Bowled over by Biryani

You've probably tasted it many times, but never quite like this. Take a journey to Dindigul, near Madurai, which has earned itself the moniker of Biryani City and dig into some sinful soul food.

"See? No oil!" This was followed seconds after a spoonful of biryani was dramatically dunked into a transparent glass full of water. I was startled and transfixed in equal parts. Startled because it was totally unexpected and transfixed because it is a surreal sight to watch grains of biryani making their way through water. As the grains and spices slowly sank to the bottom, the surface of the water was surprisingly clear and the expected film of grease failed to appear. A triumphant look, mixed with pride, swept across Prabhakar's face, the visual equivalent of 'I told you so'. As demos went, it was certainly fascinating. The test, Prabhakar painstakingly explained, proved that only quality ingredients were used and the biryani was slow-cooked to allow the grains to completely absorb everything--ghee, spices and flavours of the meat. I could only nod in stupefaction, partly in acquiescence and partly because I was so blissfully overdosing on the most glorious biryani.

But Prabhakar was not done yet. He carefully laid a large, fresh banana leaf on the table and then proceeded to drop some biryani on it. The grains plopped on the leaf with a dull sound, separate and all of them uniformly glistening brown in colour. "The grains stay separate only if it is slow-cooked and the method is correct," he explained. He should know. A third generation restaurateur belonging to Dindigul's Ponram Biriyani Hotel brand, Prabhakar grew up learning to make it at his father and grandfather's knees at the restaurant started by the latter almost four decades ago. He continues to follow the recipe which belonged to his grandmother and is a zealously guarded secret. 

So popular is the dish that Ponram has opened many branches in town and a couple of other places, but never too far away. "I need to be able to go and check from time to time; quality is everything," he said. In fact, Prabhakar's family is among a handful that has helped Dindigul, an otherwise nondescript town 60 km north of Madurai, attain the moniker of Biryani City, where people travel from nearby towns just for some taste of some sinful biryani. 

Predictably, the recipes are age-old. The methods are old too: the biryani is cooked over firewood and red hot coals are heaped on top, such that there is heat from both sides. Each batch takes almost three hours, but sells out within minutes. And it was not difficult to see why. Unlike the biryanis of the North, South Indian biryanis tend to have a more robust flavour. So too with this. It was mild brown in colour and slightly spicy, but not so much as to be overwhelming. The rice (called jeera samba, a kind of aromatic small grain rice grown in Tamil Nadu) was packed with flavour and the meat, mutton in this case, was tender, falling off the bones and melting on the tongue. Both are cooked in a special kind of ghee that Prabhakar sources locally and monitors strictly for quality. And despite the ghee, there was none of the heaviness that one would expect. A fact that came home to me as I tucked in gleefully, enjoying the meal. 

Meanwhile, Prabhakar tried to entice me to try some of the other non-vegetarian dishes popular at the restaurant such as mutton fry, chicken curry, keema (minced lamb) fry, which I did. On their own, they were good, but they didn't quite measure up to the biryani. For vegetarians, the eatery dishes up a Tamilian thali with rasam, sambhar, vegetables and curries, and which my companion assured me was quite tasty and fulfilling. I took his word for it; it seemed almost too criminal to dilute the taste of the biryani with anything else right now.

I was amused by this notion since I had happily gorged on vegetarian stuff less than five hours earlier in the day. Having arrived in Madurai the previous night, I had headed to Konar Kadai near the railway station. A nondescript eatery, it was buzzing with people, always a good sign. After a bit of waiting, I tucked into one of Madurai's specialities, kari dosa. It involved a spicy dry curry of minced lamb and fresh broken egg encased in a soft but firm dosa. 

It was delicious, as was the egg dosa. From there, I headed to the bus stand, to one of the pushcarts, to try one other Madurai delicacy--kothu parota. Fussy eaters might balk at having to eat at the roadside stalls, but locals insist that's where you get the best variety. Besides, they were clean and everything was made fresh in front of you. At its simplest, kothu parota means a layered maida paratha which is minced on a griddle and sauteed along with onions, tomatoes and spices, and whatever other accompaniments you may want to choose such as egg, chicken or mutton. I chose chicken and the concoction was an explosion of flavours and textures that lingered long after I had reached my hotel for the night. 

