French Perigordine Choco-chip Walnut Pastry

"The kitchen is a country in which there are always discoveries to be made." Grimod de la Reyniere

I don't know how many of you out there want to cook/bake something when you are feeling bored or upset. Well I do. Only last Friday, in the afternoon I ranscaked my fridge and cupboards to see if I had something to make these delish pastries the recipe of which I had read in a book in the library a couple of weeks back (yes yes,I read cook-books in the library!). :D

Having found all the ingredients I put on my chefs' hat and began work. In no time I was tired yet happy,looking at the wonderful pastries I felt a certain warmth run through my veins. The experiences in the kitchen are very theraupatic.

This dessert is of french origin.

French Cuisine! France has blessed the world with a variety of gourmet goodies. French gourmet dinner cuisine is a touch of luxury and always leaves you satisfied. Through history the French have harnessed the essential ingredients and techniques passed down generations to culminate into harmonious blends of herbs and spices in order to create the most honored traditional gourmet cuisines that are enjoyed worldwide.Their desserts as we all know are internationally acclaimed.

French desserts are known worldwide. There are times that you eat a dessert not even knowing that it originated from a French kitchen many years ago. The word dessert comes from the French word “desservir” which means “to clear the table”.

Walnuts are famous from Perigord and are grown every over the south east area of France. So its obvious that the Walnut cake is the most popular of desserts that's eaten in the region.

And since walnuts are my favourite nut, I just had to make these. Another reason to have this pastry was the good news delivered to me by HoneyB that my baby ...my blog (Zaayeka) was featured on Jenn's Finest Foodies Friday, which is no less than an honour as I have been blogging only for three months now. :)

So after a lot of searching and researching...I adapted slightly the recipe and made these lovely dense, yet moist cakes.

French Perigordine Walnut Pastry

Ingredients-
1 1/2 cups shelled walnuts,finely ground ( leaving a few walnuts just coarsely chopped)
1 cup unsalted butter
2 cups brown sugar
4 eggs
4 tbsp plain flour
a pinch of baking powder
1/2 cup chocolate chips


Method-
In a bowl, separate the egg whites and whisk till they form soft white peaks.
In a different bowl, mix the other ingredients with the egg yolks.
Add a spoonful of eggwhite to the mix, now fold the entire egg-whites into the mix.
Bake for 40 minutes in the centre of your pre-heated oven.
Cool and serve with whipped cream.


Note: I sliced the cake first in half , layered it with whipped cream. Then for simplicity of serving I cut it into pastry size squares.




A simple yet very rewarding recipe! Its for keeps. Bake it once and you will make it again and again....

I don't decorate my cakes...not because I don't want to but because I don't have too many kitchen aids..no offset spatula but a butter knife...no piping cone or pastry bag. I am sure many out there also are in dire need of a baking set. So here's some good news. Rose (of All about Cakes) is giving away a 100 piece Betty Crocker Cake Decorating Kit to celebrate her 100 posts.Now thats' good news..ain't it! :)

Ode to my paint brushes, easel and palette...et al.

“In the childhood memories of every good cook, there's a large kitchen, a warm stove, a simmering pot and a mom.”

My blog is still in its infancy....it is still amazed at everything it sees on fellow blogs...! One such thing was Chitra Amma's Kitchen with her Kitchen Treasure Hunt event. A wonderful blog with all mom's cooking. Dibs is now hosting the Kitchen Treasure Hunt event.

After reading her post I jumped up to check out all my true kitchen mates that help me whip up delicious morsels for both my hubby and me...but remain oh so silent and dilligent. They allow me to use them to satisfy my cravings...sometimes they burn, sometimes they sizzle, but remain so faithful always. My paint brushes, easel and palette that help me paint the canvas of food, if I may say.

