Bombay Foodie

Now that Christmas is over, we are out of the season for hearty fruitcakes. Instead, the new year's eve calls for dainty canapes and elegant desserts. Which is why I am calling Jamie Oliver's elderflower jelly into action. Originally made as a summer dessert, this is festive enough to bring in the new year. I scaled down the recipe considerably to make only one bowl of dessert but look up Jamie's recipe if you are cooking a full batch. This jelly is typically made with mixed berries but since we only get strawberries here, I added black grapes and bright orange cape gooseberries to the mix. Washed and halved enough fruit to fill 2/3 of a bowl (about the size of a standard cup). Next, I took one sheet of gelatin and soaked it in cold water. 5 minutes later, I lifted the gelatin sheet out of water and put it in a heavy bottom saucepan. Added 2 tbsp elderflower cordial and set the pan on very low heat, stirring constantly until the gelatin melted completely. Added 1/2 tb...

Of the Goan Christmas sweets I spoke about the other day, the one that intrigued me the most was milk cream. It was also the easiest to make so here is my own take on it. Milk cream is a fudge made with milk, sugar and cashews. A simple recipe, though it does require a bit of work. First off, grind 50 grams cashewnuts to a rough powder and keep it aside. Make sure you don't over process them in the grinder and they would release oil and turn into cashew butter which we don't want. Now get hold of a heavy duty saucepan and pour 1/2 litre of milk in it. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer and let the milk cook until halved in quantity. Add 3/4 cup sugar and stir until it's all mixed in. Bring the milk to a boil again, reduce the heat and cook until the milk and sugar syrup is thickened to a condensed milk kind of consistency. Add the cashews and a tbsp of butter, then cook on a medium heat, stirring constantly to avoid the fudge burning. Test every few minu...

One of the biggest problems with making pancakes for one person is that you always have too much batter. Even the smallest batch, made with one egg, makes enough batter to make pancakes for two. So what's a person to do when you are by yourself and want pancakes. One, you can have crepes because crepe batter lasts for a couple of days in the fridge and is even batter the second day. But if it's pancakes that you want, here's what you do. Make pancakes with half the batter, then pour the remaining batter into muffin tins and bake at 180C for 15-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the centre of the muffin comes out clean. I did this with the eggnog pancakes I made yesterday. Now, because pancake batter is not as sweet as your cake batter, you need to up the sugar level in your muffins once they come out of the oven. You have several options to do that: 1. Add another tbsp of sugar to your batter before you bake. 2. Brush your muffin tops with butter as they com...

I really liked the eggnog flavour yesterday so decided to continue the eggnog flowing in the form of these eggnog pancakes from Joy the Baker . These pancakes contain no real eggnog but replicate the flavour with nutty brown butter, some brown sugar and Christmas spices like cinnamon and nutmeg. Put 40 grams of butter in a small saucepan and heat gently until much of the water has evaporated and small brown flecks appear at the bottom of the pan. Turn off the heat and add a pinch of cinnamon and 1/2 tsp of grated nutmeg to the butter. Let it cool while you ready everything else. In a bowl, mix in 1 cup plain flour, 1 tbsp brown sugar, 1 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp baking soda. In another small bowl, beat 1 cup buttermilk with 1 egg. Add the melted butter (it should be cool, if not wait a few minutes). Also add 1 tbsp rum and whisk it all together. Pour the wet ingredients into the bowl with the flour and stir to mix. Do not overmix, it's okay to have a few lumps. ...

Let me start by saying that I've never had eggnog. The idea of Christmas having its own trademark drink intrigues me but I usually stay away from drinks or desserts that have raw eggs, and I definitely don't like the eggy smell that is the hallmark of an eggnog. So then, when huffington post offered an egg free version of the creamy drink that still has the signature nutmeg and creamy flavours, I immediately jumped on the bandwagon. To make the vegan eggnog, soak 3/4 cups of cashews overnight. The next morning, drain the cashews and put them in a blender alongwith 400 ml coconut milk, 2 cups water, 1/3 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp each of ground cinnamon and nutmeg, 1/3 cup date syrup and if you like, 1/3 cup rum. Now blitz away until it is all blended. Because of the cashews, the drink will start out grainy but be patient and give it a few minutes to become smooth. Pour in a glass bottle or a flask, then chill thoroughly before drinking. It is rich enough to be served in s...

In a country as culturally diverse as India, it is easy to miss on all the good things that go on in different parts of the country. Or even in your own city. Take Christmas treats - I've always associated Christmas in India with plum cake. A cross between fruit cake and the British plum pudding, the cake is rich with dried fruits and nuts, boozy enough to make you drunk and deliciously dark brown because of the added caramel. Plum cake is something that springs up all over Mumbai, possibly all over India mid-December and I've always thought that this is the only Christmas goodie making the rounds every year. For the first time this year, I've spent Christmas surrounded by East Indians and Goan Catholics and imagine my surprise on discovering a whole world of Christmas goodies I've never heard about. So if you are as unaware as me, let me introduce you to the concept of kuswar. A Goan Catholic tradition, kuswar refers to the collection of treats that are made ...

