Strawberry Cheesecake

I met a dutch friend for coffee and she suggested that I try making a no-bake cheesecake with kwark and digestive biscuits. I decided to use the season's last strawberries for my first attempt with the cheesecake. (It's possible to try the same recipe with mango, blueberries, apricots, lemon, etc.)

Kwark (Quark) is a creamy curd-like yogurt which is sold in tubs at every local supermarket in The Netherlands and Germany. Although it's easily available here I was wondering what people in India could use as a substitute. I believe the process for making kwark is quite similar to the process we follow for making chakka for shrikhand. 
As I looked on the internet for ideas I stumbled upon a website with some really nice recipes. Coincidentally  the author Deeba Rajpal is based in Delhi. She's been making cheesecakes with homemade kwark. I would definitely recommend Deeba's recipe for the cheesecake.

Here's the link to the recipe on her website - http://www.passionateaboutbaking.com/2010/05/no-bake-strawberry-quark-cheescake-and-a-hang-tags-giveaway.html


I've used ingredients in a different proportion than Deeba. I also have easy access to kwark in all the supermarkets here so I opted for the vanilla flavoured variety.

Vanilla kwark - 500 gms
Digestive biscuits - 300 gms
Low fat cream -250 gms

I have used 500 gms of Vanilla kwark and used 300 gms of digestive biscuits for my base as I like it thicker. You will also need more butter (I used low fat butter) so that the base binds well.

I bought a box-full of strawberries and use one half for decorating the cake and the other half to make strawberry coulis.

I made the strawberry coulis by cooking chopped strawberries, sugar and lemon juice together until I got the right consistency.

Hope you have as much fun making this cheesecake as I did. Happy Experimenting!!

A lazy afternoon in Antwerp

On a cold January afternoon, with temperatures well below freezing, we found ourselves in the center of Antwerp. Antwerp's just across the border from us, less than an hour's drive and yet all these days, it had just been this town that you pass by on the way to Brussels.

After a little stroll around the charming city square and the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwe Katheedraal (Cathedral of Our Lady), we chanced upon, as luck would have it, an obscure, quaint little tavern behind the imposing walls of the Cathedral. Located in three historic houses from the 16th century, it was adorned with old statues of angels, royalty and all sorts of biblical characters....and to top it all, they served traditional Flemish cuisine and lots of Belgian / Trappist beers, which are my favorite!

I urged Laxmi to try a Trappist Rochefort 6 while I settled(!!) for a St. Bernardus Prior 8. The Prior 8 is a dark (ruby purple) beer: malty, fruity and tastes exactly like what you would expect from a nice dark Belgian ale. We followed that up with a second round: Laxmi likes white beers, so she opted for the St. Bernardus Wit while I chose the St. Bernardus Abt 12. The Abt 12 is their best beer, very rich, smooth and fruity and full of flavour. We loved it!

Even though Belgium is right next door and makes the best beers in the world, its a pity that so many of them are not commonly available at local restaurants in Dutch cities. St Bernardus is an Abbey beer, made in a town called Watou. The water they use is super-pure, dug from 150m below the ground and (according to scientific evidence) originates from a rainfall from the time of Joan of Arc! The brewing, as with all abbey beers, is done by monks living in the abbey and follows the best standards. St Bernardus beers are also additionally bottle fermented which means that the bottle is conditioned with yeast and sugar so that the beer continues fermenting in the bottle resulting in the perfect flavours!

The beer was accompanied by an awesome lunch: Laxmi had a Charolais fillet of Beef with Peppercorn Cream Sauce and I had Pork tenderloin in a creamy mushroom sauce. The food was straight out of heaven, and we enjoyed it so much that we forgot to take any food pictures!

The afternoon couldn't have been better and we vowed to return back again and try to see a little more of the city, that is if the beers will let us!

Mosselen in Kruidenboter

Last week a bachelor friend of ours, Manish, invited us home for dinner. We reached a tad bit early and found him busy in the kitchen . Although he had his recipe books for reference Manish was in the mood to experiment. His deviations from the recipe book added a very nice touch to the lovely dinner he served us: herbed mussels (mosselen in kruidenboter), a warm sliced baguette served with tapenade, rocket lettuce salad,  stir fried chicken & brussels sprouts  and couscous!!

