Love, biochemically no different than consuming large quantities of chocolate.

A friend shared a Nigella Lawson recipe in which she created chocolate bars out of chocolate bars. I was impressed. I loved Picnic from Cadbury which had peanuts & puffed rice. Nigella used classic salted peanuts and honeycomb chocolates in her recipe. I decided to make my own picnic bars. My first attempt was very simple.

You will need

• A bar of Rich Cocoa Bournville or similar dark chocolate. We need dark chocolate bar. Nothing else.
• Plain unsalted cooking butter, I used Amul butter which is actually salted. For 100 grams of chocolate I used 25grams of butter.
• Classic salted peanuts

All these are easily available. Now the steps. Melt chocolate with butter. Chocolate is melted in a double boiler. I simply microwave-d mine in a glass tray which I use for baking cakes. Double boiler isn’t a highly sophisticated boiler. Boil water in a pan. In this pan place another steel bowl. You have your double boiler. Melt butter and chocolate in this steel bowl. Just melt, do not boil. Add peanuts. Mix well. Make sure peanuts are evenly distributed in the mixture. Pour this on a flat aluminium foil sheet or some other wide flat and shallow utensil like a tray. You can also use silicon moulds. Put it in fridge for 20-30 minutes. Let the chocolate set. If you set your chocolate in a tray you will have a “thick sheet”of chocolate which you can cut into desired shapes. Now what can go wrong in all this. Nothing other than the chocolate bar you just made will melt down in your hands at room temperature. What did you miss? Tempering.

Chocolate is tough thing to handle in kitchen. It just melts. You have to temper it. People own patents on tampering chocolate. I have seen in a Eric Lanlard’s TV show a chef used water to temper chocolate. Tempering chocolate makes it stay solid at room temperature. Chocolates with high melting temperature of 55° C is also available not in India though.

So how do to temper  your chocolate so that it can withstand room temperature or body temperature?

I know of two methods, one I saw on Eric Lanlard’s show. That involved using water and then flipping molten chocolate on a stone slab. Amateurs like me can’t do this. 2nd is a very simple technique. Tempering is nothing more than actually creating a good crystal structure. So you can use a crystal as a seed to grow a crystal structure. More science theory here. The actual work. When you are done with mixing peanuts in your molten chocolate do not take it off from double boiler. Keep it on boiler. Snap out a finger of chocolate from Bournville bar you have. Start reducing the temperature slowly. The “finger” actually acts as a seed crystal and helps in setting up a structure. Though this process is not good as patented or industrial process of tempering chocolate but still works well.

My first attempt at making bars was very simple and was moderately successful. Bars melted at 36° C. In 2nd attempt, I reduced the amount of butter I used, added raisins, almonds and roasted pistachios. I loved the  bars I made. Adding raisins was a good idea. In my next attempt I will be adding puffed rice.

For Kosher patty you will need:

• Tapioca, soaked for at least 2 hours, mandatory, half a cup
• Boiled or microwaved potatoes, mandatory, proportionate to tapioca
• Salt and Chilli pepper to taste, mandatory
• Kuttu flour or Buckwheat flour, mandatory, this will be the binder.
• Sliced Green Chillies, optional
• Kosher Oil or Ghee also known as clarified butter for deep frying

How-to:

• Strain tapioca or sabudana and make sure its neither dry or contains too much of water. I usually soak tapioca/sabudana over night and then just before I start cooking it I will put the soaked tapioca in a flour sifter.
• Mash the boiled potatoes, add tapioca/sabudana and mash further so that everything is “in sync”.
• Add green chillies.
• Add the flour, I added hardly a tablespoon of flour in 250 grams of the mixture I made above. Try to knead it into a dough shape.
• Add salt and chilli and knead again.
• Heat oil in a pan for deep frying.
• Take a small portion of dough, give it a small patty like shape.
• Deep fry and make sure you do not burn neither your fingers nor the patties.
• Enjoy with ketchup.

I added raisins while kneading the dough. Don’t know why and later realised when I will be deep frying these patties I will be essentially burning those raisins.

