Meeting at Albert Heijn

Jan 26, Republic day, We all met at Albert Heijn in Gelderlandplein because that is open till 10 pm in the evening . This was our first meet outside the regular home meetings. Aim of this meet was to introduce members to the various goodies we get at Albert Heijn based on one's own experience. It was also aimed to clarify doubts about a particular food item, if any.

Prince, Ashwini & Fakhruddin did not participate. Sarang is still in India.

We roamed around for amost 1.5 hrs but could not visit some sections for lack of time. In particular no discussion happened for - Breads, Frozen stuff, eggs & ice cream. The rest of AH was pretty much covered with good information sharing. Dhwani and Chirag are now OK with the cheese and I have learnt about some interesting salads. Others have learnt about the various potato and cheese types. Members now know what 48+ on a cheese packet means. Ritu/Dhwani have been introduced to the Italian tapenede & pesto as nice spreads when making a sandwich.

In all the discussion, following was the verdict of the members:

• Cool Best - Mango Dream is a very nice juice
• Courgette or Zucchini can be prepared just like lauki
• Caesar and Greek salads are very nice
• Johma Komkomer bread spread/salad is not very nice.
• Dutch aardappel salad is worth a try
• Coleslaw on its own is not very good
• These chips should not be missed out - Super chips HOT, Super Chips - Heinz Tomato Ketchup, Super Chips -Spare ribs, AH Corn Tortillas, Doritos - Geen Style
• Non alcolic beverages (Fizzy) - Fernandes - Green Punch & Pineapple
• Non alcolic beverages (Non-Fizzy) - Limondaine - Orange & Lemon
• Light alcoholic - Shandy (0..5% alc. v/v)
• Using Roomboter, Ghee can be prepared at home
• Duyvis - Drp Roasted & Baked pindas or peanuts taste divine
• Bolletje Pinda & Kaas Pepsels are an interesting party snack
• Heinz sandwich spreads are a great variation for sandwich lovers. The Komkomer variety is not very nice. Rest all flavors are pretty OK.
  

If you have not tried any or some of the above, make a note to pick at least one in your next visit to AH. Happy shopping.

Oriental Noodle Soup

A spicy soup with lots of vegetables.Lemon rind adds flavour to it and noodles make it a substantial soup!!




Ingredients

1.Oil 11/2 tbsp
2.Garlic 3 flakes chopped
3.Mushrooms 6 sliced and then finely chopped.
4.Carrot 1 grated.
5.Green capsicum 1/2 fine chopped
6.Spinach leaves fine chopped
7.Tomato puree 3 tbsps.
8.Whole red dried chillies -deseeded and broken into small pieces.
9.Noodles -30 gms boiled.
10.Salt and pepper to taste
11. Rind of one lemon
12. Chilly Sauce 2 tsps.
13.Vinegar 11/2 tbsps



Preparation

1)Prepare the lemon rind by grating a firm whole lemon without applying too much pressure.Grate only the yellow/green skin and not the white bitter pith beneath the yellow/green skin.Keep this aside.

2) Boil the noodles and keep aside.

3)In a pan heat the oil and saute the chopped garlic for 1/2 minute.

4)Add the chopped mushrooms,capsicum and the grated carrot and stir fry for 1 minute.

5)Add the tomato puree and red chilles and stir for 1/2.

6)Add 4 cups of water and bring the soup to boil. Add the noodles and further cook for about a minute.

7)Add salt,pepper, lemon rind, chilli sauce and vinegar.

8)Add the finally shredded spinach and simmer for a minute.Serve hot.

Variations

You can use cabbage, broccoli alongwith the other vegetables.
You can also use chicken to make this soup. But chicken has to be shreddded and cooked before adding to the soup alongwith the other vegetables.


Gotchas

The soup should be had immediately else the noodles will become very soft.

Pineapple Souffle

Indulge yourself with this popular souffle!



Ingredients

1.Condensed milk 1 tin
2.Tinned pineapple-2 tins
3.China Grass(Agar Agar)-20gms
4.Lemon juice -6 tsps
5.Cream 450 ml
6. Pinapple essence -3 tsp
7. Few drops of yellow colour
8. Few cherries for decoration
9. Sugar -1/2 cup



Preparation

1)Beat the condensed milk till light.

2)Chop all the pinapple pieces.

3)Take 2 cups of pinapple syrup from the tin and and add 1 cup water to it(Add some sugar to the syrup if it is very sour). Boil this mixture on low heat and keep this covered .

