Daring Bakers: Chocolate Pavlova with Banana Mascarpone Mousse and Vanilla Mascarpone Ice Cream

July 3, 2010 Update: This post was featured on FoodBuzz Top 9 today

The June 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Dawn of Doable and Delicious. Dawn challenged the Daring Bakers’ to make Chocolate Pavlovas and Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse. The challenge recipe is based on a recipe from the book Chocolate Epiphany by Francois Payard.

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The Story of a Stalk ... Rhubarb and Sage Shortbread

June 26, 2010 Update: This post was featured on FoodBuzz Top 9 today

Many people seem to have been interested in what I did with the one-stalk of rhubarb, I received last week. :) Well, here is the story...

Once I overcame the dismay at receiving such a diminutive quantity, I just couldn't stop laughing at the ridiculousness of it. Then, I transitioned to being stumped. I mean, what can I do with one lonely stalk?! I was torn.. Should I wait and see if I get another for company next week or should I just use the guy so he doesn't get lonelier and die on me?? You see, we don't know in advance what to expect. They only tell us two days before the next pick up date...

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Going Seasonal: A Spring kind of Frittata, with a dash of mint - Velveteers in June

June 22, 2010 Update: This post was featured on FoodBuzz Top 9 today

Right! I know, June isn't Spring. But it is according to my CSA! What is CSA?, you ask? Well.. it stands for Community Supported Agriculture, which, basically means that you sign up for 6 months worth of farm fresh, seasonal, organic produce and you support local farms in doing so, by providing an estimated demand ahead of time, so they can manage their planting and harvests accordingly...

I had first heard of this concept from friends who were singing praises about how fabulous it was. I am all for supporting local farms and when it comes with the additional catch words of "seasonal" and "organic", there is no stopping me. I decided it was worth the experiment and picked up a half share of veggies and fruit. So, for the next six months, once a week, I will be getting a basket of farm stuff, straight out of the land...

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Potato, Goat Cheese and Caramelised Onion Tarts (Guest Post)

June 20, 2010 Update: These tarts were featured on FoodBuzz Top 9 today

This week, I am guest posting on Aparna's blog, My Diverse Kitchen. Aparna is one of the first few friends I made through this blog (aided by Twitter!) and her colorful, mouth watering vegetarian creations always bring back memories. We share common threads of roots, food we grew up with and a love for baking.

So, for the guest post I chose to explore our common interest for baking and create a simple yet satisfying dish. Please head over to Aparna's to read about the Potato, Goat Cheese and Caramelised Onion Tarts...

Pâté et Pain - Daring Cooks Bake in June

Yes indeed! We were asked to bake this month for the Daring Cooks Challenge. I am not all sure if it should not have been one for Daring Baker's but, I suppose, given it is a savory dish, it was a cooking challenge?!....

Our hostesses this month, Evelyne of Cheap Ethnic Eatz, and Valerie of a The Chocolate Bunny, chose delicious pate with freshly baked bread as their June Daring Cook’s challenge! They’ve provided us with 4 different pate recipes to choose from and are allowing us to go wild with our homemade bread choice.

We were challenged to make atleast one Pâté from the listed options and one bread of our choice. Most of the recipes for pâtés use liver, which, I quite dislike. So, I scoured around for a recipe that did not use innards and such. Quite accidentally, I remembered a book I had bought a while back in an effort to make chicken more fun to eat (for me!). There I found a recipe for a Terrine made with chicken meat and mushrooms...



There is some debate on what is and isn't a Pâté. You may have noticed, I mentioned Terrine before; that's what I made..

Our hostesses said - Technically, a terrine is a baking recipient, usually ceramic or porcelain, with a lid – but it can also refer to the contents of the recipient. And some of the pâtés we looked at were designed to be unmolded onto a dish and then sliced, while others were meant to be left in the jar or baking dish they were prepared in, and merely used as a spread.

Wiki concurs - In French or Belgian cuisine, pâté may be baked in a crust as pie or loaf, in which case it is called pâté en croûte or baked in a terrine (or other mold), in which case it is known as pâté en terrine.



