Schezuan Potatoes

            I have created quite a few dishes that I am proud of. The dish I am posting today is my favourite yet! So a heads up to all you readers. To cook my usual dishes, you just have to do something similar to what I explain and you don’t actually have to as accurate as I explain. But, for this dish, please try to do exactly what I say. I am not saying I am a masterchef or anything, but from experience I can say that even a small change in the crucial part of this dish will mess it up. Trust me. This dish is easy to cook, but requires a little more attention than my usual recipes. So, brace yourselves for the new recipe!!!

The Ingredients

Ingredients:

5 medium sized potatoes (Diced)

4 Onions (Diced)

Half a Capsicum (chopped lengthwise)

2 Green Chillies (finely chopped)

3 tablespoons of “Ching’s Schezuan Chutney”

½ tablespoon of Tomato Sauce

¾ tablespoon of Dark Soy Sauce

1 tablespoon of Green Chilly Sauce

3 teaspoons of Black Pepper powder

2 tablespoons of Vegetable Oil

Salt to taste

How to MAKE:

I usually don't garnish...!

            First, cook the potatoes in boiling water till they are about 3/4rth cooked and keep them aside. Now, heat the oil in a pan and then add 2 tablespoons of the Schezuan Chutney. Stir it and immediately add the onions to this. Cook the onions till the smell of the “Chutney” subsides a little. Now, add the capsicum and saute it till the raw smell of the capsicum settles. Next, add the potatoes and mix everything together well together. Make sure that the reddish colour spreads evenly all over the potatoes. Now, add pepper powder, the last tablespoon of the Schezuan Chutney, and the 3 different sauces and toss it around to mix it well. Now add salt to taste. Now comes the most crucial step of the dish. Add about 50 ml water to the dish, keep it on high flame and keep stirring it till the water evaporates. Do the same thing exactly 3 more times with the same amount of water. This is the crucial step because, this makes the flavour go into the potatoes. If you cook it on low flame by adding a lot of water, the entire dish will become soggy and won’t taste as good. Finally, add the green chillies and mix well. Add 50 ml and do the previous procedure one last time. But this time, instead of plainly stirring the dish, mash one or two pieces of potatoes and then mix everything well. Now, finally, turn off the flame and the potatoes are ready to be devoured!! Serve hot!

P.S: While stirring, make sure not to crumble any potatoes if possible until the last step.

Paragon

                I have always loved the city of Kozhikode (Calicut) for its amazing culinary base and even for the hospitality of the people living there. Kozhikode is very well known for its amazing biryanis. and when talks about Kozhikodan biryani, the first place that comes to my mind is hotel Paragon and the amazing biryani available there. I have eaten my fair share of biryanis but the one at Paragon is one of the best. But the only sad part is that I live in a completely different region of Kerala and going to Paragon just to eat biryani isn’t feasible. I know there are tons of people who have similar sorrows and thanks to Lulu Mall, Kochi, all of us here are quite happy.

                Paragon at Lulu Mall, Kochi is everything that one expects it to be. I would actually say it is much more than what I expected. It is established over the first, second and third floors of the Mall. The quality of dining received is as good as or even better than the one in Kozhikode. I was pretty excited to eat here and I hope everyone will!

The Order

                Starting with the restaurant, it offers a wide variety of food on its menu that covers more than just the classic Malabar cuisine. It offers the traditional Malabar cuisine as well as Italian, Chinese, and the classic Kerala style dishes as well. As all restaurants, Paragon has both vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes. For all the “health” conscious people, Paragon also has a variety of salads available.

                Speaking of service, no one can have any sort of complaints. The food that we ordered, took even less than 10 minutes to arrive. I have seen service faster than this only at any roadside fast food joint. The waiters were very attentive and very polite. They were quite humble and patient as well, a quality not seen in many waiters.

                Coming to the restaurant itself, the interior isn’t your designer stylish kind of design. It is simple and well maintained. The seating was also pretty good and comfortable. The restaurant has maintained a particular class and it gave me the feeling one gets while fine dining. When one enters the restaurant, you get to see an open air kitchen. It has shelves with fresh fish and I guess the fish dishes will indeed taste pretty fresh. I don’t know exactly how this open air kitchen works but I guess they might cook fish as per requests and that the customer gets to pick out their desired fish. I didn’t get enough time to enquire about it since I was there at rush hour. Sorry about that. For the people with a sweet tooth, they offer a lot of desserts as well.

Looks good in a plate too

                Now coming to the actual important part of the restaurant, the FOOD! I could go on and on about the food served at Paragon, but since you would get bored, I won’t! So, the dishes that we ordered were, ‘Paragon Chilly Chicken’, ‘Beef Ullarthiyathu’, and a few Parottas. As I mentioned before, the food arrived pretty quick and was kind of hot also. So I was sure that it is freshly made. The dishes looked quite normal and the presentation didn’t stand out very well or anything. But once a piece was in my mouth, I realised that the proverb “don’t judge a book by its cover” can never get a better proof. The Paragon Chilly chicken, which I wondered how it would be different, was the most surprising one.

Beef Ullarthiyathu

                     Unlike regular Chilly chicken, this dish actually had a little smoky flavour to it. It was not so powerful so as to ruin the dish, but was very well tamed so that the taste was as a whole boosted. They tried to keep the traditional flavour of the chilly chicken and at the same time infuse it with their very own style making it truly awesome. The meat was perfectly cooked, it was tender and was not at all over cooked by even a bit. The gravy was as delicious and not very runny either. The beef on the other end of the taste palate was crispy and spicy, and was immensely flavoured. It had this tenderness that every meat lover wants in their beef and also had this very small hint of a crunch to it. It too, was perfectly cooked and not even a single piece had any sort of rubberiness that the beef might have when not cooked well. I personally felt that it left a small oiliness in my mouth and it was a little annoying. But the taste of the dish made me overlook this.

                           Finally, the parotta that accompanied us on our delightful battle with the dishes. It was slightly crunchy and soft and what not. I can say that I literally have not eaten parotta as good as this in around 5-10 years! It didn’t even have slightest bit of rubberiness or any of those drawbacks of the usual “parotta”. It was so skilfully made and tasted so good that I would have eaten the parotta on its own if I had to! We didn’t bother to order any drinks since we didn’t see anything catchy on the menu. The only complaint I would have is that the Paragon Chilly chicken could have maybe one or two more pieces in it! The pricing that may be considered as some as too much. I do agree with them since it is not as cheap as your regular restaurants. But, in no way is the money paid wasted. Every single rupee paid is worth the food and service received and is totally worth it all!

Paragon Chilly Chicken

                Finally, I would say that my entire day was brightened up because of the lunch I had here and it would be totally worth my time and money to pay another visit to the restaurant. As a concluding statement,