4)Put china grass in a pan and add 21/2 cups of water to it and keep aside for 5 minutes.Heat it on low flame stirring well till it dissloves.


5)Add the hot china grass solution to the hot pineapple syrup and stir well.

6)Now add the condensed milk ,pineapple pieces and lemon juice to the above mixture , mix well and keep aside till it cools down to room temperature.

7)Beat 400 gms cream well alongwith the sugar till it becomes slightly thick.Add this cream to the condensed milk mixture.

8)Add essence and colour and mix well.

9)Pour in a serving dish and refrigerate for six hours.

10)Whip the remaining 50 gms of cream till soft peaks are formed.Use this to decorate the souffle alongwith cherries.

Variations

Instead of using the china grass you can use gelatine in the same proportion.

Gotchas

The China Grass mixture should always be added to a warm dessert mixture else it will set as tiny rubber like pieces and will not blend well with the dessert mixture and hence the dessert will not set properly

Chinese special

Jan 21, We were all set to try Chinese recipes instead of the regular indian ones. This meeting also saw 2 of the members come for a home meeting for the first time - Fakhruddin & Prince. It was almost a full house with the only member missing being Sarang, who by the way is off to India for his marriage. OK, menu for this meeting was:

• Oriental Noodle soup (Pooja)
• Stir fried vegetable rice (Prakash)
• Bami (Indonesian Noodles) (Ritu)
• Pineapple soufle (Pooja)

The cooking started an hour later than planned because some members could not make it on time. We have hence decided that now on we wait only for 15 minutes beyond the scheduled time and 30 minutes on a day having bad weather [Like rain/strong winds/Too much sun ;) ].

During this first hour I had all the members taste a South Indian snack - Murukku - that I had prepared a couple of days back. All appreciated it and some asked when it would be taught. The recipe of murukku will be posted soon.

Pooja started with showing us how to make soup. There was one interesting ingredient that caught the attention of many - Lime rind. On checking this, the bowl containing this was dropped and Aditya had to get some more Lime rind. Meanwhile I also managed to topple over a plate full of veges! Oh! my ... what a start. We anyhow managed to get started and the soup was ready in no time.

We all enjoyed it and the stage was then set for me to showcase my recipe - Stir Fried vegetable rice. Since all veges were already cut, I quickly got started after donning my Chef avtar. It started with Ginger Garlic sputtering in the hot oil and ended soon as the finished dish. The dish was appreciated. Since there was enough raw ingredients for the recipe, Ashwini & Prince gave it a try with 2 more rounds of Stir Fried vegetable rice.

After some club discussion we started off with Ritu getting ready for the Bami. Fakhruddin left after having an early round of the dessert. He had an engagement elsewhere. Bami is a noodle dish that comes from Indonesia. Ritu started with frying the veg mix in butter, followed by the bami spices and noodles. It was a quick dish. We all had it and remembered the good old Maggi Masala noodles. The dish tasted somewhat like it.

Till now we were all quite full and it was almost 4 hrs since the meeting started. We decided to enjoy the dessert that was prepared for it takes quite some time to make. The soufle was finished in no time. Everybody liked it very much. Pooja explained the recipe and some folks vouched to try it themselves.

With that it was time to leave. Another successful meeting with a perfect end.

TIP: Hottest thing on Earth

OK, may be there are hotter things on our dear planet, but this pepper, that is the subject of this tip, is too hot to handle by chilli loving Indians too. The small green chillies that are supposed to be the-hottest stand nowhere close. This pepper is called Ajuma (can also be spelled Adjoema in Dutch) and comes from Suriname.

The Surinamese population in Holland are the only consumers of this pepper. Adjoema looks like bell pepper and may easily be taken for a small Shimla mirch. It comes in Yellow, Red, Orange and Light Green colors, however I do not know how they are different. The below picture shows red and yellow ajumas.



As green chillies have a very nice flavor, Ajumas too have a flavor. Of what I have experience, the flavor is not very nice and may not appeal to Indians. A couple of Ajumas may overpower a curry with their flavor in addition to making the curry exceptionally hot.

Ajumas can be purchased from Turkish/Surinamese stores and in some cases also super markets. They cosy anything between € 10-15 per kilo depending on the quality and freshness. Green chillies on the other hand range from € 6-9 per kilo.

Do give it a try.

Update: I found out lately that these peppers are also known as Madame Jeanette!

