Pesto Chicken

Hey guys, how are you all doing?

Its been quite a long since I wrote a blog. You see I recently got done with semester end exams. Now I’m back in Mumbai. Today I’ll be sharing this recipe that learned back in my first year where we used to prepare food for guests who would come to take interviews for campus placements. So we had people from Oberoi Group Of Hotels coming to take the interviews and we had to decide what menu to be planned. A colleague of mine came up with pesto chicken for lunch. At first we doubted whether they’ll like it or not but then we all agreed and gave it a shot.

It’s a simple recipe where we cook the boneless chicken in a salamander or a skillet in olive oil and then pour over a delicious creamy sauce prepared with pesto.

Here’s the recipe:

For the Pesto

INGREDIENTS

  • 2 cups fresh basil leaves (you can substitute half the basil leaves with baby spinach to mellow the flavor as basil gives a strong flavor)
  • 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
  • 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
  • 1/3 cup pine nuts (can substitute chopped walnuts or almonds)
  • 3 garlic cloves minced
  • 1/4 tsp salt,more to taste
  • 1/8 tsp freshly ground black pepper, more to taste
    • Special equipment: A mortar and a pestle

Chicken Marination

INGREDIENTS

  • 2 boneless chicken breasts
  • salt
  • ground pepper
  • 2 tsp basil pesto
  • 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

For the sauce

  • 1 tbsp all purpose flour
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 2 tbsp basil pesto
  • 1 cup fat free evaporated milk
  • salt to taste
  • freshly ground pepper, to taste
  • fresh parsley, for garnish

RECIPE

  1. Prepare pesto by adding all the ingredients (except olive oil) mentioned for pesto in a mortar. Grind using a pestle until a course mixture is formed.
  2. Add the olive oil slowly and simultaneously grind the ingredients with a pestle, keep pouring the olive oil.
  3. Grind until a smooth paste is formed. Your pesto is ready. (pesto tends to darken when exposed longer to air so it is better to store it in a plastic wrap in an air tight container).
  4. Now season the chicken breasts wit salt and pepper, and rub chicken with basil pesto. Marinate for 15-20 minutes.
  5. Heat oil in a a large nonstick skillet.
  6. Add the chicken to the skillet and cook for 5 minutes on each side, or until thoroughly cooked.
  7. Prepare the sauce by combining flour, garlic, basil pesto, evaporated milk, salt and pepper in a mixing cup or bowl.
  8. Whisk thoroughly until everything is combined.
  9. Check if the chicken is cooked or not, remove from the skillet if it is cooked.
  10. Place the chicken on a serving plate.
  11. Add little oil in the skillet and pour the sauce mixture, bring it to a boil .
  12. Pour the sauce on the chicken breast and garnish with parsley.
Pesto Chicken

The guests loved it.

Thank you 🙂

Chocolate and Coconut Half Moon Cookies

Who doesn’t love chocolate cookies and coconut cookies? It will be so cool if we get to eat it together in a single cookie. Guys I’m going to share my recipe for these super easy and delicious cookies. It’s a merge of a chocolate cookie and coconut cookie, and it looks like a half moon so I’ve named them Half moon cookies.

Here’s the full recipe recipe for the same:

Prep time: 40 mins

Total time: 1 hour

  • 250 gms butter (1 & 1/8 cups)
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla essence
  • 2 cups flour
  • 50 gm cocoa powder
  • 50 gm desiccated coconut
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1⁄2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup chocolate chips( or cut your favorite chocolate bar into small pieces).

Method:

Preheat the oven to 220° Celsius

For double chocolate cookie dough

  1. In a large bowl, mix together 125 gms butter with 1 cup sugar, whisk it until a creamier consistency.
  2. Add 1 egg and a teaspoon of vanilla essence.
  3. Blend in the cocoa powder and add 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda, salt and mix well.
  4. Add 1 cup flour into the creamy mixture and fold in the chocolate chips.
  5. The double chocolate chip cookie dough is ready, now keep it in a refrigerator

For coconut cookie dough

  1. Mix 1 cup flour with 1/2 tsp baking soda and salt.
  2. Take another bowl and whisk 125 grams butter and 1 cup sugar until the mixture turns light and fluffy. Add 1 egg and continue whisking.
  3. Add 2 drops of vanilla essence.
  4. Fold in the flour mixture and add the desiccated coconut.
  5. Keep this cookie dough in the refrigerator.

