Eating in

Ever since I found this little restaurant in the 6th District in Vienna, all I want to eat is Indian food. And I really mean always. Not too long after my chance discovery of this place, I popped in to this culinary haven again and bought a few vegetarian curries to take home. It's a crummy little place with not much light and gross plastic covered floral tablecloths on their two greasy tables, but it smells divine and homey and totally legit. After taking my prize home, I literally ate curry for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, for two days until I sadly scraped the bottom of the takeaway container. I never feel like eating anything else when that goodness is sitting in my fridge. I also recommend ordering it to be delivered to your apartment and eating on your wooden parquet floor in the dark. Who wants to leave the house in this weather? It was just the thing I needed this day.

Natraj
Marchettigasse 18 1060 Wien
Tel: 01- 5954502

Juicy, crunchy, leafy Mangold

Mangold, otherwise known as swiss chard or silverbeet, has been my latest food infatuation. This green, luscious vegetable is not only unanticipatedly juicy and delicious, but also widely considered to be one of the healthiest and most nutritious plants. Out of curiosity and want for discovering new recipes, when I saw organic mangold at the supermarket, I bought one, knowing of its highly regarded nutritional value. What I didn't know was that it was so tasty that I would be munching away at the raw leaves while cooking and felt almost sorry when they were wilting in the hot pan. Next time: raw mangold salad.

For this meal, I looked in my fridge and cut up some veggies I had. Next, I heated some olive oil in a pan, added some sticks of fresh thyme and a few smashed garlic cloves. When that had nicely sizzled and the oil was very nice and aromatic, I threw in some thinly sliced raw beetroot (I'd never fried beetroot before - they turned out a little raw, so give them plenty of time to cook, think carrots) tomatoes, mushrooms, all at high heat, and last of all, my precious chard. Give it a stir and a sprinkle of salt, and it's done! Who says cooking is tedious?


And because I can't help putting an egg on everything because I always want to eat egg, here was the finished product - plus a dollop of hummus (doesn't really go but who cares)(I also always want to eat hummus) and labane (some sort of mediterranean lemony yoghurt cheese dip), some rucola, and a generous drizzle of good olive oil over everything. My quick Sunday brunch.

I heart bulgur

Bulgur wheat is a whole grain cereal food with a chewy, substantial texture, which I discovered recently on my quest to diversify my carb consumption to more than just foods derived from flour or white rice. Here are some recent bulgur based dishes from moi. 

  Bulgur salad with pomegranate seeds, parsley, cucumbers, olive oil, lemon juice, salt

A throw-together dish - free range poached egg and bacon on a bed of bulgur with parsley and organic salad

Just face it, everyone loves looking at photographs of food.