rajsuman

Hi arbuclo, I've spent a major part of my life in Dubai, so I'm really excited to see the pics. I'm sure you'll have a lovely time there. It's a fabulous place, especially for foodies - there's nothing you can't get. I'm only just back from a visit to Dubai (my parents live there) and I still can't help being envious when I see your photos. Looking forward to your blog - hope to see many more pictures! Suman

Yes Gautam, please do tell. I once had the most exquisite dish of lemon soles wrapped around a minced prawn mixture. Your description brought back memories of that dish - now I feel I should attempt both.

I love shawarmas so much I could live on them for weeks without complaining. Chicken shawarma is an absolute favourite. Has anyone here tried making them at home? I've tried a few shawarmas here in Dublin, but none of them come up to the standard that I've found in Dubai. I have a few questions and I'd appreciate any advice. 1) I've seen a lot of recipes for shawarma when I googled, but I've no idea which one of them might be a good one. Would any of you have a recipe? 2) I'm gonna have to cook the chicken either in the oven or under the grill. Will that affect the taste in a negative way? How can I get it to be crispy? TIA, Suman Edited to add this link.

Thanks for the link Katie! I want that book! Are the recipes any good? Arabic sweets are my absolute favourite and now I'm drooling all over my keyboard. What are you people doing to me? It's nearly 1 am and I feel like having some baklava right now! I guess I'll go downstairs and open a can of condensed milk. I always thought that jalebis were a totally Indian sweet until I browsed Nigella Lawson's Feast at a bookstore recently. She gives a recipe for it, but calls it the mid-eastern zallobie or some such thing. Would any of you know alternative spellings for the same? Great pics, BTW! Makes me want to go to Dubai this instant and set up camp inside one of those cafes cum sweetshops.

Yes I'd love to make them myself! Freezing things is my solution to beat the cravings. There's long discussion over on the Chinese forum on dumplings, so I have plenty of virtual guidance. However, the obstacles in my path are: 1) Lack of a recipe which will produce exactly the same result. Every recipe Google shows is very different to what I ate. Of course I could describe it over on the Chinese forum and perhaps they can help me out.But.... 2) The Chinese shops are all based in the heart of the city as far as I know, and I really don't want to go into the city during the pre-christmas shopping rush. So I have no access to the wrappers. Ditto with the restaurant - it's quite far away and I'm not brave enough to face hours of standstill traffic to eat a few dimsums. I'm hoping to get there ASAP, though. Just hoping this damn craving would go away, since there is nothing I can do about it just yet.

There is a truly delicious marzipan cake recipe in Nigella Lawson's 'How to be a Domestic Goddess'. I absolutely love it! Here's the recipe: http://www.dianasdesserts.com/index.cfm?fu...domesticGoddess

I had my first encounter with prawn dim sum last week. They were so delicious. Since then, I have been craving them at night and in the mornings. Can't wait to go back to the restaurant and stuff myself.

This and almost everything else listed on the site So what do YOU want for Christmas?

Okay, I'm convinced enough to throw it out. Maybe I can roast another chicken - can you tell I love this sandwich? Thank you all! Suman Edited to add the thank you bit.

Hi, A couple of weeks back I made this garlic and lemon roast chicken, which was pretty delicious, if I say so myself. The next day, I had some of it in a sandwich made with superb roasted garlic bread, bought from a baker half an hour's drive from my home. I froze the rest of the chicken, saving it for more such sandwiches when I could lay my hands on the bread. I got the chicken out of the freezer and into the fridge on Wednesday the 1st, thinking I would be able to buy the bread on Thursday. As it happened, I never got around to buying the bread until today - now I'm not sure about the chicken. It smells and tastes alright, but I want to be sure that it isn't spoilt. TIA, Suman

There was a time when I used to love air-travel, but travelling with small children has changed that. Now the only thing I look forward to are the meals. They may be bad, they may be good - the fun part is the anticipation. I know this site will be of interest to quite a few of you : http://www.airlinemeals.net/index.html Suman

Hello CharityCase, The brown roasted coconut powder might have been 'chamandi podi'. When I was in college, a Christian friend from Trivandrum would bring it from home and being the great friend that I was, I would help her finish it. I have asked her for the recipe, but not being culinarily-inclined, she keeps forgetting to ask her mother for me. Here's the only relevant page that came up on google: http://www.maiyam.com/southfood/5327.13.52.21.html And spelt 'chammanthi podi' here: http://forumhub.com/southfood/16176.8127.09.29.54.html Perhaps Ammini, our expert on all foods Keralan, could help you out more. Suman

Episureji, just to jog your memory a wee bit, 'tomorrow' never came. Would you be kind enough to share the details? Please......pretty please...... Suman

I'd be the first one to buy it. Hmmm.., quite a few innovative ideas floating around on eGullet - I like the irecipes idea too (over on the cooking forum) - now all we need is some entrepreneur to get into action. P.S. There is also something called Charcoal Seasoning at the American Spice co., but the list of ingredients scares me.