Chock full of dried fruits and nuts, this is the classic fruit cake. The recipe is courtesy Nigel Slater but I haven't cut into the cake yet and I will be back with an update if the recipe works.

So here we are at the day before Christmas and there are still two major orders of business left to post - Christmas cake and mince pies. So let's do mince pies today and we will save the cake for the big day. Puff pastry makes a much lighter contrast to the sweet mince so I prefer it to the traditional pie crust. And if you can get hold of frozen puff pastry, its no work at all. Thaw the puff pastry in the fridge. When it is soft, dredge it in plain flour so it is easy to work with. Roll the puff pastry block into a large rectangle. Split the rectangle into two. Cut the first half into smaller rectangles that will form the base of your pie. Spread mincemeat on the base to cover, leaving a 2 cm border all round. Cut the second rectangle into thin strips and use those to make lattice pattern to cover the base and the mincemeat. You can use a pastry brush dipped in cold water to make the strips stick. Arrange the pies on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, sprinkle ...

I thought long and hard about the vegetarian main course for the Christmas meal. The best option that I've found is this millet salad made with a lot of different flavours and textures. The salad take a while to make but it's completely gorgeous and festive. 24 hours before, take a bunch of rainbow swiss chard. Cut off the stems and set the leaves aside for later. Wash the stems and pat them dry, then cut them into 2-3 inch long pieces. Mix 1/2 cup water with 1/4 cup white vinegar. Add 1/2 tbsp. salt and stir until the salt dissolves. Pack the swiss chard stems into a glass jar, pour over the liquid to cover and pop into the fridge to pickle. 12 hours before, soak 1/2 cup millet in plenty of water. You can also use other grains like quinoa or barley - they may not need soaking so follow the package directions on how to cook them. To put together the salad, boil a saucepan of water. Add the soaked millet, bring to a boil and let cook on a simmer until the grains are...

Potatoes are my favourite food group. And when Christmas rolls around, along come all the sinful ways to eat potatoes like mash and gratins. My absolute favourite though are the roast potatoes. Usually served as a side to turkey or ham, I actually enjoy a bowl of these just on their own. A good roast potato needs to have a balance between crisp edges and fluffy, soft centres but obviously the most crisp, brown edges you have the better it is. After reading through a host of recipes, I decided that par-boiling followed by a long stint in the oven was the best bet for these potatoes. I also cut them as thick discs to maximise the surface area that will get brown and crisp. So wash 2-3 medium sized potatoes and slice them. Pop them in a saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil, then cook on a low heat for 10-15 minutes until they begin to soften. Drain the potatoes and put them in a bowl alongwith 3 cloves of garlic, 1/2 tbsp olive oil, salt and fresh ground pepper. Mix to coat...

Today was secret Santa day. Christmas is still a few days away but the food bloggers exchanged gifts today through the secret Santa elfs who zipped around town. In anticipation of the elf visit, I baked these Ischler cookies. This Austrian cookie tastes quite similar to a buttery shortbread. Rose Levy grinds her own almonds but I used ground almonds I already had. Additionally, her recipe is adapted so it's eggless and the dough is made by made rather than a food processor. About half an hour before you start baking, cube 110 grams of salted butter and set it aside to soften. Now to the actual dough. Mix 100 grams ground almonds wih 60 grams caster sugar. Add the softened butter and mix until everything is well blended. All 1/2 tsp vanilla extract and 1 tbsp milk. Finally add 110 grams of plain flour and mix/knead lightly until it comes together as a dough. Divide into two halves and wrap each in cling wrap, then let chill in the fridge for an hour. Preheat the oven to 180...

This time of the year, a lot of websites and blogs come up with recipe series like '12 days of cookies'. Given the number of food websites and books I read, it is getting quite rare for me to get excited over a new cookie. No excitement really, in a new flavour of shortbread or yet another variation on the snowballs. But one cookie caught my eye this year. The Ischler, from a book by Rose Levy Beranbaum, is an almond cookie filled with chocolate and a thick apricot spread called lekvar. We will get to the cookie in due time but the lekvar deserves a post of its own. Lekvar is like a fruit butter but made with dried apricots. When buying apricots, you will have the choice between bright orange and the brown variety. I chose the brown ones because they have no sulphur and are healthier. I halved the apricots to remove the seeds. You are looking for 230 grams of deseeded apricots. Combine these with 1 cup water in a saucepan and let soak for 2 hours to soften the apricots. Af...

