Our Weekend Zuchini Tryst

Denna, Helly and i spent a Saturday together cooking a home style zuchini pasta and zuchini fritters simply because that summery, juicy vegetable hit our lil market and it was time to celebrate! Although the variety we get in Darj are way bigger than their western cousins and needs to be cooked a tad longer than the smaller ones, the girls still couldn't contain their excitement to find the blessed squash on the vegetable stands here since it's like a staple food for them back where they come from.

at Helly's virtual farm

 listening to jazz on the ipod!

also drinking tea, eating momos while the food sat on the stove and mainly gossiping and laughing about nothing really!

Denna's association with good food and great cooking goes way back to her childhood that she spent mostly with her grandparents who watched her while her parents worked in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania in the States. Her half Italian and half Polish grandmother who was a superb cook  encouraged her to help in the kitchen from the tiny age of three. Peeling potatoes, setting the table, pouring water were some of her chores in the kitchen. 
They would sometimes pretend to be caterers on a ship and would wait for her grandfather who owned an Italian restaurant in the city to come home to dinner every night to what the two of them had cooked.

Both her grandparents being old school Italians, they loved to cook and eat big meals with family members and also never missed eating dinner together. She says her earliest memories of her grandparents' house is her grandfather coming home from work and peeking into the kitchen in his undershirt and asking, 'what's for dinner?'

Her mom is a great cook too and their family always make it a point to eat together at home. Mike, her husband, is good around food too and i plan to cover some of his recipes soon as well :)

She and Mike have co-founded Broadleaf, a non profit outfit focused on providing under served areas in the Eastern Himalayas with innovative solutions for health and education. Needless to say, they are doing an amazing job.

___________________________________________________ 


Denna's Homestyled Zuchini Pasta

Ingredients

zuchini

lemons

pasmesan cheese (store bought in this case)

black pepper

bread crumbs

basil ( dry in this case)

extra virgin olive oil

garlic

balsamic vinegar

tomatoes

Crush the garlic, chop the tomatoes and zuchini into fairly large pieces. The local  Darj zuchini is bigger than the ones you get in the cities so cook it longer than you would do the other ones.

Pour olive into a pot and add the garlic.

Add the zuchini

Squeeze out the lemon juice in a bowl and grate some lemon zest as well

Add the basil, salt, pepper, lemon juice to the zuchini.

Add the balsamic vinegar and tomatoes(just for color)

Cook half-covered on medium heat until it looks like this

Add the pasta which has been previously boiled until al dente and kept aside

Add the bread crumbs and parmesan snow - the bread crumbs might sound like an odd combination but it actually binds the dish together to all its other ingredients.

Serve it in a bowl, family style with a bottle of red, not exactly pinot noir but it'll do.

And savor the deliciousness . Note how the cheese, pepper and other ingredients stick to the spaghetti because of the breadcrumbs in the recipe.

Guest Speak

'I love food because I associate it with family and the fondest memories of my life.'

Helly's Zucchini Fritters - Get the Recipe here.

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Helly's Zuchini Fritters

Helly made the Zuchini Fritters which used to be a big hit in her cafe in Wellington which she owned before moving to Darj three years back. She is now Darj's very own Cake Lady and one of my closest friends.

these are her self-made fridge magnets and they are all spice filled little steel containers. a perfect accessory for a chef! creative innit?

Ingredients

2 cups of grated raw zuchini

1 onion diced finely

5 cloves of garlic diced

salt and pepper

3 eggs

half a cup of plain natural yogurt

3 quarters a cup of flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

optional - chopped chilli,chopped bell peppers, feta cheese, crushed walnuts or pine nuts

Serve with a simple salad of cucumber, tomatoes and fresh herbs in olive oil, pepper and lemon dressing.

Grate the zuchini and squeeze out the excess water.

add all the ingredients except for the flour and baking powder

then add the flour and baking powder. don't over mix.

heat olive oil in a shallow pan and scoop the mixture out in small proportions with a spoon

cook on medium heat until bubbles start forming on one side and then flip them over.

they should look like this - crispy on the outside and soft and creamy on the inside.

keep them warm until serving time

We enjoyed it served hot right out of the pan with the refreshing side salad and natural homemade yogurt whip. 

The final touch was Mike, Denna's better half who joined us for the all important taste review.

