Simple Pleasures : A day off, and croissants from City Bakery

Today has been the day of simple pleasures - those little jewel-bright moments of joy which might not make the headlines or the photo albums, but which make life ever so pleasant and rewarding.

I'd taken the day off to spend some time with my cousin who's moving base to the US. And so the day began with that wonderful lazy feeling of utter well-being when you wake up to your alarm, switch it off and go right back to sleep! Monday morning blues were replaced by Monday morning bliss! :)

Yawning and stretching, I finally got up, only to see that breakfast was a manna from heaven - a cup of my Mom's special chai and a golden, flaky croissant from City Bakery at Worli. This croissant is stuff of dreams - golden-brown crusty top flecked with sesame seeds, and layer upon flaky layer of progressively softer bread till you reach the heart of the pastry - the softest, most buttery pillowy mouthful ever. What's more,  City Bakery has managed to retain the heavenly buttery taste and gorgeous looks of this croissant for several decades now - that's consistency for you!




City Bakery does a variety of breads, cakes and biscuits and opens its doors at 6:00 AM sharp every day. Biting into one of the first croissants to come out of their oven at 6:00 AM is one of the un-missable experiences of any food-lover in Mumbai. It also is one of the few affordable luxuries you can still regularly
indulge in - the croissant is priced at a paltry Rs 11. Yes!! While fancy aspiring-to-be-French bakeries are serving small, tightly-packed puff-pastry-like corissants at Rs 60,  here is a honest, hard working, no-frills bakery which focusses on quality and taste rather than ambience and airs.

Drive down to Worli some rainy morning with a thermos of hot tea or coffee, and bite into a fresh-from-the oven croissant  to understand what the French mean by joie de vivre!

Quick-Fix Meals : 10-minute Prawn Curry

I just love those times when inspiration strikes so loud and clear that "inventing" a dish is simply a matter of following the clear directions appearing like magic in my mind.

The other day was just like that - when the "recipe" for a quick-n-easy prawn curry just popped into my head. I simply followed its lead and found my way to simple yet sublime deliciousness. :)

So here's the recipe for my 10-minute prawn curry:

Ingredients:
1/2 kg medium-sized prawns, shelled, cleaned and de-veined
2 green chillies, chopped (adjust to taste)
2 handfuls/ cupfuls loosely-packed coriander leaves
1/2 inch piece fresh ginger, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped, and 2 cloves garlic, sliced
1 small lemon, or 1/2 a big one
2 cups thick coconut milk (tinned, or made from powder is absolutely fine)
1/2 flat teaspoon each of turmeric powder, red chilli powder and salt
Salt, to taste

Method:
Sprinkle the 1/2 teaspoons of salt, turmeric and chilli on the prawns and mix well with your fingers. Leave aside.

In a mixie (the small chutney or coffee grinder), place the coriander, chopped chillies, ginger and garlic, lemon juice and a touch of salt. Whiz to a chunky paste. Do not throw the grinder into the sink or dishwasher, and do NOT rinse it. (Yes, that's right, and no, I am not crazy. Just wait)

Smear the green chutney onto the prawns, and keep aside for 5 mins.

In the meantime, if you're using coconut milk powder, dump the powder in the grinder (the one used for the green marinade), add the required amount of water and whiz. You'll get lump-free coconut milk AND extract every last bit of flavour from the chillies, coriander and garlic. :)
If you're using tinned coconut milk, just swill it around in the grinder.

Heat 1-2 teaspoons of oil in a pan. When hot, add the sliced garlic and the prawns, up the heat and briskly stir for 30 seconds or so.

Add the coconut milk, lower the heat and cook for a further 1-2 minutes - till the prawns are just-cooked (they go opaque) and the curry sauce is thickened to a perfect drench-rice-with consistency. Do not let it boil.

Adjust the seasoning and serve piping hot, with mounds of fluffy steamed rice. And enjoy the gorgeous fresh-yet creamy taste of the easiest prawn curry ever!

Cook's Tip #1:
Use fresh prawns, not frozen ones. The intensity of flavour just cannot be matched.

Cook's Tip #2:
To up the ante, you can increase the quantity of the coconut milk (adjust quantities of the green marinade as well, since that is what flavours the curry) - basically have more curry sauce at hand.

Take out the extra sauce (full of flavour from the  prawns, coconut and the zingy marinade), dilute it with some water, add some salt, and cook the rice in this flavoured broth. You'll be rewarded with plump butter-yellow grains of rice, fragrant with coriander and prawns, with a hint of sweetness from the coconut in the background. Yum!

Kitchen Experiments: Orange-Butterscotch Brownies

One of my ex-colleagues, a beautiful and gracious lady called SS recently hosted a friends' pow-wow at her place. The invite was generous - "Just bring yourselves and let us know the tipple of your choice"  - and the promise of a long evening spent in the company of good friends made us all look forward to hotfooting it over to SS's and her husband AS's place.

Of course I had to take something along (I suffer from a Nigella-esque complex of feeding people) despite SS assuring me that I needn't bring anything other than my sweet self. Ahem. :P

Inspiration struck in the form of brownies - I mean, who doesn't like a rich, moist chocolate brownie? Its a definite crowd pleaser! But yes, no one wants a plain old brownie that is easily available even at your corner grocer's these days. I wanted to whip up something special for the special bunch of people I was going to meet. The solution - Double Decker Brownies!

Well, at least  they were MEANT to be that way. :D

A few Google searches for brownie and blondie recipes (there are thousands of them, pick any you like), a quick rooting through the kitchen cupboards, and my usual cavalier attitude towards fixed recipes - and I was set. I had planned to do one batch of blondie batter - with butterscotch chips and orange extract - and one batch of classic chocolate brownie batter with chocolate chips - and then layer them atop each other and bake. But of course, the patient and multi-step method for achieving this was not me, so I mixed up a master batter (like a master stock or sauce!) - of butter, eggs, and brown+white sugar - and then divided it into 2 batches. Flavoured one with orange extract and  stirred in some butterscotch chips, and flavoured the other with cocoa, vanilla extract and chocolate chips.

Everything seemed to be chugging along perfectly, till disaster struck while ladling the batter into the baking tin. The blondie mixture went in first, and the idea was to gently pour the chocolate mixture on top, to produce a double-layered ebony-and-ivory brownie. But for some reason the chocolate mixture was way heavier than the blondie one and IT SUNK into the blondie mixture rather than remaining as 2 distinct layers. :(

Oh, well. "I'll call them marbled brownies", muttered me to meself and gave the mixture a quick stir to give a nice abstract marbled effect and went on to bake them. :D

I was so intent on my invention that while there are photos of the prep stage, there are none of the final product.  :( So no pics in this post. :( :( :(

The brownies were out in record time and while they seemed a little cake-like (not gooey enough!) when they were just taken out of the tin, a night in the fridge made them go dense and moist like a good brownie should.

Only pitfall - the butterscotch chips sunk to the base of the pan while baking, and with the brown sugar, made a crunchy, golden crust at the bottom - rich and buttery and sweet. Brownie purists would not approve of a crust at the bottom of a brownie. But one bite of that shatteringly crunchy shell, scented with butter and orange.....and I was deaf to all purists. :P