NY Times' food section is responsible for some of the most popular food innovations of our time. Remember the No Knead bread that started a huge revolution in bread making. This pomegranate bark might be another one of those memorable inventions. Melissa Clark calls the chocolate bark the workhorse of holiday recipes. This one certainly is, with a recipe that's almost impossible to mess up. You melt 140 grams of dark chocolate, add 20 grams of finely minced candied ginger and 1/2 cups of fresh pomegranate seeds. Spread this on a baking sheet lined with parchment and top with another 1/2 cup of pomegranate and a tsp of sea salt, pressing lightly to make sure the seeds and salt stick to the chocolate. Let cool until set. Because of the juicy pomegranate burst you get when you bite into it, the bark has a fresh flavour, quite unlike the rich chocolates you will be used to eating. And that flavour combination of bitter dark chocolate tangy sweet pomegranate and spicy gin...

I liked the ginger cookies I baked day before yesterday but the other tasters thought they were not sweet enough. I still had half a batch of dough left and I wasn't going to let it go so I decided to fix it. To half of the dough from the previous recipe, I added 1/3 cup of mincemeat. Mixed it well and scooped out balls of dough. I arranged the cookies on a baking sheet lined with parchment, flattening them a little. Baked in an oven preheated to 180C for 15 minutes. The mincemeat add not just the fruit flavours but also more butter and sugar to the mix, resulting in sweeter and chewier cookies.

Vegetarians have to set priorities a little differently when considering the Christmas meal. While everyone else is focused on Turkey or ham, the vegetarian options like nut roast or tofurkey are usually a let down. But take the main dish out and focus instead on the sides, the salads and the breads and you have a fantastic meal on hand. This tray of roasted vegetables ranks among my all time favourite sides. Pick 3-4 vegetables that you like. This time, I have a mix of broccoli, zucchini, baby corn and onions. Other options include cauliflower, mushrooms, leeks, spring onions and most root vegetables. One word of warning - while we are mixing up everything here, if you pick something very watery like mushrooms, keep it separate from the rest of the gang. Cut vegetables in approximately equal bite size pieces. In a bowl, mix chopped vegetables with 1 tbsp olive oil for each cup of veggies, salt and pepper. Also add a tbsp of balsamic vinegar. Mix well and spread on a baki...

If you think of the most iconic Christmas foods, ginger people will be up tops alongwith gingerbread houses. Now gingerbread houses require more effort than I am willing to put in but I managed to find a gingerman cutter. I also wanted to try the German version of gingerbread cookies called lebkuchen so I combined the two to make some lebkuchen gingermen. In my last three weeks of research on Christmas recipes, I've found BBC Good Food to be one of the best sources out there. So this one comes from BBC as well. In all the cookies I've baked in the past, I've never encountered a recipe like this. There is absolutely no sugar in the cookie, and all the sweetness comes from honey (which I replaced with date syrup hence the dark color). It's quite an easy cookie to put together too. In a bowl, mix together 125 grams plain flour, 40 grams ground almonds, 1 tsp ground ginger, 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon, 1/4 tsp baking soda and 1/2 tsp baking powder. In a small saucep...

Among all the hoopla on Christmas, I want to take a minute to take about the other festival that comes around the same time - hanukkah. I honestly don't know much about Jewish culture but hanukkah first caught my attention when I spotted all the posts for potato pancakes called latkes. Now I am a big fan of fried potato, be it fries or hasbrowns or the Indian aloo tikki. Which is why I've wanted to make latkes for a long time. I looked at a lot of recipes but I still had two concerns. One, most latke recipes use egg and I wanted something with no eggy taste. Two, have made the Indian potato cakes with boiled potatoes all my life, I wasn't sure if the raw potatoes will cook through. So I looked some more for vegan and eggless latke recipes. Everyone agreed that the potatoes will stick together even without eggs but some starch was recommended. So I adapted the recipe with some cornflour. I made latkes with one medium sized potato and that gave me 4 cakes. So take one ...

I eagerly await the Starbucks red cups and special christmas flavours every year. My first brush with these Christmas specials was in New York, maybe ten years back. At the time, and ever since, my favourite Christmas drink is peppermint mocha. Alas, starbucks took it off their Christmas menu a few years back. What's more - they don't even stock mint syrup in India so you can't even order it a la carte as you can in New York. Which is why I am telling you how to make your own. First step, make a chocolate syrup. In a small saucepan, mix 1 tbsp each of cocoa powder and brown sugar. Add 1/4 cup water and cook on a low heat, stirring constantly, until you have a thick syrup. Remove from heat and add 1/4 tsp peppermint extract. If you want to skip syrup making, get a tbsp of Hershey's syrup and add mint extract. Next, make a shot of espresso in your coffee machine or moka pot. Drip coffee will do in a pinch, but avoid instant if you can. In a separate saucepan, heat...

