Curried Leg of Lamb
Sunday, August 31st, 2008Filed Under India - Kerala, Lamb or Goat | 56 Comments
We all have certain moments in our lives when we look at our significant other and think - Yes, I’ve chosen wisely. One such moment in my life involves a huge bone. Not that kind of bone you dirty minds - I meant a real bone.
It happened in one of the early years of our relationship. We were having lamb curry for dinner. There was one large piece of bone in that curry! You know the type of bone that’s been stewed in the spicy gravy for a long time, that the spices actually get inside the bone to season the succulent marrow. If you are into bone marrow, this must be one of the tastiest you could ever find! There was only one such bone, I salivated at the sight of it and was more than willing to share. But Siv looked at it and declared that he doesn’t like marrow and I could have it… I thanked my lucky stars and went on to devour it with all the unavoidable sound effects of sucking marrow out of a bone.
We never really talked about it after that. Whenever we made any lamb curry for the next few months, I would take all the bones without a second thought. Until one day when we got two legs of lamb, one each for us. Siv offered me his bone as usual, but I was too stuffed by then that I passed. Then I saw him attacking that bone… I had never seen anyone enjoying a bone as much as he did that day. He was blowing from one end, sucking in from the other with all the strength he could muster; eyes almost popping out of their sockets. He was using props, forks and metal skewers to scrape out any remaining bits of marrow, it was some show! At the end of it all there was the cleanest bone I’d ever seen in my life!
That is when I realized - here is a guy who loves his bone as much as I do, but has been sacrificing it for me all this time… If that is not selfless love, what is? 
Then on, needless to say we have been sharing equally!
I remembered this story when I made this leg of lamb curry the other night. I normally make this in a pressure cooker, but with the pressure cooker we could easily overcook meat if we are not too careful, resulting in tasteless meat. So this time I decided to try a regular pot, and simmer for about an hour, and the result was totally amazing. The meat was perfectly cooked, tender but still maintaining the meaty taste and texture. And the bone marrow mixed with the spices was out of this world. Try this recipe if you are a lamb fan!
Ingredients
- 2 legs of lamb bone-in
- 6 cardamom pods
- 4 star anise
- 1″ cinnamon stick
- 1 large red onion, diced
- 8-10 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 1/2 tbsp ginger, grated
- 2 Roma tomatoes, chopped fine
- 1 tbsp red chili powder
- 1 1/2 tbsp coriander powder
- a few curry leaves
- 4 cups hot water
- salt to taste
- 2 tbsp oil
Method
In a large pan, heat 1 tbsp oil and brown the meat evenly on all sides. Remove the meat from the pan and keep aside.
Add the rest of the oil into the same pan and add the cardamom, star anise and cinnamon and saute for a few seconds.
Add the onion, garlic and ginger and saute till the onions starts to brown. Add the chili powder and coriander powder and mix well. Reduce the heat to medium and saute till the spices are aromatic and the oil starts to separate. Add the chopped tomatoes and stir well to combine, cook till the tomatoes are completely blended in.
Add the lamb back into the pan and mix well so that lamb pieces are coated with the spice mixture on all sides. Add the curry leaves, salt and 4 cups of hot water and mix well. Bring to a boil, cover with a tight fitting lid and reduce the heat to medium.
Cook for about 50-60 minutes. Remove the lid and cook on high heat to reduce the liquid down to form a really thick gravy.
Serve hot with steamed rice.
Farfalle with Leftover Chicken and Caramelized Onions
Saturday, August 30th, 2008Filed Under Chicken, Mains, Pastas | 10 Comments
It sucks to be stuck at home over a long weekend! We had everything ready for a Las Vegas getaway, when I got sick with a really bad cold. Vegas is the wrong place to be with a cold, unless you are on a mission to spread the virus to the world. So we postponed the trip by a week, and we are home without a plan for the three day weekend. I might just have to go checkout those Labor day sales I’ve been hearing about… 
Here is a quick and easy pasta recipe with leftover chicken. Perfect for a quick fix Saturday lunch if you have any leftover chicken in the fridge. I use my leftover pepper chicken, you could use rotisserie chicken or any other dry chicken preparation. This is very loosely based on a farfalle recipe I found in the Bon Appetite magazine - June 2008.
