Besan Ke Laddoo

Hello, boys and girls!

Welcome to cooking with Varun! It's common knowledge that India not only has a lot of people, it has people from different faiths and beliefs, so it is only natural that we have a lot of festivals as well. From colour to fireworks to dance to food, we've got it all covered. My favourite of all these, without a doubt, is Diwali (although I claimed it was Holi in school since it was easier to write an essay on).

Every year, on Diwali, my mum sets up the mandir and diyas, plugs in the fairy lights, makes the mithai, and in the evening, we all sit down with the door ajar for the pooja, after which we go out, set off fireworks, and then go to one in a series of Diwali parties at a family friend's house. Unfortunately, for a few years, I wasn't in the country and would miss out on the tradition (and the festivities), so as a workaround, I would call or Skype into the pooja at home, then try and do something traditional after. While in the UK, there were a lot of Indians around so we'd usually do something together; one year a group of us drove to Leicester for the celebrations where we pigged out on chaat and watched a fantastic fireworks display. Of course, it took us 20 minutes to walk 20 feet with all the people there, but it was Diwali, so we didn't really care. A couple of times I went to visit my close friends and spent time with their family so it was all good. While I was in Istanbul, Turkey, however, there was a very small group of us, and given the lack of Indians in Istanbul in general, there was no plan. So after my customary pooja Skype, I decided to make a mithai at home. Normally I'd make kheer or halwa, but this time I was determined to try something different. I looked through my (very large) stock of ingredients, and spied a packet of besan in the back, and figured I'd try some besan ke laddoo. So I cranked up the music, got cooking, and an hour later (it was my first time), I stood proudly over a plate of besan ke laddoos as I tried to ignore the burning in my palms from rolling the too-hot mixture. It was worth it though, since in my head, I had salvaged my Diwali with a good dish, and my colleagues who ate the laddoos the next day, seconded (or at least pretended to) my sentiments.

This is the recipe to my besan ke laddoo, may it serve you as well as it has me!

For my Besan Ke Laddoo, you will need the following:

Besan (gram flour)	4 cups
Ghee (clarified butter)	2 cups
Powdered sugar	2 cups
Almonds	handful
Cashewnuts	handful

Prep:

1. Crush/finely chop the almonds and cashews.
2. Sift the besan through a sieve to get the lumps out.

Method:

1. Turn on the gas.
2. Bung a pan on.
3. Pop in the besan.
4. Dry roast the besan for about 10 minutes until it browns and you get a warm nutty aroma. (Keep moving it or it will brown and burn faster than me at a beach!)
5. Stir in the ghee a little at a time until it's all in there. (You want a consistency that you can roll, so make sure it's not too dry or too wet.)
6. Sprinkle on the sugar.
7. Toss in the crushed almonds and cashews.
8. Mix well.
9. Cook for another 10 minutes. (Again, keep moving it so it doesn't burn.)
10. Turn the gas off.
11. Let the mixture cool just enough that you don't burn your hands while rolling it.
12. Begin rolling into laddoos.
13. Burn hands.
14. Curse.
15. Wait another few minutes.
16. Resume rolling.
17. Stick a cashew on top of each laddoo to make it look pretty.
18. Serve.
19. Stuff face.
20. Bask in the glory of your successfully executed dish.

Tip: Taste the mixture as you're roasting it. If it tastes raw, roast it some more.

And remember, overeating is a myth. A full tummy is a happy tummy!

Spaghetti & Mozzarella Stuffed Meatballs

Hello, boys and girls!

Welcome to cooking with Varun. My roommate in Solihull, UK, Ms. Popularity, while being reasonably intelligent, did some really silly things from time to time. Things like forgetting her keys and ringing the doorbell late at night, much to the ire of our landlady, my British mum, or not closing the fridge door after dinner one night only to find a puddle of water all over the floor the next day (not to mention the food we had to throw away). But these pale in comparison to her one shining moment of genius: washing out a tin of tomatoes before chucking it in the bin.

