Chocolate Chip Cookie 101, 201, so on and so forth.

If you've ever seen the "About Me" page, you would've read the bit about being "The Girl Who Makes Chocolate Chip Cookies."

After all that build up and a year-and-a-half's worth of frantic food blogging, I realised that there isn't ONE honest-to-God Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe on the blog. Shame on me.

My excuse is that I make these little babies so often that I don't pause to take photos of the process. I've been making the TollHouse cookies since Time Immemorial (actually, 2002). They've almost never gone wrong on me and I don't believe in fixing things if they aren't (can't bring myself to say ain't) broken. Then the food-blog lifestyle happened.

And thus began my search for the Best Chocolate Chip Cookie in the Whole Wide World.

After much experimentation, the thing I've inferred is that term "Best" is purely subjective. I love my cookies to be cakey and chewy, with a high chocolate:cookie dough ratio. I don't do crisp, biscuit-type cookies. I'll scarf down packet after packet of Walkers' shortbread, of course. But if there was a plate of biscotti versus a plate of cookies, I'd be pigging out on the cookies.

As would my trusted merry band of guinea pigs.

"B****, please. Don't be up in my space when I'm watching ToyStory3 for the 1000th time."

P.S.: We eat rice by the sack-and-drum full. However, we do not let our kids swear. I swear.

Nigbe's "B****, please, I'm eating" poker face. The expert judges don't give anything away.

It's an easy recipe... that automatically means it's easy enough to screw up. I'll show you pictorially (and spare you the thousand words), on what you should and shouldn't do.

The butter has to be softened and at room temperature, as per Nestle Tollhouse's original CCC recipe. I heat my butter until it's just about melted; this helps to melt down the dark brown sugar and imparts a robust flavour to the cookies. It's boring to wait around for the butter to soften... even at Madras, where it takes about two minutes.



The recipe originally calls for an egg and a egg yolk. Since our Indian eggs have very little albumin, I dump two full eggs in. I suck at separating whites and yolks, anyway.



Use the darkest demerara sugar you can find. Light brown sugar works, not as good as dark though. Not only does it stay a little granulated, giving your cookies some crunch, it melts into a delicious, chewy caramel goodness. As for the white sugar, use granulated, not powdered!

For cakey cookies, use All-Purpose flour (maida). Alton Brown recommends Bread Flour only, the NY Times recommends a blend of Bread flour and Cake flour, but this is a moot point at Madras. For authentic cookies, use AP flour. You can experiment with wholewheat once you master basic CCCs.

Oooh. The most important part. The chocolate chips. Could you buy a log of disgusting cooking chocolate and chop it into chunks? No.

Could you throw in whatever chocolate you have on hand? The pre-made chocolate chips you find at Nilgris and other supermarkets? HELL, no.

No. No. No. No. And no.

Use only chocolate that you love eating. It doesn't work otherwise. And make sure you chop big fat chunks out of it. Since I found Galaxy Smooth chocolate bars on sale, I bought eight bars of it, ate four, and used the remaining for these cookies. How I wish I were lying.

I've used milk and dark chocolate chips in the ratio of 2:1. It gets too sickeningly sweet, otherwise.

Beat the eggs, sugar and butter as much as you want. After you add in the flour, chocolate chips and other random mix-ins, get a hold of yourself.

Always, always, always add salt. Eat the cookie dough, if you don't feel very strongly about Salmonella. Even if you don't have the time to refrigerate it for 24 to 36 hours, stow it in the fridge for at least half an hour. It is a whole lot less messy and has a deeper flavour that way.

That texture, that grittiness, that colour, that's what you want.

Browned edges, pale-ish centre. That's the cookie cooked. Let it cool for a couple of minutes before you take it off the pan/sheet.



Ooooh. Yes.



Cool completely on a wire rack before you throw it in an air-tight box. Remember, baked cookies keep up to three days. If you freeze the dough in the form of balls, in a Ziploc bag, it lasts for a couple of months. Refrigerating cookie dough is permissible for up to 5 days.

Nothing like a plate full of freshly baked cookies, though. That's Love, that is.

Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe:
(Adapted from Baking Illustrated)

Ingredients:

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled until warm
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated white sugar
2 eggs, at room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
1.5 cups milk and dark chocolate chunks.
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped. (optional)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 325 F or 160 C. Line a baking tin with aluminium foil. You don't have to grease it.

