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Rosewater For Cooking - Yahoo Recipe Search
Food.comA wonderful and very well known Regency recipe for individual cakes studded with fruit and flavoured with rosewater and almonds; I am sure Jane Austen would have served these for afternoon tea on dainty plates with her bone china cups and saucers! I remember making these with my Mum when I was little, and of course licking the wooden spoon and scraping out the mixing bowl! They are easy to make and are delicious with an afternoon cuppa or for a lunch box treat. I have not found out the true meaning behind their name yet - but maybe they were aptly named as they were "fit for a Queen" to eat! The use of rosewater and almonds is a lingering memory left over from our Medieval cooking days and was still very much in evidence throughout the Regency period. This recipe makes about 24 to 30 Queen cakes - depending on the size of your tins, but the quantities can be cut back with ease. However, they DO freeze very well, so maybe making a full batch is a good idea - as long as they make it to the freezer!Food52On the Indian subcontinent, the rice-based dish is almost sacred. Dare to call anything without mutton (or, at best, chicken) a biryani and you’ll hear “It’s a pulao!” before you can even finish the sentence. I tried it once on Instagram. That it boosted the engagement on my post was a bonus, but only a digital writer will understand that. For everyone else, a biryani with mutton is the real deal, and everything else is just a rice-based side dish. While potato is a regular feature in Kolkata-style biryanis, it is always accompanied by juicy chunks of lamb, and I'm a vegetarian. Then there's paneer biryani, but that's too mainstream for my liking. So one leisurely Sunday morning, I tried my luck with tempeh. Tempeh is essentially richly textured, fermented chunks of soybean; the reason it works well as a protein in a biryani is because of its intrinsic ability to absorb flavor. Unlike peas or carrots, tempeh gets denser when you cook it, and it can slurp up a lot of marinade within a short period. In the Mughal period—one theory says biryani originated in their royal kitchens—vegetarians who mingled with the court, especially the Kayasthas or the Rajput kings, always sneaked vegetarian meat alternatives into Mughlai dishes. Take, for instance, raw jackfruit recipes that lead us to beautiful biryanis, raw banana and moong dal that were folded into kebabs, and wheat gluten used to make keema, or ground "meat." So there was one thing I was certain of (and that gave me courage when developing this recipe): North Indian cooking had a history of dabbling with faux meats long before the term became trendy. Ordinarily, while cooking a meatless biryani, I'd marinate the vegetable (mostly raw jackfruit) for a few hours and cook it exactly like mutton, sautéing and then finishing it with parboiled rice. However, to make a tempeh biryani, I added one extra step: I grilled big chunks of marinated tempeh to supplement my biryani base, ensuring they were fully done and wouldn’t leave a raw aftertaste. While traditionally a Lucknowi-reminiscent biryani would be cooked in a dum pukht style, tightly sealed in dough so no steam can escape, this tempeh biryani is a fairly simple affair. The tempeh is precooked, and so finishing everything together with the lid-on method will do the trick. Though it's simple, this biryani certainly isn't light on flavor—notice how the smokiness of the tempeh from the grill pan mixes with the fresh notes of rosewater to vie for your attention.Food52This is my twist on the Indian mango lassi, that fruity and tangy yogurt beverage beloved by millions of Indians and Indian food fans around the world. Besides being tasty and refreshing, the lassi plays a sometimes crucial role when served with fiery Indian curries-- to cool the burn. I could have used a lassi on a flight long ago that took me to my junior year abroad in Singapore. The vegetables in my curry were vibrant and cooked to just the right texture. I savored each bite. I tasted the eggplant, potato, and carrot. Then I speared a delicate appearing string bean and bit down. Within seconds, I thought I was going to die. I had mistaken a fiery green chile for an innocent bean. My eyes teared. My throat was burning. I began to hiccup uncontrollably. My seatmate made sure I wasn’t choking and then pushed my flight attendant call button for me. The flight attendant rushed over and asked my handsome and distinguished appearing seatmate how she could help him, somehow blind to my gasping, tearing, and sweating. He pointed at me: “She needs a glass of water.” He was chivalrous, but wrong. The only way to extinguish the fire of an erroneously eaten chile is with yogurt. The basic formula for a lassi is simple: equal parts yogurt and icy cold water. The crucial first step is to get the best tangy, full-flavored yogurt you can buy or make. Next, think about flavor. Lassi is enjoyed in both sweet and salty forms, and both can be spiced with ginger, cardomom, saffron, rosewater, mint, and other flavors. Besides the plain, lightly sweetened variety, my other favorite is the mango lassi. Vibrant hued and fruity, the mango lassi doubles as beverage and dessert. I use Alphonso pulp to make my mango lassi smooth, sweet, and flavorful. To play on the dessert-worthy fruitiness of mango lassi, I’ve adapted it into a frozen yogurt with a subtle spicy undertone of ground ginger and a crunchy topping of chopped pistachios.