Merging the cookie doughs

  1. When both the doughs are chilled, remove them from the fridge and make small round balls of it.
  2. Combine two dough balls from each dough and merge them and press slightly so that they are glued enough nicely.
  3. The cookie should have a half dark brown colour and half creamy colour.
  4. Take a baking tray and place parchment paper on it.
  5. Allign the cookies on the tray and bake them at 180° Celsius for 10 to 12 minutes.
  6. Cool them on a rack and store in airtight containers.
  7. Finish them within a week. (I doubt that)

I made quite a large size of cookies and they were delicious, the coconut one melted in mouth whereas the other was super chocolaty and chewy.

Please try this recipe and let me know in the comments

Thank you 🙂

Molecular Gastronomy

#moleculargastronomy #foodscience

If you aren’t familiar with the term molecular gastronomy then spend some time watching a cooking channel or food network. You’ll definitely get a glimpse of our main topic. You could see chefs using liquid nitrogen (which apparently has uses far more interesting than dermatology) to make ice-cream or some edible dirt. These are few of the many wonderful techniques used to enhance the appearance of food. This is chemistry which might make you scratch your head. But in the following article I’ll try to demystify these secrets of molecular gastronomy.

What do you mean by Molecular Gastronomy?

Well, that’s hard to say. If you search in Wikipedia they’ll simply define it as “It is a subdiscipline of food science that seeks to investigate the physical and chemical transformations of ingredients that occur while cooking.” I don’t agree with that. If that was the case then the first caveman who figured out how to cook a meat was a molecular gastronomist. I believe that any person who’s ever made a mistake while cooking and has attempted to correct it is a molecular gastronomist. Science is all about finding a solution to a problem and cooking solves all problem by making an ingredient more palatable than in its previous state. Like any other – onomy this is a study. We use science to understand what’s going on when the food cooks. The scientists wanted to know why food behaves the way it does. Making caviar out of coffee to put on a sundae, that is not molecule gastronomy it’s just molecular cooking. On the other hand, explaining why food transforms the way it does that is molecular gastronomy.

Now that we have established that what we see on TV is just “molecular cooking” rather than gastronomy, let’s talk about examples of molecular cooking applications. A good molecular cook puts emphasis to amp up all the sensory experience in all-fronts especially the most important texture. I think the coolest thing about the mouth is that it can taste and touch. (texture is just your mouth touching food). The most basic textures of food are solid, liquid and gases. When these three intertwine, they make your mouth happy. (Gases are quite tough to pull in the kitchen but with some effort you ca taste gas as well)

Setting the stage with gas

Though smoke is a mix of gas and solids, I’m calling it a gas. Having a lamb in dinner? Gas your house with rosemary to set the stage. Smoke some frozen strawberries to sweeten the air for dessert. (Imagine if movie theaters didn’t smell like popcorns). Try walking with a pan of smoked garlic in your restaurant before service. It cozies up an otherwise spare and chilly restaurant. You’d be very surprised at how an aroma can change the feel of space and impact people’s sensory experiences.

Solids liquids and everything in between

You see any molecular based food on TV, it’s basically conversion of solid into liquid or vice versa. This is the space where the bulk techniques exist. Since most liquids are largely composed of water, our normal methods for turning liquids into solids gets limited (to wit: freezing). But when you introduce hydrocolloids (Whoa what’s this?) into liquids, these help the liquid to transform into solid or semi-solid. They are composed of hydrophilic (water loving) polymers, which somehow cause the water molecules to stop moving and form a solid (in layman’s terms).

Can you use hydrocolloids in kitchen?

It’s very simple. You probably have it in your kitchen: cornstarch. It’s thickening power is twice than flour and can turn a boring liquid into delicious thick sauce or a milk into your favorite custard. (Well unless you don’t add eggs, it’s not a custard). Keep in mind that cornstarch is thermo-irreversible i.e. once your mixture heats up it will never go back to it’s original state. Also, strong acids lower its ability to function. So don’t try making an eggless lemon custard. You’ll need a kitchen scale to use hydrocolloids. Most of the recipes given on internet are done on a weigh percentage scale.

Gelatin. Oh the possibilities!