In a medium-sized bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda and salt. Mix well and keep aside.

In another bowl, melt the butter and let it turn lukewarm. Add in the sugars and beat for around 2 minutes. Blend in the eggs and vanilla essence until combined.

Now add in the flour mix. It's better to fold in by hand, but if you must use the beater, do it at the lowest speed and STOP when it's moderately combined.

Stir in the nuts (if using) and chocolate chips.

At this point, refrigerate the cookie dough (after eating several spoonfuls raw, of course) for at least half an hour. Using a ice-cream scoop or a soup spoon/ladle type thing, form balls out of the cookie dough.

You can Saran/cling-film wrap the bowl with the dough in it, so that it doesn't absorb any of the refrigerator smells.

Place about 1/4 cup worth of cookie dough on the sheet. Space the cookies, as they tend to spread and bake.

Bake for 15 minutes and check if the edges are mildly brown and hard. The centres have to be puffy, soft and tan. Rotate the sheet once during the baking process so that all of the cookies get equal heat.

Take it out and cool it on the sheet for 2 minutes. Let it completely cool on the wire rack.

Enjoy!

Variation:

This is fun variation I found at Kevin and Amanda's site when I had a hankering for Red Lobster's Chocolate Chip Cookie Lava Cake.

It's supremely simple.

You can do this in a muffin tin or biscuit tin. Press down about quarter cup of cookie dough. Add a square or two of chocolate.

Stuff back with more cookie dough.

Bake away until the edges are golden brown! After a minute or two, turn out the cookie/cake monstrosity (in a GREAT way).

Serve with vanilla ice cream and fudgy sauce of your choice.

This is Lust. This is.

French Toast: Middle Eastern or Mediterranean?

I've been baking cookies. You know, trying out the bazillion "Best Choc-Chip Cookies Ever!" recipes floating around the food blogosphere. I've succumbed to all the tricks and tactics of the trade: adding an extra egg yolk, using cake flour, stuffing it with chunks of chocolate, refrigerating cookie dough for 36 hours, resisting eating raw cookie dough for the 24+ hours. The whole nine and a freaking half yards.

So you know what my post is going to be. Not Chocolate chip cookies. Had enough of them  for a while.

Middle-Eastern French toast.

I'm sorry for the build-up. Please go do some cardio+crunches(20 reps, 3 sets), and I'll have about six batches of Chocolate Chip Cookies prettily ready for you in a couple of days!

Middle-Eastern French Toast was the result of a happy accident. By that, I mean I overheard my 8-year-old sister instructing mum on how she wanted her french toast. It could also mean that I stole a slice of her French toast (and swooned) as I'd rather my metabolism went for a toss than eat Ragi Kazhi for breakfast. P.S.: It isn't a frou-frou thing. I like Kazhi, just not the ones made with Calcium-enriched Diabetic food.

Sumi had this brilliant idea of adding pinches and pinches of saffron strands to the French toast egg mix... she probably thought it'd make it taste like kheer or sheer korma.



She isn't at the age where she understands how much each milligram costs... and if I tell her that mind-altering drugs cost less, I'd be killed by mum for a) "spoiling your sister and making her exactly like you" b) even if it's been two years since I graduated Medical school, Mum chooses to believe that her 24-year-old daughter has no clue about the existence of "drugs" or where babies come from; simply because unmarried girls mustn't know/speak of "these things".
I'll spare you the lengthy diatribe this post is evolving into... and teach you how to make Middle-Eastern french toast.

It's easy, you'll know how to make it already (I use the base recipe from i am baker). To go along with it, I suggest a simple, luxurious dry-fruit milk we make only (justifiably) in the month of Ramadan.

Middle-Eastern French Toast:

Ingredients:

2 eggs
1/2 cup + 2 tbsps milk
2 tbsp sugar
a pinch of salt
3/4 tsp rosewater
7-8 strands of Saffron
5-6 slices bread


Method:

Heat the 2 tbsp milk until it's boiling. Add the saffron strands to it and squeeze the extract out of it. Keep aside the saffron to infuse in the milk until cool.

In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, milk (both the plain and saffron-soaked), sugar, salt and rosewater.

