Movie Review - 'Geu nom moksori' Korean movie 'Voice of a Murderer'

I am a movie buff and my love for movies knows no barrier of languages.
And given my love for them, I always wanted to write reviews or rather my opinion on how the movie was. But my first review had to be special and hence I was waiting for that special movie which would be the first to feature on my blog. So when I saw this movie today, a Korean movie made in 2007, I knew, I had found the movie :)
So my readers, here I go...

Korean Movie titled 'Geu nom moksori' - English title 'Voice of a Murderer'

Belonging to the Genre of Drama/Thriller, this movie touched me. The movie is inspired by a true incident of kidnaping and is set in 1991 Seoul, South Korea. The story revolves around a successful News reader, his beautiful wife and 9 year old son who is about to turn 10 in about a month's time. His near perfect fairy tale life comes crashing when his son is kidnapped and the rest of the movie is about the pain, anxiety and decreasing hope that they would find their son.

The lead cast, Kyung-gu Sol as the tormented father is unbelievably real in his emotions. One of the scenes where he breaks down on Live television, brought a lump to my throat. Nam-ju Kim's performance as the mother was brilliant. Be it her efforts to make her son shed some weight or preparing the supper for her son's birthday hoping that he would come back to her, was lovely. My heart ached for her and I could feel her emotions, despite my handicap in understanding Korean. She spoke thru her eyes.

Coming to other aspects of the movie, the screenplay was very gripping and the background music added just the right amount of tension and emotion that was required.

Kudos to the Director, Jin-pyo Park, who has also written the movie, has done total justice to the movie. This movie is by far the best I have seen amongst the ones based on kidnapping.

I highly recommend my readers to watch this movie.

Ratings:
Direction: 9/10
Acting by Lead Actors:10/10
Technical Aspects:9/10
Over All Rating:9.4/10

Tangy Palak Gravy with Channa Dal

I have always loved Daal Palak and always wanted to make it a little tangy with Channa daal. Hence I tried this out, which to my surprise, turned out to be a good variant. Here goes the recipe :)

Ingredients: Palak - 200 gms, Channa Daal - 1 Cup, Green Chilli - 2 pcs, Onion - 1 medium sized, tamarind Paste - 1 tsp, Jeera - 1 tsp, Oil - 2 tbsp, chilli Pow - 1.5 tsp, Corriander pow - 1 tsp, Turmeric pow - 1 tsp, salt to taste.

Preparation: Soak the Channa dal for about 15 mins and then pressure cook until softened. Cut Palak and keep it aside. Chop Onions finely and keep it aside.

Take a Kadai and heat the oil in it. Add the Jeera and allow it to turn golden. Now add the Onion and green chillies (finely chopped). Once the onions turn golden, add the chopped Palak and tamarind water. Allow this to cook for 3 minutes. Now add the turmeric powder, chilli powder, corriander pow & channa dal and salt to taste and mix well. Allow this to cook for about 10 mins.

The dish is now ready to be consumed :)

Serving Suggestions: This tangy daal Palak can be had with Rice, Pulav or roti. Add a little Aloo Bhujia and this can be a yummy filler snack as well :).

Arisi (Rice) Upma

Arisi Upma is one of my favourite dish made by my Husbands Granny. Hence I decided to share the recipe with my friends :)

*This serving is for 3 people.

Ingredients: Rice (preferably raw rice)- 1.5 Cup, Arhar daal - 3/4 Cup, Black Pepper - 10-12 pcs, Green Chilly - 3, Red Chilly - 1 pc, Mustard - 1 tsp, Hing (powdered) - 2 pinches, Oil - 2 tbsp, Curry leaves - 10 leaves, Urad dal - 1 tbsp, salt to taste.

