Chocolate (Biscuit) Pudding

I believe Cooking is a form of art, and no art form is complete without creativity. Nothing gives me more satisfaction than experimenting with different ingredients. Sometime the results are good, while some other time they are pathetic. But whatever it may be, it never dampens my love for this form of art. Today I am going to share the recipe of one such venture which had a successful outcome. Hopefully you too will find this extremely easy, and bless me while tasting the end result!

Spicy Mutton (Kosha Mangsho)

What should I tell more about this dish; it is one of the most popular dishes of Bengal. I don't think there is any Bengali out there who has not tasted and loved this mutton recipe, which we so fondly call Kosha Mangsho. Be it chapati, paratha or puri (luchi), kosha mangsho has a sizzling chemistry with all of them.

If you have ever tasted this in your life I will bet that you will start salivating just by watching its picture (Pavlov's theory never fails!!). Just have a look and then enjoy its simple recipe:

Spicy Mutton (B. Kosha Mangsho)

Peanut Butter Cornflakes Cookies

This is the recipe for which I made peanut butter at home! These cookies are yummy, easy to make and absolutely no baking in required. Moreover, its a good option for between-meal munching. You can even modify it in several ways as per your preferences.

Lets not waste anymore time and jump to the recipe straightaway.....

Peanut Butter

While searching through different sites for some easy snacks recipes (like this peanut butter cornflake cookie recipe) I found out that (may be coincidentally), almost all those recipes contain peanut butter as one of their major ingredients. I remembered having peanut butter as a child with bread. I love the nutty flavour but I often get bored with the frequent repetition of same food (or flavor). That's why I couldn't risk buying a peanut butter from the store, where, as per my  knowledge, it is not available in very small amount. So I thought of the best alternative which is making it in small scale at home. As a consequence I came across this very easy and quick peanut butter recipe, which goes like this...

Melting Chocolate or Butter

Melting chocolates and butter can prove to be harder than we actually think.

Putting them directly in a pan over the hob will resulting in charring or burning (as a fuel). Even if we are careful it is sure to destroy the chemical composition, and in turn, the flavour of these ingredients. The last thing we really want. Really! So, what's the alternative? To set up a melting station, that's what. It's not that hard to set it up as to maintain it during the melting, though. But I'll take you through it.

Folding Mixtures

Folding is a technique that helps to incorporate a lighter component into a heavier one creating minimum disturbance to the texture and consistency of either. This sounds harder than it really is though, but the term may pose certain difficulties if we're not familiar with it. So I have tried to explain the steps here, and I hope that helps.

How to Beat Egg Whites

A number of recipes (especially desserts) would require egg whites to be beaten into various levels of peaks.  You may come across recipes (like this Chocolate Mousse Cake recipe) that would ask for stiff peaks, soft peaks, curling peaks and what not. If that sounds confusing, this may help. I have tried to list down all the degrees of beating egg whites and what they mean and how they should look like. If you get this part right, be rest assured that the rest of your dessert is going to be a cakewalk :)

Quick Lemon Pepper Seasoning

Lemon pepper seasoning is one of my absolute favourite seasoning! It goes great with salads, cheese toasts, pastas and many other Italian recipes. It is absolutely easy to make and just because I can't lay hands on them anywhere in Kolkata, does that mean I have to live without it? No way. So brainstorming to the rescue. If I have to make it on my own, I have to make it my own. I have been meaning to put this up for a long time but laziness got the better of me every single time. However, this time since I already used it in my Sheekh Kebab Salad recipe, I kind of felt embarrassed not doing it. So here you go, enjoy ;)

As you can see, my crushing of the zest wasn't perfect this time :(

Sheekh Kebab Salad

I had this salad recently at a small cafe called Baithak (which I also reviewed there at Zomato) and enjoyed it very much. However, like always, I felt the need to readjust a few things based on my personal experience and experiment with it. Also, this is my first salad recipe and I owe the need to do one to Abhijit as well, who asked why I never have one. So here it goes.

Ingredients for Sheekh Kebab Salad

Rasgulla / Rosogolla

Rasgulla or Rosogolla

I myself am not too fond of sweets, but a good dessert never fails to draw my attention. The recipe which I am going to share is a very popular sweet of Bengal. I think every Bengali across the globe has sometimes or other tasted this sweet delicacy . So when I found this recipe of homemade rosogolla (or rasgulla in hindi ), I was more than happy. Now, its the time to share it with you.

