Jenni

Ditto. Though it helps that 2/3 of the house is veggie and meat and fish are rare for my Dad.

^^^ Did it take you 21 days to recover?!

^^ Ah well, there you go then. This speaks of the flaws in restaurant service, not in English toast

Hmm, maybe in restaurants in the UK toast is cold. Never in our home, or in other home I have seen. How would butter melt if toast was cold? How would honey spread nicely? This is strange to me.

I always thought that most of the hype about Nigella being sexy was caused by viewers not being used to a female chef on TV who didn't look like their mum. As time went on, I think there was a certain amount of playing up to it.

What are the 7 herbs?

Oo, mint, yes that would also be excellent.

Wowee that looks good! I notice you used hazel oil...I'm wondering what a few actual toasted hazel nut pieces would be like tossed into the mix. Must make this immediately!

^^^ You can use any pot in which the idli pans fit.

^Amchoor is dried green mango, used as a souring agent in (primarily North) Indian dishes where added liquid is not desired.

Agreed with mint chutney! Make it fresh every day and eat lots of it with everything!

Beautiful, and good to see you back! Will you get an extra day because of the time lost? Asparagus with capers sounds so good. May have to try this (minus the anchovy butter ) this weekend. Good to see amchoor in your kitchen, can never have too many mango related products! I think my favourite use for it is in dry North Indian sabzis (veg dishes) - a particular dish with potato and also one with okra come to mind. Would love to hear what you use it in.

If you feel like a nice cool savoury drink, take a tip from India and the Middle East where yogurt drinks are a common cooler. Yes, there are sweet ones too, but let's look at the salty for a change! Ayran and salt lassi are quite well known, and there is also buttermilk. Technically this is the liquid leftover from churning butter, but many people make a substitute with very dilute yogurt. Try 1 cup yogurt to 1.5-2 cups water. Put in a big jug and add finely chopped fresh coriander, minced green chillies, minced ginger, a few minced curry leaves and salt (all to your taste). In Maharashtra they add a little sugar to balance it so that it is not too salty or sour, but you can also drink it a little bit tart and salty. If you're feeling up to it, heat a small amount of oil and add a few mustard and cumin seeds, wait till the mustard pops and tip into the buttermilk (you can also add the curry leaves and chillies to this tadka if you prefer - sizzle for a few moments before adding). Keep in the frige and enjoy whenever you need to cool off! In India, several gourds are also prized for their cooling properties. Lauki (bottlegourd), torai(ridge gourd), parval (pointed gourd) and karela (bitter gourd) are all cooling. I am pretty sure bhindi (okra) is too. The gourds are all rich in water and so hydrate and cool the body. In Bengal posto (white poppy seeds and dishes made with them, e.g aloo posto is potato in poppy seed paste) is a favourite cooling summer dish - again, the poppy seeds are considered cooling. And heidih is right, in South India they say that chillies are needed to make you sweat and cool down the body! Tamarind and chilli in combination are a great spicy way to heat up and cool down, so try some South Indian sambar and rasam recipes. Or if you don't fancy heating up to cool down, try some cooling curd rice. This is very soft cooked rice which is lightly mashed with yogurt and a touch of milk, then seasoned lightly with mustard seeds, curry leaves, dried red chillies (all popped in oil), salt, minced green chillies and minced ginger. Eaten with pickles, pappads and curd chillies (chillies that are soaked in salted yogurt for several days and then dried. They are fried to crispness before eating) it is the best (and traditional) way to end a meal and also makes a good snack.

Do you think that some of it is that a waiter forgets who orders what, and then automatically assumes that the salad/steamed fish/light dish is for the woman and the hunk of red meat/deep fried lard/etc. is for the man? I'm not excusing it, I'm just saying that I think a certain amount of stereotyping may be in play here. Of course, the best way is to have the waiter actually remember who each dish is for, especially in any kind of finer dining establishment. At casual places with wait staff who are essentially bored students, I wouldn't necessarily expect so much. Personally I'm all for the approach where the waiter comes to the table and says what each dish, leaving a pause for someone to raise a hand or otherwise indicate that the dish is for them. Ok, so they are admitting that they can't remember who each dish is for and it isn't exactly a high class experience, but at least I don't end up with the wrong thing in front of me.

