The food thread

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We made the "creamy japanese" soup... sort of like making curry but with heavy cream and roux instead.

A base of stir fry chicken, bacon, potato, onions, carrot, apple, green peas and garlic. With creamy japanese roux and heavy cream. On top of rice. No pictures, we ate it all.

We split the base, so tomorrow will add pineapple and curry.

My daughter makes a pretty good chinese sour soup.

Melon head?
 
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Ice cream yum.

Anyhow, daughter felt like baking.... My bestest all time most favoritist... French Apple Tart... Yikes, always most delicious. Her training is as a chef, but her specialty is pastry chef. So, she knows how to buy her way out of working too hard. In this case she bought the puff pastry from a local specialty store. I guess you just have to know...

Having her living at home is a damn luxury, I tell ya...

Maybe tomorrow, I'll serve the tart with ice cream...

BTW, that tart.... that's 12 servings. That tray is a half sheet. ( 18" x 13" )... Yum!

Yes, daughter also made curry. I just made the fresh tomato and olive salad... and fished out the IPA from the back of the fridge.
 

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Roasted Bhakarwadi is layered flaky pastry with an intermediate layer of red chilli / garlic / shredded coconut / poppy seed paste, an alternate is sprinkle poppy seeds or sesame seeds on top.
It is built up, rolled, cut to about half inch length, then baked.

Worth the trouble, go easy on the spice levels.

A typical recipe: (off the net, many minor variations exist)
https://www.archanaskitchen.com/baked-bhakarwadi-recipe

The picture is again off the net, it is a common item here in my area.

Tony, did the daughter add nutmeg or cardamom to the apple tart?
If not, worth a try.
 

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^ "Tony, did the daughter add nutmeg or cardamom to the apple tart?"

No, she makes the traditional version... except I think she goes lighter on the sugar. I'm mention that to her tomorrow. Thanks.

Your sweets look very good. It's one of the things about Indian cuisines that blow us away... the most "exotic" blend of spices we can imagine. Is it a dessert? Is it a cracker? Is it a bread? Who knows? Just eat it...

Always a great experience... :)
 
That above is a fairly spicy savory item.

I made this...
It is called chikki, one is mostly peanuts, the other is walnuts, peanuts, fennel, black and white sesame, poppy seeds, a pinch of edible camphor...
Yes, it is sweet, a cousin of peanut brittle.
 

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Hey, my wife has bought that from the local store. It's a very good munchie.

^Our country has a rich tradition of desserts...

Yep... I think every culture worth it's salt ( and sugar ) has a rich tradition of desserts. My daughter manages a high end cookie store. Everynight she brings all kinds of great cookies. My favorites are chocolate chip and white chocolate chip with macademia nuts. Yumm.
 
So buddy-o-mine decides he’s going to become a cook, and heard about the benefits of dried items. Off to the store he went to get beans, peas, lentils and grains.
A shipload of them. 10 kgs. worth.
Brings them home and calls me wanting to know what to do.
I start describing the process and he stopped me partway through.
He says Cal, how about you have some of these? I said sure. What don’t you want?
All of it he says. I guess I don’t want to learn all that, especially the part about having to remember soaking things the night before and then still having to cook them.
I said fine, I’ll bring you some when I cook them.
I could see the smile on the other end of the phone.
 
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Avoid adding cooking soda (bicarb?), not good for kids...

I have added garbozo beans to nearly boiling salty water to shorten soak time to two hours instead of six, and increased pressure time from 20 to 30 minutes in the cooker.

I slow cook them, until they give off a sort of thick fluid, then add onion-tomato-spice-mango powder gravy, cook till boiling.
Then serve with spicy mango pickle and a few drops of lemon juice on top....
 
Canned goods are not popular here, the preservatives added usually make the taste different from fresh...and our cuisine varies within the family, some will add turmeric (or not) to the same black eyed peas, for example.
Retort packages (sealed plastic heat and eat bag), and frozen foods are still more popular, can damage is also an issue.

I mostly see fruits in sugar syrup, and similar stuff in cans, choice is limited, and at least 4 times the dry goods price, cheaper to have a restaurant do the delivery.

We have delivery people with motor bikes, the restaurant / app is paid, and the delivery is done, all the business is surprisingly large, and the charges are sometimes waived within 5 km from restaurant...they say tables are left for more guests, no dishes cleaning required!

Another thing is that we have foods like fried puri / bhature, which need to be consumed within minutes of preparation, the can always lacks in this.
Ask an Indian friend for 'bhel' (minutes) and paani puri (seconds) from fresh to soggy.
McDonalds saying 90 seconds to serve is a joke for us...we have idli, vada pav and samosa being served faster, cooked on site, not heated served from frozen like McD, prepared at a base kitchen.

As an aside, there is a restaurant chain in Hyderabad, famous for biryani, volumes to Dubai alone were 7.5 tons (that is about 20,000 servings) daily during the fasting month of Ramadan...
That gives you some idea of the volumes involved here.

And the Railways has many kitchens, the biggest has a capacity of 1,50,000 meals daily, in different combinations, different cuisines, all served on board different trains out of Delhi.

There is also Akshaya Patra Foundation, which is a charity serving school chhildren and elderly people, they cook 2 tons of rice every meal at some of their kitchens, the food is served within 2 hours of dispatch.

Restaurants sometimes gave food in cans if you went trekking or camping, and in those areas canned food may be available in different items.
But not as common as in the USA, open storage, select can, open and use it...
 
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