This post is for those who found my last post a bit too Agony Auntish or Chicken Soupish.
I am more of a Chinese noodle fan than a pasta fan. But over the years I have experimented a lot more with pasta dishes than I have with noodles. I guess pasta inspires me more than noodles does.
I tried a couple of very simple and quick experiments with pasta recently. Turned out to be really easy to make and pretty tasty too. Met my requirements for office lunches - quick to cook, no effort, easy to carry, tastes good later.
It all started with some penne that Banu had boiled and kept in the fridge.
Experiment 1 - Ham and cheese indulgence
Cut little bits of cheese and strips of ham and add it to the boiled penne in a micro bowl. Add some salt and crushed pepper, a few drops of Tabasco sauce. Add a teaspoon of olive oil and toss the penne mix in it. Bung it in the micro and heat it for a minute.
The result is a pasta dish which is not creamy, is dignified and yet rich and aristocratic in taste. I must admit that we had some very good ham and cheese that we bought from Sante. Barbecue ham and Da Vinci cheese (olive infused Gouda) both picked for us by the lovely Milinda of Sante at Pali Naka, Bandra. I am sure the dish will work with regular cheese and ham too. I must have used a finger sized piece of cheese and 3 or 4 thin strips of ham.
The cheese pieces melt and yet retain their shapes leaving an uneven, unpredictable and tongue teasing taste of cheese through the dish. I had this as a pre-dinner snack and smiled happily through dinner later.
Experiment 2: Bolougnaise meets Aglio Oli
Saute mince meat in a bit of olive oil, pepper and salt and set aside. I used chicken mince.
Add the mince to some boiled pasta (volume ratio of meat: pasta = 2:3). Add a teaspoon of olive, a tablespoon of ketchup, salt, pepper to this. Bits of cheese. I used the remaining Da Vinci and a bit of French Feta which, again, Milinda introduced me to. The feta gave a sharp salty bite. Also add some chopped tomato and green bell pepper. Bung this in the micro and you are done.
The resultant dish is light. There is a faint memory of cheese without being doused with cream. The pasta, ketchup, minced meat and olive combine very well together to give a fresh and sunny Mediterranean flavour. I ate this for breakfast before work one day :)
I guess it pays to keep some boiled pasta in the fridge.
Prelude: This is not a story about food. But about the search for it. It is not a story. It actually happened today. The post is long. But not longer than our hero’s march. A knowledge of Mumbai helps while reading this. Else keep in mind that the distances between the places mentioned are vast. That it was hot, humid and raining today. The story has references to specific Churches in Mumbai. I have written this story as narrated to me. I do not know how true the story is. The idea is not to vilify the Churches. In fact the story talks about how the Churches are out there helping many. I hope this post does not offend anyone. If it does, then it was unintended, and I will remove the offending parts if any.
It was 7.30 in the evening. I drove off from office. Grumbling about my driver who had bunked. Secretly happy at the chance to drive Princess Lea, my car. I inched through the gridlock in front of my office and finally reached the gate to heaven. The entry into the highway from Andheri E. I waited for the signal to turn green when I suddenly saw a young man gesticulate at me. There was something in his eyes with made me shrug aside of years of city bred cynicism and roll the window down.
“Sir, can you give me a lift to Bandra?”
I took a second look. He seemed quite proper. Dressed smartly if simply. He sounded civil. Didn’t seem dangerous. I did what I have never done before. I asked him to hop in.
He slowly crossed the road and seemed unable to open the car door. I opened it a bit edgily as the signal turned green. Asked him to put the seat belt on. Crinkled my nose at the smell of sweat which swept into the air conditioned car.
We set off. I looked at him. There was something in the way he sat. Diffident. Timid. Scared. He didn’t bother to push the seat back. He had cocooned himself in whatever space that was there without a complaint. He looked tired. And yet determined.
“Sir, I have never asked anyone for a ride before this. It’s just that I went to a Church at Four Bungalows. I didn’t have any money left. So I decided to walk home. Then my legs began to hurt”
“Where is home?”
“Sion Chunnabhatti. I know the way from the highway at Bandra. I will walk home. It’s just that I don’t know the road from here. And my legs were paining”.
