Makes one double-crust 9 inch pie Like many, we haven’t been able to travel home in over a year. Home. Just the word brings comfort. To us, home is languid lunches and evening snacks and heavy dinners. If home had a flavour, it would be of browned mutton—or Kosha Mangsho—an incredibly rich and tender Bengali […]
Author: thefusspot
Parle-G Xmas Macarons
Makes 30 x 4 cm wide sandwiched macarons. I tasted my very first macaron in France, from the legendary Ladurée in Paris. Crisp and airy on the outside with an ever so slightly chewy interior, those delicate meringue sandwich cookies set the bar impossibly high. While I’ve more or less used Ladurée’s recipe for my […]
Fish Alberas
Makes 4 servings. Fish Alberas [uhl-bay-russ] is a signature dish of the Bene Israel; an Indian-Jewish community believed to have arrived in the 1st or 2nd century, after their ancestors were shipwrecked on the western coast of India. Influenced by Konkan cuisine and the Marathi tongue, the ‘al’ refers to ginger and the ‘ras’ refers […]
Meatloaf & Mash Cake
Makes a two-tiered 6 inch layered cake. I created this particular cake because apparently, there are people out there who don’t like cake! Who are these people? What’s wrong with them? Should we stage an intervention? Anyway. Built with stacks of meatloaf, frosted with buttery, mashed potatoes, and served with a side of thick, brown […]
Banana Bread
Makes a 10 x 2 ½ inch loaf. Confession time. I hate bananas. I don’t like them as a fruit, I deplore them as a flavour in candy or gum, and detest them in any kind of dessert. But banana bread is the one way I absolutely adore my lifetime fruit nemesis. Moistened with yoghurt […]
Indo-Thai Khow Suey
Makes 4-6 servings. Khow Suey or ohn no khao swè is a curry based noodle soup that is topped with a variety of condiments. Brought to the subcontinent during WWII by migrants from Myanmar (then Burma), no one Khow Suey is alike. Some are distinctly Indian, some reflect Pakistani influences, others stay true to their […]
Devil’s Food Cake
Makes a two-tiered 9 inch layered cake. There’s chocolate cake, and then there’s this chocolate cake; a heavenly creation that merits unwavering worship. Possessing a moist, airy crumb and a bitter-sweet creamy ganache—by some supernatural force—it is at once light and darkness. One bite will send your conscience into battle. Can something this good, be […]
Chicken & Couscous
Makes 4-6 servings. I discovered this dish when I was 18, exactly 18 years ago. Back then, it distinctly belonged to Southern Europe. Over time, it has evolved into a stateless island, influenced by all the lands that touch the Mediterranean Sea between Morocco and Turkey. Here, cinnamon is friends with saffron. Cumin hangs out […]
Sweet Curd Brûlée
Makes 6 servings. This Diwali, I played with fire and torched something sweet. My target? Sweet curd—or as it is better known, mishti doi. An intensely popular Bengali dessert, it is made by fermenting caramel-tinted, reduced milk. Traditional mishti doi does not contain cardamom, jaggery, or nuts—and is perfect, without the bells and whistles. In […]
5-way Caramel Cupcakes
Makes 12 standard sized cupcakes. I used to cringe at caramel. But after making my own batch, I realised it gets a bad rap because the commercially made stuff is too sweet. There are five (whaaaat?) types of caramel flavours in this cupcake—molasses, butterscotch, “caramelised” milk, “caramelised” white chocolate, and finally, true caramel. It’s utterly […]