Chef at Large

Here’s a recipe by Ofelia - Cuban Black Beans. Perfected by her grandmother, this is a traditional Cuban recipe and the first one on this blog. Let’s hope we see more contributions from Ofelia.
- Sid
Ingredients:

1lb dry black beans
12 cups of water
2 green pimientos (bell peppers)
2 medium size onions
1 whole head of garlic mashed to a [...]

This curry surfaces on our menu every once in a while and I invariably overeat when this stuff is on the table. It tastes great with rice and good with toasted bread too.
Lightly oil your hands, then peel and chop the bananas anyway you wish. Sprinkle some salt and turmeric powder over then and keep [...]

I found a nice bit of pork at the butchers today. Marbled with fat and just the right size, I thought something a little different was in order.
Loaded it on to the rotisserie in my oven and made a mixture of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, sea salt, black bean paste, chilli oil, garlic and soya [...]

Here’s another gem by Debasish Roy, who by the way is a keen footballer. He even has his own site on the topic - www.magicoffootball.com - so if you’re a football fanatic, perhaps you want to go register and check out what the site has to offer.
Located in the Royal Orchid Sheraton in Bangkok, the [...]

My grandmother passed away this past weekend, on the 15th of August. A strong woman who worked quite hard all her life, she was an excellent cook too. One of the rapidly disappearing members of the Anglo Malayali culture, her upbringing had strong British influences, some of which found its way into her food. After [...]

Here’s a review by Debasish Roy who says the USP of Noor Miya’s Biryani is the perfection achieved by cooking the Biryani all night. Debasish visits the place every Wednesday and Saturday morning. Located at Turkman Gate in Old Delhi, Noor Miya serves Mutton Biryani and Raita that’s described in Debasish’s words below:
I have never [...]

I used to work for this internet start close to a decade back. This was at the height of the dot-com boom when two year old programmers found themselves being referred to as ’senior’ and salaries touched ridiculous heights. Having said that, I’m not complaining, since my income soared too… briefly. Anyhow, I found myself [...]

We felt like a slightly ‘heavy’ meal yesterday and this chicken curry fit the bill perfectly. You’ll need minced chicken, potatoes, onions and garlic to begin with along with some stock, powdered aniseed, curry powder, cream, hung curds, sugar and seasoning.
Oh, and about the name - I simply couldn’t come up with a suitable name [...]

My soups have never been great - just ‘alright’ most of the time. I’ve been doing some reading and ‘book learning’ to overcome this. We had some guests over this Monday and I thought of going a little outside my comfort zone and trying a soup for once.
I’m glad I did, as it turned out [...]

Breakfast this morning was cooked in a sleepy haze due to the heavy cooking and socialising the previous night.
As usual, there were leftovers that needed to be used. Here’s a very simple way of using them up. The idea of stuffing them into sandwiches is an old one, but this is a new take on [...]