Nutella and Croissant bread pudding – A simple Christmas dinner dessert
There’s something about simplicity that is so attractive. A living room done up with simple furniture and accent pieces. An outfit put together with simple clothing and accessories. And a dish put together using simple, easy to find and use ingredients. This bread pudding recipe I discovered on Steamy Kitchen’s website is just that; It uses a few simple ingredients and voila! You have a decadent, delicious dessert that looks like it took a long time to put together.
So recently, when I was invited to an impromptu dinner at a friend’s home, and all I had at home were a few croissants, nutella and the usual suspects – milk, cream, eggs and sugar – I quickly put together this bread pudding. Day-old croissants are sliced in half lengthwise, slathered with yummy nutella, sandwiched back together, cut in chunks, and baked with a creamy custard made with eggs, cream, sugar and vanilla. I never thought the taste would be so so good.
Check out the original recipe here on Steamy Kitchen’s website. I mad a few modifications to Jaden’s recipe by using half and half instead of whole cream. I also added a big pinch of powdered cardamom to the custard, to add an extra layer of interesting flavor. This whole dish took under 10 minutes of prep time, and all I had to do after that was put it in the oven and let it cook, while I tackled other things around the house. Make it for Christmas eve dessert, or for Christmas day breakfast – you decide! I think it’ll be a hit either way. I know it was at the party I went to!
Wishing you all a Merry Christmas!
Simple oven baked Tandoori chicken served with tangy onions (kachumbar)
I’ve been missing home particularly a lot lately. Maybe it’s the freezing winter here, or the Christmas spirit that’s all about families… or maybe it’s also because it’s been a while since I visited home. As my semester winds down to an end and I look forward to 6 weeks of no classes, I am craving a trip home and catching up with my friends and family. As a substitute, I’ve been trying to replicate a few dishes from home.
Tandoori chicken wasn’t that big a part of my childhood; however the few times my family ordered it from the local Mughlai restaurant, we relished it thoroughly. I loved the deep red color of the tangdis although I knew I was shoveling tons of artificial color down my body, and loved squeezing lime juice over the chicken pieces, then nibbling on the charred bits (my favorite). What I probably enjoyed more than the chicken itself, was the yummy kachumbar or sliced onion salad that they packed with the chicken. There was something about the way the onion was sliced super thin, that made it all the more yummy.
Tandoori chicken is India’s answer to Barbequed meat. As many of you may know, the name tandoori chicken comes from the clay oven called tandoor, that it’s made in. While I don’t have a tandoor, and an American grill wouldn’t cook the chicken the way tandoori chicken is supposed to end up tasting, I searched for ways I could replicate the same tastes by cooking the chicken in an oven. The answer lied at the back of pack of tandoori spice mix 🙂
I used the recipe from a tandoori spice mix pack as the foundation, and made several changes to achieve the taste I was looking for. I started the recipe, thinking it would take a long time to make, but the chicken was fairly quick to prepare. The recipe starts with cleaning the chicken and removing the skin. Then, a quick ginger-garlic paste marinade makes sure the meat is tenderized. The chicken is then pressure cooked… yes, pressure cooked, for just one whistle. I found this step quite interesting, as in the past, when I have marinated chicken and tried to cook it on a grill, it takes a long time to cook through, which leaves the outer part of the chicken tough and hard, and the inner part, cooked through but dry.
Pressure cooking the chicken makes sure it is partially cooked, so when it is broiled in the oven, it cooks faster, but the result is perfectly charred from outside, and soft and juicy from inside. After this step, the chicken is basted in a mixture of spices and yogurt, and then baked in an oven. The whole process takes under 90 minutes from the time you start cleaning the chicken! Here’s my recipe for a really simple, oven-baked tandoori chicken, and a tangy onion kachumbar, to go with it. Serves 4 people.
For the onion Kachumbar –
- Thinly slice 1/2 a red onion and place in a glass bowl. Spritz juice of 1/2 a lime, add 1 tbsp of white vinegar and 1/4 tsp salt
- Sprinkle finely chopped cilantro, mix well, and place in the fridge
For the Tandoori Chicken –
Ingredients:
- 12 chicken drumsticks or equivalent quantity in bone-in chicken, skinless, cleaned, washed thoroughly, and patted dry
- 2 spoonfuls yogurt (a little more or less doesn’t matter, use your regular soup spoon)
- About 50 gms Tandoori spice mix (available at any Indian grocery store. Measurement is in grams because these spices come from the Indian sub-continent)
- Juice of 1/4 lime
- 1.5 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
- A pressure cooker. If you don’t have one, cook chicken in boiling water.
- Baking trays with aluminum foil
- Vegetable oil and a basting brush
Method:
- Rub ginger-garlic paste well over all the chicken and allow to marinate in the fridge for about 15 minutes. Then, place in a pressure cooker with about 2 cups water, and cook for only one whistle. Alternatively, cook chicken in boiling water until it is 1/2 cooked. Do not fully cook the chicken
- While the chicken cooks, mix together all the other ingredients in a bowl. When the chicken is cooked and cooled, rub this mixture well all over the chicken pieces. Rub inside any cavities and below folds of flesh too. Allow to marinate for another 10 minutes
- In the mean time, prepare the baking trays; line with foil. Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees F. Place chicken on the trays and bake for about 20 minutes or until the chicken is fully cooked. Then, remove from oven, baste with vegetable oil or melted butter, and place back in oven for 5-6 more minutes or until the right amount of char is achieved. This step helps the chicken get the appearance of authentic tandoori chicken.
- Serve immediately with the ‘pickled’ onion and slices of lime.
Warm Spinach Mascarpone dip – a Thanksgiving appetizer
With the Fall semester winding down to an end comes final project submissions, tests, and the final push to score that extra grade to cover up for the few papers you did badly on. Questions like “Will I get extra points if I…” are posed frequently to professors (ok, I admit… I’m the only person who asks this question 😉 ) and often, you hear about trips and vacations everyone will be taking in the Christmas break.
Lately however, people have been talking about Thanksgiving. This American holiday that I am yet to accept and internalize, appeals to me only because of the copious amounts of food involved. It’s been so interesting reading my Twitter and Facebook feeds lately that seem to be full of thanksgiving recipe suggestions. My favorite was Aarti Paarti’s Indian Thanksgiving menu suggestion.
Having been to two thanksgiving dinners so far, I know the festivities and cooking begins early in the day, and the meal is served only later in the evening. This means that the hungry folks need to be fed something right? Enter, the Thanksgiving starter. A few weeks ago I had some leftover spinach and mascarpone cheese from an earlier recipe, and wondered what to do with it. A long time ago, when browsing the famous food website Steamy Kitchen, which is written by food personality Jaden Hair, I instantly loved her recipe for a Spinach and Mascarpone dip. I’ve followed Jaden’s website for years and I ardently follow her tweets too, but this was the first time I tried her recipe. It took hardly any time to make and it was de-li-cious!! Not as heavy as an artichoke spinach dip, but not as light as a salsa. It was warm, creamy, cheesy (with hardly any cheese in it) and overall, comforting.
Jaden is right – it’s a dip you truly fall in love with. I always crave something warm, baked and cheesy when it gets colder outside (much to the disappointment of my thighs) and this dip was just right. When I finished baking a couple ramekins of the dip, I let them cool, poured out a few bland crackers on a plate, and polished off both servings of the dip in one sitting 🙂 The next time around I’ll actually eat it like an appetizer and not a meal!
Please visit Jaden Hair’s TLC page for the recipe here. Your guests will not be disappointed if you make this for them!
One Life to Eat 