Black Chicken with Red Grape Sauce

         If you study the general dining statistics at our home, you will find out that we have Asian dishes two or three times a week – not only because sometimes I feel like deviating from traditional continental flavours but because I really enjoy Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese and Thai cuisines. And, strange as it may sound, I feel quite comfortable working with Asian ingredients. Sometimes I don’t even need a recipe for making, let’s say, a stir fry – I simply take a range of bottles with sauces and condiments out of the fridge and start to mix them to develop a flavour. And it’s not so difficult for me to get the right balance of the dish relying only on my instincts, not on cookbooks. Yet, I have a couple of tested recipes that I stick to. One of them is chicken in soy and honey marinade served with red grape sauce. To say true, it’s a bit more complicated than an average Asian dish. But it’s worth all the efforts (all those not-so-massive efforts to make the sauce). So, whenever I discover that the grapes in the fridge are a bit overripe, it comes the time of black chicken. One more point to “the Asian dishes” section for our home dining statistics!

Corn and Ricotta Cakes

        I love those mornings when you don’t have to wake up early (well, who doesn’t like them?). If it’s a weekend morning, I really don’t mind getting into the kitchen and cooking something special. But if it’s one of the weekdays (yes, I’m lucky enough to have an opportunity to sleep late in the middle of the week) I feel somehow lazy to prepare a complicated breakfast – and usually I don’t have to, since I cook something in the evening so that that the following day my husband (who still has to face a necessity of being waken up by an alarm clock) can just pop a plate into a microwave oven before he heads to work. Of course, I normally make two place of something nice – the second one being meant for me, so in the morning I can bother only with making a cup of coffee. One of my favourite options of such premade breakfasts is corn and ricotta fritters. As I’m making them a day before, I’m salivating. I look forward to the next morning when after a few rounds of suria namaskar and a refreshing shower afterwards I award myself with this treat. What a great start of a day!

Duo of Lime Pies

         As it gets colder in Kolkata some of the winter vegetables start to appear at street vendors. Our last visit to the market resulted in buying a huge bag of tangerines – big and flavourful, with a thin skin that cracks slightly as you push your fingers through it, impatient to reach the bright and juicy flesh… On getting home I realized that sweet limes that we had in the fridge looked too pale and unappealing in comparison with those tangerines. It was time to start a rescue campaign for the unlucky fruit. I decided to combine French and American classic dishes (lemon meringue and key lime pies) and to cook my sweet lime meringue pie. Only as I got my limes zested and juiced did I tell my husband about my intentions – and guess what? He felt enthusiastic about a lime pie but he actually wanted another kind of it – a simple traditional pie his mother used to cook. So, I had to make two pies (fortunately, there were lots of limes in the fridge); the first one went to the office while the second one stayed at home. In the long run, everyone was happy and the mission of saving the limes from being neglected was successfully complete!

Asparagus and Olives Stuffed Chicken Breast

         

         When I feel like cooking something simple yet impressive, I choose stuffed chicken breasts. One may argue that it’s not that easy to roll breasts perfectly: not too loose so that the filling can’t “find its way outside” during the cooking process and not too tight so that it doesn’t “spring out” of the breast at the stage of rolling. Believe me, it’s just a matter of practice to get this fancy type of a dish right. Once you learn it you’ll be able to make versatile options of it as the amount of possible fillings is limited only by your imagination, a range of cooking methods – only by your kitchen skills and the diversity of sauces – only by your personal preferences.

            Let me tell you, the first stuffed chicken breast I cooked in my life was this one – with olives, asparagus and cheese. Since then I’ve tried all sorts of fillings: mushrooms (a classic combination – you can never go wrong with it), pistachio butter (a lovely cold entrée with red pepper sauce) and even pear and couscous (unexpectedly nice balance of flavours), to name a few. In general, it’s not a difficult dish to master and the final result is always worth the efforts!

Banana Walnut Tart

      
          If you ask my mum what was my favourite fruit in the childhood, she would be quick to give you an answer: banana! Yes, I was a banana-obsessed child. Nowadays, however, I feel rather indifferent to it – probably, I’ve had too much of it (there is a theory that you can consume only a definite amount of a particular edible substance and once you reach your limit, you can’t see it for the rest of your life) or finally realized that it is a rather rich fruit to snack on constantly. In spite of that, you can always find a big bunch of bananas in our fridge – for my husband’s late evening fruit salad and for my early morning oatmeal (yes, I still have this fruit sometimes – haven’t reached my limit yet, only slowed down the pace). And the only problem with the bananas (they ripe fast) is easily soluble – you can make stuffed French toasts, pancakes, muffins, a coffee cake or even a banana bread. Last time I got overriped bananas, I decided to go for a tart with caramelized honey and walnut topping. Luckily, I had some home-made ice-cream at the time which served as a lovely accomplishment to the dessert.

Fish “Braid” with Red and Green Pesto

As I was once looking through a cooking magazine, I got mesmerized by a photo of a very spectacular dish – a three-coloured fish “braid”. I desperately wanted to have an opportunity to enjoy the look of it on my plate at home but I had a few obstacles to overcome. First, the recipe called for using salmon, halibut and zander and since not all of these types are available here it meant that I would have to go to a market in search of three fish with different shades of a flesh. That didn’t seem like a very big problem. But had I found all the types, I would instantly have faced the second – more insurmountable – problem: I would have had to fillet it! Let me make a confession here: being not ultimately perfect at knife work (I guess I need a good course of it under a strict and uncompromising supervision) I’m especially not very good at filleting a fish (the word “massacring” seems more appropriate here).

So, I was obsessed with the idea of cooking this dish for a while but I had to figure it out how to get the same spectacular result (as on that picture from the magazine) but in a more suitable for me way. Eventually I got the solution – I decided to “colour” a plain white fish with green and red pesto. To say true, I generally love fish baked with pesto and it has always been a no-fuss-yet-delicious dinner option in our house, so I knew that the flavours of the dish would be awesome. And they really were! And, most importantly, it was a great pleasure not only for the palate but for the eyes as well!

“Olga” – Inspired Gateau

       

            There’s a cake with a wonderful female name Olga. It consists of two layers of an apple cake which embrace the filling – cherry jam, marshmallow and whipped cream; the cake is covered with melted chocolate and decorated with cherries. I remembered about it as I rummaged through my home pantry and discovered a box of marshmallows. Yum! I instantly felt like opening it and grabbing a piece of a light and spongy treat. The problem is, if you don’t finish the whole box straight away (which, I figured out, would be an impossible task even if I recruited my husband as an assistant in accomplishing it) the marshmallow pretty soon becomes unpleasant to eat. So, I’ve made a decision to disguise it in a cake and recruit half of the office as assistants for finishing it the same day (believe me, it’s easier to talk people into eating a good-looking cake rather than a box of plain marshmallows). So, the cake was made (with some not-so-little derivations from the original recipe), decorated (to make it more appealing than a carton box of marshmallows) and – eaten the same day. There was only one question left to be sold – how should I name this cake now? Ann? Helene? Or probably Mary?