Update2: (Taken from wikipedia)
The substances that gives chili peppers their intensity when ingested or applied topically is
capsaicin (8-methyl-N-vanillyl-6-nonenamide) and several related chemicals, collectively called
capsaicinoids. Capsaicin is the primary ingredient in pepper spray. The "heat" of chili peppers is
measured in Scoville units (SHU). Bell peppers rank at 0 (SHU), New Mexico green chilis at about 1,500 SHU, jalapeños at 3,000–6,000 SHU, and habaneros at 300,000 SHU. The record for the hottest chili pepper was assigned by the Guinness Book of Records to the Naga Jolokia, measuring over 1,000,000 SHU.

I wish knew how to cook this

This is a single thread that will hold requests from club members about what they wish to learn and also what they would like to teach the group.

Member, Will teach, Wants to learn
Ashwini, Bread Upma (Style 2), Continental dishes
Aditya, Quick pasta salad, Honey sesame chinese chicken
Pooja, Oriental Noodle soup, All sorts of desserts
Ritu, Moong Dal Vada, Tandoori Vegetarian dishes
Prakash, Stir fried vegetable rice, Fried Chicken (KFC style)
Vandana, Samosas, Thai curry (preferably green)
Prince, Chettinadu chicken, ??

The Kachori surprise

OK, another meeting ... this time with a handsome attendance happened at Dhwani's place. This was on the 7th day of the year 2007 and was a lunch meet. We all attended the meeting except for Sarang - who was sick, Fakhruddin - who just arrived from India and hence could not get the details on time, and Prince - who was enjoying his vacations with his family in India.

Sarang was supposed to teach Paneer Tikka Masala in this session but unfortunately because he was not feeling well, he was excused. Aditya took up this last minute change by substituting Sarang's dish with Karnataka curd rice. So, the finalized menu for the day was:

• Bread Upma as the starter
• Karnataka Curd Rice & Dal Kachori as the main dishes
• Fresh-N-Fruit cream as the dessert

Now before I describe what happened, let me tell you something about the dish Dal-Kachori. This Kachori thing was a bit of a surprise because it was very different from the kachori or kachaudi that we have in the Northern part of India. The dish was very different with a unique combination of minty aloo bonda with spicy dal mixed with onions and a couple of chutneys. This was prepared by the host Dhwani who had actually pre-prepared it!!! The purpose of home meetings is to actually see the person demonstrate the recipe in front of us, so that was a bummer. Anyhow, not everybody is informed.

Since the Dal Kachori was pre-prepared, we started off with Aditya showing us how to make Karnataka curd rice. Curd rice is consumed pretty regularly (sometimes on a daily basis) in the south part of India. However, all the 4 southern states have their own versions of curd rice. The one Aditya taught us was a more spiced up version of the curd rice that comes from the state of Karnataka. Aditya got all stuff cut nicely arranged and cut from house that saved time. Once made, the curd rice was cooled for later consumption.

The kitchen was now free for me to demonstrate the starter - bread upma. The dish was demonstrated in completeness from start till comsumption :) It was well appreciated with Aditya telling that they were aware of a similar version and Ashwini informing of a completely different way of making a dish that involved defacing bread slices in a similar way. We would schedule this second way of making bread upma in a later session.

Ritu had come all prepared with a variety of fruits for her fruit cream recipe. It took considerable time to cut all the fruits. In the mean time cream and sugar were being introduced to each other who seemed to enjoy each others company. Once the fruits were all cut, Ritu completed the demonstration but informing about the other ingredients and in what proportions they went into making the dessert. The fruit cream then joined the curd rice in the fridge as it is best consumed cold.

With all the demos over, it was time to enjoy the main dishes. We started off with dal-kachori to be followed by curd rice. It was ample delicious food to be topped up with the cold fruit cream. Everybody was pretty full and thoroughly enjoyed the gathering.

Just before leaving we finalized on the next meeting date and discussed the club rules. The club rules have been simplified and finalized to everybody's delight. Accounts were settled and the suggestion to pre-populate the club kitty for a month was given. We would be implementing this in our next club meet. I also shared the Ajuma tip along with Ajumas :) with everybody. Everybody was given 2 Ajumas (A red and a yellow one) to take home and give it a try.

So that was it. Another meeting successfully completed with members to take home 4 new recipes.

Fresh-N-Fruit Cream

Desserts come in all shapes and forms while cream plays an important role in mostly all of them, so whether its an icecream or custard, you would cream smiling proudly there. This cream becomes more happy when it gets assistance with fruits. The cream interestingly gives different taste depending on its thickness. The cream which is required for this particular dessert with various kind of tropical fruits is ought to be thick. The USP of this dessert is it hardly takes any time to prepare it if you have ample number of fruits with sugar along with the cream.



