Jingle All The Way

Christmas is my favourite time of the year. And looks like a lot of people concur because Bombay seems decked out in the best of trees and lights at this time of the year. At the start of December, I asked all of you to send me your favourite Christmas pictures from around the city. And what a visual treat it has been, to see such gorgeous trees and Christmas set ups.

From all the entries I received, I present to you my top 10 picks. There are some trees plus some other fun things folks came up with this year. Trees first:

1. The star studded tree at Inorbit Mall

2. My favourite of the lot - white Christmas at Trident in BKC

3. The wooden tree at Taj Mahal Tea House in Bandra

4. The wine bottle tree at Sofitel in BKC

5. The tree that travelled the furthest - all the way from Four Points Sheraton in Vashi

And now on to other cute Christmassy things:

6. Elf's house at Oberoi Mall

7. Santa's sleigh at Pheonix Market City in Kurla

8. Hamley's London themed snow globe at Phoenix Mills

9. The cutest life sized gingerbread house at JW Marriott Mumbai Sahar

10. The best for the last, the most famous Christmas window in Bombay at Damian in Bandra sports Alice's tea party and other fairy tales

Now for a bonus entry. This home tree from Dipika just because it's so cute.

And finally, the prizes. The best entries came from Huban Kasimi, Dipika and Aniketh Dsouza. The three of them win a goodie bag that I am going to bake come this weekend!

Comments

Kadhi Chawal

I just can't think of what to write today. That's what my absolute favorite meal does to me, I just want to stop talking and dig right in. So I won't ramble and go straight on the recipe for kadhi. First, make the pakoras that would go in the kadhi. Slice an onion lengthwise. Make a batter with 1/2 cup chickpea flour (besan), salt, red chilli powder and water. Dip onions in this batter and deep fry until crisp. Keep aside. Now blend 1 cup yogurt and 1/3 cup besan into a paste. Add 3-4 cups water to make a very thin blend. Heat a tbsp of oil in a pan. Add a tsp each of mustard seeds, cumin seeds, ajwain (carom seeds) and methre (fenugreek seeds). Let splutter for a few seconds. Now add a large onion, cut lengthwise into thin slices and cook until browned lightly. Pour in the yogurt/besan mix and add 1 tsp turmeric powder, 1 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp red chilli powder. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and let simmer for at least half an hour. You have to stir this occasio...

Potato Naan

I know what you see up there is a naan. But let's pretend for a moment we are making bread. For I had bookmarked this recipe for potato bread a zillion years ago. And that's what I set to make. Chopped and boiled 100 gms potatoes until they are soft. Mashed them along with 3/4 cup of water they were boiled in. While the potatoes were boiling, I added a tsp of sugar to 1/4 cup warm water, then sprinkled a tsp of yeast and let it proof for 10 minutes. To the potato/water mix, I added a cup each of whole wheat flour and plain flour, 1/2 tsp salt as well as the yeast. Once everything was mixed well, I put the dough on a flour-dusted surface and kneaded it for 10 minutes or so. It was a fairly wet dough, but got it to get smooth. Oiled a large bowl and put the dough in it to rise to double it's size. By the time the first rise ended after an hour or so, I didn't want the bread. I wanted a naan instead. And if someone deserves to throw a tantrum after days of sniv...

Dukkah

Talk about myths busted. I went to Dubai planning to buy zat'ar, the fragrant herb and spice mix. And Dukkah, the interesting blend of nuts and spices. Not sumac, because I still have a pack left in my fridge. So zat'ar was easy - every Carrefour supermarket had that one. But no one had dukkah and I was like, how can they not have dukkah? It's a middle eastern thing, right! But well, they don't sell dukkah in Dubai, so I came back and armed with recipes from 10-odd blogs (all roughly the same), I set to make my own. The key to making dukkah is : line up all your ingredients, toast each of them separately in a heavy non-stick pan till they are fragrant and lightly roasted, then put everything in a blender and grind coarsely. This is your dukkah. Now dip your bread in olive oil, then dip it in dukkah and indulge. A final word of warning: this can be highly addictive. And finally, my list of ingredients: 1/4 cup almonds 2 tbsp coriander seeds 1 1/2 tbsp sesame...

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