When My Soup Came Alive

Dinner At An Irish Pub

2012-01-25T11:30:00.000+05:30

Two weeks ago, I went on a short trip to Ireland. Though the first two days were full of work, evening saw us eating out at Irish pubs. We told our hosts we didn't want to go to the Indian restaurant they planned on taking us to and they walked us to Davy Byrnes which was quite close to our hotel. The food was good, I'm sure the drink was better for those who enjoyed it, and everyone kept murmuring knowledgeably about James Joyce and Ulysses till someone said, "Alright, who has actually read Ulysses?" Laughing, he said: "I know the name." Then he continued: "It's a hard book to read, you know." Some others chimed in with similar opinions and we soon gave up claims to much knowledge of Ulysses or James Joyce and got busy ordering.

Here's the photo in original colour:

This is their menu, a tribute to the author

And here's some of the food we ate in Ireland:

Traditional Irish stew, with lamb and potatoes

Fillet of plaice, fried in beer batter

The dark brown bread on the left is Guinness bread. Pure awesomeness, with some butter.

A full Irish breakfast - sausage, poached eggs, toast, potato farl, bacon, black and white pudding (towards the back), mushrooms and tomato

One of the two times that I've liked whiskey. This is whiskey cake. The second time was that evening, when I had my first taste of Irish coffee.

Black & White Wednesday Musings Irish pub Ireland travel humour

Of Just Desserts and Going Bananas

2011-12-26T12:35:00.000+05:30

My first memories of eating out date from the time I was seven. I was visiting my parents in the US and I know we ate out more often than we did in India, where I don’t ever remember being taken to a restaurant except when we went to Madras as it was then known to see off parents and aunts and uncles to the US and stayed in hotels. (My favourite then was a green pea soup at a hotel that is still around and popular.) In the US, some of the places we ate out at were Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonald’s. I tried spaghetti and meatballs. I tasted pizzas, French fries and other legendary junk food I don’t remember now.

Later we went on an extended road trip of both the US and Europe. I remember being not too fond of the new food. (Could that really have been me?) I was always looking for rice and other familiar food. The one time my parents did locate some rice dish, in some place we had halted for lunch in FRG, as West Germany was known then, it was ice-cold and strange and I threw a tantrum. My father was annoyed, my mother more patient – I’m sure one of those two poor souls downed it so as not to waste resources. (I also made them buy me rolls of coloured wool in some other country though neither they nor I had the faintest idea of what I would do with it, despite my father protesting we were “on a budget” and we couldn’t afford to waste money.)

During that time, I remember, my father would always ask me, “Do you need help?” and lean over and relieve me of a bit of whatever was sitting on my plate. That joke continued throughout the trip and after. I didn’t think it was a big loss unless I liked the food.

It just struck me that the tables have now turned – whenever I visit my parents, my father opens the fridge to find that his nightly dessert of cream, curds (yoghurt) and bananas is halved or wiped out. A fortnight ago, after it happened a couple of times, he factored me into the scheme of things and started adding one more banana and some more cream and curds.

My father seems to have discovered a way to add more taste – and where taste lies, calories follow – to this nightcap. This visit, he told me that the inside of a kajjikai (karanji) crumbled over the curds-banana concoction is a great addition. It seemed interesting, but where would I find kajjikai with the same filling here? As I was mulling the possibilities, the brain in me ticked off the idiot in me (the morning diet of soaked almonds must be working) and told me I didn’t have to go searching for a kajjikai, deconstruct it, extract the filling, crush it and sprinkle it on the dessert. I could simply make the filling myself.

The pictures that you see are my father's, photographed at my request, but in the interests of his diet, I didn't ask him to add the topping, so there is no picture of that.

Banana: 2, sliced (I prefer the chakkarakeli variety, seen in picture above, the second and third from left)
Cream from the top of curds: 2-3 tbsp

Note the layer of cream on top - this is home-made curds/yoghurt.

------------
Topping
------------
Dessicated coconut: 1 tbsp
Semolina/rava/sooji: 1/8 cup
Sugar: 1/8 cup
Cardamom powder: A smidgeon
Chopped cashew: 1 tsp
Raisin: 1 tsp
Ghee: 1 tsp
In a pan, heat the ghee and toast the coconut in it on medium flame for a few minutes. Remove, keep aside.
In the same pan, add another ½ tsp ghee and roast the semolina 7-8 minutes.
Powder sugar, mix with the sooji, coconut, cashew, raisin and cardamom powder.

To assemble: Put the sliced banana in a bowl and top with the cream. Mix lightly. Sprinkle with topping.

Bananas Curds/Yoghurt Humour Nostalgia

A Wedding In The Sixties - Black & White Wednesday

2011-11-16T00:03:00.001+05:30

These are from my father's pictures of his sister's wedding sometime in the Sixties. Ingredients for the festive meals were usually bought by the family, not a wedding contractor or planner, those days.

The photo seems to be full of family members. I can only recognise one.

Notice the graceful bottlegourds. I think the vegetables in the other basket above are ladies' fingers/okra, towards the right, and I don't know what is in the other basket which is full of straw. Mangoes, perhaps, because that was how they were sold and ripened.

Do click on them to see them at their best.

This goes to Susan's B&W Wednesday.

Black & White Wednesday Musings

Egging You On

2011-10-25T07:27:00.002+05:30

On a boring Sunday evening, that’s two days ago, I had a brainwave. I wasn’t very hungry but wanted to eat a snack before I turned in for the night with a nice book to read. I wanted something somewhat spicy. There were four old eggs in my refrigerator. I suddenly started craving a bullseye with crisp edges and cracked pepper. I’ve already forgotten whether I thought of it then or at the moment I poured the first spoon of oil into the pan, but I got the jar of mango pickle, took a spoon of oil from it and added it to the pan. It couldn’t be any worse than an omelette with some pickle smeared on it, and that’s not such a bad idea, try it if you haven’t already!

So here’s an idea for a different version of fried eggs. I don’t like it sunny side up and always like mine fried on both sides.