I'm going to share his recipe for Mosselen in Kruidenboter with you today( and some of the other recipes soon).

Manish opted for deshelled mussels (you can also use the ones with the shell; they're more effort and require careful cleaning to ensure that you wash away all the sand).

 In a pan cook the mussels in dry white wine for 3 minutes.
 Simultaneously, pre-heat the oven to 225 degrees Celsius.
 When the oven is ready toss in the mussels mixed with generous amounts of herbed butter (you will not need to add any extra salt if the butter is salted) and bake for 10 minutes.

Serve hot with a warm sliced baguette.  

A shortcut to Chicken Makhani

Butter Chicken is one of our favourite Indian, chicken main courses and earlier this month on our India trip we had to visit Delhi Darbar (Colaba) and Grand Central (Chembur); both make excellent butter chicken.
On a shopping trip to the local market later, we were picking up masalas to bring back to Eindhoven and found Chef Sanjeev Kapoor's Chicken Makhani spice mix.
Yesterday, we thought we'd use it to make a hassle free ,easy to cook Christmas lunch. Our experience so far has been that most ready mixes never taste like the real thing and are usually a not-so-bad compromise.
We were quite impressed with Sanjeev Kapoor spice mix and would definitely recommend it.
A few easy steps - a preparation plus cooking time of approximately half an hour and your butter chicken's ready to eat. With a few recommended final touches- fresh cream, a dollop butter and chopped coriander - the dish tastes even better.
So, if you're in the mood for some butter chicken at home and don't want to take too much trouble to make it, here's a decent shortcut we recommend.

Indiaas Vegetarisch Restaurant

It's over six months since I ate authentic Indian food at a restaurant. After moving to Eindhoven, I've had to depend on my own culinary skills every time I craved for some Indian food.
I asked other Indians living in Eindhoven about the few Indian restaurants we have in our city.
"Bland, absolutely inedible food!" , "Really small servings" , "Naan the size of a sev puri!!!" , "Names of dishes you've never heard of before!"
 The complaints were endless!!
 After lending my ear to a dozen such grievances I  decided that the Indian restaurants in the city were definitely not worth visiting.  My resolve didn't last too long though. A few months ago, Sri Ganesh, an 'Indiaas Vegetarisch Restaurant'  opened very close to home. We avoided it for a few months. A few people who visited it even recommended it. "It's comparatively inexpensive" , "Decent South Indian food" , "Value for money!"  Still, we weren't tempted.
Then one day as we paused outside the restaurant on one of our post-dinner walks, the owner smiled graciously and handing us the restaurant menu, invited us to come try the food there some time.
We walked home, flopped on our sofa and started browsing through the menu card. It was unbelievable!! We loved it!! As we looked at each item on the menu we were both in splits. Puri Paji, Peace Pulavu, Gula Jam, Lassy, Chuseum (what-the-hell-is that), etc the menu read!!!

Curiosity got the better of us and one weekend we stopped by to give Sri Ganesh a chance. We were disappointed. Barring the very entertaining menu card nothing much was exciting at the restaurant. The dosa was thicker than an uttapam or even a thick pizza base, the chutney was chalky and tasteless, the sambaar was like varan. The medu vada ( we were told there would be two pieces and we didn't think they meant that literally!!) was cut into half....horizontally!! And the medu vada didn't even have a hole in the center!!The sambaar was thick and dry.
We hated the food but I must confess that we had a good time....laughing at the menu card all over again!!

New addition to our bookshelf!!

Last month on a Sunday we meandered along the many canals in Amsterdam. We didn't particularly have an agenda in mind but we love the city and often visit it. On most such trips we walk around, discovering something new every time- a new store or a restaurant, a romantic spot along the canal, interesting curios, antiques, etc.
This time is was an English bookstore, a minute's walk from the famous flower market. The Dutch are voracious readers and you see a lot of bookstores in most cities. Unfortunately most stock Dutch books and that can be a little disappointing for the English reader. Sadly, the store was due to shut in ten minutes and the first section as you walked into the store happened to be the 'Food' section. We browsed through the many cook books and before we moved on to the next section, the lady at the counter began to rush us as she was shutting the store.

