KOCHI: For most of us, the best part of most journeys is the flavours we unveil. For Finla Noronha, her culinary journey began quite serendipitously almost 30 years ago. The Thiruvankulam-native met her husband, a Belgium national, in Kochi. The couple got married and moved to Belgium and the most interesting part of that change for Finla was definitely the food.
When she left home, Finla wasn’t much of a cook. “The world was quite different back when I moved here. It was so hard to find Indian spices or vegetables. It was hard to find even chilli powder or turmeric so I would carry everything from Kochi whenever I travelled.
The hardest to find was boiled rice,” she says, quipping about how much she envies the new foodies who turn up in Belgium. “If you live in places like Brussels, you would find all authentic ingredients,” she adds.
Moving into a Belgian family, she had to strike a balance between Indian food, Belgian food and world cuisine. “I used to visit my in-laws a lot. That is where I learned about authentic recipes. Ever since, I have been researching, watching cooking videos and tweaking the recipes with whatever I can find in the fridge,” she says.
Finla’s Instagram profile is now a flavour trail that connects the east and the west. From appam and chicken roast, full-course rice meals and Kerala style seafood curries, to easter eggs, home-made baguettes and spätzle (a type of pasta authentic to European regions like Germany), you will find so many palates making their rounds.
“Bread is the staple food in Belgium, but one thing they cannot live without is potatoes. They eat potatoes like we eat rice — with every meal, mashed, boiled or fried,” she says. She remembers how she was shocked to see 50 kilos of potatoes at her in-laws garage soon after reaching Belgium. “But when I told them we eat 30 kg of rice a month a home, they seemed equally surprised,” she quips. On Instagram @finla.noronha
FROM HER KITCHEN
Here is an easy-to make Belgian style waffle recipe from Finla
100 gm butter melted
1 litre buttermilk
500 gm flour
3 eggs
3 tbsp oil
2 tbsp sugar
Half tbsp of soda bi carbonate.
For serving: Powdered sugar
Butter
Method
Add all the above ingredients into a bowl, mix everything using a whisk.
Heat the waffle machine (it has to be really hot), pour a small ladle of the batter and close the lid of the waffle maker
Cook it for a few minutes and take them out. (Don’t hurry and open the waffle machine. The waffles have to be well baked otherwise it will
be soggy).
When it is baked, remove from the machine and repeat the process with the rest of the batter.
In Belgium, we spread butter on top of the waffle and sprinkle it with powdered sugar. Make sure to have it warm! says Fin.