!

To register, please pay registration fee by mailing us at learn@foodaholics.in or simply drop by the cafe itself!

YOU CAN CHECK OUR VALENTINES SPECIAL AT http://www.foodaholics.in/index.php/valentines-spl

Have you imagined how much labour and love goes into making one meal?

I always get emails and phone calls from young aspiring cooks and chefs. People seem to have this holy reverence for a pastry or culinary chef. And just like the trends on Twitter, they seem to envision a long hat, dazzling array of stainless steel kitchens equipped with automatic state of the art tools filled with lines of pastry/chef assistants swarming around in a room in a wonderful rhythm.

Part of this is true, the rest is fiction. Sometimes you need to wake up but never stop dreaming and I’m here to tell you how. The view is always best from the top. When you become the main head in your organization or the executive chef things look much sweeter, the journey, however, begins at the backdoor of the restaurant where inventory worth thousands of rupees of products every morning gets unloaded.

The hard work starts early in the morning wee hours before dawn when most of your friends and relatives are snoring away to glory. You don’t wait for the roosters call. What this job needs are 2 things: – Diligence (patience) and Perfectionism. The easy part is being surrounded by chocolate, sweets and other yum for the tum foods, but to hone your craft and to be the best you have to put in many many hours. I think Malcolm Gladwell had it half right. It would take 20,000 hours.

Everyone starts at ground zero. You know nothing when you start and all those knowledgeable, exciting chefs you’ve hero-worshipped all your life will show you how to run your kitchen. That was my first lesson.

To every profession, even cooking, there are good and bad sides. It’s not easy to survive culinary schools for those who don’t understand the physical requirements of the profession: Lifting hefty pots, being on your feet for eight hours (probably more), stirring barrels of stocks, sauces, rolling pounds of dough scooping lots of cookies and ice creams. The job requires a lot of out of you to begin with. Simply having an eye and a palette for food does not make one a chef. That was my second lesson.

As time progresses the chef is less of a Cook and more of a manager. He or She becomes responsible for a myriad of things, ranging from employee training, menu development, spoilage and waste control, to budgeting and the overall ambience of the establishment. While the term multitasking has become dominant in today’s culture, on the line, however, this word takes on an entirely different meaning. Think of being a chef as a balancing act walk on tight rope with a looming deadline and pleasing the largest audience of any profession (a lot of people eat food). You cannot choose what you must end up doing, but you can choose what you should focus on. But you will have to do everything once to understand and grow as a full-fledged chef. That was my third lesson.

When you start small you’ll be worried about the day to day activities and learning the recipes. Once you start to master them slowly and get into an autopilot, the skill that separates the newbie’s from the professionals is the amount of detail and experimentation that the chef puts into his or her plan. That means you’ll be responsible for creating a number of entrees, appetizers, salads, and/or desserts flawlessly over and over again. In simple words a chef is someone who can repeatedly multitask, is disciplined, has an aesthetic sense of food and can manage and churn meals. The most important ingredient in all of this is a smile. That was my fourth lesson.

The ladder to success is a bit taller than it seems in the papers. One thought step at a time. Don’t expect overnight success. Even the top stars of today didn’t have it overnight. It is difficult for new chefs to have their skills recognized without an established history of success in a variety of workplaces. So work around a lot, do all sorts of dishes, niche yourself after you have gained expertise not before. You have to do your job well whether it is menu items are being produced correctly and in a timely manner or ensuring proper food safety and sanitation in the kitchen at all times or the ability to delegate, consolidate and maximize labour is another part of the job.

Being aware of all things that are occurring at all times is necessary to any successful restaurateur or chef. Although the food is the major concern of the kitchen it far from the only responsibility that you have to worry about. The career recompenses the talented and the enterprising kind that can see opportunity and grab it.

So as a chef, here is a 4 course meal recommendation to your success, tuck in!

Salad: Find a mentor

Appetizer: Work hard

Main Course: Multi- task

Dessert: Smile- always!

Time is running and years are flying. Sister was in town and her one month visit is already over.  Both my siblings will be based in Uncle Sam’s land for the next few years, another reason to take holiday now With winters settling in Delhi it’s time for hearty soups and salads. The quality of the vegetables becomes better and one doesn’t need to drive to INA to get some. This season also brings in lots of Cold, cough and flu. It’s my second time in past 3 weeks to be loved by flu, so that is another reason why so many experiments are being made with “liquid foods”. As you enjoy a steaming bowl of homemade soup, you may not ponder over the “profits” (as mom says) it brings to you. Soup has collective demand in our family because of its convenience, simplicity and variety and also coz we are a vegetarian family.

So here is the recipe of the soup that I just made up and she turned into one of the nicest meals!
About half a litre of water   
3-4 tomatoes (chopped)
5-6 cloves of garlic (crushed)
2-3 black pepper (crushed)
1 onion (chopped)

Put all these items in a big pot and let it simmer for about an hour or so. Puree and strain.

Add Chopped vegetables (whatever is in your fridge really!!)

My mother added “ghiya”-gourd, beans, carrots, broccoli, green peas, mushrooms, baby corn and even cauliflower. Lastly she added chopped spinach. It boosts your soup’s vitamin, mineral and antioxidant content which helps fend off-season colds. . I swear if she had a chance she would have added ladyfingers(bhindi) too!! Season it with salt and lots and lots of pepper (clear’s your sinuses). Give it a simmer and then garnish with more burnt garlic and fresh coriander. Sip and enjoy!