Guest Speak

' Everything always tastes better when cooking with friends.'

xxx

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Local Matters

...a lot. I always push myself and my friends to buy local as much as possible - if not for a sustainable economy then also for that much-needed Food Mile reduction which in turn benefits the environment since you leave out the arduous picking, packaging and transportation process from miles away. You're also buying the produce at its peak form with all the nutrients and vitamins still packed in, when you buy locally grown.

What is Local Produce?

Simply put, local produce is any food that has been grown, raised, cooked, baked or produced within your locality. However to be considered as such, it is also expected that such produce will also have been raised, grown or produced under sympathetic conditions. Animals should be free to roam and fed on healthy, natural foodstuffs. Vegetables and fruit should be grown as naturally as possible without any unnecessary artificial chemicals, colourings, additives or other suspect ingredients. Local produce may be anything ranging from potatoes and other vegetables, through fruits, locally raised lamb, beef or pork, either as joints or as sausages etc., fish, bread, local wines, ales, ciders and perrys. Any food item that is produced locally and sympathetically in line with generally accepted good practices.

Produce from our local veggie market here in Darj. I brought them home and haven't stopped smiling ever since.

 Luscious juicy mangoes

Citric Gold

It's difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating tomatoes like these.

So Why Buy Local Produce?

By buying local produce you benefit many people in your locality.

The local producers or farmers are often struggling to compete with major supermarket chains who dictate unrealistic prices. By buying locally it benefits these producers directly and encourages them to reinvest and produce more produce.

The local community benefits, as buying locally is directly supporting local businesses, leading to employment, and ensures that the money is kept within that local community and not contributing to the ever increasing profits of mega supermarkets.

By buying from your local producer, you will build-up a relationship with that producer. This will lead to a greater understanding of the processes involved and may also lead to you being offered specially grown or raised products. At Orchard Old Spots, they produced some 'special order' sausages just for one client who was keen to try something special.

Finally, the purchaser or consumer benefits as they are buying fresh, healthy produce that has not been picked raw, packaged in plastic and then flown thousands of miles before sitting on a supermarket shelf. If you have never tasted locally produced food, then why not do what David did when he challenged the presenter and guests at BBC Somerset to tell the difference between supermarket sausages and sausages he had bought from Orchard Old Spots, a local producer just 5 minutes away. Despite some confident approaches, everyone selected the local sausages.

'Everyone is talking about 'Food Miles' which is the the distance the produce had had to travel from production to sale. In a recent article David wrote for a women's magazine, he showed how a small shop of everyday items could have travelled over 70,000 food miles. If we are interested in reducing the food miles our food has travelled, then by selecting local produce we can make a major contribution to reducing Food Miles.

95% of our food is over packaged using non-environmentally friendly plastic packaging materials. Visit your local producer and simply compare the packaging they use. Whilst some foodstuffs need to be sealed and kept vacuum-packed, a large quantity is available to be selected by hand and then simply placed in a paper bag. What could be more environmentally friendly?

Perhaps most importantly is that by buying local produce, you are selecting to choose Local, Traceable, Eco-friendly and Natural food which is better for you, your family and the environment.

Via Farms Direct

when life gives you lemons!

“Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you're a thousand miles from the corn field.”

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

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A Lunch Lesson 

I was invited to a household in Darj to participate in a feast they were preparing to celebrate the 85th birthday of their patriarch last weekend. I find myself anticipating every weekend with quiet self-contained excitement only because my food quest comes to life on those days. I find the time to hold my workshops, go visiting, share recipes, explore, try a new recipe or just eat great food with friends and family. The rest of the days I just work which again I love to do.

Shooting these delightful pictures of the home that I visited was a pleasure that I can only describe with the vague words of an Ernest Hemingway quote about Paris wherein he says that if you're lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young person then everything stays with you for the rest of your life because Paris is an unending feast or something like that. To my mind, the same can be said about Darjeeling. It is to us, biased people, a never ending feast for the eyes and for the stomach!

dalles and eggs. i love shooting eggs!

And this is the lovely couple Punya and Pratap Subba, both of them of Nepali celluloid fame of yesteryears. She, the lissome heroine of Bachna Chahane Haru ( on the sets of where they met and fell in love) and he the filmmaker who made great films like Mashal, Paral Ko Aago and Bachna Chahane Haru. They have been cooking together ever since.

