FOOD FOR THOUGHT

When fate hands you a lemon, make lemonade.

Dale Carnegie

Lemon Sponge Cake

Lemon Sponge Cake (Pics by June Carvalho)

IT'S one of my favourite quotes: When fate hands you a lemon, make lemonade. That's in life. But in the kitchen you can do a tad better with lemons....use the zest of lemon to bake this soft, light and airy tea-time sponge cake with the oh-so-wonderfully refreshing taste of lemon. Afterwards squeeze the hell out of the rest of the lemon to make your lemonade.

The fresh fragrance of lemon makes this cake really special, besides for filling the house with such a wonderful aroma while it's baking away that you get impatient for it to come out of the oven and dig in. The zest is so full of the natural essence of lemon that you don't even need to use synthetic food grade essence to flavour it or to mask the smell of eggs. One lemon zest provides a mildly flavoured cake. For a stronger flavour, use the grated rind of two lemons.

I baked this in a microwave oven, preheated for 15 minutes at 170 degrees C (on convection mode), with a baking time of 30 minutes.

What you need:

300 gms butter
300 gms powdered sugar
300 gms flour
4 eggs
1 tsp baking powder
Grated zest of 1 lemon

Sieve flour with the baking powder. Cream butter and powdered sugar. Add the eggs, one at a time and beat well. Sprinkle the lemon zest. Tip the flour in a little at a time, and fold in gently till all of it is incorporated to form a dropping consistency. If too thick, which is unlikely with these proportions, then add a tablespoon or two of milk and mix in gently.

Put the batter into a greased and dusted cake tin and bake in a preheated oven at 170 degrees C for half an hour or till firm and springy to the touch, or till testing skewer comes clean.

Leave it in the pan for ten minutes before inverting on to a wire rack to cool. I know most of my tea cakes look like giant doughnuts, but somehow I seem to reach only for the tube pan in which to bake them.

Finish with a lemon glaze if you like, but pour the glaze over only after the cake has completely cooled.

For the glaze, using a wooden spoon to mix, combine till smooth one cup of sieved icing sugar, two tablespoons of melted butter, one tablespoon each of lemon juice and warm water. Allow to slowly dribble around the sides and set before slicing. The glazed cake above was made on an earlier occasion, which I had carried along for a charming old lady's 80th birthday.

Cucumber Karamb

IT'S summer, it's still salad days...and cucumbers are in abundance. Try making a cucumber karamb which is a typically Mangalorean salad. With a paste of ground coconut, green chillis, ginger, mustard seeds and a tiny bit of tamarind mixed in, it's no different from a pachadi. However, what distinguishes it from the usual pachadi is its piquant flavour lent by the mustard.

What you need:


2 small cucumbers
1/2 cup fresh, grated coconut
1/2" piece of ginger
1 green chilli
1/2 teaspoon mustard seed
A tiny bit of tamarind


Wash, peel and cut the cucumbers in half, lengthwise and then slice them. Add some salt to taste and set aside. Meanwhile grind all the other ingredients into a paste. Drain the cucumber and mix in with the ground paste.

You can give it a seasoning of mustard seeds and a sprig of curry leaves fried in two teaspoons of oil. I did without, but if you're using it, then I suggest you add the seasoning when it has completely cooled, else it will singe the cucumber and soften it, losing its crunchiness.

PS: This is optional, but I gave it a slight twist by mixing in about 3 tablespoons of raw mango slivers.

Dry Shrimp Chutney

THIS is truly a special from Mangalore and its peripheral areas with a strong likeness to the sambols of Sri Lanka. Also called galmbiyachi chutney (galmbo in Konkani meaning dry shrimp), it's usually an accompaniment to red boiled rice kanji, which along with other side dishes comprised a breakfast staple of yesteryear and probably continues to be among workers in fields and coconut plantations around Mangalore for the sustenance that it provides until lunch time. However, at home the kanji with galmbi chutney are dished up as no-frills fare on Good Friday, when not every member of the household is inclined towards fast and abstinence.

Some recipes list onions and cumin seeds in the ingredients, but without is just as good.

What you need:
1 cup fresh, grated coconut
5 long red chillis (Byadgi)
2 flakes of garlic
A small bit of tamarind
5 tablespoons (galmbi) dry shrimp
Salt to taste

Broil the red chillis on a slow flame, turning now and then, so that they don't get burnt. Also dry roast the shrimp, till they turn reddish in colour.

Setting aside the roasted shrimp, first grind all other ingredients to a coarse, semi-dry paste in a blender without adding water. Now add the shrimp and blitz for about half a minute till the shrimp gets coarsely crushed and blended with the rest of the ingredients.

A recipe for disaster...

FORGET about one a penny, two a penny....guess no one would have wanted, even for free, the raisin-studded hot cross buns that I attempted for Good Friday. A total disaster. Turned out more like missiles that could be used to revive a long-forgotten rowdy game called olly-kolly that was in vogue in Bangalore boys' schools during the '70s!

My daughter's sympathetic review that "They're tasty Mummy, but only a little hard," didn't cut any ice. :( Better luck to myself the next time around. I have a whole year to try and perfect them. :)

Easy Chocolate Cake

IT'S love at first bite with this dark and moist chocolate cake. A quick and simple one-bowl mixing method with amazing results.

Just before serving dust some icing sugar over it (using a stainless steel strainer) for stunning effect. For sheer indulgence, pour a chocolate glaze and allow it to drip down the sides on a completely cooled cake. Allow to set before slicing.

Round out a special dinner with a 1" thick slice of this cake topped over with an equally thick slice of vanilla ice-cream for an absolutely de-li-sh-ous double-decker dessert!

What you need:

3/4 cup cocoa
1 3/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
A pinch of salt
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup melted butter
1 cup strong, black coffee
1 cup buttermilk
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence

Whisk all ingredients together in a bowl with an electric beater for about 5 minutes till well blended. Pour the batter into a greased and lined 9" x 9" baking pan and bake in a pre-heated oven at 170 degrees C for about 40 minutes or until testing skewer comes clean.

Let it remain in the pan for about 10 to 15 minutes before inverting it on to a wire rack to cool.

For the glaze, combine 1 1/2 cup sieved icing sugar, 1/2 cup sieved cocoa powder, 4 tablespoons of melted butter and 4 tablespoons of warm water in a bowl and beat with a wooden spoon till smooth and of pouring consistency.

PS: Those who have tried baking it in an electric OTG (oven-toaster-grill), however, have reported dismal results. It's turned out flat and lacklustre. I have no idea why, but it never fails in a regular oven or in a microwave oven. If using a microwave oven, preheat to 180 degrees C for 15 minutes (convection mode) with a baking time of about 30-35 minutes or until tester comes clean.

Peppermint and orange are also lovely flavours that team up very well with chocolate, so try substituting the usual vanilla with these for a change.

Some recipes use cooking oil instead of melted butter.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

In the cookies of Life, friends are the chocolate chips.
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