Appetizers for Dinner

(top left Scallops, top right Paneer, bottom center mushrooms - Salil needs to take better pictures)


We had three appetizers for dinner tonight. Was wondering what to cook and was itching to male something special for Salil! Started thinking about all these dishes and turned out they all were the starter kind. What the heck!! We are eating appetizers tonight.

Chilly Paneer

Wanted to try this one for a while and finally found an opportunity. It will be great if you can lay your hands on a fresh block of paneer from a local dairy, but freeze-thawed Nanak paneer was my only option.

Cut up the paneer into bite size pieces and saute in some hot light oil. Once the cubes have begun to brown at the edges, take it off the oil. Saute ginger/garlic/chilli paste in the remianing oil, throw in some finely chopped scallions and capsicum. Soon the kitchen will be swalloed by the aroma from your skillet and you will know its time for the next step. Add a dash of soya sauce, vinegar, ketchup and a thin slurry of corn flour. Fold in the panner and some salt (dont forget we already have some soy sauce in it!) and take it off the heat once the corn flour thickens.

Stuffed Mushrooms

Stuffing: Finely chopped mushroom stems sauted with some freshly grated garlic and jalapenos in olive oil. Mix this (off the heat) with chopped spinach, grated mozarella or any melting cheese, bread crumbs, salt and pepper. Stuff the mushroom caps with the filling and stick it in the oven at 400C for 15 minutes.

Scallops coated in sesame seeds

Heat some butter in a skillet and put the scallops liberally coated with sesame seeds. Turn the scallops upside down after 3-4 minutes. Once they start to brown, add finely chopped jalapenos - we just need a tiny bit here, dont want to ruin the delicate taste of sea food - and scallions, stir for a minute and add a dash of good wine to pick up all the yummy drippings. Sprinkle loads of chopped cilntro and fresh squeezed lime juice. A piece of good crusty bread will sure come handy to lick up all that buttery sauce!

(Post by Avani)

Poli, Chapati Dough Recipe - Kanik

This is a kanik (dough) recipe my Dad gave me as he sometimes makes the dough for mom (it has worked well a few times)

2.25 wati flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 wati oil
1/2 coffee mug water
Knead and add flour (another .25 wati - .5 wati) as required.

I used the same recipe with rice flour for making bhakri - they turned out ok, but a bit too stiff. Will experiment by using less oil and more water next time.

sick chocolate cookie recipe

http://www.lifesambrosia.com/2009/07/chocolate-chocolate-chip-and-nutella-cream-sandwich-cookies-recipe.html

This is almost as bad as a fried krispy Creme dougnut - but it looks oh so good. I have never made any cookies but recipe is tempting.
Perhaps I'll go running and then drool reading over this recipe. It'll be enough to live vicariously through the web rather than takeing the effort and the calories that come with actually making this recipe.

Party Game: Mafia

Really easy fun game. It's a murder mystery type game where people die each round and the living try and find the killers.
Suppose a group of people at a party. Divide this group into 1) Mafia and 2) Villagers, and one moderator. Ratio should be 1-3 or similar. Create cards or paper sheets that can be passed out to everyone to identify them as villagers or mafia. This is a secret others shouldn't know who is a villager and who is the mafia.
Moderator declares it to be night and everyone closes their eyes. Moderator asks Mafia to open their eyes and kill someone. Moderator asks everyone to close their eyes and then asks everyone to open their eyes. Villagers find out who has been killed and discuss to determine who might be a mafia killer - once decided villagers take a vote or come to a consensus on who the killer is and he/she is killed. Villagers can choose not to kill anyone. Upon a person being killed their card is revealed to show the villagers if the person was a Mafia or a villager. Rounds continue.. Objective of villagers is to exterminate all mafia, objective of Mafia to eliminate all villagers.
Interesting dynamics and logic.

Toast - a new restaurant in Durham downtown

Yesterday our Real-estate agent now friend treated us to a private showing of Harry Potter - Half Blood Prince. Not a great movie unless you are a teenager who is going through the angst of new love and social issues that go with those years.. since the movie was free I didn't mind it. If I had to pay my own good money I'd have hated it.

