An Dessert Sushi: A Healthy Eat

So I tried to make an Indian "healthy" version of a sushi.

To start with here is what I used:

1. Instead of seaweed, I used Betel Nut Leaf (wiki link). This leaf, I boiled, and then cooled. After which it looks like this:

2. Then instead of steamed rice, I used millets (wiki link) cooked in milk. For this I used millet and milk in the ratio of 1:2. To cook it, heat milk and bring it to a boil, wash and add the millet ( I used the Foxtail variant) to the hot milk. Simmer and let it slow cook. You should have your cooked millet in 15 minutes.

3. Instead of fish, I used freshly cut fruits and dates. I used bananas, papaya, and kiwi. It looked somewhat like this:

4. For the sauce, I used strawberries, that I blended.

To roll the sushi, spread out the betel leaf and spread the millet as shown:

And the finished product looks like this:

This is a healthy, sugar free dessert. When I say sugar free, I mean without artificial sugar. Only what's there in the fruit is what should satisfy that sweet tooth of yours.

*I invented this recipe, and hope that you copy it but, while giving me due credit!

Secret Food Destinations

Kebabs, those delightfully tasty oven cooked pieces of meat which makes any spicy meat lover from the Indian Subcontinent salivate, are some of the most abused and ill made dishes across different geographies.

In my travels around India, I was able to find only a handful of places which serve kebabs as we ought to have them.

Now let me clarify, that I haven't really been to many parts of India, just the metropolitan cities, but here are a few places where you might find something that you like.

The first place I'd like to talk about is Galinas, a small, nondescript shop on Gole Market near Karol Bagh, a place which a haven for all kebab fans. This place is at least about 50 years old. Has been making kebabs having the same taste for all this while. A must have delicacy here is the mutton seekh rolls. Covered in rumali rotis, served with a delicious mint chutney with onions and their special salt, these are kebab rolls to die for. All this at very affordable rates.

The secret to good kebabs I guess is the minced meat that goes into making the kebab, and the marinate which gives it their delicious taste.

When you bite into this kebab, the first thing that hits you is the neutral taste of the maida rumali roti, followed by the awesome taste of the garlic laced kebab, delicately cooked in a tandoor. Mixed with the mint sauce and onions with the unique seasoning salt makes it an experience of a lifetime.

Mysore Foods: Part 1

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think about Mysore?

Well here are a few options to get you going.

1. If you haven't heard about Mysore, you do a Wiki search. Well I have saved you the effort of typing Mysore on Google. And here is the wiki link.

2. You start thinking palace, gardens, old city, slow city.

3. You think about Infosys, which has the world's largest corporate training facility in this city.

Well I am not going to talk about any of that. I am simply going to talk about food.

What to eat when you are in Mysore.

If you have lived here as long as I have, you probably know of all the good and interesting places. A simple web search will give you the names of some of the more popular restaurants.

My objective here is to give you the names of places, where you would normally not visit if you are a tourist in the city.

In my opinion, these are the places that you absolutely MUST visit if you are an avid foodie and traveller.

1. Hotel RRR : Now this place from the outside looks quite nondescript. Simple restaurant, and something that you can easily miss. However let me tell you, this place is the best place for authentic Hyderabadi biriyani that you can hope to get anywhere in Mysore.

On an average, on weekends, during lunch hours, the waiting time to get into the restaurant is 20 minutes. The place is tightly run with service which is extremely fast. The seating enables about 40 people to eat at one go. No, you can't book a table. Also, if you are not comfortable with eating with complete strangers sitting right next to you, you might find the experience a little uncomfortable. However, if you are a sucker for Biriyani, this would not bother you one bit once the food arrives at your table.

The food is served on Banana Leaves. Traditional south-indian style. What often fascinates me at restaurants are the utterly pointless things at the table. In this case there is dried and salted chillies, spicy, really spicy, mango pickle, salt and pepper. 

Now to the real deal. 

The Biriyani. 

Now the rice is long grained basmati rice, of one of the finest qualities. You can smell the spices as soon as the food arrives on the table. You can smell an assortment of cardamom, cinnamon, bay leaves, cloves, bell pepper and curry leaves.

The rice is dry, but not so much so that you have to add gravy to it.

The secret to a good biriyani as I have often told my friends is the container it is cooked in. Traditional biriyani cooked in earthen pots have a distinct smell of burnt clay, which is missing in biriyani cooked in steel cookware. In this place, the biriyani is cooked in steel vessels.

As you put a morsel of this in your mouth, there is an explosion of flavors. You can taste the slightly sweet caramelized onions, the explosive and spicy chillies, the sublime and tender sourness of the curd which was used to marinate the chicken.

If I had to rate this biriyani out of all biriyanis I have had, its got to get a 3.5 out of 5.

Here is a link to the location of the place on Google Maps