Qapsicum Qurd Qurry

Last month, I went home to my parents for a week. It was something of an old-fashioned summer vacation. There was a new baby to visit, an older child with whom we played a lot of indoor games – I must have played carrom board after more than 20 years – lots of mangoes and other summer fruit to eat, much sighing over the heat and hoping the monsoon would somehow arrive early, and some kitchen experiments with the aforementioned older child, my eight-year-old niece.

One of those games was Name Place Animal Thing (NPAT). It’s where the players take turns to name a letter and then everyone has to write down a name, place, animal and thing that starts with the letter. In one of my turns, I landed on a Q. (A player tells you to “Start” – reciting the alphabet silently – and when they tell you to “Stop” you have to mention the letter you were stopped at and that’s the letter you use for the next round.)

I finished my turn and was waiting for my niece, whom we give a little extra time as she’s still very young. After a few minutes she said she couldn’t proceed as she didn’t know anything much with Q. “Then you get a zero,” I said gleefully, :and I get a 40", ten for each of the four words/nouns we have to write down in the game.

 “No way! I don’t agree,” my niece ranted. “How can I write anything if you throw a Q at me? I don’t know anything with a Q. Even Mom doesn’t. How can you give me something I cannot do and then say I get a zero? I won’t accept it,” she stormed.

After I came back, I was exchanging notes with my neighbour who too has an eight-year-old niece. Her niece too had trouble with a Q, she said. Her excuse was that she hadn’t been taught much Q in school yet. “Queenie, Queensland, quail, quilt,” we rattled off almost in unison and burst out laughing when we realised this list hadn’t changed in the many years since we played NPAT with the same ardour as 8-year-olds.

Quill was another ‘thing’. I remember seeing a picture book with a bird called a quetzal. When I used it once, I seem to remember my co-players refused to accept it saying all I was making it up, no one has ever heard of a quetzal. They were easy to overrule, not my niece.

In the food blogging world, on and off I’ve come across alphabet-based challenges. Some bloggers get really inventive with names of dishes when it’s the turn of alphabets such as Q and X and Z. So in time-honoured tradition, here’s the Qapsicum Qurd Qurry, inspired by Tarla Dalal’s Achaari Dahi Bhindi, two shrivelling qapsicums and no coriander powder.

 Notes
The tweaking I did with the recipe was to halve the amount of ladies’ fingers, add about three cups of diced capsicum, increase the amount of curds to 1 cup and the spices by just a pinch.

As the capsicum didn’t need to be fried, unlike the ladies’ fingers, I added them directly to the gravy as soon as it began to ‘pulse’ a bit in the pan. I didn’t cook it too much, I let it remain a little crunchy, it would get softer as the gravy cooled.

I added the ladies’ fingers just two minutes before I took it off the stove, about seven minutes in all.

 Dalal recommends rotis and parathas to go with it but we ate it with good ol’ rice and it was just fine!

A Trifecta of Lassis, Of Friendships and Trips

Lassi is not something one looks to when they are looking for a pick-me-up, is it? That role is better played by something like coffee or tea, all dark and smouldering, with some bitterness to offset the rich brown good looks. Lassi, by contrast, is a fair, chocolate-boy kind of offering that would be my last choice of beverage (or boy). But what would I know? I, who have been blogging for almost 10 years now, have turned into an occasional, even desperate blogger you’d say, resorting to drawing similarities between lassi and the males of the species to inject some life into my blog. You may be right, in part, but this post is actually to reinforce and put on record the importance of giggly girl friendships in one’s life. And, of course, how to stay current and blog away to glory. (Were we envious? You bet!)

A couple of months ago, some of us, your favourite bloggers, went on a short holiday. We took trains, we took cars, we walked, we traipsed along trodden ways, wielded our cameras big, small and medium, ate and drank – not lassi or alcohol, but lots of the rich brown stuff – and laughed to our hearts’ content. And as it was a bloggers’ meet, deliberated on the future of blogging, bloggers, us bloggers (vs Them bloggers), how to make our blogs more popular, and find simple, stress-free ways to blog frequently and visibly.

