Of Failures, Going Back to My Roots and All That

Over the last one week, I had a spate of culinary misadventures that took me back to ordinary, everyday stuff. As I'm always trying out something new, and I cook only every other day or once in three days, I don't make too many dishes traditional to where I grew up, except dal with some vegetable or greens in it. The nice part about that is that they always remain special that way.

Last Sunday, I plonked myself down in front of the TV and patiently cut up half a cabbage and two onions for "Zunaka", from a cookbook of the West Coast. The Indian West Coast, that is. I tended to it patiently, trying not to shudder when it turned a sludgy green-brown after 2 tsp of chilli powder and 'jaggery to taste'  went into it. Then I added the asafoetida.

Now, I have some 'pure' asafoetida from my trips to Delhi and Dubai which I powdered - I stumbled on to a blog post for that and it was useful, though my house stank for the better part of the day and my eyes burned  - and The Spouse swore that it wasn't him but the hing (asafoetida) that turned the sambar bitter. I was determined to prove it wasn't the hing so I used it in the cabbage. I can be cussed sometimes, so I used a large pinch as the recipe dictated knowing rather well I should have used just a smidgen because this was 'pure' (not cut with wheat and turmeric).

Bitter defeat.

That's not the end of the recipe or the cabbage dish. The recipe also said to add about 1.5 or two cups of gram flour/besan in small lots and keep frying it till it turned dry. By the time I finished adding about a cup, I knew the dish was going into the bin. Neither had the besan masked the bitter taste of the dish nor had the besan itself cooked. The Spouse smirked, I scowled and we dumped it after it cooled down.

Only as I write, it strikes me that my next set of misadventures too involved besan. Half a kilo of it was consigned to the flames in two days. I set about making something called paat vadi, a Maharashtrian dish which seemed easy enough. The first time, I got the instructions wrong, involving nothing less than an entire cup of oil, so the recipe went wrong. I tried persevering but it didn't taste right. The next time, which was just a few minutes later, it just didn't work out  - is it supposed to remain slightly under-cooked, or how should I test for doneness? I don't know because in both attempts the finished product tasted raw. I don't see how I could have cooked it further. I dumped all that too.

My friend V berated me in both instances that I should not follow any recipe to the T. I should use my brain, instead, she said. You should read through it and then decide, she said. I told you so, she said. Well, I don't know about brain but  I'm a much humbler person now. My confidence in even simple things such as cooking has taken a beating and I decided any culinary effort for the next few days must be tame, ordinary.

So I ended up making this

At the back is dal with greens, a cabbage and peas stir-fry and on the left is the dosakaya (lemon cucumber) chutney.

I have made dosakaya chutney only rarely and decided to refresh my memory about the method before I launched into it. So I Googled and my search led me to this recipe which was most interesting because it had a tip which I hadn't known of earlier: grind the 'seed jelly' along with the chillies and toss the raw pieces of cucumber in it.

In a nutshell, how you make it is: Peel and dice two cucumbers into thin pieces. Test seeds and pieces for bitterness. Scoop out the seeds and reserve them. In some oil, fry urad dal, mustard seed, a little bit of fenugreek, salt and many green chillies and a few red chillies. Add some tamarind to this, the seed jelly and grind it. I stayed away from the asafoetida and used garlic instead. Mix this with the cucumbers. Fry some more urad dal and top the chutney with this for some crunch.

It was great, and very much like what I am used to at home.

Then I made a dondakaya (tindora/ivy gourd/coccinea) chutney. Fry some jeera/cumin, tamarind, green chillies and lots of garlic in about 4 tsp of oil. Add sliced tindora to this (about 350 gm) and saute until brown spots appear. (I wouldn't cook it completely as it needs to be slightly resistant even after it's ground, for texture - traditionally, the entire mix is tossed into a grinding stone, given a few thumps with a heavy pestle and that's it - the chutney is thus ready.) Grind it all. Temper with some red chillies and urad dal.

And then, there's the tomato chutney we make.

Fry lots of tomatoes and garlic and green chillies in oil, grind with salt, and tamarind if the tomatoes aren't sour enough, and temper with mustard, curry leaf, cumin and urad dal in a teaspoon or two of oil. That's it!

We eat these chutneys with rice. The tomato chutney has other applications too - idli, dosa, and such absorbent snacks.

Truly, these past few days I've been feasting on the chutneys, like never before, well, at least in a long time. And if you're mulling over this post, will you please tell me what went wrong with my zunaka and my paat vadi?

chutneys vegetarian