BM Review: Dine With...Panache

On Christmas eve, I visited this restaurant called dine with...Panache in Koramangala. The review for Bangalore Mirror can be read here. There are no photos for this review as I wasn't able to get good snaps with my point and shoot (didn't pull out the SLR for fear that the staff might get a little curious). Panache is a restaurant that served north Indian food and claims to redefine your dining experience.

For starters, we had one veg dish, and three non veg dishes. The veg dish, called kurkure khumb, was a smashin' hit at the table. Initially, when I read the description of mushrooms stuffed with bell peppers, I thought it would be stuffed into the 'cap' of the mushroom; however, the dish was made by halving the mushrooms, arranging 4 pieces one after the other, bell peppers added between them, and the whole thing had a base of bread crumbs, making the end result look like a boat - a mighty colourful boat I might add. The bhatti ki machli was a nicely marinated fish finished off in the tandoor, and was quite nicely done - cooked just right, tasted just right, and the fish flaked away inside the mouth...just right :)

The lagan ki boti were chunks of mutton marinated in onions, coriander, garam masala and yogurt. these were nice, but nothing great. The doodhiya murgh was just a fancy-shmancy name for malai kabab, and this was also OK. The disappointment came with the taimoori ras, supposed to be a mutton soup with hot spices. Granted, we made the mistake of assuming it would be like a paya, but the shorba was loaded with spices and just didn't cut it when it came to letting us get the taste of the mutton.

On to the mains, and here we felt we'd be better off and probably the dining experience would actually go a few notches up. We knew we were going to try the ghosht biryani for certain, and the biryani was quite nice, although I'd have liked it if the meat were a little more tender - not that it wasn't tenser, I just thought it could've been tenderer. Among the main course side dishes, the one that caught our fancy was the murgh shalgam ka mel, a seasonal chicken dish that incorporates turnip in it. This was quite different from anything I've had, and also since I'd never had turnip before, this was a first for me. The dish tasted a bit sweet though, and I kinda assumed that turnip would have given the dish a little 'bite'; this kinda tasted like pumpkin. Bottom line, it was a good dish.

The raseeli boti - mutton cubes cooked in a thing sauce was decent, but the taste wasn't mind blowing or anything. The 'sauce' seemed like an onion-based sauce (given the price of onions, I guess it was a nice touch!). A bread basket helped us mop up the dishes.

Dessert saw us having a litchi kulfi, made in-house, that was quite superb and all of us were leaning over each other to get a spoon of it. The kesar phirni, on the other hand, was quite thick, more like a custard and not the sweet,grainy delight it's supposed to be. Overall, decent place, but it certainly did not redefine my dining experience.

Food: Decent
$$$: Around Rs 500 per head for starter, main course and dessert
Service: Very good
Verdict: Can visit if in the area.

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.

Another pasta sauce...

Another day without mom at home and so more experimenting. There's a chicken breast lying in the fridge, some mushrooms, and a bit of the squid from last night, along with some corriander. Perfect! Start by chopping a bunch of corriander (depending on how much sauce you want), add a chopped tomato and a chopped onion, along with one green chilly and some salt and pepper to taste. I also threw in the last few mushrooms that I had. Run this mixture in the mixie (blender/food processor) and keep the paste aside.

Mince the chicken breasts and season with salt and pepper and add to a bowl along with the squid. Add some apple cider vinegar to this and let it marinate for a few hours in the fridge. After a couple of hours, take the chicken out. Finely chop an onion, and fry the onions in a pan with some oil. Once the onions are caramalised, add the chicken to the pan and cook. Once the chicken is more or less cooked, add the sauce and bring the mixture to a boil and then simmer on a low heat for a while. The below picture was taken just before I added the coriander paste/sauce.

Mix with a bowl of penne and bon apetit.

Pasta and stuffed chicken breast

After Mr P & Mr VP left, which was around lunch time, I had to do something for lunch. I had bought a packet of pasta and some mushrooms the previous evening, which made me wonder why they chose to eat out rather than eat what I could have cooked. Well, their loss! I went and bought some prawn and squid, and a couple of chicken breasts and started my cooking.

After boiling the pasta and setting it aside, I began making the sauce. Chopped three tomatoes, half a chilly, half an onion, about 3-4 mushrooms, and a couple of flakes of garlic, some salt & pepper and tossed the lot into the mixie (blender/food processor). Once the paste was ready, I kept it aside and began to work on the chicken (left) and squid (right). I'm keeping the prawns for the weekend, so they're on ice - I know they say you shouldn't keep prawns for too long in the freezer, but I can't help it this time.

After cutting the squid into rings and seasoning with a little pepper and salt, I chopped the other half of the onion (first half went into the sauce), a few more mushrooms and a couple of flakes of garlic. Oil in pan, and start the frying. Once the onions become golden brown and the mushrooms become tender, add the chicken. I added the chicken and a half teaspoon of butter, coz cooking in butter makes whatever you're cooking soft and tender.


Once the chicken turns form pink to white, add the squid, and you'll notice almost immediately that it starts to curl.

Sauté the mixture around a lil more and then add the sauce.
Simmer the mixture over a low heat for a while and check if the chicken and squid are cooked. Once done, take it off the flame and add it to the cooked pasta. Add some cheese if you like, and tuck away.