I did some calculations. Four Bungalows to Andheri E seemed like a very long walk. And Chunnabhatti! That was really far. I took a second look at the thin young man. More a boy than a man.
“I actually went to St Michael’s Church at Mahim for the Novena. I had some Church work. I then tried the Churches at Bandra. My work was not done. Then someone told me that there were Churches at Andheri E. I went but my work was still not done. Then someone told me to go to the Chruches at Andheri West. My money was over so I walked. But the Church work didn’t happen. So I was going to walk back.”
“What do you mean by Church work” I asked
“Yes but what work? Like a prayer or something?”
Then the story came out. Peter D’Sousa’s father passed away three years back. The young boy studied in the junior college. SYJC. And worked in a Chinese restaurant. ‘Food cart’ as he later corrected. No, he was not a cook. He was a waiter. He spoke impeccable unaccented English. I told him about field interviewers in market research where I saw a fit for him. But his eyes lit up as he continued with his story. He had got a possible job offer at a Call Centre at Andheri. He would go to college in the morning and to work after that at night.
“The salary would be good. I’ll leave this job”.
His voice became tired again. His mother ‘worked in two houses’. As a maid, I assumed, but didn’t probe. He had two little brothers and one sister, a toddler. He and his mother worked so that the little ones could go to school.
“Perhaps your mother can begin a dabba service. People are fond of Catholic cooking” I ventured.
I knew the answer before it came. No capital. No fixed house. They were dependent on the vagaries of landlords.
“There are people who come to Bombay from outside. The landlords give them the houses if they pay rent”. A fact of life summed up by this frail yet brave young man.
Their Church, St Anthony’s at Sion, would apparently distribute groceries every month. Their family had received this for three years. Peter had missed it this month as he reached late. The supplies were over. That’s when he went scouring the Churches of Mumbai. Looking for provisions for his family to survive the month. Door after door were shut on him. The clergy explained that there were many con men preying on Church funds these days. They were very particular about papers at the Church to ensure that the funds reached the right people. One Father gave Peter a bag of biscuits for his brothers and sisters. From his personal funds. Peter clutched onto it. Ignoring his own hunger. Walking from Church to Church for his family.
“Have you eaten anything? I wish I had something to give you.” The highway was of course bare. I felt frustrated.
“Sir, do you know any Catholics who can help me get Church funds? I need it just for one month. Two weeks actually. I can take an advance from my new job. I went to YMCA, Father Agnels. They couldn’t help. Do you know someone who can?”
“But I am a Hindu. I won't know about Catholic organisations”
“I know sir, but you live at Bandra”.
That’s when we reached the Bandra end of the Highway.
“Sir, can you stop here for a minute. I will walk from here”.
It had begun to drizzle. I pulled over. I gave him my visiting card.
“This is my number. Call me if you ever need. I will see if I can get you a job doing market research interviews”.
He got off and waved goodbye with a smile. I took out my wallet and stuffed a few notes in his hand.
“Take an auto. Don’t walk”
“Sir, this is so much” he looked me in genuine wonder. (I don’t want to get into details here but it really wasn’t much. Just a few hundred. No great shakes)
I looked at him, smiled, patted his back and said, “Look after your mother”
He smiled.
“Look after your mother,” I muttered and drove off.
There was a lump in my throat as I left. Suddenly being stuck in bad traffic didn’t seem to qualify as one of life’s woes. Later someone asked me if I thought he could’ve been a dope addict. Honestly? I don’t think so. At no point did he ask me for money. There was something about Peter which managed to slip in through my world weary, calloused scepticism. We are no stranger to ‘in your face’ poverty in India’s commercial capital and dream city, Mumbai.
I guess tragedy hurts more when it happens to someone who could have been you.
Soon I left Peter far behind and entered the comfort of my own world. The world of coffee shops and cappuccinos served ‘extra hot’.
Those were the days when one would head to Colaba and South Mumbai to unwind. Oshiwara, Versova, Phoenix Mills and other new kids on the block didn’t even exist then as lounging options. Even Bandra, where I stayed as a PGite, was not as ‘happening’ as South Mumbai, or ‘Town’ as it was called. Leopolds, Mondys, Bade Miya, Gokul, Crystal, Martins, Bachelors were some of the common haunts in Town. And of course good old Cafe Churchill.