The oil traditionally used in the mango pickle (mamidikaya pachadi/avakaya) I have is gingelly (made from sesame seed). A mixture of mustard, fenugreek, red chilli powders and salt goes into it. So do tiny black chickpeas and skinned garlic.

I don’t know the procedure or the proportions but all these are mixed with the mango and heated and cooled oil is poured over the pickle. It takes about 4-5 days to mature, for the spices to go from salty and bitter (from the mustard and fenugreek) to mellow. All the same, steaming hot rice, butter or ghee, and a small bowl of the new pickle are set out to be enjoyed right on the first day.

As the spices steep in the oil, which has to be a few inches above the rest of the pickle so that it can provide a protective medium against contamination, it gets flavoured with them, not to mention the mango and other ingredients.

So you don’t need anything except a little salt, in my opinion, to get the eggs to taste great!

What you need:
Oil from the pickle: 2-3 tsp (or it could be a mix of regular and this)
Eggs: 2
Salt: To taste
Heat the pan and spread the oil around.
Break the eggs into the pan, sprinkle the salt over them and let the whites set.
Turn over and let the yolks set.
Turn off the heat, slip it into a plate and enjoy!

Here's another idea for the pickle oil

Eggs

Done Washing Up

2011-10-19T00:08:00.004+05:30

Honestly, I can't fathom how and why the little cooking I do results in this mountain! My help, S, has to deal with it, and sure enough, on days such as this, quite a few dishes have little crusts of green dishwash soap on them. I guess I should be happy I don't live in a country where I'd have to deal with this myself. But, when it comes to manual (and not machine) labour, I'd do the dishes rather than wash clothes. Any day.

This goes to Susan's B & W Wednesday.

Black & White Wednesday Musings Humour

Tasty Solutions To A Hairy Tale

2011-10-16T00:43:00.000+05:30

Coriander and mango-ginger chutney - don't you love the colour?

Idiyappam with shallots and mango-ginger

To go from really short hair to hair that's just 2-3 inches longer is an endeavour fraught with impatience, irritation, heat, sweat, rubber bands, clips and such paraphernalia one hasn't used in a while. Enough is enough, I told myself, a good stylist will not whine about the non-growth, but they did. I walked out of one salon as the smile on the stylist drooped but stayed put in the second because frustration took over - and, of course, the stylist there marketed it (my hair - to me) better. It really isn't that much longer, he said, acquiescing to my request to 'give me more volume at the top but retain the length' and doing none of that (or so it seemed). He spent a few minutes, charged a lot and I came away looking and feeling just as I had earlier. Just a lot poorer.

My friend, who came over to drop off a macaroni-spinach-paneer creation yesterday, exhorted me not to give in to frustration. "It's only going to get cooler. Grow it, grow it, he's cut off just half an inch anyway," she said. So for now I've abandoned the thought of cutting my hair after six weeks, and will probably only cut it six months later. I have been looking at various Web sites to find out how to make hair grow faster and one of them has some really kinky suggestions, including grinding up birth control pills and mixing them up with some shampoo, and trimming the tips of your hair each month during a waxing crescent moon.

In the face of such exotica, bizarrerie or whatever you may call it, I'd rather fall back on my own innovativeness for hair growth. Which includes grinding up some oh-so-good for health good old greens and a cup of mango-ginger into a chutney.

Mango-ginger, cut

I love mango-ginger (go here for another picture) and how it smells all mangoey and summery, but haven't used it with much variation, so I'm glad I came up with this recipe one night after coming home to dosa batter and no accompaniment.

Mango-ginger, sliced: 1 cup
Coriander: About a handful
Curry leaves: About a fistful
Green chillies: 2
Peanuts: Less than a fistful ***
Oil: 2 tsp

Heat the oil and fry the mango-ginger for about 6-8 mins on a low flame.

Add the coriander, curry leaves and green chillies and fry for a couple of minutes more.

Grind with the peanuts and just a little splash of water.

*** I only added the peanuts to give the chutney some body. The amount I used did not affect the taste but next time I would use more coriander and curry leaves and not use the peanuts at all.

The other discovery I've made recently is idiyappam. Yeah, yeah, I know it's been around for ages, just not in my home or in my consciousness. The abovementioned friend had me over to lunch a couple of weeks ago and that's when I learnt idiyappams could be crumbled and tossed with tomatoes and onions. I did that for a couple of weeks. It's a very convenient and simple thing to make if your grocer stocks ready-made idiyappam. (A friend tells me I can do this with the rice sevai/noodles that one finds in stores - I haven't tried it.) When I brought the mango-ginger home, I tossed the idiyappam with some minced shallots and grated mango-ginger. I resisted the temptation to add lime and was glad I resisted.

Idiyappam, broken up: 2-2.5 cups
Oil: 2-3 tsp
Mango-ginger, grated: 1.5 tsp
Shallots, minced: 10
Green chilli, chopped: 1
Mustard seed: 1/2 tsp
Turmeric: 1/2 - 3/4 tsp
Water: A little
Salt

Heat the oil and temper it with the mustard seed.

Add the shallots, chilli and the mango-ginger and fry for 3 minutes.

Add the idiyappam and the turmeric, moisten with a little water.

Mix carefully. Taste it (the idiyappam already contains some salt, and add salt accordingly.) Let the flavours meld on low heat for a few minutes and then turn off the heat.

This post if off to Cinzia at Cindystar who's hosting Kalyn's WHB.

Weekend Herb Blogging Mango-ginger Vegetarian Humour

Kitchen Under The Stairs

2011-10-05T00:27:00.000+05:30

Ever since this kitchen came into being, I've wished I had something like it. My own small kitchen is bigger than this but it's inside an apartment and I feel hemmed in when I'm inside it for various reasons - too many things in too little space, not enough ventilation, not enough light.

I love the al fresco feel, not to mention the fact that it seems so compact. This is at the back of the house, which has a bigger kitchen inside. The stairs lead to the terrace. The windows you see jutting out belong to a room where the cook of this kitchen stays.

I want lots of light, some greenery (though you can't see it in the photo, there is some - a neighbour's tree hangs over the stairs) and some open space in my life.

This goes off to Black & White Wednesday.

