Fresh Homemade Pancakes

Is it just not soooooooooooooo satisfying to start your day with a pile of pancakes dripping with maple syrup... or honey.. or just simple and absolutely amazing chocolate sauce...
I think the loook of that gorgeous disk of ecstacy just makes my day... wat a wonderful start... and wat better than a banana and raisin pancake... Just marvelous...

1 cup refined flour.
2tsp baking pd.
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
1 cup milk
30g melted butter
1 heaped tbsp. powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
a handfull of raisins
2 banans medium
honey or maple syrup or chocolate sauce to serve.

Recipe.

• seive together the dry ingredients.



• beat the egg well and add the sugar vanilla essence and melted butter to the same. and beat to get a nice and creamy consistency



• mash the bananas well and seap the raisins in warm milk.



• and the wet ingredients slowly into the dry one and mix well.



• if too dry add a bit of milk and flour if too wet.



• leave in the fridge either for a minimum of 15 mins... or overnight to make for breakfast the next day...



• heat a non stick pan and simple rub on it with a greased paper towel piece...



• once nice and hot reduce to sim and pour one ladle of the pancake mixture onto the pan. don not touch just pour it over to form a circle. leace to cook.



• once it starts bubbling and begins to leave the sides slowly flip it over.



• and allow to be done on the other side



• it should get a nice and golden colour...

how much ever u feel like presseing it down so it cooks faster don u dare touch it. It defeats all the purpose of making it light and fluffy. And yeah always cook it on sim it gives this beautiful golden hew. Stack it up and serve to your guests it keeps them warm. never cover cause then it'll get soggy...

just pour over watever u wish on it and seriously ENJOY.......

My "BANOFEE PIE"

Man u guys have to taste it to beleive it... its like just amazing... its sinful... its worth comitting a crime for... really...
its like the easiest thing to make but then its gorgeous.. and the way it just melts in the mouth is just outstanding....
And banana its like pure plaesure... Remember the banana cake? that takes a second place when banofee is on the cards... can u imagine that... its even better than that....
well i made this the first time on my last birthday... then once again and this is like the third time.. and each time its marvelous.. better than the first which itself was awesome...

ok ok... too much of talkin lets get to the recipe.. correct???

well ingredients.....

1 can nestle milkmaid...
1 pack whipped cream...
20 digestive biscuits....
40gms Butter( salted unsalted doesnt really matter)
3- 4 ripe bananas
salt to taste...

well as the name suggests,... banofee pie... its a banana toffee pie... so simple..

• Basically put the can in a vessel full of water till it covers it completely and allow it to simmer covered for like 4 hrs on the gas...





• meanwhile make the biscuit base by crushing the biscuits and then mixing in the melted butter to form a kinda paste... now layer it well on the cardboard covered with aluminium foil in which u gonna present the pie.. and keep in the fridge to set...





• once the milkmaids done leave it aside allow to cool and then open the can.





• once opened it will look nice and brown the colour of toffee...





• now cover the biscuit base well with this mixture of toffee...





• now slice the bananas in nice circles and arrange on top of this... and chill





• serve with whipped cream or with vanilla ice cream cut into wedges...

simply delicious...

Does free food actually taste better

We went to this restaurant few days back. We just love Italian and also know how difficult it is to find a decent Italian restaurant which doesnt serve only pizzas and pastas. Man there is so much more to Italina than just that... wat happenend to the carpaccio's and the ossobuco their wonderful breads like panini and the simple yet elegant desserts like panna cota and zabaglione... tired of the tiramisu seriously.

But anyways thats all the italian cuisine that India or maybe delhi knows about. Never the less we(these things are never done alone) had to check out this new restaurant round the block.

The look was a killer. sooooooooooo simple yet elegant just like ma desserts... Well as usual i soooooo knew how the menu would look like.... few starters which had to have garlic bread with cheese.. man when will ppl learn to come out of that. it aint italian for God sake its just pizza hut.

