Meeting Celebrity Chef Sara la Fountain in Hong Kong

Left: Rachael Yau. Right: Sara la Fountain. Event Courtesy: American Express and Asian Food Channel

Ever since I received the press invitation from American Express and the Asian Food Channel to attend and sample Scandinavian dishes cooked live by celebrity chef Sara la Fountain, I was seriously counting days. I had always waited for this moment not only because she is a celebrity TV chef and blogger (who also manages the blog Passion for Fashion & Food), a fashion model (who has represented brands like Marrimeko and Puma), an award-winning cookbook writer, a sophisticated dinnerware designer and a professional kitchen shoes designer, but she is an inspiration for many. She is an example that if you have got the talent, only sky is the limit!

Sara received her formal training from The Culinary Institute of America, the world-renowned culinary school in America. She is a very popular media personality in Finland, where she has her own TV show Avec Sara. Currently starring as one of the hosts on New Scandinavian Cooking and Perfect Day airing on Asian Food Channel, Sara displays magical grace in her culinary creations. She has given Scandinavian food a new dimension, which is in tune with the new-generation cooking as well! Scandinavian cuisine is something to try out for sure, and Sara la Fountain was here to propagate this!

On 25^th May, Le Meridien Cyberport, Hong Kong, was buzzing with press invitees. When I entered, I already saw Sara interacting with some of the invitees. The event (cooking demonstration by the chef) started with a welcome speech by Rachael Yau, VP and Head of Consumer Card Products & Marketing, American Express, Hong Kong. Following this, the chef began to make three amazing Nordic dishes with her own creative twists. The first dish was Goat Cheese Salad with Beetroot, Dark Sweet Bread Croutons, Marinated Red Onions and Blueberry-Balsamic Vinaigrette. Sara explained that Scandinavian blueberries and those found in Hong Kong are quite different in taste. So she took an instant decision to go with blueberry jam instead of the blueberries found in Hong Kong, for the base of her Blueberry-Balsamic dressing. She was satisfied with the swap and when I tasted the same, I could at once guess what a great chef she is. This was the best blueberry-balsamic vinaigrette I had ever tasted: what a perfect balance of sweet and sour flavours! She used a special kind of bread for the croutons, which I had never tasted before. She explained, it was Archipelago bread, which was dark brown, sweet and simply amazing in the salad made by the chef. The Goat cheese salad was a combination of Romano and Frisee salads, a few pieces of dark bread and high-quality goat cheese balls.

Goat cheese salad with beetroot, dark sweet bread croutons, marinated red onions and blueberry-balsamic vinaigrette

I loved the marinated red onion vinaigrette used for this salad. This was something which complemented the salad very well. Red onions were first cut into thin rounds and then marinated in a mixture of sugar, salt, vinegar, all spice and olive oil, until these rings became soft and sweet.

The beets were pre-boiled with skin and then de-skinned and cut into very small cubes. These were then marinated for half an hour in white wine vinegar, salt, honey and olive oil. The final dish looked like this (which she served up with raspberries):

Fried fish with summer potato vegetable salad

  

The next dish was Fried Fish with Summer Potato Vegetable Salad. She made a different kind of dressing this time. The dressing had hints of horseradish, Dijon mustard, honey and mayonnaise. The base of the dressing was sour cream and chopped chives. This dressing went very well on the vegetable salad made with cauliflowers, new potatoes and sugar snap peas. She topped a big fillet of deep-fried white fish (perch) coated with breadcrumbs. Salmon roe was used as a garnish, which gave a complete look to the dish.

Summer pavlova with passionfruit cream

The final dish was Summer Pavlova with Passionfruit Cream Served with Strawberries and Pistachios. For this, the chef topped an amazing passion fruit sauce made with lemon curd and passion fruit. The pavlova was garnished tastefully with whipped cream, pistachios and strawberries.

The dishes were great. Sara la Fountain opened my eyes (and tastebuds!) to the amazing cuisine of Finland with her own interesting twists and I am looking forward to learning more from her in the future: thanks to the Asian Food Channel for airing such talented and inspirational chefs who make cooking a fun experience altogether!