Ingredients
- 4 oz Farfalle (bow-tie pasta)
- For Caramelized onions
- 1 large red onion thinly sliced
- 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 1/2 tsp sugar - 1 tbsp olive oil
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/2 cup white wine
- 1/2 cup chicken broth
- 1/4 cup thinly sliced basil leaves
- 1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
- 2 tbsp grated parmesan
- Salt and freshly grated pepper to taste
Method
Cook the farfalle al dente according to packet directions.
Heat oil in a large skiller and add onions. Sprinkle with salt and cook till brown stirring frequently. Reduce heat to medium and add balsamic vinegar and sugar and cook till onions are completely browned and dry, about 6-7 minutes. Remove the caramelized onions.
Add some more oil to the skillet if necessary and add the minced garlic. When the garlic begins to brown, add the chicken and saute till brown. if using unseasoned cooked chicken, you can add some pepper or crushed chilies at this point to season the chicken. My chicken was already spicy, so I didn’t have to add anything.
Add wine and cook until it is reduced by half. Add the pasta, caramelized onions, basil, parsley, grated parmesan and stock. Season with salt and pepper and toss to combine, cook for about three more minutes until it is heated through.
Serve warm. This is quite a simple, but filling dish with some great flavors. The spicy chicken and the sweet caramelized onions adds some interesting contrast of flavors to this dish. The original recipe called for tomatoes and spinach as well, that sure would’ve added some more color. I was happy with the way mine turned out tastewise, even though it is somewhat boring to look at.
For a couple of months, we were stuck in a cooking rut induced by job demands, bad health and just pure laziness. We rarely cooked at home and even when we did, it was usually something boring. Luckily there were some events to keep this blog alive and somewhat interesting, but when I browse through the archives I can see the steady decline in the recent months. This made me really worry about the future of this blog, so I’ve made a resolution to heat things up in the kitchen (so to speak) at least for this blog’s sake.
Most of my resolutions start with a big shopping spree. Start going to the gym – time for new gym clothes… Start hiking – need new hiking boots and backpack… you get the drift. So to get my cooking groove back, I went and got some new toys like a new blender, a food processor, grill pan, few new serving dishes for the pictures and some more stuff I will talk about in a future post. Just buying stuff makes me happy, and it was a surefire motivation. Getting back into the kitchen and starting to experiment with some new recipes has sure brought some of the passion back. I think it was just a starting trouble. From the past two weeks I already have a few recipes in my drafts, I am spoilt for choice when I want to post something. This hasn’t happened in a while! Now if only I get time to sit and write every day!
I will share the first recipe in my drafts today, a pepper chicken which really was Siv’s idea. He makes the Spanish Chicken very often, and he wanted to make an Easternized version of the same. So Garlic was replaced with ginger; paprika was replaced with ground black pepper and bay leaves with curry leaves. We couldn’t think of a substitute for white wine though. I also sneaked in some soy sauce and shallots. Coming to think of it we could have kept the fried garlic, that would’ve been really nice in this dish. Anyway, it turned out to be a tasty chicken dish, great with beer.
Ingredients
- 1lb chicken thighs cubed (I used breast, but thighs will be lot better)
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- 2 tbsp grated ginger
- 1/4 cup thinly sliced shallots
- a bunch of curry leaves
- 2tbsp freshly ground black pepper (or less if you can’t take the heat)
- 1/2 cup white wine
- salt to taste
- Oil for sauteing
Method
Mix the chicken with salt, soy sauce and grated ginger and half of the ground pepper and let marinate for 30 minutes.
Heat oil in a large pan, and saute the shallots till brown. Add the marinated chicken pieces and fry stirring often till the chicken pieces are browned on all sides. Add the rest of the pepper, curry leaves and white wine and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and cook till dry.
