Bacon Parmesan Rocket salad to Kick start my Salad Week

Bacon Parmesan Rocket salad 

to Kick start my Salad Week 

When it comes to  blogging I follow my heart more than anything else. While there are weeks when I might blog everyday of the week there might be days on the end when I would cook and even click photographs for documentation but not blog about it at all.

Just the other day I was talking with a friend and a blogger about how its our passion for cooking which is actually what keeps us going even on those days when we would just want to drop dead or are tired and then comes the blog for documentation.

Anyway when I met Pritha who blogs from Guilt-Free I remember exactly what had impressed me about her blog and firstly it was this coffee cake. I am a complete coffee lover not an addict though. Well I do need my one cup per day but that's only after waking up otherwise I am good. Anyway so a coffee flavoured cake immediately caught my attention and then when I took out time to read some of her earlier posts. I usually have this habit of going back to a blog's posts when it had taken its baby steps. Anyway the moment I did that what impressed me most was this discipline that she follows when it comes to her blog at times. Her blog itself started on a dessert a week note which impressed me to no end.

And then as the story goes like minds met over an event. We had a potluck . We talked and talked for hours. I went to Mumbai and yet we would talk endlessly about food and in-between she actually took a one month Bengali food marathon project and low and behold she stuck to her promise.

I for one do not have that kind of discipline . In fact when I joined her for her Christmas event I was the one who actually lagged behind. And she is the one who holds a full time job and there I was well working of course and as a freelancer I was swamped with work but still the point is I got inspired by my friend. Do take a look at her blog for possible exciting events this June and there is also a possibility of a joint venture Event by 2 insane girls who love to cook and eat and click .

Anyway so inspired by my friend I decided I should do an event one that is close to me and quite honestly I love salads. My point is salads can be beautiful. They are just not part of diet food projects, In fact a hearty salad can actually fill your stomach and emotions so that you actually do not end up eating a lot of unhealthy food.

So let's kick start my Salad Week with a Bacon Parmesan Rocket salad. The beauty of this dish is that the 3 ingredients used in the dish is all that you need for this beautiful salad. Personally speaking I don't use a dressing for the salad because otherwise the beauty is lost. Its the peppery taste of rocket leaves along with the crisp bacon a bit of crisp fatty portion and a hint of that glorious Parmesan cheese that makes it one of the best salads ever. In fact I don't even use salt since I get all the salt that I require from the bacon and I leave out freshly crushed pepper because the peppery taste of the rockets provides that superb bite to my salad.

Salad that serves 1 person

1 cup to 1.5 cups rocket leaves removed from the stem
100gm bacon cut into bite sized pieces
Parmesan shavings as much as you need


Here is an important tip to make sure your rocket leaves are absolutely crisp and fresh if they seem a bit wilted due to the heat. Plunge them in ice cold water with a few ice cubes and let it soak while you fry the bacon its on absolute low heat turning them once one side has become golden brown. In my experience if you start frying the bacon on low heat it becomes crisp without any burnt parts. Once the bacon is fried drain it well and then assemble the salad.

Simply drain the rocket leaves, arrange them in a salad bowl top it with bacon and Parmesan shavings and voila its that easy to whip up this gorgeous salad.

If you want you may drizzle the salad with a bit of Extra Virgin Olive Oil  but I would steer clear of vinegar or any wet ingredients which would hamper the crisp characteristics of the bacon.

Bacon Wrapped Chicken (Anwesha's Recipe)

Bacon Wrapped Chicken (Anwesha's Recipe) 

This week our (Kolkata Food Blogger's)  star is Anwesha who runs this beautiful travel cum food blog, Peanutsontheroad.
I personally have a strong believe that she or he who travels is always a blast to talk to because you can never run out of conversation with travelers who have so many stories to share and Anwesha despite having a very busy schedule takes out time to document her travels and once in a while shares a few foolproof and delightful recipes.

She is a researched with IIT Kharagpur and is an avid traveler and food enthusiast.

When her week approached I had initially decided on one of her recent recipes of mince meat stuffed buns but then again I went on reading her recipes one after the other and suddenly I was confused between the Bacon Wrapped Chicken, Meat Ghugni and Fish Cake.

I had initially made her Fish Cake but adjusted it to my needs my replacing the flour with mashed potatoes , omitting the cheese and mostly using milk instead of butter but then just as I was about to start writing my experience I saw that one of our other members has already made written and raved about the Fish Cake and I instantly felt joyous because it meant I was going to make the Bacon wrapped chicken.

Ah Bacon, well as a bacon lover this dish is an absolute delight. And its difficult to go wrong with a tangy apple filling inside succulent chicken breasts wrapped with crisp bacon.

I mostly stuck to her recipe which you can take a look here : Bacon Wrapped Chicken. 

I am not writing the  recipe because like I said , I mostly stuck to it.

