Looking back at 2009, foodwise

I had some awesome food experiences last year, both dining out and cooking at home. I had amazing Chili in Seattle, which I then recreated at home. I also bought lovely cherries covered in chocolate - truly sensual. Later this year, in Minneapolis, I had Zuni stew at the Spoon River Cafe, which I will blog about at some point, and also the most flavourful beans dish at one of Minneapolis' heritage restaurants, Szechuan green beans, which I plan to try and recreate tomorrow.

The Olive restaurant in Delhi moved back to its original, wonderful location in Hauz Khas,and A and I had a romantic dinner there on his birthday. One of the best things about that meal was when they brought a mortar and pestle filled with roasted garlic, extra virgin olive oil and herbs and we got to make our own dip to go with freshly baked bread hot from the oven.

Cibo was a lovely experience on our anniversary in terms of ambience and service, though I thought the food was nothing extraordinary. I wish I had known it was open-air so I would have dressed more warmly, but otherwise it was a great evening.

I discovered three tastes last year which I found delectable and hope to keep enjoying. The first was raspberries. In India, people often confuse ras-bhari ( physalis) for raspberry, which are very different fruit. I had tried rasps on occasion but probably never knew how to select them so hadn't quite cottoned onto their taste. But frozen raspberries gifted by a family friend made their way into A's birthday dessert and I was hooked on to everything about them. Their tart yet sweet taste. The aroma, reminiscent of the best summer roses. The texture, with the grainy seeds and the smooth puree...I even had the raspberry puree by itself as dessert for days after, and it was heavenly.

Peanut butter was something else I discovered after years and relished for the first time. With chocolate, with gongura pickle, on toast or by itself.

One more taste explosion that I have been gluttonously relishing is that of kino or Malta as it is commonly known here. This was a fruit we never enjoyed growing up, because peeling it like an orange just takes too much time and effort. But while at an otherwise dull Romanian food special, I came across Maltas cut into sections, and found their taste almost intoxicating - the sweet-sour juiciness, the fresh, clean feel of the little niblets of fruit...So ever since then they have become staples in our fruit basket, and the kids, A and I can happily tuck into some Maltas anytime.

I hope 2010 brings more such culinary adventures my way. I'm waiting with a clean and eager palate...!

Sweet Chile of Mine

I am re-posting this as an entry for No Croutons required, May 2010, hosted by Lisa.

I recently blogged about the terrific Chile I had at the Steelhead Diner in Seattle. So naturally when I got home I wanted to recreate it for my family, but didn't know how to make it taste different from regular Rajma chaawal, apart from the accompaniments. Thankfully I found a great recipe in Nigella Lawson's book Nigella Feasts. I made it a couple of weekends ago when we had some close friends over for dinner. I didn't want to make a typical Indian meal with half a dozen dishes and spices, because it was really too hot to live that weekend. So we had my mom's yoghurt-paneer dip with crudités and hummus with pita bread as appetizers during drinks, followed by Spanish almond-grape chilled soup:

Middle Eastern tabbouleh and Mexican Chile for dinner. The cocoa powder adds a lovely, smoky depth to the flavour of the Chile, so it was a densely flavourful main course in contrast to the light, fresh flavours of the soup and tabbouleh.We had planned to serve a fruit salad with melon and mango for desert but we and our friends were too stuffed by that point.

The Chile was a breeze to make, and I served it with sides of sour cream and salsa.

Ingredients:
Kidney beans – 1 cup, soaked for 8 hours and then cooked or cooked using the Quick-soak method
Cumin powder – 1 tsp
Coriander powder – 1 tsp
Cocoa powder – 1 tbsp
Red chili powder – 2 tsp
2 onions, finely chopped
3-4 garlic pods, crushed
200 ml tomato puree
Salt to taste
Vegetable oil – 1 tbsp
Cheddar cheese, grated – 1 cup

Heat the oil and add in the cumin and coriander powder. When they start to brown, add the onions and garlic and cook until they turn pale brown. Add the rest of the ingredients and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down and simmer for 30-40 minutes until the mixture turns thick.

If you want to assemble it the way the Diner did, top the Chili with the cheddar cheese and bake in a 220 degrees C oven for about 10-15 minutes until the cheese melts and just starts turning brown.

Serve with sour cream ( we don't get it here so I mixed sour yoghurt with cream and whipped the two together until it was thick and tasted like sour cream) and simple salsa – tomatoes and onions finely chopped with green chilies, coriander leaves and lime squeezed in and salt to taste.

The nice thing about this Chile is that you can eat it for days – served on toast or good crusty bread or as is, heated through or cold from the fridge…

This is my entry for My Legume Love Affair 11, begun by Susan, hosted this time by Taste with the eyes.