An eggy click – Eggs with sumac

As a kid, eggs were forbidden food due to my allergies. Eggs made me itch. Tasting cake batters left me scratching away at my tongue. I was left looking as my sister gobbled down her boiled egg every morning.

Somebody suggested quail eggs for an itchless egg experience. They worked. No allergies to that. Then my mom started to improvise. She would add a half egg to a whole onion and make an omelette. I could handle that. In small steps, I graduated to a whole egg by the time I was a teenager.

Its been a long time since my last food event, but eggs are close to my heart. So I clicked them and ate them. Join the Click event at Jugalbandi.

Eggs with sumac

Sumac is available in middle eastern grocery stores. Fry the egg as usual, sprinkle sumac. Add salt and pepper if you want. That’s it!

What is sumac? Here

My camera is a Canon Powershot.

Cardamom Creme Brulee – Indo French Fusion

Indo French fusion is something you dont hear about everyday. Chef Raji Jallapelli is one chef who specialises in this kind of fusion. And since the theme of Rasoi this month is Fusion, I decided to do this dessert by Raji. This recipe is from her cookbook Raji Cuisine : Indian Flavors, French Passion. Although the chef doesn’t necessarily agree with using the term ‘fusion’, I am using this recipe as it is a perfect match of an Indian spice with a French dessert. This creme brulee was made especially for My Rasoi event at Meena’s Hooked on Heat
The spiciness of the cardamom and the richness of the eggs and cream makes this a very luscious dessert. Creme brulee, to me, was a strictly restaurant dessert. I had no idea that my broiler could substitute for a hand held torch. Isn’t that cool?

Here is the recipe

Egg yolks 6

Sugar half cup

Heavy cream 2 cups

Freshly ground cardamom 1/2 teaspoon

Vanilla essence few drops

Light brown sugar – enough to cover the top of the creme brulee dishes

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Butter 4 brulee dishes or ramekins. Combine the eggs and sugar to form a smooth mixture. I use a hand held mixer to do this job.

Heat the heavy cream in a saucepan over medium heat. When small bubbles appear along the edges of the pan, remove from heat and gently stream it into the yolk mixture. Make sure you use a whisk to continously stir the mixture till all sugar dissolves. Finally add the cardamom powder and vanilla. Combine thoroughly.

Place the creme brulee dishes in a baking dish. Add warm water ( I used a kettle) to reach halfway up the sides of the dishes .

Place a strainer in each dish and pour the mixture equally among the dishes. The above mixture is enough to fill 4 dishes.

Bake for about 25min ot till they are set. If you leave it in for too long, it will turn grainy.Remove from the oven and cool. Keep in the fridge for atleast 3hrs or till ready to use.

When ready to serve:

Sprinkle the top of each custard evenly with brown sugar.

Place the dishes under the preheated broiler for about 2min, keeping a close eye on the custard. It needs to be kept close to the broiler)(2 to 3 inches for the tops to turn brown. I hard to place them on an inverted baking dish on the top rack of the oven to reach the ‘desired’ height. Broil until the sugar melts and caramelises. Turn the pan to make sure all parts gets evenly browned.

Remove without burning your fingers and serve immediately.

This is such a fantastic show stopper after any meal. This is so easy that it can spice up any weekday dinner with no effort! It is advisable to put only 2 cremebrulee dishes at a time when broiling them. If this is your first time, I would suggest broiling them one at a time.

Enjoying the fruits of our labor.

Flan fares well II

I had written a post on flan long time ago. Back then I didnt have a picture to go with it..I think I ate the flan before I could take a pic. So here is a part II of it with a picture.

Some minor changes I made this time around were to use 4 egg yolks and 2 whole eggs,instead of the 6 egg yolks and it worked fine. It is a cholesterol laden dish but for once in a while, I guess it will be okay. Plus dont eat more than one slice. This dish keeps well in the fridge for few days.

Sonali of Spicehut asked in her comment as to what a caramelised mold is. It is a mold/ pan with caramel at the bottom of it.

This is a short description of the process in pics..

Take about 3/4 cup sugar in a pan and let it melt over low medium heat. If you stir it, it tends to clump. Sojust let the sugar start to melt, and then use a spoon to stir it till it turns to a uniform golden brown color .

You need to watch the caramel very carefully as it can get burnt very easily. Once the desired color is reached, pour it into the flan mold and using a kitchen towel, hold the mold and rotate it quickly so that the caramel spreads evenly on the bottom and sides. If you stop and think, the caramel gets hard and sticks to the bottom of the mold.

Then pour the flan mixture and keep it in a larger pan with about an inch of water or so and bake. Simple,eh?

