Unusual ..

WHAT IS UNUSUAL ?
Here are some unusual foods from around the world.. maybe its we who call these unusual, tough your stomach couldn’t distinguish between two meats or food , the Palate does. I want to quote a well known chinese saying "Chinese eat anything with four legs, except tables. And everything that flies, except airplanes,” when you geta a chance try out these unusuals, and what follows is a veryfew unusuals, more to come....

Hedgehogs delight the palates of “British gypsies” while the eyes of a roasted lamb’s head are considered to be delicacies offered to honored guests in Saudi Arabia. Lamb’s or calf’s brains are commonly sold by butchers, and sought after by many a housewife in practically all Middle eastern countries. Arabs and western Chinese have eaten extremely tough and sour-tasting camel humps, feat and meat for centuries. The hump is first marinated and then roasted. Feet are boiled with herbs and served with a vinaigrette dressing. Cock’s combs (crette de coq) are often used by French and Italian chefs to garnish various poultry dishes. Gourmets claim cock’s combs to be very tasty albeit chewy. In Central and South America iguana meat is sautéed, then casseroled, a dish considered to be a gastronomic delight.Australian aboriginals consider sugar ants and chopped marinated kangaroo tail ragout to be delicious. Koreans and Chinese breed dogs for food. Some beat dogs to death to obtain tender meat, others hang the animal to die in an agonizing way. Both methods are inhumane and North American animal rights associations are fighting to ban such practice.

Rooke pie, an old English pub specialty once famous is almost never served these daysFor centuries, both bear paw and steak have been highly prized in China, Russia and eastern European countries. Today it is almost impossible to buy bear meat commercially, but hunters still can find recipes in old eastern European cook books. Shark fins and birds’ nests, especially those from southern Java, Indonesia, are considered to be delicacies by Chinese, especially Hong Kong, gourmets. Both are available dried in Hong Kong, Singapore and North America, and used for flavorful soups. Fried grasshoppers are popular in Africa, and chocolate dipped ants in Japan. Fried caterpillars and silkworms are crunchy and ethereal in texture. Both are available in North American gourmet shops. Elephant meat is tough, but its trunk and feet are not. In Asia and Africa, locusts are said to taste like shrimps and traditionally eaten with ”wild” honey. In Indonesia, Malaysia and Hong Kong, occasionally specially bred small monkeys are eaten while the animal is still alive. This most inhumane and cruel habit seems to be disappearing, albeit slowly. Live snake meat is readily available in Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Sauteed snake meat and snake soup are said to ward off common colds, and generally healthy. Tibetans stew yak meat, which tends to be tough, as animals are slaughtered when very old. European gourmets like sea turtle soup. In the Caribbean and South America, turtle meat is stewed. Alligator meat (fresh or frozen) can be found in Florida, and Louisiana and on restaurant menus. Alligator meat, especially those “farm” raised, tastes like very tough chicken. Eskimos consider seal blubber and whale fat superbly tasty. Cod tongues and seal flipper pie are Newfoundland specialties, commonly consumed in restaurants. Horsemeat has a beef-like flavour, but finer texture. It is lean and requires stewing. Europeans (French, Italians, Swiss, Austrians, Germans and the Dutch) are fond of horsemeat. Canada exports horsemeat and live animals to France. Donkey meat is used mostly for sausages

Rishis Cerlac

It was a weekend and I’m in the kitchen getting ready for dinner, it’s a simple menu for we three, and my nine months old nephew (Rishi) the fourth person who will have all the cerlac for himself, but that’s not what he does, his eyes wander from plate to plate, tough rishi has four teeth he loves roti, you should see the reaction for the griddle cooked dough, its just awesome.

My sister started weaning rishi a couple of weeks ago, but for him its more than tasting new things, tough cerlac come is many different flavors Rishi's eyes seldom left our palates. All are almost like rishi, the thing is, we think we know all the tastes this world cuisine offers, perhaps we never get a chance to taste new foods, if at all a chance like that arise we stick on to the taste/dishes what we like (what we tasted before), thus missing an opportunity to try something new, there is no harm is tasting something new, as the Chinese proverb “preserve the old, but know the new” let your taste buds explore all the new different taste the culinary world offers.

HAPPYEATING!

