Crabs in the house !

I just love crab. (there isn't much that i don't love in food actually - but crabs and Lobsters are favorites).

Me n my wife had this sudden pang to eat sea food. We went to this awesome place in Khadki where you get the best of the stuff - straight from the konkan shores. There were crabs, oysters, clams, million different species of fish and of course prawns.

I took home 2 crabs and with some help from google and my cooking brains, cooked up some crab curry. Well ... here is what it looked like.

Daughtry wins 3 AMAs

For a guy who didnt make it as the American Idol, this is quite a big deal. His voice is super and unlike a fellow goan I know who sings better only to be bitten by his bitter fate of being an Indian, Chris Daughtry is one fine specimen of how Americans make superstars out of anyone.

Listen to his cracking new single 'Home' if you still dont believe me...

Prawn n Balchao ... somewhere in between

If you are fond of seafood, here's one helluva nice prawn dish that you will simply love !

get about 1/2 k of medium sized prawns. Clean them and de vein them. Put half a lemon and some salt into them, mix it up nice and leave it for the time being.

take all your masala -

Cumin Seeds
Red chilli powder
Whole red chillies
Turmeric (very little)
Pepper corns (only the balls)
small bay leaf

put it all on a frying pan and without any oil, just saute them on the heated tawa. In about 5 mins you will see the cumin seeds turning dark brown. Its time to take them all out and put it into a crushing pan. Its called 'Silbatta' in hindi. You can use the mixi as well. The idea is to crush all this masala together. Put 5 - 6 cloves of garlic in it and keep crushing till you dont get a red powdery mixture. It will smell heavenly !!

Then, heat about 2 tablespoons of butter in a pan. Keep the flame low. 20 seconds before you throw in the masala, raise the heat to full and quickly stir the masala. Remember to keep stirring all the time.

After about 5 mins of masala cooking, put in the prawns. Stir quickly and keep stirring on a high flame for about 3 - 5 mins till prawns dont curl up completely.

Finally, just before taking them off the flame, pour in table spoons of white rum (black will do just fine) and shake the prawns. IT CAN CATCH FIRE SO STAY AWAY FROM THE PAN. Keep the prawns moving around the pan at all times.

Finally, turn them over onto a nice plate and enjoy with with some chilled beer or any cold drink.

Tip: Keep the ginger, red chilli powder in control, else it'll become too hot to eat.

B.L.O.T

I spent some time with NDTV good times today. It seems they are trying to make a desi version of Discovery T&L. It's too long a shot for their content....but thats a different story.

They were talking about a group called BLOT - i dont remember what it stands for. But the idea is that these semi DJ's play electronic music with visuals. Its like a 'jugalbandi' of Audio and video stimuli. It's not new - but its nice to know clubs are warming up to such radical concepts that till recently are restricted to the west and Mumbai !

great going guys - its nice to see the experimentation. Must culminate into something larger though, else in joey's words, its all just MOO !

Why bollywood cant make simple movies well

There was this really nice article a few days back in the newspaper about how Hollywood is able to make good movies from simple concepts. You've got mail, when harry met sally, one fine day, etc. They are really no big plots - but excellent movies.

Of course the author did not mention the real reason, or probably it got 'moved' during editing.

But i can say it here ...

It's probably because you can fit all the good Indian actors and put them in a Mini van and take them around. You can literally count them on your fingers. But in Hollywood, every single actor knows that a hit doesnt make him the 'next big thing'. Its the thing about the capitalist markets too. Every one is always under scrutiny !

And then there are no shah rukh khans in hollywood. So every actor is fighting for the first place. Gives each actor the perspective to work and act harder. It's not our guys are not capable to act well ... they are just not 'wanting' to push themselves.

And that's the reason why movies like Shrek make 900 plus million dollars in earnings and our animation like Ganesha wont even break even.

It's all in the attitude people. Talent takes polishing.