Coffee and cake at the new Swiss Bakery + Cafe

The Movenpick Hotel and Spa in Bangalore (Mathikere) has a new offering, which is totally unique to India - The Swiss Bakery + Cafe. The Swiss are famous for their breads such as Zoft and Burebrot (farmer's bread) and their pastries are of course, legendary. The bakery and cafe represents this to a large extent, combined with some very Indian touches like Kathi roll and the very Bangalorean tea accompaniment, the puff.  

The ambience is cozy and casual and the fact that it opens to the portico means people can walk in to buy a bread or step in for a quick coffee and cake, without going through the main hotel entrance via security and lobby. Large French windows replete with awning and comfortable furniture, huge vintage glass jars on display with cookies, meringues and chocolate bars give it a classic European cafe look. 

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There's a glass section displaying the savoury eats like rolls, quiches, bagel sandwiches etc. and the other side displaying all manner of beautiful pastries, Danishes and other sweets. There's a decent selection of coffees (INR125+), teas (INR95+) and also the quintessentially South Indian Bournvita and Horlicks. The prices are quite down to earth and not at all 'five-starry' and the manager tells us that you'll find their prices of coffees and eats at par with any Indian coffee chain.

If you live around North Bangalore, it's the perfect place to pick up a freshly baked loaf of bread on your way home, or drop by with friends for a coffee or relax by yourself with a book. 

Some of the must-try items:

• Fresh breads - Six cereal bread, Multigrain bread, Pumpernickel bread
• Veg Kathi Roll - Perfectly flavoured and seasoned filling inside a soft roti served with chutney
• Cinnamon Apple Danish - Subtly sweet, beautifully glazed and melt in mouth
• Banana Walnut Bread - rich with aromas of toasted walnuts and not too sweet
• Carrot Cake - While I don't care must for the icing, the cake itself is moist and filled choc-a-bloc with seasonal carrots
• Sugarfree Panna Cotta - For those who don't eat sugar and eggs, this is a good choice with seasonal fruit

You can ask the chef or the manager for special bread and pastry of the day. And yes, they do take birthday and other special occasion cake orders. 

A five-star ambience, good choice of eats and attentive service at a reasonable price are the positives of the Swiss Bakery and Cafe and if you live in the vicinity, it's worth giving it a try when your next coffee & cake craving hits.

Details:

Swiss Bakery + Café

Mövenpick Hotel & Spa Bangalore

115 Gokula Extension, HMT Road (near BEL Circle) | 560054 Bangalore | India
+91 80 4300 1000

Open all 7 days

Time: 11 am – 7 pm (will be extended to later hours soon)

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SaffronTrail is on YouTube | Recipe for a Winter Salad

Since I have decided that I will do something newsworthy, every single month of 2014 (at least newsworthy of the blog headlines), this is the big news of Jan 2014. Saffron Trail is on YouTube. After Blog--Facebook Page--Twitter--one might think YouTube is the natural progression to this train of things. We've started small, with some interesting tips, kitchen hacks, bite-sized recipe videos and will gradually go on to do slightly longer videos, but none too long that you'll get bored watching. 

But, let me admit, it is a tough one to crack. Hats off to those who have made the transition successfully and are keeping at it. I have teamed up with a fantastic bunch of people who pushed me into doing this thing and who are holding my hand all through this transition. I may not even have executed on my YouTube plan if it weren't for them. 

I'll tell you why this is difficult. That the camera adds ten twenty pounds to your body is only too evident when you are the center of a video. Am I looking too fat? Is my hair too frizzy? Am I talking through my nose? Is my accent laugh-worthy? All these questions and more, full of self-doubt, pop through your head while the lights are glaring into your face and the camera is on you. It takes a fair bit of strength to accept that "this is who I am" and "I am not going to be ashamed to be myself, no matter what", whether it is the extra weight or the mistimed boil on the chin or the throat that decided to take a break on the exact day that we had planned our shoot. In fact, all through our first round shoot, I was coughing non-stop and somehow managed to say my lines in the middle of bouts of cough. My team mate kept giving me sips of green tea, warm water and generous cough breaks, to keep me going. Being on video exposes the raw personality to the world - 'this is how I look, this is how I cook - take it or leave it', kind of exposure. Unless of course one is a seasoned actor who can successfully mask their real personality and play a role, which I can assure you I am not, and I doubt I can ever be. 