Followed by a few pastas and then a few pizzas and then the lovely desserts (read tiramisu and a few ice creams)

But u know wat they gave me a wonderful surprise.... There was no menu card. u read it right NO MENU CARD. And did i like the sound of that. u know y? cause now i could hear my menu. i could understand the menu. some one would explain it to me rather than me doing the assumptions... and there was an interaction between me and a human rather than a peice of paper. this made me really smile. somethin else that did was a lil bit diferent of a menu. they did have carpaccio--- and ya i had to have it. their pizzas too were different then the most. they had pepperoni and good variety rather than just the plain margarita or even worse tandoori pizza--yuck.......

well knowing that it was an expensive restaurant though they still dint have their menu card and i dint know the exact value we sensibly ordered. a veg and a non pizza and a veal carpaccio(interupt to say was fabulous).

We dint have dessert cause yaaa it was tiramisu...

so we asked for the bill and guess wat it was on the house....

yeah they had started new and this was their way of tellin us to spread the word around. You know even though the food was good but not gr8 i still loved it... y??? cause free food does taste amazing my dear freind.

banana cake with ice cream

Okies... my next experiment.....

A wonderfully gooooey banana cake with home made ice cream...

Everybody loved it and so did i...

But ya as usual my dad would have preffered something more crispy and definately not sweet but none the less he liked this too...

Now for the recipe.

150 gms Refined Flour(Maida)

5 gms Baking soda

3gms Salt

40gms Unsalted Butter

100gms Sugar(powdered)

1 Egg

2 Bananas- More the ripe the better

50 ml Milk

20gms Chopped Walnuts

A few drops of vanilla Essence

Iccceeeeeeeeee Creeeeeeeeeammmmmmm

Preheat oven till 175 degree C

Whisk together all the dry ingredients other than the sugar and the walnuts. and keep aside

Cream buter and sugar till light and fluffy(thats the way our chef taught us.... always LIGHT AND FLUFFY)

Mash the bananas well. and keep aside.

Seperate the egg white and yolk. Now beat in the yolk and the banana mixture and a few drops of vanilla essence.- why essence cause the bloody egg stinks.

Now add flour alternating with the milk. Making sure there are no lumps-cause lumps of flour taste like......... i really dunno wat but pathetic.

Dust the walnuts with a lil flour and mix in.- why dust cause if u dont they will all settle at the bottom of the darn batter.

Now beat the white to a soft peak- wats that???? well use a spring beater and whip it till the moment when u lift the beater, peaks are formed but they are not strong enough to hold themselves pointed straight.

now fold this beaten white into the batter with light hands- basically u're incorporating loads of air into your batter which makes your cake nice and soft.

well now put it into a greased baking dish and bake it for 40 mins or till a knife inserted right at the centre comes out nice and clean.

Invert onto a wire rack and allow to cool.

Cut only when cooled... or u'll have nothing but sweet banana tasting mess.

Enjow warmed with a scoop of ice cream and choc sauce.

Its quite Fishy u see.......

So this is my first creation.......

It's trio of cheese crusted fish medallions topped with a frozen salad.

i'm sooo crazy bout cheese... literally crazy... my face completely lits up at the thought of that wonderful creation of that shephard boy.

this dish is a mixture of cheddar processed and parmesan.......

just amazing... the crust that forms on top is just so crunchy but it makes sure that the fish inside is nice and moist.... and the crunchy salad on top is just perfect to balance the flavours.... and most importantly the fish has been marinated in the two best ingredients lemon juice the acidic touch and dill.... which is just so perfect with fish.... an amazing combination and such a beautiful texture.

i loved it........

stay in touch for more recipes involving cheeeeeeeeeeseeeeeeeee

Bernardo's

So i'm getting an unexpcted off tomorow. I guess they would rather have me off work than have me bug them that there's no work. So as usual i go up to my faithful reliable and only contender to bug : my brother in law: with the usual dialogue..... So wats the plan??????? I know he must be so scared to hear these words actually everytime i get an off my entire family gets scared cause i have to like have to do something that day.... Either go driving out of delhi or go see some new place or movie or go out to eat........

Yeah so thats the agenda for tomorow....... EAT..... and i love the sound of it...... Dont u???

Well so we planned to go out for lunch....

who ??? just my bro in law and me...

why ??? cause she's(sis) at work.... (also she's a vegetarian)

where ???

BERNARDO'S




Well we left at around 2.... and i was quite excited cause this was gonna be the thing i did the day i was off...

This place turned out to be on the first floor of the market in galleria.... The first look was wierd cause as soon as i entered i just saw these two ppl sitting and reading the newspaper and it looked like a small lil office... well jiju said hi to them and we walked up this narrow staircase very small steps and steep.... at that moment i dint wat was happening it was a really small place... when we reached up the first thing i saw were the various photographs all over... of children and a christian wedding of a signboard showing the way to panjim...

