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The Tale of Gilbert (Watermelon, Mint and Ginger Sorbet)

Posted on March 11, 2013April 20, 2014 by Deepa

There was once a friendly watermelon called Gilbert. When Gilbert was a young boy-melon, he found himself on a shelf in a fruit shop surrounded by equally juicy watermelons.

Gilbert longed to leave the fruit shop and find a loving home. Being a rather amicable melon, Gilbert one day struck up a conversation with one of the fruit shop’s customers, a veterinarian and a watermelon enthusiast.

Gilbert was overjoyed and looked forward to his destiny of being sliced and devoured on a hot summers day. He found his place on the dining table and awaited his opportunity to show off his refreshing, lush qualities.

But alas, the veterinarian became far too ~~lazy~~ busy to undertake the onerous task of watermelon dissection and Gilbert was left neglected and wondering whether he would ever be given a chance to fulfill his fate.

For days Gilbert sat dejected on the table that no-one used, emitting dramatic sighs that no-one seemed to hear. He watched his keeper rush to work in the morning in her surgical scrubs. He waited all day for her, sure that she would be missing him too.

He saw her return every evening with a spark of hope that perhaps today would be the day, only to be disappointed. And so he waited, his crisp red flesh aching with longing to be devoured although his tough green armour gave nothing away.

He observed her as she cooked and ate her meals without a glance towards where he sat. He watched TV with her, patiently.

(It must be said that while he rather enjoyed ‘How I met your mother’, he found ‘My Kitchen Rules’ really quite offensive- although really, haven’t we all at times?)

He waited and waited until one day the veterinarian who usually walked past him unseeing, stopped and finally looked straight at him!

And before he knew it, Gilbert was in quarters. A quarter was cubed and devoured fresh, another quarter was turned into sorbet and the rest was juiced. Most importantly, all of him was thoroughly enjoyed and Gilbert finally, finally, met his destiny……….

Watermelon, Mint and Ginger Sorbet

Modified from Australian Good Taste Magazine, Jan 2006, via taste.com.au

Get:

2 cups water
3/4 cup caster sugar
1 inch piece fresh ginger, finely grated
Small handful mint leaves, finely chopped
1kg Gilbert or other watermelon flesh roughly chopped
1 egg white

Make:

Place water, sugar, ginger and mint in a saucepan and stir over low heat for a few mins until the sugar dissolves. Increase heat and bring to t boil, boiling for 5-10 mins until the mixture thickens to a thin syrupy consistency.

Blend watermelon in a blender or food processor until pureed. Strain the puree through a fine sieve into an airtight container suitable for freezing. Discard the pulp or use in smoothies. Alternatively you can use a juicer to extract the juice. You should have around 600ml of juice.

Add sugar syrup to the watermelon juice and stir to mix. Place the lid on the container and place it in the freezer for at least 5-6 hours.

Using a fork to break up the sorbet, transfer it to a food processor or blender and whizz until the sorbet has a 7-11 slushie texture. Return the sorbet to the container and place it back in the freezer for a further 5-6 hours. Blend again to a slushie consistency and return to the freezer for another 5-6 hours. Place the sorbet in the blender with an egg white and whizz again until it is a soft, smooth consistency. Place back in the freezer and freeze for another 5-6 hours.

Scoop into bowls and enjoy.

Notes:

The original recipe called for 2 egg whites but I choose to just add one as I was worried about it being too slimy. I was happy with the texture I ended up with.

The original recipe called for a cup of sugar but I reduced it to 3/4 in the interest of health. After tasting it, I felt I could have actually decreased it further, to 1/2 cup. If you like a sweeter sorbet, stick to 3/4 cup or even use a whole cup of sugar.

This recipe is really not as time consuming as it seems, however you should start making it 36-48 hours before you need to serve it. I made it one evening, left it in the freezer overnight, then blended it up the next morning, again the next evening and did the final blend with the egg white the following morning.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Lost in the Details

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Deepa

This smooth little guy was hiding among the sandy grooves on a beach in Newcastle, UK. This is my interpretation of the weekly photo challenge ‘lost in the details’ by The Daily Post.

Its been a busy but lovely week for me. Officially a year older but none the wiser.

Now off to steamy Adelaide where the weather report promises something akin to a sauna. As always, I go in peace bearing chocolate and am super excited to hang out with family and dear friends in that charming city.

