A lovely Morning of Champagne Breakfast of Bonne Maman with Atout France

I love french bread, hard crust outside, and soft bread within..reminds of broon..our Indian bread, that our pav walla gets..its similar and very satisfying…but this breakfast was special, with egg omelet, ham, quiches and Bonne Maman preserves – a special invite by Atout France to enjoy the french breakfast with champagne at Sofitel BKC.

Bonne Mamam preserves are made with only finest ingredients: high fruit content, sugar and lemon juice. They are sweet and have 100 percent natural taste of fruit. I had earlier experienced the flavors of Bonne Maman at studio fifteen, where we had churned out some tasty french pastries.. You can read my post here But this breakfast was different, the preserves were used to create innovative dishes using Indian cuisine like dhokla and Maska Pav.

Normally, the fruit preserves are used over toast or cakes but here we had chef actually demonstrating a new combo of integrating our indian snack, Dhokla, with strawberry preserve.

A sandwich was made of dhokla and Bonne Maman preserve. What was more interesting was to crumble the dhoklas in nitrogen and get that frosty  and crunchy flavor. We could freeze it in the freezer too but the effect is not same as in molecular gastronomy where the flavor stays intact and yet the freshness

One more demo was on dipping the Maska Pav in egg batter, toasting on hot plate and then topping it with cream, fruits, honey and fruit preserves.

The room was filled with delicacies and we didn’t know where to start. Great morning spent with other food bloggers while we feasted on delicious breakfast.

Thank you for the the take-away gift. Now to drool over the food pictures in seasonal cookbook

Rich’s Gourmet Guide 2016

Entering a roomful of designer cakes was the biggest surprise for me. I have never seen such a big selection of beautiful cakes, neither at a party nor at any patisseries. It seemed like fairy tale word!!

Chef, chefs at everywhere, some carving out attractive figures from candy clays, some demonstrating the techniques of glaze truffles to coat the cakes, some designing chocolate ribbons and some creating innovative candy flowers. Then there were also chefs preparing smoothies/fruit mocktails and some baking savories/soups.

RICH”S GOURMET GUIDE 2016 organised by Rich's Graviss was the first of its kind held in Mumbai at Hilton Hotel. This endeavor was undertaken to bring the international food trends to its food service and bakery customers in India. Their large variety of products like Niagara Farms, Whip toppings, Truffle base, Cremagic, Nugel-Neutral, Chocolate compound kept the home-bakers mesmerised.

There was an interesting talk by celebrity Chef Varun Inamdar – Master Indian Chocolatier. He showcased live demonstration of global trends in foods and his first volume of Barcode- Artisanal chocolates with flavours across 5 states of India, his message being ‘work with honesty and interest’.

I attended the live demo of  Beverage session and Cake session.

In demo of beverage session, the chef used the product Niagara Farm to prepare pineapple  Smoothie, freak shake, bubble tea and cold coffee.

Chef prepared smoothie by blending yogurt, honey, mint leaves, pineapple pieces, whipped cream, ice and chilled water.

In another pretty glass jar, he placed strawberry jelly, then poured jasmine ice tea. Prepared a foam by mixing equal ratio of cream, milk and water and covered the tea with this foam.

The freak shake was an interesting drink. He got a jar and applied the chocolate on the rim of the jar, then blended brownies, castor sugar, Olio biscuits, Niagara farm milk, cream and poured it into the jar. Covered it with brownie cake and cream…very freaky indeed!!

In another session of Cake designing, Chef demonstrated the new trends of making cakes by using chocolate biscuits and Indian sweets like rosgolla to give a completely new taste. He gave a live demo of making truffle for coating cakes to give a shiny look. He made glaze by mixing 1kg of Cromagic with 200gms of Nuegel and 1.5 kg of dark compound. He boiled Niagara farm and poured it over chocolate compound, using spatula to mix. The mixture has to set it in fridge and then double boil and poured over  the cake to give a shiny chocolate look. The cake can then be decorated with chocolate chips and candy ribbons.

I had a lovely time listening to home baker’s stories.  Many of the women were full time home bakers and were so very interested in learning the new techniques. 

“The main objective of the event was to make our bakery and food service customers aware of global trends and also global cuisines which could be made using Rich’s products. The purpose is to inform and upgrade the quality of offerings of both bakery and food service operators to general public. I believe with Rich’s Gourmet Guide 2016, we have been able to achieve that.” Said Pankaj Chaturvedi, CEO & Executive Director at Rich Gravis Products Pvt. Ltd

Brunch at Palate Culinary Studio

Sunday is the day of rest. It's a day to spend quality time with loved ones, to have delicious lunch then to enjoy few hours of recreation or a long snooze.

I love Sundays

This week was something more special. A brunch invitation at Palate Culinary Studio for launching a new product Alpen Koch Recletta Grill and to try some flavors of Aspri spirits

On the note of Brunch, mind wanders off to Guy Beringer, a man who invented the term and the concept of ‘brunch’. This word was coined in 1895 or 1896 for a magazine article to help understand the heavy breakfast that extends over several hours.

It was easy to locate the studio at the back of Survodaya society at Santacruz, (a large garage is artistically transformed in state-of-art studio) Green and yellow entrance stirs the positive moods immediately. The studio is tastefully done with food quotes adorning the furniture and the shelves, hand-painted plates on one wall, while colorful kitchen articles on other, all shining brilliant under numerous spotlights.

An open kitchen in the center of the room was the setting of the proceeding for the morning. The table was set with all the ingredients we would require to grill the meals: raw meat of lamb/chicken/sea food, marinated meat and vegetables, sauces, dips, salads, condiments, all neatly arranged increasing our hunger pangs with every glance.

The idea was to understand the product and its usefulness. I remember having grill food at Korean restaurants where the center of the table is the hot plate and we are served raw meat and veggies, that we toss it on the hot plate and watch it cook while we drink. The idea is similar. Recletta grill can be placed in the center of the dinning table; every guest gets his own pan that fills the grill.

We used it to melt Recletta cheese and made egg omelets that we poured over grilled meat. Most of us made our own choice of combinations of meat and veggies. Very soon the kitchen was smoky and fragrant with roasted smell of food.

 The brunch included gourmet Raclette cheese, assorted vegetables and meat, sausages, Asian style rice, a selection of breads and dips followed by some amazing deserts (Tiramisu, Chocolate cake and Blueberry cheese cake).

Aspri, the official spirit partner served some amazing white and red wine during the brunch. I am not much fond of drinks, but having said that I did try the sparkling white wine and it tasted good with meals.

All said and done, it was an entertaining brunch. Meeting food bloggers is always a wonderful experience of sharing notes and getting inspired to try something new, the food, the wine, the company, everything seamlessly falling in place.

Came back home with beautifully gift-wrapped plum cake stuffed with fruits and raisins that I shared with my family during late afternoon. It tasted divine with a cup of coffee.

Honestly, life cannot get better than this.

Thank you Rakhee Vaswani for hosting the event at your Palate Culinary Studio, thanks to Sameer Malkani of FBAI for the invite and thanks to food bloggers who shared their morning with me