It's time for another round of "name your favorite mixed drink, and how to make it". Or describe an outlandish, ill-considered, or random mixture and how it turned out.

Right now, I'm drinking an unnatural experiment made with odd drams to get rid of a couple of near-empties prior to moving.

2 oz. jack pine gin (freezer cold, local product, could use any botanical gin)
1 oz. peony baijiu (gift from a friend's visit to China)

Shake with ice, serve in a coupe glass with a very small amount of ice. It's good enough that I'll try making peony-infused vodka next spring.

[I don't usually enjoy mixed drinks because so many are too sweet - that's the spouse's domain. But some combinations of herbal, floral, spicy, bitter, or sour flavors work for my taste.]

Feel free to share what's working for you.

Hello hello, sorry for being a bit late recently with these, been real tired hahah. Alas, I am still keeping the tradition and making these once a week, every Friday ! It's my little escape time, anyways :P Since I missed the writeup for last week, I'll be putting both on the same post for extra goodies for the fellow readers of this !

June 5th:

this week for my curry dish I have prepared a green indian curry ! Which, frankly, I didn't know existed in this form before.... If you know me, you know there are two foods that I really hate the most when raw, those being cilantro and yoghurt. So, when my dad sent me a green curry based on cilantro and yoghurt, I was a bit skeptical at first. I mean, surely combining both of my least hated ingredients together would make for a sensory disaster ! But, to my surprise, eating this was not as much of a pain as I thought it was going to be. No no, instead of being an awful pile of green mush, it ended up being quite nice chicken with a rich and tasty green sauce on top. Honestly, one of the most confusing and fun times of my life ! Cooking it was a bit of a hassle tho, since it did smell awful for me. But it was well worth it ! :P

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/LNV3nAl
Recipe: https://www.scrambledchefs.com/classic-indian-green-curry/

June 12th:

Hello hello, sorry for being a bit late recently with these, been real tired hahah. Alas, I am still keeping the tradition and making these once a week, every Friday ! It's my little escape time, anyways :P

This week, I have prepared a dish I found on the channel Get Curried: Chicken Handi! It's a dish traditionally made in a special pan called a Handi, which I do not own! So I just used my trusty dutch oven pot. The recipe was a pretty simple curry, consisting of a mostly cream/yoghurt based sauce with a little tomato, varied spices, onion, and of course, chicken ! I think by it's own it was a pretty good recipe, but for me, what made it stand out was the fact that I used ghee for the first time in one of these. Took me 6 months to finally do it, but I bought a tub of ghee for this just to try it out. And...
Oh My God.

Ghee was an absolute game changer !!! The nutty, creamy flavour really propelled this dish into fantastic territories I didn't even know were possible ! I haven't been this ecstatic for a single ingredient in a while, but god damn. I truly believe ghee to be irreplaceable after this experience, I'll have to see if it impacts other dishes I've made a lot or not. But safe to say, this was such a great addition to my cooking ingredients. Will have to use again.

On another note, here's a little anecdote about the whole cooking process from that day. Dad and I went to buy some yoghurt to make naan (which turned out quite amazing in the end), and he saw a tub of yoghurt that was on sale. Quite cheap, too. So without hesitation, he bought it. Once we got back home, he realized it was skim yoghurt, which wouldn't make for the best naan, but it's alright anyways. Once he started kneading the dough, he soon quickly realized that he had gotten... Vanilla yoghurt. So now, we had a whole batch of sugary naan dough which would definitely not work well with our curry and no yoghurt left for anything. In retrospect that was quite funny, lol.
He did end up going for some yoghurt, though. We ended up making some pretty great naan, as I said before :P

Anyhoo, great recipe that I'd REALLY recommend doing, especially if you're using ghee! But maybe don't use too much, we made the mistake of adding a bit much, which made a really big grease pool on top, which could be unappetising. But hey, you ain't hearing me complain about it :P

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/uEi00Q9
Recipe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO0issT0Rmc
Question of the day: what foods have had a "click" in your lifetime? Perhaps something you have once hated, but then suddenly just finally understood. It's happened to me a few times, curious to see if anyone else has gotten that feeling hahahah.