For a non kosher version you can use fine wheat flour and experiment with spices. Also, adding lime juice while kneading the mixture can add some tinge.

Theory

Most of the Indian gravy dishes are cooked in a very spicy combination. The catch is to know when to add which spice and in what form. Some spices are finely grounded like Turmeric powder but some are used in whole like cumin seed. Cumin seeds are added as soon as the cooking is started and garam masala is added at the end. When the gravy is cooked the target element say potatoes can be added. This adds flavour to potatoes and the target element also absorbs the spices. Replace potatoes with boiled kidney beans and you have the famous Rajmah or by Chicken and you have a Chicken dish.

Step one, requirements.

We need following items, listed in the order of importance.

• Onion or pyaz, sliced finely, paste will be better
• Tomato or tamato or tamatar, sliced finely, do away with seeds if possible, puree is good
• Turmeric powder or haldi
• Dried coriander powder or pisa dhania
• Chilli powder or laal mirch
• Salt
• Oil or ghee
• Cumins seeds or jeera
• Ginger or adrak, sliced finely and some extra as paste.
• Garlic or lehsun, slice finely or create a paste as done with ginger
• Garam masala
• Green chillies or hari mirch
• Cloves or laung or lavang
• Cinnamon or dal chini
• Bay leaves or tej patta

Step two, the practice

The process I am about to mention is not very hard and fast. One can experiment and discover new flavors. To prepare this dish we would be cooking everything on medium heat. Cooking at medium heat requires a lot of patience. Cooking time is increased and the resulting dish has better flavor and aroma. Before you start, keep everything handy. A simple trick can fill your kitchen with aroma. Heat two tablespoon ghee or cooking oil in a pan. I suggest a thick base pan. When the oil is hot enough that you can smell the aroma, add cumin seeds. As soon as cumin seed start to pop you can add onions. But wait. If you have cloves and cinnamon handy throw in cinnamon and cloves along. Break cinnamon and cloves will be much better. Do not let these spices burn. You should be able to smell the aroma.There are many variations here. You can add nutmeg and bay leaves as well. All these spices are normally added in the starting.

Tip: To prepare my type of Jeera Rice, heat not more than half a tablespoon oil/ghee and add cumin seed, nutmeg, bay leaves, cinnamon and cloves as mentioned above. Add rice and stir well and add water accordingly.

Add finely chopped onions. In case you are adding onion paste, maintain a proper distance from the pan and also make sure you are not cooking at not more than medium heat. Slowly add onion paste. DO NOT ADD WATER. Keep moving a spatula/serving spoon in the pan and fry onions till the onions start turning golden, do not let them turn brown. If you have chopped green chillies, this is the time to add them. I have also heard and tried adding granular sugar and a pinch of salt. Stir till you see the chillies are fried. Time to add chopped ginger and garlic. I mostly use ginger garlic paste. I take thick paste and add a teaspoon of water to it so that I can mix the thick paste well in the onion. Stir and make sure the paste is evenly mixed with onions. If you have been constantly stirring this mixture and cooking it on medium heat the onions wont turn brown too early. Add turmeric powder, coriander powder, red chilli powder and salt. Keep stirring. The paste should turn yellow. Keep cooking for a minute or two. Do not let it stick to the pan. If it sticks use spatula/serving spoon to stir it. I have seen people adding a spoon of hung curd at this moment.

Tip: Take fresh curd, put it in muselin cloth bag and hang this for a while. This will strain out all the water from curd. Add cardamom powder and confectioner’s sugar, stir well, refrigerate for some time and voila! You have Shree Khand. In another variation you can add saffron and mango essence to make Aamra Shree Khand.

By 4-5 minutes you should notice the oil getting separated from our fried onion paste. This mixture should loose its yellow color that turmeric powder may have rendered it. Time to add finely chopped tomatoes. Freshly created tomato puree can be used. Cook this for another 5 minutes. Keep stirring. We are about to finish our gravy. There is a very simple sign that tells that our gravy is ready. One should be able to notice a layer of oil, red in color due to tomatoes, on the edges of pan. If you dont see the oil keep cooking. Keep stirring occasionally to make sure that gravy doesn’t stick to pan.