Chicken Pie

I got this recipe from my aunt. Its very easy and its simple flavours can win anyone's heart. I fell in love with this at the first bite !

A few days back I felt like eating the pie again but at the same time was feeling very much lazy. So what I did was I made the simple recipe simpler. Today I would share both the original and the modified recipes with you. Hope you will find them interesting. You will also realize that there are so many scopes of modifications and whats more fun than experimenting and pleasing your taste buds !!

Chocolate Milkshake (2)

As promised, here is my second version of the Chocolate Milkshake. This version uses chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla ice cream. Everything is almost the same with a little tweaks here and there. Because there can be times when the leftover ice cream is not always vanilla. The only thing to keep in mind is to strike the right balance between the chocolate and the vanilla flavour.

Ingredients

For four

• Chocolate ice cream – 2 cups
• Chilled whole milk – 4 cups (see tip)
• Chocolate syrup – 3-5 tablespoons
• Vanilla essence – 4-6 drops

Chocolate Milkshake (1)

I am a self confessed chocaholic. Anything that has tons of chocolate in it keeps me drooling. So I try to keep off the chocolate aisles at any super store. And the same can be said about ice creams as well. Imagine my condition when last week, my dad bought a 2 litre pack of vanilla ice cream and Hershey's chocolate syrup. The week had not gone by and the ice cream was almost over. It was last Sunday when I sneaked up to the fridge to find just two cups of ice cream left. I felt bad. That meant ice cream not enough for the four of us. And then I remembered the next best alternative to ice cream: chocolate milkshake! This solved the selfishness I would have felt if I had to have the ice cream without sharing :) I hope you enjoy.

One last thing: there are two ways to make chocolate milkshake. Here is the traditional way of doing it, however, I will post the other version as well, some time later because not always you have vanilla ice cream in the freezer but with a few tweaks, chocolate ice cream can work wonders too ;)

Easy Pigs in Blankets

I love sausages. And I love bacon. And what's better than both of them? Both of them together, of course! That's why these tiny pigs in their delicious blankets are one of my favourite ways of eating pork. Pigs in blankets can be made in a variety of ways. This is the simplest version I came across (and in my opinion the most delicious one). I first had them from a tiny Crawshaws outlet. And fell in love with the very first bite! The best bit about making them? They're insanely easy. And here's how.

Oh! One last word: let me mention I shopped my sausages and the bacon from Metro Cash and Carry, Kolkata (just so you know where you're sure to find them).

Chicken Kiev

Molten garlic-y butter with hints of parsley. Who can say no to that? And when that comes out of a chicken fillet parcel? I know, it's too tempting a killer! So this time, I am not going to talk about this and will move on to the recipe :)

PS: This is no mean feat. This one actually requires a lot of work and care at every step, because its speciality lies in that geyser of butter oozing out when it is punctured. So sealing the butter in, in a way that it does not come out while cooking is...well painful.

PPS: Also it's painfully loaded with calories *shy, guilty grin*

Egg Noodle from the scratch

I still remember trying this recipe at 1 a.m in the morning !! I found this recipe during a casual net surfing in the midnight. My impulsive side got the better of me and I end up making the noodles when rest of my family were snoring happily. But you know what it worth it and yes I will say that even after scaring my grandma in her way to the loo :p .I am sure after reading this recipe all the crazy foodies out there will be equally excited and pat my back for what I did !! What ? you are not convinced yet .... well read it and find out yourself...

Chocolate Frosting for Cakes

Now that I have made this cake quite a few times, I thought it needs some icing and frosting to make it look as good (if not better) as it tastes. I decided to try out my most favourite source: the internet. I really shouldn't have. They don't look so frightening when I am polishing off the cream from my birthday cake. They are all – sweet! What I didn't realise was, there were so many! With egg, without egg, with butter, without butter they're all out there and I was, of course, clueless what to choose to suit my needs. I chose the one with the butter, but without the eggs because mousse cakes already have a lot of eggs in them.

However, I was becoming braver and ... lazier! I thought about the Chocolate Mousse Cake recipe I had posted earlier. Before adding the eggs ... now that was a good start. Except of course, for the fact that whole thing was a little too runny to go as a cake icing. But I swear it tasted like heaven.

