Kathrikai Gosthu (Eggplant in Tomato Sauce)

Remember this story of pongal and first love? Well, I clean forgot to post the gosthu which went with that pongal. Its only when SIL reminded me about it and asked me to make it for the whole family two weeks back when we were together for Diwali, that I decided to come back and post it.

I am definitely going to make this more often - even my usually pernickety family (Dad can tell which ingredient is missing in Mom's rasam just by smelling it when its cooking!) loved it. My brother, when I tried to serve him the gothsu, sniffed and said he "preferred" his ven pongal with coconut chutney - if not anything, we are definitely food snobs that way! But after hearing my Dad raving about it, he finally tried it and then ended up polishing it off completely!

The base recipe is from Suganya's Tasty Palette and I have adapted it to our taste. I didn't use the freshly ground masala and instead used Sambar powder. I, however, sauteed the sambar powder in oil along with the brinjals and other vegetables first, before adding the tamarind extract and boiling. Once the vegetables were half cooked, I added the tamarind pulp - else, I find, the vegetables take a longer time to cook if the souring agent is added beforehand. I omitted the jaggery as well since we usually prefer savoury flavours for breakfast. The moong dal and potatoes mean that the curry thickens up nicely and doesn't need gram flour.





This is going to Nupur's Blog Bites #9 - The Holiday Buffet - the potluck edition which goes on till December - can't wait to see the entries for this one !

Asian Style Five Spice Grilled Fish with Spinach

 

Hope you all had a beautiful Diwali celebration this year....we certainly had one of the most memorable ones in recent years. We celebrated Diwali with my family (parents and brother's family) in Mumbai - the last time we did that was in 2005. The kids had a blast and the sweet teeth of my family meant that the amount of sweets consumed was more than what I have had in the last two Diwalis! Plus there was hubby's birthday the day before Diwali. Then on Saturday, we moved to my best friend's place and celebrated with her whole family - a truly special time for us. My daughter didn't want to come back to Delhi!

 

Coming back to reality and the rush hour of work days, I have today a very convenient and time saving grilled fish recipe which is also very delicious.
This is a dish which I made quite impulsively, one of those times one cooks according to a recipe seen somewhere and from vaguely remembered bits and bobs of it - but you do remember that it sounded like a really good recipe and you just have to try it.You know what I mean right.....What?!- you mean, no one else does this? Oh ok. Fine then.


I do things like this all the time - see some cookery show on TV (and don't have the patience to actually note things down) or read some recipe in a library book (again, postpone noting down the recipes I like till its too late and the book has to go back) or even worse, read a recipe from a book while standing in the library waiting for hubby to choose his books (I take 5 minutes since I have a list from here to Timbuctoo, while he only knows what he doesn't want!) - so no question of writing it down anywhere!

Well this Asian style Grilled Fish recipe doesn't even have these sources to boast of! I rushed into the newly opened outlet of Godrej's Nature Basket in my next door market one evening, to pick up some bread on my way back from work. While I was drumming my fingers on the cashier's desk waiting for him to bill it, I saw a stack of fliers. These are the usual ones they keep every week, with recipes using the exotic ingredients they stock - I guess to encourage people to buy  said exotic ingredients - think Fleur de Sel, African Meat rubs and marinades, Corn Relish, Mustard Pickle, plum conserve - you get the drift.

This particular flier had two recipes from the host of some cookery show on the NDTV Good Times channel - I guess if they were quoting him as the source, he must be a minor celebrity but I couldn't recognise his name. I picked up the flier since I quite liked the Five Spice Powder Chicken recipe it had.
The next day was a Saturday and I bought some fish while doing my weekly grocery shopping, intending to use the Five Spice recipe for that evening - yes, I know the original was for chicken, but I'm like that wonly!

But, when I reached home I couldn't find the flier - likely it must have gone into the old paper cupboard or even the trash because my hatred for the fliers that fall out of newspapers is well known in this house (I even rip out the bookmarkish kinds of thick advt pages in magazines because I find them sooo annoying!) So, I decided to wing it with whatever I remembered. The five spice powder, the onion powder and the garlic powder I definitely remembered - the rest are all approximations of what I think should go into an Asian Style Grilled Fish. The original recipe had a sweet plum sauce made to go with the chicken, but I just decided to serve some spinach on the side. Asian greens like bok choy would be good too for this dish.