Gluten-Free Naan: thinking beyond wheat…

This naan is gluten-free, soy-free, gum-free and nut-free.

This is at #1 position on Foodbuzz Top 9 today (26^th May, 2012). Thanks, Foodbuzz friends, for buzzing.

Recently, I wrote on my official Facebook page that I was going to make some Indian naan breads this week. I got a reply from one of my FB followers to share a recipe of gluten-free naan instead. And that’s how these beautiful naans came into being. Of course, there are quite a few gluten-free versions of naan flowing around in the blogosphere, but I took it a challenge to follow my instincts and my own measurements while making my own set of gluten-free naans. Contrary to what is generally done with gluten-free naan recipes, I do not prefer adding xanthan gum to this recipe. I also usually avoid adding too much of cornstarch in my recipes, especially because these do not benefit the body as these lack fibre, just like refined flour.

Even this dough looks like a wheat dough, isn't it? Believe me, it is not!

All the ingredients should be at room temperature, especially the yogurt. This gluten-free dough for naan should be used immediately since it tends to harden and become brittle with time. But, if you want to make the naan after a few hours of making the dough, please make the dough extra moist (but not soggy) by adding a little extra water, which after sometime, will be absorbed into the dough and will keep it soft for a few hours in the refrigerator. Naans are traditionally made in tandoors: traditional Indian ovens. But, today, we can also make it conveniently in an oven or better still, on stovetop itself!

I have used roasted chickpea flour in this recipe. The idea was to replace the gluten in wheat, which also acts as a binder for the dough, with a similar but allergy-free protein. The protein from chickpea flour helped in giving my naan dough the texture and elasticiy similar to wheat flour!

Gluten is the protein found in wheat, barley and rye flour, and its products (such as wholewheat flour and all-purpose flour). Some people are allergic to gluten. Some others, suffering from Celiac disease, have to rule out gluten products from their diet completely. A gluten-free diet doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll miss eating pizzas, cakes, breads and naans. There are ways to make changes in the recipes and make them as tasty as these always were!

Gluten-Free Naan

[The main ingredient in my gluten-free naans is water chestnut flour. This flour is called singhare ka atta in India and is eaten by Hindu ladies on festive occasions or fasts, in place of a gluten diet. It is also an important ingredient in traditional Chinese cooking.]

Mixture of boiled and mashed potatoes mixed with oats, when blended, turns into a sticky paste.
I have used this paste as a binder for my gluten-free dough, instead of the commercial and popular xanthan gum.

Ingredients:

Water chestnut flour: 2.5 cups

Roasted gram flour or besan: ½ cup

Soaked sago or tapioca (sabudana): ¼ cup

Homemade unsweetened yogurt (or Nestlé yogurt): 3 tbsp

Baking powder: ½ tsp

Baking soda: ¼ tsp

Cream of Tartar: ½ tsp

Instant oats: 1 tbsp

Boiled and mashed potato (big): ½

Salt: ½ tsp

Sugar: ¼ tsp

Onion seeds (kalonji, kalo jeera or mangrel) or thinly flaked garlic: approx. 1 tsp

Water

Butter: for smearing on the cooked naans

Method:

The mixture of water chestnut flour and yogurt becomes smooth and creamy in minutes!

Mix the water chestnut flour with the yogurt until the mixture is creamy and smooth (takes just two minutes). Then add the strained paste of the sago, which was soaked for 1 hour in ¼ cup water. Add the gram flour, salt and sugar and mix the ingredients first with the spoon and then with hand till you get something like this:

The dough is quite brittle at this stage.

Keep on kneading and soon this will look like this:

The dough is much more elastic now. But I wanted to make this more elastic, to resemble the texture of a wheat dough. The paste of mashed potatoes and oats did the trick (explained below).

Mix the mashed potato with oats and keep this for 20 min. Now add the potato, cream of tartar and oats to the blender until smooth and sticky. This will help in binding, because otherwise the dough will become brittle. Add this to the dough. Also add the baking powder and baking soda at this stage and knead the dough for good 10 min. (If at this stage, you find the dough difficult to handle due to its stickiness, just add more water chestnut flour until the dough leaves from the hand easily. If the dough feels too dry, add a little water.)

