Wanderberry Tales

Sundays are not a very happy day to wake up to, being the start of the week in Dubai - yet today morning I woke up refreshed and happy. Dubai has been my home for more than three years. I have got used to living here by now. Yet after packing off Shibin to office ( yeah, I mean it)  as I sat down with a cup of coffee, I felt the urge to wake up to the chatter of birds amidst luscious green trees and not to forget the occasional patter of rain drops during the monsoons. These imageries manifests my childhood! I was brought up in a village named Chanthar, 4kms from the small town of Brahmavar to the north of the temple town of Udupi. My parents moved to this place post their marriage and has since been our home. Technology and trends were slow to reach this place but education never was! Even today this place sees a plethora of educational institutions. During the late 80s and early 90s, a large part of this area was under forest cover. Things began to change with the Konkan ra...

Another vacation has come and gone by. Every food restrictions you impose on yourself goes for a toss when at home in India. Initially I struggle and some how maintain a balance. After a point in time, all the determination fades and I end up eating without a second thought ( The angel in asks me to eat the food cooked with love by your family and the devil in me reminds me of the weighing scale. After conflict of interests, the devil surrenders to the angel) The first few days after the vacation is again a transition mode. Trying hard to suppress my cravings and get back into routine ( not to forget the yummy stuff you have tugged along all the way from India) One week into our return and I am still fighting off the eating frenzy. My series of Cooking with family took backseat for a while and now I am back with the 4th in the series. Recipe from my mother-in -law's kitchen. Her fish fry always tastes different from the normal ones I have had and here is the recipe for yo...

I am in India on vacation and I did crazily hope to see the rains. As luck would have it, rains were not so benevolent on me and decided to stay clear! The weather is definitely good but to witness rains would have simply been bliss. I still have time left and I hope to see the showers of blessings at some point. It is hard to be on vacation and stay off food!So I am busy eating, at the same time hoping that I do not add kilos on the scale! (All of us know how hard that is right!!) Anyways, here is a recipe to try. What makes it special is, as the name states the addition of ground peanuts!Try it to believe it! Ingredients Fish - 400 gms Onions - 3 finely chopped Garlic - 2 tbsp finely chopped Green chilly - 3 to 4 Pepper powder - 1/2 tsp Peanuts - a handful Soy Sauce -  2 tbsp Vinegar - 1 tbsp Salt to taste Vegetable oil To marinate Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp Pepper powder - 1 tsp Ginger- garlic paste - 1 tsp Soy Sauce- 1 tbsp Salt Method ...

Time flies by in Dubai - yet another winter is peaking over the horizon. I love winters. If only I could do away with the occasional flu that tends to interrupt the weekend outing plans. We are done with the first flu of the winter which I would like to call the 'change of season flu' that has so become ingrained in our lives for the past three years. Looking forward for a blissful few months that includes a vacation home and not to forget the impending festival season. On that note, we head over to the new recipe on the blog - Fish cutlet. The type of fish you choose is absolutely your choice - the lesser the bones the easier the task of mincing it. Cutlets can make your weekday dinner cooking a little easier. Just prep a batch over the weekend and freeze it! Here goes the recipe -  Ingredients Fish - 1 kg Potato - 2 medium sized Ginger - 1 tbsp grated Green chilli - 4 to 5 finely chopped Onion - 2 medium finely chopped Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp ...

Dubai can sometimes be a lonely place. Things took a huge turn a few weeks ago when the Malayalees of the firm which Shibin works for announced an Onam - Eid get together. That was something to look forward for. I got all the more excited when I was asked to join for Thiruvathira. Old traits seldom die:) I love dancing and this opportunity was just so perfect for me. What started off as a mundane Thiruvathira for the ladies and oppana for the kids geared up all the ladies who had let go off all the inhibitions and decided that they wanted to do more. As luck would have it Jimki Kammal Dance Challenge was going places and we decided to do our part as well. It was a simple suggestion by one of the ladies and others were more than eager to join in. The practice that started off in a single song, finally ended in a fusion of three. Despite stage fear, chances of forgetting steps and also the melodrama of having to dance in a saree - we did it! It may not have been the most perfect dance b...