So the launch happened 10 days ago on 18th Jan. We've released a Garden to Plate trailer, a video on how to make balsamic vinegar and another fun video on how to cut a watermelon and remove every single seed, which has been quite popular so far.  The volume on the videos has a slight problem, so you may need to watch the videos on full volume, but I promise we are looking into setting that right. As my ever supportive and encouraging blog readers, I request you to subscribe to my channel and assure you that we are working hard to bring to you some excellent content over the next few months. 

Subscribe to SaffronTrail on YouTube 

Here's a salad recipe that you can make using the Balsamic Vinaigrette you learn from my video below

Winter veggies salad
Serves 1


Ingredients

2 cups of mixed lettuce (I used a mix of winter gem, chicory, rocket and regular lettuce)
1 medium red carrot (also called Delhi carrots), julienned
2-3 handfuls of shelled fresh green peas (use frozen, if fresh not in season)
1/2 medium red bell pepper, cut into strips
handful of cherry tomatoes (red or yellow)
1 boiled egg, peeled and quartered (making the perfect boiled egg)
2-3 tbsp of balsamic vinaigrette dressing  

Directions
Add the peas to 2 cups water and bring this to a boil with a pinch of salt and sugar each. Let it simmer uncovered for 5-7 minutes, until peas are soft. Drain in a colander and refresh with cold water to keep the peas green. Adding a pinch of salt and sugar to the water is also to retain the green colour.
Wash the lettuce in a sink filled with water or a tub. Repeat the wash 2-3 times until the residual water is clean. Shake off excess water and dry on muslin cloth or absorbent towel, until the leaves are well dried. Chop or tear into bite sized pieces.
In a large bowl, place all salad ingredients, except eggs. Pour the dressing (reserving a teaspoon full) and toss gently using finger tips. Remove into a salad plate and arrange the boiled eggs on top, pouring the remaining dressing on the eggs.
Sprinkle some freshly ground black pepper or dried herbs over the top for extra zing. 
The recipe is indicative - you could use any and as much of greens and other veggies you like.

The workshops in the Saffron Trail Kitchen are on in full swing. Check out the Feb-March Calendar and let me know if you'd like to attend any of them. For details, you can email me. There's a Zesty Salad class on 29th Jan (wednesday) with a few seats open. If you want to attend that one, ping me FAST :)

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A memorable meal at The Royal Afghan

When you hear the name Royal Afghan, it's easy to assume that it's going to be a carnivores paradise, which indeed it was. But I was in for a pleasant surprise too. It turned out to be one of the most memorable meals I've had in a long time!

Last week, we were invited to share a table with the legendary Chef JP Singh. For the uninitiated, he is the Executive Chef of the legendary restaurant, Bukhara at the ITC Maurya. He has cooked for the who's who in the world and has widely travelled across the globe promoting and educating people on the Bukhara cuisine. It was a privilege to meet and dine with chef JP Singh who has been with the ITC group for over 35 years- spends time in each of the Bukhara type restaurants to maintain quality. He looked into, supervised and even cooked the meal that evening.

Chef JP Singh

The meal started with an introduction to the cuisine of Bukhara and how it has remained pretty much unchanged since its inception in 1978. The cuisine took inspirations from the North Western Frontier Province, that comprised parts of Afghanistan and the North Western part of pre-independence India. The food is almost entirely cooked in Tandoors or the traditional clay ovens where maintaining the temperatures and cooking veg, breads and meats to perfection needs much expertise that comes with years of experience. The Bukhara style restaurants are replicated in other ITC Hotels in the form of Peshawari, Kababs and Kurries and The Royal Afghan - and 95% of the menu is the same in all these restaurants with a couple of local specialities added. 


The Royal Afghan is located in the ITC Windsor, Bangalore. The outdoor poolside ambience, clay oven cooking and the cool weather of Bangalore evenings are a perfect match for each other. I loved my special green apron and the green glass for water, so the waiting staff know I am vegetarian. This simple hack makes dining so much more peaceful - otherwise I would've been asked if I wanted every meat dish on their menu causing a mild disturbance in enjoying my meal in peace. Yes, they provide aprons instead of napkins, because they want you to eat with your fingers (no cutlery provided) and slurp on the delicacies served on your plate without the fear of soiling your clothes.

