Sauce Rouge

Yes its the same picture! But its a different recipe, so keep reading! I realized that at every party I go to, when it comes to finger food, the dips are always so repetetive. As dips go, this one is SO not run of the mill! No wonder it is by far my favorite!!! Its fattening, yes, but so are most dips! (well, the ones I like anyway!) Its simple to make, and the flavors are SO good, you'll keep making this ALL the time!

Here's what we need: 

125 ml (4.5 oz) Heavy cream (what would life be sans heavy cream? really),

 1 (or many) cloves of garlic, 

salt, 

pepper,

 20 ml (0.75 oz)olive oil and 300 gm (10.5 oz)red/yellow/orange peppers.

 (whatever you have-red peppers will result in a sauce rouge obviously) I have some red and yellow peppers here that I'd cleaned, chopped and frozen last week (thank god for freezers!)

Heat oil in a pan.

Add the chopped peppers in. Let them sweat for a few minutes.

Now for the garlic (i LOVE the stuff, can you tell?:) ) Peel and chop roughly.

Bung in the garlic, count to 5 and take a good sniff! You might want a chair at this point-in case your knees buckle, I always hope that there will be a place in heaven that smells like this :) Allow it to cook for about 3-4 minutes.

Add about 3 tablespoons of water.

Cover with a parchment paper lid. Make sure the flame/heat is medium low.

No peeking!

Now as that cooks, take out another pan and pour in the heavy cream

Let it reduce to half the original quantity.

In about 20 minutes, the peppers should be soft. Put the mixture in a blender. Add salt and pepper.

I was REALLY in a hurry, so I took a shortcut. I added the cream in and just gave everything a whiz until I had a smooth creamy mixture. But the REAL way to do it would be to puree the peppers, then put them back in the sauce pan, allow the mixture to reduce and then add the reduced heavy cream little by little until you're happy)

But being the disorganized person I am, I had 20 people waiting for lunch and NO time. 

Blend away! And we're done!!!

I served this with the crumb fried mushrooms, but this tastes great with just about anything!

Classic Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies!!!

Its 1.35 a.m and I'm eating cookies warm from the oven. The best cookies EVER!

I get the feeling almost no one's reading my blog, but I just HAD to share this recipe with the world.

Its not mine, but here's the link!

Classic Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies

Spicy Crumb Fried Mushrooms

This is one of my favorite appetizers. Because it needs so little time and effort. Plus it uses really basic ingredients that most of us have in the kitchen all the time!

I made this for thanksgiving and everyone LOVED it. So I've decided that I want to share this recipe with you guys!

You will need: Button mushrooms, ginger, garlic, bread crumbs, vegetable oil, finger chillies,one egg and salt.

Wash and dice 1/2 lb. button mushrooms into bite size pieces.

Make a paste with 6 cloves of garlic, 2 inch piece of ginger and 2 finger chillies, by pureeing in a blender. (I usually add way more chillies, but then again, I LOVE the extra kick)

Add the paste to the mushrooms.

Keep mixing until all the mushrooms are well covered in all the spicy goodness :)

Beat an egg. and get out the bread crumbs! (I've used this lovely flaky version that i got at an Asian market) At this point of time, you can  pour out 1 cup of oil in a wok and start heating it.

Dip each piece of mushroom in the egg.

Give it a quick roll in the bread crumbs until each piece is evenly coated.

When the oil starts smoking, its time to begin frying the mushrooms. 

Leave them in until they are golden brown, turning them over occasionally to ensure that they fry evenly on all sides. Drain excess oil on a paper towel.

Serve hot. If you haven't eaten it all up as you cooked that is :)

This is delicious if served with a sauce rouge made with bell peppers and cream. I'll post the recipe for that soon!

RASMALAI

This is my first "real" post. With photos and all (poor quality, but I had to work with bad lighting and an ok camera) so I'm really excited!!!

Anyway, I decided to do this because I made rasmalai (absolutely my favorite Indian dessert of all time!) for my chef instructor-Justin who's leaving for France tomorrow. Some of my classmates tried and loved it! So this is for you Catie! :)

I'm cheating a bit and buying rasgullas in a can. they're balls of Indian cottage cheese (no, not paneer, this is called chenna) steeped in sugar syrup. Any Indian store will have them...

So lets begin-

You will need:pistachios, almonds, saffron, one tin of rasgullas, sugar and whole milk. Thats it!

Measure out 1 and a half cups of whole milk. I'm making enough for 5 servings, so this should be perfect!

To this, add 1 and a half tablespoons of sugar.

And then... the saffron!!! I love saffron. I know it costs the earth in this country, but back home in India, its not expensive at all! Well, not this expensive anyway!

Throw a pinch into the milk. No more. Because the saffron, apart from giving the rasmalai an unbelievably yummy flavor, also gives it this lovely pale buttercuppy yellow color. The last thing you want is to add too much and end up with a jaundiced dessert... :)

Isn't that pretty? Trust me, though the photo sucks, when you make this, the saffron will look like delicate little flowers in the milk (which is what it is, really)

Now get a pan out and take 1 tablespoon of unsalted almonds (I've used almond flakes, but you can use slivered or chopped almonds instead)

Take a tablespoon of pistachios (unsalted). Its a wonder I even have these around. Pistachios are so addictive. They never last longer than a week in my kitchen, even those HUGE bags!

Give them a rough chop...

Add the pistachios to the almonds in the pan. Toast them at medium flame until they're lightly brown and you can smell that delicious nutty aroma!

Now add the toasted nuts to the milk.

Its all starting to come together! Now turn on the flame and we're almost done!

Bring the milk to a boil and then let it simmer for a good 15 minutes.

Don't forget to keep stirring every once in a few minutes, or you'll have an annoying, icky skin forming on the milk all the time. You'll also notice that the milk is slowly turning color to become this bee-yoo-ti-full yellow.

Now for the star of the show, the rasgulla!

Can you see them? I know, I know, terrible picture, but they're yummy even though they don't seem to look it! I promise!

Take out 5 rasgullas (like I said, this recipe is for 5 portions, you can make as many as you want, just be sure to make more of the sweetened flavored milk!)

Now squeeze all the sugar syrup out of the rasgullas. Yes, you could be very neat and use a spoon, but I strongly recommend using your hands. Because you need to get out as much of the syrup as you can! Why, you might ask. You'll see :)

There, your milk should by now look like this :) 

Arrange the rasgullas on a serving dish.

Pour the milk mixture on the rasgullas. (Now do you understand? Squeezing the rasgullas ensures that they soak up and absord all that fabulously nutty, sweet milk that you've made!)

Keep pouring!!! The more milk the better!

Spoon the milk and nut mixture over each rasgulla, so that they're completely coated in the sweet, nutty, saffron goodness!

There! You're done! Now stick this in the fridge for 2 hours and serve! I would suggest one rasgulla per person with as much of the milk as you want, but honestly, I've never been able to stop at just one! Let me know if you can!

oh, and I promise you, you'll love it.