The Farm

February Table in a Farm Shop.

Years ago we made a seemingly straight forward decision - we would make everything that we wanted to serve ourselves, from scratch.
Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it?

In order to do so, we needed to have access to a whole range of ingredients. Being a dairy farm, we have more manure than we know what to do with, which means we can grow a range of fruits & vegetables. But then there are other factors - weather, soil temperature & availability of water being some of our challenges where we are located. And so began the constant and continuous balancing act of growing what we can, when we can and also working with others who do the same.

Over the years, through our travels, from a friend of a friend, or via guests who have dined with us we have managed to build a robust network of people who grow beautiful produce with care & attention and take the trouble to harvest and send some of it to us. And we get to use this produce in our kitchen as well as have it available in the Shop.

Today’s table isn’t complete. There are many of the staples that I left out because my photography skills limit me to doing just this. But it’s a snapshot. Of a way of a life. Of a way of eating. Good, clean produce.

Even a hard core meat eater like myself has to stop, sigh & think - what vegetables should I cook up today?

Love :) Absolutely love that we have this!

Nothing spells weekend like a long, slow, decadent, meandering Brunch.

If we were to think up a brunch we’d like to share with friends, we’d think of fresh Bread, Eggs made many ways, crisp Bacon, plump Sausages, a host of Cheese, a bunch of Condiments like mustard, onion relish and the like, pots of Coffee and lots & lots of laughter.

With an exception of the Bacon (and maybe we must fix that), we make every single one of those things right here in our kitchen, in the middle of our dairy farm.
Can I just stop here to say how much I LOVE that!

Much like the dairy is the fulcrum of our world, the Cheese tends to be the centrepiece of a meal like this. Artisanal yes, but that’s a broad term. More importantly, what we make is Farmstead Cheese.

Where the cheese is made in the same location as the animals are raised. Our bovine sheds are about 100 metres away from the Cheese Room. The cows & buffaloes graze in the fields on our farm, consuming the seasonal wild grasses and wallowing in the water bodies. We know every aspect of their life. The milk reaches the Cheese Room still warm from the animals body temperature. All of this contributes to the sort of Cheese we can make. Naturally, it is the star of a table.

There is something incredibly saturating about being able to put this sort of meal together. Especially knowing that it is all from our Home World.

Cheese Boxes are extra nice on a holiday! So there :)

Some time last year it occurred to us that we had everything it takes to make a good Cheese platter.
Obv we have the Cheese.
But we also make a bunch of Crackers.
And a whole range of condiments to choose from too.
These are the quintessential 3 Cs of a Cheese Box.

What more does one need? Some fruit, some fresh produce
and some wonderful herbs.

Just like that, you can have yourself a Box that you can enjoy with a bunch of friends picnic style. And if you have left-overs, just close the box & stick it into the fridge for another meal! Fun!

Sunday morning that begins with rain followed by the sun allowing coming out is just downright beautiful.

Feels like the perfect morning for our favourite Cheese plate.

A block of soft creamy Bloomy Rind that we cut into a grid & melt ever so slightly.

Some fresh strawberries for a fruity acidic balance to the richness of the cheese. Fruits & cheese are a forever match.

Balsamic vinegar pearls to bring another flavour to the plate - enhance the fruity tartness.

Thyme because it makes everything beautiful :)

Some toasted sourdough baguette slices that are shatteringly crisp on the outside & soft inside.

This plate is a favourite not just because of the flavours and how it looks. It’s also a great plate to share over a cup of coffee and a long meandering conversation.

Perfect Sunday morning before we kick off Lunch service 🌸

Necessity is the mother of invention they say. I don’t who They are but damn, they are so right!

2020. The year of the pandemic and we found ourselves staring at litres & litres of farm fresh milk, twice a day. Typically we don’t have enough because we are busy making cheese for the restaurant and doing a whole host of other things with the milk. But with no restaurant, we had more than we knew what to do with.

We’d sit down every day and break our heads over what to do with the milk. Trials, many errors, lots of pacing & hand wringing later we invented a product we can truly call our very own - Whole Milk Caramel Toffee.