Have a great day and STAY SAFE ! <3
Tomi, your friendly neighbourhood marshmallow~

hello hello dear friends !

I am here once again a little late on my curry posting this week... the whole world is just so in shambles right now! It's a bit of a heavy subject so I'll refrain from talking too much about it, but it's certainly affected me personally if I am honest. Might be a factor in why I decided for something so simple this week hahaha.

Anyways, we've got another Chana Masala this week ! Yes yes, the third week I do this recipe, and it's still quite a kicker ! This time, I used a recipe from the trusty ol' Bon Appetit, which was honestly probably the easiest one of all the ones I have made. Just put some tomatoes on some onions and add curry powder and chickpeas and BLAMO ! a delicious, hearty meal ! It's still crazy to me that such things like this exist... It took me like, what, a few minutes to dice and brown an onion ? then wait 20 minutes ? and then I get to have such a nice and happy time with my parents eating at the table together and cherishing moments together... all from something as simple as this! it really is a marvel, I tell ya.

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/MORtjiv
Recipe: https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/chana-masala
Question of the day: What is a food that you absolutely adore that is also quite healthy ?

Have a great day and STAY SAFE ! <3
Tomi, your friendly neighbourhood marshmallow~

Hello hello people ! Hope you are all doing well today :) This week, I have prepared possibly the most complex dish I have in this whole curry thing I started at the beginning of the year ! (side note, it really has been 5 months I've been making a curry dish every friday huh? that's insane hahahah) A Katsu Curry completely by scratch ! The process started on Wednesday, where I had to make a broth with a few spices, beef stock and mushrooms ! It took me a while to find some shiitake mushrooms... they always come in huuuge portions and I only needed a little bit lol. Now I have a bunch of shiitake mushrooms lyin around and I dunno what to do with them ! I guess I'll see :P After making the broth I chilled it for 2 days until friday where I started the curry prep. Curry was quite a simple dish to make, but the fun part was making katsu to go with it. Definitely a combination of flavours that go real well together ! As for the curry, it's a weird tasting thing. It definitely tastes like curry, but almost tastes like it in a branded way, you know? It's like the taste of a generic "Curry" dish. From my understanding that was kind of the point, but still, find it rather odd.. not that it's any bad though ! You can't really go wrong with curry powder :P I found that curry with calrose rice is actually quite phenomenal... calrose has such a distinct texture that it's barely even replaceable with any type of rice. Delish ! Overall, I think everything melded in together quite well and made for a real good sensory experience. I do think I could've salted the curry a little more, but my parents said it was fine so I left it as is hahahah. Definitely recommend this one if you have the patience to make a broth a few days early !

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/EwrKmqR
Recipe: https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/katsu-curry
Question of the day: What do you think is the best accompanying dish (i.e. crunchy bread, naan, rice...) ever? What do you usually have alongside your dishes?

Have a great day and STAY SAFE ! <3
Tomi, your friendly neighbourhood marshmallow~

this week's curry was a simple chicken korma recipe I made that I found on tesco foods' website, last place I'd expect to get a recipe for a curry hah. I'm quite happy with this experience because it's the first time in a while I've had significant leftovers after eating one of these, which means I totally ate less than I usually do. In fact, we had leftovers for over 2 more breakfasts left ! It makes me happy because I'm trying to lose a bit of weight out here... means I'm doing the good first step :P Anyhow, as it comes for the recipe, it was a quite simple recipe with not a lot of complexity to the spice mix. I do believe the added 'extra spices' it tells you to add at the bottom are real crucial for it to be extra delicious comparatively to what it would've been with just the main spices. One thing I did have to change tho was the usage of Chicken drumsticks instead of breasts as the recipe calls for, which ended up being alright as well. Honestly chicken dishes can pretty easily interchange the cut of chicken without it affecting the quality of the dish much, which is pretty great ! Another touch I found quite appealing was the use of toasted flaked almonds as a garnish, the crunchiness of the almonds made for a real nice textural contrast. Overall a simple dish and pretty by the books I think, but that doesn't mean it's any bad ! Def recommend if you're in the mood for something simple.