Kefir cheese and pistachio cake for SHF

I had made this cake about a week ago and had taken some pics at that time. I then forgot all about it till I downloaded all the pics from my camera today. And incidentally Sugar High Friday focuses on dairy. Since yogurt/unknown cheese was the highlight of this cake, I think this was an apt entry to SHF

I didnot use yogurt for the cake as the original recipe mentions . I used something that said Kefir cheese on the container.It almost looks like sour cream but is more of a thicker consistency. Is this Greek yogurt? I dont know..it says on the cover that it is a rare lebanese treat. This was brought home by our friends when they shopped for Arabic groceries at a middle eastern store for our Arabic meal. We never used it and it remained in the fridge till I saw this recipe, and decided to substitute it for the yogurt in the recipe.
Another reason this recipe attracted me was that it gave me a way to use up the pistachios that I had in my pantry.

The original recipe can be found here
I found it when I was searching for pistachio recipes.

Ingredients

I cup shelled pistachios ( I had salted ones on hand, so I decreased the amount of salt in the recipe)

All purpose flour 1 cup

Baking soda 1 tsp

Salt 1/2 tsp
Eggs 6 seperated

Sugar 1 1/4 cup

Yogurt or kefir cheese 3/4 cup

Extra virgin olive oil 1/2 cup

Method

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F
Toast the pistachios for about 10min. (The original recipes says 15min but to retain some of the green color I removed it a little earlier).

After removing the pistachios increase the oven temp. to 350 F

Once the pistachios have cooled, rub them between the folds of a clean kitchen towel to remove the skins. I didnt do this very aggressively either and some skin on the pistachios is not a problem. Grind them finely in the food processor. Some large pieces may be left and it is fine to leave them as it is, this adds a bite to the cake after it is cooked.

Add flour, baking soda, and salt( if using unsalted pistachios, add 1/2 tsp salt) and mix in the food processor.

In a clean vessel, beat the egg whites to soft peaks. Add 3/4 cup of sugar and beat it to
stiff peaks.

In another vessel, using the same beater,beat the egg yolks with the remaining half cup sugar till it is a pale yellow color. Add olive oil and yogurt and mix well. Then using a spatula, fold in the flour.

Lastly fold the egg whites, Do this gently using a spatula. The eggwhites add to the fluffiness of the cake and so when mixing be gentle so as not to flatten the egg whites.

Pour the batter into a 10inch buttered springform pan and bake for about 40 to 50 min.
Mine was ready at about 40min. Keep a close eye on the cake after 30min. Insert a toothpick to see if the cake is ready. If the toothpick comes out clean, it is ready.

Let cool. Serve with honey and chopped pistachios or as it is. This cake lasted us a few days in an airtight container on the countertop. It was a lifesaver after tired work days.

Sugar High Friday

kefir cheese shf17 kefir cheese and pistachio cake

Great pancakes!

I am a person who usually works three days a week and I am home for the rest four days. Typically, I am very busy at work and am lucky if I can manage some time for cereal. So, the days I am off I try to have something nice and hearty for breakfast.For some reason last night I felt like having some pancakes for dinner and I found a lemon ricotta pancake recipe from Amy. This has almost become a trusted spot for me to look for recipes. But the plan to have breakfast menu for dinner did not materialise as I fell prey to laziness after a walk near the beach. We ended up having some leftover rice and fish for dinner.

This morning, I woke up all eager to try out the new recipe. One another reason I was attracted to the recipe was that I had all the ingredients in my pantry. So, I made the pancakes and although it said that it was enough for 2, I ended up eating all the pancakes alone.I had also made sausage but was too full to have it. I loved the pancakes so much that I am thinking of making some for Satish when he gets back from work. And I can see myself making this pancake when I have friends over for breakfast.

Here is the recipe

1/3 cup ricotta cheese
1 large egg; separated
2 T low-fat milk
3 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
pinch salt
1/2 t grated lemon rind {I used some lemon juice}

Blend egg yolk and ricotta cheese then add milk, flour, sugar, baking powder, lemon rind and salt mixing until completely blended. Beat egg white in another mixing bowl until just stiff but still moist. Fold gently into batter. Heat large nonstick skillet or griddle over medium heat and coat with cooking spray.( I used butter, but I will use cooking spray when cooking for S). Drop batter by heaping tablespoonful onto skillet, and cook until golden brown on the bottom then gently flip and cook on other side. Serve immediately.

I got 6 pancakes although the recipe said 8,maybe because my pancake batter was a little thick. The pancakes are not too sweet and the beaten egg whites make it really soft. And they hardly take any time to make.