Jeeves' pick-me-up?

When Bertie Wooster asks Jeeves what goes behind the making of his pick-me-ups, Jeeves threatens to quit. And promptly, Bertie offers his apologies. Such is the power of Jeeves' pick-me-up -- the after-party morning drink that can put any man back to action however hard he's been binging.

Unfortunately, Wodehouse left us no recipe either. So here's my take on it. Generous helpings of this wonder-drink after partying, but before bedtime should do the Jeeves magic.

Pick-me-up /2	Combine	Mix	CHOP	GARNISH
Buttermilk	2C 1t ¼ t ¼ t ¼ t	Add salt to taste, water if needed, and mix using a Blender or just spoon		Garnish with chopped cilantro
Cumin powder
Ginger powder
Fennel powder
Asafetida
Cilantro			¼ C	Chopped cilantro

C = Cup, T = Tablespoon, t = teaspoon, B = Big, M = Medium, S = Small
Notes: If you don't have powders of Cumin, Fennel, etc, use seeds instead and blend them.

Specifying Taste

It would be nice to have a system for specifying Taste. The first step, as I see, is to the find the "Degrees of Freedom" for taste, just like what we have for Physics. Then, by using a set of independent variables we'd be able to easily specify the taste of any concoction. What one makes out of a lengthy discourse on an excellent recipe is highly subjective, but atleast the taste of the item discussed is hopefully objective. That's my hopeful assumption.

My motivation for this research sprouted out of a totally useless argument, when a friend commented on something being hot and spicy. I tasted it and told him that it was hot, but not spicy. That went on for a while.

But the offshoot of this argument was an interesting question: Is it possible to taste a Chef's complex creation and discern the ingredients just like they discern the subtleties in wines? Then may be we could define the taste of a complex concoction, objectively!

More on this soon. Your comments would be very supportive.

Jeera Aloo

Jeera (Hindi): Cumin seeds
Aloo (Hindi): Potato

Jeera Aloo is a simple dish, that's popular all over India. It's yummy, spicy and healthy and can never go wrong!

Jeera Aloo /4	DICE	MICROWAVE	SAUTE	CHOP	GARNISH
Potato	2B	Microwave dry until potatoes become soft	Add salt, pepper to taste and saute, turning the contents frequently		Garnish with chopped cilantro
Olive Oil			2T 1t
Mustard seeds
Cumin seeds			2t 1T
Urad daal
Turmeric powder			½ t 1t
Chilli powder
Cilantro				½ C	Chopped cilantro

C = Cup, T = Tablespoon, t = teaspoon, B = Big, M = Medium, S = Small
Notes: Add Cumin seeds and Urad daal after mustards start sputtering and make sure they don't turn black. Add Turmeric and Chilli powders after the Potatoes.

A New Recipe Represenation Format

Recipes have traditionally been written like lab procedures, with two parts to them:
* things needed
* step-by-step procedure

That's cool! Only that, sometimes, the procedure becomes a wordy discourse, giving the opinion that its harder to read than to make the dish. Well, that's from the recipe-reader's perspective.

From a writer's perspective, unless ardent or atleast regular, recording a recipe is a pain.

Recipes are no more shared by a selective clique, or passed down the lineage -- they are widely shared. Cooking is no more considered an art. With some interest and discipline, anyone can master it.

With these thoughts, I was motivated to come up with a format for representing recipes. These were the requirements:
1. It should be simple to read and write
2. It should be able to show possible areas of improvement
3. It should cover most aspects of a recipe. Subtleties could be mentioned seperately.

Sambhar /4	CHOP	SAUTE	BOIL, MASH	SIMMER	GARNISH
Olive Oil		2T 1t dash		Add water, salt to taste and simmer low for ~10 mins	Garnish the gravy with the sauteed leaves
Mustard seeds
Asafetida
Onion	1B	Add after mustard sputters and until onions become translucent
Tomato	1M
Thai g.pepper	5
Toor daal			1C 1t	Mashed daal
Cumin seeds
Coriander powder				1T 1t ½ t
Chilli powder
Tamarind paste
Curry leaves		½ C ½ C 1t			Sauteed leaves
Cilantro
Ghee

C = Cup, T = Tablespoon, t = teaspoon, B = Big, M = Medium, S = Small
Suggestions: Add crushed black pepper while simmering.