The first course was tandoori starters. The Tandoori Aloo comprises parboiled potatoes, scooped and stuffed with mash, raisins, cashews, chillies, coriander, skewered and roasted in the tandoor. It was mild yet full of flavour and texture, paired with the green chutney, it was a delight.

Tandoori Salad

 This was followed by the Tandoori salad - if salads tasted like this, I could well live on them. The 'salad' has onion, capsicum, tomatoes, paneer, pineapple seasoned with yellow chillies, garam masala, black cumin, malt vinegar arranged on skewers and grilled in the oven. The sprinkle of the special in-house chaat masala made using a pink rock salt is what takes this to a whole new level. 
Very few vegetables lend themselves to the tandoor like the cauliflower and the Tandoori Phool is a fine example of this. The preparation is quite complex where the cauliflower florets are marinated with yellow chili and spices, then dipped in a spiced gram flour batter with ajwain, deep fried and then these deep fried florets are made crisp and golden by skewering and char-grilling them in the tandoor. This gives the humble cauliflower a lot of flavour and texture, spicy and a hint of tanginess from the yougurt and chaat masala.

Paneer Khurchan

In the mains, the vegetarian menu included Paneer Khurchan, Tandoori Simla Mirch and the legend itself, Dal Bukhara. Khurchan, traditionally means 'leftover scraps' but this dish was far from that. Slivers of melt in mouth soft paneer tossed with pan fried tomatoes and capsicum tempered with mustard seeds would be a delight for any paneer lover. 

The Tandoori Simla Mirch has been a long time favourite ever since the days we lived in Bombay and Peshawari was one of our favourite restaurants. A medley of fresh veggies such as beans, cabbage, cauliflower, carrots are sauteed with a mix of spices and stuffed into the capsicum along with cashews and raisins. These capsicums are skewered and roasted in the tandoor, cut in halves and served. The vegetables are so fragrant with the spices that even a veggie hater will succumb to this mix of flavours. 
And now, drumrolls for the legend itself - Dal Bukhara - the hallmark dish of Bukhara, is cooked overnight in the traditional Bukhara way on the tandoor, simmered all night and finished with tomato, ginger and garlic. When that much of effort and patience goes into a humble lentil, it is bound to taste divine! You want to break the roti with your fingers, make it dive into the dal Bukhara and plonk it straight into your mouth and lick off any dal leftover on your fingertips. Eating dal roti with your fingers is the best possible Indian culinary experience- so earthy and full of soul. 

A special mention must be made of the most neglected part of Indian cuisine in restaurants, where guests nonchalantly order a bread basket and break bits of the roti, using it as a spoon or a carrier for the vegetable and no more. No one cares about this really. But the Pudina Paratha that was served to go along with the vegetables was my dish of the day. It's easy to impress with fancy food but equally tough to impress someone with a roti. Perfectly crisp and golden in the oven, sprinkled with this mix of dried mint, anardana (pomegranate seeds), their in-house chaat masala and a couple of other secret ingredients Chef Singh would not give out, this one roti was truly unforgettable.  It's been a week since I had the meal but I can still recall how my tastebuds tingled in reaction to this roti. I may go back there only to sink my teeth into the Pudina Paratha and revel in the deliciousness of this utterly perfect roti. I'm truly sorry I didn't capture a picture of the dish of the day for you! But I promise, I'm going back soon.

Pic courtesy: Nitin Kandhari

To add a fair bit of drama to the table, they also brought in the Naan Bukhara that is a family sized naan (surely a family of hearty eaters). Let me tell you that I did not deviate from my loyalty to the Pudina paratha, just gave that huge naan an appreciative nod and continued to tuck into the rest of the meal.

While I would have ended my meal with deep contentment right there, I succumbed to peer pressure and agreed to a serving of desserts. I must admit, I am not a big fan of Indian desserts, except for rosogulla and a few other Bengali sweets and definitely not a fan of phirni. But I'm glad I kept an open mind and tried this. It was of an ethereal cloud like consistency mildly flavoured with cardamom and saffron. 