Silly me forgot to do the saffron-infusion before hand. You must, though!

Heat an non-stick pan or griddle. Add a pat of butter or ghee.

Dip a slice of bread into the milk mix. Do not let it soak too much, as there won't be enough egg-milk mix for the rest of the bread.

Cook the dipped bread on medium-low, about 2 minutes on each side.

Do NOT use skim milk and wholewheat bread. Please.

Take it out and serve hot with Saffron honey and butter!

A dusting of confectioners' sugar is pretty handy when you're out of honey.



Could not resist a couple of bites fresh off the griddle, pre-photo session!



Dry-fruit milk:

Ingredients:
1 cup whole milk.
5-6 walnuts
4-5 almonds
4-5 unsalted pistachios
5 raisins or a couple of chopped up dates
a pinch of saffron
1 tbsp sugar (or more, per your liking. Remember, dates are sweet!)

Method:

Feel free to use and hold off on the dry fruits of your choice!

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl. Cover it with plastic wrap/lid, and refrigerate overnight (minimum7 hours).

You can eat it by itself or with the french toast!

Suddenly can't wait for Ramadan. For more reasons than one.

Carrot Cake for Mum.

You know how we detest certain food as kids but cannot dream of living without now?

Case in point: tea. I never liked the cups of milky chai, spiced with dried ginger (sukku) and elaichi that my mum would plonk in front of me. With a plate full of Britannia Marie that smelt vaguely of michar (mixture). Why couldn't I have fun after school snacks like "Ice Milo" and the last bits of Chips Ahoy! she hid in her dresser? Like all normal kids have?

Not with my mum. No chicken nuggets, no french fries, no pricey Squeezy Kissan Jams. My mum has no use for precious people. No hiding shaved carrots in idli batter, no happy faces drawn on roti with Milkmaid. She (rightly) knew that was just watering the fussy little gourmand in me.

Guess how I turned out anyway?

Yes, I can be finicky and a half. However, when I'm on duty (especially on nights, ICU, ER and double shifts), I drink plastic cup after plastic cup of bad hospital tea. I can recognise the sound of the tea trolley from just about anywhere. After all the childhood drama/trauma.

Back in the days of Fullhouse and Sweet Valley Twins & Friends, I'd come across various food I hadn't an inkling about. Never had a problem with Enid Blyton: fried tomatoes and hard-boiled eggs and jam tarts were easy enough to imagine. With the American books, I had these road blocks. What was Eggplant Parmigiana? Mallomars? And yes, carrot cake.

Who made anything other than beans-carrot poriyal with carrots? It's bad enough that they offered carrot juice (and tomato juice) on Air France. Carrot cake?

My doubts were put to rest when I sampled a slice of carrot cake with cream cheese frosting at a Malaysian food court. Don't ask me why I was having carrot cake instead of miscellaneous native food. I was fourteen, and that is my excuse. I was a convert.

I still have trouble trying to convince the younger ones to try carrot cake, but this recipe could change their minds and your life. This could be our basic go-to carrot cake recipe. Yes, I said ours. No big deal.

You can play around with it, adding in cardamom and medjool dates for a more Middle-eastern flavour, or stick with Vanilla for the old-fashioned bakery flavour. And no, it isn't low-fat in any way, shape or form, but I can guarantee that the other nutrients edge out the calorie-counter.

I like the tropical flavours in this cake... you could make this with tinned pineapple, dessicated coconut and the like, but India wins in the Ingredients department for a change. You get these ingredients all year around at Madras. Fresh. Yes.

Sam's Famous Carrot Cake:
(Recipe adapted from: Allrecipes.com)

Ingredients:

3 eggs

3/4 cup buttermilk (or 3/4 cup milk + 1 tbsp vinegar)

3/4 cup vegetable oil

1 1/2 cups white sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla essence

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 cups shredded carrots

1 cup shredded coconut

1 cup chopped walnuts

2/3 cup pineapple, chopped

1/3 cup fresh pineapple juice

1 cup raisins

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour an 8x12 inch pan.

Soak the raisins in the fresh pineapple juice for about an hour. Or you can boil the raisins in the juice for a couple of minutes. I used Real Activ Fiber Plus's Mixed Fruit juice, so there would be robust pineapple and carrot flavours.