Here is a helpful hint though :-

1. When you are wrapping the bacon around the chicken make sure it just about wraps it and bacon does over overlap its own layer because then the layer of bacon beneath the layer of bacon outside won't crisp up. 
2. Once baked let the bacon wrapped chicken rest for a good 10 minutes because then the chicken beneath the bacon will become absolutely juicy and succulent without a trace of dryness. 
3. Using granny smith apples (greenapples) gives a delightful tangy taste .

This is part of :-

Linguine in Bacon Pomodoro Sauce

Linguine  in Bacon Pomodoro Sauce 

Sometimes you need to make some changes to the original recipe because of lack of ease of availability of ingredients. So I was set on this beautiful Italian recipe but the cheese used is rarely available and my friend had come over  before I had ordered the required cheese. Needless to say I substituted the required cheese with another easily available Italian cheese and the result was scrumptious even with the change. I mean there is little chance of going wrong when you have bacon, Parmesan, a nice tomato based sauce heaped on pasta cooked al-dente

Serves 2 :-

180gm to 200gm dried linguine pasta
4 to 5 plump big tomatoes
2 fat cloves of garlic
1 large onion sliced very thin
3 fatty rashers of bacon
A good handful of freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Spray of olive oil

Simply boil your pasta as per instructions on the packet. For al dente be careful to take out the pasta and cook it for a minute less than the specified time. Now if the instructions ask you to boil the pasta for 7 minutes to 9 minutes start making your sauce after 4 minutes of boiling the pasta. Mince the garlic and chop tomatoes and slice onion. Now spray a pan with olive oil and fry the bacon and when its nicely done and you have a lot of bacon grease take out the bacon and  saute the garlic in the bacon fat and then add the sliced onion and finally the plump juicy chopped tomatoes and cook then for 1/2 a minute on high flame and add salt and then simmer covered to make a nice sauce and mash with masher and add 1 ladle of the pasta water . When you get a  thick sauce mix in the Parmesan reserving some to be sprinkled on each plate. Meanwhile keep an eye on the pasta and drain it and plate it and pour the sauce on top and add bacon and a sprinkle of Parmesan and serve

Bacon wrapped chicken in burnt mango mustard sauce

Bacon wrapped chicken in burnt mango mustard sauce 

To be fair the reason why I am able to at all post this recipe includes a lot of people. Sometimes all you need is a bit of contribution even indirectly to make a difference. Let me confess that I have or rather had never been a fan of fusion cooking and so when I had read about some new restaurant called 'Bohemian' which amalgamates continental and Bengali flavours I was hardly interested and then my dear uncle introduced me to their dishes on a sunny winter day. This was way back in 2009 when I was still a college lass. Ah the first taste of his dishes and I was bowled over. It was unique and delicious.

I have ordered a good number of times from this delightful place and then cut to 2014 there was some discussion about bacon and using it in Indian cuisine at the forum Ranna-Bati and I had mentioned about Chef Joy's bacon wrapped chicken in aam kasundi reduction. For a week I had what is called Bacon wrapped chicken cravings and I was about to order the dish when I was intrigued with the idea of tryign my hands on the dish. I mean sure there was no recipe to be followed but then again the dish has all the information required in the name itself. Ah so at first I was scared because I was afraid it wouldn't be exactly like Chef Joy's and then I thought ah well it will be my very own recipe. Since I seldom create recipes of my own except the marination for grilled chicken or salads  this one is special indeed and I must sound like a pompous ass and declare that it tasted wonderful. Tangy sweet fiery it was a dream dish on a hot summer's day.

So this is what you need for 2 people :-

2 breasts of chicken
4 bacon rashers with full fat

For the marination of the chicken

2 tsp ginger  fennel paste ( I used about an inch of ginger and 1/2 tsp fennel seeds which were dry roasted and ground and 1 green chili  )
1 tsp chili powder (the hotter the better)
Salt as per taste
1/4th tsp turmeric powder
1/4th tsp clarified butter 'ghee'

For the mango mustard sauce

1 large raw green mango
1/2 tsp whole peppercorn
Rock salt as per taste
Sugar as per taste
3 tbsp yellow mustard
2 tsp mustard oil
2 green chili
A fat pinch of Panch phoron (Bengali five spice made with Cumin, fennel, Nigella seeds, Whole fenugreek seeds and either black mustard seeds or radhuni)
1.5 cups water

Start by making cubes of the breast (they need not have perfect shapes) and then marinate with the ginger fennel paste , salt, chili powder , turmeric and the clarified butter and let it marinate for 2 hours.

The bacon wrapped chicken post being baked

Now carefully spread out the bacon and wrap a bit of chicken in the four bacon rashers and then preheat oven to 200C and bake for 20 minutes to 30 minutes turning them mid-way on a tray . Now start with the mango by roasting it on the gas stove till the skin gets completelt charred and then wait till its cool enough to handle, peel of skin and get the soft flesh and make a paste with sugar, rock salt and whole peppercorn. Make mustard paste with the green chili  and strain (this straining helps ensure that there is no bitter taste from the mustard). Once the bacon wrapped chicken is baked take it out. There will be a lot of fat ,we shall use this indeed.

