Mousse and Deep-Fried Dinner

Why is it that whenever I decide to go on a diet and stoically decide to restrict myself to boiled-poached-saltless-sugarless-bland food, people around me immediately start throwing ultra cool parties with a super-extravagant spread of mouth-watering food?!

Are they part of some conspiracy against me? Are they members of some Prevent Amrita from Growing Thin Association?! What did I ever do to them? Why do they do it? Why?! WHY?

Anyway, last night I came back home early from a house-warming party on my mother’s request, since she was having her friends over for dinner. Needless to say, I had to literally drag my feet up the stairs my tummy overloaded with an assortment of dim sums and second (and third, fourth…) helpings of Chili Chicken.

No, don’t judge me…the food didn’t have to be sooo delicious!

“Hi sweetie! We’ve got cutlets and wraps for you,” said Mrs Roy cheerfully, the moment I walked through the door.

Wow, thanks! I’m dying of hunger here…how did you know?!

I just smiled weakly and walked to the dining table, where everybody was helping themselves to deep-fried goodness and wrapped up love. My mother loaded my plate and put it in front of me. The heavily breaded chicken cutlet seemed to look up at me and scream, “Come here dah-ling and let me make you fat!”

Uh, fatter.

Did I eat it? Hell, no.

I just photographed it and passed on the plate to someone else.

Now, what mousse you ask? What else, chocolate! Except this time I added a vanilla-lime “foam” on top. It turned out tangy and airy. Pleasantly airy after the creaminess of the choco-mocha mousse.

The mousse was a pretty simple, “everybody knows how its done” recipe. I just fluffed up the eggs and sugar to stiff peaks. Warmed the cream along with the chocolate and coffee over a double-boiler. Folded the mixture well into the eggs and popped them in the freezer to set. I still remember the first time I made mousse though (about four years back); the cream was insanely hot when I tried to fold it into the eggs.

Yes, that’s right…I ended up with sticky, chocolatey scrambled eggs.

For the eggy foam, whisk the eggs with granulated sugar till the stiff peaks form. Fold in a teaspoon of lemon (or lime) zest, juice of one lemon and a teaspoon of good-quality vanilla essence. Fold well, but ensure the its still “peaky” when you’re done. You don’t want to overdo the mixing. The vanilla-lime “air” has to be spooned out on top of the mousse immediately…don’t let it sit out, it’ll disintegrate completely and start running. Ew, I know.

Have fun!