I can tell you it is made from fresh milk. I can tell you about the Maillard reaction that causes the proteins & sugars to do this fascinating dance with each other. But mostly I want to tell you that the Toffee is soft, fudgy, strangely nostalgic & additive as umm take your pick lol.

And now, a good 2 years after we started making Toffee, we have it on our Restaurant menu.

The Caramel Toffee plate - Chocolate & Peanut Edition

OG Toffee square dunked into smooth silky chocolate ganache & then rolled in roasted peanuts. So so so good, if I may say so myself!

We imagine now that the Toffee will lend itself to many many many flavours, pairings & editions. For now, this one.

On the Dessert menu from tomorrow, as a very happy expression of our dairy farm world :)

Beautiful monsoon day & a perfect Frittata.

Farm eggs and whatever takes our fancy that moment; today it was smoked Ham, some of those jalapeños we pickled last week, leeks cut into rounds, some fresh red Habib chillies as a topping & lots of chives as a garnish.

If you have the patience and the right heat (and the right pan), the eggs will cook perfectly to the very centre. Very important this. The Frittata will brown at the edges while the inside remains soft & just the right amount of moist.

This is just our breakfast. It isn’t on the menu. But maybe it should be! Now where’s that cup of coffee to finish this top class breakfast…

Not that I need a reason to have this plate for lunch, but the weather right now makes it absolutely perfect.

Warm Hasselback potatoes. I love how they are cut so meticulously, allowing for soft baked slices into which I can slip those rounds of butter.
I love the cracked pepper & the crystals of sea salt, both offering texture & flavour.

The sausages; I chose Pork, but we have Chicken too. Hand-made in our kitchen. Smoked & then fried up on order. The sausages are meaty (no fillers thank you very much) and they bounce back when you cut through them. This Pork variant, we can the Hot Italian.

The plate is so simple. Meat & Potatoes.
And yet it’s not. The potatoes take skill & time and have that distinct wood-fired smokiness. The sausages are a whole production in themselves. The butter, I don’t even have to elaborate.

This is what we love about the plates on our menu. They all come with a story. The story of our home world.

You ever feel that irresistible urge to eat an ice cream on a rainy day?
Yeah. That.

It doesn’t really come as a surprise that we as a dairy farm make our own ice cream. It seems elementary when we have such good milk, literally in our backyard.

But Ice Cream made of Cheese. Now that’s where it gets interesting. Have you ever tasted an ice cream made of cheese?

Fresh ricotta. Soft as a cloud. High protein, low fat. Creamy & ever so slightly tangy from the process of making it. This forms our base.

Chocolate. Need I say more? Melted down so we can swirl it into the ricotta.

Honey. Because, why not? Cheese & honey often tend to pair well. Should work here too was the initial thought & that thought was right.

The result is the chocolate ice cream of my dreams. Dark enough, but also clearly made with milk. I love the complexity of flavours that come with the cheese. And I love that it’s unique yet familiar, because we make it our own special way.

Most of all, I love that it is such a great showcase of one home world - a dairy farm.

I didn’t get to eat this over the weekend.
And so I sit & stare at the photograph today.

Our take on a Konkan Seafood Thali.
Inspired by a road trip I did last year along the incredibly beautiful West Coast.
Tiny fishing villages wedged between the sea & the backwaters. Lush gardens & plantations surround each tile-roofed house, bursting with produce - coconuts, kokum, spices & of course the ridiculous variety of fresh seafood caught on their daily catamaran rides into the sea.
How was I not going to try to capture the essence of Konkan coast on a plate?!

A green, bright & fresh Hirwa masala, a deep beautifully balanced Malwan curry, the classic coasting of fish with semolina & that quiet rock star of every meal - a thecha using dried ingredients from land & sea. I had my flavour profile from one coast.

Seeing as we are located on the other coast - the Coromandel - we must use fresh ingredients from here. And interestingly, there are many similarities - a variety of seafood fresh & sun-dried, coconuts fresh & dried and local rice to eat it with.

The game changer is Kokum (Garcinia indica). The souring agent of choice along the Konkan, we use the dried fruit as well as the extract (Agad) in the making of the dishes.

