A Taste of Home - Part III

And finally, going from worst to best - here are the three best meals I had in Delhi on this trip:

Flavors in Defence Colony: This one was a tough call. Back in the day, the owner of Flavors, one Mr. Tarsillo Nataloni, treated the brother rather nastily and we decided we would never go back. Fast forward about 10 years - a friend and I are looking for a place for lunch with outdoor seating and her first choice, Blanco in Khan Market is reserved for a private event. She suggests Flavors and I reluctantly agree. Good thing too. She had the risotto (what is it with women and risottos by the way? Is this some new Delhi trend that has completely passed me by?), I had a linguine Amatriciana and we shared an antipasti platter. Her risotto looked really good and she said that it tasted even better. The antipasti platter was really really good. I don't know if the salumi on it was imported or home-made (it wasn't priced as if it were imported and if it was home-made, my respect for ol' Nat just increased tenfold - as a salumist that is, not as a person). The Amatriciana was of course limited by the fact that Nat was using (per force, I'm sure) bacon instead of guanciale and linguine instead of bucatini but I had anticipated that and, within those limitations, it just about hit the spot. The sauce was appropriately chunky harkening to its rustic Roman origin, the sweetness of the onions and the fierceness of the red pepper flakes complemented each other beautifully and the linguine, which was perfectly al dente, wasn't drowned in the sauce. For a garnish, there was a drizzle of olive oil and shredded Romano cheese. All I can say is this - Mr. Nataloni could probably run a restaurant in Little Italy. I mean, he's already got the disposition to match!

Karim Hotel on Matia Mahal: Well, actually it's on Gali Kababian, if you want to get all technical about it, but Matia Mahal will do fine I think. Pretty much every non-herbivore foodie in Delhi knows where Karim's is. Everything that needs to be said about Karim's has already been said so there's little more that I can add. We used to go to Karim's fairly often when I was in college, to get their famous Nihari for breakfast and the place seems to have expanded since then. It's also a lot spiffier - less of the dhaba feel. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. What I can say with certainty is that their Tandoori Raan - an entire roasted goat leg, carved at the table (or not, if you prefer to use your fingers. And we did) is all that. And they probably make the best mutton qorma in the city. 'Nuff said.

Chez Mom's: My mother makes, by an order of magnitude, the very best mutton pulao in the whole wide world, bar none (yes, I'm looking at you Chef Imtiaz Qureshi). I don't know how she does it - I haven't been able to replicate her dish despite scrupulously following her recipe - but she does it, time after time after time. Her hit ratio has to be in the high 90s. If you control for the fact that she is a brilliant cook generally (she has a repertoire that would allow her to go three meals a day for a year without having to repeat herself), one reason for her extraordinary virtuosity with the pulao has to lie with her growing up in Faizabad and Lucknow (from where, incidentally, Imtiaz Qureshi also hails). Her pulao is a thing of beauty - each grain of rice is separate and seems like it was individually coated with the juices from the meat. The spices are perfectly balanced. The meat itself is falling of the bone tender. It's topped with the most perfectly fried crispy onions. She usually serves a raita to go with it - let the record show that I have never, ever eaten that raita. My standing request to her is that on these annual trips to India, my first meal and my last meal at home be her mutton pulao. Thus far, she's indulged me. I just hope that I continue to stay on her 'good' list.

A Taste of Home - Part II

And so... on to Delhi. Before we get to the food, I just want to mention that the traffic situation seems to have improved a little bit from a year ago. Last year, it seemed like every time I stepped out of my house I was stuck in a traffic jam. This year, except for one nasty jam on Press Enclave Road in which I spent something like 300 hours, the traffic seemed to be moving for the most part. (And that one jam was exacerbated by the fact that the person I was with was trying really hard to pretend that she wouldn't rather be anywhere but there. Which made it all the more awkward and uncomfortable. Another story – let's move on.)

I had lunch at Sartoria at the Priya Complex in Vasant Vihar. They did a good Caesar salad and the chicken soup that I had was pretty substantial and well made. And my friend seemed to be pretty happy with her pasta, which came in an American sized portion in a huge platter. However, in what would become a recurring theme of my Delhi trip, the dessert was a disaster – what was billed as a blueberry cheesecake was instead congealed paneer with what had to be the equivalent of Hershey's syrup.

To make amends we went to the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf at the Select City Walk Mall ('least that's what I think it was called) and tried their 'mousse-style' cheesecake. Word to the wise – don't.

Maybe living in a city which gave the world Junior's and Roxy's has made me a cheesecake snob but I make no apologies for that. After all, it's called a 'New York style' cheesecake, ain't it?

I also had lunch another day with the same friend at a place called Azzurro at the PVR Complex in Saket. It's supposed to be a Mediterranean restaurant and it is run by a chef trained at Le Cordon Bleu. When we got there for lunch around 1 PM, admittedly on a weekday, it was completely empty which to me is always a bit of a warning sign. Maybe it gets really busy for dinner – I sure hope it does. She had a mushroom risotto and I had a fillet of sole with lemon butter sauce. The fish itself was pretty good (although I have my doubts as to whether it was actually sole) – light, flaky and full of flavor. From all accounts the risotto was pretty good too (once again in a gigantic serving – what's up with these super-sized portions in Delhi?!). What wasn't so good was the side of mashed potatoes served with the fish. It is described on the menu as a fondant, which is actually a sugar, water and gelatin paste used for icings on cakes and stuff. Well, the kindest thing I can say about the 'potato fondant' was that they nailed the  paste part – dense, heavy and almost totally devoid of taste. When a Cordon Bleu chef can't get mashed potatoes right (especially after pretentiously calling it fondant), then it's probably a portent of things to come. Sure enough, the dessert – a strawberry cheesecake this time – was another disaster. The chef clearly loves his fondant though, 'cause there is a chocolate one on the menu as well.

The lesson as always: when in India, stay away from the cheesecake! Stick with rasmalai or rasgullah or something. Would I heed this lesson? Of course not! And good thing too because otherwise I would never  have rediscovered Big Chill.

