Pesto Ice Cream (Serves 8)

I was going through my loose recipe sheets (I may have even lost a few) and came across my recipe for pesto ice cream that I had made when I celebrated the one year anniversary of this blog. Yes, I did say pesto ice cream :-)

I don’t know how this one got left behind. As fall approaches hopefully there is some time left to slide in one more ice cream recipe for sure, what say :-). Well people in the hotter regions of the world can always make this right now.

Quite different and pleasing in taste, this ice cream has a creamy fresh herb taste, complemented perfectly by the golden toasted pine nuts, the mild presence of the extra virgin olive oil and the sweet honey.

One thing I did leave out of this ice cream was the garlic which is a regular ingredient in pesto. I didn’t want to be that adventurous the first time I was making pesto ice cream.

1 1/2 quart Breyers Natural Vanilla Ice Cream
12 individual leaves of fresh sweet basil
8 individual leaves of fresh mint
4 tbsp pine nuts
1 1/2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3/4 cup heavy cream
bottle of honey for drizzling

Get the ice cream out of the freezer and set it aside at room temperature to soften it a little for easy mixing.

On a pan on low to medium heat, dry roast the pine nuts until they are golden brown. You don’t need to add oil as the pine nuts are fatty nuts, and will release oil when they are hot. Keep aside.

Chop the fresh basil and mint leaves as fine as possible. In a spice grinder or any method you find easy (even a blender, although it might be tough), add the oil and the minced leaves and crush into a paste, as fine as possible.

In a bowl add the heavy cream and the ground paste of fresh basil, mint and oil and bring to a boil on medium heat. Immediately take it off the heat and let it cool.

Once cool, add the heavy cream mixture and toasted pine nuts to the ice cream in a large bowl and mix everything well.

Put the ice cream mix back into its original container, and with each layer of ice cream, drizzle an ample amount of honey as you fill up the container with the ice cream. Freeze the ice cream for a few hours until frozen. Drizzle with more honey when you serve.

So, surprise your friends and your palette by making this ice cream and leaving your guests guessing the ingredients ;-).

Health Rating: Low

Mango Chutney (Serve 4)

Wooh! Glad to be back finally. The past one month has been really hectic with work schedules and personal commitments. I apologize for not posting any new recipes for more than a month. Thanks for being patient.


We had some of our friends over for dinner the other night. One of the dishes I wanted to make was mango pickle but the mango, which I had bought raw had started to ripen, since 2 weeks had passed from the time I bought it. So, change of plans. I decided to make mango chutney instead. I sat down with a paper and pen and wrote down the ingredients based on my thoughts of how I wanted it to taste. Thankfully turned out just the way I wanted it to.

I wanted to make sure that the chutney wasn't too greasy or too sweet, and wanted to achieve that balance.


It turned out darn good. You can have this chutney with sandwiches, puris, chapatis, or as is and enjoy it’s tarty, sweet and spicy flavor. And extremely easy to make.


1 1/3 cup grated semi sweet mango (a large mango should provide you this)
seeds from 1 cardamom
1 inch by 1/2 inch piece of cinnamon bark
3 cloves
1/16 tsp ginger powder
1/8 cup oil
1/4 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
1/4 cup jaggery (concentrated product of cane juice without separating molasses and crystals)
3/8 cup water
1 1/2 tsp paprika
1 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp salt


Keep all the ingredients ready so that you don’t forget anything at the time of need.

With a peeler, remove the skin from the mango and grate it using the biggest holes in the grater. Set aside.


In a blender, add the cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, and ginger powder and grind the ingredients very fine.



In a large pan on medium heat, add the oil. When the oil starts getting hot, add the cumin and fennel seeds. When you start to smell the aroma of the seeds before they darken, add the chili powders.



Mix well and let the chili powder cook for a few seconds. Add the jaggery and 1/4 cup water. As the jaggery starts to melt a little add the grated mango, the ground spice, and salt.


With a spatula, turn everything so that all the contents in the pan are incorporated well. Cook on low to medium heat, until the mango is cooked and the water has melted away.


Add 1/8 cup water at this point and mix well, and cook just enough until you see the glaze on top.


Take off the fire. Serve at room temperature.

Ginger Ice Cream (Serves 2)

It's hot!!! and it is a good time for some ice cream, I say! This was an ice cream re-mix that I had prepared some time last year actually, while I was well on my way recovering from surgery.

I think eventually it will be time for me to buy an ice cream making machine, since I have a lot of flavors running in my mind, and these creations are quick fixes that I do with store bought ice cream. It would be more fruitful and frugal to make my own ice cream, and it would be my own creation.

So, all you ginger lovers out there, come enjoy some ginger ice cream. Forgive the photo, it was taken when I didn't know much better. I am improving though :-). Here is the recipe.

1 1/2 cups natural vanilla ice cream

3 inch size flat piece of sweet crystallized ginger (store bought)

1 1/2 tsp filtered pure raw ginger juice

1/8 cup heavy cream

Take the vanilla ice cream out from the freezer and keep it at normal temperature.

Cut 3 inches of flat crystallized ginger into very fine pieces and set them aside. 

