Bhaji with Bottle Gourd Peels

Ingredients

Bottle Gourd Peels - 1 cup
Garam Masala powder - 1 tsp
Bengal Gram Flour - 1 cup
Chilly Powder - 2 tbsp
a pinch of Asafoetida
Salt to taste
Oil for deep fry

Method

Mix salt and garam masala, rub this mixture to the peels and keep aside.


Take a bowl add bengal gram flour, asafoetida, salt, chilly powder and mix well, pour enough water to make into thick batter.


Heat oil

Cauliflower & Peas Pepper Fry

I love cauliflower and peas combo. Have done gravy before, but have not done any stir fry with this combo. First time i tried this simple side dish and it was a great success. It was yummy and the addition of pepper powder to cauliflower gives you more taste. It was easy and quick. Here is the recipe.







Ingredients


Cauliflower florets - 200gms
Frozen Peas - 100 gms
Onions - 1, finely

Choco Oats Burfi

Ingredients


Dark chocolate - 100gms
Oats - 1 cup
Butter - 20 gms
Milk - 1/2 cup











Method


Melt butter and chocolate in a microwave bowl.




Mix well and add the the oats and milk, mix well and microwave high for two Min's.




Grease the tray or plate with little oil or butter and spread the mixture evenly in the tray and leave it for 2 min's and cut into shapes while warm.

Sharing menu at Timbuktu

In the end of January we went to Timbuktu…no, I’m not talking about the town in the African country of Mali but the restaurant in Stavanger that serves “an innovative fusion of Asian and European cuisine”. As we were going to the movies we booked a table as early as 7 pm. The restaurant is located right by the harbor in Stavanger on the Skagen side so it is not hard to find. Please see this page for more info: http://www.herlige-restauranter.no/timbuktu/


Photo from http://www.herlige-restauranter.no/timbuktu/

The place is a mix between a bar (downstairs) and the restaurant upstairs. And when seated in the restaurant you look down on the guests in the bar. I guess Timbuktu is Asian inspired as they have Buddha figures etc. But also the huge red lanterns in the ceiling reminds me of the flying lanterns that you sometimes see in Asia (e.g. in Thailand). Anyway, we decided to go for the sharing menu that Timbuktu offers and that gives you a taste of all the starters and main courses. You can also order a la carte and they even have some sushi on the menu. The lighting in the restaurant was dim – it usually is like that to create the right mood. But for me it is kinda annoying as it makes it hard to read the menu. But hey, there was a candle on the table that I could use to light up the menu. It was also pretty cold in the restaurant but I guess it gets warmer later in the evening when there are more guests.

The starters that we got was a bit of sushi, a warm potato and leek soup served in a shot glass with smoked eel and blue mussel, scallop with blueberry syrup and Earl Grey jelly and tuna tartar with some tofu. The soup was wonderful and it had a nice taste of the smoked eel and you can’t really go wrong with scallop (unless you fry it up the wrong way). The scallop here was made in the right way and tasted great. I’m not sure what fish that was used on the sushi (maybe it was scallop too) and it was served with soy sauce and wasabi of course. I’m not a great fan of sushi but it was fun trying it in Japan (see my trip report from Japan here). The tuna tartar was good but the tofu on top was horrible. But I don’t have much experience with tofu so maybe that is the way it should be?


I had the wine package together with the meal and I think it is a bit expensive with close to 300 kroner for 3 glasses of wine. And I would also have preferred to have the wine served with the food instead of 10 minutes before the food was saved. I have a tendency to start tasting the wine and all of a sudden you are almost out before the food is served.

The second round was fish and I also got white wine with this. The wine menu is not too bad but as usual the wine is expensive. A quick look at the menu shows that the price are multiplied by about 3 compared to the local Vinmonopol which is a shame but that is common practice for restaurants here. A Chianti La Pieve 2007 was 525 kroner, Barbera D’Alba Gagliasso was 560 kroner, la Bracchesa Vino Nobile di Montepulciano 2006 was 725 kroner to give you some idea of the prices. In the second round we got smoked sea bass with a Dijon sauce, black cod with mushroom and poached salmon with an orange sauce. The sea bass and cod were pretty good but I would have enjoy the salmon a bit more cooked. But maybe that is what poaching is all about. We also got some ratatouille and salad on the side.

To round it of we went over to the meat section and this was served with red wine. As you can see from the photos the sharing menu is more like a tasting menu and the pieces are quite small. Due to this I would have enjoyed to see heated plates as the plated cooled down the food very quickly. We got pork rib served with canneline pure, deer tenderloin with a red wine sauce and duck marinated with teriyaki. All of the meat was nice and tasty and with a nice red wine it was delicious.

All in all it was a pretty good meal and I do enjoy the small tasting menus compared to just a huge portion of one thing. But as you have seen from the test above there are some things that can be improved. The sharing menu that we had was 490 kroner per person and my wine “deal” was 285 kroner for 3 glasses of wine. As I mentioned, this is both a bar and restaurant so if you get there a bit later I think the noise level can be high so keep that in mind if you want a romantic date.

Joke about Norwegian food

I have just found a great new comic series called "Lunch" by Børge Lund. A lot of the jokes are focused on the office environment and you will recognize many of the issues if you have been in the business for a while. Most of his stuff is in Norwegian but I came across this lovely little piece in English about Norwegian food and it is spot on. I have tried the smalahove (see a photo here) but I haven't tried rakfisk and I'm not too much of a fan of lutefisk :-) Well, press the link if you want to read more Lunch by Børge Lund.

There is a new restaurant in town

Well, actually it is not really one new restaurant but two. Renaa Restauranter is actually 2 restaurants located where Craigs kjøkken and Jans mat og vinhus was located. Craigs when bankrupt this year but I think that Jans did OK but the whole place is now taken over by Sven Erik Renaa and that should hopefull spell success. He has been voted chef of the year, he has been on the Norwegian Bocuse d'Or and together with Jostein Medhus and Sebastian Myhre they seem to be quite a powerful team (see http://restaurantrenaa.no/omoss.htm)

Anyway, the restaurant is split in 2: upstairs (in the former Craigs kjøkken) you can now find Renaa: Matbaren which seems to be a place for informal dining. Downstairs they have done a bit of work to the old Jans mat og vinhus place and this is now called Renaa: Restauranten and this will be the place for fine dining.

I had the pleasure to drop by the opening party held at the restaurant yesterday and we got to look around, drink some champagne and taste some samples of food that might be served when they open the restaurant. I think they have their first guests today and would you like to wish them the best of luck. I look forward to trying out the restaurant soon. Read more about the restaurant on http://restaurantrenaa.no/index.htm

Here are some photos from the place.

Charles & De in - the best alternative in Sandnes

There are not that many places to eat in Stavanger's neighbor city Sandnes but when Charles & De opened a few years back, that helped a lot. We went there in the beginning of August 2009 before going to the movies and we had the Tom Yam that was not spicy enough according to Nikki and too salty. Gard had the cheddar burger which was a bit on the boring side. But we did like the fact that the portions were not too big and that we got fried potatoes instead of french fries to go with the burger. The menu at Charles & De is not bad and we will certainly try the place again...but then again, there are not that many places to choose from in Sandnes ;-) Check out the menu and opening hours on http://www.charlesogde.no/ . They also sell various food stuff to bring back home...and maybe you can even bring home some of the desserts that they had on display. Our meal today was about 300 kroner. Below is a video with a summary of what we thought and some photos of our meal :-)