Here's how Maria Goretti spends her Christmas

On Christmas day, if you walk down a street, you are bound to be mesmerised by the decorations, lights, music and the aroma of dishes that families get together to make during the week leading up to the special day. While most families have a lavish spread accompanied with some wine, Maria Goretti, a food fiend and popular personality who resides in Versova, celebrates Christmas in her own special way. This year, she also released her very own recipe book, From My Kitchen To Yours, published by Om Books International. The book includes interesting dishes for each month of the year. 
 

Goretti's adoration for the culinary world stemmed very late in her life. “Cooking a meal is one of the nicest things you can do. It helps you connect with a person in more ways than one. Moreover, it gives me a joyous and relaxing feel, which goes synonymously with what Christmas really stands for,” says Goretti, enthusiastically. Like all Mumbaikars, Goretti too goes all out to spend this day with her family and friends. On a typical Christmas day, at her home, you'd find her cooking meals for her kids, husband and friends who come over to visit. “We usually begin our festivities with a drink that Arshad makes. It has coconut water and Malibu and is an absolute hit with our guests,” she says, proudly.

While she has stopped making sweets, Goretti doesn't stop at anything to cook a hearty meal on a usually chilly day. She let on, “I get most of my inspiration from my mother. I use a lot of her recipes because they are simply delicious. One of my absolute favourites is the Mutton Moil, for which I strictly follow her recipe.” Setting that aside, there's often a delicious, visually appealing spread on the table consisting of prawn curry and rice (her mother's speciality), lamb vindaloo, chicken honey sausages, strawberry salad, creamy potatoes, a delicious pasta dish and of course, naan. And to end it on a sweet note, pun intended, Goretti tells me she would be making chocolate rum pots, strawberry meringues and a gluten-free orange cake.

It's often quite easy to blindly copy recipes and cook dishes. However, it takes talent and skill to leave the traditional path and add your own twist to the creation. “I learn a lot through trial and error. While my mother is a real inspiration for me, I also pick up ideas through books or videos that I watch, to see how I can recreate a dish and put my own twist on it,” she explains. As we inch closer to this festive season, several home cooks will crack open recipe books to begin preparing their dishes, four to five days prior to Christmas day, and Goretti is no exception. She shares the recipe of her famous orange cake with us. She says, “What I learnt from Warsi is to never be judgmental. We need to take each other at face value and go from there. So this gluten-free fresh orange cake is browned on the outside, like a life well lived, and you need to bite into it to discover that it is just perfectly bittersweet with the moist golden yellow inside beaming like the sun. Now that is what I call love that stays in your heart.”

Goretti's ability to blend culture and festivities with food is admirable and note-worthy. Like her, there are innumerable home cooks around the city who put their heart on a plate during Christmas. It is absolutely necessary to take note of such culinary talent, big and small which manifests itself beautifully during these festive seasons. 

Orange cake recipe

What you need:
>> Oranges - 2 large ones
>> Sugar - 225 gm
>> Eggs - 5
>> Almond flour - 250 gm
>> Fresh cinnamon powder - 1/2 tsp
>> Baking powder - 1 tsp
>> Baking soda - 1/2 tsp
>> A handful of chocolate buttons

Instructions:
1    Boil the whole oranges, with the peel intact, for two hours. Ensure that the oranges are completely immersed in water. Drain the water and leave the oranges to cool down.
2    Break into the cooled orange gently and take the pulp out. Remove the seeds and discard them. Gently scrape the pith of the orange peel.
3    In a bowl, blend the orange pulp and peel with the sugar.
4    Add two full eggs and three yolks.
5    Add the flour, cinnamon, baking powder and baking soda to this egg batter and mix well.
6    In another bowl, beat the three egg whites to stiff peaks.
7    Fold the egg whites into the cake batter.
8    Prepare an 8” tin and pour half the batter in. Sprinkle with chocolate buttons. 
9    Add the remaining cake batter.
10    Bake in a pre-heated oven with a rotator fan at 170°C for 55 minutes or in an oven without a rotator fan at 190 degree for 40-45 minutes or till a toothpick poked into the middle of the baked cake comes out clean.