Panfusine

Whenever the craving strikes for deep fried food, I always try and maximize by trying out new ingredients to fry up, and whatever is sitting in my pantry/ fridge is fair game. This time around it was Fava beans freshly shucked from the pod, mixed with a chickpea batter infused generously with fresh thyme, and fried up.

Anyone from Mumbai (the city formerly known as Bombay), with a passion for its incomparable street food will relate to the following scenario. Standing in front of a vendors cart waiting for a fresh batch of Batata vadas (garlicky potatoes enrobed in a spiced chickpea flour batter) to be fished out of a huge wok of hot oil, there is an aroma that quietly stamps itself into your memory. Rustic, yeasty and downright comforting. The stacks of  country rolls piled up 2 feet high, in the corner. These are the native 'Ladi Pav', a Portuguese contribution to this vibrant culinary scenario. The Pav is everything that the snooty slice of white bread is not -  tough, chewy, with a tang that is halfway to sourdough. Its usually partially sliced,  soaked in melted butter when served up with Pav bhaji or Usal. Alternatively, dusted liberally with garlic chutney with a golden orb of batata vada stuffed in between. Lets not beat around the bush, the Pav has always been looke...

The New Year's here and that of course means that the festive finale of the previous year comes to a grinding halt. The Christmas tree is cleared of its ornaments, the ornaments are wrapped up, and stashed back into the big storage boxes, and said storage boxes are then dragged back down to the basement to hibernate until next December. In most households this definitely means a lull in the happy mood that prevails, the sinking feeling of nothing to celebrate until the weather warms up, and of course, the snowstorms and  bitter cold weather that inevitably marks February. And no, a corporate invented festival like Valentine's day does not count. In Indian homes, we just get ready to celebrate the next celestial event that makes its turn, In this case, the return of the sun to the northern Hemisphere, known as 'Uttarayan' in Sanskrit. every state and community has its own way of celebrating the impending arrival of spring / hot weather (for all practical purpo...

As the Festival of Navratri goes, this is the big day, the grand finale. Mythologically speaking, this was the day, the lascivious demons, Chanda, Munda & Mahishasura and the worlds first one man clone Raktabhija (from the sanskrit Rakta- blood, bija - seed. Legend has it that when each drop of his blood fell to the ground, an identical clone would rise. The goddess countered that by giving rise to Kali (the terrible one) who literally stuck her tongue out to drink every drop of Raktabija's blood before it hit the earth. Mahishasura put up quite a fight taking multiple forms before his final morph into a buffalo( Mahisha) at which point, the goddess pins him under the lion she is riding on and proceeds to eviscerate him. Who says Mythology is  dull? The prasad (offering) that I'm posting today is an edamame sundal. Edamame, like fresh green chickpeas has a delicate buttery texture that makes it ideal for South Indian stir fries. Its unlikely that you will easily st...

  Time flies when you're having fun - so goes the saying. I never realized how relevant it would be to something so very different as this baking project that we started way back in January. Aparna Balasubramanian, the author of the blog 'My diverse kitchen' has led us through a fabulous journey through sweet and savory yeast  confections. It started out with the pull apart bread and wended its way through classic breads like Croissants to unusual cookies such as Torcettini de St. Vincent . This years penultimate bread is the classic Swedish cinnamon bun, (yep, from the same set of those addictive treats you look forward to on a trip to Ikea). These buns are traditionally made on Oct. 4th to celebrate 'The day of the cinnamon bun' but then these are so addictive that they're available all year round in Swedish bakeries. The Swedish version is a lot less sticky and sweet compared to the American version. I tried both the traditional swirled version a...

I've always dreaded the third time I undertake any project, there usually seems to be a jinx associated after that.. 3 weeks of working out in the gym, or following a dietary regimen, three baking tasks etc. . the 'We knead to bake project was no exception. Even as  I took it lightly that the 24th of the month was some ways of, BAM!.. it crept up before I knew it and I had no cookies to show for it. Of course there was no way I was going to let a bad case of the common cold let me miss this session, so better late than never, Here is the recipe that Aparna Balasubramanian picked out for April - Torcettini di St. Vincent. So what is a Torcettini? Its believed that the cookie originated as a variation of the classic Italian breadstick, the Grissini. A baker in Valle d'Aosta had some leftover butter that he decided to incorporate into  his last batch of dough,shaped it into a twist, and rolled it in sugar to differentiate it from the regular bread sticks ...