Serve hot with some fresh lime wedges and ice cold beer.
This is going to be my shortest post ever! Looking for an easy dish for MBP - Fruit Fare, I found the easiest dessert in the world - No Cooking Required Mango Soup by Mango & Tomato. The recipe is to cube a ripe mango and mix with defrosted vanilla ice cream. My mango was not too sweet, so I mixed some sugar with the mango pieces, also added some chopped mint leaves and grated ginger and mixed it all up. Back to the refrigerator to rest for an hour, the easiest and tastiest dessert is ready!
This quick and easy dessert is my contribution for MBP - Fruit Fare hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen. MBP was started by Coffee of Spice Café.
If you are a Mango fan, check out these cocktails before you leave!
A Gingery Pork Belly and a Book Me-Me
Sunday, August 24th, 2008Filed Under MeMe, Pork | 15 Comments
Sra tagged me for a book me-me a while ago. The rules for this me-me are
-Pick up the nearest book
-Open to page 123
-Find the 5th sentence
-Post the next three sentences
-Tag 5 people and acknowledge the person who tagged you.
At the time I read Sra’s post, I had five books next to me- two were geek stuff, one poker book and two others which I could actually use, but both turned out to have the shortest sentences one could write in the chosen page and position. So I cheated and went to my bookshelf and pulled out the first foodie book I could find. Luckily that had some relatively long sentences I could copy.
I was deep in this heightened, near-excruciating state of anticipation when all of a sudden I felt a spray of icy water in my face, a forceful, unending blast shocking in its temperature, its magnitude - its very existence.
Where on earth was it coming from?
Shaking my head, trying in vain to avoid the rush, I looked round to see that all of the guys were being hosed down as well.
Intriguing isn’t it? These lines are from the book Don’t Try This at Home - Culinary catastrophes from the World’s Greatest Chefs. It is a collection of kitchen bloopers and disaster stories by some of the world’s well known chefs. The above excerpt is by Neil Perry. This book is a good read, but as you would expect from any compiled work there are some entertaining articles and some real duds as well.
I think everyone has already done this meme, so I am not tagging anyone, please consider yourself tagged if you want to take this on. Sra, thanks for the tag, it was fun..
I wish I had a disaster story to go with this, but as it turns out I can do no wrong in my kitchen! Take this pork belly dish for example, this whole recipe is a real Chef Sig Original, I just made it up as I was cooking, but it turned out to be a masterpiece. What can I say, I am blessed with so much culinary talent that it is impossible to screw anything up.. Have I mentioned that humility is not one of my strengths?
The difference between this dish and my other pork preparations is that, there are no dry spices in this one. It is made with all fresh ingredients, except for soy sauce. 
Ingredients
- 1 - 1.5 lbs pork belly cut into large cubes
- 1/2 cup Sliced Shallots
- 6-8 cloves garlic
- 1/2 cup thinly sliced ginger pieces
- 8-10 small Thai green chilies (adjust according to your need for heat)
- 2 roma tomatoes chopped fine
- 1.5 tbsp soy sauce
- 1/2 cup sliced shallots for sautéing
- salt to taste
- sliced green onions for garnish
Method
Crush the shallots, garlic, ginger and green chilies to a coarse paste using a mortar and pestle or use a food processor.
Place a pressure cooker or a large pan with a tight fitting lid on the stove and heat it up. Place the pork belly pieces fat side down and cook for about 5 minutes, till some of the fat melts and forms an oily layer. Turn the pork pieces and slightly char on all four sides. Remove the pork pieces and keep aside.
Pour most of the fat out from, and leave just a tbsp in the cooker or the pan Add the sliced shallots to the oil and saute till soft. Add the crushed ingredients from the first step and saute for 2-3 minutes. Now add the chopped tomatoes and saute for another 3-4 minutes. Add the pork, soy sauce and salt and mix well.
Close the pressure cooker and cook on high till the first whistle (when the pressure cooker has reached the full pressure). Reduce the heat to medium and cook for about 12 more minutes. Release the steam and open the pressure cooker, mix well to combine.
