Now Order Delicious Imported and Gourmet Food Online

Online grocery stores of repute have jumped into the fray. Today these select online stores cater to your longing for gourmet food items.

One can buy imported and gourmet food online easily now, at one's favorite online grocery store. These stores offer an exclusive range of brands in the category of gourmet food. These brands include every product covering international cooking ingredients such as vinegar and olives beside pasta and canned foods as well as noodles, jams and spreads, and sauces. All these products are available from well known international brands. Some of these include Agnesi, Abbie's, Olicoop, Skippy and DANA among many others. With these attractive products, you get to indulge your taste buds.

Rapid Expansion in this Sector
In the last five years, there has been a very rapid expansion in the gourmet retail space that includes online gourmet food. This, in turn, has brought about a strategic shift from the traditional and low-cost products to premium products in the higher range. During the years, the select section of the gourmet food that was consumed by Indians has also radically undergone an amazing change. Indian consumers that were once very conservative in their eating habits, can now be seen showing interest in trying out new products. This change in dietary habits has brought about the availability of foods such as pasta, one of the most popular among the various gourmet foods, with different types of cheeses. Online grocery stores of repute have jumped into the fray. Today these select online stores cater to your longing for gourmet food items. The variety of gourmet products on offer from these stores is covered under:

Canned Food products

Food

Jam, Sauce & Spread and

Pasta and Noodles.

The Reasons Behind Change in Dietary Habits

There are several reasons behind the change in the dietary habits of Indians over the last few years. Their yearning for imported and gourmet food resulted from international wanderings. There is an obvious increase in the number of Indians traveling abroad in the last about five to ten years. As people traveled abroad they became familiar with a large variety of food. The Italian food that uses pasta, vinegar, olive oil, cheeses, and noodles caught the fancy of Indians on account of the simplicity of preparation. To add to this was the fact that kids from all parts of India simply love fast food! We need no coaxing when asked to eat pasta and noodles. This resulted in a rapid change in the dietary habits of Indians almost overnight. The online stores did the rest. They made these food products readily available.

Availability of Imported and Gourmet Food

Under the food section, a typical grocery store such as Quick2Kart would offer Sunsweet Lemon Essence Prune and Sunsweet Prune Juice 1l. Whereas, the same website, under Jam, Sauce & Spread, includes Skippy Reduced Fat Creamy and Skippy Peanut Butter Natural Crunchy.

Websites serving across other parts of the nation also have a good collection woo their customers.

There is no doubt that in the foreseeable future the range of such products is going to expand drastically. This is only natural since online grocery stores are always eager to satisfy what their customers want.

therefore find Article, in the future one will see the number of cheeses multiply. There will be a much larger choice in vinegar and sauces as well as noodles and pasta. One will also see more international brands jostle for space in the leading online grocery stores. Gourmet foods are here to stay.

The online grocery stores are fast filling up with gourmet food products. It will now be possible for you to serve the kind of food – you may have eaten either abroad or in restaurants serving continental preparations – right at your home!

Meet the Artist Making Delicious Food Quilts

Tania Denyer is a legal assistant and a mother of two. But in her spare time, she makes quilts (and smaller “quiltlets”) that riff on food and what's in her kitchen cabinets. She's always been a “maker,” with a passion for illustration. But 22 years ago, when she was 27, a co-worker brought in a quilt block with a tea-cup design to work. Denyer, who calls herself “a hipster before hipsters were cool,” was entranced. That same co-worker, seeing her interest, signed her up for a quilting class. Denyer remembers thinking, “How hard can it be?”

While Denyer had done a little sewing before, quilting was an entirely different world. The only thing that kept her going, Denyer says, was experimentation. At first, she depended on other quilters' patterns before she began to make her own. Then, instead of using patterned fabrics, she switched to solid colors, using them “in the same way as a painter would use paints.” She cites Henri Matisse's cut-outs with colored paper as an inspiration, and often cuts her fabric free-form before constructing her quilts and quiltlets.

In the end, it all comes down to art, though. “I do get frustrated by the perception that quilts are not art, that they are merely craft,” she says. “If a sculptor uses marble, a painter paint, why can't a quilter use fabric as her medium and be considered an artist too?” Her focus on food as a primary subject ties into expanding the definition of art as well. Especially because women textile artists and cooks have been long overlooked. “To my mind women have been making art from their homes forever,” Denyer says. “Food is a key part of women's art.”

With that in mind, many of her smaller quilts are designed to hang on the wall rather than drape over a bed. Fittingly, she was recently the artist-in-residence at the Cotton Factory in Hamilton, Ontario, a former cotton mill that's now a co-working space for creatives.

These days, she's especially interested in certain foods. One recent quiltlet featured a vintage spice bottle (Denyer has always been fascinated by food packaging) and another, larger quilt displayed an arrangement of Japanese sweets, with designs made by herself and fellow Canadian artist Geri Coady. While showing a quilt at QuiltCon (“Yes, there is a QuiltCon”), she took a photo of a diner breakfast that she now will recreate in fabric. “Even simple diner food is art too.”

