Harissa Paste Harissa Paste

Because I’m me, I sometimes buy things that I’ve never cooked with before or even eaten and I don’t have any specific dish in mind. I’ve done this with pea sprouts, octopus, duck breast, jicima, and so many other things. I then look for recipes after I get these new-to-me ingredients home. I mean, how …

When Fahim’s parents come for a visit, they sometimes bring things with them, usually food items of one description or another. It might be sweets like muscat or jellabies, or fruit from their trees like mango or papaya. Sometimes, it’s green chillies or other vegetables. This last visit? Awara. Awara look a bit like snap …

Rich Cake is another variety of fruit cake (or, as I would call it, Christmas fruit cake :)) that is commonly served at weddings and at Christmas in Sri Lanka. Since I’d recently made a coconut fruit cake, Fahim had been begging me to make a Rich Cake. So I did. 😀 Here it is …

I honestly didn’t think of eating chickpeas for breakfast, but then, I previously hadn’t considered eating mung beans for breakfast, and yet mung beans work well for breakfast – Fahim loves it. … Well, to be honest, I didn’t realize at first that Fahim’s mom intended the chickpeas to be for breakfast. … That, and I think it might be because someone pointed it out to me. 😀 Tempered Chickpeas Serves 4-5 Ingredients 2-3 tablespoons oil 1 small onion, sliced 1 sprig curry leaves 1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds 2 teaspoons crushed red chilli peppers OR 5 dried red chillies, broken into pieces 1 – 1 1/2 teaspoon salt 300 grams dried chickpeas, cooked and drained (or about 600 grams cooked chickpeas) 200 grams coconut, freshly shredded (optional) Directions Put the oil into a hot pot.

A month and a half back, Fahim and I were returning home when we saw this truck. … Cuz I really don’t think we’re in an alternate universe right now, you know? As it turns out, we got our answer when the car we were in passed the truck.

After much research, I learned that a good amount of sourdough starter is about 10 to 20% of the flour weight in fermented flour. … I like easy math. 🙂 Let’s say you use this recipe to make bread: 1000 grams flour (about 10 cups, depending on how you measure flour) 650 grams water (2 3/4 cups) 20 grams salt (4 teaspoons) 2 packages dry yeast And let’s say your sourdough starter is 100% hydration (that is, a 1:1 ratio of flour to water by weight), then, with a 20% fermented flour target in mind, I would use this: 800 grams flour (1000-200, since I want 20% or 200 grams of the flour to be fermented in the sourdough starter) 450 grams water (650-200 because the starter is equal amounts of water and flour) 400 grams sourdough starter (200 grams flour + 200 grams water) 20 grams salt You can use less sourdough starter than 10% fermented flour for sure. … As well, fermented flour has gluten that’s been overdeveloped (gluten develops naturally when flour becomes wet), which isn’t a problem when the fermented flour is used at low amounts, but when a lot of fermented flour is used, it can’t support the dough properly, hence the ugly dimples and inability to rise.

A month and a half back, Fahim and I were returning home when we saw this truck. … Cuz I really don’t think we’re in an alternate universe right now, you know? As it turns out, we got our answer when the car we were in passed the truck.

We have a neighborhood bread trishaw. We also have neighborhood ice cream trishaws. 🙂 This bread trishaw goes through our neighborhood, and others, playing an annoying tune that everyone recognizes as belonging to the bread trishaw. Those who want to buy bread run out to the road with rupees in hand and buy… whatever. I …