A handful of recipes from the people at nilenso for your reading pleasure. These have all been tried by real cooking noobs and are hopefully simple enough for anyone to follow along. Having said that, if you do burn your cookers don’t @ us on twitter or instagram.
Sandy’s French toast with stewed apples
- Eggs
- Milk
- Sugar
- Bread
- Butter, preferably unsalted
- A bit of oil
- Chocolate sauce
- Cinnamon powder
- Apples
- Butter
- Honey
- Sugar
- Water
Break two eggs, add a bit of milk and sugar and mix it up. I use a fork for this typically. If you have chocolate sauce you could add it to this batter directly, cinnamon also. You'll dip the bread into the batter and then fry it on the pan, so make sure the bread fits into whatever it is you're using to make the batter in. I usually break the eggs into another pan or a walled plate. In my experience, two eggs is usually enough for six slices of bread, which serves two.
Then, put a pan on the gas. Add a tiny amount of oil, it's just to prevent sticking and prevent the butter from burning. Put a bit of butter on the pan. Then take a slice of bread, dip both sides into the batter, let the excess batter run off and then fry the bread. Be sure to do both sides. Repeat until you run out of batter. Try not to overcook the toast, I think it's nicer when soft.
You could eat the French toast with jam or something if you want, or you could make the apples like I'm about to tell you.
Slice up an apple into bite sized chunks. Lightly dust the bottom of a vessel with sugar and melt it. Be very careful, if you heat the sugar too long it'll burn, and if you let the sugar cool off it'll stick to the vessel and become a real pain in the ass. No pressure. Add the apples in at this point along with some butter, mix it up nicely. I've also added honey in at this point as well, that's quite nice. Then add a bit of water. The apples should be partly submerged. Let them simmer on the stove. You want the water to evaporate.
You'll be left with the apples and some very sweet sauce as well. Usually I prepare the apples in the vessel, let them simmer and then start with the toast. They'll get done together.
Put the apples and sauce over the French toast and enjoy.
“Sandy's french toasts are p yum. Especially when it's already made and left on the kitchen counter by him for you to eat.”
“Fantastic. The apples were very surprising.”
Prabhanshu's dry khichdi
- Heat ½ tablespoon ghee for a minute
- Mustard, cumin
- 4 kaju, 5 kishmish
- A pinch of hing
- Finely chopped lehsun if you’re feeling adventurous
- x cup rice, x/4 cup split (green) moong dal, 3x water.
- Red chilli, turmeric, dhaniya powder, salt.
- 3 whistles on high heat, 1 on low heat, let it sit for a while.
The whole exercise takes around 12 minutes.
“Simple, high ROI recipe that will make you feel like ten times the cook you actually are. The controversy generated by the raisins cements this recipe's place as a work of art.”
“Used the wrong dal, the wrong red chilli and had no idea what consistency to expect but delicious. Nifty use of dry stores. 10/10 kajukishmish”
Priyanga’s tomato curry
- 1 medium size onion
- 3 tomatoes
- 2 green chillies
- 2 tsp chili powder
- ¼ tsp turmeric powder
- ¾ tsp salt
- 1 tsp mustard
- 3 tbsp coconut oil
- Few curry leaves
Heat the oil, add mustard and curry leaves. After a few seconds add onion and saute till transparent. Add chillies and tomatoes. Close the lid and let it cook on high flame.
After 3 min smash and saute it until the tomatoes are fully cooked. Now add the chilli powder, turmeric powder and salt. Mix it well and add some water. Cook until it boils.
“I over-improvised a perfectly self-contained recipe and regretted the results. Looking forward to trying again.”
Akshatha’s miloats
This one has no real value add over reading the back of the packet of oats you buy and Milo is not available in stores anymore, but here it is irregardlessly:
- Get 1 cup milk on medium heat
- Add ¼ cup oats to it
- Boil till soft and cooked (~3m for my kellogs)
- Mix in 1½ heaped tbsp Milo and bring it off heat
- Dice any over-ripening fruits lying around though citruses are a bad idea probably. Add to oats
- Have warm
“It was pretty decent I would say.”
Atharva’s Optimal Scrambled Eggs
- Eggs
- Salt
- Butter
- Either corn starch or patience
- Whisk eggs nicely and salt them.
- Optional: add cold butter chunklets which create cool localized pockets while the eggs cook, which adds more variation to the texture.
- If you have cornstarch, make a bit of slurry and whisk it into the eggs. If you don’t have cornstarch, you need patience for the same result (explained later).
- Put some fat on your pan, butter prolly
- Once your butter is foamy, but not brown, put in the eggs
- Now keep stirring it. If you have cornstarch added, the eggs won’t tighten up and become rubbery that easily, so you can take it chill. But if you didn’t add cornstarch, do not let those eggs sit on the pan for a second. KEEP STIRRING IT LIKE A LUNATIC.
- Now for the people who opted for patience:
- Keep stirring it and do not keep it on high heat. As soon as you feel like the eggs are slowly starting to solidify, turn off the heat and take off the pan and keep stirring.
- Rinse and repeat this, depending on how many eggs you are cooking, this may take even 10 mins.
(misrepresentation)
“Couldn’t discern the texture, overcooked it and made regular scrambled eggs, but it turned out damn delicious. Best thing about trying to get this right is that the baseline is pretty delicious.”
“Am I going to hype up these scrambled eggs? I guess I am. Let me tell you, if you nail this thing, you are going to have the best scrambled eggs in your whole life. Possibly the best egg anything in your whole life. It’s really that good.”
You’ll know it’s done once you get this thick, creamy, chunky texture. And stop the heat before you think it’s ready. The egg will continue to cook in its heat. I only learned too late about the cornstarch shortcut. The main concept is that you gotta let your eggs cook really slow. Basically, torture the eggs and make them almost solidify but not quite every time.
Eat it with some mildly toasted rustic bread. Wheat bread also works. If you are feeling fancy a thick hunk of sourdough would be perfect.