Bombay Foodie

David Lebovitz is my favourite blogger. He's witty and charming; he lives in Paris and goes travelling for food around the world and he runs chocolate tours and writes ice cream books. David's list of places to visit in Paris was my travel guide when I visited and I wasn't disappointed at a single place that he recommended. His blog is also chockful of some brilliant recipes and I've made a few of them my favourites over the years. So when I found myself with a jar of dulce de leche, courtesy my friend Rachana , I immediately thought of David's recipe for dulce de leche brownies . Dulce de leche is caramalised condensed milk. You cook the tin of condensed milk slowly, until it changes flavour and colour to become a jar of candy you can scoop out with a spoon and eat. Which is what I did with most of my tin of dulce. Added flavour bonus if you also sprinkle some sea salt before digging it. But I still have half a tin left after a few days and that's what w...

A few months back, I was invited to a bloggers event by Kishco . This is a cutlery and cookware brand set up in the 1950s. But only in the last couple of years has the brand image been revamped by the second generation of founder family; in this case the fitness expert Namita Jain. Namita's launched a beautiful range of stainless steel cutlery and at the time of our event, they had also added a whole lot of 'healthy cooking' pots and pans that are being sold out of Kishco's flagship stores and a bunch of online and offline retail channels. We spent a pleasant enough afternoon drinking tea and admiring kitchenware and talking table etiquette. But in the end, I wasn't sure how to tell you all about the event or the brand. After all, a spoon's a spoon right? Not quite so, as it turns out. Namita gifted us all half a dozen soup spoons. I don't drink much soup so at first I thought I will have no use for these. But over time, I've found that these spoons...

Mumbai is the place to be when you want to try food from farflung corners of the world. If there aren't specialty restaurants catering to your tastebuds, there will be one of the countless popups serving your cuisine of choice. Except there are blatant misses. There is hardly anything from Africa. And while Mexico is well represented, there is almost nothing else from rest of South America. Rachana, over at second helping, is tackling this gap with the launch of her Latin American popup - Tan Bueno. It's a particularly brave venture given that her menu is completely and fully vegetarian. Rachana invited me over to taste her new menu and I can't help but tell you about this fabulous feast. At Tan Bueno, Rachana welcomes you with that refreshing Mexican summer drink, an agua fresca. Her version has pineapple and mint in it and we sipped on this delicious drink all through our meal. A meal that starts off with three brilliant appetizers. There are empanadas filled with mi...

I grew up in Punjab. Which means only one thing rice-wise - we eat basmati. We don't eat a lot of it since Punjab is largely a wheat eating state but when we do - be it with curry or the lentil porridge (khichdi) or the rice pudding (kheer), the choice of rice is always the long grained, fragrant basmati. Now basmati is a great rice for things like biryani but it's not a cure all and over the years, I've found several new favourites to match the recipe I have in mind. After trying everything from black rice to the nutty wild rice, here is my pick of the top 5 varieties to always have in stock. 1. For Plain Rice: The kind of rice you eat with a curry. You need the grains to be soft and short, and it doesn't hurt for rice to be smushy. This is one category with multiple contenders but my favourite at the moment is the Bengali Govindobhog rice. I first discovered it at Lavaash in Delhi and it took a fair bit of hunting but Govindobhog is now available in my local hype...

Have you noticed how large zucchinis grow to be. I like adding them to the mix when making stir fries but there is only as much squash you can add to mushrooms and peppers and babycorn. Which means I usually have half a zucchini leftover after a stir fry meal. Most days, the half zucchini is left to languish in the fridge but I think I have finally found the perfect recipe for it. It's zucchini fritters, made on a pan without much fuss at all. Now most recipes for such fritters call for eggs as binding agent but because even one egg will be way too much for my half zucchini, this recipe also features a secret ingredient - mayonnaise. Think about it - mayonnaise is really just egg and oil and flavour so you can't go wrong with this replacement. Ingredients 1 cup grated zucchini 2 tbsp cornflour 1 tbsp mayonnaise 2 tbsp grated cheddar salt and black pepper, to taste olive oil to fry, about a tbsp Put grated zucchini in a colander. Add 1/2 tsp salt, mix and leave ove...

