oothappam

F O A M!!!!!!!!!!! Great news! I made the coffee today with the briki and followed the directions from that turkish coffee tutorial site plus the advice you all have given. To my amazement and joy, it actually foamed up, just like it is supposed to.I can't tell you how gratifying that was, after the previous disappoinyments! The only thing I was not able to accomplish was getting the foam into the cup. Somehow when I poured the coffee into the cup, the foam just sort of melted into the rest of the coffee. But it still tasted lovely. I do like that thickness and the somewhat chocolate-ishness of it.

Daniel, Rebecca, Luckylies, thanks to all of you. I'll post here again once I get all this in order. Luckylies, I remembered after reading your comment that I have a very old diffuser stuffed away in a cabinet, I used it to make rice the Iranian way and have ceased doing this for so long, that I had even forgotten that thing. It will be perfect to support that tiny pot!

NEW PROBLEM!! Ok.....I ordered a briki, ibrik.....thing! (Can't wait for it to get here!) But in the meanwhile, what to do about the fact that my burners on my gas stove are weird shaped and a small pan like that will topple over? The center open part is too wide..... I need some sort of metal rack or ring that will make a solid or at least dependable surface upon which to balance that little pan. Any ideas anyone?

AHA! The pan !!! Thank you so so much, Rebecca.You are a sweetheart for writing so kindly and explaining this. Okay.........I'll definately start looking for one now and hopefully it will work wonderfully and I can finally have great Greek coffee like you are doing! I'll post about how it turns out when I find one and give it a try again!

Hello all! I've ben trying to make Greek coffee.I can't get it to foam up in the little pan/ Also I find that it is hard to balance that little tiny pan on the burners of my gas stove. So I want to know if anyone has any advice for me. I have read how to make Greek coffee in Greek cookbooks, online also, but it must be easier for everyone as there are never any troubleshooting tips/Why doesn't it foam up? I am using a tiny stainless steel pan.I don't have a briki but this pan is about the same size as a briki.I think it is a butter melting pan actually, but as the size is similar, and there is no odd coating or weird residue in it, I can't understand why I can't get the coffee to foam up properly. I am using BRAVO, a good brand of ground Greek coffee so it can't be a problem with the coffee. I use tap water (hmmmmm maybe that is the problem? Southern California tap water! Which is a scarey thing. I will admit).. Ok I will try filtered water but I THINK, with my luck, that it still won't work. In the meantime , any advice from anyone out there who is in the know about wonderful GREEK COFFEE?

I have had a Kitchen Aid mixer since 1982-bought it for making wedding cakes and frosting back then.I use it every day STILL.......and mostly for making dough for italian, french breads, tortillas and chapatties -rotis.EVERY day.Thank goodness for this mixer.I have MS now and can't use my hands much anymore. I would have to forgo breads entirely if it were not for tjhis heavy duty mixer.The doughs come out great for chapatties......don't hesitate to use this for that. It works great. I also have a sumeet mixie! I'd never think of using that for dough.Mostly I use the grinder jar for chutneys and podis and the other jars for things like smoothies etc. Between the KA and the sumeet, I don't need anything else.They are the strongest machines (IMHO) in India and the US. I am very happy with both of these and I would not hesitate to advise someone to get them both.Between these two everything is covered!

DAKSHIN, by Chandra Padmanabhan is the book which impressed me most with the photographs of the food. This book makes me DROOL every time I open it up. Are we allowed to take pictures of pictures? Maybe not...but if it would be ok I would love to take a pic of one of my favourite pictures in the book, of stuffed eggplants. That usually doesn't look so great in person(or in eggplant!) but this picture kills me every time I see it, and I did make the recipe and tried to make it look like that. Well, it didn't but it was not TOO far off.. I prefer pictures of recipes which are not too far from what they will really look like. Fancy swirls of sauces which look like Wolfgang Puck or Alice Waters or whoever is " in " this year's creations..are fine but what I really want is to know how in the heck the thing is SUPPOSED to look when I cook it...so I will know if I did it right or not. I am just a lady in her home kitchen trying to make stuff that tastes good! By the way, the photos in DAKSHIN are by Jon Bader, and the stylist is Georgina Dolling. The actual vessels in which these glorious foods are displayed are beautiful and there are fabrics and things in the background which also enhance the photos. The food itself is naturally FANTASTIC AND DELIRIOUSLY MOUTHWATERING , being South Indian, by it's very nature.....so who needs a lot of fancy stuff to spruce up something which is inherently DIVINE in the first place?

Well, I hate to admit to this...but real, fresh, lovely asparagus, properly cooked and fragrant is NOT the asparagus I grew up with and which I associate with drumstick. What I mean by asparagus is Jolly Green Giant boiled-to-death asparagus which comes in a can! That's what I was served as a kid and that's a very different taste. For gourmets, it is an abomination but for people like me who grew up with it...it is very different than than the real pristine and decently cooked stuff. Both are good. But the canned stuff is what tastes like drumstick to me. I have great respect for drumstick and this is not an attempt to insult it. I have never tried substituting it in sambhar..but it's definately on my TO DO list.

Mongo Jones' PLOT was PERFECT. Christian women's names in films..in respect to someone else's post---Don't forget that Florence was the name of the Christian girl in Badhai ho Badhai so it's not out of order! ANd...one last thing........how can you people forget that AMRISH PURI is THE DAD of all dads. HE has got to be one of the dads....... Any scene where you want everyone to get nervous, and be subjected to some scary evil looks..has to have him in it with one of his vicious stares......and anupam kher the other gentler one. OK?

That RED RED chicken is called, at my house, "psychedelic chicken" Some people use beet powder to achieve this outrageous eye popping colour and not a chemical dye. ( I am assuming the beet powder is really reliable and not beet powder with red dye #2 added LOL)

I love them HOMEMADE, HOT and more sour-ish than most people like them. Leftover idlis ( which is a crazy term to see .....as usually this is a nonexistent thing) are good , cut up and fried in ghee!! Is it any wonder I am on pravachol? I have to stop this sort of thing.

I have always thought about making sambhar with aparagus, because asparagus tastes similar to DRUMSTICK , and drumstick is GREAT in sambhar. I think aparagus's flavour would work well in sambhar.

I have been trying to figure this out for years. I have come to the conclusion that since muslims use so much meat they tend to not concentrate on cooking vegetables very well. So.........that must be why. Once I went to an Ameen party, and the menu consisted of 9 types of meat preparations, and one lonely dish of sliced onions, and a pile of roti. For me there was nothing to eat but onions and bread. After that I learned to have lunch before going to such parties :)

It's my first time here too. I LOVE reading what people made for dinner. I always ask friends " what did you have for lunch? for breakfast? for dinner?" They must think I am nuts. One clearly sensible one always gives me a detailed reply, which usually makes my mouth water. I like it especially when their replies include descriptions of what they cooked, or what they ate out somewhere. I am a bit hesitant to post what I made last night......I don't cook such gourmet things like many seem to do her, according to what I am reading on this thread. Just simple stuff. Last night I made a tofu/mango stir fried type thingy...with some serrano chilies in it, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, tofu, little bit of tomato, some capsicums for body and yes, mango. I was annoyed to find that the fresh mango I had was icky in the inside when i cut it open! So had to use.......yuck.....canned mango slices, which disintegrated by the time the dish was done. heck! But still it tasted really great with basmati rice.