Easy to make Mayonnaise Dip

I was searching for a home made mayonnaise recipe for ages, because I sort of distaste the mayonnaise which is usually available in the markets. During the search I came across many recipes from different websites, magazines and blogs but those didn't really satisfy my expectation ! Mostly because those recipes contain one ingredient or other which is not available in the nearby market and supermarket. Finally after a long wait one day I accidentally found what I was actually looking for in my mom's recipe diary !! This recipe contains very easy to find ingredients and the method is also quite easy. And yes it tastes yummy too ! Hopefully it will be helpful for you as well. Now to cut the long story short , let's give you the recipe -

Shallow Fried Calamari Rings with a Twist

Squids or calamari is a widely popular seafood with a very rich flavour. These are cooked in a number of ways but the most popular variant, perhaps, is fried calamari rings. I found the recipe first in the BBC food blog. That recipe, in itself is quick and wonderful to taste. It has a simple yet rich sea flavour and is a wonderful hit among almost everyone. And if you are anything like my Dad, you are adverse to strong sea flavours. However if you are totally like my Dad and somewhat like my partner, you'll want a spicy twist on everything that comes within inches of your mouth (and/or nose).

Enter, my partner and his culinary experiments. He has an enviable spice cabinet, and an even more enviable sense of flavours and combination. I have given up counting how many times I have been sceptical about his experiments in the kitchen and then forgot about my health (diet) mission while tucking into it. But I think I am starting to trust his gut feelings. Also, we skipped the beaten eggs so that the rings do not get over-burdened. That's where I'll stop the trash-talking and take you to the calamari rings recipe with a spicy twist.

Reshmi Kabab

The name says it all. Reshmi kabab (kebab) is the ultimate delight in the kebab category due to its incredible melt-in-the-mouth softness (and hence the name reshmi). I came across the idea of making this through this website but I must admit it was a failure. I knew it would be disappointing because the recipe was something that reminded me strongly of Tandoori chicken, but the almonds kept me going because I really didn't want to believe that an about.com recipe would fail, but it did. It was far from the silken soft texture that this dish is all about. So I was looking up at other websites for a solution. I looked here and here and here and I knew one thing was common. It was the cream used instead of the yoghurt. I was not sure if the heavy cream would work so well. But then this wonderful thing happened. Also I played a little with the spices to get it accurate. I hope you'll enjoy it.

Non-vegetarian Momo with Chicken, Pork or Beef Filling

This is a Tibetan recipe as you most probably know and is taking the city by storm for a past few years; a fad so popular that it has replaced the age old favourites of noodles and rolls the city was so proud of! A health conscious yet fast food addict generation has switched to the wonderful, wonderful world of – momos!

I personally have been having momos before this momo addiction broke out, at a time when I would know the very few momo joints by heart and could tell from one shop to another just by taste. In fact, without sounding too conceited, I somewhat reckoned myself a Kolkata-momo connoisseur. Not for long though, as innumerable other joints cropped up and road-side vendors took it up, making it a household name. Everyone has their own secret recipe and eventually, ways to Indianising the dish, making it more fast food oriented, inevitably crept in.

Thai Soup with a Citric Flavour

I am a huge fan of Chinese recipes. Be it eating out or takeaways, I'm always in. I love how something so simple as the garlic and the spring onions work together to create something so delicious – albeit with a few little tweaks – creating hundreds of delicious and sumptuous dishes that always succeed to fail my health (read weight loss) mission. And along with it, I must mention two other similar genre: the  Thai and  the Tibetan recipes.

Today, I am going to share a recipe, very popular with the Chinese restaurants around Kolkata and a very dear favourite of mine. I have not accomplished the recipe perfectly but this is as close as I can get to it right now. If I revise it further, I'll be sure to update it. I highly doubt if this is an authentic Thai dish to start with. I personally believe the restaurants serve an Indianised twist on the original recipe and I have tried to follow what I had at a number of Chinese restaurants around the city.

Aubergine in Yoghurt Gravy

Again, an unusual find, by my partner during his stay in Orissa, India, traditionally called Dohi Baigono improvised with a Bengali twist by us during our stay in the UK. Dohi (doi) is yoghurt and Baigono is Oriya for aubergine or eggplant or as it is popular in India: brinjal (begun in Bengali). We noted the strange behaviour of yoghurt in heat and abstained from the curdling texture (please note, however, that the Salmon in Mustard Gravy calls for cooking the yoghurt in heat but it does not curdle at all which I suspect to be the effect of either the mustard or the vinegar, I am still investigating that one) and always added the yoghurt the last. Also, after following this recipe, if you find the gravy is too thick (especially if you're using Indian yoghurt which is so much thicker than the ones we got at Sainsbury's and other supermarkets in the UK), dilute it with cold drinking water. That's all to note, really. Hope you'll enjoy it.