Seminar On Taste Of America

 At 11:30am sharp, I entered Mahogamy room at The Club to be greeted warmly by Saloni and Sam. It was nice meeting foodbloggers,chefs, and influencers (who are beginning to feel like an extended family) with the common goal of love for food.

Over the cup of coffee and light snacks, we warmed up, interacting with people in the room, exchanging visiting cards and catching up with news. Everybody present were invitees gathered under one roof to discover the taste of America that included products like walnuts, hazelnuts, lentils,  WashingtonApples, pears, blue berries, pistachio and poultry products

The session started with the welcome note by Mrs.Saloni Malkani followed by introduction of Taste Of America by Ms Rhiannon Elms followed by other speakers who gave us an in-depth peek into US Products.

The seminar on Taste of America was all about how the US products can be integrated into Indian market, focusing on its nutrition value and how it can be incorporated into daily diet and in Indian cuisine at home.

Sumit Saran spoke about the power of USA pears and WashingtonApples.  We were transported virtually to apple  and pear farm that spread over 16000 acres in region of Washington and to farms in Oregon to show the harvest and treatment of Hazelnuts, Pistachio and Blue Berries.

The apple and pear growers are committed to minimising environment impact and ensuring that orchards are still growing for generation. They evaluate every variety's color, weight, pressure, sweet level, size and condition before and after harvest.

Pears are fat-free, cholesterol-free and sodium-free that help reduce heart diseases, risk of some types of cancer and is essential for normal cell growth and repair.

Thus the health benefits of each product were discussed in details and it was very insightful information.

Next Sachin Khurana and Shruti Gupta highlighted the versatility of USA pulses in Indian cooking/baking and about California Walnuts felicitating wellness goal. We watch one more video of Walnut farm in Oregon, its' harvest and how they pass through different process of cleaning, washing and sorting before they are packed and shipped.

There was a live demo by chefs of 'The Club' who used the 'The Taste Of America' products making it interesting by gathering iceberg, Olives, Basil leaves and Mint into a large glass and inverting it on the salad plate, then placing cherry tomatoes, Cranberries, Hazelnuts, Walnuts around the glass.. the glass was carefully lifted leaving the greens covering the nuts. This was then coated with balsamic vinegar and cheese. Many members from the room walked up to the salad station to get the taste. (I wanted to eat all of it)  Yumm!!

Shorya Kapoor introduced USA blueberries, as a super-fruit that delivers crave-worthy flavors packed with beneficial nutrients, including phytonutrients and four essential nutrients: fibre, Vitamin A & C, and manganese. It is very versatile food and besides having it fresh, dried, frozen or in liquid form (as in beer) it can be incorporated in desserts, smoothies, ice creams, dips and even in soups and curries. It is also used in many beauty products.

Peush Narang spoke about Oregon Hazelnuts, its indulgence in a nutshell. All the attendees were asked to scan the site no55825155 or visit www.menti.com to participate in the quiz that has queries such as 'What comes to your mind when you think about hazelnuts?' And 'Were you aware of hazelnuts were from Oregon state in US'? Unfortunately not many were aware because most of the imports of India are from Turkey although it is found in small quantities in Himachal Pradesh wild trees near Pargi Valley and is known by its local name of 'Thangi'.

A brief introduction on US poultry in India was by Riya Singh to promote US poultry products such as Chicken, Eggs, Turkey and Duck. The taste for duck and turkey is not yet popular amongst Indian although turkey has made its entry in India during the festive season of thanksgiving. During Lunch hour, I did enjoy turkey with cranberry sauce and roasted vegetables. It was so delicious!!

There was a small Q&A session between Sameer.M and Anurag Katriar on current food trends in India and the future of eating out. Mr Anurag feels that people now prefer to use fresh ingredients in their cooking and are focusing more on the methods of cooking. He feels that people who frequent restaurants are now all casual diners who look for good vibes and good taste. More and more people are talking about Vegan diet and healthy food. Before the Indian food had too much of spices but now its is about flavors.

Listening to so many food stories at the #seminar on #TasteOfAmerica, hunger pangs took us to terrace adjoining the Mahogany room whereby there was a spread of delicious meals cooked with US products that included walnuts, pistachio, cranberry, WashingtonApples, Turkey and all the ingredients that we had talked about during the seminar. It was nice cloudy afternoon and we enjoyed the meals at the tables chit chatting and enjoying the meals

After lunch, we had a small chat with closer friends, few photo session...and then.(sincere thanks to dear Meeta of chiselled_meals for a ride back home) with delicious goodies of walnuts, pistachio, cranberries, fresh red apples, pears, an apron and lots of pamphlets to learn about the ingredients (thanks to @Tasteofamerica for The gift hamper)

Many thanks for an enjoyable afternoon with @foodbloggerai and @usconsulategeneralmumbai.