"Which books should we buy?", "I want them all!", "You know you can't have all! Pick a couple"

As we argued she gave a stern stare which meant, "if you can't decide, come again. I'm going to shut this store now and walk out."

We made a quick choice and got home 'The complete book of Greek cooking' and '100 15-minute fuss-free recipes'

I've tried my hand at a few recipes from each book and they've all turned out very nicely. The next few recipes that you'll see on the blog are from these books. Read on.......

Mossel Mania!

Summertime, in Holland and Belgium is mussels season! So it came to pass that we spent two sunny weekends in August chasing mussels!

No other country in the world enjoys mussels the way Belgium does. In fact 'moules frites' -mussels with fries - is like their national dish. So we made a trip to Brussels just to see what the big fuss was all about. An online search on Brussels' recommended restaurants led me to 'Chez Leon', a cute little place (but very busy though!) on rue de Bouchers, a small walk from the Grand Place.

Chez Leon was started way back in 1869 as a little fritture (a place that sells fries - not French fries though, but 'Flemish' fries) and has since grown to be the place to enjoy mussels in town! They claim to have been visited by many 'celebrities' (former American president Jimmy Carter, the Belgian royalty etc. etc.) who swear by their dishes. We had an awesome looking 'Moules Provencale' (mussels cooked in a garlic-butter-tomato sauce and topped with cheese) and 'Spaghetti Leon' (pasta with mussels and mushrooms in white sauce). The food was to die for and, in true Belgian tradition, was washed down generously with beer! The service in the restaurant was a little rude - Belgian tradition?? ;) - but we're getting used to that in Europe! :)

Most of the mussels being supplied to Belgium and elsewhere come from Zeeland - the seaside southern province of the Netherlands. So when we heard that Yerseke, a small fishing village in Zeeland (and the capital of the local mussels industry!) was hosting its annual "Mussels Festival", we knew we had to go!

The Yerseke Mosseldag with an estimated 40,000 visitors didn't exactly have the cute-seaside-village-romantic feel that we had expected! However there were mussels everywhere - from street-side vendors serving freshly cooked ones to restaurants doing special mussels' casseroles. The main highlight was the harbor where mussels were being served and consumed in heaps!

We chose (what seemed to be) a popular restaurant and ordered our big casserole - a big pot of mussels cooked in wine (the Brussels version uses dark beer!). A cute old man with a wrinkled face, sitting next to us, taught us that the 'right' way to eat them was to use an empty shell as a clamp to pull out the mussel from its shell!

Summer's now almost over and so is the mussels fever, but we're still hooked on...our fridge is still stocked up with a big pack of mussels and hopefully (Laxmi willing), we'll have mussels for dinner sometime soon! :)

Een avond in Maastricht!

We were online, looking for 'what's on when' when we stumbled upon 'Preuventmint' a four day culinary event in Maastricht. Maastricht, a city in the Dutch province of Limburg hosts this festival every year in the last week of August in the main town square.
We looked at their website and found the idea of over thirty stalls serving different cuisines and wines very promising!
We'd been forewarned that this weekend was going to be dampened by the storm clouds and a lot of rain, but this was something we didn't want to miss. We set out in the afternoon and in a little over an hour we drove into the city. Being Sunday, all the shops were shut but the main square was abuzz with activity- hundreds of people thronged the many stalls set up for the festival. It was already dark and cloudy and a cold wind had begun to blow. As we entered the open arena my senses were enraptured with the smell of warm cherry waffles fresh off the iron, steaks sizzling in the barbecue, skewered satay meat cooking over coals, freshly baked breads, so many types of cheese.......
We hopped from stall to stall but soon it started to pour! It got windier and colder and hundreds of people crowded under the make-shift canopies of the restaurants. It was hard to keep our spirits up with people stepping on our toes, our jeans completely drenched and our plates full of food balancing precariously in our hands. The live band played on, oblivious to all the commotion the rain had caused. The rain showed no signs of receding and we decided to head back home.
Had it been a bright, warm, sunny day we'd have definitely spent more time in Maastricht. We're not complaining though! The waffles and the cheese, the satay and the meats, the scampi and the piadina mamadou, the music and the celebration all made the two hours we spent there worth the drive!