I have a bad habit of trying different things when I go to a restaurant. Bad because, most of the time I make wrong choices from the menu (which I later don’t end up liking). I did the same thing at the very popular ‘ Panera bread ‘. Wrong choices a couple of times and we decided never to go again. But last week, I went there with my colleagues. I tasted a panini and loved it. Within a week I returned there to eat it again with V, that itself says how much I loved it.
Now, V wanted me to bake a bread at home. I have been baking a lot these days. I feel baking a bread is much easier once you get the hang of it. I love the freshly baked bread aroma. I know, everyone does. So I decided to bake a bread yesterday. I checked in panera bread website and found an olive bread recipe which looked interesting. Based on that, I baked this bread, with a few variations I wanted to make, to the original recipe.
I must say, this was one of the best breads I have ever baked. It was very easy as I did not spend much time to knead the dough. It got ready in about 2hrs – most of which was proofing time where I didn’t have to do anything. I used 2/3rd of the dough and have frozen the remaining for later use.
Check out tomato cheese panini .
Ingredients: 3 cups all purpose flour 1 and 3/4 cups water(approx) 1 tea spn honey 1/4 cup chopped olives 2 tea spns active dry yeast 1/4 tea spn red chilli flakes 1 tea spn salt 2 tbl spn butter
For brushing: 1 tbl spn butter Garlic salt (if not available, use fresh garlic chopped fine and normal salt) Dried basil
Method: Add salt and honey to luke warm water. Add yeast and leave it for 10mins to get active. Add all other ingredients. Mix and leave it in a warm place till the dough doubles in volume (It took approx 1hr for me). Now take the dough on a clean surface and knead dough for about 2-3mins. Shape it into desired size and keep on the baking tray (I lined a cookie sheet with a aluminum sheet and applied some olive oil to it). Leave it for another 30mins till they proof again. With a knife, put a cut on the dough. Preheat the oven at 450F for 10mins. Bake the bread for about 15mins. Take out and brush some butter on the bread. Sprinkle garlic salt and basil on top. Bake again for about 15mins. I served it with basil and olive oil mixture as it is done in my favorite Italian restaurant.
We have been trying to make fish a regular ingredient in our food, primarily due to it’s health-related benefits like rich protein, Omega-3 etc. So far, I have tried tilapia, catfish and salmon. (Those who don’t know about these fishes, please don’t ask for translation as I don’t know). For the first 2 years in US, I din’t have any courage to try any fish here. Whenever we tried any fish dishes in restaurants here, we didn’t get to like them. Coming from coastal India, where we always get very fresh fish, it was a bit of let down.
But finally I took that one step of trying a catfish. We liked it, so next time, we tried salmon. For the first few of times, we really loved it. But it is a very smelly fish, so we don’t like it in any Konkani dishes. Then one fine day, someone told V about tilapia. It does not have any smell at all. After we tried it once, now we are hooked to it. I use it for all Konkani fish curries and it comes pretty good.
This is something I cooked over the weekend. I had one fillet of tilapia left. It was a last minute fix, got ready in 15mins flat. I loved it :).
Ingredients: 1/4 lb tilapia 1 tbl spn coriander seeds 1 tea spn cumin seeds 2 tea spns chilli powder A pinch turmeric 1 tea spn chopped ginger 1 tea spn chopped garlic 1/4 tea spn tamarind extract Oil 10-12 curry leaves Salt
Method: Roast cumin seeds and coriander seeds. Make a paste of ginger, garlic, cumin, coriander, tamarind, turmeric, chilli powder, salt with very little water. Heat a little oil and fry the paste till the raw smell goes off. Now add 1/4 cup water, and add tilapia (cut into 2×2 inch pieces). Add the curry leaves cut into two. Cover and cook till done.
Serves : 1-2 Preparation time : 15mins