Usually I'd do the cooking, and she'd do the washing up (because let's face it, cooking is so much easier!), and this time was no different. I had cooked, and since we were out of fresh tomatoes, I'd used a tin instead. As was customary, I set the tin aside with the rest of the stuff to bin (peels and whatnot). We finished eating, and Ms. Popularity started cleaning up. As I lounged around, playing with cats, I heard a gasp followed by a whimper. I walked over to the sink to where Ms. Popularity had been doing the dishes and saw her holding up her right hand, which was starting to look increasingly scarlet. Realizing she had cut her hand, I did the first thing I could think of. I ran. Out of the kitchen and into the living room where my British mum was watching the telly; because who better to call for help in a crisis than a mother? We rushed into the kitchen to find Ms. Popularity still standing over the sink, this time in tears, as she struggled to stem the gentle stream of dark red that was dripping into the.. wait for it.. the tin that she was washing with her bare hands before tossing into the garbage! Part of me wanted to rant and rage at her (not) cleverness, because who washes something before throwing it away? Rinse it, sure, but wash? As my British mum tied her hand up with a bandage and bundled her into the car to take her to the emergency room, I put the rest of the things away and tried not to think of the bloodbath. 

She did recover eventually. It took a few weeks (and medical glue), and I even went to the hospital with her once to get the dressing changed (which is a big deal because I avoid hospitals like I avoid baingan, or like Superman avoids kryptonite). Still haven't stopped reminding her about it at every chance I get. This recipe needs a lot of tomatoes, and the tinned variety really gives it a lovely bright red colour, so if you do decide to use a tin, please be careful! Or just get a bottle of passata! You're less likely to end up going to the emergency room that way.

For my Spaghetti & Mozzarella Stuffed Meatballs, you will need the following: 

Spaghetti	300 gms
Mince (meat of choice)	300 gms
Tomatoes	3-4 (or a tin)
Onion	1
Garlic	5-6 cloves
Mozzarella	100 gms (brilliant if you can get the little balls)
Rosemary	2-3 tsp
Oregano	2-3 tsp
Thyme	2-3 tsp
Paprika	2-3 tsp
Bread	2 slices (crust cut off)
Milk	splash
Pepper	to taste
Salt	to taste
Sugar	to taste
Olive oil

Prep:

1. Chop the onion. (Not too fine.)
2. Slice the garlic.
3. Blitz the tomatoes. (Please be careful, and don't cut your finger on the tin if you're using the canned variety.)
4. Grab a small bowl.
5. Break the bread into small pieces and pop it into the bowl.
6. Splash in the milk.
7. Mush it all together. (This will make your meatballs turn out soft.)
8. Grab a bigger bowl.
9. Plonk the mince in.
10. Sprinkle on some of the spices.
11. Add salt and pepper to taste.
12. Plop in the bread mush.
13. Mix. (Don't overwork the meat or pound it like you're kneading dough.)
14. Roll a meatball. (To decide on the size.)
15. Flatten it.
16. Place a mozzarella ball in the centre.
17. Roll the meat around it.
18. Repeat until all the meatballs have been rolled.

Method:

1. Turn on the gas.
2. Bung a pan on.
3. Splash in the olive oil.
4. Count to 20.
5. Toss in the onion.
6. Cook until translucent.
7. Pop in the garlic.
8. Pour in the pureed tomatoes.
9. Splash in some water (if it is too thick).
10. Sprinkle in the herbs.
11. Add salt, pepper, and sugar to taste. (The sugar is to balance the tang from the tomatoes.)
12. Mix.
13. Plop in the meatballs.
14. Gently mix until the sauce covers the meatballs.
15. Slap a lid on.
16. Cook for about 15 minutes until the meatballs are done.
17. Turn the gas off.
18. (In the meantime) Turn on another burner.
19. Crank up the heat to high.
20. Pop a saucepan on.
21. Fill it about 3/4 with water.
22. Splash in some olive oil.
23. Sprinkle in some salt.
24. Bring to a boil.
25. Drop the heat and bring the water to a simmer.
26. Pop in your spaghetti.
27. Cook until the spaghetti is al dente (cooked but has a slight bite).
28. Turn the gas off.
29. Drain the spaghetti.
30. Plop the drained spaghetti onto the meatball sauce.
31. Mix.
32. Serve with a glass of red.
33. Stuff face.
34. Bask in the glory of your successfully executed dish.