Anything that walks, swims, crawls, or flies with its back to heaven is edible."(Cantonese saying)

Cheshire & dreamless nights

Cheese unlocks your wildest dreams, says study


Eating cheese before you go to bed will not give you nightmares but different varieties could help you choose the dreams you do want to have, says a study by the British Cheese Board.
Not one of the 200 volunteers who took part in the British Cheese Board's 'cheese & dreams' study reported having nightmares after eating 20g of cheese 30 minutes before bed.
The industry body said 72 per cent of participants slept very well and 67 per cent remembered their dreams.
The study, believed to be the first of its kind, serves to dispel the old wives' tale that eating cheese before bed means a restless night in-store. It was endorsed by Neil Stanley of the Sleep Research HPRU Medical Research Centre at the University of Surrey.
Dr. Judith Bryans, a nutrition scientist at Britain's Dairy Council, added the science bit: "One of the amino acids in cheese - tryptophan - has been shown to reduce stress and induce sleep."
The research, in an intriguing twist, also found that different cheeses appeared to give participants different kinds of dreams.
Cheddar, officially Britain's most popular cheese with 55 per cent of the market, enhanced dreams about celebrities. One girl said she dreamt of helping to form a human pyramid under the supervision of film star Johnny Depp.
Stilton was the wild card, especially for women. Around 85 per cent of women experienced bizarre dreams after eating Britain's iconic blue cheese, including talking soft toys, dinner party guests being traded for camels and a vegetarian crocodile upset because it could not eat children.
Of the others, Red Leicester is likely to have you dwelling on the past and Lancashire will get you focused on the future.
The boring award goes to crumbly Cheshire, which gave more than half its consumers dreamless nights. Cheshire and Red Leicester, however, gave the best nights' sleep.
So there it is, although with more than 700 varieties of British cheese it seems there is much left to discover.
The British Cheese Board said it hoped to use the results to encourage more cheese eating before bed. Britons currently eat 30g of cheese every day on average, yet continental Europeans eat twice as much.
The Cheese Board says 30g of cheddar contains around 30 per cent of the recommended daily calcium intake for adults.

Source : www. dairyreporter.com

Coimbatore Manchurian

Secon time in this month i'm dining out with my head, first the food was indian at a restaurant near stadium,Coimbatore, we finished our dinner without a dessert, the restaurant was all prepared to close, the time was past eleven. I wanted to taste the shawarma but we were really late, that made me to visit again to the restaurant a week after. I do not know how the real middle east shawarma taste like, but this one was good, the only comment is 'too much filling'. We winded the place after an hour and on our way back home we tought of a chinese restaurant next time.

The next time came all of a sudden, without planning , there are a couple of chinese restaurants in coimbatore, i have been to one of them but my all time outlet is Shinkows, ooty. The dinner was at nin hao, the restaurant was renovated and it smelled new, expected to find something new in the menu, after fifteen minutes of browsing the menu we ended up with lungfung soup, mixed fried rice, roasted pork and nin hao noodles. Thanks to Travel and living where Kylie Kwong traveling to China for inspiration for her cooking, to the boomtown city of Shanghai and other chinese regions, where she meets many who share her passion for food, from her recipes and what they cook in china we can make out what real chinese taste like.

To talk about our dishes in nin hao the soup was very thick with strong smell of spring onions, the fried rice was perfect ,roasted pork was highly spiced and the noodles had a smoky flavor we packed the remaining noodles , the food was good and tasty but i'm sure its not chinese, but every people here is happy with the food these chinese restaurants offer, perhaps , these restaurants prepare to the tase of the locals

When i think of cuisine china comes to my mind with its huge diversity in the culinary arts,I knew from kylie show that in shanghai the most common way to greet someone isn’t "How are you?" but "Have you eaten yet?" and i am happy with shinkows , ooty which gives you dishes which is 'Simply Magic' . I prefer to call all others as "Indo Chin Restaurant" rather calling it chinese.

Happy Eating!

"Born to the earth are three kinds of creatures. Some are winged and fly. Some are furred and run. Still others stretch their mouths and talk. All must eat and drink to survive."

(Lu Yu, Ancient Chinese Philosopher)

Buen Provecho !

TORTILLA
A thin pancake made of cornmeal - an important item of the diet in Latin American countries. It was named by the Spanish conquistadors: in Spanish cookery, a tortilla is a flat omelette, usually filled with sald cod or potatoes, which is cut into quarters like a cake( the word has the same origin as torta, a tart).

Cornmeal has been used since time immemorial for preparing pancakes, which are traditionally grilled on earthenware utensils. They are used as bread or as a tart bases and are stuffed for turnovers and sandwiches. The old indian method of preparing consists of kneading the cornmeal dough, or masa, on a stone called a metate, then shaping it into circles about 20cm(8in) in diameter and 3mm(1/2in) thick, which is quite a delicate operation. Nowadays, tortillerias provide ready- made tortillas, which can be bought cooked or uncooked. Grilled tortillas, lightly browned, have a thin but tough crust on each side. They can also be puffed up like souffle potatoes, then stuffed. Tortillas are always eaten hot, either on their own( as bread) or filled with various ingredients, usually witha piquant sauce.