The good thing is after the movie we met Larry and went for lunch. Few ideas were tossed out as having been there done that. Wanted something new and Larry suggested 'Toast' in Durham downtown. A simple place with a limited but tasty menu.. is is something very original, or something out of this world - No. But it's a place that seems to serve good food with a twist at a very reasonable price. The menu is somewhat food network meets sandwich shop and is eclectic. For example I had a Pannini with Rapini, Italian sausage, Roasted garlic and some cheese, accompanied with a chilled tomato basil bread soup. Both dishes were awesome - the tomato soup was a great surprise - very fresh and very non canned tomato soup.

Will definitely go again.
http://www.toast-fivepoints.com/talking.html

Party last night - new drink created

Had a good party last night. Made the chicken burgers described in the previous post, didn't turn out as good as the first time. Believe the reason is not enough montreal steak seasoning and forgot the garlic powder.. Couldn't scale from 1 lb of meat to 3lb of meat without proper measurements (my recipe's are a dash of this and a few pinches of that... not ideal for scaling up).

New Drink Recipe: Need a name.
6 cubes ice
1 pinch kosher salt
2 shot glasses of Mango juice
1 shot glass of Peach juice
1 1/2 shot glass tequila
1 sqeeze of lemon juice
- shake well and pour in a wide short whiskey glass
Top off with tamarind soda and garnish with basil leaf

Magnolia Grill Inspired Pizza

We have a few guests for a couple of days and while doing groceries I saw pizza dough and thought hmmm why red sauce or why pesto - why not a green tomato sauce like the green tomato soup we had at Magnolia grill last Thursday? So I got the ingredients and the wife made a kickass sauce. Everyone loved it! Only odd part is that our guests being from India they wanted Ketchup with the pizza...hmm (it's an Indian thing)

Below is the recipe

Instead of using the standard Red Tomato based pizza sauce I got some ingredients and the wife made an awesome Green Tomato based pizza sauce
2 Green Tomatoes
3 Tomatillos
a jalepeno
Few garlic cloves
Onion
herbs - don't know what she added - am guessing some Coriander, and Cumin (mexican twist), and some basil.
Sauteed everything togehter till soft and then put through a blender - sauce is ready.

The Pizza -
Prebake the crust till it's almost done (get the dough premade at Trader Joes) - stretched the dough , sprinkled with Garlic powder and olive oil and baked till risen but not brown.
Layer on the sauce
Cuts of fresh mozzarella cheese
Left over chicken kebab pieces
Slivers of mushrooms (thinly cut mushrooms)
Julienned poblano peppers
Fresh cut basil leaves
1/2 pizza had pineapple
Bake till cheese is bubbling

Yum!

Merlion

Now that the blog is caught up I'll come back to talking about today's experience.
For lunch we went to Merlion. An amazing Singapore/Malay restaurant in the Southern Village neighborhood of Chapel Hill.

We've become regular weekend lunch visitors to Merlion. The server tells us that the menu will be changing soon - I hope they don't loose their Singapore uniqueness.

My favourite dishes @ Merlion (to be fair all are equally good and I alternate between these)
1) Char Kway Tao
2) Nasi Lemak
3) Roti Paratha
4) Salted fish rice
5) am on the fence about this one - Hinnanese Chicken - I had it for the first time today after watching Anthony Bourdain's 'No Reservations' show. I believe it's an acquired taste. Upon first few bites I didn't care for it but upon mixing in more soy, ginger and sambal sauces (served on the side) the dish started tasting good and by the end I was ready to lick the plate... But I felt that the chicken was too much and a bland - the rice was cooked in some broth and was AMAAzing!

Merlion is a nice restaurant with good decore and ambiance. The supper menu is pricy but lunch is $8/9 per dish which comes with a small salad and some broth soup (good broth).
Staff is very friendly and service is quick. On a hot summer day some Nasi Lemak and a glass of Tiger beer hits the spot!

June 28th Trip to Topsail Island

On the 27th June weekend we went on our planned trip to Topsail Island (as locals say Topsel Island). Matt lent us their family house the fishbowl - which is a block from the beach!
Was an awesome weekend - the weather was perfect and the water temperature, and colour were amazing! Wish I had taken my camera. I might have had more fun as I didn't have the camera to encumber me.
We got a beach umbrella (didn't need to buy an 'umbrella anchor' but was a sucker and bought it). Went to the beach, wife studied under the umbrella and I went in the water and caught some waves on my body board. Also got walloped by some of the waves. I actually for the first time felt fear at seeing the wave rise in front of me and start to come over the top... the waves were quite big this time - awesome for the surfers (which there were quite a few) but scary for us landlubbers. Decided to overcome my fear and dive in - had a great time.
Next day went for a jog without shoes on the beach - awesome!

