Gastronomic tours with Swiss Cheese

As a child, I always loved eggs. My parents would make them in almost every style possible. I had a few of my own though (Pizza Eggs and Golfer's Eggs). However, my favourite has always been scrambled eggs — just the way my dad, mum and grandma used to make them. I've added a little of my own style to it, and this is what I have:

Ingredients

• 2 Eggs
• ½ Cup Milk
• Salt & Pepper to taste
• 1 tsp chopped up mint leaves (I used dried mint)
• 1 Tbsp butter

Method

1. Break 2 eggs into a mixing dish
2. Add milk, salt, pepper and mint, and ½ Tbsp butter
3. Mix with an egg whisk until bubbles start to form (or until you're tired)
4. Meanwhile, heat the rest of the butter in a pan on medium
5. Add mixture to pan
6. Let it cook for a few minutes until the base starts to bind
7. Now stir frequently with a wooden spoon until most of the liquid (from the milk) has evaporated
8. Serve and eat with toast

Simple, good for any meal.

This was probably my first attempt at cooking. As a child, I loved eating fried eggs for breakfast, and sometimes for dinner too. I also loved pizza, and wondered if I could make a pizza on a fried egg rather than a bread base. Thus was born, the Pizza Egg.

Ingredients:

• 1 or 2 eggs
• 1 or 2 tomatoes diced
• Cocktail sausages, chopped into thin slices
• Salami, cut into strips
• Sliced cheese, cut into strips
• Salt
• Tomato Ketchup
• 1 tbsp cooking oil (your choice of oil)

Some people may want to skip the oil and use a non-stick pan, but I don't really reccommend that. It just doesn't taste the same, and you won't get an egg spitting without oil.

Keep all your ingredients ready before you start cooking. Things move really fast once you start. You may want to pre-fry the salami and sausages if you prefer.

Method:

1. Heat the oil in a frying pan, then turn the flame to low
2. Break the eggs and slide them onto the pan in quick succession
3. Add the diced tomatoes, sliced salami and sausages onto the surface of the eggs while they're still liquid.
4. Allow to fry for a till the egg sets and holds onto the meat and tomatoes.
5. Add ketchup.
6. Add cheese strips over the top, and allow to melt.
7. Turn off the flame, add salt to taste and serve.

Variations:

If you'd rather not have the yolk in a liquid state, you can do one of two things. Either flip the egg for a bit after everything has set. This can be tough since the tomatoes will start to leak. Alternately, break the yolk while adding ingredients.

If you have kids at home, try this variation on eggs. They might just love it.

The India Coffee House is a chain of coffee houses across India. I believe they started in Calcutta over a century ago and spread out from there.

This is a place that one can go to to get cheap coffee and snacks. As interns in Mumbai we used to frequent the place for lunch. In bangalore it's a good place for a bunch of friends to just hang out and chat. You get the bill even before your order arrives, but that's part of the charm of the place.

The uniform worn by the waiters hasn't changed ever, and the walls are sprinkled with old posters.

Update 2: Tried the same recipe with Almond Slivers and Pine nuts and they work just as well.

This Christmas, my dad taught me to make Macroons. They're surprisingly simple and quick to prepare and require very little practice. Here's the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 250gm powdered sugar
• 125gm broken cashew nuts
• 1tsp baking powder
• white of one egg (and perhaps a tad more)
• 1tsp vanilla essence

10 step procedure:

1. Mix the sugar and baking powder, and pass through a strainer to get rid of lumps. Break all lumps into powder. It has to be really powdery. Strain twice.
2. Pour into a bowl, add vanilla essence, and the white of one egg.
3. Mix the egg and sugar into a single mass, thick, but flowing.
4. If the mixture is too dry, add one more teaspoon of egg white.
5. Add cashew nuts, mix again.
6. Take a baking dish, place butter paper on the base, and sprinkle powder sugar to cover it completely
7. Drop 1tsp blobs at equal intervals on the butter paper, leaving space for expansion.
8. Put into a preheated oven at 165°C (330°F) for 5-7 minutes until it starts to turn brown.
9. Take the dish out, turn it around, and put it back in for another 5-7 minutes.
10. Take dish out, cool, and remove macroons from the butter paper, ready to eat.

NOTE: Do not beat up the albumen (egg white). Pour it in as it comes out off the egg.

Also known as Macaroons.

