Simple Wok/Non Stick Kadhai Tossed Potatoes

This potato dish is one of the simplest dishes you can quickly stir at home. It can usually only be found in very authentic Sichuan restaurants. I came across this wonderful dish when I started working in China House Restaurant in Mumbai around a decade ago and observed my East Asian Chef friends from Sichuan stir this dish up for their own lunch as it was a dish they used to cook regularly for their home cooking back in their hometown. One thing I can assure you of though…I fell in love with it instantly.

You may be surprised to know that potatoes are rarely considered a starch in Far East like in India. Unlike noodles, rice and baos, potatoes are often eaten as a vegetable. This dish is a perfect match with your main course which is quite similar to us Indians enjoying a potato dish with our rotis & chapatis or as a side sabzi with the main course. In this dish, the potatoes are actually crunchy and full of flavor, because a lot of the starch has been rinsed away.

The key to successfully executing this recipe is making sure the potatoes are julienned really thinly. A mandolin slicer would be perfect to make the potato strings thin and uniform. Trying to cut the potatoes by hand might work well if you have really practiced well and are really good at it, else it can be time consuming and the cuts might be uneven. The cuts should be as uniform as possible so that all the potatoes cook at the same time and evenly.

Ingredients:

• 2 large Potatoes (Red Skinned Pahari Potatoes if available)
• 1 tablespoon Chili oil (Lee Kum Kee easily available)
• 1 teaspoon Sichuan peppercorns dried red
• 2 cloves Garlic paste
• 1 Red or Green Bell Pepper (Capsisum) ( de-seeded and julienne)
• 1 teaspoon light soy sauce (don’t use regular or dark soy sauce as it will turn your dish dark brown ( I prefer Golden Mountain Seasoning Sauce)
• ½ teaspoon Sugar
• 1 teaspoon Chin Kiang Vinegar ( If difficult to find use white vinegar)
• 1/2 teaspoon Sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon water or vegetable stock if you have
• Salt to taste
• Spring onion, sliced in slant diamonds to garnish

Wash & peel the potatoes & julienne them, immediately soak in ice cold water for 5 minutes, Strain & set aside. This will reduce their starch & help keep them crunchy & light.

Heat the chili oil in a wok , add the sichuan peppercorn & saute till they release their awesome flavour in the oil. Remove them & discard.

Add the potatoes and julienned peppers. Turn the heat up to high and stir-fry for 30 seconds. Add the soy sauce, sugar, vinegar, sesame oil, veg stock (or water), and salt. Stir-fry everything for a minute and cover for 45 seconds. Uncover, stir in the scallions, and serve!

Thats how easy this recipe is & tastes delicious with just simple plain steamed rice. This dish can also accompany with any other non vegetarian dishes you are planning to cook as a side dish!!

Try it & let me know in the comments!!

Cooking Seafood……The “Right” Way!!

I have observed that most of the places I get invited for lunch or dinner with seafood in their menu, it is usually overcooked or not done the right way. I thought of sharing some knowledge about cooking seafood the right way which might help you all in your cooking endeavours.

Fishes are rich in Omega-3 fatty acids and a great source of proteins. They don’t have a lot of tough connective tissue and heavy skeleton like land animals, because the water provides buoyancy, and they can remain almost weightless by simply storing a layer of oil or gases lighter than water in their bodies. This makes their flesh leaner, milder and softer than land creatures. This is the reason that it gets cooked too quickly, rather overcooked. There is a thin span of time for a fish to get soft, juicy and succulent to hard, dry and rubbery. People usually cook fish in the same way they would cook chicken, lamb or other meats which is disastrous.

