Greek festive cake

While growing up, Christmas was the most muted of festivals. I remember it as the time when we got this sudden windfall of a week's holiday in winter before the grind for the final school exams began. We put it to good use. A Lego manger or a building with a spire denoting a church was set-up, paper wings were stuck on the Lego women (and men) and we ostentatiously helped with the cake. Even 25 years back, the cake had been institutionalised as the sign of Christmas. Local shops had a dozen plastic wrapped "plum" cakes set out and those of us who had bake-savvy Mothers, had one baked at home. We had the enviable job of chopping the dry fruits. More of the fruits went into our mouths than into the cake, but it was a very fruity version nonetheless. My mother used to bake hers in a pressure cooker. A triumph of her skills, which I have never been able to replicate without her supervision. This year, my husband (clever man!) made a trip to Berlin during Advent. The German Christmas markets being in full swing, he obliged me by getting a real Dresdner Stollen. A kilo of it. I am so thrilled. Christmas fell on a Sunday this year. And with a 6 day working week for me, it passed me by very silently. Making a cake though still remained as the most celebratory moment of Christmas. I baked a Choreki, the Greek festive sweet bread made as a braid. The recipe was from the estimable New Complete Book of Breads, with a surfeit of dried fruits thrown in. When it comes out of the oven, the smell of fennel seeds declare all the good things Christmas is expected to bring. It is glossy brown, when it comes out of the oven.

Ingredients
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon yeast
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon roasted, ground fennel
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 Tablespoons each chopped almonds and white sesame seeds
1 Tablespoon raisins
White icing sugar to sprinkle
Oil fo greasing

Methods

Soak the raisins in water. In one-forth cup of milk, mix the salt and teaspoon of sugar. Add the yeast and let it rise in a covered place. Beat the 2 eggs in another bowl. Heat the rest of the milk, the sugar, butter and add the fennel. Heat for a few minutes and set aside to cool. Mix all the mix ingredients together, except for half of the beaten eggs. Add this to the flour, and start kneading. It will take about 10 minutes. Add a sprinkle of flour only if it remains sticky after thorough kneading. Cover and let it rise for an hour.
Add the raisins into the dough and knead. Divide the dough into three balls and roll it into ropes. Make a braid out of the three ropes and drop it into a greased loaf pan. Let it rise for another hour or until doubled. After this, brush the top with the rest of the egg and sprinkle the nuts and seeds on it. Bake for 40 minutes in a pre-heated oven at 180 Celsius. Check for done-ness. Sprinkle with icing sugar before serving.
For a cake it fails the requisite sweetness that my husband insists on :). So for those with a sweet tooth, add another 1/2 cup sugar.

Plantain yoghurt dessert

On our trip to Kerala a few years back, we had ripe plantains in desserts, practically everyday. Plantains in their ripe form can be served very simply with just a drizzle of palm or date syrup. I wanted to make a frozen dessert with ripe plantain and came up with this. Yoghurt gives it substance. Cardamom gives it allure. The ghee adds an element of richness.

Ingredients
2 ripe plantains
300 gms rich yoghurt, strained
1/3 teaspoon cardamom, ground
2 Tablespoon ghee
3 Tablespoon molasses

Method

Strain the curd to remove as much possible. Chop the plantain. Heat the ghee in a pan. Add the plantain and molasses and cook it for 3 minutes, so as to soften the plantain and mix the molasses. Add the cardamom and mix it in again. With a blender puree the plantain and yoghurt. Pour into shot glasses and freeze. Slip the frozen cones out by dipping the glasses in hot water.

With white wine roux

Though the white roux is the basis of many French dishes, I have avoided making it at home, because it reminds me of so many bad "Continental" fare smothered in white sauce, served here in India. Recently however I have revisited the many versions of white roux based sauces after reading Elizabeth David's "French Country Cooking. It had been on my cookery book list for a very long time. While most dishes in the book expect one to have bacon around, the Fish section is full of great ideas that can be incorporated on produce here. We had been provided by beautifully cut bhetki fillet by my parents. Normally, I use them to make the Fish Fry so beloved of Bengalee celebrations. I have been using them however this to try out a few ideas from the book because so many of the recipes ask for white fish fillet.

Ingredients
6 pieces bhetki fillets
1/3 cup white wine (I used Madera)
1/2 cup double cream
1 Tablespoon flour
1/2 teaspoon tarragon
2 teaspoon butter



Method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius. Lay the fillets in a flat shallow dish greased with 1 teaspoon of the butter. Salt them. Sprinkle half teaspoon of tarragon. Pour 3/4 cup white wine and put into the oven. Bake over just about 10 minutes. Keep it in the oven. While the fish is being cooked, add 1 teaspoon of butter to another pan. Melt it and add the flour and mix it thoroughly in. Continue to stir and cook for 3 minutes. Strain the wine from the fish. Arrange the fillet on a plate and keep warm. Add the strained wine little by little and mix it into the butter-flour roux at very low heat. It must be without lumps. Continue stirring until the sauce thickens, about 3 minutes. Add the cream and stir it in. A smooth sauce should be the result. Switch off the stove. Pour the sauce over the fish fillet.