Other macroon recipes:

Coconut Macroons
Coconut Macroons
Almond Macroons

Update:
I did try coconut macroons, but my attempt flopped. Dad tried it while I was away, and his came out really well. Here's his recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1 cup self raising flour
• 1 grated coconut (not dessicated) - should not be moist
• one egg
• 1tsp vanilla essence
• nuts or raisins if desired

10 step procedure:

1. Mix the sugar and self raising flour, and pass through a strainer to get rid of lumps. Break all lumps into powder. It has to be really powdery. Strain twice.
2. Pour into a bowl, add vanilla essence
3. Beat up the egg thoroughly, and add it to the mixture.
4. Mix all egg and sugar is a single mass, thick, but flowing.
5. Add coconut, mix lightly (the coconut will leak moisture if you get too rough)
6. Add nuts and raisins if desired
7. Take a baking dish, place butter paper on the base, and sprinkle powder sugar to cover it completely
8. Drop 1tsp blobs at equal intervals on the butter paper, leaving space for expansion.
9. Put into a preheated oven at 130°C (265°F) for 20 minutes until it starts to turn brown.
10. Take dish out, cool, and remove macroons from the butter paper, ready to eat.

Note the differences: full egg, beat up, 130°C, 20 mins

Yesterday we went for dinner to a restaurant in the Hyundai dept store building. It was on the 9th floor. Had the same veg dish that we'd had on Wednesday, but this time with a fried egg on the top. The others had a kind of meat-noodle soup.

They bring this large steel bowl with a plain soup - looks like clear brown water. This is placed on a flame in the centre of the table. They then add vegetables and spices (the standard ginger-garlic paste). Then the meat is added, and finally the noodles. I guess each is added based on how much time it takes to cook. The meat is really thin slices and red when they put it in, but brown when it comes out.

It is then served into bowls.

Once done, they add a bowl of rice into whatever soup remains in the steel bowl. That's mixed around, and then they add what looked like seaweed. Finally, an egg is broken into the mixture and mixed up with it. The egg had an orange shell, and I was told that it was a chicken's egg.

It's all mixed up and served into smaller bowls. The flame is still on throughout. It tastes good, although I think the seaweed has a funny taste - I can only describe the taste as "purple" - go figure (well, if you were to take LSD, then that taste would have caused you to see the colour purple all over (and I'm in no way telling people to go take LSD)).

It was quite an interesting dinner. On the side I've been amusing various koreans with my "hangul reading ability".

Lunch was at TGIF's. The standard TGIF fare.

It was a rare day at the Tellis household today. Philip made something edible in the kitchen. Dad was making steaks and ham with mushrooms and cabbage. I decided to make Golfer's Egg. I've seen it once before in a newspaper a long time ago, and figured, hey what the heck, if I know what it looks like, maybe I can make it. I mean... it works with software right?

The Golfer's egg is basically two slices of sliced bread, with a hole cut out of one of them, and the yolk of a fried egg looking out through it.

1. Take two slices of sliced bread (don't take a pav and slice it, trust me).
2. Cut out a yolk sized hole in the centre of one of them
   (a yolk sized hole is approx. 1" in diameter)
3. Butter the insides
4. Add Jeera (Cumin seeds) and other herbs (I used a bottle of mixed herbs) (but see note below) to the buttered sides.
5. Fry both sides of both slices - use a non stick pan, and do not add any butter or oil in the pan, just let them fry in their own butter. Use a low flame - but you'll really have to figure out the frying time and flame size yourself.
   Once the bread is crisp - and you really want to figure out some way to keep it crisp, take it off, and keep it aside.
6. Now, fry the egg - try and get the yolk in the centre of the pan - it kept sliding to one edge for me. You may need to cool off the pan first to prevent the egg from sticking. Also, make sure the albumen doesn't spread out too far - you want it to fit in the bread, but if it does, don't worry, there's a trick you can use.
7. Once the egg is semi fried, ie, the bottom is firm, but the top is still wettish, place the holed out slice over the egg such that the yolk sticks through the the hole. You'll have to be careful that you don't break the yolk in this process, so try and do it as early as possible into the frying.
8. Let the egg fry as you normally would (if you don't normally fry eggs, then you probably shouldn't be starting with a golfer's
9. If you've let some of the albumen slip out from under the bread, trim it out neatly. You could use a pair of scissors, or just the spatula that you use to lift the egg off the pan with. Do this while still frying. (I've never used a pair of scissors for this). Once the trimmings of the albumen are fried, place them on the full slice of bread - you want it to be as flat as possible.
10. Give the yolk portion a little longer to fry - remember, part of it is in the bread, so it will require a while... you'll have to figure this out yourself.
11. Lift the egg with the bread off the pan and place atop the other slice.
12. And there you have it, golfer's egg

You could of course try your own variations on the herbs and spices used. I think you're supposed to put in Ginger and Garlic paste too, but not being a big fan of either, I left that out.

NOTE: You probably want to add the herbs after you're done frying, or they'll get burnt. Jeera though, is great when fried.

So, after having done all that, I served out three plates with golfer's eggs, a thick slice of ham with melted cheese, some cabbage and mushrooms.

Well, it wasn't all pretty. I started my golfer's egg with three loaves of bread because I couldn't find any sliced bread. That plan went awry without any eggs being used, but I still had a plate full of three loaves worth of sliced up bread.

No problem. Sis turned the bread into a chocolate bread pudding with almonds and raisins. Nice.

So, we had a great dinner, and I feel sleepy now.