Back when I still lived in Delhi, Big Chill was a newly opened ice-cream, coffee and dessert place in East of Kailash. It had already begun to make waves and was giving Nirula's, the then reigning ice-cream and dessert place a serious case of the heebie-jeebies. Well, all these years later, Big Chill has expanded to three stores in Delhi (although the original one in EoK has apparently closed), one of which is in Khan Market and where I, over the course of the next couple of weeks, became a regular. They make a blueberry cheesecake which was far and away the best cheesecake I would eat on my trip and which, I am reasonably assured, is in fact the best cheesecake in Delhi. The cheesecake at Big Chill is wonderfully  light and airy, the blueberry topping is just so and it even has an authentic graham cracker crust. Over the next two weeks, I ended up buying 10 slices and not only were they consistently good but my Dad said that they reminded him of his last visit to New York.

In fact, Khan Market has quite the collection of nifty, hole-in-the-wall gems. I got kababs one day from Khan Chacha's Kababs which were absolutely brilliant (and for how good they are, pretty damn cheap). There is the old reliable Café Turtle of course where I took my dentist and her husband, both visiting from the US, for tea. They gave high marks to the falafel and hummus at Café Turtle and they're originally from Israel so I figure they should know a thing or two about falafel and hummus. It seems that Café Turtle has also become a franchise and have stores in other parts of Delhi. More power to them, I say!

We had lunch, my family and I, at the Host in Connaught Place and I don't know why or how we ended up there. I mean, I've lived in Delhi for over 25 years and I had never been to the Host. Not once. And, as far as I know, my parents had never been to the Host either. The only reason I can think of is that it was late in the day and we were too lazy and tired to walk the additional 100 yards to Berco's. Anyway, we went to the Host and the food was the worst I ate on this trip. The portions were meager, the butter chicken was an abomination – dry and cloyingly sweet, and the tandoori rotis were more burnt than not. But... they had Kalyani Black Label beer! The only place I ever found it. I couldn't find it in Mumbai (it is apparently only a northern Indian brand) and most places I went to in Delhi didn't have it either. So props to the Host for at least getting that one thing right.

A Taste of Home - Part I

It's been a couple of weeks since I got back Stateside from my annual pilgrimage home to India. As vacations go, this was actually a lengthy one – nearly three weeks 'in-country'. As with any vacation, this one had it's highs and lows but at the end of it all I had got to spend some quality time with perhaps the only five people in the world who love me unconditionally (even though, thanks to some spectacularly bad math on my part, two of them got less than 48-hours of the total, but that's groveling for another time) so it was all good.

The great thing about long vacations in India is that you get to eat a lot and culinary terms this trip was a particularly varied and rich experience. Here, in a semi-chronological order, are the highlights of that experience:

Let's start with Mumbai and lunch at the Renaissance Hotel Powai's buffet. We went there on a Sunday, which the brother, in an effort to lower expectations, told me was a slow lunch day. It must have been because the Renaissance clearly had its B-team on duty. The food and the service were, in a word, sad. Except for three things. The first was the Rahra Mutton, which was qualitatively so much better than the rest of the spread that I am wondering if it might have been stale – you know, leftovers from the night before when the alpha chef presumably still had the con. Then there were the Gol-Gappas (or pani-puri, as they call them in those parts), which were crisp and golden brown; the 'pani' was salty and tangy and the proper sewer green color. Finally, there was Nikita – the sous chef at the chaat station. I have never, in all my years, seen a female chaat maker before. It is easier for me to imagine a female president of the US than a woman in India making chaat professionally. That has to be the last male bastion left. I did double takes and triple takes. I stared. (The fact that Nikita was rather good looking and had a winsome smile is entirely besides the point.) Just for having the testicular fortitude to put Nikita on the chaat station the Renaissance gets a place in the highlight reel – even though their food generally sucked.

Yea, even Nikita's chaat unfortunately (the gol-gappas, although at the same station, were made by a different dude 'cause Nikita was on a break at the time, I think).

We had dinner at Mainland China in Andheri (I think) that night in order to sate my Indian-Chinese cravings. The service was prompt and courteous; the food was good; we ordered too much; a jolly time was had by all – in other words, it was your typical family outing to the neighborhood Chinese restaurant. I only mention it because it would be the only Chinese food I would eat on this trip. And for the fact that I discovered the secret to restaurant style crispy spinach upon my return (it's somewhat of a speciality at Mainland China apparently. But that's another post).

The best food I had in Mumbai were the bread pakoras that the brother's mother-in-law made for breakfast the next morning. Ab-so-lute-ly spectacular. They were crisp to the point of being crunchy on the outside while the filling inside was moist, almost gooey. They physics of how such a thing is possible is a bit of a mystery to me. They took me back to my childhood and my school canteen and the Moonlight sweet shop in Munirka, New Delhi. I ate at least half-a-dozen of those bad boys, maybe even 10.

Before I go on to the Delhi leg of the trip, a quick word about the Rajdhani Express, which I took from Mumbai to Delhi (my first train ride in six years! As the bro' and his wife will testify, I was as excited as a 6-year old!) – they feed you a lot on that train. I mean like all the time. It seemed like every time I turned around, there was a dude standing there with a snack or a juice or soup or tea or coffee or something! Amazing.

And the staff on the train was unfailingly polite, always ready to accommodate requests – for extra coffee, extra sandwiches, extra blankets, extra ice-cream, you name it – and always with a smile. And they had like six(!) choices for the dinner entree – vegetarian or non. If non, then eggs or chicken. If chicken, then Indian or Continental. You don't get that kind of choice in first-class on an international flight! The next morning, as the steward started to rattle off the seemingly endless choices for breakfast, I actually had to stop the guy and ask him to get whatever he thought best (he was so pleased he got me idlis and veg. cutlets!).

The fact that Lalu Yadav screwed up Bihar is probably indisputable. But that in the railways, he's found a calling is probably equally indisputable. Maybe the Indian Railways would be willing to teach the staff at the Renaissance a thing or two about customer service.

R.I.P - David Foster Wallace

David Foster Wallace - novelist, philosopher, journalist, humorist and one of the best wordsmiths to put pen to paper died on September 12, apparently having committed suicide by hanging himself.

In his fiction, Wallace was considered the heir of Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo and in his essays and observational pieces, he could be a combination of Malcolm Gladwell and Chuck Klosterman. He could write with equal felicity about tennis, porn or food. He was published in the New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker and in Playboy. His breakthrough novel, Infinite Jest was named one of Time magazine's 100 Best English Language Novels.

