blog event Archives - The White Ramekins

Blogger’s Table @ La Riviera, Pullman Gurgaon

July 18, 2013 by TheWhiteRamekins

French cuisine to me has been all about those amazing pastries, desserts like Crepe Suzette, delectable Macarons, yummy and crumbly pastries, mille feuille and everything that has got butter in it, loads and loads of butter. Probably, I have a strong affinity for the desserts and that is the reason, I wouldn’t go beyond classic French onion soup, Foie Gras and Salade Nicoise with a warm crusty baguette when it comes to ordering a main course and would rather save my appetite for the desserts. Because, I know desserts would never ever disappoint when it comes to French.

Until very recently, a dinner I had one of the finest ones in recent times changed my mind, when I got to introduced to a Riviera cuisine, an all new and different take on the classic french cuisine, which I knew about. Blogger’s Table, once again gathered for a dinner at La Riviera restaurant of this newly built property of Pullman Hotels at Central Park Gurgaon. Riviera cuisine, as introduced to us by Executive Chef Tanveer Kwatra, is basically a blend of food from Nice, Marseillaise regions of France and has modern interpretations with emphasis on fresh seafood and prime cuts of meat. It more strongly resembles to northern Italian food. Fresh produce like local olive oil, goat’s cheese, herbes de Provence are more commonly used.

It was quite refreshing as well as exciting to know about the Italian connect of the food, knowing that Italian is the cuisine I love the most. La Riviera at Pullman, tries to use as much as locally available fresh produce but imports most of it’s prime cuts and ribs from the coastal region in France. Chef also told us, that how creatively, natural organic and fresh ingredients have been of prime importance in the menu at the restaurant. It was interesting to know, that they have got techniques to extract colors from fruits and vegetables, such as chlorophyll from spinach for the green color.

These were some of the dishes which we were served that night.

Ciabatta with olive oil butter. Wow! I just fell in love with the olive butter, when I got to know that it has got no butter, but it hold the shape because of natural emulsifying agents added to olive oil, I couldn’t resist slathering my bread with a generous spoon of this amazing olive oil. A nice kick of olives in very first bite.

Then followed Smoked Tomato bruschetta with garlic chips. You could literally feel the smoky-ness in those freshly chopped tomatoes.

Second course had Seared scallops and prawns with pistachio puree and noilly prat fumet along with Pan fried ricotta gnocchi, with cauliflower puree and saffron vinaigrette. Gnocchi was to die for and so was the pistachio puree.

Then we were served a nice and vibrant macerated asparagus and ruby grapefruit salad with smoked curd. The mellowness of asparagus paired really well with the tangy smoked curd.

Porcini mushroom risotto, very well cooked with a proper chewy-ness of the rice and the creamy-ness of porcini mushrooms.

In next course, we were served Goats cheese tortelini with eggplant caviar. Tortellini could have been slightly well done, which I felt because personally I like my pasta to be cooked well. I am not the kind of al dente. I know, that would sound aweful to most Italians. But the eggplant caviar, I just polished off within few seconds, with eggplant being one of my favorite vegetables.

After the fifth course, we had our palette cleanser which was an orange sorbet. Strong tones of orange, it had that nice well balanced kick at the palette. I wouldn’t mind eating that as a dessert too. Infact, I almost felt that that this could have been the dessert {knowing that my stomach was full}.

So after the palette cleanser, came an array of three main course, which we all shared, as we all were full. We were served Twice cooked best end of lamb with textures of root vegetable, Roasted beef rib eye and braised cheek pithvier with onion soubise and Spinach pithivier with arrabiatta sauce. Lamb was perfectly done, and that is the only dish I remember from that course. Everything else was just over-powered by the tenderness and the juicy-ness of the lamb.

By this sixth course, I had no room left for the dessert and was hoping that we don’t get our dessert served. But then, it came. And it created the magic. Manjari chocolate cremeaux, raspberry and champagne jelly and ivory chocolate milk, basically chocolate pot de creme served with raspberry jelly, in simple words. But, the magic was all about the chocolate that went into. World’s finest Valrohna. Oh My God! Now how could I’ve resisted. It was polished to the last bit. Every single bite took me to some dreamy world. Such soul satisfying dessert!

It was a very nice and warm evening spent with all my foodie friends, with getting to know about the different take on classic French cuisine. La Riviera promises to serve some authentic coastal french cuisine and does this job remarkably well. Definitely, a place to visit when you want to spend a calm evening and enjoy the delicacies from the Riviera.

Other’s present on the table that night:

Parul from Shirazine
Mukta from Bake-a-mania
Sushmita from My unfinished life

Grilled Eggplant Salad With Yogurt Dressing & A Cookout With Green Diva

July 10, 2013 by TheWhiteRamekins

Being born and brought up in a Hindu family, vegetables and fruits have always been there in our daily meals. I am more comfortable cooking a vegetarian meal on a busy weeknight than probably some meat. And the reason behind this is that for a vegetarian meal, I don’t have to think twice or plan anything in advance, as that comes more intuitively to me than cooking chicken or fish. I’d rather keep meat for a more relaxed weekend. It might sound illogical to some, but that is true in my case at least. But it’s a different story, that I enjoy gorging on succulent meat as equally as munching on fresh vegetables or fruits.