It magically converts the flavours into something entirely different from what we are used to on the east coast. It also helps to transport me across every time we cook these dishes. I do think that’s my favourite part about this plate :)
Thank you for this photograph :)

Lunch in the sun!

It’s important to work one’s way through the menu. Especially when the menu is one’s own lol.

To see if the plate needs improvement.
To re-think flavours & textures.
To imagine new pairings.
And sometimes, simply to remember how good a plate is.

This Akki Roti plate - the vegetarian version. I almost always chose the version served with Pandi Curry, so I tend to forget the gamut of condiments that we offer here.

- a granular spicy dal & chilli Podi
- a tangy, pungent tomato Thokku
- a single piece of Sirke wala Pyaaz
- 3 flavours of our Labneh cheese

My hands down favourite is the Labneh. Because it goes to show that cheese can be at every table & not just paired with a glass of fancy wine &

This plate is as South Indian as it can get. And yet it includes ingredients, flavours & condiments that aren’t.

I love when a universality like this can be found with food!

One of those days when all I can think right now is Dessert.

This one in particular - Dairy Farmers Dessert we called it.
Inspired by a classic bread pudding, we twice bake our milk loaf with butter and have that on the ready. Cut a couple of slices, sear it in a pan with more butter to crisp the outsides.
Some crème fraîche to bring in more dairy farm feels. And a plum or strawberry compote to add that hint of sweetness.

This plate isn’t on our menu anymore. But I sure wish it was. Because it was everything a dessert should be in my book - delicious, decadent & something you wistfully dream of every once in a way. Sigh.

இன்னைக்கு
Innikku is the Tamil word for Today.
Innikku is our exploration of produce; the flavours, textures & possibilities that we imagine with it. It is a plate, little or large that we offer just for the day.

And today, it is Ema Datshi.

Ask a Bhutanese what their favourite food is and the unanimous reply will be Ema Datshi! As simple as simple can be, this dish combines 2 elements of their kitchen - Chillies (Ema) often grown in their garden and Datshi (Cheese) often made by small local co-operatives. Cooked together, they compliment & balance one another to become something that is comforting, & downright delicious.

On a dairy farm, making our own cheese, we are spoilt for choice. For this dish, we chose to cook with fresh whey Ricotta (very closer to churppi) and some of our Madras pepper Jack for extra flavour.

Two varieties of chillies are added to the cheeses- gorgeous red Habib Chillies for a fresh, fruity flavour & brilliant green Jalepenõs for crunch & bold heat.

We have chosen to serve our version of Ema Datshi with some potato (Kewa) which is also classic in Bhutan. Some sourdough crackers never hurt.

Sigh, this turned out better than I expected. On for today - Innikku & also Nāḷai - tomorrow.

The devil is in the detail, they say.
Who’s They?! That might be a question for another time & place, but for now the point they made.

I couldn’t agree more with Them. It’s not about having a million details but the ones that are present should speak loud & clear for themselves.

This plate here is a lovely example of just that. Let’s meander through those details.

- Boiled eggs
Eggs are my forever fascination. The number of ways they can be made & the number of things they can be made into is mind boggling.

I think Boiled eggs have slowly become my favourite way to eat them. Oh I love a good Easy Over in my cast iron pan. But a boiled egg when cooked just right is a thing of beauty. Soft but firm. Light yet fulfilling. And adaptable to any flavour. Which brings me to…

- Mayonnaise
One of those glorious, magical things you can make in your kitchen in a matter of minutes. Don’t get me started on commercial mayo - that’s almost as gross as the gum they offer you in post offices. I’m talking about the real deal. Made with eggs & oil. Emulsified to become probably one of the most luscious condiments you can have in your pantry.
We add mustard & garlic to our mayonnaise.

So. Eggs mixed with eggs. We need to break that up. And nothing breaks Fat quite like Acid. I’ve said this so many times, I know you know this.

- Sirke wale Pyaaz
Now what’s this tandoori chicken accompaniment doing here, you might think. But why?!
We all love those stained, pickled onions, so why not eat them otherwise too?

Slivers of simple pickled onions atop the egg salad so the tiny bites of acid cut through the fat of the mayonnaise.

