It's been a while I know. But over the last few months, I kind of became occupied with stuff and then made myself unoccupied and then all over again. Life has been transitional for a while and it shall be for a while more. The more I take cognizance of that fact and accept it, the easier it will be for me I guess. Besides, gobbling my way through Gochujang noodles on a regular basis does not make good blog features.

Meanwhile, Aebleskivers have been on my list of things to do for a while now. In October, when I pitched initially to contribute to a site, I actually wrote down Aebleskivers. It never saw the light of day till now though. Aebleskivers are traditional Danish Pancake Balls. (I'm still silly enough to giggle every time I write balls.. heeheee) Apparently made during Christmas and supposed to have apple in them I think? I butchered a recipe from Nordic Food & Living and kind of made it this Sunday morning for the kids. Not that the kids I know really appreciate anything their aunt slaves over the stove for them. They always and always go back to their Ammachi's pineapple jam & toast. Spoilsports!

The adults loved it though. Wait! before the adults came in, quite a few of these balls (heehee..) ended up in my tummy as well. Oh! who am I kidding? I tend to forget I belong to the adult category. Having the mental/emotional capability of an under-aged teen in an over-sized body doesn't really help anyone. Meh! on that.




Makes approximately 24 teeny weeny balls

Ingredients

2  eggs separated
11/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup buttermilk
60g butter melted and cooled
1 tbsp sugar
pinch salt

1/4 cup chocolate chips (optional)
1/8 cup jam (optional)
2 tbsp icing sugar


Method

1. Whisk egg whites till stiff peaks form and set aside
2. in a different bowl, dry whisk flour, soda, sugar and salt.
3. Add yolks & buttermilk and mix till thoroughly combined. Used hand mixer if required
4. Pour melted & cooled butter to the batter and mix it in.
5. Using a wooden spoon/spatula fold in egg whites gently to the mix in three parts till you do not see white streaks. (Do not whack the shit out of it, you want the air from the egg whites to remain in the batter)
6. Heat the aebleskiver pan, add butter to each of those indentations.
7. Gently drop enough batter to fill 3/4 of the indent if making plain balls, else fill 1/4 of the indentation, add the topping and then cover till it reaches 3/4 of the indent.
8. Flip the balls using a skewer when they are firm on one side.
9. You're ready when both sides are golden and firm.
10. Serve onto plate. Sprinkle with icing sugar. You're good to go!

Serves 2

Ingredients

3/4 cup cornmeal
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup milk *
1/2 tsp vinegar *
1 egg
Butter for seasoning the frying pan

Method

1. Whisk all the dry ingredients together in a bowl.
2. In another bowl add vinegar to milk and wait for 5 mins to let it curdle to become buttermilk.
*Alternately use buttermilk
3. Whisk buttermilk and egg together
4. Add wet ingredients to dry and stir till just mixed. Do not overmix. The batter will be thick at this point. If its too thick, add a little bit of milk/buttermilk to loosen it up.
5. In a well season frying pan over low flame, add a little butter to coat the surface and then pour in the batter 1/4 cup at a time.
6. Cover and cook till its golden brown on the underside. Flip and cook again till its cooked through.
7. Repeat till the pancake batter is over.

Serve this with honey, maple syrup, your favourite preserve/compote. I had some strawberry syrup from my last roasting session which I used. Not quite thick as a regular syrup, but very very delicious.

This is a late entry, pretty much usual in my case I guess. While the whole world, or whoever I'd subscribed to was churning out Easter recipes, before Easter, I'm one of those unique ones, who post a recipe after the occasion!!! yay!!! let's celebrate laziness. Or well, let's be better prepared for next Easter.

We usually have Hot Cross Buns on Maundy Thursday as part of our breaking the bread ritual. As Malayalees, we're supposed to make 'Indariyappam' and have it with 'Paal'. I'll explain those terms at some later point. But let's just get on with the fact that Mum always made the Paal (cardamom spiced coconut milk sweetened with jaggery, there I explained it right there) and we got the Hot Cross Buns from the bakery near our church. Most years, us laggards would reach too late to get the real big Hot Cross Buns, and we'd have to settle for a smaller one just so to continue with the ritual.

We'd have a brief Bible reading by the head of the family, which obviously is my Dad, then we'd have the symbolic representation of the Bread as the Body of Christ and the Paal (mentioned above) as the Blood of Christ. Daddy would cut the Bread, dip it into the Paal and give it out to each of us. And thus, Maundy Thursday was celebrated at home.