 The first year of your married life is no doubt the most enthralling one. I don't mean to dishearten the ones who after years of marriage still feel the magic of marriage. I am somewhere in the same place too even after being married for over three years. But it is just that, there is still some force in me that makes me wanna go back to that first year! Some interesting anecdotes too... As is usual,my proof reader is gonna read this blog and I am just wondering what his response is gonna be seeing the dig at him:P As is normal for an Indian married woman, a week after we settled down in Bangalore - I religiously began cooking all the three meals a day and as a dutiful wife asked him what he wants for lunch in his dabba. His response was spontaneous - Oh No! Carrying a dabba is so typical of a married man. Get married and then carry a dabba to office. I am good without one, you do not have to make lunch for me on weekdays . I was ecstatic, I only needed to cook for myself as ...

Majority of my Christmas days were spent in Kerala. The routine was fixed for years as far as I can remember. Vacation for us began on the 23rd of December every year on wrapping up the annual day celebrations. Then catch the Malabar express from Mangalore (Soumya -my sister and I loved the train journey) to reach Mavelikara the 24th morning. Christmas day began with a breakfast of appam and chicken stew! A plateful of plum cake adorned the table every meal. Have you tried cake and stew combo? Do I sound crazy? My dad says so - you should probably try to believe it. A slice of cake and a spoonful of stew on it. That is the way I end my Christmas breakfast. Lunch would generally be Biriyani or rice with a lot of non veg items - chicken, beef , seafood, mutton,  name it and you have it. Dinner was more or less on the same lines. Christmas is not exactly Christmas without the lip smacking food!! I have chosen one such recipe that could form a part of your Christmas menu thi...

It is never too early Christmas! The best is always saved for the end of the year - there cannot be anything better to end a wonderful year! I pray this season passes by slow so that I get to savor every moment of it. So while it lasts - let's get into some cooking , carols, decorating and lots of fun filled moments with family and friends. I did happen to mention last Christmas that our love for Christmas was one thing that brought Shibin and me close. We are leaving no stone un-turned this year as well. We have put up our tree, our Christmas wreath is in making, cbn radio that plays Christmas songs throughout the year is live on my system while I write this, Christmas movies are up and running in the evenings and I am preparing my December menu! If you are a person who enjoys this season as much as we do then hurry up - put your tree!! Listen to cbnradio - (http://www1.cbn.com/radio/christmas) if you love the carols and checkout the Hallmark Christmas movie coll...

For about a year, back in 2012, I stayed at house in Bangalore where we were forbidden to cook anything non vegetarian because of religious sentiments. It was fine to order out - those were our instructions handed out to us.   And it was one Sunday night, when one of our roomies was back from her grandmother's place that all hell broke loose. She brought back with her a casserole of crab roast. Crab is not something that we find commonly at restaurants and if they do have it on the menu - the messy eating does not make it a favorite to be ordered. So you know exactly the scene!! A bunch of sea food lovers being long deprived of crab pounced at the sight. Crunch, munch, chomp! That was the scene for the next half an hour. The scenario hasn't changed much now either - so we have photographs here directly from the Kadai because we needed to dig in soon. And for my solace, of course to show you the consistency the masala coating before you turn off the flame. Here is ...

Theeyal is a Kerala cuisine and like most of the cuisines from this region has a good share of coconut in it. Coconut is dry roasted and ground to a fine paste along with other spices to give the finesse to this gravy. Addition of prawns to this curry enhances the flavor which otherwise is a generally known vegetarian dish. My aunt definitely makes this the best and she makes sure she cooks this for me whenever I am at her place. She usually makes this with shallots and prawns. I just replaced the shallots with drumstick. Here is the recipe for you -  Ingredients Prawns - 1/2 kg shelled and cleaned. Drumsticks - 3 cut into 2 inch pieces Onion - 1 medium sliced Green Chilly - 3-4 slit Tomato - 1 big/ Tamarind pulp - 1 lemon sized Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp Oil - 2 tbsp Salt to taste For the paste -  Chilly powder - 2 and 1/2 tsp Coriander powder - 2 tsp  Coconut - 1 cup grated Fenugreek powder - 2 pinches For Tempering Curry Leaves - 1 spri...