And finally a carrier for it all
- Whole Wheat & Ragi Bread
A very specific variety of wheat we are get from just for this bread.
Locally grown ragi that comes to use as & when they harvest.
A dense, hearty, heathy bread that you can hardly see in the photograph, but brings it all together.

Essentially this plate has 5 elements, including the garnish.
But every single one of those is carefully thought through, consciously made & pointedly brought together.
So yes, devils and details. .

Considering how eclectic our menu is, we often get asked questions like “who’s the Sindhi?” and “who’s the Goan?” because of the dishes from those respective cuisines that feature on our menu.

But you know what? We have a Pizza menu that lists 28 different Pizzas. And no one has ever asked us who the Italian is! Lol!

So. Pizza. This one here is a beauty! Almost like a salad on a pizza. But a pizza nevertheless.

A crisp base of fresh dough. A slow cooked tomato sauce. And then come the surprise elements.

A balsamic onion relish spread on the base. For that caramelised, peppery, fruity acidity.

Fresh rocket leaves with their classic peppery notes that are ever so slightly spicy.

And to balance it all - chunks of moist, juicy Bocconcini. This cheese is made fresh every day & we can just about cut into it to place it all over the pizza. Such a treat!

What else do you need really?! Oh. A wood-fired oven maybe. Yup. That does it.

Pizza number 10. Such a treat. But I think I already said that.

I found myself scrolling down our instagram page earlier this morning.

And I realise that on the cheese front, I tend to feature the same cheese again & again. I imagine it’s because those plates are well, instagrammable. They are also the plates where flavours, textures & pairings are all likeable, palatable & almost comforting in their familiarity. And yet they are unique. So they work for almost everyone.

And then, there are some gems hidden in clear sight which we don’t acknowledge often enough. Like this here.

We call this one a Piccolo. Literally means Small or Tiny in Italian, this puck is a little cheese wheel in itself. But that’s where the the Picollo factor ends.

There is nothing small about the flavour of any Washed Rind Cheese. And this one is no exception.

Washed Rind what, you ask? Well as if Cheese making isn’t tedious enough as it is, there is a family of Cheese that is aged and through this ageing process is continually “washed” with a salt brine. This process encourages the growth of certain bacteria on the surface of the cheese. Brevibacterium linens among other, if you care to know. It results in a classic orange-ish coloured firm mould & a distinctive pungent flavour.

The softer of these Washed Rind cheeses - like ours here - are often termed Smear Ripened and they have a creamy-gooey inside that sits gently below this natural rind. Cut into the little wheel with a knife & the insides will almost flow out (when they are at the perfectly right age).

While all of this sounds like incredible, let me warn you that a Washed Rind Cheese is not for everyone. It is sulphuric in aroma - some will most definitely call it stinky (a compliment in the cheese world) and the flavours are strong & bold and make me want to sit down to take it all in.

The older the cheese gets, the stronger. So be warned! As a young cheese it is firmer and less flavourful so I guess there’s no fun in that.

The Piccolo pairs equally well with sweet & savoury condiments. A crisp baguette & that’s all you need to go with this funky little cheese.

I think my love for the Crème Fraîche made me do it.
The baskets of apples were also shouting out at me real loud.
So really, this Apple Pie was going to happen eventually.

Ever heard of the term “As American as Apple Pie”? Somehow the world imagines that Apple Pie is an all-American thing when in fact it’s English & Dutch & Swedish first.
Eventually with colonisation apples trees found their way to the Americas and the rest as they say is history.

And so here we are. Apple Pie.
A classic dessert that takes centre stage in autumn as the weather changes, the Pie is comforting & homely & messy & ugly delicious (thank heavens someone invented this word!)

Our Apple Pie is an ode to the classic, and naturally has some of our stamp on it. Made with Green Granny Smith apples because we wanted that certain tang. Cinnamon, nutmeg & lime juice are irreplaceable. And finally, a crumble on the top instead of a lattice to keep it lighter.

Made a pie or 3 this morning. Waiting for it to cool before we can cut it. And then…

Serve with smooth silky crème fraîche that brings it all together.

In the interest of quality control, I have eaten a considerable amount of umm fruit over the last day 😬
Innikku - I shall save it for you!

