French Onion Soup

I have been telling my friend DashGlowPrincess to come over for dinner for a while so I can cook her an awesome romantic 3 course meal just for funzies. Eventually after much fuss and persuasion she finally decided to grace me with her presence. I cooked up an absolute storm that night, if I can say so my self.. so the romantic dinner menu included:

Starter: French Onion Soup with Cheesy Garlic Bread

Main: Cheese Stuffed Chicken Wrapped in Bacon with Crispy Herbed Baked Potatoes

Dessert: Cheesecake Brownie Swirl 

Just realised that 'CHEESE' may have been the theme for the night. I didn't plan that one out well enough I guess. Oh well. anyway, one can never have too much cheese. we had a great time. and the food was pretty delish too. win-win!

Your  challenge: Cook some soup and give me a hoot!

Ready --- Steady --- Cook

French Onion Soup

INGREDIENTS (serves 6)  

60g butter, chopped  
2 tablespoons olive oil  
6 (1kg) brown onions, thinly sliced  
2 teaspoons brown sugar  
2 tablespoons plain flour  
4 cups beef stock    
3 cloves of garlic, chopped 

METHOD:

1. Heat butter and oil in a heavy-based saucepan over medium-low heat until sizzling. 
2. Add garlic, onions and 1 teaspoon salt. Cook, uncovered, stirring often, for 45 to 50 minutes or until onions are very soft. 
3. Stir in sugar and cook, stirring often, for 10 minutes or until onions caramelise.
4. Add flour to saucepan and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. 
5. Add stock and 2 cups water. Reduce heat to low and simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes to allow flavours to combine.
6. Ladle soup into bowls. Top with cheese, season with pepper and serve. 

Challenge Accepted ???

Enjoy!

Tosakanth
 

Chili Chicken

Back in 2008 my sister cooked this amazing Chili Chicken and Sticky Rice for my mom and I when we went to visit her in the UK. It was out of this world. super spicy and super awesome. I've been telling her to recreate that for years now but she has never been able to get it right. When they came to visit me in June 2012, she tried making it but wasn't as good because she made it a curry instead of a dry Devilled Chili Chicken. Yesterday, I was craving some super yummy chicken and also my food stock for the week had finished so I decided to try whipping up this amazing Chili Chicken. I must say that it turned out really really really well. A pretty close match to my sister's one. 

Your Challenge: Cook some Chicken in your kitchen!

Ready --- Steady --- Cook

Chili Chicken

INGREDIENTS:

300g Chicken (roughly 3-4 thighs)

1 Onion (sliced)

2 cloves garlic (chopped)

3 tbs Chili Paste 

2 tbs Sugar

3 tbs Sweet Chili Sauce

3 tbs Cooking Oil

Salt to taste

METHOD:

1. Heat the oil, add the garlic and onions and temper until onions are soft or brown and set aside.

2. Add the chicken to the pan with some oil and cook for 10 mins or until chicken is cooked.

3. Add the onions to the chicken and mix well

4. add the chili paste, sweet chili sauce and sugar and mix well.

5. add salt if needed

6. taste and adjust spicy-ness to taste.. if too spicy add more sugar, if you want it to be dynamite add more chili paste or dry chili pieces

Note: You can buy Chili Paste in any Asian shop or Supermarket. It's generally made with garlic, shallots, Thai dried chili peppers, tamarind, shrimp paste and palm sugar. Alternatively, if you want to go totally home-made, here's a thai chili paste recipe or the best one to use is this dynamite recipe.
You could also add some broccoli and red bell peppers to the chicken to make it extra Thai like.

Challenge Accepted ???

Enjoy!

Tosakanth

Pol Roti (Coconut Flat Bread) & Lunu Miris

One fine day I was on the train and I could smell someone eating a banana and for some weird reason I could also smell butter. The only thing that came to mind the moment that aroma hit my nostrils was -- POL ROTI. This probably doesn't mean anything to you. Pol Roti is a very traditional, standard Sri Lankan breakfast meal. Pol = Coconut, Roti = Roti/flat bread. We normally eat it with Lunu Miris, which is a super duper spicy dynamite onion sambol thingy, Onion curry or Dhal curry. Alternatively, kids like to butter it when its hot off the hot plate and eat it with a banana. It's soooooooo goood. You have to try it out, it's super duper simple to make, and super duper yummy. So here's the recipe to super duper Pol Roti:

Your Challenge: make some roti and feed a hottie!

 

Ready --- Steady --- Cook

Pol Roti

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup Whole Wheat flour

1 cup Plain Self Raising flour

1 cup shredded coconut (or 3/4 cups desiccated coconut soaked in 1/4 cup of water)

1/2 onion chopped
Salt to taste

METHOD:

1. Mix the all the ingredients in a bowl. 

2. Next add cold water little by little so that all the ingredients come together to form a dough. Take care not to get it too wet.
3. If the dough is too wet add a little bit of flour.
4. Knead the dough and break into balls of about 2" diameter.
5. Flatten on a floured board or plate using your palms. If more crispy crust is desired, roll using rolling pin. on Cook in a heated heavy bottom pan till 6.golden brown on both sides under medium heat.

Accompany it with some Lunu Miris or butter and a banana.

makes: 10 - 12 Roti 


Lunu Miris

INGREDIENTS:

1 Onion diced

Chilli powder

Dry Chilli Pieces 

Lime Juice

Salt

Maldive Fish

METHOD:

add all the ingredients together and mix well. you can add extra lime juice to get an extra kick. 

once all the ingredients are mixed together, put it in a mortar and pestle and grind it. 

Challenge Accepted ???

Enjoy!