The book has also inspired Sitabhra who actually fished that book out of a pile of discounted ones to new heights :). Below is another Elizabeth David inspired recipe of beef in brown sauce made by him, again using white roux !

Ingredients
250 gms beef, cubed
2 small onion, sliced
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 bayleaf
3 teaspoon salt
5-8 fresh basil leaf, torn
1 cup white wine
1 teaspoon flour
3 Tablespoon butter
1-2 teaspoon honey


Method

Bring the wine, bayleaf, pepper, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 onion to a boil. Let it cool down completely. Add the beef cubes to the marinade and let sit at room temperature for an hour or in the refrigerator overnight. Fry in a teaspoon of butter the onions until they start browning, about 4 minutes. Drain the beef cubes and strain the liquid into a cup. Add the beef cubes and brown them in the butter. This should be done at meadium heat to seal the meat but not burn the onions. Add half of the drained marinade and top it with another 1/2 cup water. Add a teaspoon of salt and pressure cook for 15 minutes. Cool pressure cooker. Once the beef is cooked retrieve it and set aside. In another pan, melt the butter. Stir in the flour and cook for 3 minutes. Add the rest of the wine marinade slowly while stirring continuously. Add the gravy from the cooked meat. Add the honey and mix it in. Cook for 5-10 minutes until the sauce thickens. and becomes glossy. Pour sauce over beef cubes. We had it with potato mash flecked with scallions. It should go well with rice or bread too.

Eggplant sauted in mint and vinegar

When I first started pottering with recipes and read about brinjals or aubergines referred to as eggplants, I was puzzled. In northern India where I grew up, brinjals though slightly rounded at one end, are hardly egg-sized. Or maybe they can be compared to roc eggs! They are large, shiny, and darkly purple or in winter glossy white. In southern India however, the local varieties, be they pale green or variations in purple are much smaller, even pea-sized. Brinjals, particularly, fried or sauted is everyday food. We used to get through stacks of bread slices or rotis with a few slices of deep fried, salted brinjals, as children. All they needed was a dusting with salt and turmeric before deep frying. Needless to say, sauted brinjals figure largely in my kitchen even now. I have featured pickled brinjal before. This recipe has distinct Mediterranean overtones. Its worth the extra effort since it can be stored rather well for a week or two. Great mixed with pasta, sandwiched between bread or rolled into rotis.

Ingredients
12 small brinjals, diced into 1/2 inch cubes and salted
1 and half Tablespoon red wine vineagr
1/2 teaspoon anchovy paste
10 mint leaves, minced
A few drops of honey
1/3 cup vegetable oil
Salt to taste


Method

Salt diced brinjals. Heat the oil in a kadai. Drain the diced brinjals of any liquid and fry them. Cover for a couple of minutes and cook for 3 more minutes uncovered. In the meantime, make the dressing with the vinegar, anchovy paste, honey and mint. Taste and add honey and salt if necessary. Anchovy paste itself is very salty, so go light on the salt. Drain the fried brinjals. Mix them with the dressing. Cool and store in glass jar.

Mushroom tomato sauce

Shortly after I moved to Germany for my Ph.D, I was visited by two close friends , Faaizah and Nadeem working in England. My artless comments about Heidelberg must have convinced them that whatever modcons of civilisation the charming town contained, it must lack the wherewithal to supply me with Indian spices. So my Christmas hamper (and it was a wonderful one, I can remember most items it contained even now) had half a dozen bottles of Indian spices, "packaged and marketed" by Sainsbury's. Among them was nutmeg. Nutmeg is not commonly added to daily fare in India, and it was certainly my first rendezvous with the spice. While many Indian spices can be put in spoonfuls, nutmeg MUST be used only in pinches . With the result that not only did my bottle of nutmeg last me my sojourn in Germany (four and a half years), but I carried that bottle with a couple of intact nutmegs back when I moved back to India! That bottle still serves me well, though stocked with nutmeg from Coorg or Kerala nowadays. Nutmeg comes wrapped in layers. Indeed it took me a minute to realise the first time I purchased nutmeg in India, that several layers would need to be removed before I saw something familiar to the original contents of the Sainsbury bottle. The following sauce uses nutmeg and can be used equally well with pasta, rice or bread. The bread that I ate with it was made by my neighbours, Amritansu and Anita. They have bought a bread machine. And using it to its fullest potential. The bread was handed over to me the moment I unlocked my door. They had timed it beautifully. May they continue their good work :). I have presently a wonderful cheese table at hand. My husband Sitabhra did a splendid job of stocking from Germany on his recent trip. I couldn't resist sprinkling some of the Schnittkase he lugged back to India. But really, the sauce is great even without such ornamentation.