Just week day things - make a batch of Pork Sausages.

I cannot tell you how long we have wanted to do this; make sausages from scratch. We’ve been making goan-style Choritz for years now. But this, this is entirely different.

And I cannot begin to tell you the process & learning & experimenting it takes to make a good sausage. Because that’s what we want, right? Something that’s better than the usual.

Where to begin? Good cuts of meat I suppose. Contrary of popular belief, we don’t add the rubbish pieces into making a sausage. The section is chosen purposefully. And so is the type of fat. Meat to fat ratio plays a vital role. So that too.

Then the grinder. Obv we must grind this to the desired consistency. Again, meat & fat. Not to a paste; we ain’t making kebabs. There’s a fine line between grinding & mincing and it seems like only many trials & errors will teach us.

Seasoning. Went with the popular Hot Italian. Isn’t really hot by our standards, but it’s a lot of flavour that works just fine.

Stuff into casing. Use hot smoke to do what needs to be done. You see the difference between photographs 1-2 and 3? See that beautiful colour that comes from cooking with smoke. Not to mention flavour.

And so, just like that, making Pork sausages has become a weekly thing to do in our kitchen. Just like that.
Love. Love.

If I had to pick 1 cheese (I really don’t know why I’d have to do that) out of the 17 that we make (yes seventeen), this would be it.

Our version of the more popularly known Brie & Camembert. Closely related to a Brillat Savarin. A cheese from the Bloomy Rind family - our 1/277.

As the name suggests, the rind is Bloomy. Not just that. It’s white & soft & works it’s way inwards breaking down the protein & converting this pyramid into a gooey, super creamy, downright delicious piece of cheese.

With such a high fat content, one needs balance. And that’s where the accompaniments come into play. The perfect balance to Fat is Acid.

Seeing as this cheese is made with double cream, we figured 2 acids made sense.

1. Strawberries
These berries contain five different acids: citric acid, ascorbic acid, malic acid, ellagic acid and pantothenic acid.
With such a crazy flavour profile, serving them fresh is best. Fruity & tart notes are what we want.

2. Balsamic Vinegar
May as well bring it another acid, right?! Acetic acid it is, courtesy the vinegar that we make into pearls using the molecular gastronomy technique of Spherification.
These pearls are little bursts of pungency.

And just like that, we have ourselves a Cheese Plate that works absolutely any time of the day. Share it if you will. Or just enjoy it yourself :)

And if you’re wondering about the name - that’s our address. 1/277.
It’s a common practise in the cheese world to name a cheese after your location. It marks the terroir of the cheese. Because no 2 cheeses are made the same.

It’s been raining for hours now. Incessant, loud & oh so beautiful.

All I can think of is this is particular Pizza - Goan Choritz.

Thin crust of fresh dough, hand spread.
Slow cooked tomato sauce.
A generous serving of the Choritz we make in-house. It is smokey, fiery, tangy, porky & ohh so damn good.
Fresh Mozz, also made right here.

Into the blazing oven for about 4 minutes, give or take.
The crust crisps and shatters when you bite into it.
The rest remains softish because a lot of the spicy oils are released from the Choritz as it gets cooked.
The cheese melts, combines with the fat & bubbles on the pizza.

Yup. As you can see, I’ve been thinking about it a fair bit. Why I waited so long to order it, I don’t know. But we fixed that!

So good.

If you missed my incessant stories about the Inniku plate over the weekend, here’s a post for posterity.

Edible Fungi.
I was walking about the garden last week; a bright sunny day after some days of rain. And I noticed these beautiful tiny little mushrooms growing at the side of a flower trough (photograph 3). And that set me off.

Fungi are fascinating and no one can deny that. Somewhat plant and some sort animal, there is so little know about them. And yet, they’re everywhere!

It’s not just food. Penicillin is a Fungi! And Decomposition - who else is going to do it?!

But. Before this becomes a post that’s more like a research paper - let’s stick to Food. By which I mostly mean Mushrooms - the fruit, so to speak, of the Fungi.

Now that I was thinking about it, we have so many gorgeous Mushrooms coming our way thanks to .india

And and and, sent us some Morels (Gucchi) foraged in Himachal!