The gulab jamoon had the slight crispiness outside and the soft melt in mouth consistency inside- the size big enough to serve 2 people with a huge sweet tooth. Oh and yes, we did get a dessert spoon to eat this :)

For the meat lovers, you may read my friend Ruth's description of her dining experience. I wont forget how everyone on the table ate the Barrah Kabab and the Tandoori Jhinga with a hushed silence interspersed with exclamations on how brilliant it tasted.

All in all, it was a meal worth savouring and then relishing the memories for days to come. I most certainly need to make a trip sans camera, phone, and any other distractions and just focus on the food!

Details:
The Royal Afghan, ITC Windsor, 25 Windsor Square, Golf Course Road, Near Sankey Road, Bangalore.

Meal for two would cost approximately INR 2500 without alcohol

Open only for dinner on weekdays

Open for lunch and dinner on weekends

Call 080-41401205 for reservations

The ultimate guide and recipe for the perfect Tambrahm sambar

My blog is nominated in the shortlisted blogs in Food & Drink category in the Blogadda awards. If you like to read what I write, please vote for me by clicking LIKE or Tweeting what you find in THIS LINK - your vote love will be much appreciated :)

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I was going to be in Mumbai on work, so I was going to be staying with my parents. The Bangalore-Mumbai flight was late. And as expected, there was major traffic jam from the airport to home. I'd told Amma that I'd be having dinner at home, so I hadn't eaten a thing on the flight. There are very few edible items on flights' menus these days anyway and I'm not big on packing a tiffin carrier for flights. I was famished and so looking forward to eating sambar and rice for dinner. On reaching home, I quickly freshened up, changed and imagine my plight when my mum said "innikki rasam pannirukken" (I've made rasam today). I don't care what my age is, I could've well throw a tantrum and gone to bed hungry. But I was consoled with the promise of proper arachuvitta sambar, avial and fried appalams for the next day's lunch and I ate some thairsaadham (curd-rice) and went off to sleep. Rasam used to be made at home with alarming regularity before my sister got married because she hates sambar as much as I hate rasam. Now that she's married and moved out to another city, I'm less worried about entering into a kitchen where there's only rasam. 

I'm a decent cook (not gloating here ahem..) and I make a decently superb sambar. While I'm not a judgmental person in life, I do get a little judgmental about people's cooking when I taste their sambar.  [this is not a cue for all of you to never invite me home for a meal, OKAY?] Of course, I mean, a Tamil person's cooking. I'm not bonkers to judge a Bengali's cooking abilities by their sambar. Too watery, too spicy, too insipid, too heavy, too sour - there are a lot of things that can go wrong with this common yet brilliant dish. 

We have two kinds of sambar, an everyday sambar- made using ready sambar powder (ground at home, of course, and stored in air tight bottles for a month or two) and a special arachuvitta sambar which tambrahm maami's make on Sundays or festival days or when their son-in-law is visiting. You get the drift? 

There are some punctilious tambrahm maamas (uncles) who pride on their very sensitive tastebuds,  and will insist that they will only eat arachuvitta sambar and not the one made using the sambar powder. They will of course insist that, that is the only real sambar. The fact that their wives have to put in a lot more effort into making this makes it the real deal for them and a matter of much satisfaction for them. 

So before you non-tamil speaking folks ditch reading any further because I didn't explain what Arachuvitta sambar means - here it is. Arachuvitta means to grind and add, so here the masala is freshly roasted and ground each time the sambar is made, so no stocking up in a bottle here. Anybody with the dullest of tastebuds will tell you that flavour-wise the araccha sambar is just a few hundred times more flavoursome than the everyday sambar. And yes, that's the one I love best too. But people who make sambar everyday, the sambar powder makes life much easier for them. I will give you the shortcut recipe too, at the end of the post, so please bear with me.

Shallot (Madras onion) sambar is quite the universal favourite, but there are people who swear by radish or drumstick sambar. Regular onions or capsicum sambar is also an excellent variation. Both white and red pumpkins are also commonly used. Frugal tambrahm maamis are also experts in making kitchen sink sambar which has a little bit of everything left in the fridge such as brinjal, carrot, pumpkin etc. In case of onions, capsicum, brinjals etc. saute the chopped vegetables (usually as largish chunks / squares) in some oil until soft and then proceed by adding tamarind extract, masala and dal in that order. Root veggies, drumstick, pumpkin etc can be pressure cooked and then proceed with the same steps.