Tip: Retain some of the starchy water from when you drain the spaghetti and stir it into the sauce to make it silky.

And remember, overeating is a myth. A full tummy is a happy tummy!

Honey Chilli Potatoes

Hello, boys and girls,

Welcome to cooking with Varun! After his initiation with the infamous hen do, our favourite intrepid hero, like most other heroes, continued to do heroic things. Things like talking to pretty girls in bars without shaking, doing shots with strangers, laughing off drunken racial slurs, saving the world from alien invasions.. okay, maybe not that last one, but you get the point. What our hero did not think would happen, was be hit on. By guys. And grandmothers.

One time, while out with his posse at his favourite bar in Belfast, our champion felt the brush of a hand around his left buttock. The bar was crowded to the gills, so putting it down to an accident, he continued to sip his beer, until the touch began to tighten and metamorphosed into what can only be described as a full blown bum squeeze. Unaccustomed to being the subject of such an act, our protagonist whirled around to face his groper, only to find himself face to face with a (potential) grandmother who was sporting a broad grin on her kind face and a twinkle in her eyes, as she and her friends giggled at his gormless expression. Red-faced, he forced a laugh, raised his bottle and skulked away to the darkest corner he could find, and stood there with his posterior planted firmly against the wall. Another time, at a different club, he was approached by a bloke and offered a drink which he, while flattered, politely declined, and proceeded to find another corner to plant his rear end on, albeit this time for a different reason. Several attempted woos and invitations later, at an Oriental restaurant in Poona, India, where while in the loo, our gallant leading man was asked, 'Are you the model?' by a very camp young man. Being a seasoned campaigner at this point, he merely replied, 'No. But thank you for thinking that I was.' (hair toss), and walked back to his table to rejoin his friends and aid in their attempt at making a dent into the enormous amount of food that had been ordered.

Today's recipe is for one of the dishes from that night (so my sources tell me) and is easier to make than it is for me to successfully execute a hair toss without giving myself whiplash.

For my Honey Chilli Potatoes, you will need the following:

Potatoes	2-3 medium
Cornflour	1/2 tbsp
Chilli powder/flakes Garlic powder	2 tsp 1-2 tsp
Sriracha sauce	few big squirts to taste (or chilli sauce + garlic)
Honey Soya sauce Vinegar	few big squirts to taste  splash splash
Sesame seeds	2-3 tsp
Spring onion greens	handful
Salt	to taste
Oil

Prep:

1. Peel and cut the potatoes into chips.
2. Grab a bowl.
3. Toss in the potatoes.
4. Sprinkle on the cornflour.
5. Sprinkle on the chilli powder/flakes.
6. Shake on the garlic powder.
7. Mix.
8. Cut up the spring onion greens.

Method:

1. Deep fry or bake the potatoes until crisp.
2. Bung a pan on.
3. Splash in some oil.
4. Squirt in some sriracha.
5. Squirt in some honey.
6. Splash in the soya sauce and vinegar.
7. Mix.
8. Cook for a minute.
9. Toss the potatoes in.
10. Mix well until the potatoes are well coated.
11. Garnish with sesame seeds and spring onion greens.
12. Serve.
13. Stuff face.
14. Bask in the glory of your successfully executed dish.

