Mithai (Indian Sweet):

Mitahi is an Indian sweet or confectionary made with sugar, milk, condensed milk etc and nuts or fruits are often added to this confection. These sweets are used for deserts or give away-snacks during celebratory functions.

Ingredients:
1 can of Condensed Milk
1 stick butter stick
2 cups nonfat dry milk

½ cups chopped nuts (walnuts, pecans and/or almonds)
1 pinch saffron
Thin edible silver film

Method:
Melt butter in a nonstick saucepan on low heat.
Add condensed milk and keep stirring until it starts simmering.
Add nuts, saffron, nonfat dry milk and continue cooking and stirring until it forms a nice loose, lump.
Pour this cooked mixture in a greased baking dish and smooth over using a spatula or pat down using butter paper.
Carefully apply thin layer of edible silver film over mithai and let it cool.
Cut square pieces and serve.
Leftovers can be refrigerated for a week or two.

Arzak Egg

Arzak egg, also known as “flower egg” is a signature dish that was popularized by a very famous spanish Chef called Juan Mari Arzak.

Arzak employs an unusual method of poaching an egg which looks like a flower after cooking. In this method raw egg is gently placed in plastic wrap seasoned with truffle oil and duck or goose fat.

This plastic-wrapped egg is then gently poached in simmering water until egg whites are set and inside yolk is tender and runny. After cooking is completer, plastic wrap is opened and poached egg now looks like a flower. This beautiful poached egg flower can be used to garnished with breadcrumbs, parsley and some sauce

Roasted Eggplant (Bringal Bharata):

Eggplant Bharata is a very simple and tasty dish my mom used to make using all fresh ingredients. All these ingredients are easy to find and recipe is very quick and easy to make.

Ingredients:
1 Large dark purple Eggplant
1 big red onion
3-4 Green Chilies (sliced lengthwise)
1 inch Ginger minced (or ½ tsp paste)
2-3 Garlic cloves minced (or ½ tsp paste)
1 Tbsp Oil
1 Tsp Black mustard seeds
½ Tsp Asafetida
½ Tsp Turmeric powder
Salt to taste
1 Tbsp cilantro/coriander leaves (chopped)

Method:
1. Generously slather oil on eggplant and roast it over an open flame on gas stove or grill, rotating it every 2 minutes until all sides are cooked or charred. When eggplant is cooked, it starts peeling and becomes mushy. Remove cooked eggplant from the flame and let it cool for few minutes. Remove the stems and charred peels of eggplant carefully. Mash cooked eggplant with potato masher or fork to make pulp and set it aside.
2. Heat oil in a pan or wok and add asafetida. Add mustard seeds, when they start making spluttering, add turmeric, green chilies and onions. Sauté until onions are soft, and transparent, and golden brown in color.
3. Add eggplant pulp, ginger, garlic, and salt and continue cooking on medium heat for 5 minutes.
4. Garnish with chopped cilantro and serve hot with chapatti or flat bread.

You can also broil or bake (combination works the best) eggplant in oven at 400 F for an hour if grilling is not an option.

Arzak Egg

Arzak Egg, also know as "flower egg" is a signature dish popularized by a famous spanish Chef called Juan Mari Arzak.

Arzak emplyes an unusual method of poaching an egg which lools like a flower after cooking. In this method, a raw egg is cracked and gently placed in a plastic wrap, seasoned with truffle oil and duck or goose fat. Egg used for preparing Arzak egg shoudl be very fresh. When cracked egg is placed in the plastic wra egg yolk should be firm egg adn evenly surrounded by egg whites.

The plastic wrapped egg is then poached in simming water until the egg whites are set and inside yollk is tender and runny.

After cooking is complete and when plastic wrap is openen, poached egg looks like a flower. This beautiful poached "flower egg" then can be garnished with bread crumbs, parsley and some sauce (like cauliflower sauce).

Onsen Tamago

Onsen Tamago means eggs cooked in hot springs. Onsen means ‘hot spring’ in Japanese. Onsen Tamago is a gorgeous egg dish commonly served as a breakfast item at hot springs hotels in Japan. The temperatures of the hot springs (ie below boiling point) are perfect for poaching these eggs so lightly that egg whites are soft and yolks are slightly hardened.

In this hot spring cooking method the eggs are ‘poached’ inside the shells. When ready, crack open cooked egg and gently slide it in a bowl of dashi/soy sauce mixture. You can garnish it with thinly chopped spring onions.
You can make Onsen Tamago at home using rice cooker. After rice is cooked, these rice cookers are switched to “keep warm” mode. Wrap egg in a paper towel and put it on top of cooked rice in the rice cooker and let it steam-cook at low temperature for about an hour. Always use fresh eggs to make Onsen Tamago or poached egg yolk is nicely surrounded by egg white.

Interview of a Chef

Interview with an Executive Chef

Chef Karl Marsh is an executive Chef and Culinary Services Manager at Omaha Steaks for past seven years. I have known him for over two years through my work. Omaha Steaks buys spices from the company I wok for, International Spices, so Karl and I are always in touch with each other talking about his projects, and send e-mails etc. However I never got chance to meet him personally until today. Chef Karl showed me his kitchen and sensory lab. I didn’t get a chance to see him “in action” while cooking but had a good time chatting with him. Here is his response to the questions I asked him during his interview.


Q. 1) What level of education did you obtain to get a career as a chef?

Chef Karl: I attended a 2 year culinary program from a non accredited school. In the early 80’s there were very few culinary schools that actually offered degrees.

