2nd January 2010 - Rich Chocolate Cake & Date n Walnut Cake

What?

The last three times I have come home, I have made cake to take back. This time was no different. We made two cakes - one I like to call Gâteau aux trois chocolats (Three Chocolate Cake) and Date and Walnut Cake.

How did it look?

Both the cakes ended up looking pretty similar, the brown-black colour due to the chocolate in the first cake was imparted by the dates in the second cake, so I am just putting up one pic. In the chocolate cake, I added cocoa powder, Bournvita and a drinking chocolate mixture I had gotten from Germany.

A posteriori

My mom had the idea of pouring some cream and butterscotch syrup on a few cake pieces to make a nice desert. It turned out sufficiently soft and fluffy. Neeta Mehta's recipes rock!

12th December 2009 - Lunch @ Claire's

What?

Wow, it's been 5 whole months since I posted on this blog! It's like this one huge pang of nostalgia...

Anyhow, I wanted to make at least some stuff in December, and Claire and I decided to do it this weekend. We went yesterday to DMart and did some shopping, and had lots of plans for today!

What I finally did end up making was Egg Curry (Dim-er jhol :P), Chapati and Gajar Ka Halwa. The Egg Curry was intended to be pretty bland so that Claire could have it sans prolèmes.

While I was zealously grating carrots, Claire helped chop all the stuff we needed, and was very enthusiastic about kneading dough too. She also volunteered to roll her first chapati, which, with its striking resemblance to the French map, was a display of her patriotism.

How did it look?

Again, the orange carrots

Claire making her first Roti

Halwa, ready. Somehow, I can never get the GkH feel unless it is red :(

Egg Curry

All, on the table, seconds before being devoured

A posteriori

So, more or less, it was great going back to the books! The Halwa turned out to be really satisfactorily and Claire enjoyed it too. The egg curry left a lot for the wanting, though. My attempt to make it bland ended up making it sorta lame. I over-zealously used the tomato purée, making it sour with nothing to complement the taste. I had made quite a lot, and had pinged CP, Baheti, Anasuya, Kovid and Kaustubh about this, so took some Halwa for them. Anasuya very graciously offered to take the rest of the Egg Curry, while Pragya got some Halwaa, and barring CP, who was busy somewhere down South and so missed out on the whole affair, the rest (including Anand, who got some) were generous in their praise, making me a bunch of smiles.

Next weekend, I am planning to make Raajma and a cake. Claire is also thinking of making Crumble, which is basically a sort of baked fruit pudding.

Do keep visiting and thanks for the support you have always given!

Ciao

Parting Shots

Hi

My intern in Germany is over, and I am back to IIT. That does culminate my cooking adventures in Karlsruhe, but certainly does not end this blog. This summer has been best summer I have had so far, and it got only better with all the fun I had cooking. I had always wanted to learn how to cook, but somehow never found time.

This blog will be dormant for the moment, for IIT-life offers neither the time nor the facilities needed for cooking, but I will surely post updates whenever I go home and make something.

The blog recieved more readership and appreciation than I had expected when I started it. Thanks a lot to all you people who read, commented or just kept coming back. Special thanks to Anasuya, Piyush, CP and Sindhu.

My mother deserves a bulk of the credit. She supplied most of the recipes, kept up on the encouragement, and first and foremost, gave me an excellent standard for pitting my dishes against - her own cooking. Also, my grandmother (nani), whose fingers ooze nothing short of magic when it comes to cooking.

This is just a long and sentimental post, but I mean every word of it. So once again, thanks all of you, and I will definitely be back!

Cheers

Antariksh

24th July 2009 - Fest - Chocolate Cake

What?

I wanted to make some sort of a cake during my stay here and since this was the last day, and I luckily had some maida left over, I went for the plunge. For the chocolate, I used the Bourvita-esque drinking chocolate I had purchased here.

How did it look?

No, the white thing is not flour. It's powdered sugar

Improvement

• The sugar here is not as sweet as the one we find in India, which I realized later; the cake could have done with more sugar. Apart from that, though, it was pretty satisfactory.

24th July 2009 - Fest - Besan ke laddoo

What?

Today is my last day here, and there's so much I want to make... I always wanted to try makin sweets, and rawa+besan ke laddoo are pretty easy. Also, that would help me finish the last bit of besan I have left. The recipe my mother gave looked delightfully simple, and yielded excellent results!

How did it look?

Improvement

• I was told that the balls need to be rolled when the mix is still hot, or otherwise they will fall apart. In my case, the mix was too powdery, so I added some milk. I don't know if that was expected, but the laddoo came out fine after that.
• I didn't have a lot of besan left, so I could make only 5 laddoos, but they turned out well, and that's what matters the most to me...

UP NEXT: Chocolate Cake

22nd July 2009 - Dinner - Corn, Paprika and Peas!

What?

I bought a can of Mexico-Mix from the Supermarket. It basically had corn, red pepper and peas, and I just sauted them a bit with some garlic butter and mix-veg masaala, and tossed in cubed boiled potatoes. Boy, corn does make stuff very very tasty.

How did it look?

Improvement

• You can experiment a lot with vegetables in this case. Today, I have carrots, beans, peas and corn, and I am gonna see how it turns out.
• This dish did well with some drops of lemon juice.
• The overall flavour is a slightly light, so I didn't spoil it by adding unnecessary red chilly powder

22nd July 2009 - Dinner - Gaajar ka Halwa

What?

I have a lot of sugar and ghee left, so what better way to use it than something sweet! So, Gaajar ka Halwa it was!

How did it look?

Improvement

• What I made was pretty bare-bones. For better results, condensed milk must be used, and stuff like ilaaychi etc add to the flavour
• I did make sure not to commit last time's mistake of adding too much milk, which had made the halwa soggy
• The carrots you get here are orange in colour, not like the red ones common in India. So, obviously the halwa also turned out much less red than what we are used to seeing. Although that doesn't change the taste, it still makes the Halwa look, erm, unrealistic. Well, can't help it!