Fish Mappas or Meen Mappas is a traditional Kerala recipe flavored by the addition of coconut milk. This is served along with appam, idiyappam or bread roll.  My recipe is an adaptation of the one I had seen on cookery show - Shappile curry naville ruchiyum on television. I have tried this recipe a couple of times with different fishes like Karimeen and Vatta. It turned out the best with Neymeen/ King Fish which I made this time and we finally decided to put it up in the blog. Unlike fish molly, mappas is a little tangy due to the addition of kudampali/ pot tamarind and blends well along with the creaminess of coconut milk. This recipe is now a favorite with us. So, here you go -  Ingredients Fish slices - 9-10 pieces( I used King Fish - you may use karimeen or pomfret also) Onion - 2 medium sliced lengthwise Green Chilly - 4-5 slit Ginger - 2 tsps chopped Tomato -1 medium sliced lengthwise Fenugreek seeds - 1/2 tsp Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp Tur...

Brahmavar - that is where I was brought up. A lovely place with even more lovelier people and amazing food. It is a small town along the Udupi coastline, 70 kms of Mangalore. No prizes for guessing my favorite Mangalorean meal. Boiled Rice and Fish Curry - That is definitely a marriage made in heaven:) Attend any weddings in the Mangalore region and you will realise that people are least bothered about the fish in the curry, all they need is the gravy for a sumptuous meal. My earliest memory, is the fish curry we constantly order at Hotel Ashraya - a restaurant in Brahmavar along the National Highway. Our favorite waiter at the restaurant told us that the flavour of the curry increases if it is kept over night and then served. My cooking experiments proved the same. Try making this curry with sardines, mackerel or even anchovy, it would taste as good! Flavors do not necessarily come from complicated recipes - you will know this once you read this recipe, try it ...

Prawns always reminds me of my sister - Soumya  -  a hard core non veg food fan, who is convinced that prawns cannot be categorized as non vegetarian food. She says - look at the size of it - how can that be non vegetarian? That is what she grew up saying and doesn't care much about prawns to date. Although I love prawns, I have not tried many recipes with it. I was craving for prawns and that is when I remembered the curry my colleague used to often bring to office. Hailing from Trissur in Kerala, he often brought to office the traditional delicacies from the region.And yes, all of us have gobbled on it.I soon had the recipe in my hands, thanks to his wife who managed to write it down despite having a four month old baby and a lovely four year old to look after.   Sharing the Chemmeen curry recipe which my husband and his colleagues loved. Ingredients Prawns - 1/2 kg Coconut - 1 grated Raw Mango - 2 cut into long pieces Ginger - 2 tsp finely...

Appam has been my all time favorite. It's appam for Birthday, Christmas, Easter, Anniversary and any occasion you think of. Appam, according to me goes best with stew and hence set out to explore the best and easiest way to make stew. I have come across various recipes for fish molly but I found my mothers recipe the easiest and the best . I tried out this recipe on my husband - the guinea pig of all my experiments. He seemed to pretty much like it and not to lie - I loved it too. So without much delay I decided to put it up here. This post is for my dearest Mamma from whom I learnt the tricks and trades of cooking. Let me not forget to thank my hubby who willingly tastes all that I cook. Ingredients For Marination King Fish - 1 kg sliced ( Any fish of your choice but I personally feel it tastes the best with King Fish) Pepper powder - 1 teaspoon Salt as per taste For Curry Onion - 3 medium sized thickly sliced lengthwise Ginger - 2 tsp finely cho...

I wanted my first ever recipe on this blog to be really special. I spent almost two weeks wondering what it could possibly be. I came up with a big zero and that is when I made this fish thoran. It was a quick decision. I had few slices of fish left in the refrigerator and definitely did not want to fry it. That is when I remembered a dish my mother used to make. Without a minutes delay I messaged her and the next minute I had my recipe and in the next 45 minutes my dish was ready :) So I guess no dish can be more perfect than this to start off. A recipe from my mothers kitchen and  a dish my husband devoured. Thoran is a Keralite dish that is generally eaten with steamed rice and usually made from vegetables. Here is my attempt at creating a seafood version of the traditional thoran which is medium spicy and trust me quite crunchy too. Ingredients Fish  - 3 whole medium sized Mackerel( Use the fish of your choice - but I found Mackerel to be really tasty when ste...