a visit to the community durga puja and a sat lunch

g's holidays began from friday. we spent the day gallivanting around town; ate at basil & thyme (will do a post on that later), checked out the select citywalk mall at saket (work in progress), came back home and after b got back, went to check out the local community durga puja in phase 1. the one next to our house in phase 1v didn't happen this year.
we ate some pathetic fish and prawn cutlets and an insipid chicken roll...ugh!
sat was nice, relaxed and yummy! we had a friend drop by for lunch for which i tossed up a salad and some pizza and b cooked some mutton. the recipe is from the silver spoon, therefore simple and delicious, however, b did add a bit of paprika that our friends asg and sm got back for us from turkey. b also lightly boiled the mutton to get some stock; we like to eat mutton a little well-done, boiling the mutton softens it a little and the stock can be used to prolong the cooking time if we want. in case you can't use all the stock, store it and use it to cook rice; it tastes yum!!

the salad:

i tossed up some fresh lettuce, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, left-over smoked chicken from the pizza and onions in herb-soaked olive oil that was left over from my bottle of sun-dried tomatoes, salt, pepper and a liberal helping of goat's cheese.

this is what the salad looked like:


for the mutton you need shallots:


the boiled mutton:


b's touch: some paprika from istanbul:


here is the recipe of lamb fricassee with onions:

heat some unsalted butter and olive oil in a pan, add the mutton and cook, turning frequently till golden brown:


remove from pan and keep warm.
add the onions and cook till golden brown:


return the lamb pieces into the pan, season with salt and pepper and pour in about half a bottle of white wine (always use good quality wine, if the wine is not good enough for drinking, it's not good for cooking!). add paprika according to taste and cover and cook for about 40 mins.
this is how it looks like after 40 mins:


serve this with some warm whole wheat rolls:


for the pizza, i got the whole wheat bases from patisserie petunia and loaded them with sliced mushrooms, baby corn, sun-dried tomatoes, sliced smoked chicken and topped all that with a few balls of bocconcini. the balls melt all over the pizza and makes it all gooey and yum!!!
sorry i didn't take any pics of the pizza, will do that next time.