Please remember that the dough should be on the moist side rather than being on the dry side, to prevent the naans to break up during rolling. In due course of time, this dough absorbs water and tends to become drier, so always keep the dough covered and if it looks dry, re-knead with wet hands.

Make equal and medium-sized balls. Cover. Take one ball at a time. Flatten a bit and reseal any cracks developing at this stage, using your fingers. Dust with a little finely ground water chestnut flour. Start rolling the dough very carefully and slowly. Taking care to seal the cracks (if developed) in the dough with the help of your fingers, roll the naan bigger.

Flip it (use a flat and thin spoon to do so) and again start rolling. You have to flip and roll continuously, taking care that the naan should not stick to the rolling surface. The naan should not be very thick, not too thin. The size should be atleast the double of your palm. Sprinkle a few onion seeds (alternatively, use thinly flaked garlic) and roll a little more.

A freshly rolled naan, ready to be roasted now.

 The shape should be an elongated oval. Slowly transfer the naan to a very hot non-stick pan and reduce the flame. Let this cook for 5 min on each side, over the low flame.

When tiny bubbles start to appear, flip it.

Now increase the flame so that the naan has nice brownish marks. Remove and smear ¼ tsp butter on each naan at both sides. Serve immediately with your choice of curry or raita (yogurt).

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Murgh Dum Pukht (Simmered Indian Chicken Curry)

Murgh Dum Pukht (Simmered Indian Chicken Curry)

[Murgh Dum Pukht (Simmered Indian Chicken Curry) was originally published in Zomppa. This article was my May 2012 contribution to the International magazine.]

There is an old Indian saying that a good cook uses his spices similar to how a painter uses his colour palette. A little more of this and a little less of that do make a huge difference. The importance to know the correct blend of spices in a particular curry requires research, guidance and experience. Also, in Indian cooking, there is a special emphasis to the process called bhunno or bhoona. This is the process in which spices are added to the hot oil and cooked with the main ingredients until the raw taste and smell of the spices is gone and essential oils are released from each of the spices. This part of cooking requires careful control over the flame, as the amount of heat from time to time also determines the taste of the final dish.

Now let’s understand what the word dum means. Dum is a slow-cooking method practiced in India since time immemorial, but gained importance during the Mughal period, when dum aloo (potatoes simmered in gravy) and dum pukht (chicken simmered in gravy) dishes came into being. These dishes required patience and tasted amazingly delicious and succulent, owing to this cooking method. Actually, any dum curry tastes its best if cooked in a special vessel called hundi or handi, which is almost a ball-shaped utensil with and opening at the top. Appropriate amount of water is added along with other par-cooked or bhoona ingredients. The lid of the hundi is tightly sealed with wheat flour dough and cooked on charcoal fire. This is the traditional method.

Before proceeding with the recipe, there is a small request to all of my friends reading this. I am participating in the Circle of Moms Top 25 Foodie Blogs 2012. Please click on this button and vote for Cosmopolitan Currymania if you like my space. I am currently at #38. Thank you for your time. I truly appreciate it!

Back in my Mumbai home, I do have a beautiful hundi, but due to storage constraints in small kitchens in Hong Kong, I did not bring it here. So I decided to go on with a modern non-stick skillet with a proper-fitting lid. My dum pukht came out perfectly succulent and the taste of the spices reached the innermost layers of the chicken delicately. Do give this a try and you will fall in love with this scrumptious culinary obsession!

Murgh Dum Pukht (Simmered Indian Chicken Curry)

[Dum means to breathe and pukht means to cook. Please use chicken with bones for this recipe, since the juices from the bone marrow intensify the flavour of this dish.]