I decided to proceed with my Chicken and Mushroom Terrine recipe! For authenticity, I did bake it in a porcelain mold... I used chicken thigh and leg meat and combined it with red wine sauteed portobellos. Now, the recipe I was adapting called for fresh herbs and since I was making this late in the night, I was a bit short on most herbs.

I used what I had, which made for interesting flavors. I used mint and Fenugreek. Fenugreek is a bitter herb that is used a lot in Eastern cuisine. We use the leaves and seeds for cooking and it's bitterness is supposed to be good for the digestive system (or perhaps that was just made up so children would eat it!). Nevertheless, it does have much nutritional value.

As to the bread, Mr.FSK does not much gravitate towards the crusty varieties. So, I chose a bread with a softer crust. I have wanted to try baking an Italian loaf and this seemed the opportune moment. I followed Peter Reinhart's recipe to the T (Although I did substitute a third of the flour with whole wheat). We loved the bread. It was soft, filling and flavorful. And, the house was filled with such lovely aromas! :))



Verdict: A fun challenge, especially since I love to bake, even though, it was a bit hot around here for this exercise. I enjoyed the pâté but, perhaps, because I did not use the fattier innards, it was a tad dry and not creamy like I am used to it being. If I ever get the courage to cook liver and such, I may give it another try.. The bread, on the other hand, is definitely a repeat! :)

P.S. : I am sending my Italian loaf to YeastSpotting..



Chicken and Mushroom Pâté

2 shallots, chopped
2 generous cups, mushrooms, chopped (no stems)
1/4 cup dry, red wine
2 chicken thighs, skinned and chopped
1 egg
2 T fresh breadcrumbs
2 T chopped mint
4 T chopped fenugreek

optional: For serving, pistachios, tomatoes and mint

Preheat oven to 350F.

Cook the shallots and mushrooms with wine in a sauce pan over low heat until the vegetables are soft and the mixture is dry. Transfer to a food processor along with the chicken, egg, breadcrumbs and seasoning and process coarsely. Add the herbs and pulse briefly.

Spoon into greased molds and smooth the surface. Cover with foil and bake fpr 30-35 minutes until juices are no longer pink. Remove from oven and place a weight on top leave to cool and then chill.

Serve with roasted pistachios, thinly sliced tomatoes and garnished with mint.

Honey Mangoes, Pudding and Winning ....

I was thinking of an appropriate way to introduce one of my favorite fruits and came upon this wonderful ode to it (What would we do without Google!!) by Ravi.

In you,
colors of sunset
envelope juice so succulent
sugar and honey blush.

And sticky rivers of laughter
trickle from fingers to elbows
as strands of delicious memories
stick between my teeth.

For in you,
I still taste our childhood joy
perched high in grandma’s tree
so busy searching for the ripest, sweetest prize
that we rarely managed to make it
past the front yard and into the house
for weekly afternoon tea.

Thank you Ravi for this wonderful piece of poetry. It captures everything I wanted to share about my love for the fruit in such a beautiful way!

Mango trees are a common sight in Chennai (formerly Madras, South India), where I come from. They are long lived, and, with some care, bear wonderful, luscious fruits. They also represent familial bonds and generations of care and love. Almost every old house in Chennai will have a mango tree and mine is no exception.


The tree in our house was planted by my maternal grandmother, over 50 years ago. She grafted two flavorful varieties and the resulting fruit is unique for it's large size as also it's sweet taste. My grandad would tend to it with sufficient water (we were one of the lucky houses with a well on our grounds), fertilizers (organic coz our house is a perpetual zoo, no kidding!) and pesticides.

With all their loving care, it spread its roots deep and sent out branches in all angles providing the perfect summer retreat; whether you wanted to climb the branches and nestle up there eating unripe mangoes or rest in the generous shade it offered.

Both my grandparents have passed away... but the mango tree keeps them alive through memories. It is symbolic of their love, the family they cherished, the wisdom they shared and the countless moments of happiness of me playing around it as my grandad sipped tea under it's shade....