Some more reading about this seminar and interesting recipes at Indrani Sen's Blog.  

Raw Papaya Salad

 Papaya is very nutritious fruit . it contain an enzyme Papain that helps break proteins and aids digestion. Do avoid water after eating papaya, it is not good for health.

Salad made of raw papaya is very tasty because it is sweet, sour, spicy and full of flavours. It pairs well with rice and fried chicken but vegetarians can have it with cutlets.

The ingredients used are 200 gms Papaya 50 gms peanuts 3/4green chilies, 1/2cup tamarind juice 1tbsp of lime juice few kaffir lime leaves 1 chopped tomato 4/5 garlic cloves fish sauce or salt 5/6 french beans 2/3tbsp sugar.

all the ingredients are pounded and mixed.

For demo..hop on to my Utube channel. Do subscribe too Thank you

Pizza at North of the Island in Tenerife

What is the difference between Samosas of India, Spring Rolls of China, and Chagio of Vietnam???, the stuffing right? ...... On the same theme, here is the new snack, with stuffing that contains a piece of white cheese, wrapped with a spinach leaf and fried in the crispy rice flour wrapping, served in the bed of sweet and sour sauce with a dash of soya sauce....imagine the taste….its yum...gone in a second leaving behind its lingering taste....but wait.....what I like the best is...er..the serving appetizer spoons...I need to buy those......

The chef said, “Its on the house, my new creation”.

He was introducing a new snack, Paquetos de quesos y espinaca con salsa agridulce and he wanted me to try it.

I gave him full marks.

I like restaurants that care for its clients and are always trying new creations and this Italian restaurant ‘Tasca Pizzeria Maracay’ gets a brownie point.

I actually went for pizza because that is what it specializes in. They have oven-roasted pizzas with great variety of combination. We ordered three kinds

Pizza cuatro quesos: Pizza with four different cheeses: Mozzarella, Parmesan, Camembert, rogurfort.

Pizza Stramboli: with tuna, ham and prawns

Pizza Vegetariana: with Mushroom, asparagus, black olives and capsicum.

The oven-roasted pizzas have their distinct burnt taste, that sets it apart from the normal ones.

Since most of the Spanish food has bland taste, I like restaurants that have good sauces to go with the meals. We ordered ‘Queso asado con dos mojos (cilantro and rojo pimientos’ which is actually roasted white cheese soaked in two sauces :coriander and red capsicum.

We also had a pretty looking salad, okay, it was not just pretty, it was delicious too. With the combination of rocket leaves, lettuce, black and green olives, asparagus, cherry tomatoes, red cabbage, basil, olive oil, it is hard to imagine it can be anything but tasty….

Tasca Pizzeria Maracay’ is an Italian restaurant in the north of the island at La Guancha in Tenerife. It has very good ambience with pine furniture and many artifacts decorating the walls. They have bamboo furniture outside in the open and on a bright sunny day, it’s a perfect place to spend an afternoon.

Vegetarian Cuisine in Canary Islands

When travelling abroad, eating vegetarian food is limited to just cottage cheese, mushrooms or potatoes. Mom was vegetarian for 40 years of her life; she normally starved during flights and survived mostly on bread and butter. But things have changed now since more people opt for vegetarian cuisine and I was happy to find good variety of vegetarian dishes in a typical Spanish restaurant.

 Last week I visited a Spanish restaurant in Las Palmas. The tables overflowed outside the restaurant into the walking plaza. We occupied a table to enjoy drinks while waiting for the rest of the family to arrive. While sipping, it’s interesting to watch people on the street. Women with shopping bags, children running back and forth, old men walking leisurely and above all watching what others are eating. The table that caught my attention was the one that had hot plate on coals next to plates. The family enjoyed the drinks and salad while they waited for their marinated meat to cook on the hot plate. It seemed a good option of eating the freshly roasted meat straight from pan.

What was good about this restaurant was that it had good variety of vegetarian dishes too.

White cheese is must if you dine in any restaurant at Canary Islands. The cheese is soft, firm and a bit salty in taste.

 White cheese is added in most salads, the vegetables are fresh and succulent and tastes great with herbs sprinkled on them, The dressing is made by mixing lime juice, salt, sugar, basil leaves, parsley and olive oil.

‘Pimiento Padron’ is a Spanish delight. Big large chilies (that taste like capsicum) are boiled in salty water, dried and stir fried in olive oil.