I owe her a lot because she taught me how to bake my very first cake and shortbread cookies, a recipe she had brought from Hong Kong all those years ago. Mine still doesn't taste as delicious as hers despite the many times i have made them.

She also features in my very first cooking memories since I was always there in her house when she baked. It was those days of hand-whipped frosting and old fashioned creamy cake mixtures.She taught me how to beat egg whites until they formed soft white peaks just like the snowy Kanchenjunga peaks, to separate the dry ingredients from the wet, the method of 'folding' all those in and how to check if my cake was done or not by inserting a tooth pick right in the middle of it. I was just a kid then but those words have stayed with me all my life.

And then to top it all, she would let all of us kids to lick the mixing bowl!

The birthday menu had too many items on it because when these two cook, they usually cook up a storm and a meaty one at that. It was a feast for thirty people including family and friends who came in from all over to pay their respects to the grand patriarch and eat this scrumptious feast.

Among the aloo dums, the mutton curries, veggies and dessert, I chose the Slow Pork Roast and the Tandoori Chicken as the main feature for this post.

Marinaded Tandoori Chicken

In it goes

Out it comes in golden glory

And on to the table

Tandoori Chicken Recipe

Ingredients

1 kg chicken legs, skinned and trimmed of all visible fat

1 cup plain yogurt

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice 

1 tablespoon minced garlic

1 tablespoon peeled and grated or crushed ginger 

2 tablespoon ground cumin

2teaspoon ground coriander

1 tablespoon cayenne pepper

1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper

2 teaspoons salt, or to taste

Vegetable oil or butter , for brushing

Fresh cilantro sprigs for garnish

Slices of cucumber, red (Spanish) onion, tomato and lemon, for garnish

Preparation

Wash and pat dry the chicken.

Prick the flesh of the chicken all over with a fork and cut slashes with a sharp knife to allow the marinade to penetrate.

Place the chicken on a large tray or shallow bowl.

Combine the dry ingredients first - salt, pepper, cumin, coriander, cardamom and cloves and rub the mixture evenly all over the chicken. Let it rest for fifteen minutes. 

Then combine ginger and garlic paste and smear it all over the chicken. Let it rest for another fifteen minutes allowing the ingredients to set properly.

The wet marinade is the last step. Take the yogurt and fresh lemon juice,  vegetable oil and pour it over the chicken and mix it well, turning the chicken several times.

Cover and refrigerate overnight.

Remove the chicken from the refrigerator at least 30 minutes before cooking.

It can be grilled or roasted. If using a charcoal grill, the fire must be prepared for direct heat cooking. Position the grill rack 5 inches from the fire. Allow the coals to burn until white ash covers them and the heat is moderate. 

Remove the chicken from the marinade, pressing lightly to extract the excess marinade and brush with oil. 

If roasting, preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Place the chicken on a rack in a roasting pan, brush with oil or butter, and cook, turning once, 25 to 30 minutes and basting with the drippings of the roast -  until the juices run clear when a piece is pierced near the bone with a knife. 

Serve with cilantro, sliced red onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, slit green chilies and lemon halves.

Slow Roasted Pork Thigh

This recipe is signature to this family and it has been gracing their table for many many years now. It has to be cooked long and slow for a moist and succulent outcome.

Ingredients

Whole Pork thigh, skin trimmed

Salt

1 bay leaf

Half a cup of Lemon juice 

1 tablespoon Cayenne pepper

1 tablespoon Fresh roasted ground cumin seeds

1 tablespoon Fresh roasted ground coriander seeds

Half a cup palm sugar or jaggery (optional)

Preparation

Rub the pork thigh all over with all the ingredients except the palm sugar.

Take a large and thick bottomed pot and place the whole thigh in it.

Cover the pot and dry roast it over low heat until all juices run out, taking care to keep turning the pork to ensure it chars on all sides, until you hear the 'charring' sound - so says the couple!

Then pour water over the pork until it just covers it. Then cover and slow cook on simmer until the water dries out and one can hear the 'charring' sound again.

If you opt for the sweet and sour option, now is the time to melt the palm sugar/ jaggery in warm water and brush the pork with it. Slow cook it again until the glaze thickens and sticks to the pork skin.