Q. 2) Why did you choose this career?

Chef Karl: My first job as a teenager was cooking in a restaurant. I fell in love with the restaurantbusiness and always preferred the back of the house. When I graduated from highschool I already had several years of cooking experience and I decided that I wanted to make a career of it.

Q. 3) Would you say there are a good amount of jobs in this career?

Ckef Karl: Yes and no. Executive Chef positions are out there but it is hard to get the break needed to make the jump to the Executive Chef level. There are plenty of cooking jobs and Sous Chef jobs out there.

Product development Chef / Research Chef jobs are even harder to come by. Most require large amounts of experience in the field. It’s hard to get the experience if you can’t get the job.

Q. 4) Does this career offer a good annual salary?

Chef Karl: Yes and no. It depends a lot on experience, location, and volume. There are plenty of 6 figure Exec Chef jobs out there but it takes a proven track record and lots of experience to get them. The average Exec Chef makes in the 50k-70k range.

On the other hand Product development Chef’s do make excellent salaries. Most are 6 figure jobs but they are hard to come by.

Q. 5) What things you like and dislike about your job?

Chef Karl: In my current position as Executive Chef of Omaha Steaks I am very blessed. I really enjoy creating in the test kitchen with very little pressure. I really enjoy doing product development, recipe development and being a spokesperson for the company. I also enjoy the people I work with. There really is not anything that I dislike about my current job.

When I was the Executive Chef or restaurants and hotels there were plenty of things I disliked. I really disliked dealing with personnel issues and working on every holiday. There was a time in my life when I loved working in restaurants but that time has come and gone.

Q. 6) What kind of foods do you usually cook?

Chef Karl: In my current position I get to cook foods from the whole spectrum of ingredients and geographical cuisines. That being said I probably cook beef more that anything else.

Q. 7) How do you design your own menu?

Chef Karl: In my current position my menu is really our catalog. The level of sophistication that goes into a marking piece like that is way beyond the detail and thought that goes into writing a restaurant menu.

That being said every dish I ever had on my menus were first and foremost things that I really liked and was passionate about and secondly things that sold well and were popular. I always spent a fair amount of time seeing what the competition was doing and staying abreast of the current trends.

Q. 8) Where do you get ideas to create new recipes?

Chef Karl: I just draw off of things I have made in the past, scene in the past or in the present. I do a lot of research and I follow the trends closely.

Q. 9) Do you think it helps to have science background to become a good food product developer?

Chef Karl: Absolutely. At the end of the day, cooking is chemistry and really helps if you understand the science behind why things taste the way they do. The ideal product development chef is someone who has a good balance of cooking ad science skills.


Q. 10) In your opinion what are three main things you need to become a successful chef

Chef Karl: 1- Passion 2- Creativity 3- Good organizational skills


It was nice to meet Chef Karl Marsh and ask him some questions about his work as a Chef at Omaha Steaks-manufacturer of gourmet steaks. It gave me better idea about a Chef’s work. I sure enjoyed the visit!

Biography of Rachael Ray

Rachel ray has a very magnetic personality! I began watching her show “$40 a day” about 6 yrs ago and got hooked immediately. She is a very down-to-earth simple person who assures you that it is ok not to know how to cook from scratch. You can actually relate to her. I never liked ‘Martha Stewart’ like people who are so unreal and annoying! I know some celebrity Chefs don’t give Rachael Ray due respect and credit that she deserves but the truth is that no body ever made cooking show so interesting for common audience before. Rachel Ray uses simple, canned or boxed ingredients, which can be found at the local grocery stores. She giggles and makes funny comments while cooking. She also tells stories about her family and gives her personal touch to the show. She is very entertaining and fun to watch and that is what people like about her show. Her ‘30-minute meal’ is such a hit TV show that I know some people actually following those recipes on daily basis! I myself have bough her 30-minute meal cookbook.

Rachael Ray was born in Cape Cod, Massacutees, where her family owned a number of restaurants. She grew up in an environment where cooking and food were a major part of her life. She says “Everyone from both sides of her family cook”. She always refers to her grandfather when it comes to authentic Italian cooking. Later, her family relocated to upstate New York, where her mother went to work as the food supervisor for a chain of restaurants.

Rachael's professional career started at Macy's Marketplace in New York at the candy counter. She was then promoted to manager of the fresh foods department. After Macy's, Rachael was involved with opening Agata & Valentina, the celebrated New York gourmet market, where she was the store manager and buyer. Later on she worked in Cowan & Lobel, a large gourmet market in Albany, as a food buyer and chef, she began holding classes called ‘30 Minute Mediterranean Meals,’ which caught on so quickly that soon she was giving them weekly on a local evening news show there. By 2001 ‘30 Minute Meals’ had premiered on the Food Network, followed by ‘$40 a Day in 2000', ‘Inside Dish in 2004’, and ‘Tasty Travels in 2005’. Author of numerous cookbooks, editor-in-chief of her magazine, ‘Every Day with Rachael Ray’, and host of a daily talk show, Rachael Ray has become a famous TV personality! She even has her own line of cookware.

Rachael Ray probably never went to any formal cooking school to become a Chef but has created simple, delicious and easy to cook recipes, which are not only quick to make but are very inexpensive too. She is a self-taught ‘Chef’ who has real passion for food and enjoys teaching common people how to cook and enjoy tasty meal on a budget.