The pictures don't do enough justice to the lovely, lovely meal this turned out to be. The fish was seared and crisp on the outside and soft and flaky on the inside. The taste of the spices mixed with the honey and soy mixture was unusual and very tasty.

 

                                                 

  Five Spice Grilled Fish with Spinach

Sole Fish fillets - 350gm cut into 3 large pieces

Marinade:

Five spice powder - 1 tbsp
Onion powder - 1 tbsp
Garlic powder - 2 tsp
Chilli powder - 1/2 tsp
Soy sauce - 1 tbsp
Honey - 1 tbsp
Crushed peppercorns - 1 tbsp
Rice wine vinegar - 2 tbsp
Salt to taste

Spinach - 2 cups washed and chopped long
1 onion sliced
3 cloves garlic minced
1 tbsp oil
salt to taste


1. Mix the spice powder, garlic powder and the onion powder together and rub into the fish fillets.
2. Mix all the other ingredients of the marinade together mix the fish into it into a wide bowl. Keep aside for half an hour or refrigerate if cooking after an hour.
3. When ready to cook, pre heat the oven to 350C. Heat the oil in a wide pan and saute the garlic for half a minute, then add the onions and saute 3-4 minutes till soft.
4. Add the chopped spinach and saute on high for two minutes till it just wilts, Add the salt and remove from flame

5. In the same pan add a little more oil if needed and sear the fish fillets on high heat - 2-3 minutes on each side. Remove and keep aside.
6. In an oven proof bowl, arrange the sauteed spinach and then the fish fillets on top.
7. Bake for 30 minutes or till the fish is flaky.
8. Serve with some crispy noodles on the side or even some sticky rice. The spinach can be served on top of the fish fillets.

You could stir fry the spinach for a few minutes and serve it on the side without baking it with the fish. that way it would retain the fresh green colour. However, you may want to add some more seasonings. By baking it along with the fish, the spinach soaked up some of the marinade juices and was just right.

Lemon Rasam (Elumichai Rasam)

Rasam is a thin, lightly spiced (and mostly clear) soup-like dish which forms an integral part of Tamil cuisine. It is usually served as a second or third course and mixed with plain, steamed rice. While some people call it an appetiser, traditionally, it has always been served with rice, after the sambar or kootu preparations - both lentil based dishes. Though rasam is lentil based as well, it is much lighter using only a small quantity of lentils as a foil to the sour, tamarind pulp and avoiding a complex mix of spices. Eating rasam on a banana leaf is an art by itself and for the longest time I would never eat rasam at a traditional ellai saapadu (traditional meal served on banana leaves)

There are different types of rasams - there is the fiery Milagai Rasam which gets its heat from black peppercorns (and from whence the Anglicized verison - Mulligatawny Soup - evolved) - best had when you have a bad cold and your head is heavy. Then there is the Tomato Rasam - a pleasant, tangy concoction, much beloved of children and the perfect comfort food when one comes home after a long journey. The Pacchai Rasam is, as the name suggests, pacchai or raw - the spices are not roasted or boiled, in keeping with the fact that it is made for nursing mothers and is supposed to be bland but nourishing and so has no spices. In addition to the different types, even the Tomato Rasam or the lentil based Parippu Rasam which are made almost on a daily basis, vary from home to home. The choices seem endless, but are often non-negotiable to some. 

Do you use lentils, strained lentil water or do you soak the lentils to be ground with spices? Freshly crushed spices or home made spice powder or store bought? Tomato pulp or tomatoes quartered? Boil for 1 minute and then turn off or simmer gently for 5 minutes? Garlic in tempering or garlic crushed with spices? 

It was said that the first test for the new bride was her rasam - if she got that right then her cooking skills were bound to be good. Hmm....maybe I should tell my daughter, this should be the test before she chooses her partner - the times I have craved for a nice rasam when I was sick and glared balefully at my Maggi making husband!! My favourite rasams are the ones made by SIL, Mom and my husband's aunt - truly outstanding.