Here in the US, I neither have a tree nor, until recently, access to sweet mangoes. Then, over the last couple of years, I started seeing this particular variety of the fruit sold by street vendors that was succulent and sweet!! Even, Mr. FSK, who only ever eats the Alphonso and Kesar varieties, concurred that they were good fruits! They go by many names - honey mango, champagne mango etc. I prefer Honey Mango because their flesh does taste like sweet nectar!

There are many things you can do with mangoes depending on their ripeness and Indian cuisine offers recipes for the very young, raw ones to the very sweet, ripe fruits (like the Mango Saffron Ice Cream). Today, I share with you a recipe for ripe mangoes that pair well with a milk pudding made with tapioca pearls (sago/sabudana/javarici)...

It brings back memories... hot afternoons giving away to cooler evenings, the leaves of our tree gently swaying in the breeze, me playing and my grandpa and granny enjoying tea and watching me....


On another happy note, I was super thrilled that my photo of the wonderful Blue Eggs won me a DMBLGIT award in the Aesthetics category. Many thanks to Andrew for hosting this month's edition!

Styling note: I wanted to showcase the pastel shades of eggs without using too many accessories that would take away from such an elegant subject. So, to bring out the colors, I used a blue table cloth as the primary background. The burlap was styled for a nest-like effect that would cradle the eggs..



Mango Tapioca Pudding

1 cup soaked tapioca pearls (soak them for a couple of hours in cold water until soft)
2 cups whole milk (if you want a richer version, you can substitute some of this with condensed milk)
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp crsuhed cardamom
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 cup fresh mango puree (if you using sweetened puree, adjust the amount of sugar)

Bring tapioca, milk and sugar to a boil. Lower heat to a gentle simmer and cook until the mixture thickens and milk has reduced to half. Off the heat, stir in the crushed cardamom and nutmeg. Set aside to cool to room temperature.

When cool, gently fold in the mango puree, taking care not to mush the swollen tapioca pearls. Serve chilled or at room temperature garnished with roasted cashews.

Summer, Nature and a Break...

this view just makes me smile!

The last few days have been simply fabulous. My last two posts, Chocolate Olive Oil cakes and Cherry Clafoutis were featured on FoodBuzz Top 9. I mean, two consecutive posts!! That is just cloud #9 worthy, don't you agree?!

Coincidentally, and sometimes I do wonder if there is a correlation (!!), the weather has been stunningly perfect. The weekend was spent in idle lazing, a couple-y brunch at the bakery that recently opened down the road and a gorgeous drive out of the city to the neighboring state to a much frequented lake in Squantz Pond National Park.

a squirrel nibbled nut?

The day was perfect for the drive, the sun shining just enough to warm and a cool breeze keeping you comfortable. I need a shirt but that's just me. One of the things that we love about this lake is that it never is crowded..

You see, the things is, I love New York City and Central Park. But, on any nice day, the place is overflowing with people.. I mean, really, bursting at its seams! But, this lake is always a sanctuary.. You can always find a quiet spot to take in the enormity of the mountains surrounding the lake whose waters extend as far as the eye can see and beyond, the breeze whispering through the leaves of the trees and the intense green of everything around you..

notice the diligent ant climbing the fresh spring leaf...

It is just serene and peaceful and one of those places that put things in perspective for you. It makes you realise that everything is transient even all the little worries, quibbles and concerns and what matters most is the person sitting next to you and sharing the view and place with you in comfortable silence....

So, in short it was beautiful and I just wanted to share some moments from our break from the city with you all and hope that I can share with you some of the tranquility and happiness...

Happy Wednesday!! :)

An old, beautifully maintained Mustang..

Making the most of it and Giveaway Winner...

June 6 Update: Many thanks to FoodBuzz for featuring my cakes #1 on Top 9.

First the good news...Many thanks to all of you for participating in my Anniversary giveaway! I appreciate all your comments and feedback. I am happy to announce, the winner of my giveaway is Aparna with comment #7!!!

Aparna said: Congratulations Asha, you have a great space here. I'm happy to read and eat with my eyes (only vegetarian, natch!) whatever you put out here. :D

This is the "just a tart"? Its gorgeous. If I ever come over, I'm camping at your place for this and more.