Black & White Wednesday Musings

Of Birthdays, In Real Life & Blogwise

2011-09-14T01:01:00.000+05:30

I don't usually celebrate personal milestones in public but religiously put out blog anniversary posts every year, today being the fifth year since I started writing this blog.

I want to indulge in some birthday memories, though, real-life birthday ones. The only cakes we got in our town were the brown, fruit cake kinds with hard icing, hard pink, green and purple roses, silver balls and twisty little candles. In the absence of mothers, aunts and grandmothers who did not make cakes but only Indian sweets and "hots" (savouries), I suppose we looked forward to this cake. Even if the flowers were solid enough to have claimed a tooth or two, that's what we had and cherished.

Those were the days when a 'return gift' wasn't known, and asking a guest to the birthday party, "What gift have you brought me?" would result in a slap, never mind you were only five or six or that it was your birthday. Grandmothers would kit us out in embroidered frocks and there would perhaps be a trip to the temple.

At school, the only time we were allowed to wear "colour dress" (not the uniform) was on Saturdays and birthdays. At Assembly, the teacher presiding would ask if there were any birthday girls or boys and one, two or three, sometimes urged by their friends, would stand up hesitantly and make their way to the stage, upon which the Music Master would begin strumming his guitar and all of us would sing "Happy Birthday to You!" I remember not owning up to a birthday one year, my cousins who studied in the same school telling my Grandmother about it, and my Grandmother scolding me for it. Why had I been so shy? Was it also the birthday I wore a white dress with blue, red and yellow clowns all over? Maybe. I couldn't be sure.

Stage or not, the 'distributing sweets' routine was all-important, and after the first period began, the birthday girl or boy would distribute sweets to the entire class, to the teacher, and then accompanied by another, go and give the headmistress some, and maybe the other teachers too. A classmate's birthday was also the first time I saw a pink guava - her folks brought guavas in big baskets and distributed them to the entire school, and one of them was pink. The popular sweets distributed were "Goldspot" sweet (orange hard-boiled candy) or a green-wrapped toffee. The thing to do, after you'd popped the sweet into your mouth, was to twist the wrapper into what was supposed to be a dancing girl. The green wrapper was particularly prized. For one birthday, I remember asking everyone to give me back their wrappers. (I'm cringing, childhood is no excuse for such behaviour.) One boy refused, I prepared to cry, and our teacher stepped in, saying she would give me hers. I don't know what I did with them. Not all could refuse a birthday girl, however ungracious, could they?

In the evening was the party, with the cake, streamers, balloons, friends, cousins, uncles, aunts, neighbours. There were home-made sweets and savouries, or some would be ordered from the Udupi hotel in the town centre. There was jelly and ice-cream in little globe-shaped containers. There were no games, no party hats, and gifts brought could be as simple as a packet of biscuits. The cake was cut, food eaten, and everybody went home after an hour or two. Till one was eleven or twelve and deemed old enough for the parties to stop. Truly old, because at thirteen, I had just one friend over and that was to pour my heart out to her over an evil classmate.

And now from nostalgia to the Oscar speech: Thank you, readers, bloggers, family, friends, blog aggregators. You keep this blog going, and this blog keeps me going.

Here's my first anniversary post, and here's another nice post on how children celebrated their birthdays in the Seventies and Eighties.

Blog anniversary Musings/Nostalgia Humour

Food For The Gods - Black & White Wednesday

2011-09-07T00:45:00.000+05:30

Last Thursday, it was Vinayaka Chavithi (Ganesh Chaturthi). Every year, we celebrate it at a relative's place and they lay out quite a feast that comprises everything this beloved God loves. It is first offered to him and then we take over after the puja is over.

Clockwise from far back: The Spouse serves himself some pulihora (tamarind rice); there is sago payasam in the round, metal pot; in front of that are chickpeas, tempered with mustard and curry leaves; to their left are gaarelu/vadas and kudumulu (modaks) that are supposed to be Vinayaka's favourites and behind them, the poornalu - fried sweet dumplings that have a core of chana dal and jaggery inside them.

This is going to Susan's B&W Wednesday.

Black & White Wednesday Festive meal

Salad Days, Green in Judgement, Hot in Chilli*

2011-09-03T23:32:00.001+05:30

You're not an original!" screamed the Internet back at Sra.

"Oh, alright, alright," said Sra, sullenly. "How many other crazed foodies do you think would call their dish cucumber noodles? Well, quite a few, it looks like," she muttered, teetering on the edge of a sour soliloquy, pausing to wonder if they had also tempered olive oil with red chillies and garlic and seasoned it with zatar, and all this only after adding some zucchini noodles to the cucumber.

And that, dear audience, is exactly what I did.

Peeled three tired old cucumbers and again peeled their flesh into strips - these are what I - and several other foodies - call noodles. Did the same with one tired old zucchini which hid its fatigue very well. (Tired meant that I had to discard quite a few bits.)

Chopped up an onion and added it to the above.

Heated a splash of extra-virgin olive oil and tempered it with two red chillies and two cloves of garlic

Added about 2 tsp of zatar, a splash of red wine vinegar and some salt

Tossed it all together in a bowl and let it rest an hour or two until dinner.

Then I tasted it and discovered it was one chilli too hot for comfort. And I'm no wimp when it comes to chillies.

But I ate it up anyway because no one else would - there were two other diners - and adding some dal to the salad reduced the heat.

You could do that too. It's also my tried-and-tested substitute for rice in rice-and-dal - I've done it before. You needn't peel the cucumber into strips for that, though, just cut it up regular.

And my favourite use for zatar is to use it on baked potatoes.

*I'm no Cleopatra, so I hope Shakespeare will at least forgive me if not appreciate me for twisting his words this way ...

Cucumber Salad Humour

There's A Girl In My Coffee!

2011-08-31T00:09:00.001+05:30

Last week, for a couple of days, my Mom took up residence at the city's latest mall. Aunt and I accompanied her. On the first day, they went ahead to the mall while I joined them less than 30 minutes later. I rang my mother about 10 times but she only heard it the eleventh time. By this time, 45 minutes had passed and I had wended my way through three floors with a cup of lukewarm coffee in hand - I don't usually drink coffee but use it when I need to get rid of a headache.