Regular programming will resume next week. In the meantime enjoy the weekend and don’t forget the sunscreen and the champagne just barely in that order of priority.

Click the Month: February 2013

Posted on March 1, 2013 by Deepa

You know, I’m not very good at the balance thing. Like physically or metaphorically. But strangely Feb has been a very balanced month. The perfect blend of activity and good honest work. Of relaxation and action.

We started with a trip into the city to visit the Sydney Harbour Rubber Ducky. Anyone who dares to tell me that this ducky wasn’t a damm cute visitor to our city will be subjected to me gushing in an annoyingly high pitched voice about the quackster. Ok so strictly speaking this was in January but hey….technicalities!

I then found myself in a macaron class where we made chocolate macarons……what could be better?

I’ve previously had 2 macaron-fails but perhaps I’ll conquer this beast one day after all…..

Then there were Chinese New year Festivities where we celebrated by eating ourselves silly.

And finally, Tropfest, the annual short film festival that blew me away with the calibre of films in the final sixteen. Some people are so clever!

Most importantly, Feb 2013 was my very first month of blogging and I loved it even more than I thought I would. Time to March on…… I look forward to a trip interstate to see my gorgeous and totally squishable neice, my birthday and lots more amazing eats.

How was February for you? Let me know in the comments section…….

The Sankranthi Hangover (Nut Brittle/Chikki)

Posted on February 27, 2013 by Deepa

Most Hindu festivals are centered around two things: religion and food (usually but not always in that order). When we are not praying or singing, we are eating and talking, often very, very loudly.

Sankranthi is no exception. Known by different names but celebrated all over the country, it signifies not only the harvest but the end of the inauspicious December/January season.

Every region does its festivals a little differently, which I think is one of the best things about Hindu festivals. In Tamil Nadu the occasion is known as Pongal and rice is slow-cooked with jaggery and coconut to make a decadent sweet pudding-like dish. In the west and the north of India, sweets are exchanged to signify goodwill towards others.

When it comes to Sankranthi, we Kannadigas (people of Karnataka state) traditionally make a slightly sweet, nutty mixture called Ellu. As a representative of the harvest being celebrated, we put together sesame seeds, peanuts, semi-dried coconut, tiny dried chick peas and jaggery. We then distribute small packets of this along with fruits to our family, friends and neighbours, our way of ‘sharing our harvest’.

Every year, I look forward to this distribution as every household’s Ellu is unique with its’ own little quirks. But when I’ve picked out and eaten all the jaggery and coconut bits, leaving behind only the sad looking sesame seeds and peanuts, I am often at a loss as to what to do with these wonderful ingredients.

This year, I became obsessed with the idea of making nut brittle, or chikki as us Indians call it. More specifically, I wanted to replicate the buttery, dissolve-in-the-mouth peanut brittle that I have previously eaten in a restaurant.

My first port of call was Deb Perelman’s incredible blog, Smitten Kitchen and it did not disappoint. I learnt soon after discovering this blog that Deb’s recipe collection is extensive and more importantly, fail (and fool) proof.

This brittle was all I’d hoped for and more. If you are into this salted caramel business that seems to be taking over the world (and why shouldn’t it?? What could be better than the world being enveloped in caramel?), this one is definitely for you.

Not only will it make you and those you share it with very happy, but it will allow you to fund your dentist’s next three holidays which will make him or her very happy.

Sweet, a little nutty and just when you think you know what to expect you get a confusing hit of salt, this nut brittle is me all over!

Nut Brittle (Chikki)

Modified slightly from Pepita Brittle on Smitten Kitchen

Get:

2 cups sugar
115g unsalted butter cut into rough cubes
1/3 cup golden syrup
1/2 cup + 2 tbsp water
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 to 1 1/2 tsp salt
2 cups Ellu or your nut/seed of choice

Make:

Preheat the oven to 150 C. Spread the Ellu or nuts out on a baking tray and roast for 8-10 mins, tossing halfway through until the nuts have browned slightly. Leave aside to cool.

Line another baking tray with grease-proof paper.

Put water, sugar, golden syrup and butter in a large non-stick saucepan. Stir to combine well and heat gently until butter is melted. With the heat on medium-high to high, cook while providing your undivided attention and stirring frequently. You will need to play around with the heat as the mixture will foam up constantly. After 15-20 mins when the mixture is a medium-golden colour, lifting off the sides of the pan and thickened to a consistency slightly thinner than honey, take the pan off the heat and add the baking soda. Foam-age will happen again so be careful! Whisk through and then add the salt and whisk again.