Recipe for Carrot Sambar with freshly ground masala [ Arachuvitta sambar / sambhar]

Serves 2 generously as main course, or 4 to eat with idli/dosa
PRINTABLE RECIPE HERE


1/8 cup (2 tbsp) tightly packed tamarind 
1/2 cup boiling water
1/3 cup dry tur dal (tuvaram paruppu)
3 medium carrots, peeled and sliced thick -1/2" roughly
1 tsp salt

For masala
1/4 tsp or a few drops of cooking oil
4 dried red chillies
1 tbsp chana dal (kadalai paruppu)
1.5 tbsp coriander seeds (dhania seeds)
1/4 tsp fenugreek seeds (vendhayam)
1/8th tsp of LG asafoetida chunk (optional)
1 sprig curry leaves
1/4 cup desiccated coconut (optional)

For tempering:
2 tsp cooking oil
1/4-1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1 sprig curry leaves
1 red chilli
pinch of asafoetida powder

Directions

Putting an end to the lemon-sized myth

Add 1/2 cup boiling water to the tamarind in a medium bowl. Cover and keep aside for 10 minutes. Squeeze out all the extract from the tamarind into the water in which it was soaked. Squeeze the tamarind dry. Sieve or pass the tamarind extract between fingers to collect and discard any fiber/seeds. Collect extract into a cup and keep aside. You'll get 3/4 cup extract from this process.

Wash well and pressure cook the toor dal with little over a cup of water, with a pinch of turmeric powder. Since this is carrot sambar, pressure cook sliced carrots with 1/4 cup water and pinch of salt in another vessel and cook them by stacking the vessels one of top of the other to save time. After 3 whistles, reduce flame to minimum and keep on sim for 12 minutes or so. Remove dal and carrots when cooker has cooled. Mash the dal and keep aside. Drain water from the carrots and keep aside to use if required later.

While the dal is cooking in the pressure cooker, in a kadai, using a few drops of oil, toast the red chillies, chana dal, asafoetida chunk, coriander seeds, curry leaves and fenugreek seeds, on a medium-low flame until the dal is golden, chillies are bright and asafoetida has puffed up. Take care not to burn the fenugreek seeds. 

You can add the desiccated coconut at this stage and toast them altogether until the coconut is golden-brown. Coconut is entirely optional. Most of the times I omit the coconut but in some tambrahm families, arachuvitta sambar without coconut is sacrilege. Roasted coconut lends an intense aroma to the sambar. If you don't have desiccated coconut, you could use fresh coconut and roast it similarly until it is golden. 

Once cooled, place all the masala ingredients in the small jar of a mixer and grind till you get a fine powder. You can add up to 1/4 cup of water until you get a smooth paste and then add 3-4 tbsp of water to clean up the mixer jar. Collect all this masala in a bowl and keep aside.

At this point of time, the masala, tamarind extract, carrots and dal are ready and it's time to prepare the sambar.

 In a kadai, combine the carrots and only 1/2 cup of tamarind extract. Keep the remaining aside to be added later if you think that sambar needs more souring. Bring this to a simmer for 2 minutes or so. To this add the ground masala and bring to a simmer. 

When this is simmering, add the mashed dal, 1 tsp salt. Bring this to a gentle simmer. If you think the sambar is too thick, add the water kept aside from boiling the carrots and bring to a simmer. At this stage, check for salt and remove into a serving bowl. 

In a tempering ladle, heat 1-2 tsp of oil. When the oil is hot, add the mustard seeds, red chilli and curry leaves. When the seeds splutter, add the asafoetida and switch off the flame. Add this to the sambar and cover the serving bowl immediately to seal all the flavours of the tempering.

Shortcuts:

Tamarind paste (2 tsp dissolved in 1/3 C of hot water) and sambar powder (3 tsp), using both these shortcuts, you can cut short on a considerable prep time and make a half decent sambar, but let me tell you, it's nowhere are soul stirring as the original number.

 Also you'll have to adjust the liquid quantity accordingly to get the same consistency as you are adding dry powder instead of wet masala. I suggest you prepare the original recipe first, so you get an idea of the exact consistency. You could grind the masala fresh and using the ready tamarind paste and it will be nearly as good as the original.