Now the target element. For vegetarians there are many options.

• For aloo matar, use potatoes and peas.
• For matar paneer, you will need peas & cottage cheese cubes, deep fry paneer or cottage cheese cubes
• For rajmah, you need boiled kidney beans or rajmah. Boil kidney beans with a pinch of salt. Do not throw away the leftover water/soup.
• For kaale chane, use boiled kaale chane or chick peas. As with kidney beans, boil chickpeas with a pinch of salt and do not throw away the leftover soup. My mom made sure that we had at least half a bowl of this “soup” as it is very nutritious. I used to add fresh butter to it.

For carnivores

• For Chicken curry, before you add tomato puree, add pieces of chicken, you will need to use extra tablespoon of oil/ghee here. Poke chicken pieces with a fork. In fact, marinate the chicken with a mixture of thick curd, salt, red chilli powder.
• For fish curry, you will need to add fried fish. You can marinate the fish same way as mentioned for chicken.
• For egg curry, add boiled eggs instead of chicken. I am not sure how it helps but I have seen a guy even frying the boiled eggs separately before using in the gravy.
• For mutton curry, use mutton.

The last thing in our gravy is to add water or cream. If you intend to use cream, lower the heat and let the gravy cook for a minute. Slowly add cream and keep stirring. In case of water, use at least luke warm water. If you are cooking Rajmah or Kaale Chane, use the leftover water from boiling. Sprinkle garam masala and cover the pan. Let the dish simmer for a while. We are done. Some chefs add Kashmiri Mirch and Kasoori Methi to further enhance the flavor. But I guess this is more than enough. Though the recipe is not very complex, its very hard to prepare a dish using this recipe in first go. One needs to know the right time and temperature to add spices.

Happy cooking!

The time of sunrise on Saturday was predicted at 5:50AM. The destination was at least 73 Kilo meters from my place and I had to team up with other guys mid way. So I had to start at 3:30 AM. We were supposed to meet at Esteem Mall, on Bellary road at 4:30AM. Given the early morning traffic conditions I was able to reach the rendezvous point in just 30 minutes. From there on we were in a single file formation and as soon as we reached foothills it became clear that we wont be able to witness sunrise. The hilltop was covered in clouds. Bangalore itself has an elevation of 920 meters and top of Nandi hills is at 1480 meters. At least 500 meters above Bangalore. I stopped and tried to click a photo with my cellphone. I am lame photographer and the result was equally lame. But I was all excited. In another 15 minutes we were at the barriers and after providing the licence plate info of our bikes to the cops we started our “ascend” to the real hilly track on our bikes. The track has some nice elbow turns This was my very first bike ride to a hilly track. I had done a similar track on car but one doesn’t need to maintain balance on car. Initially I had trouble on turns, my turns were very very wide, I in fact touched the extreme right end of the road on most of my turns. As soon as we moved further we realised we were “inside a cloud”. The stray clouds reduced the visibility. But I was enjoying it. Awesome!!! That was my reaction. We reached the parking lot at 5:30 AM. The gates were not yet open and the ticket counter was closed as well. But we were inside a cloud. A strong breeze caused the dew drops on trees to fall on us, essentially producing the effect of rain.

Nandi hill’s altitude and elevation along with forest cover makes it a place for cloud condensation. The clouds and resulting fog in parking area reminded me of foggy mornings and late evenings of Punjab. Strong breeze and moisture in the air could be easily felt.

The ticket counter and gates were close but this didn’t hamper our plan. One of us knew a trail that let us bye pass the usual tourist track that leads one to the Nandi fort. The trail was full of vegetation and lead us to Tipu’s drop. The strong winds, a rocky formation and 1400 meters elevation were enough to scare but we had clouds reducing the visibility adding thrill to our trail. We stayed at Tipu’s drop. It was obvious that we have missed the sunrise. So we decided not to waste our time and energy on it. We kept following the trail. On our trail we found a bull temple, caves us and a dried up river source. We had a cup of tea there. We realised that gates had open and could notice lot of other people coming in. We had covered most of the track. After finishing our tea we decided to take the exit route which in fact is the usual entry route for tourists. On our way back we passed along the botanical garden. One could notice the presence of  monkeys. They have littered mangoes all over the track. I had not taken any pictures. But my other two colleagues had powerful DSLRs and they didnt miss any chance to click a photo.