If using a regular pan, add a cup of hot water along with the meat and bring to a boil. Cook covered on medium heat for about 45 minutes till the meat is completely cooked. Remove the lid and cook uncovered till the gravy is thickened.
Garnish with green onions , serve warm with white rice and some steamed bok choy, or other greens for a delicious meal.
The tomatoes and soy sauce together gave this a dark red color we loved! I didn’t intend it to be ginger pork, but the gravy had a distinctly strong ginger taste since I went a little overboard with the amount of ginger. It was delicious though, I have to try this same with chicken for a ginger chicken version.
I am sending this over to the Original Recipes Round Up event at Culinarty.
Looks like Tapas are the latest trend in Seattle! I remember a time when we had only a couple of good Tapas places, but looks like there are quite a few restaurants popping out around the area. I am not complaining though, I have professed my love for Spanish food in this blog many times. I’d just say more the merrier!
One of the latest hotspot in town is Ocho, looks like entire Seattle is talking about this place lately, and of course we had to find out what the excitement is all about. So we made a quick stop there on a Saturday night before meeting some friends for dinner at Thaiku. I have to say Ocho is another welcome addition to the Seattle Tapas scene.
Ocho is a tiny bar that can seat about 30 or so, with a few tables inside and a few outside and also some seat-yourself bar seats. The place was completely packed when we got there around 9 PM, we were really lucky to find our seats at the bar on a Saturday night! Music was blaring, people were happily drunk and loud, the type of place where we like to spend a weekend evening at, well some weekends really. As we get older, there are times when we just want a quiet, laid back evening with some good food and drinks, but then there are some nights when a loud neighborhood bar is exactly what gets us to relax.
Owner of Ocho used to manage the bar at another Ballard favorite La Carta de Oaxaca. That must be why one of the biggest crowd pull to this place is the famous “Ten Dollar Margarita”. Oh yes, we did try them and apart from being extremely potent, I honestly didn’t understand the big deal. I’ve had better margaritas – there I said it. Loved the sangria, and there are so many other cocktails and wines to choose from, I’d stick to those the next time!
Food is a totally different story altogether; Tapas here were as good as any we had anywhere else. There is no printed menu being for the Tapas selection, all the dishes are written out on the big black board at the back of the bar. Tapas are dirt cheap ranging from $1.50-$6. Even though we were sitting right at the bar, it took them a while to get to us to take the drink order, and eventually to get the food order. I must say all the tapas we ordered were definitely worth the wait.
A few samples - Bite sized anchovies and bell peppers skewered with artichoke heart, a chorizo dish topped with soft fried egg, deviled egg with pickled asparagus, fried spicy potato bites aka Patatas bravas with delicious green aioli, Green beans with arugula and fried garlic, and of course my favorite tapa Pimientos de Padrón.
All of the tapas were delicious, especially loved the Patatas Bravas and the deviled eggs and of course the padróns! Our initial plan was to just stay at Ocho for the night, but the plans changed midway to have dinner at Thaiku with some friends. So we didn’t order right, there were so many other dishes we were eyeing for the second round, that never happened. So there will be a second visit as soon as we get a chance and enjoy a nice, relaxed meal, the type of meal this place is meant for.
I found this very interesting little activity going on around the blogosphere and wanted to play along too. This was originated by Andrew of the Very Good Taste blog.
In Andrew’s on words
“Below is a list of 100 things that I think every good omnivore should have tried at least once in their life. The list includes fine food, strange food, everyday food and even some pretty bad food - but a good omnivore should really try it all.”
If you want to play along, here are the rules.
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.
The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:
1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile (hope alligator counts)
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar (I’ve had cognac of course, but I’d never have a cigar!)
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects (I don’t know, I might if I am really drunk and the insects are deep fried.)
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse (hmmm, I think the meat might be really tough)
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake
63 out of 100, I’ve got miles to go! Thanks Andrew for the list, I had fun doing this!