If a souffle is one person's bogeyman and shaping modaks another's, then lemon rasam was mine. Rasam itself took me a long time to master, given that I never quite took to even eating it, till I was well into my twenties. As a child there was the whole question of "touching issues" so I had to be given a small coaster or plate to keep under my plate to make sure the rasam did not touch the veggies or the veggies would have to be transferred to a smaller bowl....sigh, I don't argue with my daughter now when she does the same. But atleast she loves rasam.

Marrying into a rasam crazy family meant that I soon developed a taste for it (actually, what's not to like!) and after many attempts managed to get it right myself. But this was the usual parippu rasam or lentil based one made with either crushed spices or rasam powder. Tomato rasam was the next progression - not sure why it took me so long to get there. But lemon rasam I did not venture towards for a long, long time - it seemed too ethereal for me to try! 

Delicate in taste and light on the stomach - not for it the sourness of tamarind but just a squeeze of lemon right at the end when its taken off the heat. Any sooner and it will turn bitter. Too many instructions basically for a person like me, it seemed. But when I finally did get around to making it (with a recipe from Mallika Badrinath if I remember), I realised that it wasn't that difficult. The bogeyman faded away. I started reserving the lentil water after cooking dal and if you have a lemon handy, its just a couple of minutes after that.

Some recipes advocate soaking a tablespoon of tur dal and grinding it along with cumin, garlic and pepper. But I prefer crushing the spices roughly and mixing them into the strained lentil water I have reserved before hand.
Simmer gently and add the lemon juice once you have taken it off the flame. A mild tempering of asafoetida and mustard and a generous sprinkling of coriander leaves and you have a beautiful rasam ready. 

For one Sunday lunch of ours, it accompanied an Andhra mince curry and stir fried vegetables.

Lemon Rasam  (Elumichai Rasam)

 

 Ingredients:

 1 large tomato, chopped into 6 pieces

1/2 cup arhar dal(tur/pigeon pea/tuvaram parripu)

1/2 tsp turmeric powder

coriander leaves for garnish

salt to taste

Juice from 1 lemon

Crush coarsely :

1 tsp cumin seeds

1/2 tsp peppercorns

1" ginger 

2-3 green chillies

Tempering:

1 tsp oil

Mustard seeds - 1 tsp

Curry leaves - few

2 dried red chillies

pinch of asafoetida

1. Cook the tur dal (lentils) with 3 cup of water in a pressure cooker. Drain the lentil water and reserve, add 1-2 tbsp of cooked and mashed lentils to the lentil water. Use rest of the lentils for some other preparation.

2. In a heavy bottomed pan, mix the crushed spices and chopped tomatoes with the lentil water, add salt and turmeric powder and bring to a slow boil, simmer gently for 6-8 minutes and then remove from flame.

3. After removing from heat, add the lemon juice and mix. Do not add while still on heat, it will turn bitter.

4. Heat oil for tempering in a small pan, add the mustard seeds and when they pop, add the asafoetida, curry leaves and dried red chillies. Remove from flame after half a minute and add to the rasam.

5. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve.

Wishing all my readers a very Happy Diwali! Have a wonderful and safe festival of lights celebrating with all your friends and family!

Burmese Khow Suey (Kauk'swe)

 

I discovered Khow Suey quite late - the first time I tasted it was in a friend's house in Chennai. Her mother is an expert cook and she had made this dish for dinner. My friend's Dad was in the merchant Navy and had travelled a lot around the country. Her mother learnt to make this dish when they were posted in Calcutta. I was very, very impressed with that delightful mix of flavours I tasted that day - the creaminess of the gravy, the lovely array of toppings which made it a sort of a customised delight for oneself (while still letting someone else do the cooking!) and of course my undisguised love for coconut milk. The next time I tasted Khow Suey, was also in Chennai - in a delightful, little restaurant on TTK Road in R.A.Puram called Stop at Sam's (which sadly closed down) which had quite an eclectic menu. The fact that I got to meet and speak to my only fav B town hero Aamir Khan (those were the days he was dubbing for Lagaan) , may have added to my memories of the dish, but it definitely left me hankering for more.(The dish not Aamir).

