Ginger Tea and Milk

Ginger - the wonderful rhizome.

Ginger is clearly beneficial for you in many ways, but I guess what I like best about it is that it works well with both sweet and savory foods. Anyhow with a nice nip in the air, today I made some great spice cookies and spice tea.

One of the common misconceptions about spicing tea is that people assume all the spice teas have to be boiled, we can also brew spices in the tea, yes, the flavors are more subtle. My preffered tea of choice is the wonderful Darjeeling Tea, which really does not work well if boiled. This queen of teas is meant to be brewed.
BTW, if you are looking for a great place to try good tea and other teatime treats in Westchester I highly recommend the Silver Tips Tea Room in Tarrytown, NY. They also sell a great selection of tea from around the world over the internet at very reasonable prices.

Ginger Anise Tea

Makes 4 cups

Ingredients

1/2 inch piece of fresh ginger peeled and sliced
2 star anise
4 tbsp darjeeling leaf tea
Milk and sugar to taste
4.5 cups of water

Method of Preparation

1. Heat the water to a boil. Immer the ginger and anise and let this infuse in the water for 10 minutes.
2. Reheat to boiling if needed.
3. Add the tea and let this brew for 4-5 minutes.
4. Strain and serve with the desired amount of milk and sugar.

The next drink is my concoction for my husband who does not like tea at night, this is really good to soothe a cold as well.

Rinku's milky brew for Anshul

Makes 2 cups

2 cups of milk
4 thinly sliced pieces of ginger
1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
2 cloves
1" inch piece of cinnamon
1/3 piece of nutmeg
3 tsp honey

Method of preparation

1. Boil the milk for 5 min with the ginger, pepper, cloves and cinnamon.
2. Let this sit for 5 minutes.
3. Strain the milk and grate the nutmeg onto the milk and stir in the honey.
4. Pour into mugs and drink.

As a lighter substitute to eggnog, mix in 1 tsp butter and a 2 tbsp of brandy per cup and serve.

Back from India

India was interesting as usual!

Just back from a three week stint of India, I went to Kolkatta and Delhi, it was so interesting to be there over the festivals. Unfrtunately, I caught the tailend of Durga Puja, but even then it was great. My camera has been left behind so one will have to wait for my pictures. No biases, while the capital city has improved in its cuisine, it just cannot match the gastronomical delights of Kolkatta, where people live to eat. Ate amazing rolls, bhetki, chinese and of course lots of sweets. Two great recipes, I picked up for desserts were for Rasogollar payesh, (this differs slightly from its cousin -rasomalai) and Labanga Latika (neat pastry packages filled with kheer and coconut). The trends for fusion has expanded from Chinese to Thai, Mexican and Italian.

In Delhi, of course I tried chaat, Alu tikkis and for the first time I tried pure Awadhi cuisine. Some thing that I did not try but caught my attention was the popularity of Japanese cuisine. Sushi seems to be quite the rage, go figure!

All about Shrimp Paste

All About Shrimp Paste

Until yesterday, I assumed shrimp paste was always this solid block of dried, salted processed shrimp. This is an essential ingredient in most Asian cooking - Thai, Malaysian, Indonesian, etc.
Natalie tells me about this liquid product that she got called shrimp paste that prompted me to look about the varieties of Shrimp Paste.

My first hit was Wikipedia, that is such an useful resource, this is their piece on Shrimp Paste. Now, that I confirmed my hypothesis that shrimp paste varies somewhat depending on the country of origin, the issue still remained as the composition and texture, was there a more liquid version of shrimp paste?

Well, here is a little piece from another well illustrated food-blog, that also groups the varieties into a combined group. I suppose since this references us back to Wikipedia, that is really a good source on this.

Chayoti Squash and Kholrabi with Shrimp

A weekend trying several new vegetables - Kholrabi and Chayote Squash

In this recipe that I developed with these vegetables, Bengal meets Punjab in a subtle, spicy-sweet vegetable dish seasoned with shrimp. In coastal India and Asia, fish and seasoning with tiny shrimp, dried shrimp and shrimp paste takes the place of seasoning with chicken broth in American Cuisine.

Ganthgobi, Chayoti lau ar Chingri - Chaoyoti Squash, Kholrabi with Shrimp.