Papa arrugada is another dish that one must try. Small round potatoes are picked with fork and boiled with rock salt (in one kg of potatoes they use 250gms of rock salt). They are cooked for 45 minutes on slow flame, removed, dipped in cold water, and then roasted in a pan till they crumble.

They are served with mojo, a special sauce served with Papa Arrugada.

Recipe for mojo

Ingredients:

1cup olive oil

20 cloves garlic

4 slices of bread

1tsp cumin powder

1 large red capsicum

10 dried red chilies

1tsp grape vinegar

2tsp salt

Method:

1.   Fry garlic with skin in good quantity of olive oil, till skin separates, remove the garlic and keep aside

2.   In the same oil, fry small pieces of bread till they brown, remove and keep aside.

3.   Transfer the garlic and fried bread in the mixer.

4.   Add cumin powder, salt, red capsicum, dried red chilies and little water

5.   Grind to a smooth paste

6.   Add grape flavor vinegar

7.   Add the reserved olive oil that was used for frying garlic and bread.

8.   Mix it well and serve with potatoes.

For main course, one normally eats Paella in Spanish restaurants. I think this restaurant had many vegetarian clients because it even served vegetarian Paella. There was wide variety of Paella dishes. We ordered veg, the moist one, which looked more like khichdi, but the taste was good, quite similar to the non-veg type with lots of vegetables and the special thick grains of rice that is used in this dish.

Great lunch at Gambrinus at Las Palmas, that’s where we spend one afternoon for vegetarian meal.

Power Lunch

Gone are the days when power lunch was all about dining in a restaurant that had buffets tables set with variety of food of every imaginable cuisine. We used to have too much variety and were not able to decide what is good, little portion of each and your tummy is full with mixed flavors that had a war in the tummy starting from mouth. We hopped from our dining table to the food station for every course, meeting friends on the way, chatting with random people and sometimes eating while standing. Many times, we were not able to enjoy the best of dishes because by the time we reached that dessert station, we were too full already and so missed out the best options.

But things are changing for the better perhaps.

Two days ago, I was invited by Verve Magazine for a book reading of ‘The Reluctant detective’  by Kiran Manral at an Italian restaurant, Botticino, named after ‘Petra di Botticino’ the beautifully veined marble, that has been used extensively giving an artistically  shiny look to the hotel at Bandra-Kurla complex called Trident.

After the reading, and familiarizing with each other,  we headed towards the dining room, bright, well lighted with high ceiling that seemed as though it was hanging by the ceiling. The dining table had just fixed number of chairs for confirmed guests that were planned after the personalized invitations were sent and the number of guest confirmed.

There was a fixed menu with the assorted dishes specially prepared by Chef Vikas Vichare. We gave our order according to our preference and sat down to relish each dish as it arrived.

The freshly baked bread, straight from the kitchen is the good way to start any meal.

While we waited for our order to arrive, Chef Vikas Vichare came out to greet us bringing with him his specialty of diced mangoes topped with steamed asparagus.

The hard board menu card had the choice, vegetarian or non-vegetarian, On Saturdays I am strictly non-vegetarian, so wild Mushroom were out of my list...... I chose Pear and Pecorino salad with arugula and balsamic dressing from the list of Soup and Appetizer.

The sweet sour taste of fruits mingled with thinly sliced cheese and rocket leaves, topped with caramelized nuts....it was a happy beginning...

For the Main it was snapper for me....Chilli and Fennel crusted snapper with olives, potatoes and orange juice.

No, this is not Snapper but I am peeping on the side...attracted by the plating..thinking if he learnt the plating from TV program called Master Chef Australia?

The Herb encrusted Snapper swimming in the plate full of orange sauce and the colorful crunchy array of finely chopped fried potatoes, olives and carrots was up for Mains. The sweet and sour taste with crunchy vegetables floating in the orange sauce and the perfectly cooked fish, it was the dish to die for.....

Different stories are shared at the lunch table which is impossible during buffet,  I like the table setting where each person is seated and the dish arrives at regular interval one dish at a time which is tasted and relished slowly, wine glasses are refilled and as the conversation progresses, strangers become friends.....

The hours tick tock faster and the dessert time arrives. I choose Tiramisu with berry sorbet...

We rounded up the meal with a cupful of tiramisu, which has always been my favorite and I was happy to see it served specially for us. I bit into the thin crispy chocolate wafer that melted instantly into my mouth.

Once again I am mesmerized with the plating of this dessert wherein a thin chocolate wafer dips into the cup and a spiral chocolates reaches the berry sorbet making the dish visually appealing...

Also shared this content with the members of GBE2 on prompt "Two days Ago"