Ingredients :

Albert Heijn's Creme Fraiche (Cream Fresh) [ or equivalent thick fresh cream] - 1 pack [3-4 people]




Sugar - as required
Dry fruits - mixture of almonds and pistachio cut in small pieces
Tropical fruits like grapes,orange,apple,pineapple,banana [fresh or tin packed] cut in small pieces
Cherries - for decoration
Essence - Vanilla or pineapple (1 tbsp)



Method

Mix sugar in cream and beat it till sugar gets properly dissolve in it and then mix all the cut fruits along with essence. Hence, garnish the cream with dry fruits and finally decorate it with cherries. So simple, isn't it !!!

Fried Fish

So ... who is a fish lover out here? Even if not, give this a try. The machhli ke pakode or fish pakoda has lots of cousins in Holland. It's deep fried fish with a little flour coating. This is available in various forms (supposedly different fishes) but the best is the nugget sized fried fish.

I don't think so this would be available in restaurants but can be readily had in any Open Market. There are several around. Of what I know we have open markets in Amsterdam and sub-urbs at the following places:

• Albert Cuypstraat (Everyday)
• Bijlmer (Mondays & Thursdays)
• Amstelveen Binnenhof (Fridays)

I have never visited the Amstelveen open market so am not sure whether there is a shop selling fried fish in the open market. If someone can confirm that it would be great.

One can buy this nugget sized fried fish (We are really missing a photo here, aren't we) for any amount. I generally prefer for €2 which is sufficient as a quick snack. You can additionally buy some sauce with this but I do not recommend it. Some shops have a kind of masala (which is paprika and salt mixture I believe) that you can sprinkle on the fish for a stronger taste.

This fried fish has no smell, so if you do not eat fish because the smell, give this a try. If you a fish lover, you are really missing something.

Chicken Biryani

This is mouglai dish. There are many ways of cooking it but i feel the layered one comes out really good. It needs lots of patience and time but the outcome is really lovely.

Ingridients:
1 Kg good Basmati rice.
1 kg Chicken (can add more)
8-10 Onions
1Table spoon ginger-garlic paste.
1tsp turmeric
kashmari mirch powder for colour
salt
Ghee
Cooking oil
mint leaves ,corriender leaves.
yogurt
potetoewadges,
kaju 10-12 in halves

for biryani masala
tamal patra 3-4
blackcardimom 2
green cardimom 6-8
cloves 8-10
black pepper 20-25
dalchini 2 inch

procedure:

1.Clean and cut chicken add ginger garlic paste,turmeric powder ,mint pasteand yogurt (can add some green chilli paste to make it more spicey). keep in refridgerator for atleast 6 hrs.
2.wash rice and boil with equval quantity of water. as soon as the steam goes seperate the rice in a big thali and let it cool
3.cut 2 onions in long strings and keep seperate.remaning onins chop finely.

4(a)heat the oil in pan and fry onions stings only till dark brown remove from flame and set aside.now in same oilfry potetoes,kaju and finallybiryani masala each item seperatelly and grid till fine powder set aside.
4(b) ligtekly roast saffron and mix in half cup milk.
5.now in the same pan add some more oil and fry choped onions till soft now roast with chilli powder and add tomatoe puree. now as the oil starts leaving greavy add chicken and cook till half done. the yogurt will leave water and chicken willhave some gravy we need this .
6.now we have to start puting layers.
in a thick bottom vessel set some rice add chicken with gravy now add one more layer of rice over it add biryani masala, soffron milk ,ghee,kaju, corrinder,potatoes and keep making layers .Now finally keep the vessel on very low flame till the rice is done and u get really good aroma.Remember to keep the lid tightly closed and do not open frequently.

To increase the aroma of biryani heat a peace of charcoal ,when red hot put in a katori place the katori on top of rice and pour a spoon of ghee and close the lid immediatly and keep some heavy thing on the top so the steam will not leavethe vessel.
Searve the biryani with onoin tomato raita.

First home meeting

After 2 meetings at the office, December 22, 2006 saw the group meet at Ashwini's place for live recipe demos. Unfortunately only 4 other members could make it because of the holiday season and otherwise.

It was a dinner meet and menu for the evening was:

• Chana Kababs
• Chicken Biryani
• Fried Rice
  
• Orange Cream

We skipped Fried Rice because of the low attendance. This recipe would be taught later in another meet. This recipe was finally taught in this session.