Ten years back, on a Sunday, it would take more than half an hour to get a table for dinner at Churchill. Perhaps even an hour. Yet we would wait. It was the Continental haven of the 90s and early 2000s after all.
Tonight we waited for less than ten minutes to get a seat at 9 PM! I would never have believed it if someone told me this was possible in July 2000.
Once you step inside Churchill you feel as if you are frozen in time. The arrangement of the tables is the same. The American deli style board displaying the fare is the same. The menu card is the same. Barring the prices. The ‘specials of the day’ have remained the same over years. The desserts in the iconic fridge remain the same. As do the paper mats on the table with the sketch of a smiling sun licking its lips.
Mr Gandhy, the affable plump bearded gentleman, continues to sit at the till. A decade later looking bemused at the CCTV feeds. These aren’t his favourite channels after all. And, as we discovered today, passing out sachets (!) of barbecue sauce mix when the Chef called for them from the kitchen. We’ve earlier seen him slip out ice tea sachets when these were ordered.
The thick, cream coloured, ceramic plates on which the food is served remain the same. No pretence of fine dining or of gourmet trappings here. If you order a dish with sauce then the sauce would be floating across the plate with a blob of mash on the side. No artistic squeeze bottle patterns on the China here. Yet the hearty, tummy satisfying, nurturing, cradling, hot, home-food like taste of the food remains the same. Our order remains the same. Peach ice tea (no longer served in beer mugs though) and penne in prawn Newberg Sauce.
But of course things aren’t the same. It’s 2010 after all. I ordered a new dish in recognition of this reality. A dish described as ‘Carni’ in the pasta section. Strips of ever so tender ‘pounded beef’, fiery green chillies which I thought only we put in pasta, my new favourite of spaghetti, a nice way of satisfying stifled desires for Chinese noodles, swimming in a glazed onion sauce. A Continental dish, which looked like an Oriental beef noodle soup. In fact i used a spoon to finish it off. Yet tasted like soul food. A new discovery that was so enticing that it distracted the most passionate of Prawn Newberg lovers too.
We stepped out of Churchill at ten pm. Not a soul was waiting to be seated. A far cry from the mad rush of yore. Not a damning statement on Churchill. More a testimony of the fact that Mumbai had spread its tentacles and that its suburbs have come alive. That South Mumbai is in reality more a ghost town at night. Enchanted and pretty as it is.
A reminder that this is 2010 and not 2000. That things might look the same. But are not really the same.
PS: We headed to Theobroma for desserts. We love their brownies. And they have a wash room!
Have you ever read those Somerset Maugham stories set in the Orient? Rain for instance?
Set in times where there is no escaping the sound of rain. For hours and days. Beating relentlessly. Incessantly. Grey skies. Rumbling skies. Angry skies. Romantic and beautiful when seen through a window. A muddy quagmire for those outside. Drenched in unrelenting rain.
The season of temptation and burning passion. Of rebelling against the chains of nature. Yearning to be free. Gloom and frustration weighing heavy. Yearning for the wilder days of spring. Yearning for the past. The season of the forbidden. Of choosing danger and pitfall over weeks of cloistered existence. Dank. Dark. Dreary. Stories of rain which refuses to stop. Of lives which are stuck. Of fevered souls and bodies. Of impatience. Of thunder which drives in fear. Of helplessness and hopelessness. Of waiting for the sun.
Colonisers giving in to the charms of the East. Even as they fell prey to cirrhosis, consumption and syphilis. Orientals who were slowly learning the ways of the West. Dying to throw off their new collars. Forgetting the social mores of the day. And its boundaries.
The same story played out here today. It rained all day in Mumbai. And I finally gave in to temptation in the evening. I sinned. The coffee that I made was good too.
I recently cooked after what seemed like a lifetime. Sharmila of the excellent Bengali food blog Kichhu Khon, told me that my kitchen must have been missing me. Well I was missing it. So I shook off my post holiday blues and made a cheese cream pasta. This, according to a Facebook discussion on Finely Chopped, is comfort food for many.
