Pilar's Tortilla de Patatas

I never had the pleasure of knowing Pilar, but Priya and her friends got to meet her and make this delicious dish. I was always jealous when they described that wonderful night, filled with exceptional food and delightful company. Pilar recently passed away and Priya forwarded me this recipe. I am only too happy to make it and finally get to experience a small piece of that happiness from their special night in honor of Pilar.

It starts with heaps of onions and potatoes, sliced as thin as you can. They are thrown in a pan with some olive oil and sauteed at high heat for a couple minutes. Then the heat is turned down and the onions and potatoes are slowly cooked to a soft golden brown before a little salt is added.



Then come the eggs. Scramble them well with a fork before adding them to the skillet. After pouring in the eggs, settle the potatoes and onions around so that it all forms one even layer. After a flip, your delicious Spanish tortilla is ready!



I added some chopped up tomatoes and green onions for color. This was one delicious breakfast and would be great for any other meal of the day as well. Here is the official recipe - hope you enjoy!

Tortilla de Patatas

3 onions – sliced thin (I half and quarter them before I slice them thin)

3 potatoes (prepared as above)

4-6 eggs (depending on how big the onions and potatoes are or how you like the proportions.

2-3 tablespoons of olive oil

Salt to taste

Put oil in a non-stick frying pan. Heat the oil. Add onions and potatoes, cook on high for 2-3 minutes. Lower heat and cook slowly till onions and potatoes are soft and starting to turn brown. Usually 35-40 minutes. Add salt. Scramble eggs and add to frying pan. Gently work the eggs into the potatoes and onions so the eggs cook. Place a flat lid on top of the frying pan, flip, then slide the ‘pancake’ back into the frying pan so that the top can cook. Cook for another couple of minutes then slide the tortilla onto a serving plate.

Thai Coconut Curry Rice

I was rummaging around the cupboards looking for something to eat when I unearthed this old forgotten box of Thai Rice mix.

I love Thai food, especially this coconut chicken curry from Thai Gai Yang which was close to my old apartment. So I decided to add some things to this rice mix to make it more like that delicious curry I crave. I sauteed some ginger, garlic, and green chilies. Then I added some of the chicken that I had roasted (yes, I'm still trying to use it up!). And then to the rice mix, instead of the water that I was supposed to add, I added some coconut milk. Mixed it all together and it was a pretty good meal!

Easy Tortilla Soup

I created this recipe one day when I realized that I was eating at Qdoba was too much. The thing I was always get there was called Mexican Gumbo which was cilantro lime rice topped with beans and a couple ladles of tortilla soup. I really only ordered this because I love the soup so I a quick fix of it that I could make at home. I always have different types of cans of tomatoes on hand in the pantry because they are so versatile. So I just mixed a can of tomatoes with green chilis and chicken stock. (Can you tell that I'm making tons of soups because I need to use up all this chicken stock?) From there you can add all sorts of things like shredded chicken, all sorts of cheeses, different kinda of beans, some corn, etc etc. I've even found that if you don't have chicken stock, you can just refill the tomato can with water and then dump that in there. Still delicious!

I served it over some leftover rice that I had and garnished it with my trio of usual soup accompaniments: sour cream, green onions, and fried tortilla strips. I threw in some small chunks of habenero cheese as well. This would be awesome with some slices of avocado too!

Two Pictures are Worth Two Thousand Words

My Pathetic Attempt at Cutlets

Like I said before, the texture just wasn't right. But the taste was good - mashed potatoes with ground beef with ginger, garlic, and green chilis. I'll try again with hotter oil. Also I used a mini deep fryer and it has a lid which Mom said might have steamed it a bit. We will see, we will see.

Leaning Tower of French Toast

Well no sooner than I wrote that I was in a bagel sandwich rut did I realize that we are out of bagels and out of bananas! So I had to turn to my old standby … french toast! I thought this would be a little off because I only had potato bread but it was as good as ever! The way I make French toast is simple, 1 egg, one cup of milk, some vanilla and sugar and voilà! I spread some of my cream cheese brown sugar mixture on top and the rest is delicious history!

Mini Cinammon Bagel with Brown Sugar Cream Cheese, Nutella, and Banana Sandwich

I get in these food ruts quite often where I'll eat the same thing over and over again. Recently it was french toast and then it was bread pudding. While I am currently having a minor obsession with mashed potatoes, what I'm really fixated on these days is this little breakfast sandwich that I created. I get these mini cinnamon bagels which are then toasted. I have a little container of cream cheese that has been mixed with brown sugar in my fridge at all times. And then there's the Nutella. Obviously if you had it, then there's no need or explanation on it's virtues. And then one day I was about to chomp down when, out if the corner of my eye, I saw some bananas that were almost on the cusp of spoilage. And the perfect breakfast was born! At least until I move on to something else!