Tosakanth

Honey Mustard Chicken with Bacon and Mushroom

Had a few friends over last night just for funzies, and thought I'd make some delish chicken. Well I was actually meant to study with them, but it turned in to a rather messy drunken escapade. As we do.We have now named  the dish "P's Special", because Honey Mustard Chicken with Bacon and Mushroom is just too long and not very classy.

 

What I generally  do is, use the recipe as a base and then mix in other stuff to give it my own twist.. So with the flavouring of the Honey Mustard marinade I just added a bit of chilli powder to give it a bit of kick, and more lemon juice because when life gives you lemons you need to make a kick as marinade with it. Also, I didn't have Dijon mustard so I just used English mustard seed something something that was in my fridge instead. So basically, I changed the whole recipe. Whoopsy daisies.. But in the end it turned out really well. That's all that really matters at the end of the day. 

Your challenge: Give it a go and let me know, how your chicken goes with your bros!

Ready --- Steady --- Cook

Honey Mustard Chicken with Bacon and Mushroom (P's Special)

INGREDIENTS:

1 to 1 1/2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breasts
1/4 cup Dijon mustard
1/4 cup honey
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 cups fresh mushrooms, sliced
8 to 12 slices bacon, partially cooked
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped
Seasonings: salt, pepper, paprika

METHOD:

1. Make marinade by mixing together mustard, honey, and lemon juice. 
2. Add chicken breasts and refrigerate for two hours. 
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 
4. Heat a small amount of oil (canola or vegetable) in a skillet and add chicken breasts, discarding marinade. 
5. Cook chicken a few minutes on each side.  Set aside.
6. Scrape out most of the juices from the pan, and add mushrooms.  Saute mushrooms until tender (a few minutes). 
7. Assemble chicken in a large baking dish: chicken, then bacon, then mushrooms, then cheese.  Bake at 350 degrees F for about 20 minutes, until chicken is cooked through. 
8. Sprinkle with chopped parsley before serving.

Makes 3 to 4 servings.

http://www.everydayhomecook.com/2011/03/honey-mustard-chicken-with-bacon-and-mushrooms/

Challenge Accepted ???

Enjoy!

Tosakanth
 

I'm Captain Cook

Oh helloo,

Who Am I: 
I am Tosakanth. I am 22. I am Sri Lankan. I am a girl. I am a boy. I am a tomboy.
I am lazy. I am meticulous. I am annoying. I am interesting.
I love music. I love food. I love cooking. I love photography. I love sports. I love dogs. I love cats.
I love collecting things. I love shot glasses. I love friendship bracelets. I love bar coasters. 
I love good company. I love things from a distance. I love people from a distance. I love whole-heartedly.
I am sceptical. I am scared. I am invisible. I am sensitive. I am careful. I am a realist. I am unique. I am  weird.
I am me. 

More fondly known as Tosakanth, I am a 22 year old tomboy who moved to Sydney for university from her island in the sun, Sri Lanka. I absolutely love music, music is my world. Photography is a new love of mine. I try to take arty farty pictures, but I'm not that great at it unfortunately. I used to play a lot of sports when i was in school, but haven't really had the opportunity since I moved to Sydney. I love collecting things, from friendship bracelets, shot glasses from cities I've visited, coasters from bars to even train tickets. My hobbies are important to me. I get attached to things quickly and can also detach from things quickly. Unfortunately things bore me very easily.  I get over protective over people and things that I care for. I fall in love with people that don't know I even exist, because I love from a distance and am too scared to make a move. I'm Weird. I am unique. I am me.

 

Background:

This is me. This is who I am. I have a love for food, a knack for it you could say so. I love looking up recipes and trying to re-create them and some with my own twist. Until the beginning of this year I've never had the opportunity to cook because I've never had my own kitchen. I moved to Sydney, February 2009 to do my bachelors degree in boring stuff and lived on campus at catered dorms. There was a strict 'no cooking, because you will burn the whole building down' policy. At home I never cooked because other people always provided food for me. Also cooking at home is such a song and a dance, because finding ingredients is a right royal pain. And I don't like my kitchen at home. It's too gloomy and 'urgh' that it never motivated me to cook. But now that I have finally moved out of college 3 years later and have to cook for my self to survive, I thought I'd give it a try and see how I am. Cooking is supposed to be in my blood. I'm a 3rd generation foodie I guess. My grand father was a baker, and my grand uncle was  a confectioner, my mother is also a baker, my aunt is a caterer and a self proclaimed food critique and general food wisdom sharer (even when it is not required). My sister is now a baker too. The rest of my aunts just like eating. The fact that food runs in our blood is pretty self explanatory by what the weighing scale reads. I knew it, obesity is hereditary!

My Style: 

I like cooking savoury stuff because I don't need to follow a recipe and I can add stuff that I want and create my own thing to taste. For now it's turned out pretty great every time I've tried my hand at cooking. Sweet stuff on the other hand are more difficult to vary with the recipes. Because you can't do most things to taste :( but I like making sweet stuff because people like to eat them and find them very appealing and appetizing. I agree they do look better, but savory is my thang. Cooking now gets my mojo going. If I were to ever woo someone, it'd be with my cooking and maybe my dry sense of humour, if they are into that kinda stuff, if you know what I mean, wink wink , nudge nudge. ah, just kidding. I'm not 'kinky' like that. sigh.

What This Blog Is About:

To be honest, I don't know that I'm going to be doing on this blog. I was thinking of making it a food blog. Stuff I cook, eat, interested in, etc.. but it might also have other random stuff. Who knows. I don't know. Take it as it comes I guess.


hope you enjoy my nonsense,

Tosakanth