rajsuman

yes,yes,yes and YES! Love okra - in fact we had an okra stir-fry, chapathis and masoor dal for dinner tonight.

Yay! My first time at an eGullet cook-off! I made this Lychee Ice Cream with the following changes: 1) Substituted 1 cup of heavy cream with 1 cup of creme fraiche 2) Omitted the vanilla essence It was wonderful! The only thing I would do differently is forget about adding the chopped lychees - as I suspected, they turned into hard icy bits when frozen. It might work better with pureed lychees.

Go cheap with: tinned tomatoes, flour, pasta, cooking onions, milk, white sugar Splurge on: chicken, lamb, fish, eggs, rice, butter, chocolate, sugars other than white, nuts, vegetables, fruits

I came across this Garlic Custard Recipe recently and couldn't help but be intrigued by it. I'm thinking of trying it as a dip sometime soon. Edited to add: This isn't exactly a custard, but thought it might be of interest.

Hey Grub, I once ate a delicious pork curry at a Goan friend's house for christmas. I ate a lot of it, considering I didn't even like chicken very much at the time. Unfortunately, I was too young to ask for a recipe, but I think it could have been a vindaloo. I would have requested my Mum to ask the recipe and make it for me, but she doesn't eat pork, nor does she cook it at home. Anyway, I've lost touch with the friend, but I remember that dish as if I ate it yesterday. I tried making a pork vindaloo from one of Madhur Jaffrey's books, but found it quite strong on the vinegar and spices. I didn't like it at all. I was pretty discouraged and wasn't planning to make it again anytime soon - all that trouble for what? I could buy a jar of Patak's if I did want to make it I thought. BUT look what you've done now! With your beautiful pictures, fabulous commentary and persistence to achieve perfection you've made me feel ashamed for giving up. Sigh! Now I feel too inspired to go and cook. Looks like my plans to laze away a saturday afternoon on the couch in front of the TV and/or laptop are out of the window. Thanks and congratulations! Isn't it a great feeling when you arrive at the most perfect version of a dish? I'm rejoicing for you! Suman Edited to add: Using rice vinegar is a great idea!

Hello Mukki, I managed to get the recipe from my MIL. My children love her murukkus and it's been on my to-do list for a long time. They are not available in the Indian shops here, so my only resort is to make them at home. I thought this was the perfect opportunity to make them and then relate my experience to you. So here goes: The recipe is simple, so I thought it would be a breeze to make. I could almost taste my MIL's superb murukkus even before I measured out the ingredients. I'll give you the recipe below, but I have to say that unfortunately mine turned out nothing like hers. I can only put it down to mistakes on my part, as this is the first time I've tried my hand at murukku-making. When I told my friend this story, she dispelled my notion that murukkus were easy to make. Please don't think I'm trying to discourage you, but it's better you know all the facts before you embark on this. Who knows, if you do decide to try this, yours might come out better than mine. 1 cup* urad dal, roasted 1 cup white raw rice 1 tsp jeera salt and chilli powder to taste a knob of butter**, softened Grind the urad dal, rice, jeera, salt and chilli powder very finely. Sieve to remove any bigger bits. Add the butter, combine with fingers and add water to make a dough***. Fill a murukku mould with the dough and extrude dough into hot oil. Deep-fry on medium heat until crisp and reddish-brown. Repeat with the remaining dough. Possible causes of errors: * Her cup may be a different volume- mine is the std. 250 ml. **She said to add about the size of an Indian lime, I added about 20g. ***Not sure about the consistency of the dough. I imagine it should be pretty stiff, but that was very hard to extrude. SO I took the easy route and made a softer dough. As a result, it turned out oilier than my MIL's. Probably also affected the texture of the end product. The next time I visit India, I'm going to observe my MIL making murukkus and take detailed notes. In the meantime this recipe looks promising, although it's not great on the details.

Okay, I just spent half an hour searching for the right links and writing a long post, only to discover it's not appeared. So here it is all over again, albeit, this time in a condensed form. Spinach Florentine Jello? Ugh, no thanks! Recipe for Rainbow Jello Mold (This is the recipe that Rachel used) But, to be honest, the jello in the afore-mentioned link doesn't look look half as magnificent as THIS!

It COULD be butter, because I've seen it being added and I don't think they ferment the dough. I'll see if I can get my MIL to send me her recipe - hers are pretty good.