These days, everyone is very fussed about being authentic and most Malayalee Christians make Indariyappam at home, which is the traditional bread for Passover. But hey, it's always nice to have an alternate option which is slightly sweeter, spiced with cinnamon & raisins in a nice yeasted bun. So I make Hot Cross Buns. Just so I can dip it into my cup of sticky sweet Paal and enjoy.



I've shamelessly taken a riff off Pioneer Woman's Hot Cross Buns. I used to follow her quite a bit, a while ago, then I found that I'd gotten over her, like I'd gotten over most blogs, like you've probably gotten over Plattered. I'm always hunting for new & interesting, but when almost everything is new, you just want to take a step back and say, let's go back to the old stuff. Like the old stuff you know, when things were plain and simple and you didn't want to add that extra zest or rum soaked dried fruits in Hot Cross Buns. There is comfort in the familiar, the unexotic, the everyday food, the repetition, Sorry, I'm ranting. But the truth is, I don't follow too many blogs anymore, unless they're East Asian and written in a language I can comprehend. David Lebovitz is always exempt from any such heresy on my part. His blog, I'll always love.

Anyway, here's the recipe for Hot Cross Buns, straight from Pioneer Woman's blog. I've made very few changes to this recipe - halving the recipe, a cinnamon butter wash after baking, just very very slight alterations. Like she says, it's her Cinnamon rolls recipe, the same I use as well.

Ingredients

for the buns

1 cup milk
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup sugar
11/4 tsp active dry yeast
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup additional flour
1/4 tsp (heaping) baking powder
1/4 tsp (scant) baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon powder
1/2 tsp nutmeg powder
1/4 cup raisins
1 tbsp egg white
1 tbsp milk
2 tbsp melted butter

for the glaze
3 tbsp egg white
3 tbsp icing sugar + extra to thicken if required.

Method

Buns

1. Gently heat oil, milk & sugar in a saucepan till warm, but not boiling and the sugar has melted.
2. Let it rest for half an hour or bring it to lukewarm temperature.
3. Add yeast to the milk mixture and 2 cups of flour. Stir. Cover and rest the sticky mixture for 1 hour.
4. Add baking powder, baking soda, salt & 1/4 cup flour and mix. Stir till combined
5. Pulse 1/4 cup sugar, cinnamon powder and other spices and keep ready.
6. Tip dough onto a lightly floured surface. If the dough is still sticky, add the rest of the 1/4 cup flour bit by bit and incorporate till its not so sticky.
7. Roll out the dough/stretch it by hand, add 1/3 the cinnamon sugar & 1/2 the raisins and fold the dough onto itself.
8. Repeat step 7 and fold till the sugar & raisins are spread evenly. (You'll have leftover sugar)
9. Divide the dough into 12 equal parts and with floured hands roll it into a ball.
10. Stretch the tops and slightly fold in the dough at the bottom to get a smooth top.
11. Place on a slightly greased baking tray. Cover with a towel and allow it to rise in a warm place for 30 mins.
12. Make an egg wash with the egg white & milk. Gently brush the risen rolls with the egg wash
13. Preheat the oven to 200C. Bake for 20 mins or till the tops are nice and golden.
14. Mix melted butter and remaining sugar and brush on top of the rolls evenly till it get nice cinnamony glaze. Allow the rolls to cool

15. Mix egg white and icing sugar together till its a thick pipe-able consistency.
16. Pour into a piping bag/ziploc bag and snip the corner and pipe a cross on top of each bun.

For this recipe I used a 7" x 3" baking dish. And it serves one really hungry person. It can also be stretched to two not so hungry people.

Ingredients

4 slices day old bread shredded by hand
2 handfuls baby spinach torn
1 large tomato sliced

2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp pepper
Extra EVOO & chilli flakes to serve (optional)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200 C
2. Shred the bread and evenly distribute in a baking dish
3. Top with spinach and tomatoes. Toss around if you want it evenly distributed. I just layered them.
4. Whisk eggs, milk, salt & pepper in a bowl
5. Gently pour over the bread mix and let it spread it evenly.
6. Press down on the mix from top with a spatula and let the bread soak up the egg mix.
7. Let it rest for 5 mins (if you have patience)
8. Drizzle olive oil on top
9. Bake in oven for 30-35 mins till the egg mix has set but is slightly jiggly.
10. Slice up to a plate, drizzle with extra virgin olive oil & chilli flakes
11. Serve!

Voila! Breakfast ready.
The best part? You could also make this in advance and warm it up when it's time to eat. Wooohoooo!!!

