Whats My Poison - Filter Coffee & CLICK

As I have already mentioned here, I have only recently started drinking tea. I was a compulsive Coffee drinker before that and Barista and Cafe Coffee Day were my favourite places to hang out. In fact we (read college friends) used to meet at CCD almost every weekend. Apart from catching up with each others' lives, general chit chat and pulling each others' legs, mugs after mugs of Coffee were consumed, sometimes a combination of Hot & cold. Mocha, Latte, Espresso, Capuccino, Mochachillo, the Frappes, Kaapi Nirvana (an award winner according to them), Irish Coffee, Chococcino, Tropical Iceberg, Arabian Heights, I could go on. I actually remember all these names (some very generic ones) even after so many years!

But Filter Coffee is what I like the best. Although we used to have Filter coffee at home occasionally, I was brought closer to it during my stay with N & her family. Manni's filter Coffee is what I crave for even now!

I like my Coffee to be strong but at the same not overwhelming. I also like a fair amount of milk & sugar in it. Black Coffee is not for me. I remember this Coffee Vendor at Vashi Station (Mumbai) where we regularly stopped for a hot cup every evening after a strenuous day in our Engineering College. I always specified the kind of Coffee I wanted. 'Coffee bhi zyada aur Cheeni bhi zyada' (Strong as well as with a generous amount of sugar)

Since moving to London, I have Instant Coffee (Nescafe Original) at home and Freshly brewed Coffee at every chance that I get to go to a Cafe (Costa being the favourite & Starbucks comes in a close second). Since GM prefers Tea to coffee, I never thought about making filter coffee for just myself, but I missed it.

I was missing it so much that I brought a Coffee filter, the last time I had gone to India. The Steel one with two compartments, one for the coffee powder and water to be put, and the other to collect the decoction.

To make filter coffee (2 cups), take about 3 tsps of the Coffee Powder (the qty depends upon the kind of Coffee powder & your preference for light/strong coffee), in the upper compartment of the filter.

Boil 3/4 cup water and add it to the powder. Place the inner cover on the bubbling water & coffee mixture and press down a few times.

This bubbling Coffee Decoction is my entry for this month's CLICK, where the theme is Coffee & Tea.

Cover the filter, so as not to let the aroma escape, and wait for the decoction to percolate into the lower compartment, usually takes about 5-10 min.

Heat 1 and 1/2 cups of milk, adding sugar as required. Once the milk is boiling, add the collected decoction to it and only heat for a few seconds and take off the fire. Pour into cups or for a more authentic feel, into small steel tumblers and enjoy!

The decoction is not supposed to be heated, but I prefer to add it to the heating milk as I like my Coffee piping hot and adding the decoction later on to the milk makes it lukewarm.

The choice of the Coffee powder depends entirely on personal choice. Back in India it was MTR and another local brand, the name I have forgotten (Should remember to look it up the next time I am there). Here I chose a Coffee powder, produced in Zimbabwe for the sole reason that the 'Best Before' date for this one was the farthest (still only 2 weeks once the pack was opened) :)

Anyway, the coffee was good. Strong, aromatic and flavourful. So much that GM nowadays opts for Coffee instead of Tea if I offer to make it Filtered!

Banana Flavoured Chocolate Milk Shake & my first Award!

This was more out of a necessity to finish off the single Banana which would have gone bad if left for one more day and the chocolate bars that we so enthusiastically bring once in a while during our weekly grocery shopping.

Now this chocolate along with so many others, was brought home when it still hadn't struck me that I was putting on weight. One of the various 'by-products' of being a mother ( a fairly new one at that) is that no one expects you to be very slim & will never point out even if you are double of what you are supposed to be! Earlier it always used to be " Oh..you have put on so much since I saw you last time!" Now I keep wondering " Have I put on too much?" and everyone is trying to convince me otherwise. " On the contrary you have reduced considerably with all the running around you do" they would say.So its only up to you to keep a watch on your waistline (if you still have one).

Coming back to the incident in question, the realisation struck me & how! So i decided not to even look at those chocolates, truffles & all the other heavenly looking & tasting things till I got some control on my figure (ahem) & weight. But around 3 weeks later today I don't know if I have made any progress but while cleaning the larder came across this box full of chocolate bars. Now GM is not too fond of chocolates, he will have a truffle or two now & then but chocolate is not exactly a favourite with him. So I was wondering what to do with them.

Then there was this single banana which I was in no mood to eat just like that. So here is what I did..