Take approximately 2 inches of ginger root and crush it. Squeezing the crushed ginger with your fingers, filter the pure ginger juice through a strainer and set it aside. We need 1 1/2 tsp of ginger juice. 

In a small bowl take 1/8 cup of heavy cream, add the 1 1/2 tsp of ginger juice to it. Just about bring the heavy cream to a boil, so that the rawness of the ginger goes away. Let it cool for a few minutes. 

In a mixing bowl, put 1 1/2 cups of vanilla ice cream, and add the heavy cream ginger juice mix, and the cut crystallized ginger pieces. With a spoon mix everything well together till it forms a smooth texture. 

Pour the ice cream mix back into its original container, and refreeze it. 

Serve it cold as is, or add some more crumbs of crystallized ginger on top if you are the gingery kind :-). Enjoy!

Health Rating: Medium

Mast-O-Khiar (Persian Cucumber and Mint with Yogurt) (Serves 8)

How could I leave this dish that we had served as an accompaniment to biryani during the BBQ cookout we had a couple of months ago?

This is one of my favorite dishes and I always order this when I am at a middle eastern kebab place. I just love the flavor of the mint and the cucumber infused in the yogurt. I added a few additional ingredients as an experiment.

This is an absolutely tasty dish and very soothing for the body, especially during the hot summer months.


It is very similar in preparation to the Indian raita, but a few different ingredients make such a huge difference to the final taste!


3 cups strained yogurt (Greek)
1 garlic clove
1 small bunch Parsley leaves
14 fresh mint leaves
5 small to medium Persian cucumbers
Salt to taste


Skin the cucumbers with a peeler and grate them. Make sure the grater is not very fine. Squeeze and strain off the excess water from the cucumber in a small bowl. Set the grated cucumber aside.


Quickly blend the garlic, parsley leaves, mint leaves along with just enough cucumber juice to help blend the ingredients.


In a large bowl, add the yogurt, grated cucumber, the blended mixture, and salt to taste. Mix everything well until smooth.


Refrigerate and serve cold with pita, bread, as a side dish with rice and gravy, or as is.

Health Rating: High

Spicy Chicken Vindalho (Serves 4)

I would like to apologize for not posting in a long while, as I have been trying to recover from an herniated disc which hasn’t let me in a position to cook. As a temporary solution I now sit on a chair and cook, as I can’t stay from cooking and don’t want to trouble my wife too much :-)

I got the recipe for this dish while looking on Google, and came upon this Goan food blog called http://www.goanfoodrecipes.com.


I used to have a lot of Goan food (very spicy and flavorful with common items being fish, coconut, rice) while in India, and this site appealed to me with its traditional Goan food recipes. So I was curios to take a recipe from here and try it out over the weekend. 
Vindalho or Vindaloo is usually made with pork and malt vinegar. But chicken can also substituted for the pork. I had to make some adjustments to the recipe in terms of the amount of vinegar, and also the oil needed. I also used rice vinegar instead of the malt vinegar. The result nevertheless was outstanding. 


The author was right when he mentioned that this dish reminds you of pickle. Yes, the vinegar and the simple spices make that happen. Let's go straight to the recipe. It is so simple, you can make it even if you are totally wasted! :-) well, almost.

2 lb mixed chicken breast and thighs (boneless)
2 big onions (2 medium sized onions if you are in the US)
2 tbsp paprika powder
1 tbsp cayenne pepper
1 tbsp red chilli powder
1/2 cup rice vinegar
1 inch piece ginger cut small
5 cloves garlic cut small
2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
8-10 black peppercorns
4-5 cloves
2 inch piece of cinnamon bark
4 tbsp oil
salt to taste


Cut the chicken in to one inch chunky pieces and set aside in a large bowl. Add salt to the chicken and mix well.

In a small bowl add the different chilli powders, 3/8 cup vinegar and mix well. Pour this mixture in a blender. Add the ginger root and garlic (both cut into small pieces), cumin seeds, turmeric powder, and blend everything till it forms a fine paste.


Pour this paste into the chicken pieces and mix everything really well. Refrigerate this overnight preferably, or at least one hour like I did.

Cut the onions into chunks and blend them in the grinder as well. 


In a large pan on medium heat, add the oil. As the oil gets hot, add the chicken and the blended onions, mix well and cook for 5 minutes. Add 1/2 cup of water, 1/8 cup of vinegar, peppercorns, cloves and cinnamon, and let the chicken cook on a low flame for at least an hour until the it is well done. Add more water based on the consistency you need, although I would suggest to keep it on the drier side.


Store in the refrigerator overnight to let the all the flavors mingle together and let the meat absorb the spices. Serve hot with rice, or chapati/fresh Italian bread.

Delicious!


Health Rating: Medium


Substitute Ingredient/s: For vegetarians you can substitute the chicken with chunky starchy vegetables such as potatoes. Adding carrots and celery to the potatoes would give it the flavor of a nice stew.


Also note that you will get a fantastic red color if you use authentic red chillies from Kashmir that the original recipe calls for. They aren’t that spicy, by the way.