FOOD FOR THOUGHT

People are so worried about what they eat between Christmas and the New Year, but they really should be worried about what they eat between the New Year and Christmas.
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Smoked Sausage with Scrambled Egg

PEERING into the fridge for ingredients to rustle up something for a lazy Sunday breakfast, I settled for this smoked sausage with scrambled egg because it was just a question of chopping up, beating up and then tossing together some readily available ingredients to make a hearty dish that only needed to be gobbled up.

What I used:

4 Sadia smoked chicken sausages
4 rashers bacon
4 eggs
2 onions
1 yellow pepper, deseeded
1 big tomato, blanched and peeled
1 green chilli
2 tablespoons Amul butter
Salt
Pepper

Chop the tomato, yellow pepper, onion, bacon and sausage into bits. Cut the green chilli as you wish...I cut it into fat diagonals. Lightly fry all the chopped ingredients in the butter. Beat the eggs and stir them in. Sprinkle some salt and freshly ground pepper. Cook on slow heat, stirring now and then, till the eggs get soft cooked and the mixture looks like lightly scrambled eggs.

The Taste of India

A beautiful article on how Amul became the Taste of India. Did you know that Amul is today the biggest dairy brand in Asia-Pacific? 


Milk and the man
Vinita Krishnamurthy


Within a short span of time, it became the ‘Taste of India.’


FOR once the Amul advertisement has got it wrong—their latest offering feting the founder of India’s White revolution on his 90th birthday features a cow and calf looking up at India’s most popular milkman. That Dr Kurien pioneered the use of buffalo milk seems to have been overlooked by the intrepid ad makers. The rest of the advertisement, however, is bang on target. A visit to the Amul dairy in Anand evokes a sense of admiration for the people behind the movement and pride that it should have started in India. The rather overpowering smell of milk is offset by the awe-inspiring milk silos and squeaky-clean equipment.


What makes the Amul story so attractive is that it starts with research and ends with successful application and implementation. Apparently, Kurien had been told that the high fat content in buffalo milk made it impossible to convert it to milk powder. After several failed attempts he managed to make the first batch of buffalo milk powder, which he reportedly emptied on his happy assistant’s head. Every step and strategy in the Amul story is worth studying for anyone involved in social science, basic science and management. The co-operative movement gave direction to random production and introduced quality assurance ensuring safety. It automatically eliminated wastage since the excess produce was converted into products with a longer shelf life. The supplier gained from being paid for the raw material and the consumer gained from a choice of products. Operation Flood then spilled over from Gujarat to become the largest supplier of milk and milk products to the huge market in Mumbai. Within a short space of time it became the ‘Taste of India.’


The ultimate test for any business model is that it should be viable wherever replicated. The co-operative movement started in Anand has been successfully implemented in several states of India. The White revolution, unlike the Green revolution, has stood the test of time in that milk and milk products do not have to be imported. Bridging the urban-rural gap with a customer-supplier relationship and making it economically viable for both is tailor-made for our country.


The success story even inspired Shyam Benegal to make the award-winning film aptly called ‘Manthan.’ And why not, when the protagonist is a winner surrounded by beautiful women wearing lovely baandhini printed odhnis in an otherwise drab landscape! A short ad-film on Amul plays the signature song from the movie accompanied by a concise testimonial that sums up years of struggle, hard work, success and empowerment. The visuals have recently been updated, and include a woman at a computer terminal and girls clicking pictures on their mobile phones. Clearly, the Anand Milk Producers Union Ltd has come a long way-- perhaps the way that every venture should go. May you live longer, Dr Kurien!


Courtesy: Deccan Herald, 8 December 2011

Mackerel in Banana Leaf

IN a mood for mackerel but fed up of the usual curry or fry? Try this lovely recipe for stuffed mackerel wrapped in banana leaf and pan-fried on very gentle heat. And in the bargain, stuff yourself with healthy omega-3 EFAs (essential fatty acids) found in this fish.

