Another hiatus...another revival

I am back. Yet again. Tired and beaten by the system. To the same conclusion. Good cooks do not exist in this city or I really have the worst luck when it comes to getting cooks!

So now I am maid-less and cook-less but determined to keep going - however long it takes :)

So back to our task at hand for today - dinner! I decided to make some of Tarla Dalal's recipes - Coconut pulao, Achari Paneer, Brussel Sprout saute with a simple Dal fry.

Here are the links to the recipes:
http://www.tarladalal.com/Coconut-Pulao-1746r
http://www.tarladalal.com/Achari-Paneer-1736r

Brussel sprouts saute, achari paneer and dal fry with coconut pulao

One another note had the chance to eat Thai food at the newly opened Radisson Blu - Secret Basil. The food was good. But my favorite Thai in Hyderabad still stays Isda Thai. I still have to sample the food from Mekong and Thai Pavillion...

Good night folks!

Small pellets of goodness....

The heat is too much to bear... I don't think I can cook today....Maybe I will order out today....

These were some of the thoughts that ran through my head today(well through out the day!!) And then better sense prevailed and at the spur of the moment thought up of this "biryani" dish made with soy granules. I had the small granules that look like bb gun pellets!!(Yes, the bb gun has been on my mind for quite some time now... pigeons causing havoc.. but that's another story!)

So the recipe itself took some 20 mins to cook and an additional 10 mins to prep and I have a nutritious dinner that tastes yumm!

Soy biryani with paneer masala

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Soy Biryani


1 cup of soy granules (soaked in hot water for a half hour then squeezed)
2 onions chopped
2 tomatoes chopped
2 capsicums chopped
1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
2 cups of curd (beaten well)
2 green chillies slit lengthwise
1 tsp of garam masala
1 tsp of kitchen king masala
1/2 tsp of turmeric pd
1 tsp of red chilli pd
1/2 tsp of kasuri methi
1 tsp of cumin seeds
Salt to taste
2 cups cooked rice


Heat oil in a pan and add the cumin seeds to splutter. Add the onions and fry till they turn golden brown (add a little salt to prevent them from burning easily). Add ginger garlic paste and fry for a minute. then add the tomatoes, green chillies and the masala powders and 1/2 a cup of water and cover and cook till the oil starts separating from the mixture. Then add the capsicum and fry for 2 minutes. Lower the flame and then add the curd stirring constantly. Cover and cook for 2 minutes till well mixed. Then add the cooked rice and mix well. Garnish with coriander leaves.
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See y'all tomorrow!

Fondant...More like fon'dont'!!

Hiya people, It has been reaaaally looong since I wrote anything here. So long that I almost forgot my login credentials to get in to my account!!! Well, better late than never I say! So here I am.. And the occasion is my mom's 60th birthday!! Yes! the big six oh!
So I decided to put my baking skills to use and to bake her a cake. That's not too difficult you say? I agree. But the real test is the decorating of the cake. I have been looking at all these posh websites online that do cake decorating for a living and got inspired to decorate my cake with Fondant. For the novice it is just like icing but more doughy. It is a mixture of icing sugar and water and some stability agent added to make it like a dough that you can roll out and cover your cake or mould to decorate it.
So once my mind was made up I started asking around for advice on where to get ready made fondant - of course, that would be the first step - if you got the ready to roll out dough then all you need to do is well, roll it out!! But that is easier said than done here in Hyderabad (not sure about the other cities). So next alternative - make your own fondant. So yours faithfully went and got the required ingredients and looked online at a recipe to make fondant and presto fondant was made.
No not that easily - I had to go through lots of trials and tribulations which included my hand being eaten up alive by the "fondantasaurus"!! I am not kidding, at one point I thought I would have to get some reinforcements just to retrieve my hand from the mound of gooey sticky mess that I had made!

The dormant 'fondantasaurus"!

The finished product resembled the one that I saw online, so I packed it and put it in the refrigerator to chill. Here is the finished homemade fondant.

The finished fondant. Yay!

That was in the afternoon. It is nearly 11 in the night and my cake is baking in the oven. I made a basic sponge cake. I just colored it red. I figured I would keep the fondant covering white and would make some small decorative flowers on the top with the wishes written in som color so why not give the inside some color - and so red it is.

The red sponge cake cooking away

Now it is nearly 1 in the morning and I just finished the cake. Believe me rolling out fondant is not as easy as it is made out to be. It is called the adult play-doh but it is all "doh!" "doh!" (Simpsons fans would understand my reference here..) and no play :(
Here is my mom's cake.

I will make it up to her by taking her for lunch at a nice restaurant. *wink*

Time to hit the sack now. See you all tomorrow.

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Fondant Recipe (http://lifestyle.iloveindia.com/lounge/how-to-make-fondant-icing-7749.html)
Basic sponge cake recipe (http://cooking4allseasons.blogspot.in/2011/05/how-to-make-basic-sponge-cake-recipe.html)
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Since I had some additional time in the morning of my mom's bday, I made some last minute additions to the cake. I think it looks much better now... what do you think?

The final version!

The 'eaten' cake!

Like I promised earlier, I took her to a nice restaurant to make up for the err.. cake :) I picked the De Thaali restaurant of Ohris in Begumpet. Went there after I read the review in Hindu and have to say, the review did full justice to it. The food was lip smacking good. It was a combination of Gujarati and Rajasthani cuisine and we loved it! It is buffet but they serve you at the table, the ambience was great. All very nice and bright white. A good variety of dishes and did I say lip smacking good?! And not to mention very easy on the pocket as well!! I give it a thumbs up!