Pecan Chewy Muffins

I made these just because I came across a recipe for them on the internet and it looked so simple. It's just 5 ingrediants, mix, bake, and enjoy! Perfect for a rainy day like it was. I haven't been posting exact recipes here before because I usually just add random stuff until the food looks edible but for baking, no recipe usually equals disaster. This one is a great recipe which results in very soft an sweet muffins with a delightful brown sugar crunchy chewiness at the edges. If anything I thought it was a bit sweet, but Ruchir said they were great as they were...evidenced by the fact that he gulped 3 down so fast that it would make your head spin!

Mini Pecan Pie Muffins
(recipe courtesy of Jane Doiron, Make-Ahead Meals)

1 c light brown sugar
1 c pecans, chopped
1/2 c flour
2/3 c butter, melted
2 eggs, beaten


Mix, bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes. Easy and delicious! I sent some of these to Priya in her birthday package; I hope they were still delicious when they reached her!

Baked Potato Soup

So simple! Homemade chicken stock mixed with mashed potatoes and chopped bacon. I also added some habenero monterey jack which gave it a real kick.

Serve with a dollop of sour cream, green onions, and garnished with some fried tortilla strips. Like my presentation, ooohwee fancy pants?!

Roast Chicken

After returning from veg land (north India), I went on a meat buying spree. I made an impulse buy and bought a whole roast chicken. It was only 4 bucks and it was fairly easy to make. I didn't have that much on hand so I just rubbed it with olive oil, stuffed a ton of butter under the skin, threw some potatoes and onions an garlic cloves in the pot and let it go. Sometimes simple is good because the chicken turned out very moist with delcious crackly skin.

I made a gravy with the browned bits and some cheap white wine that I got at a Christmas party. The gravy was a little boozy so Ruchir didn't have any (he's a teetotaler: ). I ate it with some mashed potatoes and a salad. I always douse my salads in this special dressing that I created because otherwise I generally hate greens. But that will be described another time. Anyway, verdict on this meal...mmmm!

A note about this pictures, the ones in this post and probably most of the ones to come are taken with my phone. I can just email the pictures in and it's just so much easier than hauling out the camera, loading onto the computer, then uploading it to the site. So hopefully the quality isn't too bad!

Indian Food Oddities

These are a few of the new and different things that I saw and ate.

This is musambi juice. I've seen it with many different spellings. Mitzy had been going on about how much she wanted to try it, when me and Priya saw it on the menu, we jumped at the chance. It's described as a sweet lemon but to me it kind of feel like orange juice with a kick. It was good and I'm glad we got to taste it, sorry Mitz!

Ah, the Royal Falooda. Urmi got this at Woody's and apparently it is quite popular in Mumbai. It's basically a sundae but the real weird are those little transparent squigglies. Those are vermicelli noodles! In ice cream! The things people enjoy just amazes me sometimes.

Ok now here is a shot of the famous Indian soda called Thums Up. For starters, please note and laugh at how the B is not included in the word "Thum" yet it is clearly showing a logo of a hand giving a thumbs up. I would call this a Coke rip off but insanely (to me anyway) it is made by Coca Cola! It does kind of taste like Coke, but much flatter, and very often it's grainy. Ruchir perfectly described it as tasting "dusty." We did have it once where it wasn't dusty and that was definitely the anomaly.

These are slices of dragon fruit. I had never seen or heard of this fruit until we were at a buffet in Delhi but I guess this originally comes from Thailand. The whole fruit was sitting up on a ledge in a tall glass, almost like a decoration, and Ruchir's Dad asked what it was. Next thing we know the waiters are slicing it up for us. I thought it kind of tasted like watermelon with a little more texture and of course those tiny seeds. The others didn't really agree with me (as usual :).

Other Indian Food Pics

Some other random food pictures taken during the trip...

This is at the market where we saw a live buffalo lumber past us and then minutes later it was slaughtered. Ew. Ruchir was enthralled ... of course. Anyway, this is a less gory picture from that day, showing these tiny bananas. I'm not sure if they have a different name, or even taste different that regular bananas. But since I love miniatures and these are small, I crave them!

Here we are eating fresh green coconut by the beach with all the Chinese fishing nets. The coconut water is delicious (fun fact: did you know that it is sterile and was once used as fluid for IVs?). I'm not that big of a fan of the fresh coconut meat but it was kind of fun since the guy had hacked the shell into a little scoop for me.

These are fresh sardines which have been flash fried. We got the sardines at the market (where the tiny bananas and the water buffalo slaughtering took place) and then took them back to Paliam where they were dunked in incredibly hot oil. They were a bit salty and actually I don't like them that much, but I love the crunchiness. I do think that it is kind of weird to be chewing through all those bones though.

