Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man.

Bake me a cake as fast as you can;

Pat it and prick it and mark it with B,

Put it in the oven for baby and me !!!

Baking a cake isn’t all that difficult as it seems. Let me tell you it is not something like Rocket Science or something. Many people are nervous or apprehensive before baking a cake. And obvio tension is expected…you put in all your efforts and the oven goes ‘ting’ to give you BURNT portion of crap !!! So sad.. :’(

Even I used to be very tensed before baking cakes. I somehow managed to find a recipe that seemed almost ok to me and I took off with the steps one by one. But the cake turned out to be a disaster. The cake had a stink of egg and it was not at all spongy… A DISASTER IN EVERY FEASIBLE SENSE!

I was really disheartened and decided I wont be baking a cake ever… But then I took spl classes for baking where I  learnt different styles of baking.. Different types of cakes and all of them lip-smacking good!

This time when I was about to bake a cake, it was for my very close friend’s birthday! @ 18:00 hrs I reached home and had to bake the cake, get ready and reach the venue by 19:30 hrs for the party. I was all tensed & not at all confident. Even told my friends to arrange for a cake in-case I repeat the history! That disastrous cake had become the wildest n disastrous effort. I just took a deep breath and started off! To everyone’s surprise, this time the cake was not at all a disaster but totally yummy and pretty and delicious and everything good! It was spongy, fluffy and had a flavour of RUM as it was a RUM CAKE. Here goes the pic:

The next attempt was for my sister’s birthday. By this time I was pretty confident about the base but was tensed again about the icing. Had never done it before and I had just observed my cooking teacher teach me! And it was a pleasant surprise as the icing was tasting very good & I had topped the cake quite neatly with all the icing and other toppings and it got set also very well! Tried li’l design on it.. wasn’t so successful but yea, was looking cute! The icing looked little immature but was very good for a first timer (my teacher said so ^_^). Here goes the pic:

So don’t ever be afraid of what you really want to do. First time a disaster is expected as someone has rightly said

“Failures are stepping stones towards success”

Knives

             

Knives play an imperative role in making your food appealing. An apt knife is to be used as it is necessary to watch out the chopping style. Veggies when chopped in a specific fashion make your dish look perfect and tempting. Not just the vegetables, even chopping meat into pieces, is a chief task. At times, you need chunks of meat pieces or at times mince. Remember very well that taste of your food depends on the sizes of chopped ingredients and the style of chopping.

A basic knife-set should consist of  a Chef’s knife or a French knife, a Boning knife, a Bread knife, a Kitchen knife/ Utility knife/ Slicing knife/ All-purpose knife & Paring knife or a Coring knife.

A professional kitchen may even include a Butchers’ knife, Cleaver, Oyster knife, Carving knife etc

from l-r :- Boning knife, Bread knife, Chef's knife, Kitchen knife, Paring knife. 

                       top :- Scissors

Chef’s Knife or a French knife:  A chef's knife was originally designed primarily to slice large cuts of beef. Today it is the general-utility knife for most Western cooks. The blade of a chef's knife is typically made of carbon steel, stainless steel or ceramic. Technique for the use of a chef's knife is an individual preference. Most cooks prefer to grip the handle, with all four fingers and the thumb gathered underneath. For more precise control, some grip on the blade itself, with the thumb and the index finger grasping the blade.

For fine slicing the handle is raised up and down with the tip remains in contact with the cutting board and the cut object is pushed under the blade.

Boning Knife: A boning knife is used for removing the bones from poultry, meat, and fish. A stiff boning knife is good for boning beef and pork, but a very flexible boning knife is preferred for poultry and fish.

Bread Knife: A bread knife is typically used for slicing loafs of bread. A bread knife is usually long and the blade is serrated.

Kitchen Knife: A kitchen knife is a general-purpose knife used to slice or chop vegetables likes onions, shallots, tomatoes, okra, French beans etc or even leafy vegetables like spinach, coriander, parsley, scallions etc . The blade of this knife is typically sleek, slender and long made of stainless steel.

Paring knife: A paring knife is used for cutting out the cores from a fruit. The blade of this knife is short yet sharp and generally made or stainless steel.

Butchers’ Knife: A butchers’ knife, as the name suggests, is typically used for slaughtering animals. It is generally not a part of regular kitchens as the blade is broad, sharp and the knife being heavy is hazardous. Even in hotels’ kitchens these knifes are barely used. They are widely used to places or factories where meat is manufactured after slaughtering animals or at times are used in some exotic places where the meat served needs to be just fresh.