Tip: You can swap out the cornflour with regular flour. Just make sure to only add just enough to lightly coat the chips. A thick coating will taste raw.

And remember, overeating is a myth. A full tummy is a happy tummy.

Strawberry & Nutella Stuffed French Toast

Hello, boys and girls!

Welcome to cooking with Varun. It's always nice to meet friends; even more so when it is largely unexpected and in a whole other country. Not long ago, I received a text from a friend, one I'm particularly fond of, that she was going to be in my neck of the woods for a couple of days at the end of her trip around Turkey. I was utterly delighted, and invited her to stay with me for one of those days, so we could chat and catch up, seeing as it had been 4 years since I had seen her last, and even that meeting had been quite rushed. 

We texted back and forth for the next few days and chalked out a plan, and after she arrived in Istanbul after gallivanting the south, met for drinks at a pub by the Bosphorus. We spent the evening drinking beer, eating fries, trading stories, and at some point talking about how the inflation rate in Venezuela was 700%. Once we were done, we agreed on a meeting point for the following day after which she hailed a cab and headed back to her hotel. The next evening, I left the office, picked her (and her bags) up and made her tired legs do the long, arduous trek to my house. After settling her in (basically dumping her stuff in my living room), I did what any young, single, (moderately) attractive young man would do. I unbuttoned my shirt, shrugged it off, and tossed it to the side. Then, clad in my black vest, which was clinging tightly to my still slightly damp skin, I walked over to her, reached out to hold her slightly trembling hand, and led her breathlessly.. into the kitchen, where I proceeded to boil potatoes to make vada pavs. We sipped on beers as I cooked and battled my deadly nemesis, the oil spatter, who managed to get on my arm making it sting and puff up (joke's on him though, because this time I had an ice-cube wielding partner who tackled the situation quite manfully.. or is it womanfully?). Once the vada pavs were done, and the stinging on my arm had subsided (I pretended it had, to not lose face), we set chairs out on the balcony, poured some wine, clinked our glasses, and proceeded to eat. As the daylight slowly faded around us and the noise went down, the moon came out and hung in the night sky like a bright luminescent orb, casting an almost ghostly glow on our faces. The mood on the balcony changed, and in the quiet, we were suddenly more aware of the jazz music playing softly in the kitchen. More aware that the wine we had been drinking was making us less guarded. But mostly it made us realize that I had added way too many chillies in the vada pav, and that the burning in our gut had little to do with attraction and more to do with heartburn. While we waited for the burning to wane, we looked out up at vastness of the sky above, and I proceeded to explain (very smoothly) how parallel universes worked in the DC multiverse. Soon tiredness (and acidity) took over, and we retired for the night, and I slept a most fitful sleep thanks to a combination of the volcano in my chest, and my friend's snoring from across the room.

The next morning, being the excellent host that I am, I cooked up and presented my lovely guest with a plate of Strawberry & Nutella Stuffed French Toast for breakfast, which she graciously accepted, and after trying to and failing to eat it with a knife and fork, resorted to picking it up with her fingers and stuffing it inside her mouth. I think she said she liked it, but it was hard to make out because her mouth was so full. But don't take my (possibly biased) word for it, try it out and see for yourself!

For my Strawberry & Nutella Stuffed French Toast, you will need the following:

Bread	6 slices
Eggs	2
Fresh strawberries	8-10
Milk	splash
Nutella	to spread
Salt	to taste
Powdered sugar	to serve
Powdered cinnamon	to serve

Prep:

1. Crack the eggs into a shallow bowl.
2. Splash some milk in.
3. Add salt to taste.
4. Whisk.
5. Slice the strawberries.

