Saturday 6 January 2018

Quesadilla- in an Indian style


Quesadilla originated in Mexico during its colonial era and over the years has spread over the world with many wonderful variations. The original Quesadilla had a soft corn tortilla, which was folded and stuffed with stringy Mexican cheese.

A very similar dish is the ‘sincronizada’ ('synchronised' in Spanish) which has meat and cheese sandwiched between two tortillas and cut into wedges, when serving. Sincronizada and Quesadilla are two different dishes, but most Mexican restaurants today serve sincronizada as a quesadilla and so do we. :)

Quesadilla has undergone various metamorphosis, as it spread from Mexico- wheat tortillas in the United States and potato pancake (lefse) in Scandinavia are quite common variations.

Like all other dishes in our menu- we too have given the humble tortilla an Indian twist. The gluten-free tortilla is made of nine whole grains and millets, namely Foxtail Millet, Proso Millet, Finger Millet, Pearl Millet, Amaranth, Yellow Sorghum, Barnyard millet, Little Millet and Red Sorghum. While the filling is a spiced up mixture of five sprouted pulses: Bengal gram, cowpea, black pea, yellow pea and green gram.

This one quesadilla provides a wholesome, gluten-free, vegan meal and will make any quesadilla proud.

Thursday 4 January 2018

Are you a Canape?



Couch potato is a term used to refer to someone who spends a lot of time on the couch, perhaps watching television or immersed in the virtual world. One of the dishes we feature on the menu of our Deli is a Multigrain Canape- the couch potato of the food world!

Canape comes from the French word for Sofa, perhaps some French chef felt that the garnish that sits on top of the bread is like a person couched on top of a sofa!

We have taken some inspiration from the couch potato and given it a zing. Our canape is made from an organic nine-grain slow baked sofa, Er! Bread, made of Yellow Sorghum, Red Sorghum, Red Rice, Buckwheat, Yellow Pea, Amaranth, Pearl Millet, Finger Millet. The garnish is made from sprouted pulses: Cowpea, Bengal gram, Green gram, Black pea and Yellow pea and flavoured with a date-raisin spread.

Just one bite- and the couch potato looks very interesting.

Monday 1 January 2018

Baking slow for good health.


A couple of posts ago, we gave a gist about how our breads are made and why it takes 48 hours to make and bake them. As promised earlier, here is the reason why we bake at low temperatures – something, we all must know if we would like to bake and eat healthy food.

Most baked products and bakers suggest that they make healthy food, simply on the basis of having used whole grains while making them. While the intentions are good, they don’t go the whole way in making it truly healthy to stake such a claim. The major reason being – the baking temperature, while most breads are baked at 180c and above, some are baked at temperatures as high as 220c- a temperature that turns a lot of healthy food into harmful ones! Here’s how…

In 2002, Swedish scientists discovered acrylamide in certain kinds of cooked food- this rang alarm bells because acrylamide is a known carcinogen. It was discovered, that cooking at high temperatures, caused a chemical reaction between certain sugars and an amino acid called asparagine, which is present in food, to form acrylamide. So what kinds of food are likely to form acrylamide- Foods that have starches, like those made from grains, vegetables and fruits. Acrylamide formation begins when food is cooked above 120 c and rapidly increases with increasing temperature. At 200c and above, the acrylamide formation reaches very high proportions, and it is the temperature at which most baking occurs.

So what do we do to make our breads safe? We use a four-pronged technique to reduce acrylamide formation.

1. The most effective method is to bake at a lower temperature- although it takes a longer time, we bake our breads at 140C/150C which is slightly above the temperature at which Acrylamide is formed- albeit at lower quantities.

2. Yeast fermentation: Studies have shown that the process of yeast fermentation degrades asparagine, a lower level of asparagine means lower levels of acrylamide.

3. High humidity during baking: High humidity during baking also retards the formation of acrylamides - we keep a water bath in our oven, to provide the necessary humidity.

4. Soaking of grains: As mentioned earlier, we soak our grains for at least twenty four hours. Soaking leeches asparagine and, lesser asparagine means reduced acrylamides.

Industry standards require that a maker disclose all ingredients in their product. However, it’s not just the ingredients, but the baking temperature too that plays a vital role in how healthy a food really is! So, the next time you eat a so-called healthy baked product, try and find out at what temperature it was baked! And if you are a home baker, bake at lower temperatures, preferably below 180c.

Ref:
1. http://centaur.vri.cz/docs/EU2011/_Keramat_AA.pdf
2. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002364380700028X
3.   https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/44133779/Fermentation_reduces_free_asparagine_in_20160326-9894-1pixh2z.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1514830333&Signature=bFxgKtwQJQ3EEC9dWMMABcw3q%2FY%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DFermentation_Reduces_Free_Asparagine_in.pdf
4. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/6c92/68f8d01556d51f643acf5bb7c3cc46cd6f18.pdf