We got out of the gate. After paying a nominal parking fee we started our “descend“. Following my colleague’s advice I turned off my bike’s engine and simply let the bike roll down. In just 15 minutes, without firing my engine, we covered our downhill track at the speed of 40KMh+. We came down to an elevation of 920 meters from an elevation of 1400 meters. We had our breakfast at a small place and followed our route back to our places.

The ride taught me many things. I still don’t have the expertise to ride a hilly track on a bike like Thunderbird. Its not easy to pull Thunderbird even if you are 6 feet+ tall. And the last lesson, I need to go on more rides.

• The silicon valley of India
• Tier 1 city of India
• Home to ISRO
• Home to HAL
• Home to IISc
• Home to IIM
• Home  to R&D centre of many fortune 500 companies
• City of lakes
• City of gardens

And now close your eyes. What do you see?
A planned city, full of life, full of intellect, jiving and thriving and all other good things.

Come to Bangalore. Experience the reality. Bangalore like any other city in India

• Doesn’t have infrastructure, worst than Gurgaon. Gurgaon is some time referred to as a millennium city, I used to call it a minimum city. Bangalore is minimal.
• Most of the by lanes and roads and streets are one directional. Be aware while riding your vehicle.
• No traffic sense at all. I usually compare people when I compare two places. Bangalore scores here. People in Bangalore are much more educated. There are very few manufacturing facilities in Bangalore. People here have white collar jobs and hence one can assume, people in Bangalore are much more sensible. Nope, when it comes to traffic, they are not.
• There was a news item in Times of India regarding women in Marathalli using mineral water cans…for washing and bathing. I am exaggerating. Not only women the whole household. Why? There is no adequate water supply in Bangalore. The area named Marathalli is close to International Tech Park and doesn’t have water supply from corporation. People mostly survive on water tankers and bore-wells. Eh!, this is common in many other cities, you may say. But, we are talking about city of lakes.
• Oh well the thing related to water do not end here. Most of the housing complexes are not connected to any central sewerage system. So where does the waste go? To the nearest lake. And well, if these housing complexes are not connected to any water supply system then from where do they source their water? Water tankers who source water from…surprise!!!  The nearest lake. Don’t you think the guy or gal or whosoever invented the phrase “a full cycle” deserves an award?
• Everything is expensive. Things are further aggravated with highest tax structure. No the Bangalore isn’t a culprit here. The Karnataka state imposes insanely high tax slab on vehicles. So a vehicle can cost you around 10% extra in Karnataka. Fuel is expensive. On top of it, the business owners think that every Tom, Dick and Harry is earning millions of bucks and its their right to sell things at at least 1.5 times the original price. Most of business owners in Gurgaon have also learned this trick. So I doubt if Bangalore would be able to hold this position all alone, Gurgaon is certainly going to share this title. Metros normally prove the saying right that income rises to meet expenses.
• Gardens in Bangalore? Lal Bagh. And…? Well…there are lakes. Where you have to pay entry fee. Imagine someone comes from Chandigarh, pays a nominal fee of 50 Bucks to see lake with shoddily managed, I doubt if the word “managed” can be used, side walks. An average Chandigarhian can take pride in their one and only well maintained and beautiful lake and Rose Garden, Rock Garden, Shanti Van and Leisure valley and green belt in every sector, there were at least 49 developed sectors in Chandigarh 4 years ago.

Oh man this is so sad, gloomy, dark side of Bangalore. I am being pessimist. I suck. I need to be hanged on MG Road on busy Sunday. Or better be slaughtered in Chinnaswamy stadium with the whole event being live telecasted on all TV Networks. How dare I present such a horrible image of Bangalore? No, Bangalore is not so sad place. Bangalore suffers from same problem, poor leadership chosen by misguided poor and illiterate people. Sad. I hate being in Bangalore just coz am away from my folks. I can not just drive to my folks on a weekend so I end up cribbing about Bangalore. I am biased. Its really a fun and cool place.