Early this morning, I decided on a quick visit to the sprawling Meenakshi temple complex in time for the Suprabhatham. Spread over 60,000 sq mts, comprising 12 gopurams, exquisite pillars, carvings, sculptures depicting various stories and incidents from the Puranas and epics, intriguing ceiling art, and a stunning edifice called the 1,000 Pillar Hall, it is a mesmerising place full of assorted sounds and myriad colours. Having worked up an appetite for breakfast, I headed to another of Madurai's institutions--Murugan Idli Shop on Westmasi street. Started more than 40 years ago, the place is always crowded. I had to battle myself in and managed to find a seat, and then launched into the idlis. With the very first bite, I knew why fans swear by the restaurant. Delicate and soft, there was just a hint of the urad dal and methi seeds in the idli, and it completely dissolved on the tongue. I was spoilt for choice in terms of accompaniments: a plate of idlis came with four kinds of chutneys--coconut, coriander, mint and tomato-and sambhar. I wolfed down four idlis without realising it, such was its lightness. Enthused by the blissfully beatific look on my face, the waiter suggested I try one of the dosas or uthappams, but I regretfully declined. I was too full from the goodness of the idlis and didn't want to mess with its taste. Besides which, I wanted to be adequately prepared for the biryani at Dindigul.

Now that I had tasted the biryani, I was glad to have left it for last. The idlis had been superb, the kari dosa and kothu parota had no peers, but the biryani was almost nirvana-like. I am sure Freud will have a field day with this: I even occasionally dream about the biryani and I swear I wake up with its taste on my tongue.

What to eat
Biryani at Dindigul, Ponram Biriyani Hotel, 32/33, Opp Canara Bank, Salai Road; tel: (0451) 244 1003
Idlis and dosas at Murugan Idli Shop, 196, Westmasi Street, Madurai; tel: (0452) 234 1379
Kari dosa/egg dosa at Konar Kadai, 32, West Veli Street, near Railway Station, Madurai

That's a lot of biryani!
On a typical day, Ponram Biriyani Hotel dishes out 500-750 portions of biryani, with mutton biryani being the most popular. It uses 150 kg rice, 120 kg mutton, 15 kg ghee, 1 kg each of cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, garlic and kg cloves to produce its lip-smacking signature biryani.

 

Worlds Largest Fish Crab Cake 2008 Guinness World Record

Worlds Largest Fish Crab Cake 2008 Guinness World Record

Handy International's Jim Cupp (left), the chief architect of the record-holding crab cake, serves up the test crab cake to co-worker Jay Invancic as Howard Hammond watches.

The World's Largest Fish (Crab) cake.

Sort of leaves a bad taste in the mouth, doesn't it?

"Hey, we don't make fish cakes. We make crab cakes. But I'll take it for now until I can convince them to call it a crab cake," says Jim Cupp, regional sales manager for Handy International and the chief architect of the world's largest crab cake.

After more than a year of waiting, Handy International, the Crisfield seafood-processing company, is the proud co-owner of a Guinness World Records' certificate that finally designates a Maryland- Delaware culinary creation to be the largest crab - eh, fish - cake in the history of such endeavors. Stop the presses and pass the Old Bay.


And it's about time, by the way. The honor took a lot longer to make than the crab cake itself. But genius often has to wait to take its rightful place among, in this case, the likes of the world's largest omelette, slab of fudge, stir-fry and tiramisu.

The story of the Great Crab Cake begins in October 2006 at the Diamond State BBQ Championship held at the Dover Downs Hotel & Casino in Delaware. Cooked up by Dover Downs, the idea was to make the world's largest crab cake because, well, it had never been done and it was National Seafood Week, after all. The communal meal would call for the usual ingredients, an unusual cooking apparatus and a statewide appetite.