When I told them I had had coffee, they immediately wanted some themselves and looked at me accusingly - then I told them that I had come more than an hour ago and I had got a headache from the number of futile calls I'd made trying to locate them. Then they looked contrite and I took them down for some coffee.

My coffee came from another cafe and though I asked for plain South Indian filter coffee, I got some frothy mess to which even two packets of sugar didn't make a difference, so I took them to another cafe which had some alluring chocolate eats as well. We bought a brownie for the three of us and ordered two lattes.

I was busy chatting with them when the person at the counter called out to me to come get the coffee but his colleague had still not finished making it. So I stayed there and watched the people go by - within two minutes, I'd got my coffee and voila, this was what I saw in one of the cups.

I didn't notice how he did it, whether he did it with the little jug of milk itself or whether he used a brush or some other implement. That set me off on a voyage of YouTube where I saw many videos that showed baristas making hearts, leaves and associated flora, and yes, even some fauna, in the cup, all by pouring the milk in stippling motions above the coffee cup. I only had my mobile phone to photograph this with so that explains the size and the quality of the picture. A thrilling experience for me which I'd like to share with you all because my experience of coffee art is limited to hearts and flora.

Naturally, we all felt sad that the drinker (I don't remember who, Mom or Aunt) had to stir it to add the sugar. The girl dissolved into the coffee but next time I go there, I'm going to try and get them to give me the same design, headache or no!

This is my entry this week to Susan's Black and White Wednesday.

black and white wednesday Coffee Art

Checking On The Potatoes - Black And White Wednesday

2011-08-24T00:05:00.000+05:30

My first entry to Susan's Black and White Wednesday.

The recipe is from here, thanks to friend M who pointed to it.

black and white wednesday Potatoes

Hungry Enough To Eat A Horse Gram Pancake?

2011-08-23T01:06:00.000+05:30

Recently, some nutritional advice saw me adding to my ever-creaking pantry. I was advised to eat dosas made of sprouted ragi (finger millet) and red rice flours so I have two tins full of those now. As I feared, the 3/4 cup:1 cup proportion of ragi to red rice flour did not work and I was left with a sticky, wet pancake that felt like a cold fish.

Even as I was mulling, well, not mulling, strictly speaking, but stressing out about how to use up the abovementioned flours, I got some further advice on supplementing nutrition with pancakes made with whole grains and millets of various kinds. Well, there is already a millet (ragi) in my pantry, and I wasn't about to buy more till I had lessened the load on those shelves a little bit, so I bought some horse gram and combined it with dals, flax seed and some of the ragi to make an adai of sorts. Adai is something like an unfermented dosa, made of a mixture of dals and rice, and always leaves me feeling like I've eaten something uncooked - it doesn't go down my throat smoothly and has always been a disappointment to me whenever and wherever I've eaten it. I've finished with keeping an open mind about it.

But I digress. This creation was much better than any adai I've come across and I think it's a keeper of a recipe. I already feel full of sunshine, vitamins, trace elements and folic acid. (You know I exaggerate.) Here's how you can get some yourselves.

List 1

Horse gram/Ulavalu: 1/2 cup
Bengal gram/chana dal: 1/4 cup
Whole masoor dal: 1/4 cup
Flax seed: A fistful

-----

Sprouted ragi flour: 1 tbsp
Water
Oil

-----

Green chillies, roughly chopped: 2
Ginger: 2-inch piece, peeled, roughly chopped

------

Coriander & curry leaves: 3 tbsp, washed, chopped

Salt

Soak all the items under List 1 in plenty of water overnight or for 8 hours.

Drain the water, wash once or twice and blitz in the mixer with the ginger and green chillies. Add splashes of water only enough to ensure that the mixer's motor runs smoothly.

Once it becomes a fairly fine paste, add the sprouted ragi flour. Mix it really well or operate the mixer on 'pulse'.

Add another splash of water if you need to achieve a 'spreadable' batter. Add the salt. Fold in the chopped coriander and curry leaves.

(Note: In my experience, this doesn't spread as smoothly as dosa batter. I can make perfect dosas, but these, they are 'maps of the world'.)

Take a ladle of batter, put it on an oiled, heated tawa/griddle, and spread it as carefully as you can. At some point or the other, it might threaten to come off along with the ladle you're spreading it with, but just pat it gently, leave it alone and simply go to another portion of it and smooth it there.

With the flame on medium, add some oil around the edges - 1/2 a tsp should do. Once the bottom feels cooked (you should be able to lift it off without bits sticking to the tawa), flip it over and cook all the uncooked parts.

I ate it with ginger pickle.

This goes off to Preeti at W'rite' Food who is hosting Susan's My Legume Love Affair.

My Legume Love Affair Horse gram Vegetarian

Of Sibling Rivalry - Of Chalks & Chopsticks

2011-08-10T01:29:00.001+05:30

So what if she made fun of me? She's always doing that - taking a swipe at people through her dratted blog. Does she think I can't make out who she is or what she does? Just because she lives in this fond delusion that she has a gift for "writing" - and a gift for pretending she can cook and bake - she writes a food blog? Why shouldn't I do the same?

Sisters, I tell you! So irritating! How does she always stay one step ahead? Oh well, maybe it's time I learnt not to compete with her, even mentally. Thank God, I've never said this aloud to anyone, they'd say I was jealous of her!

I can't faff about myself like she does. So self-absorbed, hmph! Who gives a fig whether she went to Japan and had yuba out of a Bento box or went to Taiwan and gingerly tasted one measly pickled chicken's foot? Evoking Grandma at every possible juncture and talking about "my grandma's recipe" in her bl***y blog, never mind that she wouldn't lift a finger to help her! And she doesn't even cook - all that those swooning, frenzied fans of hers see on her blog is what she gets the cook to do, and passes off as hers. She can't even make lime juice, and she has a food blog?