I first learnt of Wallace from a 2004 Gourmet magazine article about the ethical complexities of boiling alive lobsters for food. I remember thinking at the time, 'this is an odd article for a food magazine.' But that was the subversive genius of Wallace - he could write a philosophical screed on the "whole animal cruelty and eating issue" in a food magazine. I'm sure that when Gourmet commissioned him to write the article, they were expecting a standard issue travelogue , not a footnoted, annotated essay, which as Slate writer Troy Patterson puts it, "ranks as a must-read for anyone even thinking of having dinner."

Since we all think of having dinner at some point, here is the article. Hopefully, it will make us think also of David Foster Wallace.

Godspeed, and farewell.

The Best Biryani in New York

Omigod! I think I may just have eaten the best biryani there is in New York City! Sangam is that proverbial hole-in-the-wall restaurant (it only seats six) that serves fantastic food from a limited menu. For most such places, the hype usually overshadows the food, but for Sangam, believe the hype, man (or at least get there fast, before the hype does overshadow the food).

As for the hype, here's what you need to know. I actually found and ate every last grain of rice of the biryani that we got on our last visit, literally - including a few that had fallen off my plate and on the table (much to the disgust of my date). I gnawed at the lamb bones. I even ate the frikkin' raita! I thought of my Mom.

In addition to the biryani (of which there are lamb, chicken and vegetarian variants), Sangam makes a Nargisi roll to die for. My only grouch is that they use ground chicken instead of lamb or beef. And for dessert, there is phirni, which, no exaggeration, will take you back to Birhana Road in Kanpur.

They have some vegetarian dooh-dahs - samosas, veggie rolls and the like - which are probably quite good too (I have no idea, 'cause I didn't try them - see no reason to).

Here's the kicker - Two people can eat there for under 30 bucks! The biryanis go for $7 - $9 depending on what you get, the rolls are $8 for a pair and the phirni is $3. And... on weekends they're open till 2 in the morning!

Someone please wake me - this has got to be a dream.

Apparently Ishrat Ansari, one of the co-owners started the restaurant because his wife made the biryani for some friends, word spread and soon they were deluged with requests for more. I say, good call Ishrat.

Sangam, 190 Bleecker St., New York, NY 10012. Ph: 212.228.4648. Open 1PM - 11PM M-T; 1PM - 2AM F-S.

Crowning Glory

In the land of the Long White Cloud, just west of the Half Moon Bay, around campfires and in the warmth of the kitchen hearth, they tell the legend of the Wild Rose of Aotearea, a beautiful and noble queen who was a fierce warrior, a graceful chanteuse and was known for the indomitable courage of her convictions. A free spirit living up to her name, she thought that each day was a present and wanted all people to be the very best that they could be every day of their lives. So in honor of this mythical queen and the land whence she comes, here is a dish worthy of royalty.

You will need:

For the roast and the rub:
Two 6-8 rib racks of New Zealand lamb
2 tblsp olive oil
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 tblsp each: fresh thyme, parsley, mint, chives and oregano - all chopped. Also, a sprig of rosemary, chopped.
A beer/ soda can

For the stuffing (optional, but why the hell not?!):
A link or two of sausage (or the trimmings from the Frenching of the ribs, if available - see below).
1 onion, chopped
4 cups of mixed mushrooms
1/2 cup chopped parsley
1 can chicken broth
2 tsp dried thyme
2 tsp dried sage or marjoram
2 tblsp butter/ olive oil combo
Salt and pepper to taste

For the sauce:
2 tsp white wine vinegar
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp honey
1/4 cup finely chopped mint
2 tblsp extra virgin olive oil

Preparation:
Form the crown roast by bending each rack of lamb in a semi-circle and tying together end-to-end, fat side out, at the base and at the center, with twine. Or you can get a prepared crown roast. If this is a DIY project then you will probably need to 'French' the ribs too. In that case save and grind the trimmings to be used for the stuffing.

Preheat the oven to 375 deg F.

Rub the lamb with 1 tblsp olive oil. In a bowl, mix all the rub ingredients with the remaining tablespoon of olive oil and apply to the lamb, pressing hard so it sticks to the meat (you know, actually rub it in!)

Place the crown roast on a roasting pan, stick the can of beer in the middle to help the roast hold its shape and put the whole thing in the oven for 30-35 mins (130 deg F/ 10 mins per pound). Remove from the oven, transfer to a plate, tent with foil and allow it rest for 15-20 mins. This is critical!

In the meantime, if you're making the stuffing, now would be the time to do so. Sauté the onion in a medium hot skillet in a olive oil/ butter combination for about 4-5 mins or till onions are soft and translucent. Add the mushrooms, season with salt to draw out the moisture and sauté for another 5 minutes. Add sage and thyme, cook for a minute or two and add the accumulated juices from the roast and the chicken broth. Cook for about 5-6 minutes, add the parsley and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper.

To prepare the sauce, combine the white wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, honey and chopped mint in a bowl, season with salt and pepper and mix in the extra virgin olive oil. You might even give it a pulse or two (no more!) in a food processor.

To serve, cut the string away from the roast, remove the beer can, place the stuffing in the center and serve with the mint sauce.

Carve at the table and you might just get some!

Eggs Benedict

Eggs Benedict has consistently been one of my favorite brunch options. For a hearty mid-morning meal, especially when said mid-morning arrives after an ill-spent liquid night, there are few things that are better. Having made many variations of the basic recipe, I consider myself to be a bit of an Eggs Benedict connoisseur. So when Rearset's (much) better half requested my recipe, I was only too happy to pontificate.

There are conflicting histories as to the origins Eggs Benedict - one version, according to the December 19, 1942 issue of The New Yorker, involves the Waldorf hotel in New York, a Wall Street type called Lemuel Benedict trying to cure a hangover and ordering "buttered toast, crisp bacon, 2 poached eggs, & a hooker of hollandaise."

On the other hand, Elizabeth David in her classic 1958 book French Provincial Cooking says that the origins can be traced to a French dish called œufs bénédictine. But then the French believe that all great dishes originated in France so take this as you will.