The range of condiments and stuffings used include guacamole ( avacado puree with red pepper), chopped raw onion, green tomato coulis, grated queso( cheese), thin strips of chicken breast, etc. The main dish prepared with tortillas are tacos( a very popular sandwich), echiladas( tortillas rolled around their filling- fried sausages or pieces of chicken - then coated with a sauce and cooked in a oven), tostadas( small very crisp tortillas, covered with fried or sauteed red kidney beans and sometimes embellished with chopped meat, served as a hot hors d'oeuvre), chilaquiles(thin strips of fried tortillas covered with highly spiced sauce and cooked in the oven), and quesadillas( tortillas filled with meat in sauce or vegetable with cheese, folded to turnovers, then fried in lard).

The tortillas even forms part of the Mexican breakfast, which basically consists of huevos rancheros: fried eggs arranged on fried tortillas and garnished with tomatoes crushed with red pepper and slices of avacado. At lunch, the soup is sometimes thickened with small pieces of tortilla. Sopa seca is a dish consisting of pieces of tortilla generously coated with sauce and served piping hot. Equally popular are sopes - tortillas filled with meat, beans and highly spiced sauce. Among the specialities, mention should be made of the papatzul( literally, food of lords): tortillas stuffed with pieces of pork or hard - boiled eggs, served with a sauce made from ground pumpkin seeds, tomato puree, and pumpkin - seed oil. In Venezula, cornmeal pancakes are found in form of arepas. These are thicker than tortillas and are often raw in the middle , even after the cooking . BUtter, eggs, spices or fried maize(corn( grains are sometimes added to the dough.

HAPPY TORTILLAS !

Want to how to make home made tortillas mail me at

satheep@yahoo.com or sathishmanjitha@gmail.com

Twice Cooked !

Baking and Eating Biscuits is not all the same today

A sweet or savoury dry flat cake with a high caloric content (420 - 510 cal per 100g).

As their name implies (it comes from the French Bis = twice + cuit = cooked), biscuits should in theory be cooked twice. However, this is no longer practised, altough the Reims biscuit was originally a flat cake that was put back in oven after being removed from its tin. This made it drier and harder but improved its keeping qualities. This very hard, barely risen biscuit was for centuries the staple food of soldiers and sailors. Roman legions were familier with it and many claimed that it would keep for centuries. Soldiers' biscuits or army biscuits were known under Louis XIV as 'Stone Bread" (pain de pierre). In 1984, army biscuits were replaced by war bread made of strach, sugar, water, nitrogenous matter, ash, and cellulose, but the name 'army biscuit' stuck, even when the method of manufacture changed. It did not disappear until soldiers were supplied with proper bread, even on campaigns.
' Animalized' biscuits were also made. These were flat cakes containing meat juices and thought to be very nourishing. Vitamin biscuits appeared during World War II and these were distributed in schools in France. Nowadays, some special diet products are presented as vitamin enriched biscuits with diffrent flavours.

But what we get today is just amazing and endless varieties, do not go in for the same kind , every time you go try something diffrent, never predict the taste train you taste buds to all the varieties, this world of biscuits offers you

HAPPYCOOKIES!

Hungarian Palette

More kind of paprika than you thought existed exist:

The King of Hungarian cuisine, is without doubt, the vivid red spice called paprika. Introduced by the Turks during their 16th - centuary occupation of Hungary, the world's finest paprika is produced here. Varying in strength and color from mild and sweet to hot and cold pungent and from bright red to slightly brown, it is a tremendously versatile spice. Paprika is the finely ground powder obtained from dried peppers known as Capsicum annum. These aren't the bell peppers that we are accustomed to but rather a conical, horn- shaped pepper that grows about 4to 6 inches long and 1to 2 inches in diameter. Fields of these colorful peppers stretch across southern Hungary near Szeged, the paprika capital. The peppers are harvested in late summer, dried and then ground into diffrent strength paprikas depending on the ratio of flesh, seeds, and ribs used. There are six varieties of paprika:

KULONLEGES: Delicate with a bright red color. Hardly spicy at all and by far the most beautifully hued.

CSMEGES: Mild mannered with justa touch of heat.

EDES NEMES: Known as "noble sweet" in spice circles. It is by far the most popular of paprikas, and since it is only slightly hot, it is the most versatile.

FELEDES: A semisweet just a little hotter than Edes nemes. You don't need much to add a bit of fire to dishes.

ROZSA: Rose colored, this cariety is paler, spicer, and more perfumed than the others. Used in spicy dishes.

EROS: Hot and very spicy. The color varies from slightly yellow to brown.

Your choice of paprika depends on your taste, but generally the milder ones are used in cooking, while the hotter versions appear tabletop for the personal addition of fire to dishes.

