Bocuse d'Or - I

A long weekend and at home in Bangalore, thanks to Good Friday! I came across on TV, a cooking competition/reality show -Top Chef hosted by Padma Lakshmi. From the show, I learnt of a biannual international event - called Bocuse d'Or, based at Lyon, France - considered an equivalent of olympics in culinary skills/art. Though I barely knew the names of recipes and ingredients that appeared in the Top Chef show, I watched it with interest as the format of the show reminded me of my once favorite cooking show on TV - Master Chef India.

I decided to name this post on my blog, related to cooking with this new found word - Bocuse d'Or.
I follow a couple of blogs on cooking ardently and enjoy cooking thoroughly. I added to my kitchen paraphernalia, a Microwave-Convection-Grill combi oven - Samsung CE 104 VD-B this February. In immediate aftermath of the purchase, I carefully investigated the usage of all modes in the oven with a variety of recipes -
Microwave - Veg Pulao
Microwave + Convection - Veg Pizza
Convection - Choco Walnut Brownie (I used the ready mix available in stores from the brand - Fun Foods)
Grill - Pudina Baby Corn
Micorwave + Grill - Tandoori Stuffed Aloo

This long weekend was a joyous one due to heavy, incessant rain. In fact, Bangalore recorded its heaviest rainfall in the month of April this weekend for the first time in 40 years. With rain comes the unquestionable right to binge on some deep fried short eats with hot tea to wash it comfortably down the food pipe.
I made corn vada and pressed them between toasted bread slices, placed few onion rings and gave a dash of Maggi Hot and Sweet Tomato Chilli Sauce to complete the dish.

Thanks to Tamalapaku - a blog on cooking from which I picked up the recipe of Corn Vada.

You may access the recipe of corn vada at - http://tamalapaku.blogspot.com/2010/03/corn-vada-makai-vada-mokkajonna-vada.html

Along with hot tea, I now wished to have some fluffy, baked stuff. The aroma of baking in home would sure complement the smell of fresh earth drenched in rain outside.
So I went out to make a simple, basic baking dish - Butter Sponge Cake and I referred to Suma's blog - Cakes and More for this. I revere her completely for her expertise in baking.
Here's the link to the recipe - http://sumarowjee.blogspot.com/2010/10/butter-sponge.html
The only modification to the above recipe - I reduced the number of egg yolks to 4 (from 6 mentioned on the source blog). The number 6 for egg yolks seemed a bit too boggling for me to handle.

And here's how my cake looked, yummy it was along with hot tea.

Thanks to Harini and Jaya - the authors of Tamalapaku for the corn vada recipe. I have tried the Bread Uthappam and Black Urad dal idli too from their blog. I loved the former a lot and in case of latter, I would still rate our normal idli (not using whole black urad dal) taste wise unparalleled.
Thanks to Suma for the recipe "Butter Sponge Cake" , I have a long way to go in baking lessons and hope to acheive it with her blog :)