Cleaver: Cleaver is a knife with a huge blade for hacking through bones. It is somewhat similar to a butcher’s knife but slightly smaller than that. The shape of its blade varies but is roughly rectangular. The broad blade is even used for crushing ingredients like garlic or green chillies. 

Ppl check out this amazing article posted by my friend...

EveRytHng d@t MaTters Under tHe $un: food to hog on...: the traditional gajar halwa ...

"

PANI PURI

"In West Bengal and specifically Calcutta,Phuchka is considered to be THE king of this variety of snacks, compared to it's cousins like golgappas or panipuris. The filling is made by lightly mashing boiled potatoes with black salt, salt, some spices, a generous portion of tamarind pulp (made by mashing ripe tamarind in tamarind water), chilli (powder/chopped/boiled & pasted). The tamarind water Tetul Jol is made by mixing tamarind and spices/ salt and making a light and tart liquid with water. At some places like Deshpriya Park, a very famous variety is made with sour curd, and called Dahi (curd) Phucka. Onions are never used in Phuchkas.

The panipuri originated from the Magadh region of India, present day South Bihar. The English meaning of golgappa is "watery indian bread" or "crisp sphere eaten." Literary mentions suggest that it may have originated from Banares

Its popular names and the area where it is known by this name are:

§  Gol gappa, Water balls — New Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Jharkhand, Bihar

§  Pani ke bataashe— Uttar Pradesh

§  Pani ke bataashe — Rajasthan

§  Panipuri — Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra

§ Phuchka — West Bengal

§  Gup chup — Orrisa

PAV BHAJI

" Pav Bhaji is a fast food dish native to Maharashtra and is 
popular in most metropolitan areas in India. The origin of this dish is traced to the heyday of the textile mills in Mumbai. The mill workers used to have lunch breaks too short for a full meal, and a light lunch was preferred to a heavy one, as the employees had to return to strenuous physical labor after lunch. A vendor created this dish using items or parts of other dishes available on the menu. Roti or rice was replaced with pav and the curries that usually go with Indian bread or rice were amalgamated into just one spicy concoction, the 'bhaji'. Initially, it remained the food of the mill-workers. With time the dish found its way into restaurants and spread over Central Mumbai and other parts of the city 

Hello PPl, if any1 needs  recipe for any dish from my EXPERIMETNS page.. kindly post or comment here so that i will keep on uploading recipes as per ur  demands!!!!

"Meat:

1.       Check out the quality of meat you are using. Avoid RED MEAT and if at all you are using Red meat( Beef, Mutton, Ham) go for pinkish shade of meat. It implies that you meat is fresh. Avoid using Darker Red meat. If its not tender n fresh, it will take like a zillion years to cook and moreover spoil the taste of food also!

2.      If you are buying meat is large quantity whereas u need li’l amount at a time, DO NOT refrigerate the entire contents together. Make separate shares and store them in different containers/ covers.

Eg: You need 200gm of meat at a time but you have bought 1 kg from the market then, make 5 separate shares each of 200 gm and store them in separate containers. Before storing make sure you marinate them well with salt+ginger-garlic paste.

This is because when you defroze the entire 1 kg of meat while u need just 200gm, other portion of meat also gets defrosted and loses its nutrition value. Thus defrosting the meat again and again makes it lose all its contents as well as changes the taste. So better defrost only the required amount.

3.      Shape of pieces change the taste of your food. If shreds are needed, use shreds. If mince is needed, mince it! If chunks are needed, ask the butcher to make chunks!

4.     Generally opt of WITH-BONE meat rather than boneless. Bones’ nutrition value is too high and if they are just boiled to prepare stalk, it is like ‘pearls n gems’ for the chefs… damn precious! When this stalk is used in various preparations, it not only increases the nutrition value but also improves the taste!

5.      If boneless meat is needed, you can very well go for WITH-BONE meat, marinate it with salt+ginger-garlic paste and boil it. You will get the stalk and just shred the pieces i.e. separate the flesh from bones.

6.      If the meat pieces are boneless, marinate them and keep aside for a longer time than the with-bone pieces. You may also thrust in the meat with a fork so that the marinated masala enters into the flesh and gives you an amazing finger-licking taste.

7.     Whenever you add meat in a pan/wok, make sure u sauté it for sometime and then cover it with a lid so that the meat liberates some oil from itself which even more adds to the taste. It is very useful while making gravy.

8.      Make sure you meat has cooked properly before serving it.

9.      Make sure you use minimum number of veggies in a preparation containing meat. Always the amount of meat should be more. Lots of veggies at times hamper the ability of meat to make the preparation tasty.

10.   Salt is the BEST preservative