Thanks Aparna for participating and please send me your mailing address and I will ship over your saffron package soon!


Now, to my creation of the day... Well, it all started in preparation for our camping trip last weekend. There is something just perfect about roasting marshmallows over a campfire, tucking the hot gooey melted ones between graham crackers and slice of good chocolate and popping it whole with no feelings of guilt. Camping and mallows are synonymous to me. I mean, though you may beg to differ depending where your s'more appreciation lies, I just cannot have one without the other...



So, this year, I thought, "hey.. lets have a real homemade experience at the camp!" Let's take a home prepped meal to the camp and then cook it over the smoky fire and make it camp worthy! Brilliant idea, don't you agree?! It started off well. I braised beef in good red wine and some hearty vegetables and left it to cool. Next I wanted to tackle the s'mores.

The plan was to make marshmallows because well, those are crucial to the success of the fire roasted s'more, indeed! Besides, I have wanted to try making them for a long time. Egg whites have a fascination for me and ever since Mr. FSK banned the making of macarons (:-((( ) at home, I have found myself drawn even more to other white preparations..

Ofcourse, me being me, wanted to add a twist. I found some leftover strawberry flavored gelatin and I envisioned pink marshies. Happy, happy! Then came the shock! I had no more gelatin left! oh no! But, then I spied a packet of china grass (agar agar) that I had picked up in India on a recent trip. I had never used it before and it seemed a sign..



So off I went, armed with a collage of recipes from the net. The problem was that most recipes use corn syrup which a. I don't have and b. Really didn't want to use. I decided to substitute it with sugar syrup. In any case, the typical recipes use a whole lot more sugar than is palatable for any of us in the family. So, I tweeked this and that and had a workable recipe.

I measured this and that and melted this and that and whipped it all together to a nice consistency and poured it in my prepared pan to set. I had planned all this to be ready just in time for us to leave on our vacation viz. 24 hours ahead. After all, it needed only a few hours to set.

Waking up full of eagerness on the day of, I opened the refrigerator and guess what! It didn't set!! Absentminded chemistry student that I was, I hadn't used enough agar agar!!! GAH! So, what I had, staring back at me from the fridge, was a pink mousse rather than a pink mallow. Imagine my woe!



With a heavy heart, I packed the rest of the stuff and we set off on our camping, minus the pink would-have-been-fluffy pillows.. Sigh! All along the trip, I kept mulling over what to do with my monstrosity. Somewhere, I hit on the texture and decided it would be perfect for frosting (it was too sweet to eat as is..)!

It came to be. It also provided the perfect excuse to experiment with something else that I have been meaning to do. Chocolate and Olive Oil cakes. I have found that baking with oil adds so much more moisture to the cake than using butter. And, honestly, it doesn't taste much different. Finally, some success!

I popped a little chunk of my marshy mallow in the center of the batter hoping it would stay there. But, no, it wouldn't. They all popped right up to the top, sticking their heads out of the batter! Ah well! I just covered it up with the remaining strawberry mallow mousse as frosting, which, is what I intended to do anyway! :)





Chocolate Olive Oil Cakes
(original FSK recipe)
makes 12 cupcakes or one 8 inch cake


1-2/3 cup flour
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup good chocolate pieces
1-1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs, room temperature
1/2 tsp salt
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup hot water

Preheat oven to 375 F. Sift together the dry ingredients. Melt the cocoa and chocolate in the hot water and set aside to cool for a bit. Add oil and whisk to incorporate. Add the vanilla extract and eggs and whisk well until you get a thicker and smooth mixture.

Add the wet mixture to the dry slowly, beating well to incorporate. When you have a smooth batter, set aside for a couple of minutes. Pour into prepared cake pan or cupcake molds. Bake for 20 minutes until cake is springy to touch. Remove and cool on rack. Wait till it cools to frost.



