Let’s start the new year casually with something we all love - Food!
I’ve been so busy with work right from the start of this new year that there was no time to write any proper blog post. However, food never got in the way :)
I usually spend my weekends these days experimenting with food. I may not be a good cook, but at least I can cook, and being a bachelor who knows how to cook is one brownie point I can add to my shaadi.com profile :P
Some of you may have seen my previous post, where I experimented with homemade pizzas. Click here in case you missed the delicious mouth watering post. The best part about eating something you yourself have cooked is that, no matter how salty or bland or tasteless the food turned out to be, you will still admit that it was awesome :D
Yesterday, I did my usual weekend meat shopping at JC’s cold storage. Bought a whole bunch of Chorizos among other stuff. Decided to have it with Malabar parathas for lunch!
Chorizo, as we know, is a spicy fresh pork sausage fermented or cured with a lot of chilli peppers or smoked spices and encased in a natural casing made from intestines. The description itself is enough to make any Porkaholic’s mouth water.
So here is my amateur way of preparing my meal... First, gently remove the sausage from the intestinal casing...
Next, carefully slice it. Use a very sharp knife because it is extremely delicate, otherwise it will become minced keema :D And I, Kima, ain’t gonna make keema.
After that, slowly heat the pieces in a frying pan with VERY LITTLE oil. The sausages themselves will procure their own oil once heated, which in turn will produce its unique flavour.
Heat the Malabar parottas/parathas on a dry pan with a teaspoon of ghee each. This type of parathas must only be eaten when they are hot, otherwise you’ll feel as if you’re chewing rubber :) You’ll also end up burning a lot of cholesterol in your attempt to tear them into smaller pieces if they are no longer hot :D
Additionally, you can also take accompaniments like dal and gobi sabji to minimize the spice. Thadaaaa, here’s a very simple and yet utterly delicious meal!
The meal above left a very fulfilling and satisfying flavour in my tummy for the rest of the day. Oink oink.
This morning though, I decided to have a little bit less of meat and more of greens in order to balance my diet. One must avoid too much carbs, especially if one is still single, you know :) And of course I feel less guilty when I picture my mom screaming at me, “Eat your vegetables!”.
So here is my simple, yet scrumptious breakfast - The Kimwich :P
First, prepare a simple homemade cheese base made from a mix of mayonnaise and cheese spread along with grated capsicum and onions, finely chopped parsley and basil, and a dash of mustard.
Spread this mix equally on top of fresh oregano bread.
Now take a recently purchased smoked ham luncheon meat (which I also bought from JC’s) and neatly arrange them on top of the cheese spread.
Add a little bit of salt and black pepper on top. After that, top up the meat with veggies.
Again, add a little bit of salt and black pepper on top in order to equally distribute the salinity. Now add fresh lettuce on top. Yeah mom, are you reading this? I am taking my veggies!
You can add various condiments and sauces on top too for added flavour, but since I just wanted to make it really simple, that was enough for me. A healthy and yet meaty breakfast! Yummm.
And I take a small extra effort in the presentation because that just makes it more appealing and appetizing to me.
Now coming back to Chorizos, even though they went really well yesterday with the Malabar parottas, they are also equally awesome with rice as well. And ever since my bottle of Raja Mirchi pickle which I bought from chef Gitika Saikia got over, Chorizo was the next best thing to having something spicy in my meal.
Thadaaa, today’s lunch. Veg pulao with fried Chorizo and yesterday’s leftover dal. I also fried some eggs from the very same oil that I used to fry the Chorizo, so even the eggs came with an aromatic meaty flavour. I can still feel the meat kicking in my stomach as I write this post.
What an awesome lunch :)
I just want to point out that I don’t always eat Chorizo as it is quite expensive. So on other days when I feel like eating meat, I usually fry the normal sausages, which are cheaper. Some of you may have seen my earlier post - My Spiral Sausages where I experimented with a new way of cooking sausages in a spiral manner.
The best part about processed meat is that they are extremely quick to prepare. And living in Mumbai with extremely hectic work schedule and deadlines everywhere, it is a perfect dish to make. Below is one such breakfast I made before rushing off to work last week. Fried sausages, eggs and toast. It took me less than 5 minutes to make the whole thing...
But on days when I feel like rewarding myself like after a successful pitch or a long day spent on video conference, I usually go for the Bratwurst sausage, which is more expensive than the ordinary sausages you see above or even the Chorizo. Notice the shape difference between the Chorizo and the Bratwurst.
The Bratwurst has a more smoky flavour and according to wiki, the name is derived from Old High German Brätwurst, from brät-, which is finely chopped meat and Wurst, which means sausage.
Again, I am definitely not a sausage connoisseur and I am only posting about the type of sausages I get from my favourite meat-house JC’s Cold Storage near my apartment, so the variety of sausages you’ll see me blogging about are extremely limited. That’s what we amateur foodies do.
At the end of the day, we all love food. Especially pork. I’d just like to take this opportunity to promote a new Pizza joint we came across recently.
I’m sure most of those living in Mumbai would have heard of Joey’s Pizza? Yeah?
Well, if you haven’t heard of them, and you’re extremely fond of pork, then that is one of the best pizzerias in town. Screw the traditional Dominos, Pizza Hut, Andy’s Pizza, Smokin’ Joe’s, Papa John’s etc. Those guys pale compared to Joey’s. The quantity of meat Joey’s Pizza serve is humongous!
Unfortunately, Joey’s deliver only around Andheri West and Malad West area (unless they have opened a new joint which I’m not aware of). I used to order so regularly from my previous Andheri office that one time they even made an exception and delivered to my previous apartment in Jogeshwari East!
However, now that we have recently shifted to Chandivali, Joey’s was out of the question, but we have discovered another truly awesome joint - Eva's Pizza!
Yup. Eva’s is as good as Joey’s. Their pizzas come covered in cheese, sausage, salami, ham, pepperoni, bacon and all the other goodness life has to offer. We order from Eva’s Pizza in office at least twice a week. Definitely a Heavenly place, unless of course you’re a vegetarian.
This is the size of their medium (10 inch) pizza, enough to feed me and two other colleagues.
Sometimes, when it’s just me alone craving for Pizza, I order the regular (7 inch) which is quite filling as well.
And when there is a large group of us, then we go for the large (12 inch), and opt for the 50-50 (two different flavours in one pizza) option.
They also have a “Four Season” item, which consists of four small Pizzas (smaller than a 7 inch, I think they are around 5 inch each) all having different flavours. I made the mistake of ordering one for myself... I couldn’t even finish half of it!
But one great thing about Pizzas is, before leaving office, I collected all the meat toppings from my leftover lunch and took them back home, where I had it with dinner, along with dal khichdi, tandoori roti and neer dosa. It was AWESOME.
One advice I’d like to give you if you’re ordering from Joey’s or Eva’s - ALWAYS order thin crust. They add so much meat that it would be a lying shame if you’re full from the bread crust and end up wasting a lot of good meat. Go for thin crust so that you can enjoy more meat :)
And to end this post, I’ll just include this last photo. Pork Salami with Egg Biryani and... BEKANG.
Yup, that’s a food fusion right there – Hyderabadi, Italian and Mizo. I’ll be coming up with my next batch of Food Fusion post soon (in case, you’re interested, you can go through my previous Food Fusion I and Food Fusion II posts, where I wrote about mixing up our Mizo delicacies with non-Mizo ones).
Until then, cheers and oink oink :)