Thanks! The kare pan in my book looks something the pictures in torakris's link. I like the simpler method too, Hiroyuki. I'm tempted to give both methods a try. I don't have access to Japanese curry roux, but I was thinking of making my own filling with some onions, potatoes and curry powder. I can almost taste the filling as I imagine all its various components. Thanks for all your help and the translations. I'll let you know how I get on. Suman

Hi, I've got this book on breads of the world, and every time I take a look at the Japanese curry buns my mouth waters. I'm a kare-pan-virgin, but it looks like something I could easily fall in love with. I've scoured the net for a good recipe, alas, without much success. I'd really appreciate it if someone here could provide me with a recipe and a description of what it should taste like, so I know what to aim for. Thanks in advance, Suman

Hello ashmaster, Have you considered using soya TVP or seitan (wheat gluten)? I tried a can of seitan recently, not really expecting it to be great, but I was amazed at how good and addictive it was. It's like very tender cooked chicken. In Indian cuisine we have kebabs made of brown chickpeas, which supposedly taste like meat. All the above choices would satisfy the protein requirement and taste good too. Please let me know if you need further details. I even have a recipe for making seitan at home if you're interested. There are some recipes using seitan in the Joy of Cooking. Suman

The day I discovered eGullet was one of the best days of my life. I was excited (still am) for days to find a whole community of people who, like me, lived to eat. In real life, I'm surrounded by the 'eat to live' type (and yet funnily enough, I'm the thinnest of them all), who don't really understand my need to buy yet another cookbook, or my obsessive need to perfect a dish or the reason I think about food all the time. So imagine my absolute delight when I realised I was no longer alone! I have also learnt so much here. I've made friends, shared recipes, gotten advice and learnt about other people's culinary experiences. I feel very sorry for all those foodies out there who haven't discovered eGullet yet. eGullet has really enriched my life and I'm very thankful for that. This is also my chance to thank all my fellow eGulleteers (f. eG) for their infinite collective wisdom that I've benefitted so much from. You guys have become so much a part of my life that often when I see something or cook something, I can't help thinking, f. eG x would have loved this, or f. eG y should have been here to see this. I hope it will be during my lifetime that advances in technology will make it possible for us to taste and smell each other's food. That would greatly enhance the eGullet experience, wouldn't it? Thanks again you guys! Suman

Here's an incident that goes to show why it's nice to share recipes with most (read my post above) people. A dear friend of mine, a brilliant cook , has lived all over the world. She has always been very generous with her enviable collection of handwritten recipes from every place she'd been to. Hers is the 'gather and scatter' philosophy - gather recipes from places and at the same time scatter your own, creating a trail of fond memories and good food. It so happened that they moved home recently. During the move, she put all her recipes in a small plain old box that they had meant to throw away. When her husband, not knowing it contained her precious recipes, saw the box he threw it out! Days later when she realised her box was missing, it was too late. I can still feel her pain as I'm sure all of you do too. If such a thing were to happen to me(heaven forbid), I'd have howled for days. I don't care if my diamonds go missing (well, not as much anyway), but those recipes that you cannot find in any book, the collection you've built up over the years....they are SO priceless. Anyway, because she shared so many of her recipes, she's been able to rebuild at least a part of her original collection by asking people she gave them to. Suman

I've always been generous with my recipes. I feel flattered when people ask me for the recipes and happy when they report how successful the dish was when they made it themselves. However, the older I get, the more I learn that very few people are willing to part with their recipes. What hurts me most is that some of these people are the very same who want to learn all my recipes and yet will not reciprocate. To me my recipes (especially the ones I invent myself) are the most precious possessions in the world, after my children's childhood videos and photos. I invest a considerable amount of time, money and effort in them - to perfect them, to improve them. I'm willing to try a dozen recipes if it means I can get at the most perfect version there is. And I'm willing to share, but these days only to people who I believe are worthy of them. I've shared so many of my 'perfect' recipes with a dear friend, believing that she would reciprocate. And while a few of her recipes have worked well, most of them have been disasters. I trusted her so much that I kept blaming myself for the failures. It was only by accident that the recipe she gave me had one crucial ingredient missing - since then I've tinkered with her other recipes with much success. And she isn't the only one, although she's my closest friend of them all. I'm not saying that when someone takes a recipe from me, I feel it's compulsory that they should give me one of theirs as well. What I'm saying is, when I've given them a recipe in complete honesty, they shouldn't try to deceive me with an inaccurate one , should I ask them for one of theirs.

And mine too. The whites are nice, but it's the yolks I'm mad about. Like you Geetha, my husband can't even contemplate tasting it. I guess, one man's food is another man's poison and all that... So maybe there are more people in the world than we realise who will wake up today and say,'Hmmmm..., why not make some delicious Murgh ki Burfi today and devour it all in one go' Suman

Thanks Shanta! There's another book called 'Coastal Fiesta', a compilation of recipes from all the communities of South Kanara. The Konkani section contains only vegetarian cooking, but it does have some lovely Bunt non-veg recipes. Suman

1035! Congratulations folks! We're now talking four-digit figures! I'm longing for the no-longer-in-print book too!In fact, I've yet to add Rasachandrika to my collection. I've never seen it in bookshops in India. Any ideas who sells it in Blore? BTW, do either of these books contain Konkani seafood dishes? Although I suspect I already know the answer. Suman Edited to add: Just found this cookbook with seafood recipes, but I'm not sure if they ship outside of the US. http://culture.konkani.com/Misc/527_Indian_cooking_Ko.htm

Edward, Enjoy your trip, eat to your heart's content, take lots of food pics for us sad, green-with-envy folks who are waking up to grey skies and cold, wet mornings. Looking forward to hearing all about your trip! Suman

I love that book! So far everything I've tried from it has worked brilliantly. Until yesterday that is. My banana muffins were edible, but hardly praise-worthy. How is a cupcake different from a muffin? My guess is that the cupcake is smaller, denser and the ingredients are mixed in a different manner compared to a muffin batter. Anything else I might have missed? I'm off to start a muffin thread. Suman