Whether it was an irate New York broker or a French farmer, I am just glad that someone invented it. On to the recipe, or rather my version of it. This makes one serving.

You will need:

• Two eggs - at room temperature! Give up the nasty habit of cooking eggs straight out of the fridge!
• An English muffin, split into half.
• The traditional recipe calls for Canadian bacon or ham, but I prefer Pancetta. Use as much as you like, but at least enough to cover the muffin halves.
• A few leafs of Spinach (why leave the Florentine out of the fun?!)
• A few tomato slices
• White wine vinegar
• Hollandaise sauce*
• Parsley and/ or chives to garnish

Here's how you make it:
In a wide, deep sauce pan bring to a fast rolling boil enough water to completely submerge the eggs. Think like you're cooking pasta - there should be enough water for the eggs to swim around.

Butter the muffin halves and place on a plate - they will form the base of the dish. Render the Pancetta in a medium-low pan till it is heated through and beginning to crisp around the edges. Place on top of the muffins.

Next, the tomato slices, which go atop the Pancetta. At this point hit it with some coarsely ground black pepper. Next up, the spinach.

Blanch the spinach for about 30-seconds to a minute in the water that you already have boiling for the eggs. Remove and 'shock' the leafs in an ice bath. This stops the cooking immediately and keeps the spinach nice and green. Put the spinach on top of the tomato.

Finally, the eggs! Add about 3-4 tbsp of the vinegar to the water. The acid helps the egg to coagulate quickly into a pretty ball instead of turning it into egg-drop soup! When you're ready to add the eggs to the water, turn it down to a simmer (you don't want the egg bouncing around in there), break the eggs into a bowl and then gently slide into the hot water. Depending on how runny you like your yolks, give it 3-6 minutes. Fish out the eggs with a slotted or mesh spoon and set on top of the spinach.

Spoon on the hollandaise sauce, hit it with some parsley and/or chives and serve.

One quick note - As hard as it to imagine, there is a method to the sequence of piling the muffin - put the tomato on top of the muffin and you will have soggy bread. Put the wet eggs on top of the wet tomato and it will slide off.

*Hollandaise Sauce
Beat 3 egg yolks in a double boiler over barely simmering water. Make sure that the water does NOT touch the bottom of the bowl that the yolks are in. Do NOT let the water boil or it will scramble the yolks. When the yolks have thickened add a tablespoon of lemon juice and beat again till the mixture has doubled in volume. Now slowly(!) add half a cup of melted unsalted butter while continuously beating the yolks. When all the butter has been absorbed, fold in a dash of cayenne pepper and beat again till the sauce becomes glossy and smooth. You can hold the sauce over warm water or in a thermos for about an hour but ideally, it should be served immediately.

Back to the Basics 08.01 - How to Hard-Boil a Freaking Egg

Since we have already confessed to a man-crush on Anthony Bourdain, who better to tell us than the man himself. From his “Les Halles Cookbook” (2004, pg. 69, Bloomsbury, New York):

“Put your eggs gently into a small pot filled with cold water. Bring the water to a rapid boil. As soon as the water is boiling, shut off the heat and put a lid on top. After 10 minutes, remove the eggs and slide them carefully into ice water to cool. When cool? Peel. Here’s how you know if you’ve done it right: If the egg is cooked through, the shell peels of cleanly, and the yolk is not surrounded by an unsightly gray ring. Gray ring? Try again.”

Couldn’t have put it better myself if I had tried.

Welcome to A Grain of Salt, a blog (mostly) about food and all things related

Over the years, I have realized to my great joy that I am, in fact, a foodie. There, I said it. There is no shame in it. When you begin to rhapsodize about the crunchiness of pig's ears or the bitterness of fried neem leaves, you might as well 'fess up. I have also realized, to my greater joy, that most of my closest friends are foodies. And so when one the closest friend of them all, brother really, and a successful professional and blogger to boot, asked me to write a food blog with him it seemed, it was one of those forehead-slapping 'duh!' moments.

And then laziness took over and we let the thought stew for a goodly bit. But here we are at last, and not a moment too late I say. The blog will be driven, at least initially, by rearset, whom you've already met and me, Kaultilya.

But WTF will you two write about, you ask. Hmm, let's see... share a recipe, or talk about technique, or diss a restaurant, or rave about a beer (or ten) or confess our man crush on Anthony Bourdain or protest the objectification of women using the Hooter girls as a case
study – I don't know, it will be pretty free form.

So welcome again. And remember to Take Life with A Grain of Salt

"Soul in Yo Bowl"

I make a good Jambalaya. I know this because most of the friends who have eaten it have lived to tell the tale. Some have even returned for seconds. And responding to a groundswell of popular demand, and for the greater common good, I feel that it is time that I should share my recipe for a Jambalaya. Vox Populi; Vox Dei and all that sort of thing, don't you know.

Ok, so the popular demand consisted of just one person but if you saw this populus, you'd know that she was all Dei.

Anyway, Jambalaya...

Jambalaya is a Cajun-Creole dish similar, in some ways to a Spanish paella or the Indian pulao (as opposed to the biryani). It originated in the swamps and badlands of Louisiana and according to Wikipedia, the Jambalaya dates back to at least 1872. Jambalaya can be made with beef, pork, chicken, duck, shrimp, oysters, crayfish, sausage, or any combination thereof or indeed from any other meat as well. If you want to throw in some 'gator in your Jambalaya, go right ahead! I make mine with a combination of chicken, Andouille sausage, Chorizo and shrimp.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves. You have to start at the very beginning, which as Maria von Trapp assures us, is a very good place to start.

And in the beginning, there is the trinity - equal parts onion, celery and bell peppers, chopped into a fine dice (about a half-cup each). The traditional trinity calls for green bell peppers but I find that just a tad too bitter and use red bell peppers instead (which also adds to the color of the dish, of course). I also throw in a few Jalapeño and/or Serrano peppers to add a little kick, but that is completely a matter of taste. The trinity should be sautéed in a dutch oven or any deep heavy pan , till the onions are transparent but not brown (deep so it can accommodate the rice and the meats without overflowing and heavy so that it retains heat. Do not use a non-stick pan, the reason for which will become clear in a minute). I prefer to use a combination of rendered bacon (pork fat rules!) and vegetable oil as the cooking medium but in these heart healthy times, use whatever oil you're comfortable with - vegetable, canola, peanut, olive; any one will do with two exceptions - extra virgin olive oil and mustard oil - because they have powerful aromas that will overwhelm the dish.