So trick to make this soup real yummy – add a spoon full of pesto (we had some leftover you can even use the canned one).Not only is it my faith but factually also Soups can prevent diseases and add much needed nutrition to your general diet. And most of all its mmmyyyuuuumm good!
Foodaholics got covered in few publications sharing the same with you!

Hope everyone had a good Diwali

A rangoli made by sister and mother.

FOODAHOLICS IN THE NEWS….

In HT Career

In Sunday Guardian (only bummer they wrote the wrong address- its actually www.foodaholics.in)

Delhi Times- What’s Hot

Our Third week winner for the fudge contest is Nachiketa Chandra

Mango Buttermilk Cake for Princess Daksayani

This is a very special post as it’s a mango cake for Daksayani. She is my chachi’s daughter [could also be termed as mine as I love her that much ]…… and the Apple no…no…. APPLE of my eye……. I totally adore her….. She loves pottering around in the kitchen with me. We have a blast together. She’s the cutest Sous Chef anyone can have. We did Mushroom Quiche, Chocolate Fudge Brownies, Starry Brownies and many other goodies together. She’s also assisted me in making a daring baker challenge. These cupcakes sent her into peals of delighted laughter.

Daksayani and I both share the love of Mangoes….. She even has a special steel plate shaped like a mango to eat her mangoes in and I still get my nani to feed me mangoes just like she use to when I was a kid….. We both have very special memories attached with mangoes…. I hereby officially share my title of Mango Queen with Daksayani Chandra from this day onwards. Sealed, Signed n Delivered.

Her obsession with mangoes, different shapes, pink, her own birthday and barbies prompted the pictures below. So we had a birthday celebration much before her birthday. Actually every bake with her is a celebration of sorts J

Have made this ‘Mango Buttermilk Cake’ out of real mango pulp and not any synthetic essence. This picture may look like I’ve done some photoshop work on it…. But believe me…. The mangoes were so luscious n pulpy that I didn’t have to do any processing on the pictures… They are just-as-they-were-clicked.

Mango Buttermilk Cake
Adapted from Bright Morning Star

Mango Custard
[I halved the quantity of these to get 1 tin of 9”]

Ingredients:
5 yolks + 2 whole eggs
2 cups sugar [ d mangoes i used were pretty sweet, so if using tart mangoes you may need to decrease or increase as per taste]
75 grams salted + 50 unsalted, at room temperature [ you could use all unsalted butter and add a pinch of salt ]
3 cups mango puree with juice of 1 little lime.

1. Simmer a large pan of water
2. Place a glass/ steel bowl [that fits into the pan just right to make it a double boiler] with 1 cup of sugar and 100 gms of butter [mix of both if using both]. Simmer whisking well till butter and sugar dissolves.
3. Whisk till sugar dissolves and cool a bit.
4. Add 5 well whisked egg yolks and 2 whole eggs to the puree and whisk away.
5. Add to the butter and sugar and whisk again and Keep the bowl back on the flame on the pan of simmering water.
6. Keep stirring till it’s real thick and sticks well to the spoon and it took me almost 2 hours for this quantity.
But you could keep it directly in the pan, instead of double boiler, but never let it boil, and let the flame be really low. Watch it carefully.
7. The consistency will be thicker than that of Lemon curd, clings very thickly to the spoon.
Almost Custardy than liquidy and very wobbly, as if it’s kind of set.

How to check its Done?
What i did ,and it quite worked ,is that, pop in a few little bowls in the freezer when u begin , and as and when u think its getting done, heap a nice Teaspoon full into the bowls and pop back in the freezer for a few seconds
Well check the consistency and flavour, and u can add a bit more sugar if u want too )

Mango Buttermilk Cake
[I halved the quantity of these to get 1 tin]
Ingredients:
5 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
4 1/2 cups sugar, plus 1/2 cup for sprinkling
4 large eggs [or 6 if u skip the mango curd]
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract [I used 3 whole vanilla beans]
Finely grated zest of 4 lemons (for lemon cake, but i do love what it did to the mango cake]
Juice of 1 lemon (for lemon cake-optional]
1.5 cups Buttermilk
1.5 cups Mango chunky mango bits with juice
[as i chopped a few mangoes, i had pieces from the cups and thick puree from the seeds]
3/4 cup mango curd

Notes
~~~this quantity makes quite a bit of cake, i halved it and still had lodes of cake
~~~if making a few cuppys too, tip the tops with some mango Curd …delicious!
~~~love the crust that forms atop with the sprinkled sugar:-)
~~~the original called for 6eggs but since i had mango curd ,i cut it down to 4:-))

Method:
1.Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter and flour two 9-inch round cake pans.
Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
2. In another bowl, cream the butter and 4 1/2 cups of sugar until fluffy.
Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Stir in the vanilla or scrape the vanilla seeds into the batter.
Add the lemon zest and juice and the cubed mango pieces and puree mash.
3. Add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture, alternating with the buttermilk and mango curd.
Scrape batter into prepared cake pans.
A few cakes were half filled a mango slice/puree in between and then covered with batter again!
4. Sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup of the sugar on top of the batter or a mango slice if u want too or both! [I didn't do this as the mangoes were already very sweet]
Bake until set, when a cake tester inserted in centre comes out clean (about 1 hour).
5. Let the cakes cool in their pans, and then invert them onto a rack.
Delicious and buttery so…..flavour sure develops the next day as well. A buttery mango batter with a layer in between and topped with mango batter and some mango curd has me totally sold. By now you’d know that she’s a total poser and absolutely loved the cake. There no bigger HIGH for me than to see her savour the goodies I make for her.

This wonderfully crumbly and textured cake is sure to make any Mango loving person go into raptures of delight just like we did….