Garlic and sapphires, and Reichl’s chocolate cake

                                               
If you have ever wondered how you will be treated in a snooty, fancy restaurant, Ruth Reichl will tell you in Garlic and Sapphires. It is Reichl’s candid memoire of her stint as a restaurant critic for New York Times, which turns out is one of the most powerful positions a newspaper critic in New York could have.

Besides transitioning from the laidback LA Times to the more staid and rigidly structured NY Times, Reichl has to go through the pains of getting used to the wrath of readers faithful to her predecessor not to mention donning disguises to review restaurants incognito (apparently, every restaurant in NY has her photo tacked in the kitchen).

The disguises turn out to be the most fun part of her job till she finds herself competing with one of her assumed identities, an elegant blond named Chloe, with whom everyone including her husband and son seem taken with. She even gets hit on by a middle aged rich guy and agrees to a date with him at a restaurant she has to review.

Reichl narrates her adventures with a sense of humor and total honesty that makes you want to befriend her. She is generous in her praise and brutally honest with her criticism. Like the time she gets treated differently at a high end restaurant when she dines dressed as a middle class housewife (longer wait, bad table and horrible service) and later as the critic of NYTimes (the King of Spain waits in the bar but her table is ready even when she shows up early!).

However, all good things must end as they do for Reichl when she realizes she no longer likes the person she is disguised as, a bitter, sarcastic *itch. With the realization comes the offer to edit Gourmet, where she has continued to break culinary ground with the same enthusiasm for good food that etched her name as one of the finest food critics of NYTimes. Check out her new PBS series, Gourmet Adventures with Ruth that she sums it up in these words: There’s no better way to experience a culture than to stand at the stove with a wonderful cook.

Homemade double chocolate ice cream and pantry check

                   
When Nupur of One Hot Stove asks you to check what is lurking in your pantry, you don’t dally. You head straight for the pantry, throw open the door and stare at the mess that greets you. The pantry along with the rest of the house had been neglected for the last three months due to someone’s studies. There were packets of lentils, flour, some sprouting onions, a funky smell from some potatoes that got left at the bottom of the basket.

Ladies and gentlemen, don’t judge me. I am not always like this and I usually clean my pantry every couple of months. I was running a month behind, no big deal. Besides, the first step to solving a problem is acknowledging it, no less on a public blog.

Keep in mind all my kitchen essentials, except my masala dabba, are stored in the twenty square foot space which my dad calls a small kirana store (corner grocery store). Ok, my plates and bowls and glasses and kitchen utensils are also not in there.

Coming back to the sprouting onions and rotting potatoes, which promptly went on a date with the waste basket, the pantry was not as much a mess as it looked at first glance. The big cereal box from Costco was put on the top shelf, dwindling grains and lentils were transferred to cleaned, washed and saved up jam and salsa jars. The larger packets got their due space in bigger containers and canned goods were arranged with smaller ones on top of the larger ones.

Before you think I try to arrange my pantry like Ms. Martha Stewart, let me clarify. I grew up in a house where my mom cooked in a tiny kitchen. The first apartment I lived in after marriage had a galley kitchen so small I could touch the sink and stove with my arms extended. Six years later, when we bought our house, I was excited to have a pantry big enough to keep everything within easy reach.

Mexican Wedding Cookies for Global Kadai

Does running around for an hour with your four year old count towards a workout? I hope so because it is fun and tiring and a great way to keep a toddler occupied when the 'No TV' policy is still on. It also gave me a chance to burn off the Mexican Wedding Cookies I have been eating since the day they came out fresh from the oven.
The cookies were made for Global Kadai, a wonderful monthly event, started by Cilantro to Indianize international cuisines, one recipe at a time. This month's recipe is by Karen Ginnes and below is my Indianized version of the same.

I added nutmeg and ground ginger for flavor. I wanted to add finely ground almonds but ended up with some chunks in it and they gave a nutty texture to the cookies which tasted like a slightly spicy, less buttery, chocolaty version of the Indian nankhatai. Making the dough was simplicity itself and the cookies took about 10 minutes to bake to perfection.