So heat 2 tsp mustard oil  and add the Five spice and when they splutter add the mustard paste and then add 1 tbsp raw mango paste which you have earlier made and add the water and bring to a boil and add the bacon fat and the bacon wrapped chicken and once it comes to a boil simmer and after 5 minutes take out the bacon wrapped chicken and reduce it to a thick stage.

I took about 13 minutes. Do this reduction on low heat and then add the bacon wrapped chicken and bring to boil and simmer for another 2 minutes and serve with hot steaming basmati rice , some fried dried lentil cones known as bodi if you ahve some and a leafy green vegetable.

Refried Beans

Meaty Refried beans 

Now what is Comfort food? Most of the time comfort food is associated with nostalgia and childhood. Sometimes we create our own nostalgia and then that simply becomes a comforting dish. I have always had this fascination for cuisines from all over the world and how one can find a thin thread holding all the cuisines which are a world apart from each other. The re-fried beans is one such dish which is what I call food that comforts me. While they can be made in different ways I like mine Beany and meaty . While I have never seen Pinto beans in my life after reading many a blogs of real people and their real-life stories I figured out in India I could use the "Chitra Rajma" to create my re-fried beans. With inspiration from a recipe which belonged to someone's great-grandmother I made my own re-fried beans and it has become a staple comfort food for me. I served it with hoemamde Salsa roja , cheese sauce and nachos and that was one of the best parties ever.

Now coming to my meaty beans, in a tropical country such as India eating too much of red meat is not one of the wisest decisions and due to many a dietary restrictions Pork meat is a meat which is not available easily and even if available it is not always hygienic. So one has to carefully choose one's shop. Thankfully in Calcutta we have a very hygienic cold storage started by a Hungarian gentleman some 60 to 70 years ago. Over the years his family dispersed and he ultimately left his right hand man as the owner of this wonderful cold storage. Till date they stuck to the Hungarian gentleman's recipes and produces delicious sausages, hams and other cold cuts along with some meat.

For this particular recipe I have used their bacon and what they call "Hungarian sausages" which is a dried garlicky sausage delicious to the very core.

So here comes the recipe

Serves 4 to 6 servings

1.5 cups chitra rajma
5 bacons  chopped in little bits
4 dried sausages chopped (It is better to use one with garlic flavour)
7 to 8 garlic cloves (Indian medium sized. These are about 1/4th the size of the usual large cloves available outside India)
2 medium sized red onions
Salt and pepper as per taste


Soak the beans overnight with 4 times the amount of water. Drain them and then cook them with triple the amount of water and salt the next day till its well cooked. You will be left with the boiled beans and water. reserve this water.

Grease your pan (just brush with a bit of oil) and fry your bacon (when frying bacon it anyways leaves behind a lot of fatty liquid) and sausage and keep aside along with some bacon grease and saute the minced garlic till the aroma of garlic fills your kitchen and then saute the onions to a translucent stage. Add the beans and the water bring to a roaring boil and then taste to check if more salt is required since some salt is added while boiling the beans and add salt as per taste and 1 heaped tsp freshly ground black pepper and simmer for  15 minutes or so. Cool this and blend it away using a bit of the water with which you have cooked the beans. I used more than 3/4th of the water to make a smooth blend. Now simply heat  the reserved bacon grease and add your blend beans along with the fried bacon bits and crumble 3/4th  the amount of sausage and mix well. After 2 minutes transfer to a serving bowl. Garnish with the remaining sausage pieces. This is one fatty comfort that anyone who loves meat cannot resists. My friends couldn't resist helping themselves again and again to this mashed meaty delight. They scooped this with their nachos but this mashed delight served as a filling with some sauteed bell pepper and homemade cheesy sauce and  homemade flat-bread is a real treat as well.

Bacon sausage ham Rice

Bacon sausage ham Rice 

Some days are just for a quick fix comfort food. You need a quick meal which is loaded with your favourite things. So I had fresh bacon, ham, dried sausages , fresh celery and some rice. Ah you must already be knowing where I am headed

Serves 1

Half a cup of long grained rice
1 bacon with the fat
2 slices of ham
2 thin dried sausage
1/2 tsp chili flakes
Pinch of salt
1 cup water
1 stalk of celery
Olive oil for brushing
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tbsp finely chopped spring onion

Chop the bacon, ham and sausages. Mince the garlic and chop the celery stalk into very small pieces and finely chop the leaves. Just brush a wok or pan with olive oil and add the little bits of bacon and lower heat cover and wait for 2 minutes. Then you'l have some fat bubbling away and add the minced garlic and saute and then add the celery stalk and the ham and sausage , chili flakes  and then the celery leaves and spring onion and saute for 3 minutes and leave it aside on a bowl. Now add the rice in the wok and add the water and bring it to a boil and add the salt. Be careful with adding salt because bacon and ham will have salt in them when you shall later mix the rice with the meat. Now lower heat and cover and cook for 8 minutes to 10 minutes till the rice grains look separated and then switch off gas and leave for 5 minutes and then mix the rice with the meat and serve.