Cupp, a man on a promotional mission, went to work on the project. Days before the Oct. 21 event at Dover Downs, Cupp oversaw two, 235-pound crab cake tests conducted at Handy's Crisfield plant. The colossal cakes passed the taste test.

It was go time. For the Dover Downs event, Cupp built a $10,000, three-foot rotisserie pan to hold the recipe, which required 152 pounds of crab- meat plus breadcrumbs, mayonnaise, onions and pasteurized eggs. Cupp joined forces with Dover's hotel chef, Fred Bohn, and together they cooked the 235-pound crab cake over an open flame for a mere nine hours (originally 236 pounds, the crab cake lost a pound in cooking shrinkage).

In order to follow Guinness' rules for authenticity, the event was videotaped, and Delaware's health department was on hand to certify cleanliness and edibility.

The flattened disk - resembling more of a mutant quiche - finally emerged from what could be described as an unappetizing industrial pan. Would the crab cake be dry as toast? Would it besmirch the proud name of crab cakes everywhere?

Nah. The crab cake was roundly admired before it was carved up into 600 sandwiches. Which were eaten. Completely.

"You would expect it to be dry, but it was very moist. We were blown away by the taste," says George Fiorile, vice president and general manager of hotel operations. Thus, the man had early first dibs.

"The flavor profile was terrific."

Flavor profile?

"That's what we use in the industry."

In other words, it was real good eating.

The memory of a truly jumbo crab cake needed to be savored. So, armed with videotape evidence and official verification, Cupp turned to the only player that matters when it comes to world records.

But, as it turned out, London-based Guinness World Records didn't have a category for crab cakes. (What do Brits know about Maryland blue crabs anyway?) But the company did have a "fish cake" category. As unsavory as that sounded to Cupp or any honorable Marylander, Cupp pursued the Guinness record.

He nagged and e-mailed, until last week the powers that are Guinness formally (sort of) recognized the Mid-Atlantic specialty. The embossed certificate hanging in his office reads, in part: "The largest fishcake weighed 106.59 kilograms (235 pounds) and was made by Handy International in conjunction with Dover Downs Hotel & Casino on Oct. 21, 2006."

Not exactly the Nobel Peace Prize, but still pretty cool - except for those words again: fish cake.

"I think they took the path of least resistance and lumped the crab cake up into the fish category," Cupp said. If it was any consolation (and it is), the Handy-Dover crab cake beat a reported existing fish cake record of 55 pounds.

Meanwhile at Dover Downs, the other proud parents also hung up their sealed and embossed Guinness certificate for the world's largest fish cake last week.

"Hey, whatever gets us in the book," says Dover spokeswoman Lisa Butler.

Not so fast.

Cupp says the certificate does not say anything about the record going into one of the famous annual Guinness books. It just means they have the record; it just means, for now, they have two pieces of paper hanging in offices. And that will not do. Cupp plans to research what it will take to have the record in a Guinness book.

"I'm working on that," he says

News Source : baltimoresun.com

  Powerful Fish, World's Largest, Recipes, Guiness Records,

World’s Biggest BBQ

The world’s biggest BBQ is now British. At over 16ft long, 4.9ft wide and 11.5ft tall this ‘God-grilla’ can cook over 1000 sausages or 500 burgers at the same time.

Jack Henriques, an engineer who runs the Bespoke BBQ Company, took three months to build this behemoth. The ‘God-grilla’ has seven coal trays attached to Jack’s trademark scissor-jack system, helping to raise and lower the grills without having to move the meat.

This bespoke barbecue can roast the inhabitants of a small farm in an afternoon. It can cook seven whole lambs, three pigs or two cows in any one sitting. So it’s perfect for performing it’s current job of catering for wedding and party guests at Cripps Barn in the Cotswolds.

