We've moved!

Dear Fellow Foodies, 

Missus of Spices will now be posting in a new space. All the posts from this blog have been imported along with your comments and have been tagged under 'Missus of Spices' for your reading pleasure.

Please head here for posts on yummies that you will want in your tummies. 

See you soon! 

Killing me softly

With calories and gooey goodness that is!
Yes, I'm back after I have no idea how long. And I decided to make a grand entrance in the tradition of the heroine or debutante that comes in late but dressed to to kill and sashays down the long winding staircase.
What better way to do so than by trying out a 'Death By Chocolate' cake.

A fan of Bangalore's famous Cornerhouse ice-cream shop's DBC dessert, it is one of the things that I miss here in Manila. And so I decided to put out the craving by making my own version of it.

And this is how it all turned out-

To whip up your own head here for a simple and very doable recipe.
In the tin you can see the pre-frosted version, which in itself is quite yummy, but not as moist as your average chocolate cake, which is probably because there is absolutely no milk used in the recipe and only 4 tablespoons of flour!
I also used unsweetened baking chocolate and added 4 tablespoons of powdered sugar as I melted it with butter.
For the frosting - I used my own chocolate frosting recipe that is so much simpler. I'll be putting it up here soon, but I'm going to try this one out too.
And for the mega sweet- tooth people out there like me and my hubby, remember to pair your cake up with either vanilla or chocolate ice-cream :)

 Will be back with more soon!
Oh and I wasn't around as I was busy with my first book 'Coming Up On The Show...The travails of a news trainee' that released in May this year. It's already hit the Landmark best-sellers list and has left me feeling giddily happy :) For more updates on the book do head here
And keep watching this space, I plan to get back into my blogging about yummies groove and it's always great to know that like me there are others out there whose stomachs growl for more.
Till next time here's to contented sighs and disguised happy burps! :)  

A starving food blog

And here's why.

I've been busy setting up FIRST FEATHER CONSULTANTS, a firm that helps individuals start something new in the creative or business space and while I've been experimenting with different kinds of eats whenever possible, I've just not had the time to put them up here.

For more on First Feather please head over to SIMPLY SPEAKING where you can read the full story! And writers make sure you head across, as FIRST FEATHER is currently looking for submissions for an e-Book on persons of note. All details on Simply Speaking.

And if this has intrigued you, do join us on Facebook via the badge you see on your right!

Show us some love just as the fine folks at Your Story.in, a site affiliated to CNBC's Young Turks has been doing! :)

I will be back with some new recipes for yummies in your tummy soon!

Till then, here's to dreams of delicious treats and adding the First Feathers to our culinary caps! !

A Cambodian food tour

Head here in a few hours for a look at Lok Lak to Pat Prik Gang and Soup Psut.

These are just some of the yummies that Cambodia has to offer.

Comment/Mail/ Tweet/ or basically let me know in some way about the Khmer recipe you want and I'll blog in this space as soon as I get back to Manila, armed with authentic recipes.

Till then, hope you're all having food that is making your taste buds explode in joy!

Cheers!

Confessions of an unwilling vegetarian

Well, not exactly entirely unwilling but I’m not all that gung-ho about the idea either. But then again, as the Indian in me is more than ready to bow down to an idea of religious fast, my husband and I are embarking on our green journey starting today.

To put things in context, I am a carnivore, a hard core one. I like to have bacon and sausages for breakfast, chicken fry and Dal for lunch and chicken Biryani for dinner. I enjoy meat in the very many forms, chefs have offered them to us, the human race and I don’t see anything wrong with it. Now this is an ideology that I’ve struggled to stick on to when I turned environmentalist and worked for Greenpeace India. And while my planet is priority number one for me, somehow I could never bring myself to go green in the food sense.

But this time with the change in diet being limited to a few weeks, I am hoping to see it through to the end. The catch however is that I know very few vegetarian recipes. To be clear, my collection of non-vegetarian recipes outweighs the vegetarian ones, about fifteen to one. Yes, sad but true. But then the happy news is that it’s not that bad to go vegetarian if you hail from the sub-continent. After all we do have an overwhelmingly large collection of the best vegetarian dishes. All I need to do is to wade through the excellent recipes that have been kindly placed at my disposal by the Indian food bloggers of yore.

And so today my quest begins to find those simple, vegetarian recipes that will strike a chord with my taste buds. Keep checking back as I don’t belive in hogging and will most certainly be sharing the best recipes with you, with my comments on how they turned out when I tried them.

And so you never know, by the end of my fast, I might just get so hooked that I might have them veggies asking me to go find a chicken for a change! ;)

Till next time then, here’s to wishing that you all sleep with a tummy full of yummies tonight!

---

Picture courtesy

http://www.nofools.in/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/indian-vegetables.jpg

http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s5i2092

Scrumptious Java

Have you ever noticed how prettier a place is, the yummier their cuisine? Not trying to be provocative here, but take Kashmir and its Wazwan or Kerala and its Sadhya for examples. To me, the food of a region always reflects the personality of the region. No place illustrates this better than Yogyakarta in Indonesia.

Javanese food is a harmonious combination of all the possible influences of the South East of Asia and India as well. The noodles are a little bit of Malaysian street food. The Padang chicken curry that peeks out from the window of the Padang eateries reminds me of mum’s chicken curry from back home. Wedang Ronde, that is all about the luscious rice balls soaked in a ginger soup reminds me of the Philippines Halo Halo and the Chinese teas. And then there is the Pergedel Goreng, which is all Indonesia and leaves your tongue gasping for more. And also giving you that special high that balances out the spiciness is Indonesia’s very own Bintang beer.