 Ingredients:

Chicken (with bones, cut into medium-sized pieces): 1 kg
Medium-sized purple onions (sliced): 3
Hung curd (thick, unsweetened yogurt): 1 cup
Ginger paste: 2 tbsp
Garlic paste: 3 tbsp
Red chilli powder: 1.5 tsp
Almonds: 10
Cashew nuts: 5
Dried bay leaves: 2
Green cardamon pods: 3
Cloves: 5
Black cardamom (big) pod: 1
Whole peppercorns: 12
Turmeric powder: 1 tsp
Black pepper powder: ½ tsp
Mace (optional): 2 blades
Coriander leaves (paste): ¼ cup
Red or green fresh chillies: 4
Salt to taste: 1.5 tsp (plus extra 1 tsp for the gravy)
Oil: 7 tbsp
Ghee (Indian clarified butter): 1 tsp
Water: 2 cups

Method:

Marinate the chicken overnight with yogurt, 1.5 tsp salt, ginger-garlic paste and red chilli powder. Heat 3 tbsp oil till it starts to smoke. Reduce the heat to medium and fry onions (cut lengthwise and thin) till these become golden brown. Remove the fried onions from oil, cool at room temperature and make a fine paste.

Fried onions

Soak the nuts in a little water (just enough to immerse them) overnight as well. Next morning, make a fine paste.

Heat the rest of the oil to its smoking point at then reduce the flame to medium once again. Add the dried bay leaves, green cardamon pods, cloves, black cardamom and whole peppercorns to this. After the bay leaves turn a little darker (not black, but dark brown), add the marinated chicken along with the marinade. Increase the flame to high and toss the chicken pieces continuously, so that the chicken becomes well-coated with the spices and the marinade becomes almost dry. This takes around 15 min.

Sauteing the marinated chicken

 Reduce the flame to medium now. Add the fried onion paste, mace (optional), turmeric powder, black pepper powder and the nut paste to the skillet and toss well for 15 min.

Adding the nut paste and fried onion paste

Add the coriander leaf paste and the red or green fresh chillies (whole) to this. Cook till the chicken is almost dry and oil starts leaving from the the spices and the chicken. Now is the time to add the ghee.

The ghee  being added for a subtle aroma and creaminess

The chicken being bhunno-ed

Add water and stir well. Check the salt and add more, if needed. Simmer the gas and put a well-fitting lid on the skillet. For best results, seal the edges with wheat flour dough to ensure that the steam can’t escape from the skillet. Let this cook on a low flame for 30 more minutes. This slow-cooking called dum is a great way to cook some of the popular Indian dishes such as this one!

Spicy Strawberry-Citrus Chutney: An Indo-Western Fusion

You might have heard of strawberry jam, but not much of citrusy strawberry chutney, isn’t it? Even I hadn’t, until I determined to make my own strawberry chutney. Strawberries are sweet and sour and so, I think, they qualify quite well for chutney (rule of thumb: fruits with a sour note make great chutneys)! Oh, why didn’t I think about this earlier? Coincidentally, Foodbuzz’s flavour of the month is strawberries as well!

Fresh strawberries are in season! The very look of red, plump strawberries is so appetizing, isn’t it? My kids love these, but it is not easy to convince AN to have some fresh ones. He loves chutneys of all kinds, though. So I thought, why not make something on a slightly spicy note and the next moment, I figured out what I need to do.

I wanted to give this chutney a "cosmopolitan" twist. I had some Cointreau in my kitchen (a mini bottle, which I bought long back from a sugarcraft store), lying neglected for months. Both of us don’t drink, but I don’t mind cooking or baking with these boozy wonders, since by doing so the alcohol almost evaporates, leaving the fruity factor behind. I used this long back only to make one of our favourite desserts: Crepes Suzette. I decided to use this with the strawberries, so that my chutney gets a nice citrusy spurt of flavours as well. I thought, I’d definitely add some lime juice, lime zest and orange zest to this to top up the citrus note in this chutney.

Admittedly, it was me who was craving for something sweet and spicy! Being an Indian, my tastebuds are eternally married to spices… I love to play with them in my cooking. But… spices with strawberries? Yes, why not! I tasted a kind of strawberry jam once, made with a hint of pepper, and loved the taste. So black pepper is definitely going into my chutney. Next two spices are black mustard seeds and fennel seeds, which impart a sweet, spicy and aromatic touch to a majority of common Indian chutneys. That’s it! No overpowering of flavours and we get a new kind of boozy, citrusy, spicy, sweet and sour balance in this wonderful strawberry chutney!