So then. I had to just bring it all together on a plate.

King Oyster, Portobello, Shiitake, Pioppino & Morel. On a bed of Buttom Mushroom Pâté.

How to season it? Brown Butter & Mushrooms are like a match made in someplace perfect. And you know what else? Soy.
Soy & Mushrooms works.
Soy & Brown Butter works.
The best part - Soy sauce is made using Fungi!
Made a glaze. Haven’t felt more thrilled about a glaze ever. I’d recommend you do so too. And thank me later :)

And finally, all we needed was something to mop it all up. Enter another Fungi - Sourdough. In the form of the Baguette we make.

The plate was beautiful., even if I say so myself. And we learnt so much in the process of putting it together. That’s exactly what the Innikku plates are meant to do for us. Love!

The last week has seen unseasonal rain followed by days of bright blue skies; the perfect weather for Mushrooms to sprout. Which got us thinking…

A sharing plate to enjoy the flavours & textures of Fungi (Mushrooms) in varying shapes & sizes. This plate will include

- Button Mushroom Paté (Agaricus bisporus)

- Grilled King Oyster Mushroom (Pleurotus eryngii)

- Seared Portobello Mushrooms (Agaricus bisporus)

- Pan-fried Shiitake Mushrooms (Lentinula edodes)

- Sautéed Pioppino Mushrooms (Agrocybe aegerita)

- Rehydrated Wild Morels (Guchhi) (Morchella esculenta)

Finished with a Soy-Brown Butter Glaze.
The seasoning of Soy has been chosen to keep with the theme; Soy sauce is made by fermentation using guess what - Fungi!(Aspergillus oryzae & Aspergillus sojae)

Served with Sourdough Baguette to mop it all up.
The Starter Yeast for a Sourdough is yes, also a Fungi (Saccharomyces exiguous)

Our Innikku Plate on from tomorrow, for a day. Maybe two.

Innikku is the Tamil word for Today.
Innikku is our exploration of produce; the flavours, textures & possibilities that we imagine with it. It is a plate, little or large that we offer just for the day.

In between baking bread & roasting chicken & all the other things we do in our wood-fired ovens, we make time for Confit.

Highly underrated as a technique, and requiring nothing but patience & time, a confit-ed anything is a flavour bomb like you won’t imagine.

There are broadly 2 types of Confit.
- Meat, in which case, the fat from said meat is rendered & used to cover the meat and cook it.
- Vegetables / Aromatics like this garlic here where fat has to be added. It could be animal fat if you wanted and I have tried a version with ghee just because we have lots of it. But if you want the ingredient to shine through, then just regular neutral oil will work just fine.

Low heat and for as long a time as you can without burning it. This took us under 2 hours. Just the residual heat of a busy oven was more than we needed.

The result is jammy, smooshable pods of roasted garlic that are oh so damn delicious that you want to put them in everything. We always keep a jar of these handy in case of emergencies.

Example of emergencies: potato mash that needs something more / butter that must upgrade / a pasta sauce / kheema bake / or just you know, when you simply must cut into a warm baguette & spread some roasted garlic on it as a snack.

So. The next time you use your oven, get a little bowl of garlic ready to confit & stick it in as soon as your done baking / roasting. You can thank me later.

“Mangez bien, riez souvent, aimez beaucoup.”
A common French saying that I can totally live by. Literally translates to Eat well, Laugh often, Love a lot.

Let’s focus on the first part right now, for the purpose of this post :)

Mid-week, at home, with a little Cheese Box. Let’s call it Date Night.

The 1/277 Bloomy Rind is the perfect cheese for this weather. It is soft, creamy, spreadable, cuttable, gooey & all things delicious.

Crackers & baguette. Some fruit for both sweet & tart. A little onion jam for heat & sweet too. And those very special balsamic vinegar pearls for the right amount of mouth-puckering acid to balance the richness of the cheese. Everything that you need is in this little box.

This box; it works for 1 person. It also works for two. Depends on if you like to share :)

We chose to name this box Crepe Myrtle, after the tiny brilliant pink, crepe-like flowers that we are lucky to have in our garden.