Lemon Tree - Yet another Asian place

I had been eyeing this opening for a while and yet one fine day, without my notice, lemon tree opened it's doors. Yet another newcomer on Cedar Street aka restaurant row, in Dobbs Ferry. Well, a good choice at lunchtime I went over to try it. True to its name the restaurant has a crisp cheery decor, the yellow walls and nice sunny linen help to uplift the spirits,

The menu is at first first blush not very different from your usual asian fusian place, what is interesting about this one is that it does have a few different sushi items such as the Dobbs Ferry Roll and some Malaysian items in addition to Thai offering that find their place with the Japenese and Chinese offerings.

I ordered the Malaysian Red Curry - which was simply amazing no so much the actual curry but the lovely assortment of vegetables that accompanies the chicken and soft flavorful tofu in the curry. They even had baby okra. An unexpected tiny spring roll came with this selection, which they really should have left out. This item tasted stale and re-fried not what you look for in a spring roll.

Also had a nice plate of Goyza! My general 2 cents, if one is in the area it certain makes an interesting choice and worth trying out, I would not go cross county for it!

The Co-Ordinates

27 Cedar St

Dobbs Ferry,

NY 10522-1711

(914) 591-7088

A simple fish curry

It has been busy the past few weeks with all kinds of things going on. I have also been somewhat under weather - nasty cough and flu. I get particularly sad when this extends to the weekends.

Folks, some weeks I live for the weekends, it really is rough when I hack and cough into my precious saturday sleeping.

I made a simple fish curry earlier in the week, with acorn squash the only little time I spent was in browning the onions.

Ingredients

3-4 tablespoons oil
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon nigella seeds
1 teaspoon grated ginger
1 onion, coarsely chopped
1 teaspoon cumin powder
1 teaspoon coriander powder
1 -2 green chillies, slit
1 cup finely cubed acrorn squash
1 teaspoon salt
1 lbs fish (I used tilapia - rubbed in turmeric and salt)
1 lemon
1/3 cup water
1-2 teaspoons cilantro

Method of preparation

1. Heat the oil and add the cumin and nigella seeds.
2. Add in the ginger and the onion and cook on medium heat stirring frequently for about 10 minutes until the onion is soft, wilted and nicely golden on the edges.
3. Stir in the cumin powder, coriander powder, chilies and the fish in a single layer and cook for 2-3 mintues.
4. Turn once, cut the lemon, lemon the seeds and squeeze the lime juice and add the water and simmer for about 15 minutes.
5. Stir in the cilantro and eat with rice.


In the meantime, we went to watch the NYC marathon, yes, dear brother was running! Kids did the subway - as you can see very excited.

Fall brightens the sky and the view and we look on to another week.

An ungodly hour - a simple recipe

I am actually uploading some really nice pictures my brother has taken of his current trip to the east coast. I am up waiting while flick uploads the pictures, in bars of pink! I was around today. I took Aadi for a check to the immunologist. I was a little sad to see, how excited he was at the prospect of being taken to the doctor by me. Usually, dad does this. Well, such is life...

This morning I was really feeling on top of my act, because I woke up in time to make a good breakfast for all of us (we were all at home, but I tend to sleep in on Saturdays!), until I saw what my daughter had scribbled while I was making breakfast. LOL!

It read, " On Saturday, I went trick or treating! Mas is taking so long to get my eggs ready. Aadi is eating his rewards!Ma gave me my egg now, I don't have a spoon with my egg, I have a fork"

Gosh, tough crowd. Well, I made this fairly straighforward paneer recipe a couple of weeks back, try it!

Paneer Manoranjan - Indian cheese with mushrooms

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes

Serves 4

Ingredients

1 tablespoons oil

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

1/8 teaspoon asafetida

1 cup diced tomatoes (I used a mixture of red and green)

1 teaspoon red chili powder

1 teaspoon tandoori masala

1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger

1 lbs paneer, cut into cubes

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon chaat masala

1 tablespoon ghee or butter

1/2 cup diced portabella mushroom

Cilantro to garnish

Method of Preparation

1. Heat the oil and add the cumin seeds and wait for the seeds to sizzle. Stir in the asafetida.

2. Add in the tomatoes, chili powder and tandoori masala and the ginger and saute for 20 seconds.

3. Stir in the paneer and salt and cook for 10 minutes.

4. Stir in the chat masala.

5. In a separate pan, heat the ghee and add the mushroom and saute for 2-3 minutes.

6. Mix into the paneer and garnish with cilantro and serve.

Warm and Comforting - The best crossiant!