Season aggressively with crushed black pepper, cayenne pepper and Creole seasoning. If you are up to making your own Creole seasoning, here is a great basic recipe, but one can also buy this stuff pre-mixed and some of it is actually edible!

To the sautéing trinity, add the chicken and the sausages, each cut to about half-inch cubes/ slices/ dice - whatever floats your boat really. They should just be the approximate same size. It helps to use just one cut of chicken for e.g breasts (what can I say - I am a breast man!). Figure on using one chicken breast for two people. Season again with the Creole seasoning and sauté on medium heat till the chicken is browned evenly, some of the fat has rendered off the sausages and there is a good bit of 'frond' - the brown sticky bits at the bottom of the pan. The frond is critical to develop the brown color of the Jambalaya and to intensify the flavor; it is virtually impossible to develop a good frond in a non-stick pan. Enameled cast-iron is best, stainless steel is also ok, even hard anodized cookware will work in a pinch.

When the chicken has browned, add the rice (figure about a third to a half-cup per person - long grain rice works best, parboiled rice is fine) and move it around till the grains become sort of translucent. Add a couple of cloves of crushed garlic, move it around till it becomes fragrant and immediately add the cooking liquid for the rice (it happens fast in a hot pan - 30-45 secs - so watch out otherwise the garlic will burn). I like chicken stock but if you prefer fish/vegetable/ beef stock, that's fine. You can use water if you absolutely must but, be warned, it will dilute the flavors of the Jambalaya. You will need more liquid than if you were just cooking rice, so depending upon the type of rice grains you chose, you will need 2-2.5 times liquid. Use the liquid to also de-glaze the pot - scraping around the bottom to release all the frond and color and flavor contained therein.

Cook the rice as you normally would and about five minutes before the rice is done, add the shrimps (about a half-cup per) and some diced scallions. Be careful not to overcook the shrimp - when they turn pink they are done. Adjust seasonings while the Jambalaya is still liquidy and when the rice is done, so is the Jambalaya.

Eat. Enjoy.

Original post

Wise Man Say... 07.02

Original post

The Art of the Omelette

In my Pantheon of superstar foods, the omelette has pride of place in the front row. It can be street food in India, an elegant supper at a French bistro, a hearty lunch in Spain and stuffed to overflowing at an American brunch. It can be eaten for breakfast, lunch or dinner and when you need something to soak up the excesses of a night on the town, the omelette can hang right in there with the fried chicken and the cold pizza.

According to the Larousse Gastronomique (Robuchon, J., et al (ed), 2001, Clarkson Potter, New York, P.808), "the word [omelette] comes from the French "lamelle" (thin strip) because of its flat shape; previously it was known as alumelle and then alumette, and finally amelette." (So the Indian pronunciation is actually pretty close to the French original!) The French have been making omelettes since the 16th century and the pinnacle of their painstaking effort is the classic recipe known as L'Omelette aux Champignons - Omelette stuffed with Mushrooms.

Making a French omelette is a lot like making tea or making rice. It is very easy to make but very difficult to make well. And just like tea or rice, when an omelette is good it is sublime, when it’s bad, there are few worse abominations on the face of the planet.

I know because I had the misfortune of eating a particularly bad version a couple of days ago, which is what prompted this post. Here are a few critical things to keep in mind when making an omelette. Follow these simple rules of thumb and you will have French bistro quality omelettes - guaranteed.

First, the stuffing. If the omelette is to have a stuffing, make sure you cook it before you make the omelette. The residual heat of the omelette will reheat the stuffing but if the omelette gets cold while you're making the stuffing, it's all over. For a mushroom stuffing, stick to the middle of the road - you don't want white button mushrooms which are pretty flavorless and get soggy but you don't want shitakes either which will overwhelm the flavor of the eggs. Creminis, in my experience, work best - they will stand up to the eggs with just enough earthy flavors to compliment them. Salt the mushrooms while they are sautéing to draw out the water - you don't want that moisture running out when the stuffing is in the omelette!

Now for the main event - L'Omelette!

• Make sure that the eggs are at room temperature. Eggs straight out of the fridge tend to coagulate and don't mix as well when beaten, leading to dense and heavy omelettes.

• Speaking of beating, the eggs should get a thorough one. Beat the eggs for at least 10 minutes. Don't be shy (or lazy) - I've gone so far as to use a mixer on the eggs but if you have any experience in hand mixing a latte, you can do this with a fork. The more air you can incorporate into the eggs the lighter and fluffier they will be.

• This one is optional, but instead of just adding milk, try adding a teaspoon or so of cream to the proceedings too (for three eggs. Adjust the amount of cream for fewer or more eggs). Also add a teaspoon or so or water.

• This one is not optional - use butter as a cooking medium! Not vegetable oil, not olive oil (not even the good stuff) - butter. Say it with me - butter!

• Cook the omelette slow and low. Well, ok - medium to medium low. But you don't want to crank the heat 'cause that will only burn the outside before the omelette cooks through.

• This leads us to – non-stick skillets. This is one of the very few recipes where I would recommend using a non-stick skillet over a regular one. Since you don't need to fire up the afterburners, the safety issues with non-stick pans can be overlooked. You can slide the omelette off more easily, the calorie counters can use a little less butter and since non-stick pans generally don't sear very well, you get a nice even golden color on the omelette.

• And finally, do not cook the omelette all the way through in the pan. Residual cooking will continue after you take the eggs off the heat and you must account for this. If the eggs are completely cooked in the pan, the by the time they get to the table, they will be overdone, dry and stringy. The trick is to take the skillet off the heat when the edges of the omelette have set but the center is still slightly moist and runny. Fold in the stuffing, thus giving that a little time to warm up too. Plate.

Now, there's a good egg, what!

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Wise Man Say... 07.01

"My favorite animal is steak."
-Frank Lebowitz

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New York Top Ten: Food - Part Deux!

