...And Then Came Food: September 2015

Hello people of the earth!

Monsoons are finally here. And in this amazing weather, would you rather stay in the kitchen and cook tedious meals or sit by the window with a cup of tea with your favorite snack doing nothing?

The latter for me, sure.

And for such gloomy days, we all need easy to make, pick me up food. And what could be better than combining two classic comfort foods...the classic Indian paneer/chicken tikka and an American burger. And make it healthier.

Healthier, why? No mayo. No cheese. Just a simple yogurt sauce and mint chutney to compliment and cut the richness of the meat/paneer.

If you have the meat marinated, it takes only half an hour to make the burger. I highly recommend marinating (especially the chicken) a day before. The more time given to marinade to penetrate inside, the better. I like to keep marinated chicken in the freezer. Makes life easier.

INGREDIENTS AND METHOD

1. Marinade

INGREDIENTS

200 grams boneless chicken
100 grams paneer(cottage cheese)

Make your own tandoori masala, here.

METHOD

Add the curd, ginger garlic paste and lemon juice and mix thoroughly.

Add in the spices and mix.

Coat the paneer and chicken pieces and keep in the refrigerator overnight.

2. Yogurt Sauce

INGREDIENTS

3/4 cup chopped carrot.

METHOD

Mix everything together.

4.

Cook the paneer and chicken on a medium heat until cooked. Turn in between to ensure even cooking.

5. Assembling the Burger

Condiments:

Toasted Buns
Cooked chicken and paneer
Finely chopped Cabbage/ Lettuce
Sliced Tomatoes
Thinly sliced Onions
Prepared Yogurt Sauce
Mint Chutney (Find recipe, here)

Place the cabbage and tomato slices on the toasted bun.

Following the veggies, add the chicken/paneer.

Top with the sauces.

Finally, add the thinly sliced onions.

Top with the bun.

❤

Hello people of the earth!

"A party without a cake is just a meeting."- Julia Child

There couldn't possibly be a better way to describe the importance of a cake. So when someone asks you to bake one, you just don't say no.

I made this cake for a teacher of mine on Teacher's day. It was a 2 kg (8.8 lb) cake, we were 15 people and the cake was over in about an hour. Says a lot doesn't it?

The cake is a chocolate cake (Yes, again. There's never enough chocolate) with a chocolate whipped cream filling. For those of you who are new to the world of cake decorating, this is the cake for you. So easy to make. Plus, it makes you look like a total pro.

This particular decorating style is called 'Ombre'. The dictionary defines ombre as " gradual blending of one color hue to another, usually moving tints and shades from light to dark". Basically, it's like shading. The ombre trend is everywhere...hair, nails, clothes and what not. So why not make a cake with it huh?

Ombre is one of my favorite cake decorating styles. And there are reasons:

1. Its pretty simple.

2. Errors can be covered very easily.

2. No fancy tools required....just a spatula.

3. It looks sooooo pretty.

NOW TO THE ACTUAL CAKE

The chocolate cake recipe I used is the same I wrote about in my first post. I didn't lie when I said it was a recipe to swear by.

Things you'll need:

Edibles:

Chocolate cake, chilled.
500ml Vanilla flavored Whipped Cream
125 grams Chocolate, chopped
Chocolate Chips
Yellow and Orange Food Color
Edible Hearts

Tools and misc.

Turn table (Optional)
Spatula
Icing Bags
Triangle cake decorating tool

That wasn't such a long list, was it?

The steps are as follows:

The Filling: Chocolate Whipped Cream

Melt the chocolate and add to 200 ml of whipped cream.

Filling The Cake

Add 1-1 1/2 cups of the cream and spread with a spatula, going for inside to outside.

Add desired amount of chocolate chips and add another layer of the cake.

Result.

Base Coats

Can't let any of that chocolate cream go to waste, can we? Cover the cake with a thin coat of the cream. Can be totally skipped.

Give the cake a vanilla whipped cream covering just to seal the cake crumbs and the dark colors in place.

Mix in the food colors, a little at a time.

Fill the icing in piping bags.

Icing

Starting from the bottom, pipe layers of the icing all the way around the cake till you cover a good amount of the cake with a color.

I piped three layers.

The layers don't need to be piped very precisely . It's fine if you have more icing on some places and less on others as we are going to come back to it anyways.