Strawberry Marshy Mallow Frosting

**I cut down the amount of sugar because we tend not to eat very sweet things. If you have a sweeter tooth, by all means, play with the amounts. **

2 egg whites
1 cup cold water
1 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp strawberry flavored gelatin
2 T agar agar flakes (loosely measured) {I just broke off pieces from a bar until it filled a T without pressing it down}
1/4 tsp salt
atleast 1/2 cup of powdered sugar

Oil a 9 X 13 inch pan and dust generously with powdered sugar. Set aside.

Sprinkle the gelatin and agar agar flakes in a half cup of cold water and set aside. In a sauce pan bring the remaining water and all of the sugar to a boil and continue heating till it reaches 240 F. Remove from heat and add a little to the gelatin mixture to temper. Add the gelatin mixture to the sauce pan and stir till the flakes dissolve. Use heat if needed to dissolve.

Meanwhile, start whipping the egg whites until they are doubled in volume and hold peaks. When the sugar-gelatin mixture is ready, slowly pour into the egg whites while continuing to whisk (else the eggs will scramble in the heat). The mixture will become voluminous. Continue whipping until you get stiff peaks.

Pour batter into pan and spread evenly. Refrigerate for about 4 hours to set to a mousse. You can store upto four days.

Gratitude, Nature and a Clafoutis ...

June 4 Update: Much gratitude to FoodBuzz peeps for featuring my Clafoutis on Top 9!!

Gratitude: First of all, I want to thank you all for your warm wishes on the completion of two years of this blog. I am much gratified and humbled that many of you appreciate the photography on the site so much.

Photography is a fascinating subject and this blog has provided me the perfect learning medium and excuse to practise it. It has been a interesting learning experience for me and I would love to share the journey with you. I will try and include posts on how I shoot my pics and hope that you find it useful.

Also, I appreciate the feedback on content for my site and I will try and cater to your requests and interests. I will also announce the winner of the giveaway soonly!



Nature: The past weekend was a long one in honor of Memorial Day. Every year, so far, we have travelled out of the city for this weekend. Most always, we kicked off the camping season over these three days and this year, again, we toed the same line.

Since Mr. FSK's cousin is visiting us, this was an even more fun experience! The weather was perfect, temperatures just pleasant to cool, the company warming and location soothing. We camped in a camper cabin near Lake Placid in the Whiteface Mountain region. Three days of bliss and communion with nature, pristine beauty and some rugged white water fun! It was the perfect getaway before hectic summer!!

Back in the hot, sweltering city now, I wish, I could transport myself three days ago! :)



Cherry Clafoutis: Not all is bad with the city, though! :) The park is blooming green and the weekend before the last, we had a wonderful picnic under shade-giving trees with a healthy spread of roast chicken salad with sundried tomatoes, red onions tossed in a spicy aioli, potato salad and this yummy, simple fresh clafoutis.

This was also another of the tackle-the-French-classics moments! Cherry Clafoutis has been on my list for a long while now. But, I only just managed to make it because cherries are, perhaps, THE favorite of Mr.FSK. Consequentially, I can rarely ever pry a few away from him to cook them into anything! Anyway, this time, I put my foot down; I had things to check off my list!

So, the clafoutis came to be. Subtle, light and perfect for the warm weather. And, since none of us are sugar addicts perfect fruit-sweet balance for us!



Side Note: Don't you just love the background of green in the photos?! That was the park. The photos were styled on a overturned picnic basket. That lovely green is just so inviting. I do wish, I had a backyard. I would take all my photos on a patch of green then!


Cherry Clafoutis
(adapted from Julia Child's recipe)
makes 3 three inch clafouti

1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 eggs
1.5 T granulated white sugar
scant 1/2 cup cream
1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 T unsalted melted butter
pinch of teaspoon salt
handful of cherries for each ramekin, not pitted

Sift the dry ingredients together. Whisk together the cream, eggs, extract and butter. Add the wet to the dry and whisk to make a smooth batter.

Place the cherries in shallow ramekins and pour the batter over them not covering them completely. Bake at 425 F for 20 minutes or until the clafoutis is puffed, set, and golden brown around the edges. Serve immediately with a dusting of confectioners sugar.

** Do not open the oven door until the end of the baking time or it may collapse. **