So what if I made guava payasam? It's no worse than onion or brinjal halwa, is it? And Belgian cauliflower fudge - what was so funny? Mum and Dad couldn't even guess what was in it, and neither would this idiot have, if Aunty hadn't let on that she saw me chopping cauliflower. (I'd made the entire thing in their kitchen so it would be a surprise for their wedding anniversary.) Everything had been going fine, they were enjoying the party, had downed quite a bit of the fudge, chocolate fiends that they are, till she had to spoil things by announcing that the supersoftness came from cauliflower. Ever since it happened, the intensification in the look of despair that comes over their faces when they see me has not let up at all. It's not like I poisoned them, is it?

I'd love to teach her a lesson, wouldn't I? I know the password to her blog. Oh yes, I do! I may be a cook unappreciated and unsung, a non-starter of a blogger, but I can observe, spy. She has no love lost for me but that didn't prevent her from using my name and date of birth as her password. Stupid fool!

Pic courtesy: Desi Soccer Mom

The latest is some hare-brained effort to make marmalade. Look at all the fruit she bought for that - she read somewhere eons ago that the fruit should be soaked overnight in water, macerated (which she spells 'masserate', of course) , and that fascinates her. Her friend's mother once fed her pommelo jam and our comics used to carry ads for silver marmalade, made of limes and lemons, and she thinks she's going to get it right just by looking at recipes on the Internet and mixing them up.

Tell me, who needs marmalade? She is fat. I don't touch the stuff. Neither does anyone else. But it allows her to write stuff like: "Yoga done, showered and ready to face the world, I come down to see the rays of dawn illuminate the pantry with a warming glow. The pantry, the kitchen, this is where I bond with my loved ones, these rooms that have so much soul. I take a deep breath of fresh morning air, grateful for the bounty I have been given. As I turn to go out the door and give myself up to the crisp air and the morning dew, I catch sight of my sister's things in the fruit tray. I'm so fortunate to be blessed with a beautiful and brilliant sibling who would think nothing of combining okra with marmalade to give it some beautiful green flecks ... Oh oh, let me go put her charger back where she usually puts it, she's going to worry when she wakes up and finds it missing."

Okay, okay, so I'm getting carried away. Left to her own devices, she would even pickle the charger and not notice. Still, I won't hack into her blog or anything, but I will surely give her a birthday present of marmalade with bits of okra in it. I'll tell her it came for her through some bloggers' surprise event in the mail and feign hurt at how mean she was to hide her blog from me! I bet you anything she will think it's mint or angelica or some other exotic herb until it starts going bad. And then, I will watch the fun.

This piece of utter fiction goes off to Desi Soccer Mom who's hosting Aqua's Of Chalks and Chopsticks July-August. It was DSM's idea to incorporate in this year's round a visual cue, the elements of which would find a place in the story. With life in the real world, burn-out, deadlines and laziness getting in the way, it has been a real challenge to come up with a story that doesn't seem too contrived. But we managed, I think. You can read my previous story here.

Of Chalks and Chopsticks Humour Food fiction

When The Drumsticks Came Home To Curry

2011-07-24T00:26:00.000+05:30

My mother is the kind of person who, as a busy doctor without household help, would make a meal of salt, chilli powder and leftover rice. So it comes as a surprise whenever she expresses an interest in a recipe or proffers one herself. Which is why this recipe is very special and unusual, because she told me about this recently when I was stressing out about how to cook a full meal for someone I'd invited home for lunch.

Now invitations from me are rare because I too, though not a busy doctor, have a hectic life, what with my insomnia and harried rising, gym-and-back-from-gym routine, and work and after-work routine, my insomnia and harried rising gym ... you see how it goes.

I have a two-hour window in the morning with which to turn out some stuff to eat and I managed to make this rather swiftly along with some payasam and two other vegetables. Now that's not a spread by any stretch of the imagination but that's what you can expect if I invited you on a weekday and you accepted my invitation. I had tomatoes and with my mother who arrived the previous day, came from my grandmother's garden fresh drumsticks (or saragwa - always reminds me of Sarajevo and Archduke Ferdinand ever since I heard the name not too long ago).

Known as mulagakaya in Telugu, drumsticks are a household vegetable in South India - not only are they popular, many houses have a tree. It's notorious for harbouring furry and itchy caterpillars, but the benefits outweigh that risk, with the leaves being considered extremely nutritious as they are sources of beta carotene, Vitamin C, iron and protein.

They have a taste that I can only describe as delicately pungent, an oxymoron, I know, but really, you have to taste it to know it. They're the kind of vegetable that you appreciate better as a grown-up. Like brinjal/eggplant, for instance. In my house, we've never had the leaves, only the fruit. And now I don't find any in my locality though there are a few saplings struggling to grow in my apartment building. I've even seen recipes using the tree's flowers. Here is more information.

It's pretty much an as-you-like-it curry and it was almost two months ago that I made it so I'll give you the general guidelines about how to make it.

You will need

2-3 tomatoes, chopped
2 drumsticks, cut into 2-inch pieces
Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
Cumin seed - 1/2 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/4-1/2 tsp
Red chilli powder and salt to taste
Oil - 1-2 tsp

In a pan, heat 1-2 tsp of oil.

Pop the mustard and then the cumin.

Add the tomatoes and cook on medium heat till pulpy.

Now add the spices and cook a little more.

Ensure the tomato isn't drying up - if need be, add some water.

Then add the drumstick pieces, mix well, add just 1/4 cup water if there isn't any already in the pan, cover and cook till insides are soft.

Chew to your heart's content once it's done. My mother's grandfather is supposed to have chewed them so long and hard, with such relish, that they were bleached white!

One more way to cook them.

This goes off to Chriesi at Almond Corner who's hosting Kalyn's Weekend Herb Blogging, now run by Haalo.

Weekend Herb Blogging Vegan Gluten-free musings

Muddapappu For MLLA - A Guest Post

2011-07-10T08:57:00.000+05:30

Friend, shoulder and guide. Literally, she's all three of them - never fails to listen when I rant and whine and took me on a day-long walking tour of New York city in 2009. When Susan of The Well-Seasoned Cook invited me to write for her special anniversary event to commemorate MLLA which is entering Year 4 this month, I was only too happy to say yes.