Here is the second half of my New York food list Once again, in no particular order, I give you:

The Tasting Menu at Babbo: I’m sure there are those that think Babbo (110 Waverly Pl., New York, NY 10011) is not the best Italian restaurant in the city, but I am damned if I can find even one of them. Babbo is the flagship restaurant of Chef Mario Batali – he of the famous shorts and orange crocs – and traces its pedigree to the now almost mythical, Po restaurant on Bleeker St., where Mr. Batali perfected his craft. And while he owns numerous other fine establishments in the neighborhood such as Otto, Del Posto, Esca and Lupo, it is obvious that Mr. Batali’s heart is really at Babbo. If, on the day that you dine there, Mr. Batali is in the kitchen, consider yourself twice blessed. For Babbo doesn’t so much surpass one’s expectations as shatter them and leave them lying in the dust. From the fennel pollen (!) in the goat cheese tortellini to the hot chili flakes in the linguine with clams to the guinea hen with pumpkin to the ricotta based cheesecakes, there is absolutely no shortage of wonderful surprises at Babbo. Even the choice of music – 70s rock for the most part – is surprising.

And the tasting menu is where the creative brilliance of Mr. Batali and his staff really peak. A roster of food and wine pairing that is in a word, sublime. There are things like ducks and venison and pink peppercorn honey on that tasting menu! If you have to visit only one restaurant in New York, this should be your destination.

Coq Au Vin at Tout Va Bien: Tout Va Bien (311 W. 51st St., New York, NY 10019) has been in its present location for more than half a century and it that time it has become a favorite of French sailors in town for Fleet Week. So you know that they must be doing something right. It is the classic bistro – loud and informal, especially when the sailors are in town. The, very good, house wine can be ordered by the pitcher as can the sangria, the wait-staff is friendly yet knowledgeable and the tablecloths have red and white checks. In short – a happy place. Their take their coq au vin very seriously though and most of the times it is cooked to perfection – the chicken just barely hanging on to the bone and the sauce thick with the aroma of the wine it was cooked in. Equally good is the bouillabaisse (available only on Fridays). It is also one of their most popular dishes so if you get there late at night or when the theater crush is the heaviest, you order it at your own risk. But one worth taking as most of the time they get it right.

Chinese at Grand Sichuan International and Wu Liang Ye: Having grown up on “Indian Chinese” as perfected by the Tibetan cooks in Delhi and the Tangra chefs in Calcutta, the transition to the more authentic Chinese food available in the city was a bit difficult in that everything tasted slightly bland. Then I discovered, almost simultaneously, Grand Sichuan International (745 9^th Avenue, New York, NY 10019) and Wu Liang Ye (338 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10016). Both of them specialize in the Sichuan style of cooking and the food at both places is the make-your-eyes-water-and-your-nose-run kind of spicy. Which is all to the good I say. Although both places make half-hearted stabs at Cantonese cuisine, if you stick to their core competence when ordering, you won’t be sorry. Either the green tea, which is gratis, or a Coors light will go a long way in assuaging your protesting innards. Grand Sichuan even features freshly slaughtered chicken and it makes everything that it is put in better. For spicy Chinese food, especially on a night when serious drinking is contemplated, there really is no better place than one of these temples to the chili-pepper.

Brunch: A meal that I discovered after moving to the US, brunch is already one of my favorite American food traditions. Not least because after an, um... busy Friday night, steaks and eggs in the morning with a Bloody Mary really hits the spot, if you know what I mean. In a place like New York, there are literally zillions of places where you can eat brunch of course but two of my favorites are Joshua Tree (366 West 46^th St, New York, NY 10036) and Candela (116 East 16^th Street, New York, NY 10003). Joshua Tree is open till 4 AM Thursday through Sunday and till 2AM Monday to Wednesday so it’s a one stop shop to get both the hangover and the cure! It serves brunch on Saturday and Sunday till 4PM and for my money makes the second best eggs Benedict ever (other than my own, of course!).

Lit up almost entirely by a multitude of candles and with a number of nooks and crannies where people who don’t want to be disturbed can retreat, Candela is a rather beautiful restaurant near Union Square. If there were such a thing as a romantic brunch, this is where you would bring your date (and be reasonably assured of a happy ending, if you know what I mean). And the food is good too. The brunch menu (served only on Sundays) has a seriously good frittata stuffed with sausage and spinach and a banana French toast that hits just the right spot. They have burgers too which, while they are not the best in the world, come on a toasted brioche bread that soaks up the juices from the patty without turning into a soggy mess. And for 20 bucks, you get all the Mimosas and Bloody Marys you can drink. What could be a better way to send a Sunday afternoon?

Cheesecakes: And finally, dessert. The subject of cheesecakes is another one of those issues that is sharply divisive and on which people have rather strong opinions. There are number of places where one might get really good cheesecakes including at the aforementioned Babbo which does a ricotta and robiola cheesecake that is out of this world but for authentic melt-in-your-mouth New York style cheesecakes, it is (almost) universally acknowledged that you need to go to Junior’s (386 Flatbush Avenue Extension at Dekalb Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11201) or Elaine’s (17 Cleveland Place, New York, NY 10012). Junior’s is justifiably proud of its “World’s Most Fabulous Cheesecake”. Around since 1950, Junior’s cheesecakes are certainly not for the weak of heart. Packed with cream cheese goodliness and crisp and crunchy crust, Junior’s cheesecakes can be the downfall of just about any diet known to man. But as the song goes, “what a lovely way to burn.”

A New York Times described Elaine’s cheesecakes as “ethereally light” and having then tried it, I agree completely. It almost seems impossible for a cheesecake to be that light. But don’t be fooled – it still packs a punch and will leave you feeling sated like only a cheesecake can. A word to the wise – don’t try this after downing a 20 oz. steak dinner. You will do justice neither to the steak nor the cheesecake.

So there you have it, the ten not to be missed food experiences in New York City. Once again – the usual disclaimer: these are my favorites, not the favorites. Watch this space for the next list.

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New York's Top 10: Food!

Of course, the first list was going to be about food. What did you think?!

Actually, even as I was writing out this first list, I realized that it was going to be a tougher job that even I had anticipated. So this first post is only five of the ten eating places I was going to write about. Even with the truncated list, this is one long post (hence the smaller font), so be warned. The next post with the other five will probably be as long so be warned again.