Preparation: Mix the Rice, Arhar dal & Black Pepper in a Mixie jar and coarse grind without any water. Note that you should not wash the rice & dal.  Keep this aside.
Take a kadai and heat oil in it. Add the urad dal, mustard seeds, red chilli & hing and allow the mustard seeds to crackle. Then add curry leaves & green chillies and 5 glasses of water. Add the salt and bring the water to boil. Now add the coarse grinded rice n dal to this and allow to cook. Once the mixture thickens, transfer the contents to a vessel and cook it in the pressure cooker for 4 whistles.

Once the pressure is released, the Upma is ready to be served.

Serving Suggestions: This upma can be served with Chutney or plain Curd.

Ladies Finger with groundnuts

Ingredients: fried Groundnut - 50 gm, ladies finger - 400 gm, red chillies - 3, dried mango powder - 1 tsp, chilli powder - 2 tsp, coriander powder - 2 tsp, turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp, oil - 3 tbsp, cumin seeds - 1 tsp, salt to taste.

Groundnut paste - to prepare the groundnut paste, add the fried groundnuts, red chillies and a little salt in the mix and grind well after adding sufficient water into a paste.
Cut the ladies finger into small pieces of quarter inches. Now take the oil in a Kadhai and heat it on low flame. Once the oil is hot, add to it the cumin seeds. Once the seeds turn golden, add the groundnut paste and cook it well. Once the paste is cooked, add the ladies finger, chilli powder, coriander powder, turmeric powder and salt and mix it well. Allow it to fry well. When this cooked well, add the dried mango powder, mix well and allow it to be cooked for couple of more minutes.
 
Now the dish is ready to be served :)

Rasam - My favourite Tam bram dish

The first write up had to be on my favourite dish - Rasam. People eat to live, I live to eat.

Here is the recipe to make different types of rasam.

Plain Tomato Rasam: This is the simplest and most easiest to make Rasam.

Ingredients: To make this rasam, you would need 2 medium, ripe n tangy tomato, 2 medium length green chilly, salt, hing & turmeric powder. Cumin seeds and 1/2 tbsp ghee for tempering.

Cut the tomatoes into small pieces. Cut the green chilly into two pieces along the length.

Take a vessel or Kadhaai as you would like and heat the ghee in it. Add the cumin seeds and then the chopped tomatoes and green chillies and fry them for couple of minutes then add two glasses of water, hing and turmeric powder and allow it to be cooked well. once the tomatoes are cooked well, add salt and bring to boil.

Remove the vessel from flame and Rasam is ready for consumption. If you like coriander leaves, then you can add some for further flavour.

To make basic Tamarind rasam, instead of plain water, add tamarind water to the above.

To make Lemon Rasam, add the juice of 1 medium lemon to the Plain Tomato rasam before consuming it.

Tomato & Drumstick Rasam: I had this rasam first in the company guest house we stayed in Mumbai. Hats off to the Chef Shiva who made this.

Ingredients: 2 medium Tomato, 2 green chillies, 1 medium length drumstick, tamarind paste (readily available these days. If this is not a part of your kitchen, then you can take normal tamarind and soak it in water to use it), coriander leaves, turmeric powder, hing, red chilli powder, Rasam powder (readily available in stores, else watch out this section how to make rasam powder), ghee, cumin seeds, dal broth (paruppu water) , salt, red chillies and water.

Add the cut tomatoes, drum sticks, chillies, turmeric powder, little red chilli powder & hing to tamarind water and mix well and put the vessel on gas and allow the tomatoes and drumstick to cook well. When cooked well, add the rasam powder (1 sp) and salt to taste. mix well and add the dal broth and bring to boil. for tempering heat the ghee and add two red chillies and cumin seeds and add it to the rasam. Cut coriander leaves and add it to rasam to give it an enhanced flavour.

The 4'F's of my life

My blog title might seem a little strange to my readers, hence I thought that I must tell my readers, why this name.

I spent the first 18 years of my life in Kolkata, the 'City of Joy'. Bengalis love their 3 F's - Fish, Football & Female ;). I being a Kolkata girl love the 4 F's of my life - Food, Films, Family & Friends.

What more could have been an apt title for my blog other than this :)

Promising an exciting read to my readers as long as I write ... m signing off now.