Scarlett, the 'Football-loving brownie-craving all-time-laughing sometimes-working Dilbert-forwarding foot-in-mouth-putting weight-fretting full-time-swearing women-problems-cursing freak of nature!!", author of the blog Just Can't Get Enough is a cream cheese pasta fan too. She hasn't blogged in a while. Possibly still celebrating Spain's victory in the World Cup.
She'd asked me for the recipe of what I cooked. It was quite a simple and quick dish. Routine. Didn't photograph it. Still I thought that I'll put it down. Hopefully she'll begin blogging again in return. I miss her writing.
Recipe:
Boil pasta (I used fusilli that night) and sweet corn in water. Drain water and keep the pasta and corn aside
Take a non stick saucepan and heat a tablespoon of olive oil in it
Add a few fresh and peeled garlic cloves to the pan and saute till they turn yellow
Add 200 g of cocktail sausages. You can slice these into rings or cut them into two. I used faux sausages. Chicken
Stir till the skin of the sausage crinkles
Add a cup of skimmed milk with a tablespoon of cornflour dissolved in it to the pan. Bring to a boil and then reduce flame and let it simmer
Add three slices of slim cheese, a teaspoon of salt, some crushed black pepper, a few chopped basil leaves and a tablespoon of Tabasco sauce. I use Dabur's Capsica sauce which is a lot cheaper
Let the sauce thicken and then add the pasta and corn into this. Stir gently so that the sauce spreads across the pasta. Cover with a lid and let it cook on a slow flame for about two minutes
That's more or less the end. Scarlett doesn't agree with this but the Karmakar family thing is to add a couple of split green chillies at the end to the pasta. On the plus side the pasta didn't involve butter or red meat. Had skimmed milk, slim cheese, olive oil and chicken sausages instead
Here's the discussion on comfort food the Finely Chopped page. What's yours?
What's your favourite comfort food? Can there be carb free comfort? Am not seeking it, just feel that carbs are central to mood upliftment16 July at 21:52 · Comment ·LikeUnlike · View feedback (14)Hide feedback (14) · Promote
Reshma Nitu Chugani carb free comfort??? well tandoori chicken does wonders for me with a glass of champagne
and for carbs CHILLI CHEESE TOAST..... anytime :) i think ill have that tonite :P
16 July at 22:00 · LikeUnlike · · FlagBhaskar Ranjan Das Carbs are peripheral !! Proteins are central !!
16 July at 23:37 · LikeUnlike · · FlagRenu Singh Really cold milk with pieces of apple/banana in it. And maybe just a few corn flakes for the carb factor. Yumm. Damn... am gonna have to have it now!
16 July at 23:49 · LikeUnlike · · FlagFinely Chopped or how about anything you eat with great people? Just happened to me. And the food was bloody good too. The rum helped. There was pork, lamb, prawn, mashed potato and chocolate too
17 July at 00:05 · LikeUnlike · Renu Singh True. If you're with friends, everything is comfort food.
17 July at 00:17 · LikeUnlike · · FlagFinely Chopped food unites all
17 July at 00:35 · LikeUnlike · Poli Gupta For me there are a couple .. Kissan mixed fruit Jam on soft white bread, Shingara ( not samosa) ... dal bhat with fish fry or a simple seekh kabab..
17 July at 02:07 · LikeUnlike · · FlagDebjani Bandyopadhyaya alusedha bhat and butter with an omlette thrown in
17 July at 10:37 · LikeUnlike · · FlagAnindita Roy Gobindabhog chaaler gorom bhaat (rice), ghee, aloo-bhate (mashed boiled potatoes), kaanch lanka (green chillies) and salt
17 July at 10:56 · LikeUnlike · · FlagSandy Kundra Verma cream cheese pasta! loads and loads of carbs!
17 July at 12:59 · LikeUnlike · · FlagFinely Chopped True...I doubt if there is comfort without carbs, cheese or chocolate :)
17 July at 14:10 · LikeUnlike · Aishwarya Kumar There's no carb free comfort food kalyan. For me it's pasta in cheese sauce or chinese (noodles included) or chicken curry-rice. And then there are the cheesecakes & brownies of the world of course.
