My Firework

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Big Girls, Small kitchen (NSFW)

Am hungry! the half a croissant and a bowl of halfhearted salad sandwhich at Cafe Coffee Day vanished within the hour of eating. This morning I had no option but to swallow down a bowl of muesli (sugar free version) and I hated myself ever since. Now throughout the day I will be hungry and grouchy.

It must be something to do with me being a food fiend. I can live on coffee and sandwiches for ever. Or dal chaval papad pickle. But sometimes I need to eat food thats made with a lot of love and care and all that. Not that the regular fare is made without love - am sure the maid loves the three and half people at home enough to not poison us with her tender love.

Being the fool I am several months ago I decided to start cooking on Sundays. So far I have alternated between biryanis, pastas, cous cous, chinese mallu style and a whole bunch of cakes, tarts, cookies and desserts.

Last Sunday was memorable for a compote of plums that I managed to make without burning my fingers. Its quite simple - walk into the Malad Hypercity or Inorbit Spencer and look for the juiciest plums you can find. Hypercity sells it in cling wrapped containers, three at a time. Get back home, unwind and when they family decides that you are going to vegetate, get started with a thick bottomed vessel.

Wash, remove the pits and slice the plums into thin wedges and throw them into the vessel. Thrown in two star anise flowers and about a quarter cup of sugar. Squeeze in some lime, lemon whatever. Add some water and cover the vessel, forget the whole damn thing for about twenty minutes. When you come back you will find that the sugar had dissolved into the water and the plums have gone all mushy. Gently stir around and let mash reduce to a nice thick consistency. The plums would have let out a nice scarlet red colour.

Cool the compote. Now walk across to the nearest shop and pick up a good sponge cake. ( I forgot to pick up the cake in Hypercity). Crumble the cake until it resembles crumbs, do not press them. Fill some nice glass bowls with this cake crumb halfway through. Now get the vanilla ice cream ( we have this lying about in the fridge) and scoop a nice round volume out. Pour the syrupy compote onto the icecream serve. You can soak the cake crumb with some rum or with some bitter coffee. The combos are perfect.

It worked. This morning my mom asked me if she could pick up some plums!

And sometime ago I discovered this blog about Big Girls, Small Kitchen and reading it made me hungry :)

1 comment:

KAVEETA said...

Hi ,Thanks for sharing simple recipe, this weekend i m going to try this...

I will surely send u my complex recipes easy way...hope u will like them ..

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