If you want to impress your friends with one of these giants there are a few things to consider:
• ‘God-grilla’ costs £10,000
• The BBQ needs three chefs when running at full capacity
• It requires 14 bags of charcoal to get started
• The coals generate temperatures of 500 degrees centigrade
• This two tonne barbecue is not designed for most home patios
So if you have the cash, the manpower, a lot of charcoal, the space and a lot of hungry friends then this is the grill for you.
There are other monster barbecues including the larger truck BBQ in Texas, but it’s considered to be ‘a smoker’ rather than a traditional fixed charcoal BBQ. So for now Jack Henriques is the proud creator of a record breaking barbecue.
Source

McDonald's Happy Meal Don’t Age Even After 137 Days

New York based artist Sally Davies has been photographing one McDonald’s burger-and-fries Happy Meal, that she bought on April 10, 2010, every day for the last 137 days. Other than a little patty shrinkage, the burger look essentially the same.

Davies plans to keep going with the project until something happens, but she has no idea what she is getting into. A few years ago, a twelve-year-old McDonald's burger surfaced that looked shockingly well-preserved. Again, earlier this year, a blogger left a McDonald Happy Meal exposed for a year and found it mostly unchanged. Sally Davies experiment is the closest thing we’ve seen to transparent scientific documentation on the subject, and provides terrifying evidence that McDonald’s burgers are worst possible thing you can put in your body.

According to McDonald’s website, the only ingredients in the McDonald’s beef patty are “100% pure USDA inspected beef; no fillers, no extenders. Prepared with grill seasoning (salt, black pepper).” The buns do, however, contain the preservatives sodium and calcium propionate, and McDonald’s French fries contain citric acid and tert-Butylhydroquinone as preservatives. However, we do believe, that there are some terrible preservatives in that thing that could keep it so well preserved for years.









There are other evidences of McDonald’s indestructible burgers. University of Nottingham chemistry professor Martyn Poliakoff dunk the whole thing in a vat of concentrated hydrochloric acid. Hydrochloric acid, as you must know, contains in every person’s stomach and helps in breaking down of the food molecules. The hydrochloric acid in the stomach is very diluted. But see what happens when you put the burger in concentrated hydrochloric acid.

Top 10 Most Disturbing Delicacies On Earth

10. Kopi Luwak

There is no beating around the bush on this one – Kopi Luwak are coffee beans that come from Civet (a cat sized mamal) poo. The animals gorge on only the finest the ripe berries, and excrete the partially-digested beans, which are then harvested for sale. Kopi Luwak is the most expensive coffee in the world, selling for between $120 and $600 USD per pound, and is sold mainly in Japan and United States, but it is increasingly becoming available elsewhere. The beans are washed, and given only a light roast so as to not destroy the complex flavors that develop through the process.

9. Ox Penis

In Western countries, Ox Penis is usually dried and sold as dog treats, but in many Oriental nations, they are commonly eaten by humans. The penis is generally cooked by steaming or deep frying, and can also be eaten raw. Some westerners compare the tastes of some penises with overcooked squid.

8. Bird Spit

The nests in question here are produced by a variety of Swifts, specifically Cave Swifts who produce the nest by spitting a chemical compound that hardens in the air. The nests are considered a delicacy in China and are one of the most expensive animal products consumed by humans. It is generally served as a soup but can also be used as a sweet. When combined with water, the hard nests take on a gelatinous texture. This is one that I have eaten myself, on a trip to Hong Kong and I included it on the list of Top 10 Luxury Foods. My experience of the nest was that it tasted slightly musty and had the texture of snot. It is probably the only pudding in my life that I could not finish!

7. Caterpilla Fungus

Image from Weirdmeat.com

Caterpilla Fungus is a species of parasitic fungus that grows on insect larvae. The fungus invades the body of the Thitarodes caterpillars, eventually killing and mummifying it. The dark brown to black fruiting body (or mushroom) emerges from the ground in spring or early summer, always growing out of the forehead of the caterpillar. The fungus is commonly used as a Chinese or Tibetan medicine where it is used as an aphrodisiac and as a treatment for a variety of ailments, from fatigue to cancer. It is also served in soup (as you can see in the image above).