• The weather is the firs thing, I can wear T-Shirts, Denims and Sandals whole year. Damn it. I have stopped wearing formal clothes. The weather is really more or less like the weather in California.
• Its a green city. Much much greener than Gurgaon and my home town but not like Chandigarh of course. Though people complain about BBMP felling of trees every now and then but I still find Bangalore to be a green city.
• Multicultural city. You can meet people from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, literally. Delhi up to some extent, not the whole NCR, has this kind of cultural mix.
• And then, if the other guy can’t speak English he can understand and speak in Hindi. There are people from Rajasthan who speak fluent Hindi, Marwari and Kannada and can understand English very well. A rare scene in NCR and much rarer in Chandigarh.
• Talent is here. Yes. Most of the startups are here. Most of the software technological things are happening here. You are master of damn shit technology, come to Banaglore, you will be treated like a king. If you have can do attitude and will do attitude, come to Bangalore. Talent is welcomed here. The only reason I am here in Bangalore is that I might not see the same opportunity in NCR in near future.
• Ask a Punjabi if he would like to have a liquor vend at every corner, he will say “Yes!”. Bangalore is for those Punjabis.

In the end, Bangalore is like any other overcrowded Indian metro city. There are things that make me say, “Bangalore sucks!!!” and then I end up saying, “Oh I love this weather!”.

• A convection microwave oven
• Will to eat your own…pizza
• Flour, at least one and half cup
• Yeast, at least a tablespoon
• Sugar, at least a tablespoon
• Salt, at least a tablespoon
• Cooking oil, one can use refined vegetable oil but if Olive oil is recommended, at least two tablespoons

Requirements for topping:

• Onion, one medium sized
• Capsicum, one medium sized
• Tomato, one medium sized
• Pizza cheese, mozzarella is available easily
• Pizza sauce, if pizza sauce is not available, try tomato ketchup or tomato sauce
• Oregano
• Mushrooms, optional
• Baby corn, optional
• Jalapeños,optional

Development phase one – Pizza Dough:
Warm, not boil, half a cup of water, add tablespoon yeast, half tablespoon salt and sugar in it, dissolve everything in water. Warm water activates yeast. This gives you a mixture that will help pizza dough to rise. Take one cup flour and 2 teaspoon oil and half a cup of water. Mix vigorously in a bowl. Add the yeast mixture. Knead the dough. You still have half a cup of flour left and use this flour if required in kneading the dough. If you have ever kneaded dough you will know when the kneading is done. If this is first time, then when you press the dough and  dough doesn’t sticks to fingers its done. Leave the dough aside for at least 15 minutes.Check the dough regularly at ten minutes of interval, it must rise. If you have followed the measurement properly the dough must have expanded at least one and half times of original size. If its not the case, better wait. To make this process fast, place the dough in warm and dry place. Some microwaves allows you to do this.If the dough has risen, take a ball of dough and roll this ball using rolling pin or using hands into a round thick disc. The disc should not be more than half a centimetre thick. And behold, you have a pizza base!
Development phase two – Pizza Toppings:
Finely slice tomato, onion and capsicum and other optional material. Grate the cheese. That’s it.
Development phase three – Bake the Pizza:
Preheat the oven at 250 degrees for 5 minutes. Till the oven heats up. I have a Teflon coated metallic tray so I didn’t need to dust the tray with flour, you may have to dust the tray. Spread the pizza base in baking tray. Spread pizza sauce on base, then finely lay the toppings on base, sprinkle grated cheese on top of topping. You can sprinkle oregano on top of cheese. Put the tray in oven and bake the pizza for minimum 9 to maximum 12 minutes in preheated oven at 250 degrees. The baking time depends on your oven. The pizza base will rise while baking.After 9/12minutes your pizza is ready! Take out the tray and taste pizza.
BE CAREFUL WITH OVEN AND HOT TRAY.