Next one is gelatin. It tolerates alcohol uniquely and is thermo-reversible means it can melt. If you make the ingredients of Ceaser Salad by dressing into gelatin cube and then serving it on hot lettuce, the salad “prepares itself” tableside.

For boozy appetizers, make wine cubes and put on crackers with cream cheese and salmon.

(Pineapple and kiwi have weird enzynes that eat the gelatin).

Foams aka eating air

Gelatin can also let us eat air. Well, kinda. By adding a little gelatin to increase the viscosity of a generally non-whipping mixture, we can charge the liquid with nitrous oxide and make and edible cloud. Whipping results in entrapment of gas, because if connection between water and gelatin. Encapsulated air is just a bubble, and lots of bubbles form foam. Foam is texture filled with flavor that dissolves in mouth. Next time you’re drizzling a sauce on a plate, get some gelatin and cream and foam it up an otherwise boring dish.

And then came Agar.

Agar is derived from seaweed. It’s a hydrocolloid and readily available in health food stores. While gelatin takes longer to set and quicker to melt, agar is quicker to set and stays like that for a longer time. It’s so easy to use. It’s less wobbly so it can be cut into cubes, triangles, squares or even noodles.

The secret behind those spheres

There’s another hydrocolloid that deserves mention: sodium alginate, which gels whe combined with calcium. It can be used in making spheres, which is a process of turning liquids into shapes that resemble a caviar (i.e. liquid encased in a sphere shaped membrane, with the help of calcium infused water).

I was doing my training in ITC Grand Central’s Garde manger kitchen. There I made a blackcurrant flavored artificial caviar. We used it to decorate a famous Gujarati dish Khandvi with a twist, instead of rolling the khandvi like a swiss roll, we simply made it a square canvas.

Weirdest of all hydrocolloids

Methylcellulose turn solids into liquids. Methyl forms solid at high temperature and liquid at low temperature. This is totally the opposite that we’ve learned so far isn’t it? With Methylcellulose you can make an ice-cream base, wrap it in plastic and poach it in hot water and serve it on top of cold apple pie. Ice cream is hot, mind is blown.

Edible dirt

Let me introduce you to “dirts”. Dirt is a gross thing to eat, but imagine if your perfectly poached eggs mounted on top of bacon-dripping dirt. Dirts are liquid turned into powdery, crumbly solids. This is done with fats and maltodextrin, which you may find on the ingredients of lots of processed foods.
The process is simple, blend maltodextrin with your favorite fat (olive oil, coconut milk, bacon fat, etc) and watch it turn into dirt. Now you can make shrimp coated with curried coconut milk dirt or even bacon dusted doughnuts.
Thankyou maltodextrin for being the crumbling chemical you are.

-Surabhi Kanade

Tossed Vegetables Recipe

Hello friends,

It is my first blog and I’m very excited. I’m going to share a recipe with you that I learned in my college (I study hotel management).

ACCOMPANIMENT IN COOKING

It’s simple a side dish which you love to have with a main course like mashed potatoes or any vegetable preparation. All they do is just accompany their “masters”. The masters eat the cake, and you won’t even remember what the side dish was.

But you know what, side dishes are packed with nutrients. They’re always healthy. You know veggies right? So that’s what I’m going to teach you today.

The following recipe is for 2 servings.

How to make the simplest Tossed Vegetables?

All you need is

  1. 1 cup broccoli florets
  2. 1 cup yellow and green bell peppers (mixed)
  3. 1 cup white button mushrooms
  4. 20 g butter
  5. 2 tsp Mixed herbs (or as you like it)
  6. 1 tsp chilli flakes
  7. Balsamic vinegar (optional)
  8. Salt as required

RECIPE

  • Melt the butter in a pan, sauté broccoli then add bell peppers.
  • Sauté them for a while, then a splash of balsamic vinegar, mixed herbs, chilli flakes and toss on a medium flame.
  • Add the mushrooms and salt. Pour some more butter if you want.
  • Serve it.

Okay so this was it. I hope you liked it. I took these pictures in my basic training kitchen in my first year where I learned about french cuisine. These are from 2018 and now I’m almost finished with my second year. This year I learned a lot about Indian cuisine, I’m going to share it with you all soon.

You gotta try this recipe it’s very easy to make and you can make so many variations to it. I know there are lot of teens who wanna start some cooking. Why don’t you try this recipe to impress you friends or family?

Please don’t forget to share my page.

Thankyou!