I know I’ve mentioned in the past the state of my life and fridge and home and work and the insomnia and the pressure and all that keeps me away from blogging nowadays. The bloggers’ meet was useful in that there were some important takeaways:

1.       Anything is a recipe.

2.       There is no recipe too ordinary or common-sensical (I know it's not a real word) or unworthy of blogging.

3.       Lassi can be enhanced in three different ways (or four, or five, or fifty-five.) And each variant can be a recipe.

And so I have for you a trifecta of lassis today.

If you’re like me (life, fridge, work, insomnia, so on and so forth), here’s the smart girl’s way to making and blogging about lassi.

Buy lassi, any brand. I’ve tried not to let the brand show here as I don’t drink lassi and don’t intend any endorsements, but there are several brands, each with several flavours.

Buy some chopped fruit (or chop some fruit. Actually, just shave some off the top of the fruit, that will do.)

Empty the lassi into a pretty glass, top with fruit. Photograph. Blog.
(This is Lassi No 1.)

Too simple?

Well, blend lassi and fruit and some more sugar, if you like. Put in a clean tray and photograph. Blog.

(This is Lassi No 2.)

You can vary the colour and the taste of the lassi depending on the number of additions. The addition needn’t just be fruit. It could be essence. It could be fruit concentrate. It could be saffron. It could be spices. It could be even be another juice, like litchi juice. It could be chocolate spread.

It needn’t even be lassi.

No, really. It could be vegan. Lassi in spirit, if you like. You could substitute the lassi with almond milk. I found one in my supermarket for the first time today. (Again, this is no endorsement, I haven’t even opened the pack.) Or you could use cashew curd.

You could add the litchi juice or the chocolate spread – I’m assuming they are vegan, do check the label – to it, beat it a little with a fork or blend it mechanically, and your vegan litchi/chocolate lassi is ready!

(This is Lassi No 3.)

But, dear readers, do go on trips with your friends, eat, drink and be merry. I am lucky to have several such friends in my life and though such trips are not as frequent as I would like, I know we will be bound till the end of time by the things we have done, eaten and discussed – such as these lassis. You may or may not need lassis but you do want a smashing good bunch of friends with whom you can guffaw and hoot and snort and howl with laughter well into the night. And I’m sure Aparna, Harini, Lata and Sanjeeta (names in alphabetical order) will agree.

Zippy Zesty Za'tar Zeanuts

Well, I had to keep up the alliteration, didn't I? I mean peanuts. At my workplace, colleagues often bring a snack called Congress Peanuts (read about the name here) from Bangalore, which I love for the combination of chilli powder, curry leaf, asafoetida and sugar that they seem to be spiced with. I usually have peanuts in stock thanks to The Spouse who thinks peanut chutney goes with anything and everything - from idlis to khichdi to biriyani.

 I swiped his stocks and set out to make them but as I am always in fridge-cleaning and pantry-cleaning mode, I remembered the stock of za'tar I had and proceeded to use that. It didn't make a dent - I used only 1.5 tsp, but it made for a snack that had my colleagues at work compete for it. One of them said it woke her up, and hence the title of this post!

 I used olive oil since it went with the za'tar, Mediterranean thing.

 What you need

 Extra-virgin olive oil: 2 tsp
Turmeric: a pinch
Za'tar: 1 tsp + some more
Salt: 3/4 tsp of iodised fine salt, to begin with

Peanuts, roasted, skinned and halved: 300 gm

 Heat the olive oil gently. Continuing to keep it on low heat, mix the spices with the oil and heat for less than a minute. Add the peanuts and mix well to ensure they are coated well with the spices. After you take them off the stove, let them cool and taste for seasoning. Add some more of the salt and za'tar if you like.

snack za'tar Za'tar Peanuts

Of New Year Wishes, Surprising Yourself and Perfect Trials

Last year, I made this greeting to wish family and friends on Facebook a happy new year! The photo is mine, from my trip to Newport, Rhode Island in December 2014.



