So far in our chocolate series, we’ve looked at the fruity heat of chilli and the piney fragrance of cardamom. This time, we will explore two more flavour pairs, the first of which shares a lot of similarities with chocolate and chocolate making. Compared to chocolate making, coffee making has fewer steps, and two of…
Tag: chocolate
Dark Liaisons : Cardamom
Last time, we commenced our series by exploring the 7 Liaisons of Chocolate with a bit of historical background, and the chilli-chocolate combination. This week, let’s move on to combination number two. “Like a puppeteer’s black velvet curtain, dark chocolate is the perfect smooth background for cardamom to show off its colors. Use the cardamom…
Dark Liaisons : Chilli
Chocolate is a universal favourite, from 5 year olds pointing at the huge bar of Dairy Milk at the store to the pseudo-intellectual “foodie” picking up notes of coffee, tobacco and 23-year old leather from a ridiculously expensive bar of 99 percent dark chocolate. There is a lot to be said about chocolate. I’ve decided…
The Pud Thickens (Part 3)
The Old and the New We’ve reached the final part of this interesting trilogy, a survey of thickening methods using five “puddings” as our guide. We’ve explored the phirni, the panna cotta and an array of baked custards. This time, we will look at two more desserts, one very old and another relatively new, which…
Baking 101 (Part 3)
So far, we’ve gone through the basics of baking equipment, along with some ingenious hacks of making whipping cream and cream cheese at home. This time, we talk about a trio of ingredients which don’t do well with compromise, ingredients you need to specially stock up for the baking pantry and without which you’d miss…
Baking 101 (Part 2)
In Part 1, I commenced my conversation with Nodee di with why baking excites both of us and then talked about ovens, especially how the microwave oven can be easily used to create amazing bakes. This time, we move into more equipment and ingredients… Utsav: Let’s move on to hardware, as Alton Brown from Good…
Baking 101 (Part 1)
The Gourmet Glutton turns 1 this week, which calls for something special, and this is a really special series. I’ve talked about Nodee Chowdhury on my blog before, the amateur baker with a penchant for healthy twists to decadent classics. Check out my Undercover Veggies article if you haven’t done so already. I decided to…
The Ottimo Odyssey (Part 2)
The tasting menu at Ottimo was an elaborate affair. In case you missed the first part, check it out here. Anyways, with the sorbet sorted and the palate cleansed, it’s time to move on. The next dish in line was a risotto of porcini mushroom and pancetta. This was definitely the lowest point of the…
The Gourmet Glutton 