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/L7Ix8T9
Recipe: https://realfood.tesco.com/recipes/chicken-korma-curry.html

Question of the day: Any recent culinary discoveries you'd think people should know more about?

Have a great day and STAY SAFE ! <3
Tomi, your friendly neighbourhood marshmallow~

So this week I made another serious eats curry (which I actually think comes from another cook book but whatever I found it on serious eats hahahah) and it was a pretty simple chicken curry with a tomato and cream based sauce. It tastes a lot like a pseudo butter chicken made at home that I found to be quite great! Also, I might've accidentally made it a little more spicy than I imagined it would've been.. which to me is such a lovely accident! I've been liking spiciness in my food a lot more lately and I always feel underwhelmed by low hotness levels in my food.... So whenever I get to eat something super spicy it feels really great ! So, if you follow this recipe properly and make it a teeny bit spicier, I think you'll have a nice night :P overall quite the stellar recipe. I do believe it would go quite amazing with some naan which I didn't make ... So I'd recommend that too !!

Picture of the dish: http://imgur.com/gallery/3rZxujG
Recipe: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2013/08/raghavan-iyer-ultimate-chicken-curry-from-indian-cooking-unfolded.html

Question of the day: do you prefer your food spicy or not spicy?

Have a great day and STAY SAFE ! <3
Tomi, your friendly neighbourhood marshmallow~

good day Tildees ! sorry for not posting according to schedule recently... been having a hard time doing most things in my life so it's a bit easier to leave this to a side for a bit. But alas, here I am with another weekly post! I like this community a lot, so I'll try and keep posting to at least keep in touch with the people here, it's great fun :)

Anyways, today I will present two dishes I made last week: Rogan Josh and Shakshuka !

The Rogan Josh recipe had so so many spices in it! I know that's basically the whole curry gimmick lol, but it's still quite shocking. Lotsa powders n whole spices I had to put here... Which ended up making for a quite nice flavour profile ! Not sure if it's quite authentic enough or whatever, but I found it nice !

Then the shakshuka came along which honestly blew my mind. I've been eyeing shakshuka for a while, kept seeing it on a really funny advertisement I used to get often and it looked quite tasty. Obviously, seeing as there was a Kenji recipe available for it, I had to try that one out ! Very delicious end product... nice contrast between the pepper and tomato flavours ! though I like my food a little spicier usually :P I've been discovering that red chili flakes are probably my new favourite condiment hahahah.... red chili flakes and black pepper go on basically everything for me nowadays !! they're such a great flavour boost, I love em to bits.

Anyways, good recipes! I recommend them; quite simple and delicious for any meal of the week :)

Picture of Rogan Josh: https://imgur.com/a/YZ3DeX8
Rogan Josh Recipe: https://imgur.com/a/zA87PnR
Picture of Shakshuka: https://imgur.com/a/nxPa2ad
Shakshuka Recipe: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2016/09/shakshuka-north-african-shirred-eggs-tomato-pepper-recipe.html

Question of the day: Who is your favourite chef and why?

Have a great day and STAY SAFE ! <3
Tomi, your friendly neighbourhood marshmallow~

Hello, sorry for no posting Friday, got distracted with animal crossing hahahahah. I've had quite the rough week honestly, haven't felt this tired in a really long time. But I'm always happy to have a Curry dish waiting for me on Friday to make!

This week, I decided to tackle chana masala again, but with a more complex and intricate recipe! Chickpeas have always been one of my favourite ingredients, so I'm always glad to eat a dish based on them. It was quite a delicious dish, but what I was most proud of was the naan bread! It was the second time I tried making this (and this time I managed to do it all by myself). The recipe calls for grilling but I used a pan + blowtorch instead, which works quite well to be honest. It ended up being super delicious and very very similar to the taste of actual restaurant naan, which, again, makes me super happy. I think I was eating with too much happiness yesterday, my dad said I was eating a bit gross hahahah. A cool thing I found with this and last week's dish was how serious eats asks to put baking soda in the onions for them to completely disolve. Really strange technique but it's actually white genius, I should experiment with that in other dishes !

Chana masala remains one of my favourite and most comforting dishes, so I'd definitely recommend you give it a shot!