If you’re using a dry heat method such as sautéing that is searing in a pan with some oil, make sure your fish fillets are 1/2- to 3/4-inch thick. Heat the pan and add oil. If you’ve marinated the fish, shake off any excess marinade before you put the fish in the pan. This is necessary because something called the Maillard reaction happens only when the surface of the food is dry. In layman’s terms, that’s the browning of the meat surface when dry meat meets a surface hot enough. This browning creates flavour compounds that make the fish taste good and delicious. Excess marinade won’t let the fish brown quickly and by the time it browns it will be already overcooked.

The ideal time for fish fillets to spend in a pan is about three minutes on each side. After three minutes, flip the fish and cook it for another three minutes if it is with bone, bone acts as an insulator and increases cooking time slightly. The kind of fish you use will also affect cooking time. Fattier fish will take a little longer; leaner fish, not so much. ‘‘Cook’s instinct” plays a big role in turning good food to great food. There is a simple method to check the fish while it’s cooking. When you’re nearing the total cooking time and have about a minute to go, poke a small corner of the fish with a fork or a toothpick. Properly cooked fish will be opaque all the way through and should flake into nice chunks. It will also appear moist. Fish that’s not quite done won’t be fully opaque. Fish that’s overcooked will be opaque but will flake into small, dry bits.

If you use a wet method of cooking such as Indian curries, your fish will take a little longer to cook because it’s not in contact with anything hotter than the boiling liquid gravy, but it will still cook fast enough and long cooking times such as an hour will dry out the fish. Thinly sliced fillets will still cook in a few minutes in curries, while larger pieces will not take longer than 10-15 minutes. If your curry needs to be simmered for a long time to bring out flavour, I suggest you do that without the fish at first, and add the fish only towards the end.

Prawns are ideal for quick cooking methods like stir-frying because they get done in no time at all. That they taste good even with just a bit of salt and pepper. If you throw prawns into a hot pan and stir them around with your seasoning, they are usually done in about a minute and a bit. If you’re stir frying them, it’s closer to 30 seconds. You can simply watch for them to change colour. When they’re done, their flesh will turn opaque and there will be a bright orange hue to their tails. “Carry over cooking” refers to the phenomenon that food retains heat and continues to cook even after being removed from the source of heat, so they will continue to cook slightly even when removed from heat for some time.

 For some interesting recipes….stay tuned.

Get in touch with me for queries on kumta.prathamesh@gmail.com or comment below!!

House Get-Together & Parties Tips & Tricks

 

 

These days work pressure in all the fields is high which makes everyone wait for the weekend to relax and enjoy. The first thing that comes to mind when it’s a weekend apart from shopping and sleeping is family get-togethers and house parties. Everyone likes to attend a house party but the person hosting the party gets stuck planning for the party. What to make, how much quantity, time consumed etc are some of the common concerns of any person hosting a party. This article will help you think the way professional Chefs think about hosting a party at home.

 

A house party usually starts with appetizers and drinks followed by dinner that is the main course. In the Indian context, dinner is taken as a signal that the party has ended, and if one person decides he’s hungry and wants some dinner, the rest of the guests soon join the queue, and your party may end prematurely, leaving you wondering what just happened.

 

The level of interest is the maximum when the guests enter your house and keeps decreasing as the level of food and drinks in their bodies increase. So more focus should be on the starters and the main course should be kept simple.

 

If you calculate from Chef’s point of view, a normal adult would have around 350 gms of food which includes meat vegetables and grains all together. So say you have 15 people at home the total quantity of food would be 15 x 350 that comes approximately 5kg of food.  You can divide this in whichever way you want to. You might choose to buy, say, 3kg of meat (remember to adjust for bone weight; about 35-40% of meat can be bone) and 1kg of various vegetables, but this number is reliable enough. Males tend to eat a wee bit more, so if it’s a party full of guys, get 10% more food.