Ingredients

1 Kholrabi with leaves
1 medium sized Chayoti squash
2 tbsp mustard oil
1 tsp bengali 5-spice (panch phoron)
1 small onion finely chopped
1 tbsp grated ginger and garlic
1/2 tsp turmeric
2 green chillies
1 tomato
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp commericial mustard
2 tbsp grated coconut
1/2 cup large shelled shrimp
1/2 tsp ghee
2 cardamoms
2 cloves
1 small piece cinnamon

Method of Preparation

1. Remove the leaves from the kholrabi and chop finely.
2. Grate the kholrabi and the squash.
3. Heat the oil in a pan and add the 5-spice mix, when this begins to crackle add the onion, garlic and ginger.
4. Saute for 5 min and add the vegetables and leaves with theturmeric and slit chilies.
5. Cook on high for 5 minutes stirring well and then add in the salt and tomato with the mustard and cocconut and cook till the mixture is fairly dry.
6. Mix in the shrimp, cover and cook for 7 min on low heat.
7. Check the seasonings.
8. Heat the ghee and add the whole spices and cook for 2 min. Pour over the vegetable shrimp mixture and serve.

Myanmar - Characteristics of Cooking

Myanmar - Characteristics of cooking

Once again these curry classic countries are joined at the hip by common ingredients and similar spices. When we get to Burmese cooking we start seeing a richer cuisine. There is an increase love of non-vegetarian food especially chicken. We also get intoduced to lemon grass which is happily married to soy sauce and garlic.

Some of the websites that I liked were Myanmardotcom I am leaning towards the Burmese Roast Chicken, which is in the tradition of a pot roast. The others were not especially interesting, what I did like however was another composite site with a fair amount of links. I will decide what to make and post soon.

Taste of Asia -Vietnam and Malaysia

Vietnam and Malaysia - Day One of A taste of Asia

As promised today was indeed fun. I had a great group of diverse students - Benny, Ilma, Natalie, Adriana. Rochelle and Georgiana who was such a great help. We were really to start!







Malayasian noodles

Today we did the Vienamese Salad Rolls with two Dipping Sauces and Malaysian Curry Noodles.
Things were lively, and the rice paper wrappers sparked a lot of interest. I thought this was fun to have everyone see of pliable yet firm there were.

The recipe I used was the following.

Vietnamese Salad Rolls

For the Rolls

3-4 leaves Rommaine Lettuce
2 carrots
1 cup bean sprouts
1/2 cup chopped cilantro leaves
1/3 cup chopped leek chives
10-14 cooked large shrimp
1/2 cup sliced lean pork
10 Rice paper wrappers

Method of Preparation

1. Shred the lettuce and grate the carrots.
2. On a work surface spread out the lettuce, sprouts, cilantro, leek,
shrimp and pork in a single line.
3. Put some water in a large bowl and moisten the wrappers. You can
leave the wrappers in the bowl for 1.5 min till they are soft.
4. Place them on a flat surface and fill the center with a little of all the fillings. You want a well filled roll but also want enough room to wrap the edges.
5. To wrap the edges, fold the bottom flap, then the two sides and finally the top like an envolope. Serve immediately with the sauces or save covered with a moist towel or cloth.

Peanut - Hoisin Sauce

Ingredients

1/2 cup hoisin sauce
1/2 cup roasted unsalted peanuts
1 cup water

Method of preparation

1. Blend the peanuts with the water into a smooth paste.
2. Mix with the hoisin sauce and bring to a simmer for 5 min.
3. Cool and serve

Traditional Vietnamese Sauce

Ingredients

1/2 cup fish sauce
1 lime
1 tsp brown sugar
3 cloves garlic
2 green chillies
1 scallion
Carrots and Cilantro chopped for garnish

Method of Preparation

1. Mix the fish sauce with the lime juice and sugar.
2. Finely chop the garlic, chillies and scallion.
3. Let this mix for half an hour.
4. Mix in the cilantro and carrots.

Taste of Asia - Fall 2006

A taste of Asia

My upcomming class at WCC promises to be a lot of fun. There will be a lot of diversity in the cooking and food, since I will be doing food from various asian countries.

To try to look at the diversity of the food of the region, I am going to start with two classics from their respective countries. I will be doing Vietnamese rolls, to explore the crisp fresh aspects of this food, the nuances of using dipping sauces. A wonderful resource realated to this is Vietworld Kitchen. Although, I have to confess that Vietnamese is really more my brother's favorite than mine.

To contrast this, I will be doing Malaysian Chicken Rice, which looks at using curried spices, is more neareastern than far-eastern in approach. We will see how this works out. Yes, I love Malaysian food (did I say that I love food?). Rasa Malaysa is a great blog on Malaysian food and travel. Speaking of which I really need to get back in touch with Dawn who is now on her Malaysia stint.