I can hear the collective yawn already – No, not another Biryani recipe! Hasn’t she posted all the possible variations out there already? Well, no, I haven’t even scratched the surface yet. Every time I make Biryani it turns out a bit different, so you should really thank me for not posting the hundreds of variations that I could. In fact every chicken or lamb curry recipe I have can be converted into a biryani recipe. But don’t worry, I promise this one is different, it is not just a …

I know I posted a broken wheat recipe just a couple of weeks ago, but I just had to share this one as soon as possible. After the first successful experiment with broken wheat, we were totally smitten by its crunchy texture. It can take some serious abuse without going all mushy on you, so we talked about trying a chicken fried broken wheat (for lack of imagination to come up with a better name) in the lines of chicken fried rice . Then Mamatha came along and suggested adding …

I love December! Everyone is in a jolly good mood all the time, not much’s happening at work, too many parties to go to, commute is pretty good most of the days and the streets are so colorful! I am avoiding the mall these days, which is where most of the ugliness of the season takes place. Just thinking about January makes me so sad! It was so hard to go back to work on Monday after the Thanksgiving week. So January will be even worse, after all the Christmas …

After almost two weeks of eating out, the cravings for homemade food got unbelievably strong today. I had some frozen spareribs in the freezer, which I cooked with Indian spices to make a spicy pork fry. I don’t mind eating dry dishes with plain rice, as long as it is spicy, but Siv usually prefers a gravy with white rice.
First inkling was to make a fried rice, but the fridge was completely empty, even the eggs had expired almost a week ago. Then I suddenly thought of saffron rice, we …

The husband is away on a business trip, the fridge is practically empty and it is pouring outside to go shopping. This was the situation at home tonight when it was time to start thinking about dinner. I raided the fridge to find some Portuguese sausage links, eggs and left over rice. First thought was to just have sausage and eggs, breakfast for dinner, why not? But then I thought of Meeta’s Monthly Mingle, and that today is the last day. An event is always a motivation for cooking, and …

We have ongoing arguments in our household as to who the better cook is. Now we all know there is really no argument there but I have to admit that there are a few dishes – when I say few, I mean single digits – that Siv is better at. For example he makes the best fish curry in the world, and I am not exaggerating. He also makes some mean crab dishes too. With chicken, mutton etc we both have our own masterpieces, but if …

Once in a while I get e-mails from readers asking for menu suggestions for a dinner party they are planning. This is my absolute favorite part of any party- coming up with the menu. Siv and I spend days planning a menu for the parties that we throw, and come up with an over-ambitious menu comparable to that of a tasting menu at a fine restaurant. But due to utter laziness and the tendency to procrastinate doing any kind of job till the absolute last minute, more often than not we end up ditching the pre-planned menu and do a d-day scrambling to buy groceries [...]

May 16th is LiveStrong Day, a day to raise awareness about cancer survivors organized by Lance Armstrong Foundation. There are many ways to get involved, Barbara of WinosAndFoodies has organized a blog event for us food bloggers to be a part of this day. This brave lady is a cancer survivor herself, and she has urged the food bloggers to cook an yellow dish to show our support and to spread the word about LiveStrong Day.
LIVESTRONG Day is the Lance Armstrong Foundation’s (LAF) grassroots advocacy initiative to unify people affected by …

I know easy is a relative term. Making Biryani is never that easy, it is normally a multi step process – prepare the meat and the gravy, fry the rice, cook the rice, mix the rice with the gravy and bake for a while… give or take and mix and match some steps here and there, it is a slightly complicated process! So when I found a recipe in one of my cookbooks where the process is made much simpler, really just a two step process, I was a little skeptical, but …

I am very lucky to be married to a guy who not only shares my passion for food, but is a fantastic cook as well. But even though both of us work full-time, somehow cooking is my responsibility in our house. It is not something that Siv demands, he doesn’t expect me to cook every day, he cooks when he is in the mood, and expects me to do the same. But I have a voice in my head that tells me that the kitchen is my domain, and cooking …

Tapioca known as Cassava or Yuka (Kappa in Malayalam) is one of the staples in Kerala. Normally, “kappa vevichadu” is a preparation of tapioca boiled and mashed with ground coconut and spice mixture. This is normally served with fish curry or meat curry. This used to be a poor man’s meal, but now a days it is even served in five star restaurants in Kerala, it has become a delicacy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassava
I first had Tapioca Biriyani here in the US from the frozen section in an Indian grocery store, and tried …