Serve the sambar piping hot with steamed rice, ghee and one of these vegetable side dishes and you have an impressive full meal ready. For all photos in sequential order, check my facebook page.

My blog is nominated in the shortlisted blogs in Food & Drink category in the Blogadda awards. If you like to read what I write, please vote for me by clicking LIKE or Tweeting what you find in THIS LINK - your vote love will be much appreciated :)

My greatgrandmother's recipe for Puli Aval - Tamarind Poha

"Kayamma" I used to call her as a child. She always used to wear a necklace with large corals and I would be forever fascinated by the big orange stones. Whenever I used to ask her what those stones were, she would tell me that they were 'kaai" and that's how I started calling her Kayamma. As a more grown up child, when I lived with my grandparents, my great-grandparents lived next door. When my grandparents were traveling out of town, my great-grandparents and me would kind of take care of each other. 

She had some fantastic dishes in her repertoire. I remember watching her cook. She was extremely particular about a couple of things in cooking. One, the thalippu (tempering) had to be generous - be it the mustard seeds or the udad dal or the quantity of oil used, she hated when people skimped on these things in the tempering of a dish. Two, she loved asafoetida (heeng) and her cooking was always redolent of this spice. So much so, that I would tease her as 'perungaayam paati' (asafoetida granny, in Tamil), especially when she used chunks of asafoetida and a tiny intact piece, which wasn't dissolved properly would find its way into my mouth while eating sambar-rice. Her other love was gingelly oil (nallennai) which she used liberally in her dishes and even tiffin items like upma.

I used to hate asafoetida, mustard seeds and gingelly oil as a kid, and true to my genes, I have duly fallen in love with all three of them today. I use the strongest possible asafoetida to spike my tambrahm dishes and its effect can only be experienced, not explained.

She spent nearly 50 years of her life in Matunga (a locality in heart of Mumbai that came up in 1930s-40s with a large number of Tamil brahmin families) from 1940-1989 before they moved to Mulund to be closer to my grandparents. My uncle had a joke about her that instead of learning Hindi, she ended up teaching Tamil names of all the vegetables to the bhaaji wala bhaiyyaas (vegetable vendors) from UP in the Matunga veggie market. 

Kayamma is thrilled to see her great-great-grand child

She passed away at the ripe old age of 92 in the year 2009. She had the good fortune to see two great-great grandchildren in her lifetime. This is one of my most favourite dishes she used to make and each time I make this in my kitchen, it is with many fond remembrances of her.

Recipe for Tamarind poha / beaten rice / Puli Aval
Serves 2-3


Ingredients

Thick poha 1.5 cups

2 tbsp gingelly oil (or regular cooking oil)

fat pinch of hing

1 tsp mustard seeds

2 tbsp chana dal

2 tbsp peanuts

1 tbsp udad dal

2-3 sprigs curry leaves

3-4 broken red chillies (dried)

1/4 cup tamarind extract* or 1 heaped tsp tamarind puree (storebought) dissolved in 3 tbsp water

1/4 tsp turmeric powder

1 tsp salt or to taste

1 -2 tsp sambar powder

2-3 tbsp fresh grated coconut

Directions

Wash poha/aval/beaten rice well in running water, drain all the water and cover and keep aside.

Heat oil and add ingredients -mustard seeds through red chillies and saute till peanuts and dal turn golden brown.

Add tamarind extract and bring to a boil.

Add salt and turmeric powder to this.

Once this dissolves, add the rehydrated poha, sambar powder, coconut and stir gently to bring all the ingredients together.

Check for salt and spice. Adjust with some extra salt and sambar powder if required.

Garnish with some fresh coconut before serving and eat hot.

*to make tamarind extract, wash a small fistful of tamarind (or a compact lemon size) and soak it in a cup of hot water for 15 minutes. After it has softened, rub it well between thumb and fingers to extract all the essence. Remove the leftover rind etc and squeeze it dry and discard. If required filter the extract to remove any fibers.

You can even prepare this with red rice poha if you wish. The soaking time will be considerably increased and instead of draining all the water after washing, soak it in some water instead, so that it softens well.