But its been after coming to Delhi that I have really been able to eat Khow Suey to my heart's content. The Kitchen at Khan Market - run by the same team which manages Ploof and Blanco - serves up an excellent Khow Suey and I don't think we have managed to try much of the other items on their menu because their Khow Suey is so heavenly. They have managed to crack the code completely - not too cloyingly thick, not too sweet, not bland at all - a perfect blend of flavours which pleases the palate. Their Khow Suey counter was running well into a hundred thousand, the last time we visited. I have heard rumblings that the one at the next door Market Cafe is better, but why miss with perfection, really?! Unless of course, we are talking of the Khow Suey cooked by one of my friends in Delhi - I would abandon all pretensions of loyalty to have the one she slaves over for a couple of hours, till it is just right.

 It was after quite a while therefore, that I even decided to try this at home....I am still tinkering with recipes to create my version of what is just right - Khow Suey is perfectly suited for tinkerings, there are as many recipes there are people who love it. The main ingredients are coconut milk, onion, ginger, garlic and lentil paste for the creamy consistency. The piece-de-resistance, according to me though, are the toppings - the noodles of course are much the main dish; and then boiled eggs, chillies, lime juice, crushed peanuts, fried garlic - you can add as much or as little of what you want to create YOUR perfect dish. Soupy noodles? or noodles with a bit of gravy. More heat? Less tang? medium crunchiness? NO annoying add ons between you and your dish? As you please. It makes for a perfect dish to have on a party menu, precisely for this reason.

This time I have played around with this recipe I found on the Food Fairy's blog. I brought down the proportion of lentils considerably to suit our taste, but I did think that the idea of using lentils itself was much better than the gram flour (besan) which is usually recommended. It lends itself far better to melding with the coconut milk than flour does. It also does not mask the taste of coconut milk like gram flour might. I also increased the chilli powder, since between the lentil paste and the coconut milk, the heat just wasn't coming through.

For the toppings, I added chilli flakes and fried garlic to the toppings - I would also recommend chopped spring onions since it lends a lovely crunch to the dish. Hubby loves green chillies while I like red chilli flakes and our daughter loved the boiled egg. I also marinated the chicken for a bit and it absorbed the flavours of the curry beautifully - I would definitely recommend doing this, though since it cooks for quite a bit, its not really necessary. The lentils were cooked in a pressure cooker instead of on the stove top and this saved a lot of time; plus I didn't have to puree the lentils, just whipped them and they were smooth.
With the weather turning cooler, this is a perfect dish to have. The combination of noodles drowned in a delicious, creamy curry topped with some piquant bites of this and that makes this one of those irresistible meals where you can keep going on and on.

I am sending this to Nupur's Blog Bites 8 - the latest edition is themed around One Pot Meals. While I usually don't write out the recipe for this event since the intention is to share recipes from other blogs, I have adapted this a quite a bit and have just written the quantities out for my own reference, while I go about trying to see what happens as I tweak things around a bit. Do however, visit the original post for Malini's step-by-step recipe complete with pictures.

Burmese Khow Suey

(adapted from a recipe from Food Fairy)

Egg Noodles - 1 packet, boiled in lots of salted water, tossed in 2 tbsp of hot oil in a wok for 2 minutes and kept aside. (Next time I will use thinner noodles, like the ones you get ready made in Delhi's local markets)

Chicken - 250 gm of boneless chicken chopped into cubes and marinated in a mixture of lemon juice, salt and a pinch of turmeric for half an hour.
Oil - 1 tbsp

2 onions chopped
1" ginger piece chopped
10 small cloves of hill garlic or  6 big cloves of garlic chopped
2 green chillies chopped
To be sauteed and ground to a paste.


1/2 cup chana dal soaked in water for 1 hour;
 then pressure cooked with turmeric in 5 cups of water for two whistles and 3 minutes on low. Remove, drain a little of the water and reserve and whip the lentils till smooth. I kept adding  a little of the reserved lentil water as and when the curry thickened, since we like to have it thinner.

Coconut milk - extracted from 3/4th of a big coconut (about 350 to 400 ml)

Chilli powder -  1 tsp or more, according to taste
Chicken stock cube - 1

Coriander leaves for garnish
Salt - to taste

Detailed recipe - here 

In short, the chicken needs to be sauteed with the onion paste and then simmered with the lentil puree, seasonings and coconut milk for about 20-25 minutes till smooth and creamy. Water down as needed and keep stirring from time to time.