When I made it and found the words to go with it, I had no more hopes than my usual - that the year should not bring any earth-shaking changes and rock my boat, and that if there was any change, it should only be for the better. Then I forgot all about it as the year went by. (I even had a moment's trouble recently remembering the name of this place that I visited.)

When Facebook prodded me to 'See Your Memories' this New Year's Day, this greeting came up. I was surprised to see that I had actually done a few of those things it said.

I 'made some art' as the picture exhorted one to - I took to colouring late in 2015, in end-October or early November, and have been having a lot of fun. I know much has been written of its therapeutic and stress-busting value. I don't know about that, really. I'm not one to take to every new-age hobby or discipline and declare them a marvel but I enjoy it thoroughly. I have accumulated a bagful of sketch pens, pencils, a few paintbrushes, and three colouring books. I am also planning to go and buy a few paper supplies tomorrow. The pictures you see below are a mixture of the designs I've found on the Internet (search for 'adult colouring free prints') and those from my colouring books.

I've even arranged to go for a certain art class this Saturday!

I 'read and re-read some fine books' (A Spool of Blue Thread, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Painting The Darkness, I Do Not Come To You By Chance, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and quite a few more, fiction and non-fiction).

I went on a completely unexpected trip - the nice part was that it was unexpected. The trip itself, well, let me say I was glad to have taken two days off for myself after the first three days which were important - I really found the time to unwind and not feel too bad about the earlier part.

I kissed someone who thinks I'm wonderful (my 7-year-old niece, who really does, but would never admit to it) dozens of times.

And I did 'surprise myself' with handling a certain challenge which I shall not discuss as I'm superstitious about it. Another thing I surprised myself with was getting off one of my two Facebook accounts and not missing it. It was linked to this blog but it wasn't delivering what I wanted it to and I decided I would no longer waste any time on it.

It has nothing to do with how I feel about this blog, though. I'm still keen on keeping it going. I haven't had the time in the last few months to do much blog-hopping either, given the pressures of my job, but I will set time aside for it once a week at least.

At home with my parents, I watched my cook make a favourite colocasia fry and got it right when I tried it in my kitchen. Now that was a solid achievement. It also reminds me of what one of my friends says, that cooking is one area where it's possible to get instant gratification.



Before I get to the ingredients, I'll tell you what I learnt first

Boil, not pressure cook, the colocasia. Keep poking it with a fork or a knife to check for just-doneness. If you pressure cook it, it gets squishy even with just one whistle.

Do not turn the pieces immediately after you have slid them into the oil. Just de-clump them if you have to, with the ladle, but don't turn them over deliberately. They have to fry a bit before being turned over. Once you turn them over, don't disturb them again till you see the colour deepening a little more - then use your good sense and sense of sight to determine when they are golden brown and then remove them from the oil.

For the amount seen in the photo, you will need

1/2 a kilo of colocasia, arbi or taro root, boiled as above and sliced
Oil to deep fry (try deep frying in a small but deep vessel, I think we use up lesser oil that way)
Salt
Red chilli powder

Heat the oil well, lower the flame and then slide some of the colocasia pieces into the oil. Do not crowd them. Some will stick to each other. Separate them with the ladle. Let them fry for a minute and when you notice them turning brown, turn them over. Repeat the process as the colour deepens, once or twice, and remove them when they are a golden brown.

Put them on paper napkins so that the extra oil is absorbed.

Sprinkle salt and chilli powder little by little, tasting at each step, and mix lightly to coat with the spices.

I am very greedy when it comes to this dish but miraculously I managed to save some for The Spouse. So I guess the year did have some 'magic' that is mentioned in the greeting - it was magical that I wasn't so much of a glutton and he got to eat something he never would have otherwise. As for dreams and good madness - yes, there are always the dreams and the craziness in all spheres, too many examples to recount here.

How was your year? What did you do? Did you surprise yourself?

The same wishes are what I wish for you, and of course, I wish that we see more of each other this year, much more than before. Happy new year!