In a medium-sized bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Set aside.

In another large bowl, combine eggs, buttermilk (or milk with vinegar), oil, sugar and vanilla. Beat on low speed for 1 minute. Add flour mixture and only FOLD it in, with a spatula.

In a medium bowl, combine shredded carrots, coconut, walnuts, pineapple and raisins with all the juice.

Add the carrot mix to the batter. The batter will be very heavy, so use a proper spatula and all your arm power.

Pour the mix into the prepared baking tin. Bake for around one hour, or until a skewer/toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Take it out, let it cool for around 10 minutes. Loosen the sides of the cake from with the tin, with a knife.

Turn it out onto the serving plate. Let it cool for another 15 minutes before serving.

I served this plain, as a snack cake. You can added a dusting of icing sugar or go all out with a cream cheese frosting.

Or serve this to your mum, embellished flowers plucked by your sister from God-knows-where (neighbours' weed garden).

For all those cups of tea.

Garden Pasta Salad, hold the guilt... hey, Pesto!

Why does everything have to come with guilt?

I wish they could make an official guilt-free day. Just one day, every two months or so. Where:

a)I don't feel guilty about leaving patients even though my shift finished 2 hours back and I haven't sat down or breathed normally in God-knows-how-long.

b)I can spend a quarter of my pay check on a good meal and not care about how I'm wasting money.

c)I can be the first person to leave the library without giving a flying *beep* about the rest of the homogeneous medico-nerds plodding away at 3000-page texts, oblivious of a world where people breathe and eat and excrete (even though that covers half of Physiology).

d)I can skip gym and watch two back-to-back movies (a chick-flick and depressing, film-noir). Two desserts in one day. One chocolate, one caramel/mint/coffee with chocolate. Back to back, even. Without feeling like ten types of crap.

Is that too much to ask for?

Experience (lousy teacher that she is) clearly agrees. Boring sayings like good things-are-good-only-in moderation and all of that have been proved true.

 Since I've been OD-ing on the cholesterol lately, I thought I'd give you a recipe that is delightful and quite easy to rustle up for one of those weekdays when you've overindulged to the point where you can no longer live in denial.

It's green. And not mint-chocolate chip ice cream from Baskin Robbins.

After a week of Iced mochas and Nutella-from-the-jar, this meal makes me smile extra wide. It's got all my favourite things in it; zucchini, basil, Parmesan, peas, lemon and wholewheat pasta. You can't screw this up even if you tried. Heck, I can't screw it up even if I left the kitchen to watch Bones.

If your family can be picky and complain of the lack of any meat to bite into, you've got tofu here! Don't substitute with paneer, just this once. Not for our collective arteries' states, but tofu works wonders here. Love how it goes from sour beancurd to baked little golden morsel robed in a luscious, creamy pesto and other similar Nigella-isms.

Garden Pasta Salad with Pesto Vinaigrette:

For the Vinaigrette:

1 1/2 cups fresh basil leaves (I used a mix of basil and spinach)
1/3 cups extra-virgin olive oil (more if you dare)
1/2 c grated Parmesan (I added half parmesan, half pecorino)
1 large lemon, zested and juiced
3 tbsp red or white-wine vinegar (I used Balsamic)
9 large cloves garlic, roughly chopped (you can use less)
1/4 tsp salt
Freshly ground pepper

Pasta Salad:

1 package tofu, drained
440 grams whole grain pasta (I used fusilli)
300 g green beans, trimmed and cut into 1 inch pieces
1 cup peas
1 medium zucchini, sauteed in 1 tbsp olive oil
3 Tbsp toasted walnuts, roughly chopped

Method:

Cut the tofu into bite size chunks. Place them a little apart on a baking tray lined with oiled-foil and bake in preheated oven for about 15 minutes until they turn golden.

Slice the zucchini. Place a sauce pan over medium heat. Add a tablespoon of olive oil. Saute the slices for about a minute. Add salt and pepper to taste. Keep aside.

Make the pesto vinaigrette:

In a mixie or food processor, add the basil/spinach/coriander,olive oil, Parmesan, lemon juice, lemon zest, vinegar, garlic, salt and pepper. Blend until a smooth, mint-chutney-like consistency develops and place in refrigerator until ready to use.

