food and coffee pairing session with Bonhomia and a recipe of apple peach walnut salad with home made feta cheese

Coffee and food pairing sessions make sense if you are someone who likes entertaining with a lot of coffee being served. I would probably have one shot of coffee during a meal or snacking session with friends, but when you are to learn the intricacies of coffee, you got to gulp down a lot of caffeine in one sitting. I was ready to take this caffeine assault greedily when Bonhomia hosted a coffee and food paring session at Le Bistro du Parc.

Le Bistro du Parc is a standalone French bistro located at the edge of a park in Moolchand market, a nice place to sit and relax while dining with the company of old trees. The bistro, founded by Naina de Bois-Juzan serves French cuisine using locally grown seasonal ingredients, not too difficult as we are growing almost everything now. The fresh ingredients make a difference and that is evident at Le Bistro du Park, of course I could witness the finesse with which the ingredients were handled too. More about that later.

Bonhomia is a premium brand of coffee that makes coffee blends packaged in capsules compatible to Nespresso machines, the coffee blend capsules are made for a single shot of coffee and are packaged in boxes of 10 capsules each. Now that is a convenient way to enjoy great coffee in the comfort of home. Coffee that gives a perfect crema, as I had learned with Illy coffee master barista Nicola Scognamiglio from Italy.

The coffee blends that go by the names like 'Free love', 'Dark deeds', 'Black viel' and 'Vanilla artisan' are blended creatively. Mr. Tuhin Jain (CMO, Bonhomia) introduced us to the nuances of Bonhomia coffee blends and that these are all sourced from high altitude coffee plantation of south of India. Mr Kunal Bhagat joined us later and discussed how these capsules of coffee are made locally using the best coffee beans.

A Tomato tartar prepped with lime juice, esplette pepper and basil wrapped in a pickled ribbon of radish was served in dainty portions along with the blend Free love. The freshness of the salad bites fits well with a medium strength espresso shot.

Next was garlic bread topped with baby romaine folded around goat cheese, sun dried tomato and radish microgreens paired with Dark deeds served as Americano. Sharp edgy flavours raising the bar to a stronger full bodied coffee blend.

Next came dainty bites of stuffed puff pastry with olive tapenade and confit peppers paired with Black veil, the most potent coffee blend of the day. It was served as cappuccino but I tried the espresso shot too and it is indeed a very robust coffee blend.

The dessert platter had an assortment of miniature almond financiers, lemon Madeleine, crisp meringues and pistachio tuiles with some fresh fruit bites. Vanilla artisan blend served as macchiato is perfect with dessert and the pairing was received well.

Now it was a lot of caffeine in my bloodstream. The food was beautifully done, the dainty lemon Madeleine proved that the French bistro is worth it's salt. The finesse in every little detail is very evident, the taste hits the spot perfectly.

And then I had to make the next meal that could hydrate me and be filling at the same time. I made this apple peach walnut salad with home made feta cheese and home grown rucola greens. Nothing could have served the purpose that day. The salad was so good it got repeated for the weekend breakfast too. Yes we do eat unconventional things for our meals.

Home made feta cheese makes so much sense for me, the reason being I love the creamy feta so much and the packaged feta is just too expensive. So I have to do the effort of making feta, it takes some time but I try and make large batches and refrigerate for about 2 weeks. Will share the recipe of feta cheese sometime soon. Have not been able to photograph the process for the purpose.

The dressing... whisk everything together

balsamic vinegar 2 tbsp
lime juice 1 tsp
brown sugar 2 tsp
salt and pepper to taste
crushed walnuts 2 tsp or walnut oil few drops

Chop one large green apple and 4-5 small peaches. The Himachal green peaches are starting to come right now and I love the complex flavours they pack. Chop about 15 walnuts halves and mix with the cut fruits. Tear a handful of rucola leaves and add. Drizzle the dressing and toss the salad.

Serve immediately topped with as much feta cheese as you want. We had kept some feta cheese on the side too and kept digging the fork to pick up the creamy cubes of goodness.

This apple peach walnut salad will be really great for a summer menu, especially during day time. If you chop the fruits a bit smaller the salad can be served over garlic bread too. But we eat breads very occasionally so the large bowl of this salad will be good any time. Check out another Peach and feta salad to see how you can make variations of this salad.

No coffee with this salad please.

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chilled fruit soup for summer | papaya and orange soup with feta cheese and hint of star anise

I know you would say why not a smoothie. But you know a soup is different and this papaya and orange blend makes a real soup with a hint of spice and a tang of kala namak. A chilled soup with fruits makes a nice raw soup, much like Gazpacho but a bit different. You can make gazpacho with whatever combination of vegetables and fruits you like, I often add chucks of papaya or half ripe strawberries to smooth or chunky gazpacho for my meals.

But this soup is totally fruity with a hint of spice. You can add a bit of marmalade for a deeper flavour but it tastes great even without that.

ingredients
(2 servings)

papaya cubes (over ripe is the best) 2 cups
deseeded orange segments 1.5 cups
kala namak (black rock salt) 1/4 tsp
star anise powder a pinch
white pepper powder a pinch
citrus marmalade (optional) 1 tbsp
feta cheese or sour cream to top 2-3 tbsp

procedure..

