Pantry Staples Class with Saee

Most cooking classes these days are about cup cakes, bread, desserts or cuisines like Mexican, Thai, and the ever popular Chinese. Learn 5 easy pasta recipes, 6 simple salads, 3 desserts in a jar recipes, 5 healthy main courses -  the list goes on and nothing captures the imagination any more. And one day Saee said she was thinking of doing a Pantry Staples class - I leaped up at the idea and told her I was coming for sure.

Saee's been taking bread workshops for a while now under her own My Jhola brand and even has customised classes where an interested student can Bring Home My Jhola and learn in the comfort of their own kitchen using equipment that they have instead of an overly professional and sometimes intimidating studio kitchen.

The Pantry Staples Workshop was one of the most informative and fun workshops I've been to in a long time. We made

Spicy Tomato Ketchup
Basil Walnut and Parmesan Pesto
Pumpkin Seed butter
Saffron and Cardamom Lemonade Concentrate
Strawberry Vanilla Jam

The hubby loves jams and has a collection of home made jams sitting on the shelves. His mum made jams at home and his sister makes some amazing jams too. Saee regularly sends over jams that she's made as do other foodie friends like Rushina. In fact, US based food blogger Niv Mani also brought over some of her own home made jams all the way to add to his jam collection! When I saw the Strawberry Vanilla Jam on the list for the workshop I knew I had to attend this one :)

Gourmet foods can easily be made at home and Saee's workshop was a demonstration of just how easy some of these are. You don't need any fancy equipment or gadgets, neither do you need any special utensils or vessels. We're also becoming more aware of the presence of artificial preservatives and flavourings in commercial foods and many of us would like to be able to cut those right out of our diets. This workshop showed how easily that can be achieved.

Most ingredients are now commonly available and are not prohibitively expensive any more. Basil, for example, is now available with most local vegetable vendors and if, like me, you shop online it's not a problem at all. It's the same with almost all the ingredients that we used in the workshop so one doesn't have to worry about not being able to make the same stuff at home for lack of ingredients.

I came home with a bag full of goodies and a head full of recipes. The biggest surprise for me was the Pumpkin Seed butter. I have a million food related hangups and can shut my mind to a whole lot of things. If there's a healthy label attached, it doesn't help matters. I didn't expect to like the butter and though I was interested in the process of making it I was fairly confident it wasn't something I was going to try out myself. Well, I have changed my mind. This is something I could easily enjoy slathered on toast in the mornings!

Here's a look at what we made-

Walnut Basil Pesto with Parmesan



Pumpkin Seed Butter

 Spicy Tomato Ketchup

Chunky Strawberry Vanilla Jam

Saffron Cardamom Lemonade

(Lemonade Photo Credit - Saee Koranne - Khandekar)

Keep your eyes peeled for Saee's next workshop. Trust me, you will learn interesting things and you'll have a whole lot fun too! 

Marathon Bloggers Project 52 2014

Bacon Whiskey Jam - What a wonderful idea!

The first time K told me about Bacon Whiskey Jam, I thought he was kidding. He showed me the recipe on this wonderful blog and I was hooked. As I read the recipe I was even more intrigued - this recipe also had coffee.

I spent a couple of weeks looking for streaky bacon (which the original recipe demanded) and eventually I had nailed down all the ingredients, bacon included. The first batch was made and a few basic lessons were learned. Don't crisp the bacon, leave it soft. That makes all the difference to the colour, texture and even taste of the final product. I also learned to be confident and substitute sensibly instead of obsessing about getting all the exact ingredients.

This morning I settled down to make the second attempt. Ever since I made it the first time my friends on the Mumbai Food Exchange group have been waiting to get their bottle of BWJ. Well, the jam is ready and here's a new blog post after a huge gap - two birds with one stone :)

 This is my adaptation of the original recipe that you can read here.

Bacon Whiskey Jam with a bit of tweaking -

500gms Streaky Bacon
5 red onions, finely chopped
5 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 or 3 green chillies, finely chopped
50gms dark brown sugar
50ml Golden Syrup (instead of Maple syrup)
150ml fresh brewed coffee
100ml whiskey
50ml cider vinegar
50ml red wine

If you compare the ingredients to those in the original recipe you will notice some differences. I've increased the quantity of onions. I also used Golden Syrup because I had a bottle already and didn't want to spend a packet on maple syrup. I've also used red wine instead of rw vinegar. Actually, that was an unintentional change. The first time I made this jam I used red wine by mistake thinking it was vinegar. It worked beautifully so I decided to stick with it :) I might use Kolah's sugarcane vinegar instead of Cider vinegar the next time because the sc vinegar has a much more full bodied flavour that I think will work very well in this recipe.

To get on with the recipe -

Cut the bacon into small bits. Fry it lightly till it releases some of its fat. Do this on a slow flame and let the bacon cook slowly. DO NOT let it crisp. I took about 15 minutes to cook the bacon leisurely over a medium flame.

Stir it often and keep an eye on it. Tilt pan and let the fat collect on one side. If there's a lot, drain off some. Reserve the bacon in a plate.

Heat the fat and throw in the onions. Pink the onions, don't let them get brown. Once again, do it doucement. Patience will be rewarded. I promise. Let the onions sweat it out gently for about 15 minutes in the bacon fat.

Throw in the chopped garlic and give it all a good stir and follow it up with the fried bacon. Now here's the time to resist the temptation to throw in some eggs and make the best scrambled eggs on God's Earth. Resist!

While the bacon and subsequently the onions have cooked slowly, get the other ingredients together in a bowl. Measure and pour into your bowl so you only have to dunk the whole lot in when it's required. Just leave the red wine out. It makes its entry at the end.

So, the onions, garlic and the bacon are all mixed together and you have managed to stay away from the eggs.  Grab that bowl of brown sugar, golden syrup, coffee, vinegar, and whiskey and pour it into your pot. Stir and sprinkle in the chopped green chillies. Add a bit of water if needed and let it all simmer for an hour. Check every 20 minutes and add water only if required.

Add the red wine and give it another 15 minutes to simmer. Cool the jam and run it in your food processor to give it a nice texture.

The bacon pieces might be big and a run in the food processor will break it down nicely. Don't liquidise it, leave it slightly coarse.

You're in for a treat. Grab a slice of toast, slather on some BWJ and get ready for a heavenly burst of flavour. Remember the coffee? It works fabulously! In fact, I think it's the coffee that binds the flavours together and gives you a mouthful of nirvana.

This is one jam I'm going to be making quite often.