I'd initially thought of posting this for various events but it somehow seems fitting that I never got around to doing it all these years - maybe it deserved a better effort and a bigger showcase and I'm glad to say it's finally here!

MLLA My Legume Love Affair Guest blogging Lentils/Dal Telugu Andhra food

Breakfast & The Battle Of The Wills And The Won'ts

2011-07-03T23:39:00.000+05:30

In my ideal world, my ideal breakfast would be waiting for me at my table at 7 a.m., but since little about my world is ideal, next best will have to do. I wake up at around 7.30 and get out of bed an hour later - the hour between is spent willing myself to go to sleep; willing the doorbell not to ring; willing work chores to not crowd my mind; willing The Spouse not to make even the slightest noise as he moves around the house on his way to work; and sometimes even willing S, who helps me with the work around the house, to not turn up on time so I could sleep a little longer, and willing the world not to crowd into my consciousness during the extra time I hope to sleep after 8.30.

Naturally, all this willing needs an extraordinary amount of will power which won't happen if I sleep, so needless to say, I rarely go back to sleep, and am groggy, tired and unhappy when I finally open the door for S. Then we load the washing machine if The Spouse hasn't already done so and I set about the cooking. So you see, amidst the vegetables to be peeled, chopped and diced, the dal to be soaked and all this to be done before S leaves in the next couple of hours, there's very little time for breakfast.

One of the breakfasts I've come up with is a cheese slice melting over a fried egg. It's that simple. Spray some oil onto a griddle. Heat it and crack an egg on it. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Turn it over - I don't like runny yolk. Then put a slice of cheese on top and add a wee bit of salt and red chilli powder.

You can add an egg to this too. I haven't tried frying an egg atop a piece of bread - it will probably cook due to the heat on the bread and the heat underneath the bread if the stove is still turned on. Or you could take the less adventurous way out and simply top the bread with the egg and cheese assemblage.

breakfast Eggs Humour

My Mug Shot & Masala Chai - Of Chalks & Chopsticks

2011-07-01T00:39:00.000+05:30

Image courtesy Bong Mom's Cookbook

Really, she didn’t deserve these mugs. Such pretty, sunny possessions they were, too, and how she abused them!

She had a philosophy - something she had evolved to curb reckless spending. It went like this, and she never tired of hearing her own voice dispensing this exquisite piece of advice: If you like something you see, move away from it. Only if it haunts you, go back and buy it. If it’s not there, well, it was never meant to be yours.

How often had she said this to people, with such conviction that no one dared find it funny. She couldn’t control her impulse, however, when she noticed these at the crafts festival, and justified the expensive buys telling herself she needed it, otherwise she wouldn’t want them so much. (Now, had she just hit upon the converse of the other philosophy? And that reminded her, how long had it been since she had thought of that word - converse - now where had she come across it last, in school, Maths? Physics? …)

Both were hand-crafted. The one with the lattice pattern on the rim was an antique too! How many years had she dreamed of taking a day off from work and sitting by that quiet, sunny corner with a fine cup of tea and a book? She would sip her tea, savour every swallow, pause to read a few paragraphs, sip some more. Ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, black pepper would all meld with sugar, milk and tea leaves to form a harmonious whole that yet retained the individual flavours. (Now had she picked up that line from somewhere or was it her own? Didn’t she sound like an advertisement, or worse, like a food blog which made everything sound exotic?)

Hadn’t she wanted each sip to remind her of her home in a dusty town in North India, which she had at first been so glad to leave behind but missed desperately later? And hadn’t she found a less tasty but acceptable version outside her office in another city further South - ginger was the more predominant taste; after all, one couldn’t expect a poor South Indian hawker to realise the importance of the right proportions of spices or to buy good amounts of those costly commodities!

Anil Chai, or so she thought of the masala tea vendor, shared space with a sugarcane juicer and she’d watch, appalled yet fascinated, as the flies milled around the machine, which snapped up the sugarcane stalks and threw them out in a smooth movement as quickly. “Ganne ka ras, with essence of fly,” she had remarked to herself often, even as the machine operator filled the green extract into dirty and dull glasses, added some lime juice and chopped ginger and served it to waiting customers. She wouldn’t ever drink that juice off the streets, nor ever in these mugs, no, the very memory would sully them!

But she had besmirched them. The mugs had held fond fancies, but she had squashed them with her penchant for practicality. Didn’t find a glass to mix her smelly Ayurvedic medicines in? Resort to the mugs. Didn’t find another mug to bake her one-minute microwave chocolate cake in? Use these. Didn’t feel like extricating a soup plate from the crockery cupboard? Pick one of these off the kitchen counter, fill it and heat it up in the microwave, never mind that she hadn’t enquired whether 200-year old mugs could be heated so! No wonder the antique one was acquiring a yellow cast - must be all that turmeric from the curries and Indian soups she was heating up all the time. In her case, a one-pot meal involved putting a few tablespoons of rice into dal or curry heated in the mug and eaten with a long-stemmed spoon in front of the TV. Constipated? Drink mugs and mugs of hot water, alternating between the two.

Enough! She’d had enough! She’d wallowed enough. Practical she was and what she had done with the mugs all along was extract value for the money she paid for them. It was time for romance.

She rose from the bed and made her way to the kitchen. Out came a new scrubber. She wet it and washed the mugs vigorously with liquid detergent till they were odorless to satisfaction. Henceforth this scrubber would be dedicated to these two mugs.

She moved towards a shelf and reached for some jars - whole spices, some of the finest Assam, sugar. Milk came from the refrigerator. Her stone mortar and pestle were waiting - she ground the spices as fine as she could, not minding her aching arms. She boiled the water and the milk, added the rest of the ingredients and boiled some more. She turned off the heat. Now she would strain the tea into not one but both mugs, take herself over to her window and live her fantasy!

--------------------

There, I've done it, met the deadline when I thought I would fail badly. This story is going off to the food fiction event Of Chalks & Chopsticks, hosted by Bong Mom and created by Aqua.

