The Sweet Tooth!

Engineers don't have a sweet tooth. They have sweet teeth. All 32 of them, apparently! Or in my case, 30. (having lost the pair to sweetness already!)

Food, guides a lot of my instincts. People who've been around me long enough know that for sure. But, sweets, they just do a little more.

French crepes might sound all fancy, but they are darn simple to make. You dish out a bowl, put in a fistful of flour, add a little milk, 2-3 eggs and stir for about 5 minutes. The essence is in the consistency of the mix. Not too loose, not too tight. A little loose preferably! Add a little vanilla sugar, if you're not too crazy about the egg-y taste.

A non-stick flat pan is what works best to roll these bad babies out. And butter. Definitely butter! Crepes, like all us scheming, love-hungry mammals, enjoy a lot of buttering. That just kinda ends up bringing out the flavors.

All credit to my aunt who thought the Sunday evening tea would be incomplete without this zing to the palate.

Oh and did I tell you that if you spread a little Nutella on top of the hot ones, it melts away and tastes heavenly?

So there you are folks, French Crepes with Nutella! 12 ones rolled out in 15 minutes.

Burn away.. or turn green! (whatever it is that happens to you with jealousy)

The name's Halwa... Gajar ka Halwa!

The Engineer picks up the Karchi again..this time to dish out Gajar ka Halwa !

And all it took was :

• 2 dozen carrots (finely grated) , 
• a fistful of sugar (evenly sprinkled) , 
• desi ghee, 
• 40 minutes,
• and a girl waiting to eat it all! 

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My mum, of course!

The halwa didn't even last an hour!

That's the short part of it!

The long part is that carrots have to be washed and in this weather the water feels finger-numbing cold. Your paunch is growing, but that is no excuse to feel tired after grating just 1 carrot when there are 13 more left to be done! And grated carrots when combined with ghee and sugar and stirred for some time over a medium flame smell delicious, but that is no reason to whip out the camera and snap a picture of the steaming delicacy.

I am getting better. Period!

From the Engineer's Kitchen!

Ummm.. My hands smell of Metthi. 

Because I just cooked the most awesome Metthi Aloo (Potato cooked with Fenugreek). 

Basic cooking is quite like science. You get the ingredients, follow procedure and its done.

Now, that's exactly what all cookbooks will tell you. What they won't tell you is how hard it is to keep a 2 kg cookbook in your hand while you're tumbling the vegetables upside down in the kadhai (hemispherical container used to cook). And if it is borrowed, then all the tension of dirtying the pages with your oily hands. So much work. Phew!

Cooking expects you to have a basic feel for it, if not anything more. Oh.. cmon..that's just fair.!!

I've been seeing my mother cook for ages now. And my father surprisingly cooks pretty well too. His cooking is more suited to my carnivorous palate. He is good with all kinds of meat.

And I've watched with wide eyes how the Dhaba-walas stir fry their dal makhni and shahi paneer.  They know the proportion of masala that is going to give me the kick and the amount of butter to put to make me lick my fingers. Its all very instinctive. No tablespoons or measures. How the chai wala bhaiya next to my office gate just knows with experience what it takes to make the killer cup of chai with the precise amount of sugar, chai patti (read : tea leaves) and milk. His concoctions come out perfect, everytime. Oh.. and the way they play around with the flame. While the dal is left simmering on a dheeme aanch for a long time for it to get its dreamy taste.. the tadka is usually added on a high flame with a lot of movements of the pan.

So, on a cold wintery evening, 3 days into the new year,  I put all my learnings to test.

Finely chopped some metthi, washed it and put it in the kadhai. I made sure all the water had evaporated before I added oil to stir fry it. In the meantime, peeled off some potatoes, and chopped them into small pieces, not too small, not too big ( as my father pointed out). When the metthi starts sticking to the kadhai and starts developing a slight crust, I scattered the potato pieces into the kadhai, added namak, haldi and some oil and tumbled them upside down. The potatoes started getting the familiar yellowish tinge. Put a lid on the container and let it simmer.

15 minutes later, mum comes to test. And I pass. With flying colours.

The engineer shall enter the kitchen again.

P.S : Yes. I had painted my gas plate that creamish-pinkish tinge.

The Joys of Freshly Toasted Bread!

I had to put this picture up! Just to keep myself from going into the kitchen again and toasting a few more slices! I am a total sucker for Bread and Butter! And freshly toasted bread.... ooooh baby! I'd die for it!

Its been my childhood love I'd confess! History dates this unusual obsession with the fluffly flour preparation to 1998 A.D. We used to have a red-colored "National" toaster. I remember mummy preparing toasted bread and serving it to us with our evening milk. I would just love the butter melting on the hot bread. We would then lick it off from the face of the bread. Ahha!

The toaster gave up after some years and we shifted to toasting breads on the "tawa" (the pan on which you make chapattis/rotis) ! The tawa-toasted ones have a very sizzler-ey touch to them. You spread butter on a bread piece and put its buttered face on the hot tawa. It pops and sizzles, gets the ethereal yellow-brown colour and the butter gets soaked right in. Delicious, I tell you! By the time I grew up, I had perfected my own technique, since I always felt that the traditional tawa toasting consumed a lot more butter and the 'zaika' wasn't really there. But Tawa toasted breads have been an integral part of my evening milk snack since ages yore.

2010 A.D. My appetite for the tawa toasted ones had jaded. Plus 2010 saw the "Return of the Toaster". Two incidents worth remembering..
1. Sam's place after a Dil Chahta Hai watching night saw us preparing our morning snack on his toaster which just wouldn't pop up the bread and which had the uncanny knack of giving the bread eaters electric shocks when you tried to be smart with it..

2. After our last exam we headed to Zee's place before he could leave for Amreeka. And we were hungry. Atleast I was. On our way in the metro, when I was warning Zee on the phone that he better have something for us to eat, otherwise he should get ready for a fridge raid, a pretty girl sitting beside me even offered me a full burger. And she wouldn't budge to my saying 'No'. So I ate it. How many times do you see that happening ?
We finally reached Zee's place and made hay till the loaf of Harvest Gold lasted. We even rationed off the little butter cubicle that was left.

This transformed me into a 3 year old tantrum-throwing kid. The tantrums did pay off though! And we finally bought a toaster during Diwali. And Ive been happily snacking myself on the produce.

P.S. I am feeling hungry now. Bread- Butter calling.
P.P.S. People who know me well, know that the way into my heart is through Toasted Bread! ;-)
P.P.P.S And for the final time.. NO.. I don't own a "Hello Kitty " Toaster!