Anyway, without further ado and in no particular order, here are the ten (or so!) absolute must-eats in New York and where to eat them:

Steaks: For the true carnivore, there is really only one place to eat steaks - Peter Luger's Steakhouse in Brooklyn (178 Broadway, Brooklyn, NY 11211). Things are really simple at Peter Luger's - they only serve porterhouse steaks for 2, 3 or 4 people and they only cook them up to a medium, if that (if you like your meat cooked more than that, you really shouldn't be eating steaks anyway!) and they only take cash. If you are dining there alone, they'll give you a steak for one, but why would you go alone to Peter Luger's?!

For those who want a little more variety and/ or a more traditional steakhouse, there is Keens Steakhouse (72nd West 36th St, New York, NY 10018). Keens has been around since 1885 and other than its steaks, is famous for its ‘legendary mutton chop’, which is actually a gargantuan 26 oz. lamb chop cooked to perfection (i.e. stuck over a candle for a minute). They even have a ‘pipe club’ and have pipes that once belonged to Babe Ruth and Teddy Roosevelt amongst others. Whatever.

All-You-Can-Eat Meat: A churrascaria is a Brazilian steakhouse with a concept as almost as simple, and as brilliant, as Peter Luger’s. Each diner gets a disc one side of which is red, the other green. As long as the green side of the disc is up, the servers keep bringing you meat – prime cuts of beef, pork, sausages, even the odd chicken or turkey – and carve it right at your table. When you are ready to give up, you flip the disc over to the red and they stop. When you get your second wind, you flip it over again – you see how it goes.

There are a number of churrascarias in New York but the Churrascaria Plataforma (316 West 49th Street, New York, NY 10019) has pretty much perfected the genre, as it were. You can wash down your food with a cool Guarana (a Brazilian soda sort of like a cream soda) or something stronger like a Caipirinha (any one of a variety of cachaca based cocktails). Your meal comes with sides like rice, mashed potatoes, vegetables, fried plantains, etc. and they even have a buffet salad and appetizer bar. But, really, who gives a damn?!

The one thing they don’t do well at Churrascaria Plataforma is feijoada, Brazil’s de facto national dish – a stew of any and every kind of meat you can think of and black beans. For this, you need to go to Via Brasil (34 West 46th St, New York 10036), where they make the best feijoada I’ve eaten in a restaurant. Both places have live music and atmosphere and whatnot, but like said before, who cares?!

Pizza at Lombardi’s: New Yorkers take their pizza very seriously and have very definite views about what it should and should not be. Not for us all the deep-dish nonsense. The quintessential New York pizza is street food, meant to be eaten on the go. As such, you want the crust to be crispy on the outside so that the toppings don’t seep through, chewy and soft on the inside so that the toppings don’t slide off and they have to be thin and large so that they can be folded vertically, like a sandwich. Et voila! (Or Mamma Mia! as the case may be), you have the famous ‘Brooklyn style pizza’. It’s all form following function, baby.

But, when you want to kick your pizza up a notch as Emeril Lagasse would say, you head on over to Lombardi’s (32 Spring St, New York, NY 10012). Opened in 1897, Lombardi’s is, by their own admission, the ‘best pizza on the planet’. They make only two kinds of pies – one with marinara sauce called the Original, and one with mozzarella called the White Pizza. There are only two sizes, you can’t buy slices, they don’t reservations and they only take cash (it seems like there is a theme developing here). They also have calzones but all the times I have been there, I’ve never actually seen someone order one. Their pizzas are sublime though, loaded with as many toppings as you want, perfectly foldable and the crust is almost graham cracker crunchy. Wash it down with some of their house Chianti and for about $50 two people can stuff themselves silly.

Hot-Dogs: When it comes to hot-dogs, there are two schools of thought – the Chicago school and the New York school. Not to disparage the Windy City but their hot-dogs come with a neon-green onion relish that tastes just like it looks. ‘nuff said.

In New York, we eat our hot-dogs with some mustard, a bit of relish and a dab of sauerkraut. Never ketchup! Even though the friendly guy at the hot-dog cart will have it, as soon as you ask for ketchup, it marks you as an outsider, a tourist! But getting a hot-dog ‘with everything’ from a street-cart is definitely on the must-do list, as is a visit to Gray’s Papaya (2090 Broadway, New York, NY 10023) where the hot dogs are nor the best in the world (but at 95 cents they’ll do) but the papaya drink is really the reason to go there. Then there is the Nathan’s Famous hot-dogs at Coney Island, which is where it all started in 1916 and which is the site of the famous hot-dg eating contest. But the king of all hot-dogs in New York is the ‘guaranteed 15-bite’ nearly one pound monster at The Brooklyn Diner (212 57^th street, New York, NY 10019). At nearly $16, it is frikkin’ expensive for a hot dog but it is worth every penny. The hot-dogs come with a giant mound of onion rings and the hot-dogs themselves are really delicious – all-beef, kosher – and their sauerkraut has juniper berries in them. Take it from someone who has done a lot of primary research on hot-dogs, the Diner’s the real thing.

Burgers at the Burger Joint: The Burger Joint at the Park Meridien hotel used to be one of those insider places that only a few people knew about. Unfortunately, those days are long gone and now the lines and the wait for the burgers are long. Fortunately, the burgers are still the best in the City. The Burger Joint only serves two kinds of burgers (here we go again) – hamburgers and cheeseburgers, and the easiest way to order is to get one with ‘everything on it’. They also have awesome milkshakes and pitchers of beer (Sam Adams only). Definitely a place with attitude (what place in New York isn’t?), they proudly proclaim, “If you don’t see it, we don’t have it.” One of the few places that will still do a burger medium rare, the Burger Joint has extraordinarily succulent melt-in-your-mouth ½ lb patties and really good fries served the old-fashioned way in paper cones. If it’s burgers you want, and there is absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t, the Burger Joint is the place to go.

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Food for Thought

So I am back in the City after a couple of weeks in the old country. It was a bittersweet trip. On the plus side, I met an old friend after three years during which she had to deal with some nasty shit. I remembered her as a beautiful, if slightly flighty girl, impetuous and given to impulse. She was as beautiful as ever but more poised, calmer, more put together. Most definitely the highlight of my trip to the city the Lutyens built.