Of Chalks and Chopsticks Food fiction Humour

Of Chalks And Chopsticks - The Round-Up

2011-06-25T00:20:00.003+05:30

We made an attempt to revive Of Chalks & Chopsticks last month. As I expected, Sandeepa, Jaya and Aqua, the creator of the event, joined in and we have a bouquet of four stories for you. This event was an event with a difference - Jaya's idea - of having a photo or a line or a phrase to be used in the food fiction the blogger came up with.

I had a photo ready - and I put it up. Here it is:

Bong Mom was the first to post:

"They ask me, "If your wife is a food blogger, why do you do all the cooking in the house?" "Arre Baba, I only cook dal, rice and chicken curry, my wife she makes rhubarb clafoutis," I tell them. Those moron neighbors look at me like they have never heard of rhubarb. People can be so closed and backward in this part of India, it is like you are in the forests of Congo or something."

Read the full rib-tickling story of a blogger and her husband here.

Jaya wrote hers just a little later:

"She had grown up on the omelets her dad made, with onions, bell peppers, green chilis and cilantro. Her mom had insisted he put a pinch of turmeric, cumin seeds and a little bit of grated ginger to the eggs. It added a whole new dimension to the eggs, a taste she could never find in the omelets served in American breakfast restaurants. Her mother-in-law found the omelets so bland, she would douse them with tobasco sauce and even then, she thought the pale yellow omelet hadn’t been fully cooked."

Read her exposition on omelettes, Indian-style, here.

Aqua, who had to take some time off blogging, posted yesterday:

"Ma, in the meantime, had finished her marathon cooking session and walked out at exactly the moment that papa clicked the strawberries.
"Look at him, taking pictures of everything in this house except mine." "

A familiar scene to many of us, and we might grow into it, too. Read about this relationship here.

And here's mine:

"Once an experiment with milk and guava had gone wrong and they had been forced to taste some guava payasam, watery and flavoured with cardamom. Not since his parents died had he shed tears, but on that day, he did. It was awful. He and his wife hadn't been able to discern if the milk had curdled or the ground guava lent it that appearance."

Read the full story of a well-meaning, cooking enthusiast daughter and her I-can't-take-it-no-more father here.

-----------------

Here is the promised fifth link to Haritha.

Bong Mom is hosting this month's edition of Of Chalks & Chopsticks. Head there to find out how to participate if you haven't already!

Of Chalks and Chopsticks Event Round-up

Yegg Fried Rice (Andhra Style, i.e.)

2011-06-17T00:17:00.001+05:30

Sometimes, when life seems really bleak, you should reach deep into your being and you will realise that deep within you lie wonderful reserves of strength. All that you want is within you, you need not look outside.

Translation: Sometimes, when you don't have any energy but have to come up with the minimum, look into your crisper - you may find a box of curry leaves.

On the way back from work, I wanted to buying a biriyani for dinner but the thought began to smell too sharp and spicy, so much so I felt nauseated and smothered, so I abandoned it and schooled myself to make do with this egg fried rice. It was quick fix enough to be unhealthy as it contained no vegetables and the only fibre of any consequence there was a handful of curry leaves. Nevertheless, I would recommend the rice that you see above.

What you need:

2 eggs, beaten well, with a little salt. (Scramble them or make an omelette and cut it into small pieces.)
2 cups cooked rice
2 -3 tsp sambaar kaaram - this is a garlicky chilli powder that has some coriander, fenugreek, cumin and black gram, so try adding all these if you don't have a spice mix that approximates this
10-12 curry leaves.
Salt to taste
Oil - 2-3 spoons

Heat the oil in a wide pan on low heat. Add the curry leaves and then the chilli powder. Heat it but make sure it doesn't burn.

Now add the rice and mix it with the chilli powder and oil till it's all evenly coated.

Add the salt.

Now add the prepared egg and mix well once again.

Switch off the stove, pile it into a bowl or a plate and tuck in.

This is the fourth of the promised five links to Haritha.

Eggs Rice Humour Musings

Of Unusual Combinations, and Of Chalks and Chopsticks

2011-06-01T00:41:00.001+05:30

The granite tabletop was satiny and cool to the touch. It was one of a few expensive acquisitions he had made recently. He had decided to be less careful and finally enjoy some of the money he had made. Another treat he had bought himself was a 40-inch, full HD, LCD TV.

The treats extended to the smaller and finer things in life too. Most of the food that he had enjoyed in New York 40 years ago was now available in the shiny new supermarkets that had invaded the smallish city he had returned to, in the last six or seven years. Modern retail, they called it. And indeed! What a difference from stopping by the road at a heap of papayas or mangoes spread on the dust and choosing the cleanest one. Or having to negotiate a crowded market where one kept bumping into someone else because the paths were so small. He and his wife could not stop buying their daily needs and luxuries in these places. After a weary day at work, this was what they looked forward to - buying bottlegourd and coriander in air-conditioned interiors. And if the price they had to pay for it was a not so fresh bunch of onions and potatoes, so be it. It didn't matter much.

His daughter was always protesting - she would say that in her many years of living in a bigger city with much older, more evolved stores, the best vegetables were to be found at the neighbourhood greengrocer who sold his wares out of a shack. And he didn't think she bought any of those lovely American and Chinese apples that were to be found throughout the year now - she looked down her nose at them quoting pesticides and unseasonality and professed some sympathy for 'those poor apple farmers' in Himachal Pradesh and Kashmir, and had even lectured the salesman on relegating the Indian apples to a hot and dusty corner of the store while tending to the foreign ones on chilled shelves.

Oh well! One man's meat is another man's poison, he told himself philosphically, removing the strawberries from the refrigerator. The daughter had promised to make strawberry mousse but knowing her, it could well end up as strawberry salad - she was a lazy lump. After weeks of luring him with pizza, she had presented him with a cowpat.

"I thought you were making pizza," he had told her, laughing to hide his disappointment. "Why do you have a cowpat inside the house?" "Very funny, Dad," she had replied, "this IS the pizza. Burnt. I told you I didn't know how to operate a microwave." She didn't. She had refused their offer to buy her one. Well, at least since the cowpat pizza, she had bought a microwave. (Though she didn't make pizza.)