Denyer is currently planning to render a series of vintage spice bottles in fabric, all while pondering the concept of abstract food art quilts. But she's kept up her illustration work, too. (One recent series of drawings highlighted food packaging, especially Canadian stalwarts such as Five Rose Flour and Windsor Salt.) The goal, she says, is to combine her two passions into one, and someday become a fabric designer.

Get delicious, unfussy soul food at this Smyrna spot

There's a special counter service restaurant hiding in an unexpected spot in Smyrna. Hang a right when you walk into the Nam Dae Mun Farmers Market on South Cobb Drive, and you'll find yourself at the counter of 2 Sistas Soul Food. Whether you're starving, and need a full chicken dinner, or feeling peckish after grocery shopping, the friendly women working there will fix you right up.

You can't go wrong with the tostones rellenos, adorable little cups made from fried plantains that are filled with your choice of beef, pork or chicken. I went with beef, and, while I'm sure the other options are good, I can't imagine getting something different next time. The ground beef filling has a complex flavor from sharing time in the pot with olives, raisins and traditional Puerto Rican spices.

The sweet and savory combination is certainly tasty, but it's taken to a different planet by a simple cilantro garlic sauce that's bright green and hums with freshness. The classic vinegar-based hot sauce served at 2 Sistas is a good addition, too. Adding one or both of those acidic sauces will kick the tostones rellenos into a higher gear.

Plus, they're a great value, like everything on the 2 Sistas menu: three tostones for $5. You also could choose two empanadas with the same filling options for the same price. You might as well tack on a three-piece fried chicken meal. Those start at $6.99 for dark meat.

If you live in Smyrna, and you're not eating at 2 Sistas Soul Food, you're not only missing out on their fantastic Creole and Puerto Rican cooking, you're basically losing money.

Simple recipe for fish biryani

The anticipation of Christmas Eve, especially if you have children, is one of my favourite things about this time of year. But it can be exhausting getting to this point, with so much still to prepare. Ideally, you'll have something sustaining to pull out of the oven when the children are tucked up in bed tomorrow night, because you'll need all the sustenance you can get to help you through the last-minute present wrapping.

We rarely get a white Christmas, but it's usually frosty outside, so instinct demands food that's warming and comforting. Fish is an obvious answer, being both light (ahead of the day of feasting) and familiar. Rice, too, because it's so forgiving (see also Meera's vegan pilau). This year, I wanted a break from our usual kedgeree, so have been experimenting with new flavours, inspired by a trip to Kerala a few years ago. Being so dependent on fish and vegetables, the cooking there is remarkably light, yet boldly flavoured, and one brick-red fish and coconut curry in particular caught my attention. This is my version of it: the spices work together to give soft, mellow notes and a signature russet colour that rivals even the most enthusiastic Father Christmas (who may well prefer it to mince pies).
Fish biryani

You can prepare everything a day ahead, then pop it in the oven half an hour before eating. Serves six.

Juice of ½ lime
½ tsp turmeric
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
500g skinless, sustainably caught cod fillet (or other firm white fish)
400g basmati rice, rinsed
1 bay leaf
1 cinnamon stick
3 tbsp rapeseed oil
2 red onions, peeled and finely sliced
½-thumb-sized piece fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
400g fresh plum tomatoes
1 green chilli, deseeded
¼ tsp black mustard seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp freshly ground coriander seed
¼ tsp red chilli powder
1 tsp garam masala
400ml coconut milk
Coriander and mint leaves, to serve

In a bowl, mix the lime juice, turmeric and half a teaspoon of salt, smear this all over the fish and leave to marinate for 30 minutes. After that, wash off the marinade and store the fish in the fridge.

Meanwhile, heat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Put the rice, bay and cinnamon in a pan with a pinch of salt, cover with boiling water and boil for four minutes, until al dente. Drain, return to the pan, cover and leave to steam while you get on with the next stage.

Warm the oil in a large pan on a low heat and start frying the onions, stirring occasionally. With the onions on the go, put the ginger, garlic, tomatoes and chilli in a food processor and blitz until finely chopped. Once the onions have been frying for five to eight minutes and have softened nicely, turn up the heat to medium-high and add the mustard and cumin seeds. When the mustard seeds begin to pop, add the ginger and garlic mix, and fry until lightly coloured. Add the coriander, chilli powder and garam masala, stir-fry for a minute, then add the coconut milk. Once the mix is simmering, add the rinsed fish to the pot, making sure it's just submerged, and cook gently for five minutes. Once the fish is just cooked through, take the pan off the heat.

Spread half the fish and its sauce in a deep baking dish, and spoon half the rice on top. Repeat the layers, then cover with foil. Bake for 20 minutes, until heated through, then leave to cool and rest for 10 minutes. Serve scattered with torn mint and coriander, and with raita and chutneys of your choice alongside.

