The Vegan Breakfast

.... or a great high-protein meat detox breakfast for a power-packed Monday morning! You don't have to be vegan to try this, and it's so easy!

Chickpea Scramble

Heat half a chopped onion, a third of a chopped red capsicum and (optionally) half a spoon each of grated ginger and chopped garlic in a pan with a little olive oil. Cook until translucent. Add half a chopped tomato, a cup and a half of boiled chickpeas, a quarter cup of the vegetable broth made while boiling chickpeas, half a spoon of turmeric, a generous dash of paprika (no other spices), and freshly crushed sea salt to taste. Crush some of the chickpeas to add texture to the scramble. Add more broth if required to make sure it doesn't dry up too much. Once you're happy with the texture, add a handful of chopped coriander, stir for another minute, and take off the heat.

Serve on a crusty slice of sourdough or wholemeal Vienna, and you've got yourselves a ten-minute breakfast!

PS: This makes for a fabulous post-workout snack as well.

The Molten Lava Cake

This one is actually really easy to make; it's too bad I (unintentionally) stabbed myself with a knife the day I was supposed to make it; here it is, one day later.

To make the ganache that goes inside the cake, melt half a cup of chopped up chocolate with a little more than half a cup of cream, boiled and poured boiling hot over the chocolate. Mix until smooth, then refrigerate. Once the ganache is hardened and glossy, roll into little balls (like truffles).

For two molten lava cakes, mix half a cup of self-raising flour with two fat spoons of cocoa, one egg, a fourth of a cup of finely granulated sugar, a half teaspoon of vanilla essence, and about 100g of melted butter. Mix well in a bowl with a spoon until there are no lumps left.

Divide the mixture into two lightly greased ramekins; make sure the mixture only comes up to half of the depth of the ramekin. Add a ganache ball (truffle) in the middle and put the ramekins in a pre-heated oven at 220C for 10-12 minutes or until the outside has just set. Get the ramekins out; run a knife around the sides and dump the cake upside down onto a serving bowl. Add ice-cream and toppings of your choice, and dig in right away!

The Fish Stew

David Muñoz is going to murder me in my sleep someday for adding chorizo and tomato to everything and then calling it Spanish. So I'm just going to call this a fish stew (obnoxious at best). Healthy alternative to whatever you're eating right now!

Add a sliced chorizo, a chopped onion and half a chopped capsicum to a little olive oil in a pan. Add a spoon of minced garlic and a sliced cayenne pepper and cook till the onion is translucent. Add a can of diced tomatoes (usually 400g) and half a cup of white wine and simmer.  Add salt to taste, smoked paprika, a handful of parsley, a cup of stock (or water and a little butter if you have no stock), a cup of cooked chickpeas, a sliced carrot, and a cup of beans, and simmer until reduced. Finally, add three or four fillets (cut into pieces) of your favorite white fish and cook, covered until poached. Serve with a slice of sourdough!

The Honey Soy BBQ

Greetings, people on their holidays! We were camping all weekend so nothing too elaborate this post; here's a weird honey soy marinade for future BBQs or even a simple sauté sesh!

Mix a kg of boneless chicken thighs or wings with the following: a spoon of ginger, a spoon of chopped garlic, two tablespoons of soy sauce, a tablespoon of honey, a spoon of rice vinegar, a sprinkle of sugar, and a spoon of chilli paste (optional) for an extra kick. Marinate for at least an hour (or overnight) and cook over coal or pan-fry. Garnish with sesame seeds!

Happy holidays.

The Independent

Mondays are a great time to detox from all the bingeing over the weekend! This stand-alone salad needs no sides and adheres to no theme whatsoever, but I do guarantee its yum factor. These quantities are for 4 giant platefuls.

Here's everything that went into it.
Bacon bits, crisped, 1 cup
Sliced black olives, half a cup
Shredded carrots, 1 cup
Walnuts, 1 cup
2 sliced avocados
1 sliced tomato
3 minced pods of garlic
1 red onion, sliced
Rocket leaves, 3 cups
Baby spinach, 3 cups
Curried chicken, 2.5 cups
Aged Gouda, diced, 1 cup
Optional: 1 cup diced red pepper

For the dressing, throw together half a cup of coconut cream, half a cup of buttermilk, two spoons of vinegar, a spoon of sugar, a spoon of fish oil, two spoons of lime juice, a little lime zest, two spoons of finely chopped coriander leaves, a dash of garlic powder, a spoon of chili puree, a pinch of turmeric, and salt to taste.

Have a good detox!

The Alfredo

Fettuccine alfredo has been on my to-do list for as long as I first went to Olive Garden as a kid. There aren't that many pasta-loving noobs who'd say no to a creamy alfredo sauce. As I started experimenting with cooking, I held off on the alfredo sauce largely because the first time I actually made gulab jamun with my own hands and found out just how much sugar went into the dish, I almost stopped eating it completely. Thankfully I had a bite of my first fettuccine alfredo yesterday, which by the way is literally a 15 minute recipe, and I instantly knew that I'll never stop eating this scrumptious load of fat. For reference, I made the sauce by throwing in things until it tasted right, so take all my mentioned quantities with a grain of salt.

For about three fat serves, boil 250g fettuccine until cooked al dente, and drain. While the pasta boils, heat about three tablespoons of butter in a saucepan and add a small spoon of minced garlic to it. Then add about a cup of cream, half a cup of cream cheese, half a cup of grated Parmesan, and salt and white pepper to taste. Simmer and thicken until happy with the sauce. (For a little more flavor, what I did was fry small pieces of chicken thighs in butter and garlic first, remove the chicken and then make the sauce in the same pan.) Throw in the fettuccine (and chicken), and we're good!
(Just, like, go for a run the next day or something.)

The Vegetable Chop

If you've grown up in or around West Bengal, this is the stuff you've had in trains or run out to the local corner shop for in the evening when unexpected guests showed up at home. If you've not had the pleasure, this is what you've missed out on. The perfect street food-turned-fancy-beetroot-croquettes.

For 15 to 20 chops, roast half a teaspoon each of cumin and fennel seeds, 6 cloves, 3 cardamoms, a small stick of cinnamon, two dried red chillies, and a dried bay leaf or two, then grind into a fine powder. Mix this masala with two blanched and chopped beetroots, two mashed carrots and two mashed potatoes, and a spoon of ginger paste, half a cup of crushed roasted peanuts, salt to taste, and a pinch of sugar. Roll the mix into the shape of croquettes, and then roll each croquette in dry corn flour for a thin coat. Dip in a flour slurry and then coat with breadcrumbs and put in the fridge for 30 min or until you're ready to fry. , Deep fry and serve HOT with cucumber salad and kasundi (Dijon mustard sauce) to avoid sacrilege.