How to read the format?
* The indgredients make the rows. The steps of the procedure (tasks) make the columns.
* The ingredients are grouped in the order used in the recipe. The sequence of tasks follows the order of the columns from left to right. Parallel tasks are shown with a dashed line between them.
* The first task on an ingredient is what comes against the amount of the ingredient. In the table above, Onions are Chopped first followed by the Saute.

Eagerly awaiting your comments ...

Green, Lean and Mean

Broccoli is a sensational vegetable -- not because its spectacular or outstanding, but because it arouses curiosity and interest.

Seinfeld says Newman can't handle it even if it were to be deep-fried in chocolate.
Homer Simpson once dies eating broccoli.
Big Bush once said "No more broccoli on the White House menu".

Why is there so much aversion for broccoli? May be its not all that bad! I decided to throw away all that "bias" behind broccoli (including mine) and give it a fresh start.

I picked up a bag of broccoli from my freezer and quickly ran my eyes over the Nutrition Facts. I was shocked to figure this out: if you plan on getting all the Carbs needed for the day (about 300 gms) just by eating broccoli, you need to eat about 11 pounds of the vegetable.

Ok, so to make a meal of broccoli worthwhile, you need to eat LOTS. Is that humanly possible? First, I tried to eat it raw. I needn't go throw the gruesome details of what I went through here. You get the idea... I added a dash of soy sauce and black pepper, microwaved it, like a friend had suggested, and tried it. I gave up the experiment while I felt I was going to detest soy sauce for the rest of my life. Then I tried making a soup out of it -- the water had not shown the slightest hue of green or the taste of the vegetable. Good to know that. Atleast, we are not polluting water dumping all that broccoli in the sinkhole.

So what are we doing with all the broccoli we produce? And most of all, why do we produce? However detested, there's a subtle feel-good factor to it. The feel-good factor stays as long as you avoid tasting it or mask the taste totally, like you do in "Cream of broccoli".

You can feel the factor when you choose a side of brocolli over fries, while ordering a 14 oz Rib eye. You can feel it when you top your grocery cart with a stalk of fresh broccoli.

Where do they all go? To the trash. What happens then? The molds avoid them :)

Sambhar and its ingredient harmony

Sambhar is known to every Indian as is Chai to everyone in the world. Just like Chai, the Indian vernacular for spiced Tea, that has blotched every spot in the world, Sambhar has stained every Indian shirt. Oh! Am I giving away my clumsy nature here?

So classical is this concoction that every family in South India prides of its own version of recipe. There are breakfast Sambhaars tailored to Idli-Dosa, indigenous Sambhaars native to the southern states, main-course Sambhaars that go with rice, and starter Sambaars -- roughly translated to lentil soups served in some "Woodlandy" restaurants.

If truly these versions are so different and impressive, should we call them all Sambhar? There's something fundamental to sambhar that has held the consensus of a diverse land for ages.

The basic ingredients never change -- Toor daal (pigeon peas), Tomato, Chilly, Tamarind. But why add tomato and tamarind, while they both taste sour anyway? Something subtle yet quite disparate in taste calls for the inclusion. This is the difference you see between tomato-based Italian dishes and their Indian close-counterparts. The sourness of tomato is more acidic and hence stronger, while that of tamarind is milder and sweeter. However, the marriage of tomato and tamarind does bring a lot of sourness. Here comes the daal -- the mitigator and binder. This binding effect is what gives sambhar a base and structure.

Traditionally and aptly, sambhar is made with Toor daal. However, if you're daring enough to experiment with other daals -- like Channa or Urad, atleast dare not to taste them -- simply for the fact that, if you are so used the typical taste of Sambhar, a different daal could be glarring to your tastebuds. Not that there's anything wrong with that!

The Lu-Lu's Double Italian Sausage

What could be a better start to my food blogging experience than a tribute to the Italian Sausage at the hot-dog-capital CHICAGO!

Sausage is really a keep-it-simple food. So is Lu-lu's -- an unassuming, typical chicago-style hot dog joint, west of the UIC campus. Lu-lu's defined the sausage experience for me in Chicago. The spiced-up meat, the chewy Italian bread that prolongs the experience, the grease that eases the effort, all that topped-off with the hot peppers give you a reason to slurp on pop, only to go for more! The double barrels of sausage charred to perfection by the charm of their grill, yet succulent with the finest juices await to burst out on your taste buds at the intersection of Taylor and Ogden.

Get greasy! Its not bad to occasionally indulge :)