Sundal - a Navaratri Speciality (Tempered Chickpea Salad)

 Each year I never seem to see the festive season coming up, before I am actually in the middle of it! This year was the same - the first week of October saw me travelling on work and hubby and kiddo came along since the schools were shut for the C'wealth Games. By the time we got back, Navratri - the nine day festival dedicated to the Goddess in all her myriad forms - had begun.

Saptami (the seventh day) this year, was also the closing ceremony for the Games and that was the first day of the Durga Puja in our neighbourhood pandal. The aarthi in the evening with the rhythm of the Dhak and the langurous movements of the beautiful Bengali women as they worshipped the Goddess in their own special way, was overwhelming.

Just as each day of Navratri has a special significance for various communities in India, the food which is prepared for each day also varies. At home, we didn't have a tradition of fasts or of keeping "Golu" - the beautiful symbolic practice of arranging dolls at home and inviting ladies and children in the evenings for some bhajans and pradasam.

In our home, Saraswati Puja on the 9th day - Navami, was the most auspicious when books and pens and tools would be laid out in the prayer room and the whole house decorated with haldi and kumkum (including all the appliances!). And the main preparation on this day was Sundal - a simple preparation of cooked lentils or legumes tempered with mustard and coconut - black chickpeas for Navami and white chickpeas for Dasera or Vijayadashami - the 10th day. People who had rituals or fasted on the other 8 days as well, prepare different lentils/legumes for each day - moong dal, urad dal, chana dal etc.

For the past couple of years, I have started preparing this through the year as well so that hubby can have it as a salad - a break from the usual cucumber, tomatoes, broccoli, roasted veggies etc. Its filling, nutritious and fibre filled - perfect for filling you up without the extra calories. It is very, very, simple to make but I am including a recipe anyway.

This year for Saraswati Puja - we had this sundal made of black chickpeas- then there was Boli (also called Holige and Obbattu in Karnataka where it is very popular) which is basically a flour based poli (flat bread) stuffed with a coconut jaggery filling and shallow fried on a griddle. Medu Vadai - deep fried lentil fritters- and Bisibele Bhath - a delicious rice cooked with lentils, a coconut based spice mix , tamarind and some vegetables, made up the rest of the meal.

Wishing you a very Happy Dasera celebration!

Sundal (Tempered Chickpea Salad)

 

1 cup Black chickpeas - soaked in water overnight or for 6-8 hours atleast. (You can used canned chickpeas as well)

Tempering:
 2 tsp oil
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp urad dal
pinch of hing (asafoetida)
curry leaves - handful
red chillies - 2-3
grated coconut - 1/4 cup

salt to taste

1. Pressure cook the chickpeas for 45 minutes to an hour - that would be 2 whistles and then 30-35 minutes on a low flame. If using canned, go to step 2
2. Heat oil in a pan, add the mustard seeds and when it splutters, add the rec chillies, asafoetida, urad dal and curry leaves.

3. Toss the cooked chickpeas in the tempering and heat through till any moisture or water from the chickpead dries up.
4. Add salt and grated coconut; mix and remove from flame after a minute.

Friends, Farsaan and Rain Flurrys

As the (10!) readers of this blog never fail to be reminded - I was born and brought up in Bombay and I continue to be attached to the city. Yes, it is big (but not bad), in a hurry (but not impatient) and the differences are stark (but never out-of-sight); it holds a lot of fond memories for me and has the kind of cosmpolitan spirit I have not been able to find in either Chennai or Delhi. Sure these cities have their own charm and I definitely appreciate them, not allowing myself to be blinded by my love for Bombay. But there is something about Mary.....

So, even after leaving the city 13 years back, I have managed to make a trip back every year (barring 2002 I think) to spend time with my best friends and trawl through my favourite haunts. In the past two years, I have also been making business trips and if they are on a Friday, then I try to spend the weekend too. My brother recently moved back and I love the chance to spend time with my nephew and niece. I usually try to do this so that hubby and daughter accompany me too (the guilt of a working mother who doesn't want to sacrifice precious weekend time with family), but last month this wasn't possible and I just decided to anyway stay over at my best friend's house on Friday night and spend a day at my brother's place as well before heading back on Sunday.