Today's recipe isn't from your traditional Christmas repertoire but it's deliciously sweet and makes a great gift. I first met this coconut fudge or kopra pak at the Upper Crust Food Festival last weekend. Perzen aka Bawi Bride had this on her menu at the festival stall and I took an instant liking to the dessert. As Perzen said, this is a simple recipe but takes a bit of effort. I buy grated fresh coconut so I took a cup of that. In a wide saucepan, I added the coconut, 2 cups of milk and 4 tbsp sugar. Also popped in two whole cardamoms. Put it on a low heat and simmered it for a really long time. That's really it - you stir the coconut/milk every few minutes until the whole thing is reduced to a thick fudge. The coconut will be soft by the time it's cooked and the milk will be reduced to thick solids. Perzen colors her fudge a lovely pale pink, so towards the end of the cooking time, i sprinkled a pinch of beetroot powder and mixed it in. You can also us...

About an hour's train ride from London is a small town called Rochester. As far as I can tell, there isn't much that happens out there throughout the year. Except for this one weekend in December when they host a Victorian Christmas parade. On my train from London to Rochester, I could already see folks dressed as Dickens characters. The whole town gets into the party mode right from puppet shows in the library to fake snow coming down the only high street in town. Of course, the reality also includes too many people showing up in a sleepy town, leading to overbooked restaurants and crowds all round. So while the day itself turned out to be the mixed experience, what I clearly remember is the roast chestnuts. Holding the warm bag is hugely comforting as fake snow and real winds pelt you, while waiting for the Victorian parade to start. Then last week, I spotted chestnuts on bigbasket.com and instantly added them to my grocery order. The next day, I set about the task of ...

When I am not eating all the Christmas goodies I am baking, I've been balancing out my diet with salads and roasted vegetables. Also high on my healthy eating list is granola, which has to be the healthiest way to eat something sweet and nutty and delicious. In keeping with the festival spirit, I made a new batch this morning that's red and green and white - all the colors of Christmas. First off, heat up the largest nonstick pan you have. Reduce the heat to low and evenly spread out 1/2 cup flaxseeds to cover the base of the pan. Keep stirring often, until the seeds begin to pop, then take them off the heat and put in a bowl. Return the pan to heat and this time, add 2 cups of rolled oats. Roast on a low heat until the oats are turning brown. Stir often to make sure the oats brown evenly or you might end up with a partly burnt, partly raw batch. Add the roasted oats to the flax seeds and pour 1/4 cup of honey into the bowl. Mix well so the honey coats the oats and...

Let's take a moment to talk about snacking cakes, the unfussy, girl next door version of the cake world. These are cakes that last at least a few days so you have them around when sudden appetite for cake shows up (like when you have to wait 24 hours for cinnamon rolls but want something sweet NOW). By definition, you are looking for a cake that's easy to put together. Which means that anything that requires softened butter or whipped egg whites is out. Frosting is out too - instead, you are looking for something that can be simply dusted with icing sugar (or not) and has enough flavour on its own. My favourite snacking cake to have around at this time of the year is something akin to a gingerbread. Instead of the hardy gingerbread houses or gingermen cookies, you are looking for a soft cake that's sweet and spicy and super quick to bake. I picked the recipe from smitten kitchen , and made a few adjustments like omitting the fresh ginger. I also replaced molasses ...

For the longest time, I thought mince pies must be savoury pies filled with some kind of meat. Then, when I was living in London, my British flatmate explained that mincemeat referred to a rich, sweet mix of apples and dried fruits, with suet being the 'meat' in the recipe. She immediately added that mince pies are stodgy and too sweet and most people don't like them. But living in London anytime from mid-November, you can't really avoid mince pies. From my college cafetaria to grocery stores to coffee shops, mince pies take over London during Christmas even more than eggnog and christmas cakes. My first mince pie was somewhat unconventional. Heston Bluementhal does a range of goodies for Waitrose every year and that year, Heston did a mince pie in puff pastry, not the standard pie crust. Alongside the pies came a sachet of pine sugar, that made my house smell like forest and snow and Christmas trees. Much to my British friends' surprise, I loved not just the H...

I have always been a big fan of Christmas. Now remember that when I was growing up, Christmas did not even register as a festival on social calendars as it does now. There were no trees, no overly decorated shopping malls filled with Christmas music and certainly no gifts. But for our family, there was a difference. Up until high school, my family lived on the first floor of this two storey house. Our ground floor neighbours were Catholics and when you live in the same house for as long as we did, you practically think of them as family. As a kid, I wondered at the Chistmas tree when they invited us to visit and marvelled at the wreaths and holly and their traditions of midnight mass. And on Christmas day, I looked forward to cake. Every year, like clockwork, they would show up on the morning of 25th December with a plum cake. In 1990s Amritsar, this was both rare and fascinating. I loved Christmas then and I've never stopped loving it since. I love the Christmas markets, even t...