For 6 fresh mackerel

Grind together:

2 heaped tablespoons coriander seed
3/4 tablespoon cumin
15 dry red chillies (Byadgi)
4 flakes of garlic
A lime-sized ball of tamarind
2 tablespoons freshly grated coconut
2 tablespoons vinegar
1/4 cup of water

Chop fine:

3 onions
4 green chillis
1 tomato
2 tablespoons green coriander


You will also need:

1 tablespoon ginger-garlic paste
3 tablespoons *coconut oil (or
any other cooking oil)
Salt to taste
One big banana leaf, washed and wiped dry

With a sharp knife make three gashes on either side of the scaled and cleaned fish, apply a little salt and turmeric inside and outside and set aside.

Heat two tablespoons of the oil in a vessel and fry the chopped green chillies and onions till the onions are transparent. Add the ginger-garlic paste and fry for a minute or two. Then add the finely ground masala and fry for another 5 minutes, stirring now and then. Add the chopped tomato and green coriander and cook till the tomato softens. Add salt to taste and sprinkle just enough water to ensure the masala is not too dry. Cook for one more minute, and set aside to cool.

Meanwhile, using a kitchen scissors, cut the banana leaf lengthwise along its spine to get two halves. Next cut each across into three pieces, to get six pieces in all.

Stuff the fish with the cooled masala, patting some of it on either side too. Lay the fish, one on each leaf and wrap them up snugly like babies in blankets. Secure with string.

Heat one tablespoon of oil in a frying pan on gentle heat for a minute and arrange the bundled up fish in it. Let it cook on very, very slow heat for about 8 minutes on either side. Untie, unwrap and serve.

*When cooking traditional Mangalorean seafood dishes, I prefer using coconut oil for authentic flavour. Fallen out of favour with doctors, nutritionists and health freaks at one time, coconut oil is now making a huge comeback as a cooking medium as well as a substitute for butter in baking. Ask the coastal folk of south India, especially along the Konkan and Malabar coasts, who've been using it since time immemorial. Out there, no kitchen worth its cooking oil will be complete without it!

Brownies, biryanis and chicken kababs...

IT was a pleasant afternoon at a residents' welfare association fete in Kammanahalli where I went at the invitation of a friend.
I will shamelessly admit that as always for me, it's the food at such fetes that is the main attraction. The fun and games are secondary but one also gets to meet and greet people that one hasn't seen in ages.

It was after a long time that I got to gorge on some lovely, mildly flavoured mutton biryani, with the meat cooked just right without being tough and chewy.

There were varieties of snacks on sale at ridiculously low prices - Rs.10 a brownie, piping hot chicken kababs at Rs.20 for a plate of three meaty pieces and a mere Rs.5 for a chicken croquette that wasn't all mashed potato masquerading as chicken. Aside from having more than my fill for need and greed, I brought home a parcel as well. Burrpp!

Dried Prune Compote

I HAD nearly forgotten a container of hard-as-rock dried prunes (about two cupfuls) that had been lying around for a while. They looked utterly useless at first but after staring at them for a whole minute inspiration struck.

And that's how I got down to making this dried prune compote.

First I let the dried prunes soak overnight in some scalding water. The following day the prunes had softened beautifully and doubled in size. It seemed like they had acquired a new life from their hopelessly dehydrated state. Then I pitted them, chopped them up roughly and put them in a heavy-bottomed saucepan to boil on slow heat along with the water in which they had soaked, a cupful of sugar and the juice of half a lemon. While it was cooking away, further inspiration struck...there was this bottle with some dregs of dark rum in it. Now I felt that a bottle with such measly contents did not merit so much of storage space, so in went the rum into the prune mixture and the empty bottle straight into my dry waste bin.

I cooked the mixture till it thickened a bit before taking it off the fire and letting it cool. And then I served some of it up as a topping to transform a plain old Amul vanilla ice-cream into a heavenly dessert and stored the rest in the refrigerator for use on another day.

PS: I sliced the block of ice-cream with a heated knife, which caused a mild sizzle and tiny bubbles to appear on the surface. I had to work doubly quick to click the picture, lest the ice-cream begin to melt and lose its shape, because unlike in the ice-cream ads, this was real ice-cream and not mashed potato dressed up to look like ice-cream!