Pav Bhaji Masala

It is funny when you realise that when it comes to food, most cities are well known for their street food or their unfinished, unpolished lunch and tea stalls that serve just about anything. Most of these places (and I agree it is not everyone) prepare food to share their family cuisine with the people around them. Their love for the food they prepare is more important than the business they want to establish with their food. And that, I reckon is their success.

Mochaccino Marbled Mud Cake

As I've mentioned before, nowadays I am all in for Mochaccino. The hot and strong coffee with hints of chocolate is a truly ambrosial drink that you can enjoy at any time of the day. And anywhere I look, I come across recipes for cakes and desserts that infuse coffee and chocolate flavours together to get the absolute mocha delights.

Coffee Liqueur Mousse Mocha Cake

I am all about coffee and coffee flavoured treats nowadays. I recently read that coffee drinkers are less likely to develop Alzheimer's, colon cancer and diabetes, compared to non-drinkers. And consuming caffeinated coffee an hour before vigorous exercise helps prevent the ache you feel when you work out. However, these are not the reasons why I love coffee.

Baked Eggs Wrapped in Bacon

Alright! Today isn't much of a recipe but a simple idea to prepare something different for breakfast. Eggs are a quintessential part of a Continental Hot Breakfast and can be presented in different ways. It could be scrambled, fried or poached and served just by itself with toast or together with bacon, sausages, spinach and mushrooms to make a Big Breakfast.

I am not really going big today. And no recipes today either. It is just a presentation of baked eggs wrapped in bacon served with garlic mushrooms and store-bought hash-browns. A simple, yet delicious way to whip up an easy breakfast that your family will enjoy on a Saturday morning. A dash of salt and pepper and what more could they want?

To prepare these eggs, line muffin holes with smoked ham or bacon, on the bottom and the sides. Place a few wilted spinach leaves on this. Then gently crack an egg into each muffin hole. Season with salt and pepper. Bake in a pre-heated fan forced oven at 160° C for 16 to 18 minutes or until the egg-whites are just set but the egg yolk is still runny. Remove from oven and stand for 2 minutes. Run a silicon knife around the sides of the bacon/ ham and gently remove from muffin hole using a silicon spatula.

Serve hot with garlic mushrooms and hash-browns (store-bought) with a sprinkle of parsley leaves.

French Mocha Almond Sponge Cake

French cooking is usually considered complicated, time consuming and expensive. Can't blame us because we thought the French are well known, only for their macarons and croquembouches and danish pastries and croissants and what not! They are all, yes, complicated, time consuming and expensive. But what I didn't realize was that they also have some quick and easy recipes too...

Indo-Chinese Chilly Fish

Today's Chilly Fish is inspired by the classic Indo-Chinese recipe; is excellent for entree' and can also be served as a side dish with fried rice. It is very similar to the Indo-Chinese chilly chicken and is a seafood lovers dream food. It is best prepared with any firm white fish fillets like Snapper or Barramundi; but be sure that the fish is fresh. I personally feel that seafood recipes are totally lost when you prepare it with the frozen varieties.

I prepared this a few weeks back when some of my friends came home for lunch. And I learnt something on that day. Maintaining a blog and cooking for friends cannot go hand in hand. Well! At least for me that is true. The issue here is more than often you take double the time preparing your dishes because you are cooking and trying to write down the recipe at the same time and then also left with very little time to take some good clicks. So you end up compromising yourself with not so satisfactory clicks - which is so very evident in my snaps here. So I've decided to distance the two; I either cook for my blog or I cook for my friends - but never together at the same time. Hopefully, I will find the time for both.