The Chana Kebabs had been already prepared by Pooja at her place because there was not sufficient time for demonstrating all recipes. They were delicious and tasted very nice. The recipe is simple (simple things are good) and has already been posted. Its a great starter for all vegetarians and non-vegetarians.

While we were enjoying the Kebabs, Ashwini started with the Biryani demo. The Chicken had already been marinated and rice cooked to save time. The recipe was elaborate with many ingredients following a layered approach to the final dish :) We made 2 pan fulls of Biryani. The Biryani turned out to be so delicious and aromatic that it has been the best non-restaurant Biryani I ever had. I believe it was as good as the best Birayanis one gets at a restaurant. Thanks Ashwini for the effort. The recipe will be posted shortly.

We then had me teaching Orange Cream, which again is a simple recipe (Simple things are good). Unfortunately the cream could not freeze in the time we had but still people appreciated the dessert. I learned a couple of things, with Aditya suggesting to put smaller pieces of Orange in the cream. I have improved the recipe with a couple of more experimentation I did in the following days. Check out the recipe.

We did not discuss much of the food club activities as majority folks were not there. We now have some club rules that we will finalize in our next meet to streamline this process.

Wada Pav

This is most lovely snack. Favourite amongs mumbaites. It is full of carbohydrates, stomatch filling recipe.

Ingredients

1 cup Besan
6-7 Potatoes
1 tsp Ginger garlic paste
Curry leaves, mustard seeds, hing, green chilies & turmeric for tadka
1 tsp dhana-zeera powder
Red chilli powder to taste
Green coriander leaves
Salt to taste
Pav
Oil to fry

Preparation

[1] Boil potatoes. Mash them and mix green coriander in them. Now give tadka and add salt.

[2] Make lemon sized balls of this potato mixture.

[3] Mix besan, dhana-zeera powder, salt and chilli powder. Make a thick paste by adding water.

[4] Heat the oil in a kadhai.

[5] Dip potato balls in the paste and fry till golden brown.

[6] Enjoy with pav and lasan chutney or tomato ketchup.

Gotchas

It is very easly to get the besan mix thin. Add water carefully. The paste should be thick enough so that a nice coating is achieved.

Orange Cream

This is a very simple dessert that is so easy to prepare and at the same time tastes great. It's plain fruit and cream mixed with sugar. Some may know this recipe as fruit cream, but this recipe is based on orange :) and has a little variation to suit this fruit, hence the name. Let's get started

Ingredients
You would be needing:
2 cans of peeled orange (see figure)
250 ml cream [known as Slagroom in Dutch]
A pinch of orange food color
70 gms of basterd suger (This may vary depending on your taste.)


Preparation
[1] Mix the orange color with little water in a bowl. Keep it separate.



[2] Mix cream and sugar in a clean odourless vessel.


[3] Add prepared orange color and oranges (Same some for garnishing) to the cream & sugar mixture. Mix lightly.


[4] Keep the vessel with lid in the freezer till frozen and then defreeze in fridge for the cream to thicken. This cycle will take atleast 8 hrs.


[5] Serve in a glass bowl garnished with orange parts.



Variations
As mentioned earlier, this a specialized version of the fruit cream recipe. One can vary this but adding other types of fruits. One of variations I tried was with summer fruits that are readily available in frozen form in Albert Heijn. I used a little red color to go with the fruits. Check out a picture of the zomerfruit-cream below.



Gotchas

• Always use a clean vessel without any odour to make this recipe. Cream readily absorbs smell from the refrigerator as well, so keep in in a container with a lid on top.
  
• Do not mix the sugar in the cream vigorously as this may cause the cream to turn into butter.
  
• The cream you get in India is very thick and so some milk needs to be added to it. In contrast the cream we get in Holland is actually too thin for this recipe and hence we resort to the freeze-de-freeze cycle to make it thicker.

Notes

• This dessert is high on calories and hence is not recommended for folks on a diet.
• Use small bits of orange to go into the cream and full orange parts for garnishing. Smaller broken orange parts blend better and provide a richer taste.
• Basterd sugar has a very fine grain and is easier to dissolve in the cream. This is preferred over powdered sugar as powdered sugar can form lumps in the cream. To avoid lumps, one can always first dissolve the powdered sugar in little water and then add this to the cream. Use whatever suits you best.
• I have used dry food color. You may be having liquid food color in which case step [1] of preparation can be skipped.