Feline Musings

My expertise in the kitchen received a sudden crucial appraisal last weekend. We planned to entertain a couple of family members’ at lunch, in our newly set up home. The guests were more interested in sight-seeing and hence declined the lunch invitation and pre-poned their visit.

My lunch menu and plan turned upside down at 9:30 am, with a very short notice to cater for piping hot home-made brunch (snacks). The two guests were now scheduled to arrive at 11:30 am. I was anxious and had shaky fingers and an accelerated-Ferrari-like heartbeat for some minutes. But there was no escape and I had to get-set-go with the brunch preparation. I quickly prepared a list of raw materials required. Hubby rushed to the colony market and I started “what-seemed-next-to-impossible-preparation.” Here’s the quick fix snack menu that ultimately turned out to be quite a success: 

•    Soya kebabs with Raw Mango-Mint (Pudina) chutney

•    Fried Colocasia (Arbi)

•    Sautéed peas and corn in onion

•    Potato (Aloo) chat

•    Cottage Cheese fritters (Paneer pakora)

•    Raspberry jelly

•    Mango Shake (which was prepared by hubby)

While some of the menu items were quite basic and the recipe is easily available on the internet, the two “my-kind-of-recipes” – Soya Kababs and Fried Colocasia are described in detail in two upcoming blog posts – “Sup with Soya” and “Cooking up Colocasia”.

Jelly should be prepared before you get on to making anything else. Just get a pack of Smith and Jones (or any other brand) jelly mix and follow the instructions on the pack. Alternatively, you can also prepare custard, and quickly cut fruits and place them into the custard mixture and refrigerate. Custard can also be served with Nirula’s hot chocolate sauce, or a dollop of mulberry jam. I, of course, did not have enough time to chop fruits, so I decided to serve plain jelly. It was an interesting serving for the guests, as they could hardly remember the last time they had this “children’s favorite.”

For the sautéed peas and corn, you just need to fry some onions, put in the peas and corn and fry with a seasoning of coriander powder and basic garam masala. To serve, garnish with coriander and mint leaves. You can use off-the-shelf frozen peas and corn.

For Potato chaat boil potatoes (to save time you can boil the colocasia and potatoes together). Cut the peeled boiled potatoes in small cubes and sprinkle with lots of spicy chat masala, chopped raw onions, and fresh coriander leaves. Toss it around so that all the masalas and the salt is properly mixed.

For the Paneer pakoras, cut fresh cottage cheese into small cubes, and place in a batter of gram flour (besan). Add some chilli powder, salt and chat masala to the batter. Let the paneer rest in the batter and when your guests have arrived, boil vegetable oil and then fry the batter-coated paneer pakora. These come out golden fried in a jiffy. Serve with bottled tomato sauce and/or mustard sauce.

There are many other similar quick fix brunch ideas that started popping into my head after I cleared my culinary test. Some of them include: 

•    Matar Potli: Fried peas placed into little pouches made of refined flour and deep fried.

•    Crispy fried potatoes: Potato slices dipped in refined flour and corn flour batter, with a little seasoning added to the batter, and then deep fried.

•    Baby Corn Fritters: Baby corn dipped in gram flour batter and deep fried.

•    Achari Colocasia (Arbi): recipe available in my blog post, Fun with Colocasia

•    Cocktail sandwiches

•    Papad chaat: Fried/Roasted masala Popadum (papad) tossed in finely chopped onion, coriander, mint and tomatoes

So, here’s three cheers to bon appetite and a brunch menu that was a great success!! And after all these preparations I also had time to deck up as a perfect hostess, rather like the new bride that I am .

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