Spread a little goat cheese
Spread fig slices
Poach an Egg and place on top
Add some fried bacon
Drizzle balsamic vinegar
Salt & Pepper
Voila!
Breakfast is yum!

Roasted Strawberries! Have you tried them when I told you to last time? Click the previous sentence for the recipe.

This is part of my bad girl breakfast series when I go ahead and up my toasts to another level altogether. This one has Roasted Strawberries, Feta & Mint leaves on buttered Toast.

Some days, some weeks, some months, you space out. You worry about your place in life, in this world, in this universe. Nothing seems to make much sense for a while. A little chocolate, a few berries, toasty bread soaked in a custard base seems to just hit the spot for those moments of just forgetting everything. Forget the extra inches, the jiggle that never lets go, the jeans that's become a tad too stretchy. Embrace the butter, the sugar, the egg and just let go.

When my closest friends moved countries, I was the recipient of a lot of goodwill, a lot of love, a lot of memories and a lot of stuff from their pantry. Upali passed on these limes and I very happily accepted them as Kaffir Limes despite them not having the ridgy exterior that kaffir limes have. I kept calling them kaffir limes till after a point even I  realized the distinctive kaffir lime aroma was missing. Something, my brother kept mentioning over and over again... 'But it doesn't have thaaaattt... like you know the last time you made it...'

Update from Upali: These limes are called Gondho Lebu in Bengali and they travelled all the way from Calcutta to my cake. Thanks so much Upli!

I name it as if all of the Malabar area were eating this kind of bread pudding. No, I name it this way cos flavours of the Malabar are unique and something I've so often repeated in this blog. To me bananas, coconut sugar and a sprinkle of cardamom remind me of home and the food I grew up with.
Perhaps not always the food we made at home, but the food I've come to associate with the region I've spent my childhood years.

#BadGirlBreakfasts Part 5 - Creamy Garlicky Mushrooms on Toast


At some point I stopped going adventurous with the pics, I just want to get the contents across. This is what the final product looks like. No embellishments, no setups and right on my kitchen top.
This is exactly as it looks. I took inspiration from a Garlic Mushroom dish I always serve as a vegetarian appetizer for dos at my place. The only change I made is using cream instead of using cream cheese and omitting wine in this version. I also didn't add any parsley which I think the original recipe called for.

When I first moved out of home and to Bangalore, there was this café right next to my house, Rendezvous. My cousin Riya and I spent quite a few evenings reading books and eating sandwiches there. Run by a couple, it was a cozy, homely place for us to spend our evenings than at our cramped rental. My favourite over there was their Egg Club Sandwich. A double decker of a sandwich with lovely toasted bread filled with an egg & mayo mix and also something else I couldn't identify but made me love it all the more.

#BadGirlBreakfasts Part 3 - Caramelised Onions & Sausages on Toast


I'm writing this up pretty quick. You know what you need with this one? Its right up there in the title.
Caramelised onions. Which is exactly why I have a post on How To for Caramelised Onions. Click the previous sentence to go to the recipe. I still haven't gotten around to changing the link colour. See, I make life so simple.

These are not regular bananas. These are the other bananas, the big long ones from Kerala. You also get them in Cuba, Nigeria and I think Miami cos that's what Jon Favreau picked up in the movie 'Chef' and he called them plantains!!!
Do ya hear me people??? Plantains!!!! I grew up calling these bananas plantains till I was very properly corrected by my sister and my friend that no, they are bananas.

#BadGirlBreakfasts Part 1 - Poached Pears & Bleu Cheese on Toast


Remember one day I woke up and said I'm going to have a breakfast project on Facebook? I actually did go through it. It just took some time to work out things just the way I wanted.

I wish, I wish, I wish I could say this is really complicated. But the only point I wanted to make was Toast is not just Toast when you make a little extra effort. Ask me. I've almost never bothered to have breakfast before heading to work. Always was the hungriest by lunchtime and lasted on endless cups of coffee and biscuits.

I have a theory that if you are writing down a recipe, you better write it down the first time. Or by the time you get around to writing it down, you've played around with the original one so many times that you've completely lost the plot.


This is my case for poaching pears. The first time I poached pears, I measured water, I measured wine, I measure orange juice, I counted cinnamon sticks, I basically had everything in hand. These days I throw everything in together in saucepan and pray it does the job. Almost always it does, which goes to prove, yes, sometimes you don't have to be that perfect and creepily crazy about everything.