Cool exotic and fruity...perfect for this summer


Lately Bangalore has been facing the Sun God’s wrath. Let’s face it, no longer is it cool to go shopping on Sunday afternoons, nor do I have the strength to walk out to my nearby fresh market. I may leave my home looking like Cinderella dressed for the ball, but am sure to return like she did after the clock struck twelve!! Yet the moment the sun says bye, Bangalore is the coolest place to be. 

The only grace of this weather seems to be the abundance of papayas and melons of all variety, I see on the roadside handcarts. The dark green with perfectly spaced orange stripes looks absolutely picturesque! One even wonders if they were actually hand painted. The fragrance of a ripe melon transports me to green islands fringed with blue waters. 

Growing up my mother used to urge me to bite into juicy ripe papayas; but they were just not for me. As a child and a teenager I simply detested the fruit. I guess adulthood changed my opinion and today I can’t seem to start my morning without this tropical delight. They call this fruit ‘the natural contraceptive’ but personally I gorged on it while expecting my first born so much, that I disgraced my mother in front of a few conservative relatives. 

When buying the ripe fruit, it should be firm yet yield to gently pressure, feel heavy for its size and have smooth skin with no blemishes. As long as not a result of bruises or cuts, a few black or moldy spots are perfectly okay and will not affect the flavor of the flesh. If the fruit is still green in a lot of place, check for deep orange patches. Deeper the orange the more full of flavour they would be. 

The perfect way to eat a papaya is to cut a small fruit weighing about half a kilogram lengthwise into half, scoop out the seeds, squeeze a lime into it and eat it off the boat. But just to make it a little more interesting try this papaya and pineapple cheesecake. 

  1. Layer the base and sides of a flat glass bowl or a cake tin with cake slices (any plain sponge cake available off the supermarket shelves would do) 
  2. Soak the sponge well with pineapple juice
  3. Layer diced ripe papaya over the soaked sponge till all of the sponge is covered 
  4. Gently heat one table spoon of pineapple jam and pour over the papaya
  5. Mix together one teacup of hung curd and one teacup of paneer (put the paneer into a grinder and blend to a smooth paste) 
  6. Beat one teacup fresh thick cream and one teacup of powdered sugar until it is mildly stiff 
  7. Fold the hung curd, paneer and beaten cream together.... (Use your hands it feels good, makes your hands super smooth and easier to lick) 
  8. Layer this over the papaya mix and smoothen at the edges. 
  9. Sprinkle crushed crystallized ginger over and refrigerate. 
Cut out deep with spoon and serve with all the layers….............quite easy to make and looks pretty exotic too … !!

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