S and I go back to college and have known each other for close to 20 years now and she is my BFF(as Paris Hilton would say ;)), if there ever was one ; we were super excited about spending time together. She also managed to get together half of our Gang of eight in college - the other three are no longer in Mumbai - to come over for dinner on Friday night. Her younger sister who was often part of our shenanigans, also joined us that evening and the poor spouses and kids looked on while we rewound back to our patent silliness and hysterical laughter. Old jokes were brought forth, crushes revisited (and denied) and we pretended to look shocked when the incorrigible flirt of the group got down to changing nappies and mixing formula for his 6 month old cutie! It was such a fun evening - the barometer for us being when S laughs so much that there are tears rolling down her cheeks! - as we chatted and drank and ate and then laughed some more. We ended the night with some amazing brownies from Theobrama in Colaba.

pic courtesy Reuters

The next morning we dropped off S's adorable 3 year old to her Mom's house and along with her sister, set out to shop in Dadar. It started raining as we stepped out, but did that stop us - Naah. Have I shopped in Pondy Bazaar or Lajpat Nagar in the rain? - Nevah! But having grown up wading through knee deep water to get to school or even for bread (and later beer and bhutta!), the rain in Bombay doesn't seem to faze me. The heavy drizzle didn't bother us much anyway; the roads were not flooded and traffic wasn't snarled. So we made our way down Dadar TT  (later Khodadad Circle and now something else but we still refer to it as TT) and then on to Plaza, browsing the shops - (picked up some lovely handbags at throwaway prices and gifts for my Dad) and finally reached Sena Bhavan, where we wanted to go to a small jeweller. But he was closed for lunch and wouldn't open till 3pm - yes, thats how small the establishment was. It was 1.30pm and the rain had just picked up the pace and was now coming down in sheets. So, we quickly ducked into a tiny eatery next door, called Dattatrey, to get out of the rain and to have a bite as well.

Now this is a tiny place - typical of many such places in Dadar. Functional, clean and definitely not the place where they encourage lingering. The food comes to your table on the double, you are served efficiently and out you go!. So, we decided to order one dish at a time so we could last till the jeweller opened after lunch. The story about this place goes that it was on the verge of shutting down due to operational and cash flow issues, but since it was a favourite of Mr Thackeray (he used to frequent in his heydays and apparently still enjoys food from there), it was re-opened and still continues. The food is typical Bombay Maharashtrian vegetarian fare - mostly snacks like Misal, Kothmir Vadi, Thalipeeth and the like. But they also had full fledged "thalis" for lunch and dinner which consisted of servings of rotis or puris and rice with 2 types of vegetables, two lentil dishes, yoghurt and a dessert.

We ordered kanda bhajjias (onion fritters) - the perfect snack for the rains - and this was a tad greasy. But the puri bhaji , sabudana vadas and vangi bhath which followed one by one, were outstanding. I don't remember whether I ordered some sweets.....I know S didn't, since she gives up sweets for the month of Shravan (commendable to me; I can easily stay away from meat, but sweets?!).  But there was coffee at the end. All this cost a total of Rs. 204- I don't even remember the last time I ate a good meal that cost that little, even for one person, let alone for three!

 

All in all a really satisfying meal which one can't really put a price on (forgive the poor quality of the pics, they were taken on my mobile). Considering the amount of time we used to spend together in college and later, the fleeting moments we manage to spend now with our best friends, are priceless. A quick lunch between meetings, an hour at an exhibition in the same city on the way to the airport, staying one night before catching an early morning flight the next morning - these are the ways we stay in touch and connect and exchange notes on our lives - those important smiles and looks which can never be shared over the phone. Those resentments and resignations which seem so petty to talk about, when we are miles apart.

So, while I loved this place, you may have some other tiny-6-table places to recommend - whether for the excellent food or the beautiful memories. Do share.

Orange and Clove Tea Cake - Mad Tea Party comes home!

This cake was made on an almost instantaneous decision....no plan, no lingering over recipes, no comparing notes. Just 15 minutes to put together the ingredients and another 35 minutes to bake - it was the first time I was trying this recipe, so I was a little anxious how it would turn out. But it was perfect.