Yeah, I was always taught they were poisonous. Don't try it out just for our sakes!

Next time try black mustard seeds in your dish...would be normal for an Indian dish. Looks lovely though

For pressure cookers go for a hawkins or a prestige. I favour a hawkins personally. Lovely compact shape and works like a charm.

Key thing about tabbouleh is plenty of parsley - too many people add too little parsley and too much bulgur. Tomatoes are great. Actually I think different regions make it slightly differently. I have seen some people add a few ground spices and that is traditional for them. Personally I favour a set of ingredients much like andiesenji has outlined. Plenty of parsley people!

^^ Indian cuisine made use of pippali (long pepper), black pepper, ginger, cardamom, cinnamon and cloves as heating spices. Pepper, ginger and pippali are the most pungent of these.

^^^^ Yeah, as I have mentioned before, the "Europe" that gets bandied about here often seems to exclude the UK certainly... I have noticed that a recent trend in the UK is to reduce size of packages. For instance chocolate bars. I think it is so that they can keep it at the same price as it always has been, because most people will notice a price rise more than a subtle change in size. To me this isn't a problem as I don't buy a lot of pre-made food and also I think small serving sizes of snack foods are good. But obviously you get less for your money.

Beautiful pictures already! Loving those chives. When I was younger I used to sit in the garden by the herb bed and munch on them, flowers and all. Good times.

Rarem rolling object, your request for a recipe was enough of an excuse for me to make pesarattu-upma with allam pachadi for brekkie this morning! Here's my recipe for the pachadi. Ingredients: A lime size ball of dried tamarind 1/2 cup grated fresh ginger 3-4 dried red chillies 2 tablespoons crumbled jaggery Salt Oil, preferably sesame (not the toasted kind) 1 tsp urad dal 1/2 tsp black mustard seeds 1 dried red chilli A large pinch of hing A few curry leaves Soak the tamarind in hot water and extract a thick paste. Put a teaspoon or two of oil in a pan and fry the dried chillies until they darken a little. Add the ginger and fry for 30 seconds or so. Take off the heat. Add the tamarind, jaggery and salt to taste. Grind to a paste (add little or no water so it is thick) Heat a little oil in a small pan. When hot, add the urad dal. A few seconds later add the mustard and red chilli. When the mustard pops and the dal reddens, add the hing and the curry leaves. Stir once or twice then tip into the pachadi. Serve with breakfast items like idli, dosa and of course pesarattu! Here's a pic of this morning's pesarattu-upma. As I mentioned it is a dosa made from mung beans and a very little rice plus seasonings like chillies, ginger, coriander and onion. Traditionally, it is paired with upma for a filling breakfast. Upma is a sort of...well I guess I'll say a kind of pilaf/mashed mixture made with very fine semolina and containing spices and vegetables. Here's a money shot with the upma showing. I like to fold my pesarattu into a pretty triangle (I do the same with masala dosa), but you can also fold it over the filling in a D shape or roll it up into a sort of tube. After this kind of breakfast some good South Indian style filter coffee is a must!

Pepper is not added to all served foods in Indian cuisine, but it has it's place in many dishes, and there are several dishes where it is one of the most important seasonings.

Unrefined corn oil has a lovely aroma and flavour. Refined is pretty bland. Same with peanut oil, which incidentally is another commonly available oil in supermarkets where I live.

^^ I'd say that's probably pretty accurate. However, I beleive that many Thai cookbooks these days recommed peanut oil because it's easily available and people are less freaked out by it then they are by pork fat and coconut oil! Mind you coconut oil is becoming quite the fashionable darling these days. I suppose it's a good thing because it's more commonly available now which is good news for me!