I made a vegetarian version of the same, so instead of chicken and squid, I used just mushrooms. Satuéed them in some butter along with some finely chopped onions,

and then added the sauce and left it to simmer for a while before taking it off the burners.

Now for the stuffed chicken breasts. For dinner, I decided to have some stuffed chicken breasts with funny kind of apple sauce. Funny? Well, I just happened to come across a recipe on YouTube but didn't know how it would taste. Tasted pretty good actually.

I had made a sauce/stuffing with mushrooms and a small green chilly (cut them and add some salt and pepper for seasoning and run them through the mixie). Once that was done, I slit the chicken breast and made a pocket in the middle and stuffed it with the mushroom paste. After that, I seasoned the chicken with salt & pepper and applied a little ginger-garlic paste and left the chicken to marinate in the fridge for a few hours.

When I felt hungry, I put around 3 tablespoons of olive oil into a pan and heated it, and when the oil was hot, I added the chicken breast into it, to a nice sizzling sound.

after around 5 minutes on one side, flip it over to cook the other side.

Once the insides are also cooked, flip it over to cook evenly and voila! you're done.

For the sauce, I mixed some soya sauce, apple cider vinegar and some apple juice, and presto! it's done.

Omelette with mushrooms & tomatoes

So after the dinner at La Casa (previous post) and going to bed at 3 AM, I woke up at around 8:30, and after washing up, I realised that Mr P and VP were still asleep and I had to prepare breakfast for the sleeping uglies.

There was a loaf of bread, and four eggs. Apart from that there were a couple of tomatoes, onions and some mushrooms. Perfect! So I sliced the mushrooms, chopped the onions and tomatoes as finely as I could, beat the four eggs while adding salt and pepper and some flour. Once the eggs were beaten I poured in a couple of tablespoons of milk, a couple of teaspoons of sugar, and mixed the chopped onions, tomatoes and mushrooms.

After heating a little oil on a pan, pour the mixture onto the pan and wait for it to firm up. Unfortunately, my pan wasn't big enough for the 4 eggs I used, and so I couldn't flip the egg over, so what I did was finished the egg in the microwave oven so the top would become firm and not remain mushy and gooey.

Ingredients:
4 eggs
2 teaspoons sugar
salt & pepper to taste
2 Tablespoons milk
1 chopped onion
1 or 2 chopped tomato(es)
4-5 sliced mushrooms

Chicken & mushrooms

After a long time, I set about cooking again (when I say cooking, I mean a proper full fledged dish and not an omelet or Maggie 2 minute noodles). Chicken and mushrooms, the delight of every cook. You ought to never go wrong with these, and I didn't. I don't know what I call this dish, but I think I can safely call it chicken in mushroom sauce.

Mushroom sauce:

1 packet mushrooms
1 large onion
1 tomato
1 celery stem (optional)
Parsley or mint (for fragrance)
1 tbsp butter
2-3 tbsp flour
Milk & water
Salt & pepper to season

Wash a packet full of mushrooms thoroughly and chop them into two or three pieces each. Chop the onion and tomato into 8 pieces. Chop the parsley (needn't be fine) and the celery. Add the butter into a deep container and heat till butter melts. Add all the ingredients and add the mushroom in the end. Sweat them in the heat for a while until the onions and mushrooms are soft. Add some milk (about 300 ml) and continue stirring. After a few minutes, add the flour and continue to stir until the flour completely mixes with the mixture. Add some water (100 ml, depending on how thick you want the sauce, usually milk : water = 3 : 1) . Continue to stir and cook until a nice creamy texture appears. Remove from the heat and allow the mixture to cool. Once cooled, pour this into a mixie/blender and blend until the mixture has a nice consistency, and there are no solid bits of the mushroom or any other solid ingredient. You could also add a little cream into the mixture before blending it.

Chicken:

4 chicken breasts (boneless)
1 cup curd
1 bunch coriander leaves
1 bunch parsley/mint
1 garlic flake
1-2 green chillies
salt & pepper to season

Chop and mix the coriander, garlic, green chillies and parsley/mint. Season with salt. Add into a grinder/blender and make a fine paste of the mixture. Cut the chicken into cubes and add a little salt. Mix the paste made from the leaves with the chicken, and then add the curd and mix the chicken thoroughly. Allow to marinate for about 2.5-3 hours.

After 3 hours, add the chicken into a deep pan and start to cook. Once the chicken has cooked (after about 6 to 8 minutes, add the mushroom sauce and turn the heat to high for a few minutes. Toss in a hand full of cashew nuts after a couple of minutes, along with a few more chopped and cooked mushrooms (optional). Season with salt if required. Serve it with whatever you like to eat dishes with gravy (usually breads).

This is the mushroom sauce with chicken in it

A vegetarian version has the chicken replaced with cottage cheese and chopped mushrooms in it (pic below). If making the vegetarian version, make sure the mushrooms and cottage cheese cubes being added are already sautéed and cooked previously before adding it to the sauce.


Optionally, instead of adding the chicken into the deep pan and mixing the chicken with the mushroom sauce, you can coat the chicken in the mushroom sauce after mixing it in the curd and coriander paste and after marinating it for 3 hours, you can skewer it on a barbecue and use the mushroom sauce as a dip for the skewered chicken. Bon appetit.