Biryani- courtesy Sujata!

Chicken and Vege biryani in Singapore                    
Sujata is my husband's sister and is settled in Seattle, USA. She is younger than me but probably started cooking before me as she moved to the US.
 




           

When she sent me this recipe I assumed it would be simple and nothing that Neha and me couldn't manage.
Contrary to what we thought though- this has been our most time consuming recipe to date and the one that both of us really like when done. :)

Vegetable Biryani in Columbus 
The chicken version cooked way faster than the vege one - even though it lacked the saffron. The Vegetable Biryani took ages to cook and Neha claims that the potatoes took 2 hours

 

The plated version of the vegetarian biryani which Neha had at 3am local time and really really liked. We (Shivram and I)had the Singapore version at 1:30 pm local time and there is nothing left :P

Thanks Sujata!

Kheema mutter and Paneer mutter - Gordon Ramsay part 2

Mutter Paneer in Ohio

 Kheema Mutter in Singapore

Goli Bhajja

Our classmate Ranjana started cooking full meals when the rest of us were only able to make tea. By 9th std she could cook for 4-5 people easily. Her cooking has always been mom style- quick, efficient,wholesome and no fuss. Her measurements are approximate and hence it was a challenge to get her to list down a recipe :) She married a konkani boy a year back and when we asked her for a recipe- her instant response was this konkani appetiser- Goli Bhajja. Ketan is clearly a very lucky man :)

Since the recipe requires 2 hours standing time (mix all purpose flour, gram flour and baking powder and let it stand), Neha had already prepared the mix and kept it standing. Since our cooking sessions happen Saturday morning Singapore time, I had to make do with only 30 mins of standing time - also since I didn't have all purpose flour- i cooked with cake flour ;) The other ingredients (chillies, mint, cilantro, masalas etc) go in just before the frying.

Here our the pics of our wonderful goli bhajjas- just like the last Saturday, the same recipe has yielded very different results for both of us :) We will be back soon with another recipe and another exploration :)

Goli Bhajja- Singapore

Goli Bhajja- USA

konkani* (from the west coast of India)

Exploration 1: Brown n Yellow Pasta

Last December when I was in India, we spent a lot of time hanging out at Priyanka's place with old and new friends. One of the guys- we will call him Gordon Ramsay taught me how to cook alfredo pasta. It was fun and he customised the recipe to each of our requirements- cheezy, vegetarian, spicy- everything was possible. So we are starting our culinary explorations with this very flexible and easy dish. We started out with a recipe for Penne in arrabiatta sauce from Mr. Ramsay- and it has come out as penne in yellow sauce and pasta in brown chicken sauce.

Thank you Gordon Ramsay.

Food ,Friendship and Fun

My very first memories of cooking anything apart from the standard Maggi noodles and omelets involve my friend Neha. Neha and me have known each other since we were 16- and we have been close friends for all of those 11 years.We were classmates in school, had a lot of time on our hands and used to live in the same area. We spent a lot of time  hanging out at each others homes,some of that time we spent in the kitchen. Our early experiments were ambitious to say the least. Our Apple jam turned out all liquid and we claimed we had made an apple dip :) I distinctly remember trying to make pani puri and a vegetable rice preparation named Tahri among other things. There was also a failed attempt at baking a cake.

Those were fun days and we spent hours talking, making crank calls and what not. Now Neha lives in the US and I am in Singapore. We don't get to spend as much time together but we make it a point to catch up often and we always talk about food. She being a vegetarian and me a non vegetarian has never affected our constant sharing of food talk. As we try to find new ways to bridge the time and space gap between us- we have decided to undertake a  culinary project. We will try to cook together once a week and share our experiences on this blog- so we can recapture some of our fondest memories and create some new ones along the way.