Some time back, my finger needed a minor surgical procedure which my husband did at home. Before you think it was a DIY surgery, I should let you know he's qualified to cut people open. We had a few unopened syringes and needles leftover from that episode, which I saved because I'd read about injecting marinade into chicken breasts. The syringes are not very big (20ml/10ml), but should hold enough marinade for at least one breast. I can spare a couple, so if you'd like me to post you those, just PM me your address. Of course, I'd totally understand it if you'd rather take the other, more interesting option of relations with horses. Suman

rice dal tomatoes

Oh how I love lychees! Everytime I taste them, I think there's so much potential there for a wonderful dessert. The delicate taste, the wonderful aroma - it's just asking to be made into something fabulous. I tried a couple of lychee mousse recipes, but found that the lychee flavour got lost somewhere in the end product. I've been looking for a lychee extract (if such a thing exists) to embellish the lychee flavour/aroma, but no luck. Never thought of looking for lychee liqueur. Thanks for the great link GG! honeye22, I could post the 2 mousse recipes if you like, but as I said, I was kind of disappointed with the results. I also tried topping phirni (Indian rice custard) with chopped lychees and pomegranates, that worked very well.

Marlene and Sam, Both your blogs have been wonderful - now this is what I call twin treats. Sam, I wish I had the talent/energy to prep. veggies as beautifully as you do. I particularly loved the paper-thin onion slices, the grated carrots and julienned apples. What's your secret? Do you use a mandolin or a food processor? Thanks!

I love to cook with ketchup, but I'm the only one in the family who won't eat it as a condiment. My husband and kids love it so much that we always have to have the biggest bottle available, plus I have another one on the standby just in case. Heaven help me if we ran out of ketchup - there'd be mutiny in our house. I personally find it too sweet. Tabasco - now that's the sauce for me!

Other than the normal treats like candy, soda and icecream, these are what we (my brother & I) frequently had as children: -We used to eat white bread with sugar too. Except in our case, it was ghee instead of butter. So it's an Indian thing too, I guess. -Lemonade with an obscene amount of sugar. During summer vacation every year, we'd go to my grandparents' house and all the children (about 10 of us cousins) would volunteer to make our own saturated-with-sugar lemonade -Climbing trees and picking our own fruit like guavas, starfruit, mangoes and mangosteen from our grandparents' garden was a big treat for me and my brother, since we used to live in the city. -My grandma would frequently send parcels to us with at least two types of my favourite sweetmeats and snacks. To this day when I see a particular sweetmeat, I think of her, just as she thought of me when she saw/made them. - And at the risk of sounding really weird, these were treats to me: powdered milk eaten with a spoon, same with horlicks and powdered sugar.

By emulsify, do you mean blend together?

Wow, so many great suggestions! Thanks! One silly question: Do you use them with their fillings (caramel, nuts, wafers and what not )?

I have a jar in the kitchen where I put all those chocolates that nobody in the family wants. I keep telling myself to throw them out, but I can't bring myself to. Perhaps I could put them to good use? Any suggestions to use them up? It's a real mish-mash, there some expensive chocolates from boxes, some easter eggs as well as the cheaper kids' chocolate bars. I did a search here and on Google, but couldn't find anything substantial. Is my only option to throw them out? Thanks as always, Suman

Hi Elie, That sfoof looks delicious! I love all mid-eastern desserts and try to sample(read:scoff) as much as I can when I lay my hands on them. However sfoof is a new one for me - the fennel flavour seems especially intriguing. What I'm saying then is...could you please post your adapted recipe? If that's too much to ask, could you just glance at this recipe and tell me if it's a similar one? Please? http://www.recipecottage.com/middle-eastern/sfoof.html Thanks a lot!

Well here he is - my life my monkey ← That's the cutest monkey I ever saw! I didn't think there were many moms like me who called their children monkeys, but obviously I'm not alone. It has to be my fault that my 2-yr old daughter thinks 'Monkey' is a term of endearment - sometimes she'll just give me a big, squeezy cuddle and say 'Amma (Mom) Monkey'.

bbq4meanytime, you and I must be using the same brand of dried methi then! My brand has these little sticks that won't crush at all, so I either remove them or rub the mixture through a sieve (provided I don't mind powdered methi for the dish).

Probably not what you had in mind Monica, but rum golgappas sound pretty good!

I think if you, like me, don't have the option of ready access to fresh curry leaves, then frozen is a lot better than dried. Dried ones are awful, awful, awful. (Think I've made my point here? ).

Hi Monica, It's so nice to see you blogging! I'm in bed with flu and it's pouring outside, still your blog has managed to cheer me up no end. It's a big treat, honestly. I'd love it (and I bet I'm not the only one here) if you could describe your henna party tables in more detail. Also, how do you make the guava cake? I'm curious as George! Thanks again, Suman (Drooling from across the pond...)

And nails? I've been meaning to ask this question for ages - how do you professional cooks maintain your nails? I love to cook and I love manicured hands, but the two don't seem to go together. No matter how short I clip my nails, I somehow manage to get them chipped when using a knife. Or I end up shaving some skin off my fingers. I guess as far as I'm concerned, cooking and beautiful hands are mutually exclusive!

Hi Carolyn, I'm resurrecting this very old thread because I'm curious to know how your dessert turned out. The link doesn't lead to a recipe anymore. Sounds very unusual! Suman