 

As for starter portion size is concerned five-six pieces per person per hour is a reasonable estimate. Cocktail parties without dinner need more snacks. In my experience, most parties go for 3 hours on an average. So using the same 15 people in our previous example, we get 15x3x5 = 225 pieces. Now, those seem like a lot, but remember that I’m literally talking about bite-size snack portions, not giant kebabs that you might get from a restaurant. So you don’t need to go broke making food. It’s best to divide this into many dishes. I recommend having at least five-six types of snacks for variety, so that leaves you with 45 portions of five snacks. Count the vegetarians in the group, and add another 25% to your calculation. The vegetarians won’t eat meat, but the carnivores in the group have no problem munching on the vegetarian food, too.

If you’re doing dinner as well, apply the same calculation as above, but reduce the time to 2 hours instead. So for 15 guests, you’d get 15x5x2 = 150 pieces of snacks. That’s almost half the food in snacks. Remember the overall quantity calculation for the party? Just apply half of it now for main course, and you’re set.

 

A common concern for a person hosting a party is that there should be no shortage in main course and he/she lands up cooking a large amount of main course. When you have a lot of guests, don’t go for too much variety in the main course. Instead, make larger quantities of fewer dishes (this rule also works well when large group of friends go to restaurants). It’s a practical matter, really. The more dishes you have, the more work you have to do to make them. Second, you risk a popular dish getting over quickly, and other guests not getting any. Third, it leads to more wastage as it’s harder to get quantities exactly right for smaller portions. And lastly, more dishes on one plate make a mess of flavors on the plate The truth is a normal person can eat only the above calculated quantity of food and by the time the guests head for main course, however well prepared it may be they just end up tasting a small amount of it and you get a large amount of leftovers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tips & Tricks for Salads

 

 

A Salad is a category of food which is one of the most creative sections in culinary world as the ingredients of a salad can be very interesting and different from the usual ones. Salad is usually prototyped as raw vegetables with some dressing by many, but there is a lot more that can be worked on apart from that with salads.  You can find salads of leafy greens, other vegetables, root vegetables, meats, pasta, and more. While many are served cold, there are also warm salad recipes. A salad usually has four basic parts that is a base, body, dressing and garnish. Base is an under liner which is usually green leafy vegetables like lettuce which is most common, while plenty of other greens such as spinach, fenugreek, watercress, arugula, cabbage, etc., can be used as under liners. Body consists of the main ingredients in the salad which is mixed with the dressing and garnish which can be a part of the body which adds an overall eye appeal to the salad.

 

Now some tips and tricks for making your salad look appealing and attractive like the ones you see in up market restaurants. There isn’t any magic there; it’s all about picking the right ingredients at their freshest and keeping them that way. When shopping for salad greens, pick the firmest, most vibrant leaves you can find. Ignore the ones that look sad and half dead. When the ingredients are fresh it automatically reflects in your finished product and makes it look appealing and attractive.

 

Fill a large bowl with ice water and soak them in it for 10 minutes. This will restore some of the water in the leaves and make them crisp and tastier. It will also eliminate mud and grit from the leaves. Once you’ve soaked them, gently lift them out of the bowl with your hands to avoid taking the mud along and put them in a plastic tub with holes. Now we need to get rid of excess moisture before refrigerating the greens. If you don’t get rid of the water, your greens will rot in the fridge. To store the greens, wrap them in paper kitchen towel. Just roll them in a nice big wad of kitchen towel, and then put them in a plastic zip-lock bag with all the air squeezed out. This will keep them fresh in your fridge. When using cold cooked vegetables as ingredients in your salad make sure that they retain bright colour and a crunchy to bite and not over cooked. There is a trick to retain the colour and crunchiness of them, you need to immerse them in boiling water till they are just cooked and immediately immerse them in ice water bath.

 

The ingredients used in the salad should be thought of in such a way that they contrast each other in colours, flavors and their textures which helps in maintaining the taste as well as eye appeal. Another trick to make your salad look attractive is the mix it up just before serving it Salt in salad dressing will draw out moisture from the main ingredients and you’ll have a pool of water in your salad bowl along with limp, soggy looking salad. Avoid using hands and pressing your ingredients, use a spoon and mix gently so that they don’t look crushed and bruised

 

Food Plating Basics

Food plating is about the presentation of food to increase desire and impress your diners. Learn the basics of plating, Asian plating techniques and tips to provide inspiration for creating your own.