Remove from heat.

If you prefer to go without the sugar, you can remove the pork from the heat after step 4.

It looks like this after slicing it. You can slice it slimmer or in chunks as below.

You can either have it warm or cold with a tomato and dalle based sauce

or

You can stir fry it with greens like raaye ko saag, some crushed garlic, dry red chilies, onions and tomatoes.

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Have you ever seen anything like this before?

You're wrong if you think this is a flower although it does not remotely resemble one.

It's the Great White Dalle from the plains of Nepal that my dad brought home from one of his trips.

Not as potent as what we are used to this side of the Himalayas but equally flavorsome and aromatic. 


Hell yea, i took a bite!

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Full Moon Cafe - Havelock

Island Vinnie's in the tiny island of Havelock in the Andamans, is where its at. I mean not just the Full Moon Cafe but the whole experience of a wild, hip, roughing it out, tropical,on the beach kind of life. This is the spot for divers in the island and people flock from all over the world to experience the secrets of the ocean with them. And this was where I had originally booked us into. But I changed my mind later on second thought and canceled it because I realized that although I was ready for the wild and hip tropical beach life, I still wasn't ready to rough it out. So eventually I decided that I would go to Island Vinnie's not to stay but only to eat at the Full Moon Cafe which delightfully came highly recommended.

And imagine more delight to this already delighted self when I heard that the head chef was from Nepal. It took me a moment of deep self-control to stop myself from clapping in further delight. And that is the story behind why I chose to eat a Thali on my first lunch at the Full Moon Cafe. I usually don't eat food that reminds me of home when I eat out because it just doesn't make any sense at all. I would stay at home if I want to eat home styled food,is my argument. But I couldn't resist the urge to know what a Thali prepared by a Nepali chef would taste like in Havelock. Would it have Nepali infused flavors was my curiosity.

It didn't but it was subtle and I think was a marked effort of delicate restrain from over-spicing and over-tempering the curries which was a welcome cry, far from the heavy and rich Indian Thalis that I have tasted so far. Which is why I went back and had it a second time the next day. 

The Full Moon Cafe became my favorite place to go, eat fresh, light food from around the world (Umm, I tried the Mediterranean Platter yet again which had Hummus and even Babaganoush), drink a couple of chilled and just relax with a book in the cafe or doze on the beach.


And I also really like them for the Anti - Plastic campaign which they have initiated in Havelock. Can we not pollute more beaches please? 

Fresh Papaya Juice - a daily staple

Fish n Chips

Silken Garlic Aioli

Falafels dripping with fresh Tahini

Part of the Mediterranean Platter - Babaganoush with roasted peanut garnish in the middle

Following my bliss...

My Hummus Recipe 


So today I am making hummus for you guys which was a huge hit in Petrichor (sniff!sniff!) and a daily staple to snack on for us. I still make it once in a while for Zy when he wants something 'tasty' to dip his carrots in. 


Ingredients
it sure is some of the best flavors in the world combined

cayenne pepper and roasted cumin powder

dry parsley( because fresh ones are not available in Darj) . boiled and strained chickpeas

lemon and garlic 

olive oil and natural plain yogurt

homemade tahini

and

salt 

Here's what i do :

Soak chickpeas overnight.

Boil them with salt and leave them aside with some remaining chickpea juice.

Dry roast the garlic and cumin seeds and grind the latter to a fine powder. You can use store bought cumin powder as well but i like to prepare it this way because the flavors are more rich to taste.

Next, i  make my homemade tahini. There's nothing much to it. Just dry roast your sesame seeds in a thick bottomed pan until it starts giving out its musky roasted aroma and turns slightly brown. Take it off the heat and blend it in a blender with a big splash of olive oil. You can add salt for flavor and some lemon juice if you want. But i keep it plain because i add the seasoning fresh when i'm actually making the main dish.

Now put the chickpeas with the juice, yogurt, roasted garlic and cumin in the blender and mix until a smooth and creamy texture is formed.

 Mix in the tahini and pour all contents in to a bowl. 

Add the cayenne pepper, lemon juice, salt, parsley and fold them in to the mixture. Top it with loads of flavorful extra virgin olive oil.

Serve the hummus with anything - it's healthy, it's light and will just about make anyone's day!!

Enjoy...

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