Chef at Large

D is away officiating in the Tour of Britain, Britain’s premier professional cycling race, he left on Saturday and will be back in 9 days. In the interests of economy, I decided that I would buy a free range, local chicken to eat for the week- lunch and dinner. On Sunday the chicken, lemon [...]

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 [...]

I’m running into trouble with the recently installed ‘buy fresh cook fresh’ policy. We simply aren’t consistent with vegetable purchases, so there are times when there isn’t anything in the house to cook with. Like yesterday, when all I could find was a slab of pork in the freezer. Next step is going to be [...]

Cooking all three meals every day isn’t proving to be as much of a load as I thought it would be. After reaching home around 7:00pm with fresh vegetables and breads, dinner is ready in the next 1 hour. The next morning, breakfast is usually served around 7:30am with sandwiches for lunch ready by 8:15am. [...]

I cooked this for dinner yesterday. It’s interesting what innovative dishes you come up with, when you don’t really have a choice of cooking implements or ingredients.
Looking up my inventory, I chopped up some courgettes, spring onions, potatoes, smoked sausage, mushrooms and french beans. Heated some oil, fried a little cumin seed, added some finely [...]

This is a sandwich made of leftovers.
There are so many things we can do with leftovers, rather than let them sit in the fridge nurturing new varieties of mould. Take this lovely sandwich for instance. Leftover chicken kebabs were mashed and mixed with some sliced onions and stuffed between two slices of pita bread. The [...]

During interactions with many North Indian friends, I find many are interested in trying out fish dishes at home, but they simply aren’t sure how to cook it. Most are quite comfortable with chicken and meat dishes, but with fish they’re like… pardon the pun, a fish out of water.
This dish is easy to cook, [...]

We picked up some fresh prawns from INA market and for some reason, I wanted to cook them in a coconut gravy - so much that I could actually taste and smell them the way I wanted it.We usually pick up fresh, unpeeled prawns from the market, then Cherie and I sit down to the [...]

The pomfret is such a versatile fish - it goes well with most flavors you can throw at it and tastes wonderful even with the simplest of seasonings. I’m going to try different styles of cooking this great fish.
For this version, make a couple of slits in the fish on both sides, rub some sea [...]

I found these freshly made noodles in the market yesterday. All you need to cook them is a couple of minutes in salted, boiling water. So, I tried this recipe out, which resulted in a spicy combination of curry, noodles, kebabs and coconut.
First, boil your noodles, chop the kebabs and onions and squeeze out the [...]