6. Rats

Rats are surprisingly common food in some parts of the world. In North Korea they are eaten because there is often little else to eat in the villages. They are generally field rats rather than the city rats that most of us are familiar with. They are described as being tough and stringly with a taste like chicken (surprise!) Recently Reuters had this to say:

    Live rats are being trucked from central China, suffering a plague of a reported 2 billion rodents displaced by a flooded lake, to the south to end up in restaurant dishes, Chinese media reported.

5. Monkeys Brains

This is disgusting primarily because of the very high risk of contracting fatal transmissible spongiform encephalopathies such as Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and other similar brain diseases. In parts of China, the monkey’s brain is eaten raw. While it is most likely an urban legend1, some people claim that monkeys’ brains are, or were, eaten from the head of a live monkey. Here is a common description:

    The monkey’s head was supported by its neck in a bracket, two pieces of wood with a semicircular hole on each side such that when you put them together, they form a complete circle around the animal’s neck, allowing the head to be exposed above the plank. The hair around the head is shaven with a shaving razor. A small chisel and a hammer is used to quickly chisel a circle around the crown, and the top part of the skull is removed. A teaspoon is used to scoop up the brain, which is immediately eaten. This has to be done before the monkey dies.

And here is an article from The Straight Dope talking about this alleged practice.

4. Spiders

Image from Weirdmeat.com

These spiders from Skuon in Cambodia are similar to North American Tarantulas. They are bred in holes in the ground especially for eating and are deep fried. The texture is described as crispy-chewy and some say it tastes similar to crab. Like Tarantulas, these spiders can bite. They were a regular survival food of the Khmer Rouge. The photograph above is an actual photo of one of the spiders ready to be eaten. Here is a rather unfortunate description by Michael on Weirdmeat:

    The taste itself is not strong, it’s the cripsy-chewy texture that is most appealing. Make sure you have some paper napkins, as the black juice from these is greasy and it doesn’t look good on your goatee.

(I had to write this item with my eyes closed.)

3. Bee Larvae

Bee Larvae is eaten in China and Japan (where it is called hachinoko). Hachinoko became popular years ago when country people, deprived of fish and meats, turned to other wildlife in search of protein. The larvae are cooked in soy sauce and sugar and taste mildly sweet with a crumbly texture. These days, it is mainly a nostalgia item at parties. It makes a grand entrance in the festivities, and the older folks grin with expectation. The actual task of eating hachinoko, however, is not nearly so exciting.

2. Balut – Duck Fetus

Balut is a fertilized duck egg with a nearly-developed embryo inside that is boiled and eaten in the shell. They are considered delicacies of Asia and especially the Philippines, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Popularly believed to be an aphrodisiac and considered a high-protein, hearty snack, balut are mostly sold by street vendors at night in the regions where they are available. They are often served with beer. Michael, from WeirdMeat, describes the experience thus:

    After you choose what kind you want, the vendor grabs them piping hot from the basket and passes you a little stool, salt, and a vinegar-onion sauce. You hold the hot egg and flick carefully but forcefully at the top of it with your middle finger. It cracks a bit and you gently remove a small hole from the top, so you can sip the savory broth before removing the whole shell. I agree that the 18-day one is better than the younger ones. You might come across some small chunkies but it’s usually just eaten all the way through, in about 3 mouthful bites. You can see feathers, head, wings, and skeleton forming, but it’s basically an extra-chewy easter egg.

Fertilized duck eggs are kept warm in the sun and stored in baskets to retain warmth. After nine days, the eggs are held to a light to reveal the embryo inside. Approximately eight days later the balut are ready to be cooked, sold, and eaten.

1. Snake Blood and Bile

This is less a food than a medicine, but it is so disgusting that it warrants a place on the list. In Central Jakarta, a man who calls himself the Cobra man specializes in preparing blood and bile for medicinal uses. Typically, he cuts off the head and drains the blood into a glass of arrack. He adds the bile and serves the drink as a treatment for respiratory ailments, skin problems, aches or indigestion. It is also said to improve a man’s stamina and sex life. Drinking the blood straight from a snake can also be done as an act of bravery or manliness. In defense of the blood eaters, I should remind everyone that pigs blood is very commonly eaten in most European nations in the form of black pudding or blood sausage.