Sunday, December 20, 2009

Kerala Beef Fry..

theOn a sunday morning  if you drive by a christian neighbourhood in kerala you are sure to know that there is some variant of beef on the stove. Nowadays it is cooked rarely ( may be in alternate weeks) becuase of all the negatives of red meat.

Carrot Cake

I associate carrot cake with Christmas as this was a regular at my home this time of the year. I thought that this was pretty much a home fare till it started appearing in the menu of coffee day ( and they charge 40 bucks a piece). Wikipedia says carrot cake originated in the medieval period as carrots where used as natural vegetable sweetners and became popular in Europe during the second world war. I have no idea how it became popular in a syrian christian household in kerala.

Chicken Tikka

This is one of the most famous Indian Cusine dishes. A number of my colleagues from abroad are so familiar with Chicken Tikka and they even count it along with their fav dishes. I rememeber reading an artcile which said that this humble punjabi dish is amongst the top 5 favorite foods globally ( well Indian population itself is 1/6 of the global, so u know from where the votes have come in ).
Recently there has been some legal tussle going on to proclaim that tikka masla curry originates from Glasgow and should be given " the protected geographical status by the EU" . There are also some English officials who claim it as the true " British National Dish).

Thai Red Curry ( Prawn's)

Thai Curry is a coconut milk based dish using Prawns/chicken/ Crab/Bamboo shallots / Pineapple with a blend of many ground spices. The ground spices is available in most stores as Curry paste. There are basically 5 types of curry paste, of which red curry & green curry are most popular.
Some of the types of  thai curry paste are :-

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Chicken Sheek Kabab

Brief History - The word " kebab" means roast.Kebabs are generally associated with the north eastern frontier of India ( afghanistan / pakistan). Some food historians trace the origin to Turks and Arabs. Mughals introduced kebab's in India. Some say that during war time when fuel is scarce, small chunks of minced meat which were skewered using swords in charcoal where the first kebab's. Now kebab is an english culinary word.
This is how my recipe goes. The good thing about this dish is that it can be made with any meat, spices and combinations of marination's and sauces..