17 July at 20:07 · LikeUnlike · · FlagFinely Chopped I guess food and comfort go together. Calling for biriyani and kebabs from Kakori to liven up some J D
17 July at 21:39 · LikeUnlike · Finely Chopped @Ash, Chinese works very well for me. I always head for Chinese fried rice when I am abroad and miss 'home' food
Well technically 'two steps' would mean 'check menu card and dial takeout place'. But this is almost there. In fact I made it in the morning before coming to work. Quite a feat for an owl. Didn't photograph it but thought it was worth posting. Especially after having it for lunch. So here goes:
Chop 250 g of button mushrooms and put them in a microwave cooking dish
Sprinkle a teaspoon of olive oil and a bit paprika sauce and salt, add half a chopped tomato to this. Bung into micro for about 7 minutes
Take half a pack (100 g) of dehydrated couscous. You get this in stores which keeps imported food. Add 1/4 cup, 100 ml, boiling water to this and keep it covered for three minutes
Add the grilled mushroom mix to this once done
Add a few cubes of feta or paneer which gives it a nice salty bite and some fresh chopped herbs. I used basil
Makes a nice and light, easy to eat, fresh, vegetarian and presumably healthy, office lunch. Tastes pretty good too.
I am quite sure that there is actually a Bengali dish called Posto Murghi (Chicken in poppy seeds). The Ghotis (Bengalis from West Bengal) would have thought of that. They are the priests of poppy or posto after all.
I am a Bangal (Bengali from East Bengal). Well, my parents were born in Bangladesh, though neither lived there. But I love alu posto (potatoes in poppy seeds). So I am sure that my attempts to stray into Ghoti territory can be allowed. The dish I am writing about is posto murgi in essence. It is definitely not the traditional or authentic recipe though. But I can vouch for its taste.
Today Banu, who pretends to be our cook and is more my sous chef, called me at work for instructions on what to make for dinner. I instructed her on how to make a version of posto chicken. I had conjured the dish up myself and left the base masala at home for her.
I was quite pleased with the end result. The dish was nice and light, subtly flavoured, with the crushed posto giving it a bit of character. It worked pretty well for dinner in my opinion as it was well flavoured and yet not heavy and didn’t tax one.
Following it up with Ferrero Rocher and then some of the lovely Chinese tea that Neera gave me in KL seemed just right. Check out the beautiful tea set that she gave us. Now you know why I am so in love with KL and its people.
Yes, yes here’s my recipe for Posto Murgi:
·Take a tablespoon of cooking oil and heat in a saucepan
Well it's been two days since I began my new job. After six days of mental beach bumming at home. On day one I discovered that I had a colleague who has actually seen Bourdain at a restaurant at Cleveland and that she is a fellow Bourdain junkie. I discovered that the cafeteria in the office complex, Thacker's Cafe, sucks. The coffee at work was as I had been forewarned. A bite on a burnt, cold and sour and sada dosa from Thacker's and I came back on day two armed with Old Town White Coffee sachets and Maggi's Singapore Laska Cup O' noodles from KL, cream craker biscuits and alu and roti made by Banu. Finally met the rest of my team over a lunch meeting today. Over the rather the inappropriate first date meal of a Subway Sub. Luckily didn't make a mess of it barring some mustard on my trouser leg. A huge subway chocolate chip cookie and the discovery of more foodies in the team. Including a convert to vegetarianism who explores food all over the world and who introduced me the concept of 'mock meat' which they have come up for Buddhists in the Far East. They have given up meat but miss it apparently. The plus side of an office in Andheri. Creamy, old school chocolate cakes from Merwan's for team birthdays. Another group member whose eyes lit up when I spoke about the chicken puff of Merwans. And I cooked after what seems to be a lifetime last night. Fusilli with chicken sausages in a creamy cheesy paprika sauce, slim milk, slim cheese slice, seasoned with fresh basil and corn to cut the heat. The gym beckons.