Chill the fruits before peeling and chopping. Or put them into freezer for 30 minutes if in a hurry.

Blend everything together till really smooth. Adjust seasoning and pour in soup cups, top with feta cheese and serve immediately.

Take a picture if you wish and send it to your parents to tell you are eating your fruits alright. It is important :-)

This chilled fruit soup is a really refreshing meal on a hot summer day. You know it had got a bit hot 2 days back here when I whipped up this soup, but it rained again and the summer heat is gone. I am still using the bathroom geyser and we are eating our hot soup dinners too sometimes, in mid April for a change. There is some serious climatic change to be seen definitely.

The cold fruit soup of Hungry looks interesting too, this cold fruit soup I came across is partially cooked. Making completely raw cold fruit soups or cooking them partially to get more depth of flavours is a personal choice. But be assured this soup is very different from a smoothie though technically it might be a smoothie flavoured and plated differently.

One more way to eat your fruits. Just blend it, pour it, top it with sour cream or feta cheese or even hung curd if you please. And devour in it for a quite lunch staring at the signs of spring in the garden, summer gone totally confused in Delhi.

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peach salad with feta cheese, dehydrated black grapes and almonds in a balsamic red chilly flakes dressing

Peaches from the hills are the best thing Delhi gets in summers. Add plums, Apricots, Cherries and green almonds to the list too. And yes, add the occasional rains and cold breeze that comes from the hills so close by. They say Delhi has no climate of it's own and gets affected by everything that happens in the foothills and even higher mountains of Himalayas. When there is a snowfall there, Delhi starts getting colder. Not that it is happening anytime sooner, but talking about colder climate gives some relief from the blazing sun that we are experiencing these days. Thank God I work from home.

So we are enjoying litchis and mangoes from the plains and stone fruits from the hills sitting here in Delhi. The many benefits of living in a capital city. When we go to the hills we don't see any mangoes and litchi and when we go to the plains we don't see any stone fruits. Folks eat more local fruits in smaller towns, more tasty fruits, mostly plucked ripe and juicy though the variety of fruits is lesser. But life is better in many other ways. Think a life without traffic snarls and smog infested air.

In my last visit to Te Aroha, I saw freshly plucked peaches, plums and Apricots being sold on the roadside without weighing them. You get bagfuls of juicy fresh fruits for pittance.

I made plum jam with red wine and everyone loved it. Going to make it again and have decided to bring a huge carton of plums next time.

Most of the times we buy peaches that are quite hard and crisp. While I like fresh crisp peaches too, but can't seem to have a lot of them at a time. And also because we are just two people and I tend to buy more than we can finish normally, the fruits almost always get tested for it's shelf life in the several differently sized fruit baskets that I have. And through this experience I learnt that a few fruits taste better when they get slightly shriveled. Peaches are one of them.

 And the seeds also detach easily from the flesh when the peaches get a little shriveled. So I chop them and make salads because this is the only way we can consume more fruit and make it a meal. See the peach and mint salad I posted 4 years ago and make every season with minimal fuss. A pasta with peaches is also a favourite and we both love it.

This peaches and rucola salad with home made feta cheese is a favourite and I throw in a few cubes of mangoes too sometimes. But mostly it is only the peaches and rucola from the garden. Thankfully, it is only rucola that is doing pretty well in this scorching heat, all other salad greens are long gone and the herbs are somehow surviving, not looking their best with a few leaves blotched in all the pots.

ingredients
(2-4 servings depending on how the salad is served)

10 large peaches cut in bite sized wedges
handful of rucola leaves
2 tbsp sliced shallots (or baby onions)
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp red chilly flakes or to taste
20 almonds sliced
20 dried black grapes chopped (or 6 prunes chopped)
150 gm feta cheese

procedure

To make the dressing, mix the balsamic vinegar with salt and chilly flakes. Add the sliced onions and mix well.

Pour this dressing over the peach wedges and toss well to mix.

Add the other ingredients and mix well, adding feta in bits in the very lastso they don't get too crumbled when mixed.

Let the salad soak for about 20 minutes or serve after a good soaking of 3-4 hours. The salad keeps well in the fridge for a day if the rucola is not added.

Add rucola in the end, toss and serve. Don't worry if you don;t have rucola, the salad tastes great even without it.

 All the textures and flavours are interesting and combine really well with each other. The roasted chilly flakes add a mild kick in between and the subtle sweetness of fruit with balsamic vinegar is something you would get addicted to. Home made feta is way better than any feta in the markets here, make at home or get any brand you like. Any other cheese wont be good for this salad.

Apart from this peach salad with feta cheese, dehydrated grapes and almonds in a balsamic red chilly flakes dressing, which is a little complex recipe if you don't get all the ingredients in your part of the world, this peach and mint salad and the pasta with peaches might interest you if you love peaches the way I do and want simpler ecipes. Check them out and try them. And please let me know if you like.

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