Let’s address what sounds like that unnecessary first step: macerating strawberries. Maceration is a process by which fruits are tossed in sugar, lemon and flavourings—in the case of strawberries it’s usually rum, balsamic vinegar or vanilla. Maceration does two things: 1) Added sugar draws out the natural sugars from the strawberries, as a consequence intensifying… Read more »
If you’ve been following along on Instagram, you will have noticed that this is my second batch of molasses in the past month. I had no complaints about the first batch except that it yielded a mere ¼ cup of molasses (I got up to a ½ cup thereabouts on the second run). I wanted… Read more »
Admittedly a boring photograph. In the (hypercritical) eyes of someone trying to make food look as good as it tastes, it falls short. Way short. A herb for contrast would’ve been great for this but nothing worked with the flavours here – mint, basil, coriander, parsley, nothing. My biggest food related pet peeve is… Read more »
Hate to break it to you, but baked beans are not baked and black-eyed peas are not peas. Baked beans are made on the stove-top with no baking or oven involved. The name came about because Heinz—one of the oldest and largest manufacturers of tinned baked beans—used to follow a method of filling cans with… Read more »
These peanut balls teetered precariously on the edge of turning into peanut butter but the desiccated coconut salvaged them. Not that peanut butter could ever be a bad thing, but I had my mind set on these. Peanuts, when blended, will eventually become peanut butter. These balls follow the same blending process, only, you don’t… Read more »
This is a satisfying process: collecting enough coconut pulp—the bi-product or ‘waste’ from squeezing out coconut milk—drying it out (in the sun, no less) and blending it up to make your own flour! I don’t know about you but this is as up my alley as it gets. (Also another recipe to add to my… Read more »
We eat eggs for breakfast every single day of the week, which as much as I like, is a bit of a shame because breakfast foods are the most fun to cook in my opinion (albeit not on a busy weekday morning). To get around this, a slightly more elaborate Sunday breakfast tradition has arisen:… Read more »
I don’t know if you can tell that I’m quite big on this nose-to-tail / root-to-shoot (?) concept of cooking. Not only is it a great way to reduce waste in the kitchen (and save money), but it also forces me to be creative; think outside the box and utilize as much as I can…. Read more »
Taro/taro root or colocasia as it’s sometimes called is a starchy vegetable of the taro plant. Native to India and South-East Asia, taro also forms a staple in diets in Hawaii, the Caribbean and Africa. Taro ‘root’ is actually the corm—swollen underground stem—of the plant, so technically not a root. Just some casual food semantics… Read more »
I’m not one for veganizing foods unless I’m cooking for someone who’s lactose intolerant or doesn’t like dairy (happy to report that I haven’t met anyone that falls in the latter category). Having said that, I do however try and reduce my dairy intake for a couple of reasons. One, most cheeses that are available… Read more »
Brussels sprouts in a South-Indian style recipe might sound terribly inauthentic. It is, and it’s probably why it comes as a surprise to most people when I tell them about this poriyal (as well as ones using oyster mushrooms, broccoli and lettuce). Growing up though, this was pretty normal. When I was at boarding school… Read more »
I started my previous post by saying that I don’t do many breakfast foods on here, and here I am now with another one. This is inadvertently becoming a new trend. Lassi is strictly speaking not a breakfast food, but fruit lassi, yogurt-smoothie—really, what’s the difference? I make the mango and cardamom lassi and… Read more »
I don’t do a lot of breakfast foods on here and that’s primarily because breakfast for me usually consists of scrambled eggs, a whey shake and a banana. I have however started incorporating more millets and whole grains into my diet, and the easiest way to do this I’ve found, is to add them… Read more »
I’d been buying preserved lemons from a store that grows organic lemons on their property. I’m not someone that only buys organic produce, but the concept of using the entire fruit—peel, rind, juice and all—made me want to try and get my hands on some pesticide-free ones for preserving. So when my aunt called… Read more »
I have a few soba noodle recipes in my repertoire that I cook a lot of and this is the newest, and lately, the most popular addition to that. The original idea was to make it semi-dry—like a pad thai consistency—but the flavours turned out too bold and not in a good way. The… Read more »