This is probably my third post on the same restaurant, Yellow Tree, in three months. Sacrilege for a food directory, magazine or website. None of which I claim to run. Finely Chopped is about my personal experiences. Some of which could be at new restaurants. Others at old favourites. Some could feature new discoveries. Others the solid assurance of consistency. This evening at Yellow Tree was a bit like that. A new favourite of ours which lived up to our expectations once again.
Those were Glory Days
Some of you have marvelled and envied at my chequered pyjamas and sandals life of the past few days. Where Sundays blended into Mondays, Wednesdays as sought after as Fridays. I was serving my notice period, holidaying In Malaysia and then was in between jobs for less than a week. All of that’s going to end on Tuesday as I return to the world of swipe cards. There is a three day induction programme chalked out for me including a lunch out and a coffee break. Have they read the blog and found out about my opinion on canteen food and canteen coffees? Anyway I am armed with my Old Town Coffee sachets from KL to survive the world of corporate coffees.
I brought my days of beach bumming to an end this evening at the Mudd Spa at Bandstand. My colleagues from my previous office had given me spa vouchers as a farewell gift. As the masseuse patted away my world weariness with a magical hot Thai pouch massage and whispered exhortations for a shady hair weaving proposition, I realised that I couldn’t have received a more thoughtful farewell gift. Thanks guys. Like I say “it is always about the people”. And it was great working with each of you.
Getting ready for a new beginning
I wanted to finish off my few days of joblessness with a nice meal. So we headed to Yellow Tree down the hill at Bandra’s Ambedkar Road. We managed to get a table at the cosy, chirpy, cheerful ground floor. The first floor was too sterile and adult for us.
We placed our order with the very helpful, warm and well informed staff. Such a welcome sight after the mean, rude ogres at Pali Village Cafe further up the road. They really make you feel at home at Yellow Tree. Which is why we keep coming back.
We placed our order of the smoked salmon bruschettas which we so liked during our first visit here. The salmon was as plenty and delightful this time too.
We stretched out and I headed to the book shelf. I got hold of Bourdain’s favourite chef, John Keller’s, ‘The French Laundry Cookbook’. And then I spotted Bourdain’s very own ‘Le Halles Cookbook’. We left the other book aside as it so often happens when one came across a Bourdain.
Even Kainaz, who is not into food writing as a genre, tripped on Bourdain’s soulful and eloquent prose and sharp, cutting, acerbic wit. She giggled through his ode to her chosen alter ego, piggy, and read out his take on shopping, on getting to know your local butcher and the local market, calling your fisherman in advance to know what’s there, not being a snob even while cooking for those who are not culinarily evolved, thinking on your feet as you cook, making lists, about how you have to yearn for the things you want, how you should take off your apron and hang by it if you don't know how to roast chicken and most of all, how this was not a book to read if you were looking for recipes. I was thrilled to see a chapter titled ‘The Knife’!!!!!
Very close and dear friends of mine have described Bourdain as ‘sentimental’ and have chided him for not having branched unlike Jamie Oliver. They still remain very close and dear friends of mine. The very best actually. But I can spend hours lost in the words of Tony Bourdain. Such is the spell he holds me in.
For our next course I ordered a Spaghetti Aglio Oli guided by the pleasant helpful guy in the French beard who took our order. I was disappointed by the penne aglio oli which was served fried at Salt Water Cafe recently (see i don't write about every time we go out). The one at Yellow Tree was, as promised, lightly tossed in olive oil. Rich and abundant in our add on of chopped chorizo. The dish was light and well flavoured the way I had hoped it would be. Secretly meeting my hakka noodles pangs which I ignored as I was the one who was taking K out. She prefers Continental over Chinese.
I was not a good host when it came to desserts though. I ordered the jalapeno chocolate cake which Sue Cope, a reader, had suggested. I loved the spicy bites of chilly in between the sweet of chocolate. K, who doesn’t like her chocolates messed with, came home pouted and had Ferrero Rocher s which Bipra sent for her from KL.
The realisation of what was coming up hit me later at night as I ironed my shirt for tomorrow. Gosh, it had been so long since I wore a shirt with collars and closed shoes and formal trousers. The Knife would become a market researcher again.
