Monday, February 25, 2008

Home away from Home! :)

First up a biiiii....g thank you to the special hosts for having me over!

Next up.. the dhaba shifted base today and made the 'jannatofied' kitchen of Anamika & Sanju it's own! It's a kitchen straight out of the fairytale of cooking!!! From the stove to the chimney... it's like miraculous! Touch the cabinets and they open! Lift the cupboard doors a wee bit and they open up like 'khulja-sim sim' to reveal themselves! Even the dustbin cabinet was like touched by a magic wand! So the c(r)ook was in Kitchen heaven and having a ball of a time! From a futura cooker to perfect non stick stuff and wooden spatulas! From decorated mats to the awwsum cutting boards to the lovely selection of cups and bowls to the perfect glass ware to the oh so perfect e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g!!!!! This chef now knows what her heaven would be like!

It started with a weeny bit of chaos with the mutton being uncut but that was corrected soon enough! :) The chef had a lovely glowing helper (who ended up doing most of the work!). Anyways... :D On the menu:
1. Chicken in Brown Sauce
2. Mutton 'Kohlapuri'
3. Kerala Porotta's (ordered!) (bracket 2: spelling duly corrected after a Mallu yuppie jumped up and screamed: parota --> WRONG and SACRILAGE. It's a different story altogether that it's sacriLEGE! ;) )
4. Rice (nice n spiced up!)

The chicken was easy... with sauteing the onions, ginger garlic and capsicum... taking the tomato paste and reducing it over high flame... giving it a dash of salt, pepper and soya sauce! Meanwhile we have been marinating the chicken in ginger-garlic, salt and pepper and 'Jack Daniels!' :D Grill the chicken over some more JD and once tender and done pour the sauce over it and mix in the sauteed bowl! :) Cook a bit more for the flavors to seep in and lo n behold 'Chicken in Brown Sauce!'

The mutton demanded a whole host of onions and tomatoes.. standard desi masala... :) hold off on the haldi here again! Add to it a whole packet of 'Parampara Mutton kohlapuri' masala and bhuno it nice and well till it leaves it's oil! Pressure cook with bay leaves, big elaichi, black pepper balls, cloves and cinnamon sticks! :) Give it close to half an hour! And there you have it!!

With a salad of onions, tomatoes, carrots and olives and the parotas and rice the whole meal was one of the best she managed to turn out! (The kitchen and the angel helper had a huuuuge role to play!) :)

To top it all came ice-cream and eventually an amazing cup of tea made by the "host"! :)

It was a blissfully beautiful day... "perfectly perfect"! (To go with it was a nice heady glass of home made nutmeg wine!) :)


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