Stir in the roasted Ellu or nuts.

Pour the mixture into the lined baking tray and leave to set. You can either use a sharp knife to cut the brittle into pieces while it is still semi-soft, or wait till it is set, then shatter it into pieces.

Notes:

I used a 34cm x 23cm shallow baking tray and ended up with a thick (8-10 mm) brittle. You can spread it more thinly if you prefer.

You can of course use just about any nut, pepitas, sunflower seeds or sesame seeds on their own.

Weekly Photo Challenge ‘Forward’

Posted on February 23, 2013 by Deepa

Young Monk, Siem Riep, Cambodia

This is my interpretation of the theme ‘Forward’ for the Weekly Photo Challenge @ The Daily Post

A shy young Cambodian monk preparing for the life ahead of him in the monastery. Of all the photos we took on this trip, this image is burned into my memory more than any other.

Flourless Chocolate Cake

Posted on February 22, 2013November 5, 2013 by Deepa

A few weekends ago, my friend lovely Maureen came to visit from interstate for a mere 32 hours, a whirlwind trip that began perfectly with some hard core and highly productive factory outlet shopping. You see, despite being a very intelligent individual in all other aspects of life, this poor misguided soul detests shopping and for some unfathomable reason comes to me for fashion advice.

Luckily, despite her lack of interest for retail therapy which I will never understand, we have other common interests on which we have built our friendship, one of these being our mutual love of all things edible.

I had been meaning to try a local Mexican restaurant for months so we decided to reward ourselves for our hard work (all that credit card swiping is exhausting) by doing just that. It was pretty good Mexican that really hit the spot…….but to my dismay, it turned out it was the meal that kept on giving.

The following morning we made grand plans to hit the beach. We packed Cookie into the car and drove across Sydney only to find that nature had other plans. Over a divine beachside breakfast, a pesky bout of gastroenteritis crept up on me like the sneaky rascal it is, and I realised that a walk on the beach was a mere dream.

After depositing my friend at the airport with profuse apologies (among other things that were profusely taking place), I came home to crawl under the covers and rest my slightly dehydrated self.

I awoke to puppy dog eyes gazing at me and a strange sense of invigoration. A strong urge to bake resulted in this flourless chocolate cake for my gluten-free colleague whose birthday was the next day.

I tried out my recently acquired, albeit basic, cake decorating skills (thanks to my friend Subo in the UK and a more recent cake decorating class- more about that later) and Ta Dah! One little birdy cake that was devoured in barely half an hour by the hospital crew.

Make this cake. Even if you don’t need to be gluten free. Hell, even if you want to marry gluten and have its babies, ditch it for one day and MAKE THIS CAKE.

Flourless Chocolate Cake (GF)

Barely adapted from Gourmet November 1997 on Epicurious

Get:

100g fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened)

110g (1/2 cup) unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1/3 cup almond meal
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder plus additional for sprinkling

Make:

Preheat oven to 190°C and butter an 8-inch round baking pan. Line bottom with a round of wax paper greased on both sides. Alternatively, you can butter the pan and dust the inside with cocoa powder.

Chop chocolate into small pieces. In a double boiler or metal bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water melt chocolate with butter, stirring, until smooth. Remove top of double boiler or bowl from heat and whisk sugar into chocolate mixture. Add eggs and whisk well. Sift 1/2 cup cocoa powder and almond meal over chocolate mixture and whisk until just combined. Pour batter into pan and bake in middle of oven 25 minutes, or until top has formed a thin crust. Test by passing a clean knife into the centre of the cake all the way to the bottom- the knife should come out clean. Cool cake in pan on a rack and invert onto a serving plate.

Dust cake with additional cocoa powder or cover with white chocolate ganache.

Cake keeps, after being cooled completely, in an airtight container for 1 week (this is sort of a guess as I’ve never actually managed to keep it that long).

White Chocolate Ganache

Get:

250g white cooking chocolate
125ml double cream or pure cream

Make:

Melt chocolate in a double boiler, stirring constantly. Add cream and stir until blended. Allow to cool slightly and pour over cake, spread with a spatula.

* A double boiler consists of a pot or saucepan containing boiling water on simmer and a second pot or saucepan sitting in the rim of the first one. The second pot should contain the chocolate and other ingredients to be melted. It is important that the water is not touching the bottom of the pot containing the chocolate and that you do not let any water in with the chocolate as chocolate and water don’t seem to like each other very much.