Campaign to Heal
Srivalli of Cooking 4 all Seasons is organizing a fundraiser-Donate for a Heart ~ A Campaign to Heal! Lakshmi is a mother of two small kids and is suffering from Coronary Artery disease. She needs a surgery for survival. Every little bit you donate would surely go a long way! Check out this post for details on how to help.
Monthly Mingle - Grill It! Event Round-up
Sunday, August 17th, 2008Filed Under Blog Events | 44 Comments
I am proud to present a colorful array of grilled goodies cooked up by food bloggers from all around the globe! We have 71 grilled delights here today! These mouthwatering dishes include all sorts of grilled stuff - vegetables, fruits, fish, shrimp, chicken, lamb, steak, salads, sandwiches, pizza you name it, we have it here. A big thanks to Meeta, for giving me the opportunity to host the Monthly Mingle this month. This was quite a party, thank you all for joining us this month and making this event a grand success!
This is a semi-automated round up. I call it semi-automated since I had to fix the image names and URLs in quite a few entries manually. But other than that, all I had to do was to download the csv file generated from your submissions, write some code to download and resize and crop the images and display it in the format of choice. Since it was automated, I am pretty sure I didn’t miss any entries, if you submitted it using the entry form, it should be here. In case your entry is missing, please let me know via e-mail or leaving a comment, I will include it as soon as possible.
Without further ado, I invite you all to take a tour of these culinary masterpieces hot off the grill. Presentation style was inspired by foodgawker.com web site. Entries are presented in alphabetical order under each category.
Tidbit Bistro
Saturday, August 16th, 2008Filed Under Capitol Hill, Italian, Spanish, Tapas | 7 Comments
idbit bistro is a casual European restaurant in Capitol Hill that serves Spanish and Italian comfort cuisine. Where Madrid meets Napoli is their slogan. The food is unpretentious, simple and extremely delicious, ambience is casual, staff is friendly and the prices are very reasonable - a perfect place to sit back and relax with a bunch of friends on a summer evening.
Tidbit has been on our wish list ever since it opened last year, but somehow the stars never aligned right for us to make that trip. Then Ms.KewlKat suggested this place for a Blossip™ (Ask her what that means) session a few weeks ago. Our second outing was even more fun than the first one that I completely forgot to take pictures. Thanks for the fun night A, M and K! The food was so great that I had to go back, so I did last week with Siv and some friends, and this time I remembered to take pictures.
The patio outside is perfect for summer evenings, but it is so narrow that only tables for four can be accommodated. We were a party of six, so after some major brainstorming they put two tables together for us at the far end of the patio so that we weren’t blocking anyone. First time when I went there, it was a Tuesday night and the place was packed. But this time for a Saturday night, it was kind of empty. Tuesday nights are half price wine bottle night, that could explain the crowd, but I don’t see any reason why it was empty on Saturday! So fellow Seattleites, don’t let another good restaurant bust out, please give them some more business, it is totally worth a visit!
We started with some great specialty cocktails. Between the six of us we ordered most of their cocktails on the menu, Pear-tini was my favorite. The food menu is divided into Tapas (ranging fro $1.50 to $10), Entrées with 1st course (~$18) and 2nd course ($18-$23) and Soups and Salads and Desserts. We pretty much concentrated on the Tapas section, and ordered the items we liked in triples and quadruples. Finally we shared a couple of entrées and desserts as well. We had so much food and drinks, but the bill was only a little above $100 per couple, which was way too cheap for the amount of stuff we had!
PAPAS DULCES - Rosemary-scented sweet potato fries with a side of whole grain mustard aioli ($4.50). These must be the best fries I’ve ever had! We ordered at least four of these!
ALBÓNDIGAS CON ALMENDRAS - Lamb and beef Spanish meatballs in a saffron and ground almond sauce ($8.) Meatball was soft and well cooked, and the sauce was tasty! Quite filling dish for $8!
CROSTINO CON FUNGHI - Sautéed mushrooms, mozzarella, and parmesan $2.5. I always hate the name Funghi, but if you get past the name, these will make some yummy nibbles.