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/5dsBSl1
Chana masala recipe: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2016/04/channa-masala-recipe.html
Naan recipe: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2011/08/grilled-naan-recipe.html

Question of the day: what is your comfort food?

Have a great day <3
Tomi, your friendly neighbourhood marshmallow~

Well, it was gonna happen eventually. I was gonna take another go on butter chicken! This time, I made the "better stovetop butter chicken" recipe from serious Eats! A world renowned food blog, I definitely expected something good to come out of it. And boy, I gotta tell ya, this recipe delivered in every way possible and THEN some !! This is what I love about cooking, being able to make something so delicious out of time and love. I wouldn't change much about it, other than I did salt it a little too much, and I think some jalapeños would give such a nice and beautiful contrast to the flavours ! The last butter chicken I did had them, and I feel like they're kind of missing here as a result. Honestly a flavour combo this good shouldn't even exist, it's insane. I am still shocked at it a few hours after hahahahah. Amazing recipe, definitely worth trying out !!!!

By the way, that flatbread there isn't naan, it's a sourdough pizza dough thing my dad made that we decided to make into flatbread with garlic butter. Very non traditional, but hey, it tastes great !

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/cG6wMfq
Recipe: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2020/03/stovetop-butter-chicken.html

Question of the day: Have any of you tried dabbling in fermented foods lately? My dad and I have been trying to get a sourdough starter up and running and it’s been pretty tough, but a very fun process nonetheless hahahahah.

Have a great day <3
Tomi, your friendly neighbourhood marshmallow~

Sorry for the delay, had some personal complications recently and couldn't find the time to post this here this morning hahahahh.

I was gonna make butter chicken today, but since it's good Friday we just haaad go eat a fish dish hahah. The fish we bought ended up being very expensive, but gosh it was worth it. Probably the nicest tasting fish I've ever personally had ! Very buttery and flaky, superb taste...

The curry was pretty good too, but it was similar to a lot of the other mustard seed based curries I've eaten. My dad, however, made this thing after we finished the dish with the leftover sauce. He put a bit more tamarind water in it and let it reduce for a while, which ended up making a richer and more complex sauce that I think beats the one I ate with the fish. If you're going to make this recipe, id suggest giving that a go, maybe you'll end up liking it more !

Overall a fun dish to make, simple, and great tasting. Would've been better if a) I didn't take a nap beforehand which made me completely and utterly tired and b) the fish wasn't so expensive ahahahah.

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/0j7utl6
Recipe: https://imgur.com/a/ffHqbpP

Question of the day: are there any food traditions that you follow?

Have a great day <3
Tomi, your friendly neighbourhood marshmallow~

sorry for being a little late this late week, we started online school and I've been trying to get organized hahahahah. If you know me well you'd know I have no idea how to organize myself, so I'm trying to take the opportunity to learn a little !

Anyhow, this week's curry was Massaman curry! This marks the first time that I've decided to remake a curry, using a different recipe this time ! I got recommended the website thaifoodmaster.com by fellow reader of my curry escapades, @arghdos, and decided to give it a shot. Massaman curry was something that really shook me the first time I made it, and this was no different! It's funny how different the techniques we used in this one ended up being from the last one, but they still managed to taste very similar. Which isn't a bad thing, mind you! Still a very decadent, rich, and delicious dish that I think everyone should try. (Though a bit spicy, be careful with that. My mom was not too pleased !)

Little story time: the recipe called for charring the dried red chillies a bit before adding them to a paste, so we did that. I kid you not, for about 20 minutes after doing this, we were coughing at how spicy everything was in the room. I almost puked because of it hahahah. Fun times. (Funny how both times I made massaman I got really really spiced....). This time my dad and I decided to finally buy a decent food processor to make the paste, so it actually came out pretty smooth! I can't wait to use this processor for different recipes in the future, it's such a good feeling to finally have something that's good enough for pureeing hahah.

Overall, a great Recipe once again, that I found easier than the original one because of the techniques used being a lot less complicated. Great dish !

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/QW5k0Th
Recipe: https://thaifoodmaster.com/preparation/curry_preparation/6679#.XojiDIhKguV

Question of the day: What Culture do you think has the best food?