A lot of chunks of life can be just mundane, to beat it we all need to find spots that cheer us up in simple peaceful ways, add something special just by being there. A place that I like to stop at if I can is at this lovely french wine bar and restaurant. I have been there on occasion for brunch, but what makes my day is the wonderful cafe au lait and their fresh baked crossiants!

They make these sometime around 10am on weekends and they are gone within an hour or so..

WE
En route to errants, I like to stop by take 15-30 minutes to myself and relax. The place is exceedingly peaceful before the lunchtime crowd starts and does get pretty full before that. I had recently stopped by the day before halloween a day that seemed to be crazy to say the least. I was running around co-ordinating royal outfits, prepping for a food demo and in general going a little crazy...

However, the lovely smooth creamy cafe au lait hit the spot! They still did not have their regular crossiants, I needed little persuasion to try their moist buttery, gooey almond crossiant...


It fortified me with enough calories and caffiene to tackle the rest of the wonderful fall day that I

was going to spend braving the crowds in the preparation for our annual ode to the sugar industry! We even make sure that we dress the little ones for the occasion to celebrate the sugar high!

Ok! Ok!, while I am not big on the candy part of things and do clean out most of the junk that they collect, I love the dress up and the hoopla of halloween! This year, the greatest fun was dressing up my son, who really feels jewelery deprived. Yes, if he had his way he would wear it all. Well, this halloween, we decided that he could be a prince who could actually ransack my necklaces.

Beads and bead and a fake tiarra from his sister is what completed his day!

As an Indian princess, all I needed to do is to get a veil and place it securely over my head with a bright big fake crown! My brother was over from West coast to join the funfare and all in all we all had a good fun day, now onto thanksgiving!

Chiboust

14 main street

tarrytown, ny

914 703 6550

http://www.chiboust.com

Gulab Jamuns - Cheese and evaporated milk balls in syrup

These golden globes of joy are a common presentation in almost any Indian restaurant menu. In fact, even my son knows this dessert by name. I made these for Diwali and tried them again using this recipe.

I pretty much stuck to the recipe without any modifications, I did elimate the cardamoms from the syrup. I patiently made the khoya cooking down 1/2 gallon of milk. The results were really luscious.

Now, I also make a variation which is my mothers in laws recipe where she makes the balls with a proportion of 1/3 paneer to 2/3 khoya and adds just a little flour to bind.

All were happy and let me send this over just a little late to the ICC.

Green Tomato Chicken

I don't know if like us you have a plethora of green and semi ripe tomatoes, but we have had loads and loads of these semi-ripe orange and crisp hard green gems. I have been playing around with the green ones like there is no tomorrow.

Surely, I thought there is more one can do with green tomatoes than jam and fried green tomatoes. I did make both, I have to confess I was not super thrilled about my results with the fried version.

Well, this chicken was really nice... Spicy, tangy and just perfect for a cool, crisp fall day!

So, here is how I did it.

Green Tomato Chicken

Prep Time: 1 hour (mostly marinating)

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

For the marinade

2 lbs chicken on the bone, skinned and cut into pieces (I used 2 cornish hens)

1 teaspoon red chili pepper

1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 lemon, sliced

For the gravy

3-4 pods garlic

2 green tomatoes

1 firm red tomato

1 -inch piece ginger

2 green chilies

3 tablespoons oil

1 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds

1 onion, thinly sliced

8-10 curry leaves

2-3 tablespoons chopped cilantro

Method of Preparation

1. Place the chicken in a large container. Rub evenly with the dry spices, squeeze the lemon juice and set aside for an hour.

2. Heat the oil and add the cumin and mustard seeds. When the mustard seeds begin to pop, add in the onion and saute for 2-3 minutes.

2. Grind the tomatoes, garlic, ginger and chillies to a paste.

3. Add in the tomato mixture and the chicken and now continue cooking this on medium heat for a good 20 minutes. The spices meld and soften, the tomatoes become a nice thick gravy with shards of carmelized onions.

4. Add in the curry leaves and cook for 5-6 minutes.

5. Stir in the cilantro and serve and enjoy as appropriate.

Comforting Flavors - feels like home!

This post has been sitting in the drafts, along with several other recent eating forrays that we/I have had. However, time to bring this out of the woodwork!

Well, I used to love the tiny shacklike comfort diner, in fact, in better times I used to frequent it constantly. It took me sometime to realize that this is now, Comfort Restaurant.

Committed to serving organic healthy homey food, this place is wonderful, if you are feeling a little low and want the taste of good home-cooked food. Just like how, I have been feeling. The place is best with simple dishes like their lovely asian spiced chicken, pan sauteed brocolli, fish sandwich.

Things like their desserts are just too much on the healthy side to make their impact. Overall, highly recomended as a place with kids!