Method:

1. Spread the nutella onto each of the bread slices.
2. Place the strawberries on the nutella face of 3 of the slices.
3. Pop the remaining slices of bread onto the strawberry covered ones to make 3 sandwiches.
4. Turn on the gas.
5. Bung a pan on.
6. Plop some butter in.
7. Pick a sandwich up and dip it in the egg mixture, making sure to cover it uniformly.
8. Pop it in the pan.
9. Cook on each side for 2-3 minutes. (You'll be able to see when it's done.)
10. Transfer it to a plate.
11. Repeat for the other sandwiches.
12. Turn the gas off.
13. Serve with a sprinkling of powdered sugar, and cinnamon. (And a couple of strawberries.)
14. Stuff face.
15. Bask in the glory of your successfully executed dish.

Tip: Tip the excess egg mixture over the last sandwich in the pan to give it a gorgeous omelettey coating.

And remember, overeating is a myth. A full tummy is a happy tummy!

Pan-seared Salmon With Tomato Dill Sauce

Hello, boys and girls!

Welcome to cooking with Varun! The following is an excerpt of an actual conversation between my best friend, Parsi Drama Queen, and me when we were much younger. You might remember him from the Shakshuka and the Wadi Aloo recipes.

Ring.. ring..

Me:	Hello?
PDQ:	(glumly) Hello.
Me:	What's up?
PDQ:	I think I'm getting food poisoning.
Me:	What? How?
PDQ:	I ate expired fish.
Me:	What? Why?
PDQ:	I was really hungry, mom wasn't home so I opened a can from the cupboard. It had expired 2 days ago.
Me:	(very confidently) That's it? That's okay man, they put the expiry date a few days before just in case. You'll be fine.
PDQ:	It looked all yellow, but I was so hungry I ate it. What if I get food poisoning and die?
Me:	Relax! Trust me, it's fine. I know this stuff. I'm coming over now, we'll play trump cards.
PDQ:	Yeah okay. Bye.
Me:	Bye.

Click.

Me: Damn. God, please don't let PDQ die.

Lucky for you, this recipe does not call for expired fish, and is quite simple to make even if your mum isn't home to feed you. 

For my Pan-seared Salmon With Tomato Dill Sauce, you will need the following:

Salmon	4 fillets
Onion	1 medium
Tomato	1 medium
Garlic	5-6 cloves
Dill leaves	big handful
Rosemary	1 tsp
Thyme	1 tsp
Oregano	1 tsp
Salt	to taste
Pepper	to taste
Olive oil
Feta cheese	for the garnish

Prep:

1. Chop the onion.
2. Chop the tomato.
3. Mince the garlic.
4. Roughly chop the dill leaves.
5. Drizzle some olive oil on the salmon fillets.
6. Sprinkle on salt and pepper to taste (and maybe a touch of garlic).
7. Rub lovingly on both sides and set aside.

Method:

For the sauce:

1. Turn on the gas.
2. Bung a pan on.
3. Drizzle in some olive oil.
4. Count to 20.
5. Slide in the onion.
6. Pop in the garlic.
7. Cook until the onions are translucent.
8. Drop in the tomato.
9. Sprinkle in the herbs.
10. Salt and pepper to taste.
11. Toss in the dill leaves.
12. Mix.
13. Let it all cook together for a couple of minutes.
14. Turn the gas off.

For the fish:

1. Turn on the gas.
2. Bung a pan on.
3. Drizzle in some olive oil.
4. Count to 20.
5. Slide the fish in skin side down.
6. Cook for 3-4 minutes until the skin is crispy.
7. Flip the fillet over.
8. Cook for 1-2 minutes.
9. Turn the gas off.

Putting it all together:

1. Put some (cooked) spaghetti tossed in olive oil, garlic, and parsley in a plate.
2. Place the fish on the spaghetti bed.
3. Spoon the chunky sauce over the fish.
4. Crumble some feta over the dish.
5. Serve.
6. Stuff face.
7. Bask in the glory of your successfully executed dish.

Tip: You can top it with freshly grated parmesan if you like. I had feta, so I used feta.

And remember, overeating is a myth. A full tummy is a happy tummy!