Have a great day <3
Tomi, your friendly neighbourhood marshmallow~

There are a million sites with postings on this theme right now, but this seems like an interesting opportunity to survey the Tildes community's collective wisdom.

I'll share one of my own pantry baking recipes to kick off - the only fresh ingredient required is eggs.

Patience Limited's Honey Cake

(based on original "Majestic and Moist Honey Cake" from smittenkitchen.com)

This is a simple, one- or two-bowl quick bread-type recipe which has a dense, cake-like crumb. (I highly recommend using a kitchen scale for faster and more uniform results, but it's a forgiving recipe if you measure instead.)

It can be eaten alone like a sweet bread if baked in loaf pans, or used as layers for other desserts if baked in loaf or sheet pans. The recipe is so versatile that it can also be easily scaled up or down, and portioned as mini-loaves or cupcakes with appropriate adjustments to cooking time.

This honey cake recipe is fantastic by itself with a cup of coffee in the morning, and will keep for days if lightly wrapped.

[Not gluten-free, but contains no nuts if optional almond topping is omitted, and is vegetarian and kosher.]

3 1/2 cups (440 grams) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon (5 grams) baking powder
1 teaspoon (5 grams) baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
4 teaspoons (about 8 grams) ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon cardamom powder
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger powder
1 cup (235 ml) vegetable oil
1 cup (340 grams) honey
1 cup (300 grams) granulated sugar
1/2 cup (95 grams) brown sugar
4 large eggs at room temperature
1 teaspoon (5 ml) vanilla extract
1 cup warm (235 ml) coffee or strong tea
1/4 cup (60 ml) rye, whiskey, or rum
1/2 cup (45 to 55 grams) slivered or sliced almonds (optional)

Fits in three loaf pans, two 9-inch square or round cake pans, one 9 or 10 inch tube or bundt cake pan, or one 9 by 13 inch sheet cake.

[I make my batch in two full-size 9" x 5" x 3" loaf pans (8 cups each), and it makes two perfect loaves.]

Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Generously grease pan(s) with non-stick cooking spray. For tube or angel food pans, line the bottom with lightly greased parchment paper, cut to fit.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, cardamom, and ginger. Make a well in the center, and add oil, honey, white sugar, brown sugars, eggs, vanilla, coffee or tea, orange juice and rye or whiskey, if using. (If you measure your oil before the honey, it will be easier to get all of the honey out.)

Using a strong wire whisk or in an electric mixer on slow speed, stir together well to make a thick, well-blended batter, making sure that no ingredients are stuck to the bottom.

Spoon batter into prepared pan(s). Sprinkle top of cake(s) evenly with almonds, if using. Place cake pan(s) on two baking sheets, stacked together (this will ensure the cakes bake properly with the bottom baking faster than the cake interior and top).

Bake until cake tests done, that is, it springs back when you gently touch the cake center. For angel and tube cake pans, this will take 60 to 75 minutes, loaf cakes, about 45 to 55 minutes. For sheet style cakes, baking time is 40 to 45 minutes.

Let cake stand fifteen minutes before removing from pan.

I went today to the store to buy some chicken and coconut for this recipe and, man, does it feel unreal to have to wait in line to even get into something like a Maxi! it makes perfect sense, but it just feels so unreal still hahahah. Today I have cooked up a little Chicken Pepper Fry, which is, among other things, another very simple dish that could be made in any weeknight, though it isn't as easy as something like last week's chana masala. Ended up tasting a lot like Curry leaves and less like coconut, which I am not complaining about! Curry leaves are awesome. I do think this was missing some sort of punch, though. Felt a bit same-y to a lot of the other recipes I had made previously. But still, very hearty and delish nonetheless :P

Also, I'm thinking of using other sources for Curry recipes in the future, so be on the look out for that!

Picture of the Dish: https://imgur.com/a/dlbOIwA
Recipe: https://imgur.com/a/ENWAnGE

Question of the day: How has the recent COVID-19 pandemic, if at all, modified the way you eat on a daily basis?

Have a great day <3
Tomi, your friendly neighbourhood marshmallow~