KOCHI: Usher in Christmas, in the most festive of ways. Nisha Kiran, a home chef based in the city is preparing a grand Christmas feast, with an array of festive delights ranging from fruit cakes to English Christmas pudding. Her enterprise Nisha Kiran’s Eatery, offers sumptuous Christmas meals and desserts such as rum balls and puddings this festive season.
While last time the focus was on Christmas themed homemade chocolates, rich fruit cakes and chocolate tins, this year, Nisha has prepared an extensive Christmas feast menu. “I have introduced the English Christmas pudding and a variety of flavoured rum balls to bring a European touch to Christmas celebrations. On Christmas day, we mostly stay at home and enjoy preparing a feast. So I will be offering the Christmas feast for the pre-ordered food enthusiasts,” says Nisha.
The rum balls have been prepared in a variety of flavours like chocolate sauce, cocoa powder, desiccated coconut, castor sugar, nuts and so on. Made with a rich fruitcake base and rolled in liquor, the rum balls have a distinct flavour. “Rum balls get tastier with time, just like wine. I have already prepared the rum balls, which get moist over time and make for the ideal dessert and a Christmas gift. The amount of liquor used is minimal to make it palatable to children as well,”says Nisha. “The preparation for the pudding takes four to eight hours and is very laborious. It involves steaming the pudding for hours which is then caramelised in liquor sauce which makes for the ideal dessert to end the Christmas day,” she adds.
The elaborate Christmas menu curated by Nisha includes a breakfast of palappam with various types of stew. Duck mappas also figures as a side dish for the palappam. While the lunch includes vegetarian meals along with pork, beef and chicken dishes, the dinner includes turkey along with the usual fare of mutton and chicken dishes. Nisha remarks how she has also given a thrust to eco-friendly packaging this year. “Last year, I used cane baskets for fruit cakes, but this time I have added cotton breadbaskets in Christmas colours. They can be reused,” says Nisha.