Sunday, January 24, 2010

Awesome Hors D'Oeuvres

Dear Rushina,

So K’s birthday party on Saturday was an absolute success! My plan to do sushi rolls didn’t materialize as I couldn’t find nori sheets anywhere in Mumbai (and believe me, I looked EVERYWHERE). And just when I was beginning to panic, I went food shopping with you and loved your suggestion that I use rice paper sheets. With happy memories of how much I enjoyed your shitake mushroom mini spring rolls – the perfect one bite portion, I decided I’d try something similar with…shitake mushrooms. So I set off to your house on Saturday morning to raid your kitchen, picking up rice paper sheets, shitake mushrooms and your pickled green peppercorns which I had been eyeing for quite sometime now. Having stocked up on meat during a brief stop at Nature’s Basket at Warden Road the previous evening, here’s what I (and K) made for the party.
First I sliced the Shitake mushrooms and fried them in roast sesame oil.
K cut the red and yellow bell peppers into thin slices. I cut the rice sheets into four quarters, soaked each in water until they were little soft and placed two pieces of shitake, some red and yellow bell peppers and three or four peppercorns and wrapped them. Done! K was hovering so I figured I’d teach him how to roll. He learned fast and was so much better than me…now I can look forward to great rolls.
And I know what you’re going to say Rushina, me and VEG???? Don’t worry everything else had a little meat in it. We made another set of rolls but this time, we stuffed it with that lovely chicken Provencal salami you made me taste at Nature's Basket, shredded spring onions and a tiny drop of Discovery’s Tequila and Lemon sauce. I also braised spicy chicken kebabs added in honey and garnished them with Almond shavings.
I made mini toothpick skewers of fried bacon, papaya and this very hot red chilli I picked up at Ratna’s, a general store in Chembur. The evening’s final offering was the delicious pork momos K’s friends made for him (70 and all gone by 1am).
I made rice and pork curry too, but that’ll have to be another story because the food described above along with the shameless amount of alcohol that was consumed till 3 am the next morning meant that most people didn’t have any space left for dinner…or should I say breakfast.

With much affection,



Theyie



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