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Oh yes, did you know that there is a new, happening site in the blogosphere, called RecipeNewZ, where you can submit all your yummy food photographs? The best thing about this site is that no photo gets rejected: now that sounds fabulous, isn’t it?

Spicy Strawberry-Citrus Chutney: An Indo-Western Fusion

[Cointreau and the citrus zests add a Western touch to this lightly spiced Indian chutney. Those who don’t wish to add Cointreau, may add double the amount of orange juice instead. This is a sweet-n-sour chutney and goes very well with grilled meat dishes or can be served as a healthy salad dressing alternative!]

Ingredients:

Fresh, de-seeded and chopped strawberries (sweet and sour): 1.5 cups
Cointreau (can be replaced with double the amount of orange juice): 6 tsp
Lime juice: 1.5 tbsp
Vinegar: ¼ tsp
Salt: ¼ tsp
Orange zest: 1 tsp
Lemon zest: 1 tsp
Mixture of black mustard seeds, fennel seeds and black pepper: ½ tsp
Water: 6 tbsp
Extra virgin olive oil: 1.5 tsp
Sugar: 6 tsp (less or more, depending on individual sweetness level)

Method:

Marinate the chopped strawberries with lime juice, vinegar, salt, and the orange and lemon zests for 10 min. Add half the Cointreau to this, mix well and let this stand for 5 more minutes.

Marinating the strawberries

Heat oil in a pan. Add the seeds and wait till the fennel seeds become just light brown. Add the marinated strawberries and cook for 5 min.

Cooking strawberries with the spices

Add the sugar and the water and continue to cook, covering the pan with a lid, till the chutney becomes saucy and the strawberries become very soft. Add the remaining Cointreau and stir constantly for 5 min, till the chutney becomes thicker (consistency should be similar to that of condensed milk).

Serve the chutney cold, but not chilled. This can be refrigerated for two weeks.

Enjoy the goodness of strawberries in a very different style. Wish you a happy Mother’s Day!

Celebrity Chef Sara La Fountain visiting Hong Kong!

Celebrity chef Sara La Fountain. Image courtesy: Asian Food Channel

When I received media invitation from American Express and the Asian Food Channel to be a part of the press event involving cooking demonstration by none other than the celebrity chef Sara La Fountain, I was elated! After all, for a foodie, watching Sara's cooking live (and sampling as well) is a great honour in itself!

Chef Sara gained immense popularity after being hostess to the Asian Food Channel’s popular shows New Scandinavian Cooking and Perfect Day. Now she is all set for another big thing: the fourth edition of the Celebrity Chef Series! The beautiful and talented chef will visit Hong Kong on 25th and 26th May for the same reason. The tour is jointly presented by American Express and the Asian Food Channel (AFC). During this tour in Hong Kong, the American-Finnish cooking sensation will play host to dinners on two consecutive evenings for Hong Kong’s foodies, including one exclusively for American Express Platinum Card members.

Sara loves to experiment and the world loves her experiments. She has her unique way of adding a modern twist to classic home cooking! I am really so excited to learn about her signature dishes, which she will demonstrate in front of the media later this month. Her signature dishes to be demonstrated would be the following:

·         Goat cheese salad with beetroot, dark sweet bread croutons, marinated red onions and blueberry-balsamic vinaigrette

·         Fried fish with summer potato vegetable salad

·         Summer pavlova with passionfruit cream served with strawberries and pistachios.

Image courtesy: Asian Food Channel

This event will be jointly brought to you by the American Express and the Asian Food Channel. This will be held at Nam Fong 1, 100 Cyberport Road, Le Meridien Cyberport Hotel, Hong Kong. If you wish to attend the dinner event, please click here. AFC Studio would be more than happy to help you with this!

[On another note, some of you might have noticed a new button at the right side of my blog. Please click on that link and vote for Cosmopolitan Currymania to make it among Top 25 Foodie Moms 2012. It is very easy and fast to vote there. Thank you so much!]