My HOME!

Finally I got my own pad!

Lots to blog about that, so watch this space...

Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings

Last night I attended a BIG b'day bash complete with brilliant music, flowing drinks and all the dancing to fill your heart. The event was @ Le Baroque, Chijmes and was chock-a-block with fellow Indians, and expat Bangaloreans in particular. Swapping stories, finding common acquaintances, and picking up some hot gossip (hehehe), it felt like I'd never been away.

Shagies, the fount of all that wonderful music are top notch. Apart from being talented singers and players, they are great performers - drawing in the crowd, getting everyone singing along, grooving and eventually even on the floor dancing (what to say, we are shy lah).

Of course, being desis (and very happy to be so, thank you), we head to Rupee Room, to finish off the night. There was the usual Bhangra hour (an hour too many IMO) followed by the more popular (at least with me) Bollywood music (no, Not "HINDI" film music but dhinn-chhik Bollywood music). Ah perfection.

So after all that halla-gulla of last night, and being perfumed by the stench BO (need I explain?) and malt in the air (JD and beer being the religion of the majority of last night's masses), this morning I needed a reprieve. Or was it just a longing for momma and daddy and home? To replicate the parental household, this morning I made venn-Pongal.

And what connection, those of you not acquainted with my parental stamping ground might ask, does this have with that?

Simple. Sundays was always, but always venn pongal brekafast day at the parent's. Picture this: Saturday night party scene in Bangalore. All the beer in the world, all the hard rock and metal, followed by a spot of dancing somewhere (there is always someplace). You totter home minutes before the milkman (ah the good ol' blr days), worn out with all the chilli vodkas, the G&Ts, and whatever else have you's, more usually than not, followed by the lousiest-oiliest-spiciest-nastiest (it only tastes that way the next morning) post drinking trash that passes for food. You wake up feeling like the aforementioned food and REEKING of smoke and malt that seems to have fermented in your clothes. At that moment, salvation is served in the form of, thats right - Venn Pongal!

Here's my simple-dimple recipe for venn pongal. It's not the same as the homestead's (I don't have Puchka to do the chopping and grating and cleaning and korumbu making.)

Ingredients

1/2 cup moong dal

1 cup rice

1 tsp jeera

peppercorns

pinch haldi

pinch hing

1 tbsp chopped ginger

curry leaves

Method

1. Wash rice and moong dal in a cooker, add appropriate amount of water (2 and a 1/2 in this case or thereabouts), salt to taste and plonk it on the gas for 3-4 whistles (I like my venn pongal mashy.) After the 5 whistles, wait till you can open the cooker lid.

2. In a small sauce pan/takda pan/tadka spoon take ghee (can use oil but the taste of ghee does the trick here). Once the ghee is hot, add jeera, peppercorns, haldi, asafetida, chopped ginger, sizzle it all up till you can smell the ghee fried jeera smell, and the peppercorns start popping (1 min or 2) and pour this tadka into the cooker atop the rice and dal.

3. Mix it, mash it and eat hot.

The parents would never serve this without mendiya korumbu or at the very least tomato gotsu/gojju. In Tamil Nadu, restaurants serve it with coconut and other chutnies. In Karnataka, restaurants serve it with cucumber and onion raita. Feel free to eat it with whatever you like, only remember to EAT WHILE ITS HOT.

Shubha Bhojanam!

Calories from Soup Spoon

Since Singapore food stalls do not display calorific and nutritional value of the food they sell, I've tried to find some of that information by emailing a few people.

One of the foremost restaurants/food stalls I contacted for this information was The Soup Spoon - makers of delicious soups, sandwiches, mini brownies and salads. I am fairly a regular there, so knowing the nutritional value of something I consume regularly, can only help, right?

Many thanks to Anna Lim from Customer Care @ The Soup Spoon for this information.

SOUPS	Carb	Fat	Protein	Calories
Roasted pumpkin	23.7g	3.7g	3.2g	130.7
Tangy tomato	27.7g	10g	4.1g	266.8
Mushroom	24.2g	13g	4.9g	252.6
Beef goulash	27.1g	12.9g	22.4g	307.8
Tokyo Chicken	15.4g	4.3g	18.2g	177.2
Meatless minestrone	22.9g	6.3g	11.8g	194.3

OTHERS	Carb	Fat	Protein	Calories
Smoked ham and cheese	52	30.7	30	700
Roast beef wasabi	55	28.2	40	670
Chicken Caesar	60	27	41	720
Tuna mayo	51	44	26	720
Falafel wrap	90	17.6	21.3	635
Prawn wrap	81.9	15	26.2	590
Chicken tikka wrap	83.1	14.2	37.5	600
Caesar salad	34.6	12.6	20.7	462

Healthy eating!