When someone asks me why I chose to go to Lakshadweep, the only answer I have is “because no one ever goes there”. It really was on a whim. I’m not an adventurous traveller; I started off traveling for business, with a friendly secretary booking flights and nondescript hotels and I have pretty much stuck to the “nice hotel-good restaurants-catch a show-go to museums” theme for my leisure travel. Lakshadweep is none of these. Set hundreds of miles off the Indian mainland, this tiny group of 36 islands doesn’t register on any tourist map. Almost no information is available on these coral islands online and because they are ecologically sensitive, visitors need a permit to enter. There are no hotels or restaurants on the islands, only government run cottages set right on the beach. I discovered during one of my internet searches that only one of the six islands offer ‘AC cottages’ so I booked myself into Kadmat Island, got a permit and set out to fly from Kochi to the airport at Agatti I...

India is a country that lives on carbs and dairy. We love our milky chais and eat dahi with meals. But yoghurt is traditionally a savoury accompaniment to rice and curries. Misti doi and mango shrikhand apart, the fruity, sweet yoghurts are a relatively new phenomenon, brought to the Indian markets by the likes of Danone a few years back. Last week, Danone added greek yoghurt to their product mix. Thicker and creamier than regular yoghurt, greek yoghurt makes for a great snack right out of the pack. Specially when it comes in blueberry and mango variants that Danone has launched. I got invited to the launch party last week, which is a great way to meet all the blogger friends in the city. This one has an added bonus - they had a chef friend of mine, Varun , showcase recipes with yoghurt. And he came up with some interesting ones, including flapjacks and an instantly frozen mango parfait. Danone sent us home with a hamper full of yoghurt and newly inspired by the cooking I'd ...

There is a new Willy Wonka in town and her name is Bhumika. Just like Mr. Wonka of yore, Bhumika and the team at ITC Maratha have created a chocolate wonderland called Fabelle. Luxury chocolates, made with pure cocoa and devoid of additives and chemicals, are rare in India which is why ITC's initiative to create chocolate boutiques is such a fantastic idea. There are two kinds of chocolates you can buy at Fabelle - the boxed variety that is manufactured in the ITC factory in Bangalore or the brilliant creations the chefs come up with inside the boutique. No matter which of the two you go for, this is chocolate at par with the likes of Valrhona. Fabelle invited me yesterday for a chocolate tasting experience. We kicked off with their square ganaches - these are essentially your cocoa and cream squares coated in cocoa powder - what others called truffles. The ganache squares come in three variants - milk chocolate from ivory coast, dark chocolate from Ghana and an apple an...

I've been eating out and reviewing restaurants in Mumbai for close to nine years now. New restaurants open here all the time but over the years, the dining out options have come to form a rather off-putting level of predictability. Maybe it's because diners look for something familiar but for a while, every new place to open was a 'deli' or a cafe with the same old set of sandwiches, pastas and the lone chocolate fondant on the menu. New trends also come in waves. For a while, you couldn't go anywhere without spotting a new frozen yogurt place. And last couple of years, modern/molecular Indian has become a fad, no matter how terribly executed. In this mediocrity that has come to define dining out in Mumbai, Ranveer Brar's newly opened TAG is a revelation. This pure vegetarian restaurant puts its faith on tapas, the one trend that never caught on in Mumbai. I am a huge fan of eating lots of small flavorful dishes rather than go the starter-main course-dessert ...

Today is Shrove Tuesday, more commonly known as Pancake Tuesday in some parts of the world. I didn't realise what a big deal pancake day is until I went to London where they have pancake races in the Parliament Square and every restaurant offers a pancake special. Apparently the pancakes are to use up all the butter and other good stuff in the house, this being the last tuesday before Lent begins. Pretty much like my mom's "eat up the eggs beta, it's navaratras from tomorrow". Now you can easily whip up a pancake batter, pour some syrup on top and you are good to go. But to me, pancakes are like a blank canvas. There are infinite possibilities on what you can do with a pancake batter and there is one variation that's been on mind for a while. So for pancake day this year, we are making peanut butter and jelly pancakes. What I did was whip up my regular pancake batter, but replacing butter with peanut butter. And a jam syrup. It's all super fun. Just...