Although all my beautiful crockery, silver-ware, crystal glassware (wedding gift from my dearest friend), shiny cutlery, my exotic marble mortar and pestle that I bought on our honeymoon (imagine...I don't fail to pick up for my kitchen..ever..lol), expensive china, not-so-cheap teracotta cups, my griller (wedding gift again, have been married for just about a year :)), my 36 pcs. dinner set (my parents brought among other things,when they visited me for the first time)...et al, I am comparitively a pauper here in Hong Kong, and all because some airline would not allow me more than 20 kgs or so. My kitchen paraphernalia is quite limited here. (sigh!)

It was all about absolute necessity...luxury was a far fetched idea. Now I have travelled to places several times...but never as a wife,( who has to think about cooking for her dear hubby)..so I picked up items/utensils that I thought would be needed.

This article is all about them...and more.

My wonderful pressure cooker. I like this one specially as it helps me cook large quantities quickly. I am all about feeding people well...and my idea of "well" is forcing food in the mouth every time they open their mouth to talk...lol. I am working on that. :D




These are a some of the things that I brought with us here, and that I use extensively..(a few are still there lying uselessly in my kitchen drawer). As I said earlier, I packed stuff (utensils) that I thought would be needed...

My belan (rolling pin), light and wooden (just like I prefer). Used it to make all the flat Indian breads and also to grind dry roasted spices at times i.e. till we bought our food processor here. It served as my pestle too. Necessity is the mother of invention!

The tongs (chimti) save my poor fingers...I still can't use bare fingers to flip rotis/chapatis, like my mom-in-law does.

The dal-ghotni --this was my mom's idea and it served its purpose. I also used it to mash the veggies in my pav-bhaji's bhaji. Again innovation is my middle name...lol.

My favourite sadsi (tongs), that I had specially requested my dad to get for me from Kolkata. Unlike regular tongs, its grip is strong and firm, so no question of slipping pots from my hands. It can hold utensils that are ten times its own weight. Its a must for me.

My good sense had forewarned me that I may not get a mixer/grinder immediately here, so I needed something to make tomato and onion pulps for my curries. Hence, my grater, which I have used religiously to grate onions,tomatoes, cucumber, carrots, ginger, lemon orange and cheese. Its recent use was to shredd carrots for my famous Gajar ka Halwa (will post that soon). The small bowl is just the right size for setting enough home made curd for the two of us. The larger bowl is for kneading dough...couldn't bring my brass paraath. (sob sob)

This is the chalni (seive) that I brought with me, not for seiving stuff...but for Karwa Chauth, just in case. Sneaked it in ...and yes I used it too. Read all about my Karwa Chauth episode here.

After much debate, we finally agreed to bring this tiffin box along. This is my husband's lunch box, something he had stopped carrying ever since he left school. This was one of the first few items that I had shopped for (ofcourse with my hubby) just after our wedding. My darling husband, has stayed in hostels and then with friends in shared bungalows when he was working (hopping around the globe..lol)...so no dabba scene here...that is till I show up! lol....


Well this is all that I had brought with us here.

Now there are a few nick-nacks that I picked from HK. Wouldn't want to ignore them, as they help me too...in the same way as the above, if not more.







This is the micro-wave rice cooker that a dear colleauge graciously gifted me with. It has been in use for the past 7 months and still looks as good as new (I maintain it well...uff...talk about humility)..lol.




This is the steamer plate that I bought from a near by market, to make dim sums. And I made it the day I bought this..couldn't wait. I love dim sums...especially shrimp dim sum (as you would have known from this). I was initially looking for a bamboo one, but couldn't control my urge to have dim sums for long. I cannot have it at restos/eateries here, 'cause they mix it with minced pork, which I personally don't like.




These are the tit-bits I bought as and when my eyes caught them in whatever store.
Cookie cutters are my favourites, have made poha pakodas using them too. (will post it I promise). I have used them extensively for various dishes, including but not limited to cookies.

Then there is the little decorative butter knife I bought while trekking...(yeah roll your eyes).

I also bought this tong kind of instrument that helps to pick bowls from a fitted casserole. I'll try to explain, the groove on this kitchen ware fits snugly on the rim of the bowl, which is placed inside another bowl, whose diameter is just a cm. more than the smaller bowl it contains. It then helps to pull out that smaller bowl. Something you can't use your fingers for, if the bowls are hot.