Makes: 5 - 6 serves
Preparation Time: 30 minutes + time to marinate
Cooking Time: 30 minutes

Note:- Fish fillets, onion, capsicum should all be cut into the same size cubes

Ingredients

• 1/2 kg firm white fish fillets like Snapper or Barramundi, cut into cubes

Dry Marinade

• 1/2 tsp pepper powder
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• Salt to taste

Wet Marinade

• 1/2 cup corn flour
• 1/4 cup plain flour
• 2 - 3 tbsp beaten egg
• 1 - 2 tbsp lukewarm water
• Salt to taste

Remaining Ingredients

• 1 medium sized brown onion, cut into cubes
• 1 medium sized brown onion, finely chopped
• 3 green chilly, chopped (adjust to taste)
• 2 large garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 green capsicum, cut into cubes
• 1/2 yellow capsicum, cut into cubes
• 1/2 cup celery, finely chopped
• 2 spring onions, chopped
• 2 tbsp cooking oil + extra to fry fish
• 1 tsp pepper powder (adjust to taste)
• 1/2 tbsp paprika powder
• 3 tbsp Fountain red chilly sauce
• 1 1/2 tsp soy sauce (adjust to taste)
• 1 1/2 tbsp hoisin sauce or tomato sauce
• 1/2 tsp chinese five spice (may be substituted with Indian garam masala)

Method
1. Marinate fish with dry marinade, cover and refrigerate for two hours. Mix all ingredients for wet marinade and make a thick marinade to coat fish well. Add few more teaspoons of water if the batter is too thick. Deep fry fish until cooked.
2. Heat 2 tbsp oil in a wok over medium-high heat. Add garlic and green chilly and toss till it turns colour into light brown. Add chopped onion and celery and stir for 2 -3 minutes until onion softens. Now add paprika and pepper powder and stir for 1 minute. Add diced onion and toss for a few minutes until it softens. Then add all the sauces and chinese five spice together and mix well. Finally add fried fish pieces and capsicum and keep tossing for a few minutes. If the sauce gets too dry add a few tablespoons of water. This will allow the sauces to mix well through fish pieces. Remove from fire and toss in chopped spring onions.

This is a dry preparation and can be served as an entree'.

To serve as a side-dish for fried rice add half a cup of water, bring to boil and add 1 tbsp corn flour mixed with 4 tbsp of water and mix well. This will give you a little extra gravy.

Guest Host Event Announcement; SYF & HWS - Sesame Seeds

Sizzle Your Food and Health With Spices, SYF & HWS is an event founded by Anu of Anu's Healthy Kitchen. I am guest hosting the event for the month of November and the spice is Sesame. The event runs from Nov 5 to Dec 5.

Crunchy nutty flavoured sesame seeds are widely recognised to be healthy foods. They are good in anti-oxidants, omega-6 fatty acids, vitamins, minerals and dietary fibre with efficacious anti-cancer as well as health promoting properties. Sesame seeds are liberally used in cooking as whole seeds - hulled or un-hulled,

Sticky Ginger Pudding

My friends and family have been asking me if I am really happy with my new found interest - taking photographs of food I prepare and then blogging about them. And without a second thought, I could answer with a 'yes'. While I started blogging to log my treasured recipes that could be easily accessed from any part of the world, what I didn't expect was that I would make some friends here too. Where Serah of The Captain's Kitchenette was my friend long before both of us got into blogging, Roha of Hydrebad Cuisine, Julie of Erivum Puliyum, Ambreen of Sweet and Savoury, Siri of Siri's Food Flavours and Kitchen Queen of Home Cook Food are my internet friends, who I feel have the same passion for food as I have and are constant visitors to my blog and keep encouraging me through my posts and are always loading me with some fantastic recipes and ideas that I love to read and try out at home too. Yes! For the introvert I am, who takes months before I become friends with people I meet, these ladies, their blogs and food have become an integral part of my life.

Home-made Grape Wine: Kerala Style

Something that makes me happy about entering the world of blogging is that I have this urge to try out some of my family recipes that I wouldn't even have given a second thought to, had I not been blogging. I am on the phone and emails, contacting my Mum, Grandma, Uncles, Aunts and cousins for recipes that were long forgotten. One of it is the recipe for home-made grape wine. With a myriad of wine options available in the market today, whether it is to serve as an appetiser, to serve along with food or to serve as a dessert, making wine at home was considered a tedious task. Not any more!