INVOLTINI DI MELANZANE - eggplant rolls filled with bread, capers, olives, topped with sciué sciué and parmesan $10. We were six hardcore meat-eaters and we enjoyed this vegetarian dish, need I say more?
GAMBAS AL AJILLO Prawns sautéed in an Andaluz sherry sauce $10. This was okay, but nothing special, sauce was great with bread though.
CRESPELLE - Savory crepes with asparagus, mozzarella, goat cheese, gorgonzola, and
béchamel $16. Another vegetarian dish, which was absolutely delicious, very sinful with all that cheese and cream, don’t get one for yourself, share with at least three other people.
POLLO RELLENO AL HORNO . Chicken breast stuffed with bread and pine nuts in an Andaluz sherry sauce served with saffron rice pilaf ($18). This was the only disappointment of the night, I’d stay away from this one.
CORDERO A LA PLANCHA* Marinated leg of lamb grilled and served with herbed potato cake, whole grain mustard aioli and olive tapenade ($23). Siv and I shared this for our entrée, this was delicious! Lamb was perfectly cooked, and the potato cake was to die for!
I don’t have any dessert pictures, but we got the some Italian biscotti with a glass of Tuscan sweet wine to dip those in, Tiramisu, gelato and some dessert wine to finish off the meal, perfect ending to a perfect meal.
Also, I must add that they have plenty of vegetarian dishes in the menu, and also offers Vegan and Gluten free alternates for most dishes.
Kahlua Soaked Grilled Pears a la Mode
Thursday, August 14th, 2008Filed Under Desserts, Nuts, Pear | 20 Comments
A gentle reminder that tomorrow- August 15th - is the deadline for Monthly Mingle - Grill It event. If you haven’t grilled anything yet, you have another 28 hours to go. Thanks for all the wonderful entries so far and please note that if you haven’t submitted your entry using the entry form, I won’t be able to include it in the round up.
I wanted to end my grilling expedition with a nice dessert; grilled pears have always been a favorite. The initial plan was to soak the pears in rum, but when I opened the liquor cabinet, I got another idea - Kahlua! Kahlua is a coffee-flavored liquor and the label of my bottle also mentioned notes of rum, vanilla and caramel, perfect for dessert isn’t it?
I mixed up some brown sugar, Kahlua, cinnamon and cardamom pods in a bowl and added some dark rum just for kicks and soaked the pear slices in it. The soaking liquid tasted so good, I kept “tasting” it by the spoonful. I was a bit drunk by the time the dessert was done! I just couldn’t get enough of that liquid, so I soaked some pecans in it and toasted them in a pan. Slightly caramelized sweet pecans were super delicious in this dessert!
(There really is no proper recipe, I was eyeballing everything. So adjust the measures to taste.)
Ingredients
- 2 pears cored and cut into six slices lengthwise.
- 1 cup Kahlua
- ¼ cup rum
- 1 tbsp brown sugar
- 1 large cinnamon stick broken into small pieces
- 6-7 cardamom pods broken
- For serving
- Pecans
- Ice cream of your choice. I had coconut ice cream; plain vanilla will be great too!
Method
Mix the Kahlua, rum, sugar and spices in a large bowl and place the pear quarters in the bowl. Mix well so the pears are coated with the liquor. Leave it in the fridge for at least two hours, overnight will be great.
Heat a grill to medium high heat and place the pear slices at an angle, so that it gets diagonal grill marks. Grill for about 3-4 minutes per side, the slices will start to brown and the fruit will get soft.
In the meantime, soak the pecans if using, in the same marinade. Place a slightly greased pan on the stove. When the pan is hot add the pecans and heat them through stirring frequently. Remove when the pecans are brown and toasty.
To serve, arrange 2-4 pear slices in a bowl, place a scoop of ice cream, pour some of the marinade over and top with the pecans.
I really wanted to get some flaming action going with the alcohol, but Siv wasn’t home and I don’t know how to operate the fire extinguisher, maybe next time…
Wishing a Happy Independence day to all my fellow Indians!!!
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