And all this for less than 100’000 Indonesian Rupiah! No, there is no need to faint! That converts to less than 500 Indian rupees or PHP.

So anyway, many of my friends wrote in saying that I was making their tummies ache with the pictures of all the yummy food that I had polished off while I was in Yogyakarta. Some of them wanted to know whether it was really that good or whether it just looked good. Well, to prove that I indeed enjoyed the food, loved it in fact and so that you guys can try for yourself, here are few of my favourite recipes from the trip.

Ayam Goreng Kalasan - The first dish my taste buds feasted on. Chicken drumsticks that were fried to perfection yet were succulent. Eaten with white rice and fresh raw vegetables, the plate is completed with a large shrimp cracker. If you’re in India, I would suggest going with a Pappdam instead. Here’s an authentic recipe you can try out.

Pergedel Goreng – As complicated as the name sounds, this is actually nothing but fried potato. But the kind of fried potato that you just cannot have enough off!  As you eat it with rice, you realize that it is mashed and that it melts in your mouth. Made with meats ranging from mutton to beef, the dish is very, very simple to make! Don’t believe me? Check this recipe out.

Wedang Ronde – A dish that many tourists miss out on, as mainly street vendors sell it. And not a lot of tourists have locals that guide them in the right direction. We were fortunate enough to be taken to Alun-Alun or Yogyakarta’s South Square where we tasted this delicacy. Was it a soup? Was it a drink? Hard to tell! Delectable rice balls steeped in a ginger and lemon liquid that opens up your throat as you devour it! If you don’t see yourself sitting cross-legged on a pavement eating/drinking this, make it at home with this recipe.

Enjoy you guys! And if you don’t get Bintang as an accompaniment, remember that a fresh lime soda will do just as well!

So till next time, here's wishing that you all get your share of lip-smacking treats! 

Slurrp!

In the Orchard

I’ve always been a sucker for Chinese food back in India. The very thought of Hakka noodles and chicken Manchurian throw my taste buds into a mad tizzy. I could eat Chinese everyday and my friends from college will testify that we almost did. From sharing Schezuan triple fried noodles to chicken lollipops and sweet corn chicken soup, Indian Chinese never failed to hit the spot.

So its little wonder that I landed in Manila, widely touted as home to exotic cuisines from across the world with vivid pictures of ginger-garlic and soya sauce based delicacies dancing in front of my eyes. Within the span of few days I realized how limited my love had been. There, awaiting my taste buds were dishes from Malaysia and Singapore, Cambodia and Vietnam and of course the Philippines itself. (I will be writing more about the Chicken Adobo- my favourite Pinoy dish soon)

Suffice to say that I’ve been immersing myself in these flavours that range from the super spicy of the Schezuan style to the light, subtle flavours of noodle soup. Which is why my husband and me were amongst the first to sample the wares of Orchard Road, a restaurant named after that famous street in Singapore.

The heady fragrances wafting from the restaurant was more than enough for us to ignore the ‘We are on a dry run’ sign and walk straight in. Built with a large open kitchen in the centre, and the tables set around it, Orchard Road resembles a food court. On walking in, we were handed an order sheet that urged us to “Enjoy our Singapore food trip.” Our eyes lit up at the dishes on offer, from a variety of Congee to hot desserts named Bubur Cha Cha and Dimsums of all kinds and preparations with exotic names like Mee Reebus and Char Kway Teow. Though there are inviting and illuminated pictures decorating the top walls of the kitchen, I was still lost without translation.

Ever ready to experiment, my husband ordered Singapore fried Bee Hoon, while I chose the rather conservatively named Black Pepper Beef and Rice. Twenty minutes later we were looking at the most appetizing looking plates of Asian food we had seen in a while.

Bee hoon turned out to be stir-fried rice vermicelli mixed with generous portions of mushrooms, carrots and garlic and marinated in quite a number of sauces. Diving into it with forks, we soon found out that the dish had a generous hint of flavours and not overwhelmingly so. The vermicelli is delicate, yet gives out a barely noticeable crunch. The vegetables retain their identity, despite being mixed in with soya and oyster sauce. It’s a must try! And for those who cant make it to Manila or Singapore, I’ve found a recipe that will get you a close approximation of the dish, here.

Black Pepper beef and rice was just that, with a bull’s eye or a sunny side up accompanying it. The beef was tender and the preparation seemed pretty straightforward with the flavours of garlic, onion and capsicum making their presence felt. The pepper and the stir-fry sauce perfectly complimented each other and I ended up leaving the plate squeaky clean. In my search for replicating the dish, I’ve found a pretty close recipe here. While it’s traditionally served with rice, I can totally see the dish making an excellent combo with noodles as well.

Our first visit was on a weekend and was such an excellent experience that we headed there yesterday as well. While we repeated the Bee hoon, we decided to go with Hokkien Mee (A version of prawn noodles) and fried Dimsums for variety. Sadly, while the Bee Hoon was still delicious, the other two dishes did not rise to our expectations at all. We’ve decided to find out who the chef who makes Bee Hoon is, and to figure out what else he dabbles in.

So for those in Manila, and heading towards Orchard Road, I recommend the Singapore fried Bee Hoon as your safety dish, while you experiment with other side dishes. This way you won't leave totally unsatisfied.

And for those who’re following the blog from India and elsewhere, check out the links to the recipes. A change in our usual style of cooking is mostly always good.

So till next week, here’s wishing you all a lot of yum-yums in your tum-tums.

Cheers.

(Orchard Road is located in the Second Floor,Mega Mall, Ortigas, Pasig City)