Tuesday 31 March 2015

A toast disowned by French!

Well apparently the french dont know how to make 'FRENCH TOAST'! It seems this toast shares a similar story like that of fries. And if you chance to ask a french how to prepare them, be ready for the stares n all. So, instead I stumbled upon a random post on these 36 different ways to make your french toasts. Although all the recipes are easy peasy, you will not have all the ingredients, for sure, for most of the recipes. Same was the case with me on a sleepy, lazy sunday morning. I was running out of things as simple as bread slices and orange juice. However, luckily I had a nice big orange, on the verge of ending up in a dustbin in a couple of days!

So, I took certain inspiration from this post (link below) and came up with this 'Orange flavoured French Toast', which trust me you need to try. I used the following ingredients:

Juice from one orange, sugar (adjust according to taste), 2 eggs, 1/3 cup of milk, vanilla essence or vanilla sugar (found them only in France), baguette sliced into 2 inches thick or so, butter

Apart from the bread, mix up everything nicely in a bowl. This mixture needs to be runny/ liquidy and not like a thick batter. Soak the peices of bread nicely in this mixture for almost 2 to 3 minutes each side. Once they soak up nicely the egg mix, place them in a well greased baking tray and swooosh, into a preheated oven. Bake them till they become nicely brown on each side. Once done, if you have some icing sugar, sprinkle on them or else have them just like that. They are the best things you can have on a lazy Sunday morning with a nice coffee. Here is the pic of my golden beauties, which could not see the light of the day for much long though ;)

And this is the link on Buzzfeed where I got my inspiration: 36 French Toast Recipes You Will Not Be Able To Resist
Hope Frenchies will enjoy this too :)

Thursday 5 March 2015

Gulshan-E-Iran, a shining star in Mumbai!

The last time I was in Mumbai, I had enough time to taste some of the excellent but less popular places near the Fort area. The last night in Mumbai, all by myself, I decided to venture into this place called Gulshan-E-Iran, which I had passed by a couple of times before and realized it was never empty. It was a Monday evening and I thought it would not be that busy during a weekday but I was so wrong. Even for a Monday evening, I had to wait for almost 30 mins to get a spot to eat. The restaurant has a ground floor for people on the run and a top floor for families.
The first interesting part of the restaurant is that there is communal sitting on the ground floor, I mean the tables are for 4 but if you are less than 4 (as in my case) others will share a table with you. I found this very cool, something that I have seen in other European places too. The menu was offering a variety of traditional Kebabs, Mughlai and North Indian curries along with pizza and Chinese (!!). And the price section was even more appealing, so much so that you doubt what you are going to be served in Mumbai with that price. I opted for the traditional Mutton seekh kabab, Murgh Shahjahani and Tandoori roti. I think customers here take more time to decide than the delivery, the difference between ordering your food and the food on your table is merely a couple of minutes.
Food was excellent to start with. The seekh kababs are nice and juicy with unlimited supply of onions and coriander chutney. Chicken Shahjahani was nice and spicy with shredded chicken, a rich and creamy tomato gravy with boiled eggs shredded on the gravy. And the tandoori roti; fresh, warm, super huge, round and crispy, something I haven't had for a while. They are clever enough to not give your tandoori rotis together as they become cold but you also don't have to wait for the next one after you finished your first. The service is PROMPT! Also, the other people sharing the table with me were mostly ordering Biriyani and/or Tava bheja, the latter one being the favorite among locals.
Although surrounded by smelly Crawford Market, Gulshan-E-Iran's aroma cannot be masked. Its one of those places where there is nothing fancy about but you leave with a satisfied belly! Be it on a weekend with friends, a family night-out or you just don't want to cook at home; Gulshan-E-Iran serves to all. I would definitely be going back as and when I get a chance.
(PS: Sorry for the bad picture, I was starving and the sight and smell of the food was not helping either!)