Promotional post!
Hello, I run a small bakery from home and I just added two new flavours. I’m planning to add a few more in the upcoming weeks.
If y’all want some good cookies, made with callebaut chocolate, real vanilla, and utmost attention to detail, hit me up!
I’m based out of Mumbai.
I have a genuine issue for which I need a solution, and want to understand if the wiring in my head is the issue or if it’s a shared problem.
Whenever I cook, I taste throughout the cook. But towards the end, my olfactory receptors are in overdrive and I can mostly never tell if my end product is good or just okay. I’m relying on others to tell me.
I do know that smell receptors stop responding to a constant smell within a few minutes so after a while, I’ve tuned out the aroma. And since most of the flavour is the smell, the food tastes just okay to me.
What I want to understand is how much of this is true versus just being tired and done. And the most important part - how do I fix this, if there is. How do restaurant chefs overcome this.
I run a small supper club but even besides that, I’ve always been fascinated by Maharashtrian culture, and I want to dedicate one of the upcoming editions to hyper local Maharashtrian ingredients. For context - I’m from Mumbai.
I’m sure there are so many ingredients and produce that gets left out because people don’t know about it. And I really want to preserve these recipes and ingredients that get lost in the sea of Globalisation.
What are some of hyper local ingredients that you grew up with?
How is it traditionally eaten?
Any regional or seasonal ones that are hard to find outside their local area (I don’t mind traveling to parts of Maharashtra for research and exploration)
Also, if this matters - No, I didn’t use AI to generate this post. If it looks well written or in a certain formulaic way, it’s because I’m professionally a writer(marketer, to be precise).
Hello,
I know I’m really late to the party but I’d like to gift my boyfriend a playstation 5. He’s expressed his love for the GTA6 for a while now. He is a PC player and has a massive setup for the same. He’s hoping that the game eventually launches on PC, too.
I have until october to gift him. I’m really looking forward to seeing his gave when I eventually give it to him, please help me out.
My budget is 40k. There are new ones available for 70k but that’s way too steep.
If you know anyone selling a used PS5, I’d be eternally indebted to you!
I made a no measure, no effort baked cheesecake. I had all of the ingredients but I was too lazy to measure and follow my recipe so i decided to do a dump and bake. Risky? Yes.
Anyway, it turned out to be quite good. Had I measured and followed a recipe, I would’ve gotten better results but eh, f it,
I served it with some homemade strawberry jam and that’s my lunch :))
Good Monday!
For some context - I don't cook meat at home but I love mashed celeriac - similar to how you would eat mashed potatoes. Get some thyme in, butter, garlic, you know.
I am crazy enough to eat it on it's own too but I want to know if there are any vegetarian pairings that would work?
Here are a few things that I think would work:
Any reccos???
I hate bottle guard with all my might but a couple or days ago, on my uncle’s birthday, my mum made this halwa for him. Delicious :))
I run a supper club - it’s quite inconsistently hosted since I just started - but on the last one, this was the table favourite dessert that everybody just gobbled up!
Serves 2!
1. Mango Panna Cotta
• 180g heavy cream
• 60g whole milk
• 120g ripe mango purée (blended and sieved)
• 25g granulated sugar
• 1.5g agar-agar powder
Method:
1. Blend ripe mango flesh until completely smooth, then pass through a fine sieve to get 120g of silky purée.
2. In a small saucepan, whisk the agar-agar into the milk until dissolved. Add the cream and sugar, whisk to combine.
3. Bring to a gentle boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Boil 1–2 minutes to fully activate the agar.
4. Remove from heat and immediately stir in the mango purée until fully incorporated — work fast, agar starts setting as it cools.
5. Pour into 2 ramekins. Cool briefly, then refrigerate until fully set (about 2 hours).
Taste your purée first — a very ripe mango may let you pull sugar back to 20g.
2. Mango Shortbread Crumb
• 38g plain flour
• 25g cold unsalted butter, cubed
• 15g icing sugar
• 8g freeze-dried mango powder
• pinch of fine salt
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 160°C fan. Line a tray with parchment.
2. Mix the flour, icing sugar, mango powder, and salt. Rub in the cold butter with your fingertips until it looks like rough, clumpy breadcrumbs — stop as soon as no dry flour remains, don’t overwork it.
3. Spread loosely on the tray, no more than 5mm thick. Bake 16–20 minutes until lightly golden at the edges. Check at 16 minutes.
4. Leave completely undisturbed for at least 15 minutes — it crisps as it cools. Break into crumbs once fully cool.
3. Bird’s Eye Chilli Aam Panna Gel
• 80ml aam panna liquid (raw green mango boiled/roasted, blended with a little water, cumin, kala namak, and mint, then sieved)
• ¼ bird’s eye chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
• 1.5 tsp lime juice
• 7.5g caster sugar
• 0.75g agar agar powder
Method:
1. Whisk the agar into the cold aam panna liquid. Add the chilli, lime juice, and sugar.
2. Bring to a boil over medium heat, whisking constantly, then simmer 90 seconds. Pour into a shallow container and refrigerate until set.
3. Break the set gel into pieces and blitz until completely smooth and glossy. Sieve if you want it clear. Transfer to a piping bag or squeeze bottle. Taste and adjust chilli or lime.
PS - Yes I used AI to rewrite my recipe coherently since mine was handwritten in a way only I could understand.