Ingredients
2 large tomatoes, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
10 button mushrooms, sliced
2 cups Bak choy, coarsely chopped (spinach can be used as substitute)
1 Tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
2 basil leaves
1 Tablespoon grated cheese

Method

Wash and chop the vegetables. In a dry pan cook the sliced mushrooms for about 5 minutes, until they shrink and brown a little. Keep moving them so that they don't stick. Remove from the pan and add oil. Lightly brown the garlic and add the tomatoes. Add salt and sugar and cook uncovered for 7-10 minutes. Add the Bak choy (or its substitute). Stir to coat it with the tomato sauce and let it reduce. This should not take more than 3-5 minutes. Adjust the salt to taste. Add ground pepper, nutmeg and basil leaves cut into chiffonade. Stir everything well, cook for another 2 minutes. Sprinkle with the cheese and serve warm.

Sweet potato soup

I have been on a rampage to try out new soup recipes. This one was concocted while reading through the The Africa Cookbook. by Jessica Harris. I picked it because unlike so many other cookbooks on Africa, this really does cover the whole continent, not just the northern coast and South Africa. Also it does not consider Egyptian food as a limb of Arabic food. The book was picked up on my trip to Berkeley last year. I got a whole lot of cookbooks along with this from a splendid called Moe's. I wish I could have bought more books; but bearing in mind the narrow ledge of top-heavy luggages versus what a fellow must bring back after a five month sojourn, I desisted. This recipe is evocative of extensive use of sweet potatoes in African cuisine and is simplicity itself. It also uses a widely used Egyptian spice mix, the dukkah. I made a jar of it, and much like the sakura denbu-like fluffed fish from Taiwan, I have been sprinkling it on everything!

Ingredients
For Dukkah (Adapted from The Africa Cookbook)
1 cup almonds, toasted (any other nut would do)
1/2 cup coriander seeds
6 Tablespoons sesame seeds
4 Tablespoons cumin seeds
2 Tablespoon black peppercorns
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon fresh mint leaves, roasted

For soup
300 gms sweet potato, peeled and sliced
50-70 gms mooli/white radish, peeled and sliced
6 spring onions, white part only, sliced
1 clove garlic
3 cups vegetable broth
Salt to taste
2 teaspoon olive oil
1 Tablespoon dukkah

Method

For the dukkah, roast all ingredients except the mint. Let cool and then grind to a coarse powder. It must remain as granules. Transfer to a glass jar. Roast the mint leaves in a oven overnight, beforehand (dried will do too). Sprinkle a little on top and seal it. Just transfer a few tablespoons out when you want to use it.
Heat olive oil in a vessel. Saute the spring onions and whole garlic for two minutes. Slice half radish and saute it. Put the chopped sweet potato and stir for another 5 minutes. Add the broth and salt and cook covered for 10 minutes. Uncover, cool and puree to a smooth, runny soup. Taste and season. Transfer to individual bowls and sprinkle dukkah over it just before serving.

Roasted Tomato soup

This is a lazy person's tomato soup. A handful of ingredients. An oven for roasting the vegetables. A blender to puree it into a smooth concoction. The ingredient which added a new dimension is a few spoonfuls of what I believe is sakura denbu. In Taiwan from where it was bought, they called it "Yo som". We bought it from a sea food market. The market was divided into three sections. Fresh seafood to be made on the spot according to customer's instructions. You practically ate off the lurid, red plastic covered table covers. The other section had fresh sea creatures to be taken home. The third part had all sorts of processed items from the harvest of the sea. Fish sticks, fish pastes, dried prawns, fish and all sorts of seaweeds. The fluffed fish or sakura denbu as I will refer to it as, came in two flavours. We took the one which was the milder. I have been adding it to roasted or boiled vegetables and making a complete meal of my lunches. It can be stirred into any soup. Adds a mild fishy note, a lot of umami and animal protein to boot!

Ingredients
6 large tomatoes, halved
1/2 mooli/white radish, peeled
4 large cloves garlic
2 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoon sakura denbu
2 Tablespoon vegetable oil
3 cups vegetable broth

Method
Switch on oven to 180 degrees celsius. Oil a roasting tin or baking sheet. Arrange the halved tomatoes. Slice the mooli and arrange it in between. Strew them with salt and pop them into the oven. Wrap the garlic in a foil and put into the oven along with the rest of the vegetables. Bake for 20 minutes. Tip the vegetables into a large vessel. Squeeze the garlic into the vessel. Add the stock and cook for about 5-7 minutes at low heat. Add salt to taste and cook for another 3-5 minutes. Switch off the burner and let cool. Puree it until smooth. Note that addition of the sakura denbu will add a saltier note. Season according to taste. Just before serving add the sakura denbu. Stir it in Have it warm.