The 5 Basic Elements of Plating

Create a Framework

Start with drawings and sketches to visualise the plate. Find inspiration from a picture or object. Assemble a ‘practice’ plate to work on executing your vision.

Keep It Simple

Select one ingredient to focus on and use space to simplify the presentation. Clutter distracts from the main elements of your dish and might confuse the diners on what to focus on.

Balance the Dish

Play with colours, shapes and textures to ensure diners are not overwhelmed. The presentation should never overpower flavour and function.

Get the Right Portion Size

Ensure there is the right amount of ingredients and the plate complements the dish, not too big or too small. Strike the right proportion of protein, carbohydrates and vegetables to create a nutritionally balanced meal.

Highlight the Key Ingredient

Ensure the main ingredient stands out and pay equal attention to the ‘support’. This refers to the other elements on the plate such as garnishes, sauces and even the plate itself.

Types of Plating

Classic Plating(Western style)

The classical plating technique uses the three basic food items of starch, vegetables and main in a specific arrangement. A simple guide to a classical plating is to think of the plate as the face of a clock.

Main: Between 3 to 9 o’clock

Starch: Between 9 to 11 o’clock

Vegetables: Between 11 to 3 o’clock

Plating for Asian Dishes

Communal

Sharing is an important aspect of the Asian Dining Culture and communal dishes are very common. Being large in portion size, communal dishes can be challenging to plate. Here are some examples of how communal dishes can be plated elegantly:

• Using aesthetically pleasing garnishes.
• Experiment with interesting plates and serving dishes like steamboats, woks, double-boil soup terrines, dim sum baskets and even banana leaves.

Individual

As more Asian restaurants adopt a more modern style, smaller individual-sized servings are becoming increasingly common. When plating such dishes, adopt Western presentation techniques.

One-Dish Meals

One-dish meals like fish porridge, Nasi Lemak, Biryanis & Nasi Goreng etc are very common in Asian dining culture and it is interesting to pay attention to how they are plated. Here are a few common ways of plating one-dish meals:

• Starch is often plated in the centre of the plate or bowl
• Proteins are usually placed on top of the starch
• Vegetables are placed around the sides
• Colour and texture are very important visual elements in plating.

Additional Factors of Plating

Moulded Ingredients

Cleverly cut or sculpted ingredients can enhance the visual appeal of   dishes. Slice fillets of meat at a bias to show doneness and quality.   Sculpted food also provides height and structure and keeps the plate neat and   clean.

Sauces

Create accents in the form of   dots on the side of the plate or as a character on one side of the plate.   When applying a sauce, lightly pour or drizzle it on the plate either over   the dish or underneath.

Garnishes

Garnishes serves as an accent   to perk up or highlight the colour of the main dish. It’s meant to enhance   and match the flavours of the dish, not overpower it. Here are some simple   guidelines to applying garnishes:

  Refrain from heaping garnishing on one corner of the plate.

  Provide a flash of colour and shapes by arranging the garnishes around the main dish.

 Garnishes should always be edible so avoid using parsley flowers, lemon twists, cinnamon sticks or raw herbs.

 Garnishing should be applied quickly to ensure the food arrives at the table warm.

Thailand – Foodies Paradise

Different types of meats and seafood on skewers fresh and succulent ….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fish balls and glass noodles in flavourful broth,  a meal by itself! Garnished with fried garlic, spring onions and chilli flakes. Very light healthy and refreshing….

Steamed fish balls..

 

Below is something similar to our Indian Rice Appe, but the ingredients are different. They have seafood, eggs, vegetables, seasonings and flour batter….