Places to eat - For lunch Batt's grill (multiple times). This is a place at corner of 210 near the BOA soon as you get on the Island. It's the same food as any other fish place but for 1/3rd the price!
After lunch grab some shaved ice from the hotdog stand (Hot Diggidy Dog) - I had Tiger's blood - yum - per the server only from White Tigers :)
For Breakfast we went to Mollie's, nice decor and good food. Nothing out of the world - but decent simple breakfast.
For supper we cooked at home - some really good fresh shrimp, packaged Carribean rice and frozen pizza.

Shrimp Recipe
Fresh medium sized shrimp (get right below the big bridge at end of the island)
few pinches chili power
few pinches turmeric (1/2 of chili powder)
kosher salt
few pinches geera powder (twice amt of chili powder)
few pinches dhana powder (three x amt of chili powder)
few pinches ginger powder (same as turmeric)
few pinches garlic poder (same as chili powder)
1 bay leaf
1/2 pack of ketchup (from Burger King hienz ketchup from fast food place)
In pan heat some oil -put in bayleaf, wait for oil to get hot, toss in shrimp. Cook till pink and remove.

Magnolia Grill

These last few blogs are back in time as I didn't take the effort to write for a while. The Chicken Kebab's were today Friday, Below Magnolia Grill experience was Thursday. After this I'll post our Topsail Island trip.

Went to Magnolia Grill on Thursday night. Awesome food.
We shared an appetizer a cold green tomato soup with lump crab meat topped with salsa. I was very tempted to get the twice baked grit souffle with fois gras... but decided to try something new (if you have never been this is a must have).

For an entree I had lamb with pomegranate glaze and some micro green, squash, green bean salad - really good but not great. Last time I had a Carolina Steel Trout with green peas - it was out of this world.

This time the wife had Salmon with fried okra, creamed corn, gumbo - her Salmon was out of this world. Have never seen such a perfectly cooked salmon and the creamed corn and fried Okra - wow!

For desert we had a Goat cheese brulee with pineapple chile glaze - yum! last time we had a grapefruit something it was better. This times was good too buy bit too heavy for me after the lamb.

The wine was a something d'Alba - an italian or spanish red - very smooth.

If you ever visit the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill area Magnolia grill is a must go if you love good food. Here's the link the menu on the site changes only 3-4 times a year the actual menu changes quite often so don't go by the site: http://www.magnoliagrill.net/ the site is only a tease of something as good or better.

Chicken kebabs & Chicken burgers

Chicken Kebabs
1 lb ground chicken
chili, ginger, garlic paste to taste
kosher salt
1/2 egg beaten
in a pan brown some besan flour
Shan Seekh kebab masala (1/3 pack - not whole)
(Edit on 7/5) forgot key ingredient: 1/2 sauteed onion

Combine and knead till good consistency - not too goopy
Form into Kebab's and pan fry 2min each side

Take a roti, put some lettuce, cucumbers, shredded carrots, basil leaves fresh. Put some green chili/mint chutney on roti, some spicy mayo (see below) and roll kebab in roti - yum!

Chicken Burgers
1lb ground chicken
1-2 table spoons Montreal steak seasoning
Kosher salt
Ginger, chili, garlic paste
crushed dry basil
(Edit on 7/5) forgot key ingredient: 1/2 sauteed onion

Form into burgers and pan fry
Get some Whole Foods hamburger buns (something really good about Whole Foods hotdog and hamburger buns) slather with the spicy mayo, slice of pepper jack or any cheese, lettuce, tomato, cucumber and burger - yum!

Spicy Mayo
Kraft Olive Oil mayo (4 heaping spoons)
Sirachi sauce (few squirts - to taste)
Brown mustard (2-3 drops)
Maggi Thai Sweet/Sour sauce (1/2 spoon)
Chili, Garlic, Ginger paste (1/2 spoon)
Toasted Sesame seeds
Blend all together

Mint/Chili chutney - buy from indian store (Wife makes better at home, but I don't have the recipe)