On the downside, this was probably the worst trip I had foodwise. Usually, one of the best things about going to Delhi is the chance to hit up my old favorite haunts, eat the food of my youth and generally reminisce about the flying habits of ol’ daddy time.

This time round I realized what has probably been apparent to Delhites for a long time now – Nathu’s in Bengali Market should close. The place is filthy, the ras malai is inedible and the chhole bhature – omigod, the chhole bhature, they were perhaps the worst I’ve ever ha! I was in such shock and so terrified of what I would discover next that I actually hit the Haldiram's in Chandni Chowk just before going to the my favorite chhole bhature place at this shack across the Town Hall. Thankfully, they hadn’t yet lost their touch and their rabri-falooda did much to assuage my feelings.

Not for long however as I discovered that the momos at the Nagaland stall at Dilli Haat and the usually dependable Punjabi-Chinese at Chopsticks have both gone rather rapidly to hell in a hand-basket. Add to that the fact that this year, for the first time in living memory, my brother and I failed to make it to Golden Dragon for our traditional Double Fried Pork and beer and you can see how this was turning into a disaster.

He made up for it by taking me to one of his favorite Italian restaurants in Mumbai, Da Vinci, but they were obviously having an off-night as well because they managed to screw up my risotto and his wife’s Caesar Salad (which needs talent, believe me. I mean, the thing had no garlic, I don’t think they had even heard of anchovies and the fucker had drowned in the dressing).

We followed that up with an eminently forgettable meal at Delhi’s Lodi Restaurant comprised of nothing-to-write-home-about lamb shanks for me and the bro and a completely bland overdone steak for his (it was billed as a fillet, but I seriously doubt if it was even beef!).

Oh well, I suppose this means that one the next trip, I will have to find me some new favorite eating places. It will be tough job requiring extensive field research but I guess someone has to do it. Watch this space!'

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Yum-O!

I'm a Rachael Ray fan. There, I said it. I think I even might have had a crush on her up until a few years ago when I was still in grad school and Rachael was as pleasant a way to nurse a hangover as any. Now that I'm gainfully employed, Rachael and I meet less frequently - scheduling problems, don't you know.

For those who came in late, Rachael Ray is the immensely popular host of such tv shows as '30 Minute Meals' and '$40 A Day' on the Food Network channel. She is known for her wide smile, her almost preternatural perkiness at all times and her gift of the terms 'garbage-bowl'and 'EVOO'to the English lexicon. And, although she is no Mario Batali or Bobby Flay, she is a pretty competent cook. I've made some of her recipes so I can assert, from experience, that they work (A recipe for Venetian Shrimp and Scallops even managed to convert a friend to an appreciation of seafood).

The astute latecomer will surely ask at this point, "so what's not to like?"

Exactly my point.

Imagine then my surprise, and shock, to find that Rachael Ray is one of the most reviled anchors on Food Network! There are websites, entire online 'communities' dedicated to vicious criticism of Rachael Ray. Recently, even the New York Times Magazine found itself compelled to comment on this phenomenon in a lengthy article in its November 26,2006 issue (subscribers to the New York Times can access the article here).

Of the many criticisms leveled at Ms. Ray, the most frequent is that she uses too much of pre-packaged foods (bagged salads, canned and bottled sauces and the like), that she drowns everything in chicken broth and - get this! - her recipes are too easy to make.

This, in a country where a traditional Thanksgiving casserole calls for canned beans (one of the worst abominations in the world), condensed cream of mushroom soup and canned fried onions.

Of course, in a flip-flop worthy of John Kerry, the critics also point out that Rachael Ray's recipes are impossible to make within 30-minutes with or without the pre-packed food. Especially without.

To which I say, yes, it probably is impossible to replicate Rachael Ray's recipes in 30 minutes. But then, so is replicating (and I'm not using the term loosely) any cooking show recipe. They don't call it Food Porn for nothing. Just try making one of Emeril Lagasse's extravaganzas at home! Or get perfect cross-hatched char marks on a steak without a 15,000 BTU grill like the one Bobby Flay has in his backyard. If that isn't Food Porn, I don't know what is.

The other criticism heard most often is the use of her signature phrases, 'yum-O', 'delish', the aforementioned 'garbage-bowl' and her infamous 'EVOO', which she usually says right before (helpfully) expanding it to Extra Virgin Olive Oil. According to a Slate.com article from July, 2005, "Ray's ditzy demeanor also makes her easy to dismiss. She giggles off-cue and constantly praises her own cooking. " She often asks, rhetorically, "how cool is that?!", 'eyeballs' the measurements of her ingredients and uses a 'spoonola' - a cross between a ladle and a spoon.

Personally, I think EVOO is kinda cool, the garbage-bowl is a damned good idea, see nothing wrong with delish and as for yum-o, have you seen this pictures (here, here and here!) from the October 2003 issue FHM Magazine?! Yum-O indeed! Rachael Ray can lick the chocolate off my spoon anytime!

I think a lot of the hatred for Rachael Ray is in fact because her recipes are easy to make and that anyone of us could do them, if not in 30 minutes, then an hour. The founder of the anti-Rachael Ray on-line group profiled in the New York Times magazine article is quoted as saying that Rachael Ray 'trafficked in "common knowledge."' Another person vented that she had been using a garbage bowl for years and that she even lined hers with plastic bags so as not to have to wash them later.

Cooking shows with trained professional chefs like Mario Batali or Emeril Lagasse or Bobby Flay have an awe factor that Rachael Ray doesn't. We are bedazzled by their knife skills, the use of exotic ingredients, their vast knowledge about the cuisine in which they specialize and the fact that they are all (immensely) successful restaurateurs. And so when one of their recipes, tried at home, looks like it came out of a can, there are ready made excuses: he is a trained chef, he used oyster mushrooms but I only had the cheap supermarket button variety - we put it down to the difference between professionals and amateurs. But with Rachael Ray, we think, "what's so special about her? I could do that too, except I don't have a cooking show, the bitch!". And when a recipe that Rachael made seemingly out nothing but canned tomatoes and chicken broth still doesn't turn out well at home, that's when the yum-os and the delishes really begin to grate and the rage and the resentment and the jealousy boil over.

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