Also be careful as burnt fingers do not a good cook make.

How Jamie Oliver Taught me to Cook Indian Food (Pineapple Curry)

Posted on February 16, 2013April 20, 2014 by Deepa

I have a shameful admission to make. It is a fact that one of the first Indian dishes I cooked was using a Jamie Oliver recipe.

Not that there is anything shameful about the loveable Mr. Oliver (who I have for years had a small crush on). But I was brought up by parents who could both cook and my mother despaired that at that stage, I still hadn’t stayed still long enough in the kitchen for her to teach me how to cook a good South Indian meal. She wasn’t sure whether to be offended or relieved that it was that energetic Englishman with an adorable lisp who had finally gotten me to play with ‘our’ spices. And that I hadn’t chosen to make a rasam or a sambhar, but a pineapple curry of all things.

I have always thought of pineapples as the echidna (or hedgehog) of the fruit world. Tough, leathery skin covered in thorns and that spiky tuft of leaves on top all scream TOUCH ME AND DIE (or at least, touch me and get the equivalent of a paper cut).

Yes, when it comes to self-defence, this tropical treat has the right idea. The plant however, is another story. I first saw the pineapple plant on a holiday in Kerala and I remember thinking that it looked like someone had just placed a pineapple on a stick and surrounded it by leaves. One look at that plant and it is hard to take that bristly Mr. Pineapple seriously.

So let’s get that scary pineapple into this coconutty sauce. Actually I used tinned pineapple but I’m sure this curry will be equally delish using fresh pineapple, provided you have the patience and elbow grease to get past its defences. Either way, the hot-sweet-sourness on a bed of rice makes this a wonderful comfort food in any season.

This makes a fairly spicy curry, so if you are not big on spicy food, use half the amount or just a pinch of chilli powder.

Pineapple Curry

Loosely based on a recipe by Jamie Oliver that I watched him make on TV years ago

Get:
1 tbsp oil
The insides of 4 cardamom pods
1 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp coriander seeds
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
1/4 tsp chilli powder
1 inch piece of ginger, grated
Small handful curry leaves
1 x 825gm tin of pineapple pieces, drained (or about 700g fresh pineapple, chopped)
1 can coconut milk
Salt, to taste
Small handful coriander leaves, chopped

Make:

In a small pan, dry roast cardamom, 1/2 tsp cumin seeds and 1/2 tsp coriander seeds until fragrant. Grind to a powder using a food processor or mortar and pestle.

In a saucepan or wok, heat oil and temper 1 tsp cumin seeds and 1/2 tsp mustard seeds. Add ground spices, turmeric and chilli powder and stir for 1-2 mins on a medium heat. Add curry leaves and ginger, stir until leaves are fried.

Add pineapple and stir to coat pineapple in spices. Add coconut milk and about a tsp of salt. Taste and add more salt if required. Cover and simmer on a low to medium heat for 5 mins. Sprinkle chopped coriander and stir through.

Serve atop steamed or boiled rice.

Save-the-day Mango Dessert

Posted on February 12, 2013February 13, 2013 by Deepa

Right, so you finally got your act together and invited those friends over for dinner.

You know the ones…..

They are invited to every birthday of yours, and you to theirs. And each time you see them, there are promises that you must catch up properly soon, that it’s been far too long and that you really shouldn’t let that much time go by before you see each other next.

But somehow as earnest and genuine all these promises are, before you know it six months have gone by before you finally do get around to inviting them over.

So the day arrives and you have this menu of mammoth proportions planned in your mind.

You jump out of bed, bright eyed and bushy tailed (ok, so in my case it’s usually a reluctant and creaky scramble out of bed after at least 3 hits of the snooze button, but I’m guessing there are some (insane) morning people out there).

So once you’ve done whatever it is you need to do in the morning to return you to some semblance of a human being, you go to the gym, stop off at the supermarket on your way home to get supplies and before you know it, half the day is mysteriously over.

Please tell me I’m not the only person this happens to….?

Vacuum, bathrooms, laundry, make the main meal, tidy up the living room, make a salad, load dishwasher, clean kitchen, pick out not-too-mainstream-but-not-too-weird music for the evening, shower, find clothes, wear clothes, put wine in fridge.