And then there is this wonderful picture. This was taken at my favorite ice cream parlour (yeah I used the British/Indian spelling, it just seems appropriate in this context) which is located just a short walk from Paliam. It used to be called Woody's but now is called Korter and has undergone a serious makeover. I prefer the old scene, mostly because I hate change, but the ice cream is still great! This sundae is called The Grasshopper. It used to be served in a tall glass and without that many brightly coloured (I did it again!) syrups but the taste is the same. It's pistachio ice cream with mint sauce and tons of random crunchy things. I actually think some of those crunchy things are cornflakes, which sounds like it might be gross but is actually very good. I cleaned my bowl in no time!

Buffet at the Taj Malabar

The Taj Malabar is one of the nicest hotels in Cochin. We stopped by for the lunch buffet, man what a spread! The food was good, and plentiful, but actually I'd probably take home cooked any day.

Ruchir's plate...

... and my plate! :)

Here's a close up of the infamous Kerala rice, the brown streaks are remnants of the husk or something like that. Does rice have husks?? Anyway, it's supposed to have a lot of nutrients, kind of like potatoes are much healthier if you don't peel them. No complaints here, it doesn't affect the taste so it's fine in my book!

A lastly a shot of the dessert buffet; I think it speaks for itself!

Breakfasts at Paliam

After returning from India, all I can think about is the wonderful wonderful food.  I will try to describe that deliciousness here, but trust me, it will be difficult.  This is simply food that you have to taste to believe.  I will start with the breakfasts.

Ok, first up are cutlets. Normally not a breakfast food, these heavenly wonders are made with ground beef, potatoes, and delicious spices.  They are coated in very fine breadcrumbs and fried to a delightful dark brown crisp.  That first bite is truly heavenly; first a wonderful crunch which then reveals a soft savory center.  If I could eat one thing for the rest of my life, it would be these cutlets and rice.  I did attempt these on my own recently, with very dubious results.  The inside filling was close to being right, but the outside just didn't live up to it's impeccably high standard.  I will try again though, maybe success is one day within my grasp.

Ok, on to these playful little sausages.  They have a bit of a bite to them, but once you get through the casing, the insides almost melt in your mouth.  Much lighter in color than normal sausages, these are are made a some sort of soft pork.  Or maybe they are chicken.  Who knows, and honestly who cares because when covered in sauteed onions, the combination is divine.

Now we are at vadas.  These look like doughnuts but definitely are not the American sweet coated in a sugary glaze variety.  I actually don't even know what these are made of, probably some lentils or something, but the are spicy and soft and sometimes the outside is crunchy and they are good when dunked in some sambar.  Probably not my top food choice in the list, but they are good when the mood strikes.  In the background of the picture, you can see the cutlets again, and to the right of that is egg masala.  Yum.  This is basically hard boiled eggs smothered in tomatoes and onions with tons of spices and the result is really quite delicious.  For some reason, it never seems right to me to eat these with anything else, like rice or starches, I just like to load them up on my plate and gulp them down.

And lastly, there are parums. This treat certainly at times seems more like a dessert than a breakfast.  Parums are very ripe plantains which are boiled to an almost caramelly deep yellow color.  They should be served warm, cut in half, and slathered with butter.  Then comes the best part...the sugar.  Something about the Indian sugar just sets my mouth watering.  It is similar to turbinado sugar, those dark heavy crystals in the  oversized brown packets occasionally jammed in with all the multicolored packets that profess to be as good as the real thing.  But Indian sugar, it is the real thing, better in fact.  The crystals are large, but not dark at all.  My memory is that it is always served in a small metal canister with a tiny spoon and that there is a constant presents of ants trying to get at the potent sweetness.  However, I am getting severely off track.  Plantains, butter, sugar - the combination is a hat trick of flavors which will certainly start your day off right!

The last great component of the perfect breakfast meal is and always must be beef stew.  Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of it, I was too busy scarfing it down.  And like all extremely delicious foods, this stew is hard to describe but I will do my best. Beef chunks are mixed with potatoes and carrots and onions, all boiled along with garlic and ginger to be incredibly tender, moist and flavorful.  They are bathed in a delicious broth, made from boiling coconut milk and the juices gained from boiling first ingrediants.  The end result is a delicate balance of flavors, great when ladled over bread and eaten with your hands.  This is good not only for breakfast, but lunch as well.  It used to be my favorite meal, but over time other delicacies have replaced it.  But it remains in my heart as a nostalgic favorite, guaranteed to brighten any day and improve any mood. Well that's a quick summary of the breakfasts.  Other various foods eaten on the trip are soon to follow!