On weekends, when I spend more time baking desserts and shooting them, I tend to gorge more on fresh fruits and salads, as that saves me another cooking effort. I’d happily boil a cup of chickpeas and enjoy them with some fresh tomato and cucumber salsa or will gobble up a big slice of watermelon or quench my thirst with a cool glass of spicy buttermilk.

Few days back, I happened to attend a book launch event at Fisher & Paykel experience center at Gurgaon, showcasing award-wining chef and restaurateur Ritu Dalmia’s Diva Green. I find a sweet connect with the chef through two of her famous shows Italian Khaana and Traveling Diva. I had always been a great fan of her simple Italian recipes, which she tells she got to learn during her travel to the country. In fact, her aglio olio e peperoncino pasta recipe is something, which is my favorite pasta recipe till date. This time Ritu has come up with a twist with her all mouth watering vegetarian recipes.

During the event, we got a chance to cook some of the recipes from her book, which was really a nice learning experience. We cooked Saint’s Day Pasta {a pasta bake with layered aubergines, tomato sauce, lots of Parmesan and mozzarella}, Arancine {fried risotto balls}, Warm caramelized onion and potato salad and Maple pumpkin fritters. All the recipes we tried were so homey and almost felt like a comfort food. The food you would want to chew on forever without complaining. And the best thing was, that it was all vegetarian. Ritu signed us a copy of Diva Green. The book has a collection of some nice vegetarian recipes from around the globe with some very basic and easy to find ingredients. And there is section on sauces, dips and stocks in the end, which is comes quite handy.

I tried this simple grilled eggplant salad from her book last weekend and enjoyed it thoroughly. I wanted to turn it into a meal, so I added some boiled chickpeas to it to make it more wholesome and filling. And I was happy that I did.

Ingredients

20 ml extra virgin olive oil
4 cloves of garlic smashed
salt and pepper to season
2 long eggplants, sliced thinly lengthwise
1/2 cup boiled chickpeas

The Dressing
100 ml hung yogurt
2 tbsp tahini
1/2 tsp garlic paste
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
water as required
handful of mint leaves, roughly chopped

The Garnish
1/4 cup pomegranate seeds
2 tbsp mixed herbs, roughly chopped
1/2 cup toasted almonds or pine nuts

Instructions

In a bowl, mix olive oil, garlic salt and pepper.
Rub the eggplant slices with the oil marinade and roast in a grill pan till they are golden brown and cooked through. Keep aside.
In another bowl, whisk together all the ingredients for dressing. Add water to make a consistency of free flowing cream, if required. Taste and adjust salt.
Place the eggplants slices and chickpeas on a flat dish and drizzle it generously with yogurt dressing.
Garnish with pomegranate seeds, nuts and herbs.

Foodathon | Saffola Masala Oats With Chef Vikas Khanna

June 19, 2013 by TheWhiteRamekins

Oats and granola with fruits and milk have always been my favorite to-go breakfast. I like adding them generously to my cookies and crumbles. Especially when I do a lot of baking at home, oats are simply an indispensable ingredient in my pantry. And recently, when I got this invite from Foodathon organizing an event on newly launched Masala Oats from Saffola, I was excited to go. And the reason to the excitement apart from the healthy concept was chef Vikas Khanna. A Michelin starred chef based in New York needs no further introduction. He is the most humble and really down to earth chef I have ever come to known.

The event started with Chef Vikas khanna making a most neglected vegetable Tinda {basically, an Indian green vegetable from the gourd family}. The vegetable is highly disregarded in Indian homes, especially by kids. Chef even told on a lighter note that in restaurant kitchens, the most ineffective and clumsy chef is called by the name Tinda. But chef made the vegetable more interesting by making a paneer {indian cottage cheese} filled super healthy and super delicious dish out it, that it was hard to believe.

Photo Courtesy http://www.mytastycurry.com/

As Saffola Masala Oats were the show stopper of the event, we had two recipe challenge contests, where we were supposed to make any dish out of Saffola Masala Oats. You wouldn’t believe, what people did with masala oats. Hats off to the creativity which others got to show. Ruchira from Cookaroo made healthy version of pizza using oats for the curst, whereas Parul of Shirazine displayed her culinary skills by turning oats into polenta balls. Isn’t it amazing! Even the chef was impressed. An old lady made a most simple yet full on flavor oats upma, which Chef Vikas Khanna couldn’t stop to rave about. I also tried my hands at making oats stuffed capsicum served with a warm green beans and cherry tomatoes salad.

Saffola has come up with this new range of healthy yet tasty breakfast or a quick snack option and they have six variants for this. And truly speaking, all of them have got a different taste. And I am sure, kids will like it too. The event was full of energy and it was really good to see home cooks displaying their culinary skills and experimenting with oats, which are high on fiber and good for heart. Meeting chef Vikas Khanna and listening to him talking about whole and healthy foods was really inspiring. And top of it, it was a fun Saturday afternoon spent with all my favorite food blogger friends.