In a large pan, bring 5 litres of salted water to the boil.

Add the green beans and boil for about 5 minutes until they are cooked, but still retain that bite/snap.

Remove with a slotted spoon and keep aside.

Add the peas to the leftover boiling water and cook for about 5 minutes until they're cooked (but don't let them mush up too much!) Remove and keep aside.

Add the pasta to the leftover boiling water. Cook until al-dente, as per package instructions. Whole grain generally requires a bit more cooking time, so pay heed!

Your pasta is now ready to be mixed! You can either

1)Place the drained pasta, tofu, zucchini, peas, beans, toasted walnuts in a big bowl and toss them with the vinaigrette. Stash in the refrigerate for about 15 minutes and serve. If you're planning to serve it later (this gives time for the flavours to meld into the pasta), cover with a lid or plastic wrap and refrigerate. Tastes best cold, like any other pasta salad.

2) Or if your family/friends are a little choosy, you might have plate up for each person separately, mixing-and-matching.

Arrange the stuff (as per requests/demands) on a plate.

Pour over as much vinaigrette as the person desires. Warning: there might be a shortage later.

Toss. Garnish with extra toasted walnuts or Parmesan curls.

Get a load of that goodness. The peas, garlicky pesto, hearty pasta and the nut, in one bite. Mmm. Not cookie-dough-brownie-bar mmm, but Mmm-glorious-food indeed.

Pimp My Pastry. Back-to-back episodes.

I have a secret. It's an embarrassing one.

I spend nearly an hour each day just looking at food blogs.

Not about the commercial use of Mycophenolate Mofetil in India for Myasthenia Gravis. Not about various religious worship in contemporary culture. Not even tidbits on Dexter Season 6. Food blogs. I'm doomed. The knell has sounded.

You'd think that eye-feasting on about 40 recipes per day would have me trying new things left-right-and-centre, right? How wrong you are.

Sometimes, when you need to impress peers or you need to not feel like a failure or just have a comforting bowlful to gobble up, you make stuff from standby recipes that you love and cherish. And it's OK to make your insecurities public these days. People make a lot of money off it on television. I need to get out of my scrubs and get me a Snooki-pouff.

So. I thought I'd put up a few photos demonstrating how your trusted recipes can be jazzed up. I played around with my cocoa brownies.

Made Chocolate-chip cookie rolls out of my most-treasured cinnamon roll recipe. Thank you, Pioneer woman. Let the unadulterated parade of eye candy begin! Even though my photos never do the dish enough justice.

Dulce de Leche brownies:
(idea from David Leibovitz)

Make a batch of fudgy, gooey brownie batter. Don't bake it just yet.

Brown the butter, add dark chocolate, whatever it takes to make it happen.

Make a batch of Dulce de Leche with one can of Nestle's Milkmaid.

Pour half the brownie batter into a greased pan. Add 1/3rd of the cooled Dulce de Leche in random spurts.

Run a knife through it, creating a swirly pattern. Go on, run amok.

Add the remaining brownie batter. Repeat the same dab-and-swirl thing with the rest of the Dulce.

Bake for 5 minutes less than the stipulated time. Check for done-ness. It's good to underbake than to overbake brownies.

Cool for around 15 minutes. Cut into slices and dive head-first in.

Ooooh. Yes.

I've unlocked the secret to happiness. And simultaneous obesity.

Chocolate chip cookie rolls:

Make half a batch of cinnamon roll dough.

Roll the dough out in the usual manner.

Chop up about a cup and a half (or so) of Lindt dark chocolate into chunks. You can also use chocolate chips but it won't kick ass as much.

Dab the roll with 1/2 a cup of melted (salted) butter, coarsely ground brown and white sugar (together totalling around 1 to 1.5 cups, max) and 1/2 a cup of chopped up almonds/pecans/walnuts.

Roll it up. Makes several rolls.

Bake as you would for the normal recipe.

Top with cream cheese frosting or just scarf it down straight from the pan. The leftovers can be cooled to room temperature and frozen for up to 2 months (unfrosted). You can eat them selfishly over the course of a week.

If you have any doubts regarding the techniques and measurements, refer to the original post. God, I feel like Padma Lakshmi and my Biochemistry Professor at the same time. All this butter surely has to dull one's brain.