Lastly , there is the barbeque tong and fish scale scrapper, which are the latest additions.

No matter how much I wanted to, I couldn't buy fish from the local farmers' market here as they don't really clean out all the scales...I cannot cook with the scales still on the fish and had nothing to clean the scales myself..well now I do. :-)




This microwave egg poacher was bought just day before yesterday and I have baked Bishops' Bread using the round lid already (after sealing the two holes with cookie sheets), and ofcourse breakfast today was poached eggs in MW.






The chinese wok is my kadai here. Multipurpose with all the deep frying, steaming, mixing, shallow frying, tempering it does for me. I love the glass lid that allows me to see the alchemy of the flavours its cooking.

Last but not the least, my chopping board that has doubled up as my chauka for rolling out parathas and puris, apart from all the chopping it does.

My dangerous looking helpful knives. I tend to use the serrated knife more often as its sharper. I will remember it always. This happened in the first few weeks of our stay here, I was cutting brinjals, when the knife slipped from my hand and fell point-side down on my right foot to etch a little spring of blood. I didn't faint, but I was stuck to bed for weeks with my leg raised on pillows, as I had to stop the blood from going down and oozing out of the cut in my foot. It was painful and horrible as I don't like staying in bed doing nothing..infact I get very irritable. Glad its over, my foot has healed (without the need of dreadful stitches which leave a scar). It was a half inch wide slash, but it sealed itself together with all the care my hubby took of it. I was out of the kitchen, lived on take-outs and ready-to-eats for a few weeks. Urgh!

I tell my story so that all my friends out there can learn and take caution..the kitchen can be unforgiving if we are careless!

Having said that I still love my kitchen and enjoy each moment that I am in there. I am happy when I am in the kitchen close to my kitchen-aids.Its Kitchen therapy for me!!

II OM II

Dear Friends,
I finally write my very first blog. Something I have been intending to do for a l-o-n-g time; and its about FOOD. I love cooking food, eating food,shopping for food, reading about food,watching videos on food, learning the history of food. In short anything and everything about food excites me!
I come from a family of foodies and married into another of the same breed...lol.My grandmother was a great cook (its tough duplicating the tasty pickles she made).I have learnt a lot from my mom...just by watching and helping her with the chores in the kitchen. Honestly, I hated to be in the kitchen initially.Traditionally in Indian families the girls have to know how to cook, thus the training begins early enough.My early memories remind me of my mom telling me to pray to Goddess Sita (wife of Lord Rama and the Goddess of the Kitchen) when cooking, so that the dish turns out impeccable.I can explain that. In India, we still have arranged marriages;(I am the firt one to have a love marriage...so you know how many weddings are still arranged by the parents!) and when a young woman goes to her "sasural" ie. in-laws' place; she carries two precious things with her that cannot be stolen--firstly, her character and manners and secondly, her artistry in the kitchen.(We take the adage- "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach" quite seriously.) She needs to wow all (especially her husband) with all her cooking. Like I made 'sheera' (a sweet dish made of semolina) for the first time at my in-laws' place. Its a ceremonial thing.
My very first lesson was, that the food should entyce all the senses-sight, sound and smell. It should look as good as it tastes! And one other thing I had learnt frm my mum and I still follow is, when cooking food...cook it with love.Thats' the MOST important ingredient.
On hindsight I am glad I was born into such a family.. India, as we all know is a chef's delight. Its variety in terms of flavours is mind boggling and awe inspiring. I have grown up eating all those small-great stuff.
Its only after getting married that I have really started 'cooking-up-a-storm' in my ...my very own kitchen. (I love the idea of having my 'own' kitchen...silly but it makes me happy). My husband fires my passion further by being a great critic ( though I have to literally force it out of him)
'-) and encourages me to do my best.
I welcome all who share my passion. For the others' ...hang on' you'll get addicted!!