Fusilli with ... a lot of things

Saturday night...what a night to cook. P's busy at work, VP's ... sleeping I guess, I don't know, and the party I was supposed to go to at another friend's (from school) house just got canceled, and so while on my way back after doing a restaurant review (coming up soon), I stopped to purchase a few things to go with a packet of fusilli that's there at home.


Whenever I cook chicken, especially with pasta, I'm usually big on using a lot of veggies, especially colourful ones. I guess I missed out on something green in colour :)


I surprised myself this time by using olive oil to fry stuff - usually I reserve my olive oil only for drizzling on meats for marinate or on pizzas.

I found this pack of chicken sausages that looked good, and so that was what I used to keep the brother happy (he's a big chicken fan - not too big on any other meats).










One potential area of improvement - think before cooking. I should have added the chicken into the pan (first), and then followed it up with the veggies. That way they'd have remained a little crisp, like an actual stir fry. I made the same mistake with the next dish (next post).

The end product was very good. No specific name - tomato puree was the primary 'sauce', with the rest of the veggies making up the rest of the matter.

Suburbia

Suburbia, as the name suggests, is on the suburbs of the city. Located on the outer ring road, between K R Puram and Rammurthynagar Underpass. And so, the usual suspects and I decided to go there since they had to leave work late. I got there ahead of them, and so started reading a book while I waited. I usually don't drink when I have to drive back, but they had a breezer flavour that I'd never had before - Jamaican Passion (passion fruit), so that's what I had, since the alcohol content is only 5% (I think that's less than what's there in beer as well).
This thing was good (well, I've always liked passion fruit, so I guess that helped).

When I began to feel hungry, I ordered a beef pepper fry until the guys came (luckily they came when I was half way through the appetiser).
The beef was extremely well cooked and soft, and when VP came and tasted it, said it had a lamb like texture. I agreed, but the taste wasn't that of lamb, so I'm a bit surprised (pleasantly) about the whole thing.

Mr P had a Jamaican Passion as well, while VP went in style and had a Jetski, a fancy lime soda with mint (he ended up having two of those).
There wasn't anything special about it, and I liked my JP better :)

As is his habit, Mr P wanted to have a soup and asked me if I wanted to split one with him, but after going through the menu, I knew if I wanted to sample the Goan dishes, there's no way I could have a soup as well. So he went ahead and had a spinach soup called cream of highway.

VP and I decided to go all out on the various Goan dishes available. Although there was no pork available here (I heard the chef is a Muslim, couldn't confirm that though), we hoped that wouldn't hurt the experience of Goan food here. So we ordered a chicken sausage masala.
The sausage was nicely marinated and although I can't comment on the authenticity of the masala used (not sure if it's actually the way Goans cook the stuff), it tasted bloody good, and so didn't really care.

Apart from the sausages, we also ordered an egg vindaloo. A vindaloo is a Portuguese dish and the name is derived from the Portuguese term vinha d'Alhos, which basically means wine and garlic, so no points for guessing what the prime ingredients here are.
The fried eggs with the masala are probably the perfect dish when your drinking, with the spices in the egg making up for the flat beer that people usually guzzle.

The day's special, chicken ghee roast, was also ordered, at which point we began wondering if we were going to eat our main course or not. The ghee roast was good, but I've had better.

Mr P meanwhile made do with a paneer peri-peri. Again, the peri-peri is a Portuguese term used to describe a particular type of chilly (which apparently looks like a bird's eye). This thing was a little spicy.
The paneer also had a strange, mildly sweet taste to eat - we weren't able to pinpoint if this was because it was made from milk that wasn't fresh or if something was added to the dish.

For our main course, again, we went traditional. We ordered appams,
sannas, and red rice. Sannas are little rice cakes, the same as idlis, with the prime difference being that sannas have toddy added to the batter during preparation.

We ordered a prawn balchao

and a vegetable stew to eat the rice, appams, and the sannas.
I'm not sure how a balchao is supposed to taste, but the fact that it did have a sweet and sour taste to it confirmed that at least they had tried to make it the right way. A balchao is supposed to have cumin seeds and red chilly paste mixed with sugar, along with a ginger-garlic paste and vinegar.

After all that, we managed to make a little room for a classic Goan dessert called bebinca, which didn't quite taste like the one I had eaten at a place called 3 Stories.
Overall, we liked the food (going by just the taste), and the fact that after binging on the food here, the bill came to a trickle over 1600 (considering the fact that we had 4 drinks, and really went all out on the appetisers), which we thought was very reasonable. Under normal circumstances, we'd have had at the most 3 starters and not 5 like we did this time.

Service: Pretty decent
$$$: Around 400-500 per head, if you're gonna have drinks along with the food
Food: Very good
Verdict: Certainly worth a visit
Extra info: While approaching the area from KR Puram, get onto the service road near Kasturi Nagar itself. Oh, and before I forget, their menu has a major misprint:they've used the word entrée where they should have used appetiser (or appetizer, if they wanted the American spelling)

Suburbia, 407, 3rd Floor, East NGEF Layout, Opposite SAIL Factory, Kasturi Nagar, Outer Ring Road Bangalore. Phone: 41499329

I baked a pizza from scratch!

That's right, I finally made the time to bake a pizza, right from making the dough for the base to baking it in the oven...oh, and lest I forget, it tasted good too! It's been a couple of months now since we got a new microwave oven with convection capabilities too, and so finally I decided that it was time I ventured into baking food using an oven and using the preheating capabilities in an oven, and what better dish to start off with than a pizza.

Ingredients:
1 cup flour (maida)
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp dry yeast
1 tbsp olive oil
6-8 tbsp warm water

Method:
Sift the flour and salt together in a large bowl. In a separate smaller bowler, add the sugar and the warm water and dissolve the sugar and add the yeast into the water and stir a little and leave it in a warm place for about 5-10 minutes or until you see froth on top of the water, which indicates the yeast has dissolved (or is dissolving). Make a well in the flour and mix the water with the dissolved yeast and start mixing them. Add the olive oil and continue mixing to form the dough. Add a little more water and/or flour if needed until you have a smooth consistency. Form a ball and cover and leave in a warm place for an hour or so, or until the dough doubles in size (by the action of the yeast).

After the dough has doubled in size, knead it with your knuckles and "knock the air out of it". Knead into a smooth ball, and then roll it out. I didn't toss it up like you see on TV (come on, this is my first time!), but maybe the next time I will. Drizzle a little olive oil on top or smear a little butter and then add whatever sauce you have - a thin layer should do.


I had some chicken sausages at home and so I chopped them into little pieces and distributed them around the base of the pizza, along with a few shavings of onions.


Add as much cheese you want, and usually stick to Mozzarella. Preheat the oven at 250 degrees centigrade and then bake the pizza in it for about 10-15 minutes, or until the cheese has melted. I baked it at a slightly lower temperature since it was my first time and hence you'll notice that the crusts haven't browned as you'd have expected them to have.


If you have it, use it! That's a principle I usually follow while cooking, and since I had a few strawberries, I sliced a few and tossed them along with a few mint leaves.


Sllurrrp! I should seriously consider switching careers.