Amazingly versatile, paprika isn't like most other spices that are doled out in pinches and tiny spoonfuls. It is boldly scooped and measured into many soups, stews, and sauces. Paprika is best known for its presence in Hungary's national dish - goulash. Paprika also adds lovely color to recipes and varying amounts of fire depending upon your choice of strength.

Need any hungarian recipes and recipes with paprika mail me at:

satheep@yahoo.com or sathishmanjitha@gmail.com

HAPPY DRINKING

An unexpected break from the routine work, time to go home, my friend called me and we started early, it’s a three hour dive from Coimbatore, the car which we went needed a wash, a real wash. Ashok’s idea was to wash the car in Burliyar, man you should see the water it’s crystal clear and ice cold, but i want it cleaned before climbing the hill, because it’s a long time since we went home and when the car you drive looks clean, everything around you looks clean. Tough all the shops were closed we were able to find something to munch.
We washed the car near karamadai and the time was two and we two were starving literally, luck was always with us when it’s about food, its Kurbani Biryani Center, just before climbing and I want it to be packed not because the restaurant looked awful, because we want to have it on the way ‘in the shadow of the roadside tree’, were the mis en scene is GREEN full of monkeys. Peoples from Nilgiris love green than anyone, its all we have brought up with.
The car was parked safe, and we started our packed biryani, its Awesome, the real secret is the banana leaf, in which it’s packed, the mutton, the dum, the banana leaf, it’s a bouquet garni, want to repeat the word “awesome”. Here comes the accompaniment the beer, its just warm and that’s the real accompaniment , perhaps , we wont get a chance to drink warm beer, if a chance arise we go for a chilled one thus missing to savor the real taste of our warm beer, don’t forget “the more the chill, the less the flavor”. Enjoy the real flavor and know our brew, it accompanies all our food when it’s warm, TRY IT...
I couldn’t forget that lunch alfresco, and a great drive home, Sometimes best things happens accidentally, never plan for everything and live life to the fullest. ….................I forget to tell you something; the leftovers, the bones, the bottles were packed carefully and was dumped in a dustbin at burliyar. My evil twin brother, who saw us on his way up, drove us home.
A curve ahead a red board with black letters read “DON’T MIX DRINK AND DRIVE”. A green one with white letters read “KEEP THE CITY CLEAN AND GREEN”

The drink that drinks the man

SAKE
A japanese drink, made from fermented rice, Sake is colourless and has a fairly sweet flavour witha bitter after-taste.

Sake is closely linkedwith japanese relegious and social life and has existed for more than a thousand years. At a Shinto wedding, the couple drink several mouthfuls of cold sweetened sake from little lacquer bowls, though sake is otherwise traditionally drunk warm or even hot. There are several types, ranging from sweet to dry. In particular, a distinction is made between mirin, which is mostly used in cookery, toso, whichis sweet and spicy and with which the New Year is celeberated, and seishu, which is often exported. Sake is drunk from tiny tumblers as an aperitif ( in this casea little salt is sometimes placed on the tongue before each mouthful), or else to accompany sashimi( Japanese raw fish preperatioan), crudites, or grilled(broiled) or fried foods. It is also used a great deal in cookery, especially in shellfish, white fish and prawn ( shrimp) dishes. In sake bars, where men meet together, sake is drunk alternately with beer. According to a Japanese proverb, "it is the man who drinks the first bottle of sake; then the second bottle drinks the first, and finally it is the sake that drinks the man."

Forget not the croutons

Gazpacho

A Spanish soup made with cucumber, tomatoes, onions, red pepper, and bread crumbs, seasoned with olive oil and garlic, and served ice- cold. It is sometimes served with croutons rubbed with garlic. Its name of Arabic origin, means " Soaked bread". Traditionally prepared in a large clay bowl which gives it a characteristic taste, gazpacho orginally came from Seville but there are numerous variants. In jerez it is garnished with raw onion rings; in Malaga it is made with veal bouillion and sometimes garnished with grapes and almonds; in Cordoba it is thickened with cream and maize(corn) flour; in Segovia it is flavoured with cumin and basil and prepared with a mayonnaise base.

How much ever the variants are Gazpacho is described as the meal of spanish tough many versions are there the cucumbers , tomatoes and the peppers plays the basic role in a good gazpacho, new varities like lobster gazpacho is common and popular. The important rule is to remember the gazpacho is hardly cooked, puree all the ingredients and just bled in with oilive oil, or salad oil, season with salt , pepper , ad sauces ,you acn try adding some soft chees to it, top it with the meat or vegetables you like and "Forget not the croutons" .. its a real summer treat....................

HAPPY SOUP!

If you need recipes about cold soups, mail me at:

satheep@yahoo.com

sathishmanjitha@gmail.com