Recipes for fried party snacks for new year and beyond

Room for one more party, yes? Just one more slice of cake and one more glass of wine? New Year's Eve marks the line between one year and the next, of course, but for many of us it also marks the cut-off point between indulgence and abstinence. What better way to tread this fine line, then, than to have friends over and serve them some snack food rather than one big feast. This sort of food often makes for my favourite kind of get-togethers, anyway: hanging out while eating various nibbles over the course of an evening, rather than the ready, steady, go of a big sit-down number.

One or two or all three of today's snacks will indulge your guests far more than any little party canape, but at the same time they are all just about abstinent enough not to weigh everyone down, which is the last thing any of us needs right now. That's why I'll be treading this very line tomorrow night, to see out the old year and bring in the new.

Panelle
If you're going to make only one snack to serve with the drinks tomorrow night, these are the perfect make-ahead choice. They are made with chickpea flour and cooked like polenta, and you can prepare and chill the mixture today or tomorrow morning, then cut it into slices so the panelle are ready to cook when your guests get hungry and you get frying. I was introduced to these little fritters, a tasty street food snack from Palermo in Sicily, by my friend Ivo Bisignano. Traditionally, they're served hot, straight out of the oil, in a soft white bread roll with just a squeeze of lemon by way of accompaniment, but I like to snack on them just as they are before a meal; they're also lovely dipped in decent mayonnaise or aïoli. To me, panelle are the epitome of indulgence, rather than abstinence, in the New Year's Eve equation. Makes about 30 fritters, to serve four to five generously.

225g chickpea (aka gram) flour
½ tsp rosemary leaves, finely chopped
Flaked sea salt and black pepper
750ml water
500ml sunflower oil
1 lemon, halved

Sift the flour into a bowl, then stir in the chopped rosemary, a teaspoon and a half of salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper.

Pour the water into a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Take the pan off the heat, then add the flour in three or four stages, whisking continuously with each addition to stop too many lumps forming (though there's no escaping the fact that some will). Return the pan to a low heat and cook the mix for five minutes, stirring frequently with a spatula, until it starts to come away from the sides of the pan, then turn off the heat.

Cut out two 35cm-wide x 80cm-long sheets of greaseproof paper, lay one out on a worktop, then spoon the panelle mixture on top and spread it out into a roughly 20cm x 30cm rectangle that's about 1cm thick (again, use a spatula). Lay the second sheet of paper on top, then roll out with a rolling pin until the batter is 0.5cm thick and about twice its original surface area (don't worry if it loses its shape a bit).

Set aside for half an hour to cool and set properly, then lift off the top layer of paper and cut the panelle batter into long, 4cm-wide strips. Cut each strip into 10cm-long pieces (so you end up with 4cm x 10cm rectangles). Don't worry about trimming the edges: any frayed bits will go nice and crisp when fried.

Put the oil in a large saute pan on a high flame. Once the oil is good and hot (about 200C), carefully drop in four or five slices of panelle and fry for five to six minutes, turning them once halfway through, until golden brown and crisp. Lift out with a slotted spoon and transfer to a wire rack lined with kitchen paper, to drain. Sprinkle with a pinch of salt and repeat with the remaining panelle mixture. Once all the panelle are fried, squeeze over some lemon juice and serve at once.
Chorizo, banana and prawn cakes with harissa yoghurt

These are what I'd sell if I ever jacked it all in and set up a street stall somewhere tropical. I'm probably not going to do that any time soon, but in the meantime, these will transport you there. Makes about 15 fritters, to serve four as a snack or first course.

3 cooking chorizo sausages, skin removed and discarded, meat finely chopped (150g net weight)
100g Greek-style yoghurt
1 tsp rose (or regular) harissa
2 ripe bananas (but not so ripe that they have brown bits), peeled and cut into 2cm pieces
80g sustainably caught ready-peeled raw king prawns, roughly chopped
1 green chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
1 small garlic clove, peeled and crushed
2cm piece ginger, peeled and finely grated (to end up with about ½ tsp)
2 limes – zest finely grated, to get 2 tsp, then cut into wedges
¼ tsp ground coriander
10g coriander leaves, finely chopped
2 tbsp plain flour
Salt
2 large egg whites
3 tbsp vegetable oil

Put a large nonstick saute pan on a high flame. Once hot, fry the chorizo for four minutes, stirring regularly, until nice and crisp, then tip into a large bowl (including any oil that leeches out) and leave to cool a little.

In a small bowl, fold the harissa into the yoghurt – don't mix them together so much that they turn into a uniform mass, but rather just swirl the harissa through the yoghurt, so it ends up with attractive red marbling. Cover with cling-film and refrigerate.

Add the bananas, prawns, chilli, garlic, ginger, lime zest, ground and fresh coriander, flour and a quarter-teaspoon of salt to the chorizo and stir to combine. Whip the egg whites to soft peaks, then gently fold into the fritter mixture, taking care not to knock out too much air.