(Makes about 3 dozen cookies)
Ingredients:
1 cup butter, room temperature
1/2 cup fine sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 + 3/4 cups APF
1 cup almonds, (1/2cup ground fine and the other half coarse)
1/2 cup chocolate chips, chopped coarse
1/2 cup sweetened flake coconut (optional)
pinch of salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp dry ginger powder (optional)
1/2 tsp instant coffee powder (optional)
1/2 cup confectioner's sugar, for dusting

Method:
Cream the butter and sugar together till light and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract and beat some more.
In a separate bowl, combine all the dry ingredients thoroughly.
Gradually add to the whipped butter till well incorporated.
Wrap tightly in the shape of a log in a plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour.
Preheat the oven to 325 degree F (180 degree C).
Cut one inch discs out of the log and roll into balls.
Place an inch apart on a parchment lined cookie sheet and bake for 8 - 10 minutes till the cookies are firm to touch.
Transfer to a wire rack to cool and after a minute dust the confectioner's sugar on top with the help of a small strainer.

Note: The coarsely ground almonds and chocolate chips give a bite to the cookies. You can ground the almonds fine or substitute with walnuts or pecans.

I liked the flavor of nutmeg but ground cardamom or cinnamon powder can be substituted.

These cookies are being shipped to Mahima's Indian Vegetarian Kitchen and to Sara's Corner.

Doughnut muffins with chocolate and strawberry jam

I would like to give a big thank you to all my readers for their birthday wishes and sympathizing with my lunch fiasco. This month’s Sweet and Simple Bake’s jammy doughnut muffins are for all of you.
Being a chocoholic I had to try adding some chocolate chips to half of them. The result, I was sorry to find out, was not as nice as the one with the jam filling.
The strawberry jam was made a while ago by chopping and cooking some on the verge of going bad strawberries with 1/2 cup of sugar and some lemon juice.

Quick Strawberry Jam
Ingredients:
2 cups chopped strawberries
1/2 cup sugar
Juice of half a lemon
Method:
In a heavy bottom pan cook the strawberries, sugar and lemon juice till thick. Cool and store in a clean glass jar.

Now for the jammy doughnut recipe all my Sweet and Simple bake friends will be posting all over the world.

Ingredients:
2 cup all purpose flour
1/2cup + 2 tbsp superfine sugar
3 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
7 oz milk
4 oz butter
1 tsp vanilla
Jam and semisweet chocolate chips

Method:
In a microwave safe mixing bowl melt the butter and let cool. Meanwhile crack the eggs, measure the milk and sift and combine the dry ingredients (flour, sugar and baking powder).
When the butter is cooled add the milk, eggs and vanilla to it. Whisk to combine before adding the dry ingredients. Combine to incorporate but do not over mix. It is ok to have a lumpy batter. Preheat oven to 375c and line a muffin tin with cupcake liners.

Method:
Fill with the batter half way and add a tsp of jam or chocolate chips. Top with the rest of the batter and bake for 15 -20 minutes till a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Finishing touches:

To decorate, I just brushed the muffins with a cold stick of butter and rolled them in white sugar and red sprinkle sugar. The original recipe calls for melting 4 oz of butter and dipping the muffins in it before rolling on the sugar.

The muffins were delicious and were presented to the new neighbors across the street as a welcome to the neighborhood gesture.

Thank you Maria and Rosie for another Sweet and Simple bake recipe.

Not so good cookies

There are a very few pre packaged cookies that I like and I am not a fan of store bought pre packaged cookie mixes and dough. I find them too sugary and synthetic to taste. Besides, it takes maybe 10 minutes more to prepare cookie dough from scratch as compared to opening a packet of pre mix.
Today, however, I broke my rule and decided to make cookies from a Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge cake mix. It had a recipe for making cookies by adding 2 eggs, 1 stick of butter and ¼ cup of brown sugar to the cake mix. I was skeptical of the recipe but followed the instructions and put the cookies in the oven.
Now because the main ingredients were that of a cake, my guess is there was too much baking powder and baking soda in it. It made the cookies expand a lot more than normal cookies. As a result my first batch of cookies was almost as big as a dessert plate. Also, the time specified on the box was way too much (14 – 16 minutes) for the cookies. If my oven light was not on I would have most certainly burnt them. It took about 8-10 minutes for the cookies to be done.
That can be a good thing when you have an impatient toddler hanging around the kitchen asking every two minutes, “Are they done yet?” They did look good too, all brown and chocolaty. Also, there wasn’t a lot of cleanup to do afterwards, just the mixing bowl and spoon.
So, what is the flip side? Well, for one the taste. As I said before, they were far too sweet and didn’t taste as good as the ones made at home. There was no texture to it and the chocolate flavor wasn’t intense even though I used the dark Chocolate Fudge flavor and added good quality chocolate chips for extra measure.
I will stick to my tried and tested kitchen sink cookies recipe.