 

 

 

Photographs by Devika Hattangdi Dhareshwar

Black Olive & Hot Bean Fried Rice

Serves 2

 Ingredients:

 4 cups steamed jasmine rice
1 tablespoon sliced black olives
2 teaspoon chopped black beans
1/2 tablespoon dry chilli flakes
1/2 tablespoon light soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 tablespoon sweet soy sauce
3 dashes white pepper powder
1 skinless and boneless chicken breast (cut into small cubes)
1/2 cup baby shrimp
2 tablespoons cooking oil
2 cloves garlic (finely chopped)2 shallots (finely chopped)
2 eggs (light beaten)
½ cup chopped spring onion

 
Method
1. Heat up a wok with two tablespoons of oil.
2. Add chopped shallots, garlic, black beans and chilli flakes sauté till aromatic and set aside.
3. Using the same oil, Add in chicken, baby shrimp and stir fry until they are half cooked.
4. Season with salt and continue to stir-fry until they are 80% cooked.
5. Add in the jasmine rice and stir well with the ingredients and add the black bean mixture
6. Add in soy sauce, sweet soy sauce, white pepper powder and continue to fry the rice for a couple of minutes.
7. Make a “well” in the middle of the wok and pour the beaten eggs in the well. Wait for 30 seconds and then cover the “egg well” with rice.
8. Leave it for 30 seconds and continue to stir-fry the fried rice so the eggs form small pieces and mix well with the fried rice.
9. Add in the chopped spring onion and do some quick stirs, dish out and serve the fried rice hot. Garnish with sliced peppers, cherry tomatoes and coriander with a drizzle of sesame seeds.

 

Photographed by : Vinayak Chittar

Grilled Jumbo Prawns With Nam Jim Dressing

For the Prawns

Cut the shell with kitchen scissors and devein the prawns without removing the head or the shell off the prawn, marinate with salt, crushed pepper and lime juice and grill the prawns. Retaining the shell infuses the flavor from the shell to the prawn meat while grilling

For the Nam Jim dressing

Roughly chop the chillies, garlic and ginger. Add the coriander. Use a mortar and pestle or blender and crush until you have a rough paste. (Alternatively, chop all as finely as possible.) Add sugar/palm sugar in small amounts until dissolved. Add fish sauce and lime juice to taste.

Food Pic photographed by Devika Hattangdi Dhareshwar

Ong Noh Khao Swte

Serves 1 (Meal in itself)

Ingredients

250gms boneless chicken breast cut into slices (as for stir-fry)

Burmese khao swte paste

Make a paste of

1/2 cup chana daal (split yellow lentils)

1 cups warm water (to soak and grind chana daal)

2 tbsp canola oil

1 medium-sized onion

4 shallots

1 medium ginger

6 cloves garlic

2 tsp coriander powder

1 tsp cumin powder

2 tsp turmeric powder (fresh turmeric pod preferred)

1 1/2 tbsp red chili powder

1 tbsp galangal paste

2 tbsp lemongrass paste

Sauté the paste and add

1/2 can coconut milk

1 cup chicken stock

2 tsp Fish sauce

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp (shrimp powder/shrimp paste optional)

Add sliced chicken and cook till tender

Serve with

1 bowl boiled egg noodles

1 bowl fried noodles

Condiments

Sliced shallots

Sliced fried garlic

Boiled egg chopped

Light Soya sauce

Chopped chilies

Lime wedges

Bananas stewed in coconut milk

Serves 2

Ingredients
4 no Banana cut lengthwise x 2
½ Tin Coconut milk
1 tbsp Sugar
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp Black sesame

Method
1. Slice the bananas lengthways, then in haft. Pour the coconut milk into a pan, add the sugar and salt.
2. Bring to the boil, add the bananas, bring back to the boil for minutes and then remove from heat. Serve hot or cold.
3. Garnish with toasted black sesame seeds and mint leaf.