And somewhere in all that, the likelihood of actually making that cheesecake or pannacotta or apple pie that you had planned for dessert becomes but a tiny speck on the horizon.

This is when this dessert saves the day. A dessert so impressive but more importantly, so ludicrously easy that it will catapult you from barely organised slightly frazzled hostess to certifiable domestic goddess.

A layer of jelly (or jell-O depending which hemisphere you’re at) topped by a mango fool and garnished with something crunchy. Serve it in a martini glass and it’ll be ultra sexy (hey, it worked for Beyonce), or in a drinking glass or glass jars for super cute quirkiness.

Easy Mango Dessert

Get:

1 packet mango flavoured jelly crystals (to make 500ml jelly)
Flesh of 2 small mangoes or 425g tin of mango in syrup
Pinch Saffron
3 tsp caster sugar
Insides of 8 cardamom pods
300ml fresh whipping cream

Make:

Make the jelly according to packet instructions. If using martini glasses, pour 1/4 cup of the mixture into each glass. Drinking glasses may fit a little more jelly. Chill for at least 4 hours to set.

Blitz the mango with 2 tsp water or syrup (if using tinned), saffron and 1/2 tsp sugar to achieve a thick saucy consistency. Add a little more water or syrup if needed. Taste and add more sugar if required.

Using a mortar and pestle or an electric grinder, powder the cardamom with 1/2 tsp sugar. Place the cream in a deep bowl. Using a hand held electric beater, whip the cream on medium speed until soft peaks are achieved. Be careful not to go too far as there is a fine line between soft and firm peaks. Sprinkle cardamom sugar as well as the remaining 2 tsp sugar over the whipped cream and beat on low speed until mixed. Taste and add more sugar if required.

Add mango sauce to cream and fold in gently to create a swirled through effect.

Divide cream between the glasses, placing on top of the firm jelly.

Top with garnish of your choice, preferably something with crunch. I used some fresh coconut and almond flakes, toasted gently in a dry frypan over the stove. Half a tablespoon of each per glass should do it. Crushed meringues, pomegranate seeds, berries, any other nuts and chocolate shavings would also make great toppings, but feel free to unleash your creativity into the glass.

Chill for at least 2 hours before serving.

Some superficial reflections and Quinoa Salad

Posted on February 8, 2013February 8, 2013 by Deepa

Stupid things I did last week:

1. Spent half a day ignoring the large bag of chocolate bars that were free to a good home at work, only to succumb later in the day and shamelessly demolish an entire Crunchie bar. I could almost hear that low fat yoghurt in my bag screaming STOP!! Mmmmm but that chocolate coated honeycomb…….

2. Resolved not to do 1. again only to repeat the performance two days later.

3. Cut my finger chopping vegetables. How does that happen? I’m a surgeon for gods sakes! There was some blood. And pain. It was not good.

Smart things I did last week:

1. Followed my intuition and operated on a sick cat at work on Saturday. It was just as well as the poor thing had a twisted gut. Good judgement win.

2. Attempted to undo my sins (see 1.and 2. above) and launched into a 1 week detox (which is going surprisingly great, by the way!).

3. Decided to play with quinoa, a grain which I’m only just getting to know. The result was this simple and scrumptious salad that I took to work for lunch.

I had previously put Quinoa in the category of ‘Things that are good for you but probably taste like cardboard’, along with corn cakes and brown rice. I am so glad I opened my mind (and mouth) to this grain. For those who haven’t tried quinoa, don’t waste another day. It has this lovely nutty quality and tends to coat all the other ingredients, sort of like a salad matrix. Plus it made me feel so angelic that I swear I could feel little wings sprouting on my back a la Black Swan (but less creepy).

Pumpkin and Quinoa Salad

Get:

1 cup uncooked white quinoa

500g butternut pumpkin, cubed into roughly 1cm x 1cm pieces

1 Red Capsicum diced
1/2 tin red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1/3 cup feta cheese, crumbled
1 tbsp cumin seeds
1/4 cup pistachio nuts, roasted
1 tsp chilli flakes
Salt
Lemon Juice
Olive oil

Make:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C.

Boil quinoa in a pot with twice the amount of water, covered, for 13-14 mins. Then drain the quinoa and rinse in a sieve. Partly fill the pot with boiled water so that you can rest the sieve in the rim of the pot without it touching the water. Place a folded tea towel over the sieve and cover with a lid. Boil the water to steam the quinoa for 2-3 mins.