We got to business real quick. FOOD. The menu was very artistically designed where it was printed on wooden planks. It gave a feeling of the beautiful Goan beaches and the restaurant was like the rustic home of an aged ( read the ones who've seen it all) couple.

One look at the menu and we knew wat we wanted. PORK.

We ordered pork vindaloo and roast pork.

The menu aint much for the vegetarians, the reason why my sis dint come along but its heaven for the pork worshipers. I'm saying so because its not in many places in delhi or gurgaon that u might find such good quality pork. Other than obviously the packed ones like sausages and bacon etc...

The only thing that upset me was that they had cleaned up the pork really well hence the part that i really love the chewy the guey the lovely the FAT..... that was all gone.. and as if just to keep my mouth shut there was just this couple of small pieces lying around.

Both the vindhaloo and the roast were quite good... i could easily give em a 7 on 10.

And just to keep u guys slightly happy here is the recipe for the sinful vindaloooooo...

Try it out and do tell me....







PORK VINDHALOoooooo

Ingredients

2 tsp Cumin seeds ( jeera )
2-3 hot red chillies ( laal mirch)
1 tsp black peppercorns ( Kaali mirch)
1 tsp cardamom seeds ( elaichi)
7.5 cm cinnamon stick ( daalchini)
1.5 tsp black mustard seeds (raai)
1 tsp Fenugreek seeds (methi daane)
5 tbsp white wine vinegar ( sirka)
1.5-2 tsp Salt
1 tsp sugar
10 tbsp vegetable oil
175-200g onions, peeled and sliced into half-rings
6 tbsp water, plus 250ml
900g boneless pork shoulder,cut into 2.5cm cubes
2.5 cm cube ginger root, 1 Clove Garlic, grind into a fine paste
1 tbsp ground coriander ( Dhaniya powder)
0.5 tsp ground turmeric ( Haldi )


Method

1.Roast and grind the cumin seeds, red chillies, peppercorns, cardamom seeds, cinnamon, black mustard seeds and fenugreek seeds coarsely and mix with the vinegar, salt and sugar.


2. Put the oil in a wide, heavy pan and set over medium heat and fry the onions until the onions turn brown and crisp. Remove with a slotted spoon and put in a grinder with 2-3 tbsp of water and blend into a fine puree. Add this puree to the ground spices=vindaloo paste.


3. Dry off the meat cubes with kitchen paper and remove large pieces of fat, if any.( though i do prefer the fat with the meat)


4. Rub the meat with half the vindaloo paste giving it a good massage and allow it to marinate for atleast an hour.

5. Heat the oil remaining in the pan once again over a medium-high heat. When hot, put in the pork cubes, a few at a time, and brown them lightly on all sides ( at this moment u could fry the fat as well do not caramelize it too much though).Remove and keep aside.

6. Now, put the ginger-garlic paste into the same pan and stir the paste. Add the coriander and turmeric. Add the meat, any juices that may have accumulated as well as the remaining vindaloo paste and a cup of water and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer gently for an hour or until pork is tender. Stir a few times during this cooking period.

7. Serve hot ( both in temperature as well as spicy) with plain steamed rice or with pao....

Anjali ka Gyaaaaaaaan.........

• Use as little water as possible while cooking the vindaloo, allow all the liquid in the pan to cook off before you can add more to it.
• Infact vindaloo always tastes evn more perfect the next day as all the flavours have completely sunk into the pork.
• The vindaloo spice mix maybe made previously and stored in air tight containers. Keeps for a week.

Evil

Does'nt that look sinfull....people use this word so many times that its become meaningless.... but seriously look at that... that molten gush of exotic bliss..... the sight of which makes u drool

the one time that u don mind putting all your fingers into it and not thinking wat a mess.... but actually looking around to see that no ones watching...

once the eyes have feasted the aroma just makes sure u cant look anywhere else and just have to have to...

this is sinfull cause u can do anything just anything to get that one drop on your tongue... and thats not where the story ends but actually the beginning of the craving.... the sin...... the plot cause once u've tasted poison and gotten away... u just wanna have more and more to see how long u can get away with it.......

Enjoy the poison as long as you can.............................