Just like the person and the tea party this was made for - an instantaneous connection made just by reading each other's blogs. Sensing the similar wavelengths, appreciating the passion for food, the honesty and the humility which shines through. So, when the opportunity came to meet - couldn't pass it up. Not even if the both of us were on the last weekend before we went on a trip and had a million things to do. And it all came together so beautifully - a perfect tea party (though coffee was drunk!) with the right company and some stimulating conversation.

As some of you may have guessed by now, this was me meeting up with Anita of Mad Tea Party. For our own Mad Tea Party.  Exchange of mails, telephone numbers, calls and we had a tentative plan to meet on the weekend. So Sunday morning, Anita called and we fixed up for that afternoon 3 30pm. My relatively free Sunday had by then transformed into a matinee show of Beauty and the Beast with kiddo followed by lunch with friends, so I knew I wouldn't have time to serve up an elaborate spread. BUT when you have a food blogger coming over, you have to have food!

I had a couple of tangerines at home and I knew a tea cake would be nice and light for that time of the day.  So, I quickly looked for an orange based cake, which I found on the Whole Foods Market website - scanned through the list of ingredients to check that there were no exotic deal breakers. The main ingredient was Greek Yoghurt - which I thought could be substituted with hung curd. So, I tied up some home made yoghurt to hang in the fridge and then left at 10am to return only at 3pm.

I then raced around roasting the cloves and then grinding them, combining the eggs with the yoghurt, honey and zesting the oranges and lemon, while Tara (my girl Friday) tried to get some semblance of segments from the tangerines without mangling them. Managed to get everything together and into the oven by 3 30pm and 5 minutes later Anita and her husband were at the door! So, the cake baked itself while we chatted and caught up on who we were and what we did and all the things that connect us in this small world.


And as the filter coffee perked, hubby joined us too after his brief siesta while my daughter came back from our neighbour's place and we talked some more.Finally, time to check the cake (I had set it for 45 minutes but it was done in 35) and it looked gorgeous - lovely brown crust with the oranges peeping out.  It smelt delicious too - the cloves and the orange filling up the house with their aroma.

By then the dance of the cameras had begun, with my daughter pitching in for good measure, insisting that she wanted to take a pic too - talk about seizing the moment! The husbands waited patiently ("long suffering" were the words used I think) while we took our pics. And then we sat back and did what we do best - eat! 

I had made some khari biscuits too - with my latest discovery of readymade puff pastry from a local gourmet chain. I really, really miss my khari biscuits and the puff pastry makes it as easy as one- two- three! Roll it out, cut and bake. But more on that later.
The cake was moist and had that lovely citrusy flavour - a little sweeter than the recipe said it would be, but not as sweet as a dessert cake. Went well with the coffee - despite what one might think about a citrus cake.

Orange and Clove Tea Cake (adapted from here)

Ingredients:
1-2 oranges cut into peeled sections - I used one large kinoo (mandarin) orange.

1 cup whole wheat flour (atta)
1 cup refined flour (maida)
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp clove powder (1 tsp cloves, roasted for 3-4 minutes and then ground) (the original recipe calls for 1.5 tsp but I didn't want to experiment with that much; this quantity gave a gentle bite to the cake without overwhelming it)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder

1/4 cup castor sugar
1 1/2 tbsp orange zest
1 tbsp lemon zest
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp orange extract

1 cup hung curd (hang about 2.5 cups of homemade yoghurt or 2 cups of  store bought yoghurt for atleast one hour)

6 tbsp honey ( I would reduce this to 5)
3 eggs at room temperature
1/3 cup pure olive oil

1. Grease and flour an 8" cake tin. Pre heat the oven to 350C
2. Combine the dry ingredient - sieving the whole wheat flour before adding to the refined flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, clove powder and salt.
3. In a large bowl, mix the castor sugar with the lemon and orange zest with fingers. Add the eggs and honey and essence and beat till well combined,.
4. Add the olive oil and the hung curd and beat again till you get a smooth, thick batter. 
5. Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin and arrange the orange segments on top so that they are half in and half out of the batter.
6. Bake for 35 minutes or till a skewer comes out clean.