Toast cumin in a non-stick pan until fragrant. Do the same to the pistachios. Toss Pumpkin in a bowl with cumin, a pinch of salt, a drizzle of olive oil and about a teaspoon of fresh lemon juice. Spread pumpkin out on an oven tray and bake for about 10 mins or until cooked but firm.

In a bigger bowl, toss roasted pumpkin, drained quinoa, capsicum, kidney beans, pistachios, feta, juice from half a lemon, a drizzle of olive oil, chilli flakes and salt to taste (start with 1/2 tsp).

Enjoy for a light, healthy lunch that cancels out previously eaten chocolate bars.

Notes:

This makes quite a big batch, enough for 3 or 4 lunches for me.

Think of this salad as a blank canvas. You can add almost anything to it to suit your tastes and the contents of your fridge/pantry. Other additions that would go well are (but not limited to) broccoli in small florets, white beans, chopped and blanched green beans, pine nuts, chopped red onion, avocado, chick peas, tuna, pancetta and chopped up sausage. Feel free also to play around with flavourings…..amp up the chilli, add other herbs or spices, etc. etc.etc.

Cherry Lassi for a Thirsty Lassie

Posted on February 4, 2013April 20, 2014 by Deepa

Family holidays to Bangalore are usually a whirlwind of meals at relatives homes, action-packed shopping trips, countless rides in auto-rickshaws and multiple visits to tailor shops to try on saree blouses in sweaty, curtained change rooms.

(It’s a hard life, I know)

What (I’m told) used to be a city with a beautifully cool climate, has had its’ central heating cranked up in the last few decades. Pollution, global warming and a population expansion in the city of my birth is making days out and about less comfortable than they used to be.

Enter the Nandini Dairy Stall. Nandini is the name under which the Karnataka Milk Federation, a co-op of dairy farmers, makes and sells its products. Apart from their main outlets, littered around the city are milk stalls which peddle cool, long-necked glass bottles of sweet, flavoured milk.

Exhausted, dehydrated and slightly hypoglycaemic from tromping around the city, me, my mum and my aunts would clamber gratefully onto the curb upon spotting one of these milk stalls. They were a refuge in the sea of traffic and pollution. A sight for sore eyes and parched throats. You really couldn’t go wrong no matter which flavour you chose- elaichi (cardamom), strawberry, pista or badam (almond).

These long-necks would provide an instant cool down and sugar hit, and we would be ready to hit the next saree or jewellery shop.

Those reusable glass bottles have been phased out due to hygiene issues (damm those health authorities!), but flavoured Nandini milk continues to revitalise shoppers in smaller sealed public health friendly plastic bottles.

In the absence of Nandini milk, one has to be content with the offerings of Deepa’s Dairy Stall. Lassi is an Indian smoothie where milk meets fruit and yoghurt and they all get along really, really well. You may be familiar with Mango Lassi and Salty Lassi, but after scoring half a kilo of these beautiful little fruits, I decided to give Cherry Lassi a go and was rather pleased with the results.

In other news, I am just about to launch into a one week detox. Why, you ask? Well, a combination of feeling generally gluggy + a brief moment of insanity in which a commitment was made. Don’t worry, it’s not one of those extreme ones where I will be barely living on organic cucumber juice administered intravenously and nothing else. It’s just avoiding processed foods, meat and most painfully, caffeine for a week. Will let you know how it goes at the end, although it is likely I will be reduced to communicating in grunts by then owing to the lack of caffeine and chocolate. Anyway, here goes!

Cherry Lassi

Get

35-40 fresh cherries, pitted
2 cups milk (I used skim), chilled
3 cups vanilla yoghurt (I used low fat), chilled
4 tsp sugar
1 tsp honey
The inside of 4-5 cardamom pods powdered or 1/4 tsp cardamom powder
Pinch saffron

Make

If using cardamom seeds, powder with 1/2 tsp sugar in a grinder or using a mortar and pestle.

In a food processor, process cherries, cardamom and sugar until the cherries are roughly pureed. Add milk, yoghurt, honey and saffron and blend until frothy and well mixed.

Serve in a tall glass.

Notes:

I have not tried to make this with anything other than cows’ milk but my guess would be other types of milk or yoghurt such as soy or rice based ones would work pretty well. Nut milks should also work, but may give a sweeter result (thanks Alex for this question!).

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