Love and Calories!!

Well the recipe of "Panna Cotta and Strawberry Coulis" will have to wait for some time because the King of all Rice Dishes..."Biriyani" suddenly agreed to honour my blog page. Now who can say no to a "Biriyani"? :) I was in a mood to make a lavish Chicken Biriyani this weekend so I dedicated my entire Sunday for it in spite of my runny nose and sore throat. Long time back I had posted the recipe of "Prawn Biriyani" and slowly I thought of sharing the recipes of all the types of Biriyani made in various parts of the sub-continent. The Awadhi Mutton Biriyani of Lucknow, My very own native's Malabari Biriyani, Sindhi Biryani, Lahori Biriyani and various other lip-smacking varieties of it. Today I tried one of the delicious and my very confident recipe of "Hyderabadi Murgh Biriyani" straight from the City of the Pearls "Hyderabad".     You will get a ten on ten with this recipe. It has never gone wrong for me even once, ...

Aah! Its so good to be back to my favourite place..My Blog!! Its my ultimate comfort place. I didn't realize it is more than three months now after my last blog post. I had been on a two month long, relaxing vacation with my family and friends in India and what a fine Holiday it was. The three Fs...Friends, Family and Food blended well each and every day of the ninety days I spent In India. I gorged on to some of the delectable delicacies of my native land made by my mom, my mom-in-law and my aunt. Also, I explored the new food joints which had come up in the last two years.  Coming back to the usual routine was a little tough as I still had my Holiday Hangover, but aye...I managed to cope with it and here I am with a brand new post and have started my 2013 with a Bang!!  I hope to post recipes frequently as i was doing it before.  I bought some lamb steak the other day from Tesco and tried my hands on making a quick dinner for two. ...

"Deepak ki roshni, Patako ki awaz, Suraj ki kirane, Khushiyon ki bauchaar, Chandan ki khusboo, Apno ka pyar, Mubarak ho apko.... Diwali ka tyohar" (The Bright lights emitted from the oil lit lamps,  Those fiery sounds of the fire crackers, rays of sunshine which showers happiness throughout, the fragrance of sandalwood & the love of our dear ones....I Wish you all these and much more on this joyous occasion called DIWALI! Wish you all a very Happy & safe Diwali. Eat, Drink & Be Merry!! The festive season is here again and am so fortunate to experience the whole Diwali atmosphere all around me. London, like Mumbai embraces all the cultures of the world & celebrating Diwali is no exception here. The whole Desi Community are busy buying new clothes, Diyas, fire crackers & Mithais. I make it a point to go to these Desi inhabited towns regularly, to experience the hustle bustle during the Indian festive season. I do not miss anything here, except for my ...

Now this is one dish which was in a queue for a long long time to be posted in my blog. I absolutely forgot about it and it was shelved away for almost a year. Until recently, one of our friends asked about an Indian minced lamb recipe, I recollected that I have the recipe with me with all the photos taken stage by stage. My, My...How did I forget to share  this wonderful recipe with all of you.  Minced lamb has quite a strong flavour of its own and it has to be well camouflaged with some other good ingredients which will balance everything, only to give a fantastic dish in the end. What better than Indian spices. A good balance of these spices when combined with meat and cooked well, will give you a classy Meat dish.  Ingredients: 500 gms minced meat (lamb or mutton) 1 cup of fresh/frozen peas (boil and keep aside) 2 large onion (finely chopped) 4 large tomatoes (blend to make puree) 1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste 1 tbsp coriander powder 2 tsp cumin p...

In this fast paced life of ours, how many of us really wished for a good quality time to be spent with  our spouses and family?? Aren't you all not bored of the same routine day in day out? We slog the whole week at work and wait for the weekend to arrive only to go out shopping at some money fleecing mall monsters, get tired, eat a quick meal from there, if time permits go for a movie and come home tired and later go off to sleep. There goes your weekend and the next morning, the same old rat race begins. That special moment with your spouse or children never happened. My friend had asked me once, whether my husband and I talk over coffee when we go out. As a diplomat I am, said to her, we don't make eye contact when there is any kind of food kept in front of us. We give our full attention to it. We laughed it off, but she really wanted to know that, are they the only odd ones out here. No, they are not!!  Last Friday, I decided to be at home (our usual friday dining ou...

Cupcakes - those little sweet treats are everybody's favourite and have usually seen them so beautifully displayed for almost all occasions. Every one's reaction when they hear or see Cupcake is... "Yummmm"! But is not the case with me. I have never fancied cupcakes in my life. You must be thinking, "C'mon now...Don't like cupcakes?? you must be kidding!!  but the truth is, I never was a fan of these little cute things. But I just love the look of it. Those different creative frostings  on top makes it so special and good looking. And the effort made by the bakers are seen just by looking at the creative topping. For the love of baking alone, I tried to bake some easy cupcakes to start off.  This recipe will be very useful for those who have never tried to bake cupcakes before (just like me) and are now interested to try their luck in baking some. I prefer chocolate to sugary icing and that is the reason why I baked some Devil's food Cupcakes....

 Andhraites (People of Andhra Pradesh, South India) love their eggplants/brinjals so much that I have seen all my Telugu friends make something or the other with these lovely violet vegetable. Stuffed, steamed, fried, sauted, chutney, gravy, they will have atleast one of these things done with their eggplants. One such recipe is this one which I got from one of my Telugu friends. I got this recipe about 4 years ago but never tried until recently. Not a good looking dish, I must admit but it tastes absolutely delicious. And it is healthy too as the baby eggplants are steamed all the way.  Ingredients: 10-12 baby eggplants For Stuffing: 1/4 cup chana dal (kadala paruppu/bengal gram) 1/4 cup whole coriander seeds  4-5 dry red chillies 1 tsp cumin seeds 1/2 tsp fennel seeds  8-10 curry leaves 1 tsp oil  Heat oil in a frying pan and roast the above "stuffing" ingredients for 2 minutes until they release their flavour. Remove from hea...