Makes 1 glass of Milk Shake

Ingredients

• 1 Ripe Banana, sliced
• 1 small bar of Chocolate, grated
• 3/4 glass of milk
• 1 tsp sugar (optional, I gave this a miss as the chocolate is already sweet)

Method:

Melt the chocolate in the microwave or a double boiler. For the boiler, I brought some water to boil in a saucepan and held the grated chocolate in a small vessel which fit onto the edges of the saucepan. Heat it this way for about 2-3 min and stir.

Blend together all the ingredients. Chill in the refrigerator for sometime and enjoy with some more grated chocolate on the shake.

I was avoiding eating chocolates because I didn't want to put on weight. I don't know how having the same in a milk shake will help but I am consoled that I had it with other healthy things like Milk (full of calcium & Vit D) and Banana (Calcium again). There are some who believe that even Bananas contribute to the weight gain but I am not very sure of that. Any information on this is welcome.

And now for the Award! EasyCrafts of Simple Indian Food has given me the 'Rocking Girl Blogger' Award. When I read the email I thought this must have come to me by mistake, but on checking her blog it turned out that it is really Me! I am thrilled to bits! This is my first award and I have only just started my blog. Alright, it has been a while now, but it still feels like I am still starting out.

Thanks a lot EC, this means a lot to me!

PS: I still have to think about finishing off the remaining chocolate, without feeling guilty....or is that an impossible task?

To 'Tea' or not to 'Tea'......

A regular scene at the Railway station where a passenger train is halting before taking off for a distant destination...

A vendor carrying a steel container, with a small tap, on his shoulders and paper/plastic cups ready in his hand, shouting " Chaiiii Garam Chaiiiii" in that typical tone (I wish I could replicate that tone here!)

I call him towards my window & ask " Coffee hai kya???"

I was never a great fan of tea. In fact I did not even know how it tasted until just 3 yrs back. Give me coffee any time and any kind cold/hot, instant/filter and home made/bought at cafes and any number of times at that. During my working days I was called 'The chain Coffee Drinker' analogous to the Chain smoker! But I was never enthusiastic about Tea. One of the reasons for this could be that my mom had never had tea all her life as well! and maybe that got imbibed in us kids. This posed a small little problem when we visited someone. Everyone invariably offers you tea & when you say that you don't drink tea at all, they start giving you other options. coffee? Juice? Nimbu Pani? plain milk? If you don't accept any of the other options, they feel odd that when everyone is sipping away at the Tea & munching biscuits, there you are just looking at everyone and not having anything. If you accept them, you feel odd that the host had to go out of the way to make/arrange something for you! Just over 3 yrs back at one of the family friend's place, the lady just assumed that everyone drinks tea & came with the cups full. Now it seemed very rude to say No at that time so I reluctantly took the cup & gingerly(ahem..) took a sip expecting it to be very repulsive & odd tasting. But to my pleasant surprise it was quite nice. I started having Tea once in a while after that day. Now I enjoy my cup of Tea which I drink regularly.

Most of the time I make plain tea or just add Ginger and Lemon grass to enhance the flavour. But once in a while we are in a mood for more 'Spicy' Tea & that's when I make this Masala Chai. I made just one change to the regular combination of masalas this time. I am going through a phase where I am sort of bugged up with the taste & smell of cardamom. I am not even using this in any of the desserts I am making, even kheer or shira. So even for the Masala Chai, I did not want to use it & instead added some grains of saunf(Fennel Seeds). The Tea actually tasted very refreshing & totally different but very nice.

Masala Chai

To make 2 cups of Tea

Ingredients

1 cup water

4 tsp sugar

2-3 tsp Tea powder

1 cup Milk

For the Masala:

1/2 inch Cinnamon

3-4 peppercorns

2-3 cloves

2 pinches of saunf (Fennel Seeds)

Bring the water to a boil in a milk pan. Crush all the ingredients for the Masala & add to the boiling water. Simmer for 2-3 minutes. Add the Sugar and the Tea powder & boil for a min. Now add the milk & boil for another minute & turn off the fire.

I always knew that Saunf played a major role in Kashmiri Cuisine. So when I made this Tea using saunf I naively assumed that I had made Kahwa, the Kashmiri Tea. Then I happened to look for it on the internet and found that my Tea did not even come close to Kahwa! Its something totally different. I will definitely make the 'Real Kahwa' soon but for now we really liked this 'saunfiya Masala Chai' & will be repeating this one for sure!

PS: I was speaking to my mom a few days back & she told me that she has started to drink Tea occasionally! Now I have to rememeber to share this recipe with her the next time I talk to her...:)