We went to Bang Bang in Goregaon with high expectations since it’s rated 4.5 on District. And I’ve no idea how or why they’re rated that high :(
Classic Mala Bang Bang Noodles - Texture was genuinely spot on, props for that. But it stopped there. Zero spice, zero mala kick, nothing that made it stand out. Where’s the mala bro?
Bang Bang Veg Spring Rolls - Filling was just… there? There was no distinct flavour, nothing to latch onto.
Jhol Wontons - This came closest to good. The broth was lovely - lemongrass-y, peanuty, well-balanced. Wrapper was nice too. But the filling here was a letdown too. It had absolutely no character.
Smashed Cucumber Salad - Cucumbers weren’t even smashed lol. On top of that, under-seasoned - needed both salt and a touch of sugar to balance it out.
In addition, we requested some Bhut Jolokiya for the bang bang noodles. It was good, the spice was there but it tasted like achar? It was weirdly sour.
Overall, a very flat meal across the board. Most things were consistently flavourless. If y’all have had different dishes that hit the spot, I’m more than happy to give this place another try.
For now, in my opinion it was 4/10.
A couple of weeks ago I posted here about starting my cookie business. A lot of you said the same thing in the comments—the prices were too high—and fair enough...
So I sat down with the numbers, found what I could cut without touching quality, and I've reduced prices across the entire menu, and introduced a couple of new flavours. You can also add in any custom requests, and I will see how best I can service you ❤️
The response since has been really encouraging, so it seems like the pricing was the barrier and not the cookies :)
I've also added miniature tasting boxes—smaller sizes, lower commitment, so you can test the waters before buying a full box.
If price was the reason you passed earlier, I'd love to have you try them now. Currently delivering across Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Thane.
Order here - https://cookies-by-animpatientcook-final.vercel.app/
Go nuts!
I've looked all over Mumbai for genuinely good cookies. Flat and crispy, or big and CHONKY, either end of the spectrum works for me. There are a couple of decent options (Oh Stuffy, Oh Dough) but that's about it. The list barely reads like a list. There might be others I haven't found, so feel free to drop your suggestions, I'm always looking.
Anyway. I eventually gave up and started developing my own recipes, and that somehow turned into a small business. Wasn't planning on it. Right now my customers are mostly friends and family, and friends of those friends and family, but the response has been decent enough for me to post it here.
These are all NY-style, 175g each:
(Photos are only edited for contrast and background removal. Not AI enhanced or made to look like something they aren't.)
If you're in the mood for good cookies and don't know where to order, HMU.
Or - You can order here
PS - Incase anyone's wondering, I use Callebaut dark chocolate, Sprig Vanilla essence(real vanilla not vanillin), and President butter. If you're willing to pay me enough, I don't mind incorporating Lupark.
Edit: I see that a few folks think this is overpriced. I have a question--what would be "fair" according to you.
I’m sick and tired of this doom and gloom. I’m desperately looking for good news, please! I just want to feel hopeful.
I’ve led a decent life, but the last year of unemployment has worn me down in ways I didn’t expect. I’ve managed to stay afloat—partly thanks to the comfort of living with my parents—but for the past few months, I’ve struggled to find anything to look forward to.
Most of my close friends have scattered to different cities and countries, and while I have a few people nearby, it’s not quite the same. There’s a loneliness to it that’s hard to name.
What makes it stranger is that nothing I feel seems to stick. The hopelessness is fleeting, but so is the joy—and somewhere in between the two, I feel paralysed. Like I’m watching my own life from a distance, unable to bring myself to change anything, in either direction.
I don’t want to feel this way. I just don’t quite know how to stop.
Sometimes I wish I could break all bonds, all ties, move to a different country and start over.
So I made onion and wine jam but because I wanted it in gel format, I added some agar agar powder to set it. Once set, I blitzed it. But after blitzing it, it lost its glossy shine. Looked very matte.
I’ll try reducing the agar agar powder and also cover it in the fridge when I’m setting it.
Does Xantham gum help? Or should I add oil? Help.
I saw a post on r/mumbai where a female driver was being followed by some dude, late into the night. And she was worried. Of course you would be. Any one would be.
If you’re in a vehicle, that’s either driven by you or a driver, instead of calling the police, drive to the nearest police station.
More often than not, that’s enough to scare any bastard away. Also, note the number of the vehicle that’s following you so you can register an official complain.
A word of advice - Don’t drive home! Please don’t drive home. Don’t let the follower know where you live.
I’ve had this happened to me before. This is exactly what I did. And that chachundar of a man never showed his face again.
Stay safe girlies!!!
So I finally made focaccia from scratch—first bread I’ve ever attempted—and it came out alright. I wouldn’t say it’s the best bread I’ve ever had but it was definitely solid for a first attempt.
Here’s the thing though. I took my first couple of bites and genuinely could not process what I was eating. It tasted completely different from the focaccia I’ve been buying from the store my whole life. Like, nothing alike.
My first instinct was that I must have done something wrong. If it tastes that different from what I know focaccia to be, surely that means I messed up, right?
I was so confused because my brain was saying “this isn’t focaccia” while also saying “this is delicious” at the same time and I couldn’t reconcile the two.
Has anybody ever felt this?
Edit: I’m not contesting that homemade is always better, I know that. It’s just this dissonance I felt, was wondering if people have felt that, too.