Apple Fennel Salad

Trying to eat healthy and not sure what to take for lunch to work? I was in the same dilemma when I discovered this apple-fennel salad recipe.

Ingredients
1 apple
1 fennel bulb
Chopped parsley
Salad Greens
Lemon juice
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste

Finely slice the apple and the fennel bulb. When chopping the fennel bulb make sure you remove the hard stuff at the base and if necessary the top layer of the bulb. Add the chopped parsley and salad greens. Add a generous dash of lime. Some salt to taste and pepper for depth to the dish. Shake well and enjoy a guilt free healthy lunch. If you’d like to add more zing to it add very little grated ginger juice just 2 drops would be enough.

Blood Oranges

The first time I saw blood oranges. They were lovelllyyy! The juice looked and tasted lovely though don’t expect it to be any different from the regular orange juice…

Irish Cream Chocolate Cake

One of my first experiments with cakes and turned out well. I like the taste of Baileys which is an Irish liquer. Coupling that with chocolate was like a match made in heaven for me. Yet again forgive me for the poor photography, I was just to eager to try it (as always) that clicking a nice picture wasn’t really my priority so settled with a phone camera. Not to brag but it looked muchh better than what the photo says…

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:
150gm Dark Chocolate
3large eggs or 4small eggs
100 gm butter
100ml milk
225gm caster sugar
225gm self raising flour
2tbsp cocoa powder
4-5tbspn baileys

Steps:

1. Take the butter and chocolate and melt those on a low heat. Try not using the microwave or the low flame as there is a good possibility of burning the butter. The best way to achieve this would be to melt these over steam (A steam bath or a double boiler would be of help).
2. Once these are melted add the milk while stirring continuously
3. Cream the eggs and caster sugar mix until creamy. This is best done with an electric whisk for 8-10mins. If you do not have an electric whisk, I would suggest you prepare the creamy mixture before step 1 and 2 as it would take a great deal of time.
4. Once the creamy mixture is ready, add the melted butter-chocolate-milk mix prepared in step 1 and 2 while continuously stirring.
5. Once it is thoroughly mixed, add the cocoa powder, all purpose flour after sieving. Remember not to be harsh while adding these and mixing. Gently fold these in. In the end add the baileys and fold again.
6. Grease the trays with butter and sprinkle some all purpose flour before pouring the mixture above.
7. Place the trays to an oven preheated to 180degrees/350F and cook for 20mins. If the mixture was a little less viscous than expected, the mixture would take longer to cook. Do the knife test before taking the cake out.

For the frosting
50gm butter
175gm icing sugar
2tbspn cocoa powder
3tbspn baileys
100gm Cream cheese (Philadelphia cheese)

Mix all the above ingredients thoroughly ensuring there are no lumps and spread over the cake once cooled… Then coming to my favourite part of each recipe…. Cut the slices and bite into the gooyness of chocolate and baileys…. Feel the BLISS! (Forget the calories! )

Sarson ka saag and Makki ki Roti

For those of you who don’t know this is a famous Indian dish that is typical to Punjabi’s. Sarson ka saag refers to the leaves of the Mustard plant and Makki ki rotti is an Indian bread made out of Corn.

Ingredients:
Sarson ka saag(Mustard Greens)           1kg
Fenugreek leaves (Methi)                     250gm
Spinach                                                    250gm
Green chillies                                 3-4 in number
Ginger(chopped)                                  4tbsp
Garlic(chopped)                                   4tbsp
Salt                                                        to taste
Red Chilly powder                              to taste
Onions(diced)                             3-4 medium sized
Tomatoes(diced)                        3-4 medium sized
Oil/Ghee

One of the following depending on choice :
Turnip                                                        250gm
Baathu (Goosefoot/Fat-hen)                 250gm

Chop the Mustard Greens, Spinach, Fenugreek leaves, and one of the optional ingredients. Next, add these and ginger, garlic and salt to boiling water. Once boiled, grind it to get a green paste.

Next, in a pan heat some oil add the finely chopped onions and fry them until golden brown. Next add the chopped tomatoes and red chilly powder and cook until the oil leaves the bottom of the pan. Finally, add this to the green paste and bring to a boil. Add some extra butter or ghee before serving.

For makki ki roti mix powdered corn and wheat flour in a 3:1 propotion and knead the dough. Make sure it is not very soft as it may make the process of making the roti extremely tough. Using only corn flour (please note it isn’t cornflour that I am referring to, it is powdered corn ) would make it impossible to make roti. Wheat flour is added to help it bind better. This cannot be normally rolled using a rolling pin (belna) as it does not hold well together. You would need to do it by hand. This is a bit of an art… Still learning from my Mom! Cook this like a regular roti (with a little extra butter/ghee).

Hope you all enjoy your saag and makki ki roti!

Desi in Videsh – First glance at UK

Okay this post comes after a very very looong time. There has been so much on my mind and so much happening. Somehow just never got to it. Getting back to the observations of a desi in videsh.

Pursuing studies in a country which is not your home is a new experiences which both scares and fascinates you. I have been going through a similar experience myself. It is very often that what we read and expect is in fact very different from the reality.

In the east, a developed country is pictured as utopia which of course is far from the truth. They have many fallacies of their own. These countries may promise transport, health and other facilities around the clock but the quality suffers. Of course, when I talk about the quality I do not refer to the top-notch private health or transport services but those provided by the government.

The importance the British people give to issues relating to Health and Safety is commendable. Every building (at least those I visited)  have clear instructions and safety equipment installed and well maintained. Apart from the health and safety issues, the way historic buildings are maintained is something we need to learn. Another thing that took me by surprise was the number of people who read. It would be common to expect people indulging more in some games on their iGadgets which is clearly not the case.

Listing some of the first things I noticed:

People have a great taste in shoes. From boots to high heels everything is plain AWESOME!

Women wear makeup in excess! I was taken aback to see the amount of makeup women here wear on a daily basis. What a colossal waste of time and money. No, I am not anti-makeup but tonnes of it everyday is surely going overboard.

The number of RATS!!! : The London Underground is a living example of how well they treat their dear little friend.

The number of sorry’s and please’s people use : Append or prepend any sentence with Sorry and/or Please

Curry: It is actually a little amusing when you ask British people about their traditional food. After Fish and Chips you hear Curry… Curry? Really?? Makes me smile. To be fair, the curries here taste nothing like the real stuff back in the east. In fact, on several occasions I have noticed that most (if not all) curries may be called different but they taste the same. The only few things that differ are the amount and type of colouring used; the salad it is served with; and the veggies in the curry. Considering how popular curries are, London is rightly called the curry capital of the world.

To order a regular burger or sandwich can seem more like an interview. As soon as you are done with one question the next one comes straight at you. Would you like brown bread or white bread? What sauce? What salad? What meat? I think having some standard configurations would make the whole process of getting a burger much quicker. After answering all those questions you might just want to get a drink! Coming to think of it now, may be that is what the intention is…

Graceful Ageing doesn’t seem to be very popular. This is a guess I am making by the number of botox’ed faces I see.

Hopefully the next post wouldn’t be too long from now.