His wife saw him fiddling with the strawberries and said, "Now what?" "She's promised to make mousse," he said. She looked at him scornfully and they started laughing - their daughter's experiments with cooking were legion. The stuff of legend, nay, nightmare. Rarely would anything end up in the intended form. Once an experiment with milk and guava had gone wrong and they had been forced to taste some guava payasam, watery and flavoured with cardamom. Not since his parents died had he shed tears, but on that day, he did. It was awful. He and his wife hadn't been able to discern if the milk had curdled or the ground guava lent it that appearance. They didn't enjoy having to feel bits of the seed on their tongue. It had been so hard to sneak into the kitchen and pour it down the drain with his daughter whizzing in and out of the kitchen with bowls and spoons. Didn't they raise that girl to have taste, if nothing else? How could she create something like that and be cheerful about it?

In came the daughter with some fresh red chillies. "Don't tell me those are going into the strawberries," he said. "They are, Dad, the dish will be redder," she said.
"But just give me some ordinary mousse, the straightforward, no-frills kind I got in the deli in New York all those years ago. I don't want a Cordon Bleu version."
"Don't be silly, Dad. Who has the patience to seed them? I'm making strawberry chutney. I don't have the patience to whip cream and soak the gelatine and all that nonsense."
He wasn't disappointed. Really, he had expected this. But chutney?
"And how do you propose to make the chutney?"
"Simple," she said. "All those strawberries, some soaked tamarind, fresh red chillies and garlic fried, a cup of grated, fresh coconut all whizzed in the mixie together. Seasoned with salt and tempered with the usual mustard, cumin, urad dal (black gram) and curry leaf in oil."
"Really?"
"Really, Dad! My friend's mother, who lives in Mahabaleshwar ... she owns a strawberry farm, I've got the recipe from her and I've tweaked it. And to make it interesting, we can add a couple of pieces of bittergourd too. Listen, Dad, after we make the chutney, let's take a photo with your camera. When I get my food blog going, it will be the first post, and it's a really unusual recipe."

He felt, knew, he had to stem the tide before it got out of hand. Open-mindedness was one thing, waste and bad taste were another. God knew he had put up with enough experimentation. If he were to be God's vessel for South Indian strawberry chutney, he'd have taken to the idea better, he was sure. And what was this girl saying about a food blog? Did she really think she would be read? Could he stand by and watch her inflict her madness on an unsuspecting bunch of foodies? He glanced at his wife, who was watching her TV soap with a beatific expression on her face. No sympathy from those quarters, for sure. She would just tell him that it was all his fault for having food on his mind all the time, and for raising another foodie, and one with a twisted sense of taste at that ...

He rolled out a red mat and spread it on the table. He placed a porcelain bowl and the strawberries on it. He called his daughter. Seeing the camera in his hand, she said, "Oh wonderful, Dad! So we're doing step-by-step photos. One, of the strawberries intact, one when they're being sliced, one in the mixer, one with some chutney in a ladle over the mixer jar and so on, and then the final product. That's what many successful bloggers do."

"Didn't I see some cream in the fridge? Bring it here."

"But, Dad, cream in a chutney?"

"I don't see why not. We're pairing strawberries with cumin and urad dal too, aren't we? But no, you're not making chutney, I have a better idea."

"What?"

"A classic. Strawberries and cream. And I'll relive the time I went to Wimbledon. I'm going to watch tennis with a bowl of this in my hand. This is the last batch of strawberries in season!"

"But it's the French Open that's on now!"

"Doesn't matter, dear! 'Tis the spirit that counts! And what's wrong with starting your blog with a classic recipe?"

She pouted.

"I ate your guava payasam, your papaya-fish soup and I was even prepared to eat your cowpat pizza. Don't you think we can eat something traditional once in a while?"

She started to protest, but the look of abject despair in her father's eyes was too much to bear. She really shouldn't complain, her parents tried their best to be appreciative of her efforts. So what if the idea of strawberry chutney was anathema? Let him have his way today. In any case, these chocolate fiends would find it hard to resist her Belgian cauliflower fudge chilling in her aunt's refrigerator as a surprise for their wedding anniversary tomorrow.

My entry to the event I'm hosting, created by Aqua.

And here's the third link to Haritha for guessing the curry leaf berries right.

Of Chalks and Chopsticks Food fiction Humour

The Shape Of Puddings To Come

2011-05-19T23:38:00.001+05:30

This past week, weird and unlikely things happened to me.

I saw (and ate) green chaklis

A khakra arranged itself like the crescent moon

My niece told me she wanted a "snake cake" for her third birthday and certain promises (from the tailor, the electrician) were kept. I wanted to not go to work at least one day this week but kept accepting various assignments that came my way, despite myself. I also made fair use of two mangoes that The Spouse bought the previous week.

The skin of one of them was just beginning to pucker so I told him to put them on the dining table so that we couldn't miss them when we walked in from work. Increasingly, the thought of merely peeling, slicing and dicing them and eating them as a pre-good night's sleep snack in a cool air-conditioned room seemed less appealing than a hot morning spent making mango payasam. (I have a sadomasochistic streak, I suppose.)

Over that sleepless night, though, I discovered I didn't really want to make mango payasam if it involved looking up recipes, measures, proportions and the rest of that stuff. I did try, half-heartedly, but gave up soon enough. After all, what was the guarantee that I'd have all the ingredients? I wanted to use up the tin of condensed milk that I have but I really didn't feel like braving a rice and mango combination in oversweet milk, nor did I want to wrestle with the thought of how much ordinary milk I should use and how I should use the rest of the condensed milk because the recipes didn't call for an entire tin.

But there was Mikcee and it has been rather neglected since I bought it a month ago. A mikcee being used just four times in a month in a South Indian home? Shameful! A new mikcee at that? Shameful and worse! It was time I gave it its due.

But I wasn't done with the payasam yearning just yet. All these confused feelings - thrift (use up mangoes, condensed milk, mikcee), craving (dessert, Indian flavour) and novelty (it had to be different) culminated in this ... pudding, shall we call it? Glop is more like it but that's what happened after it stayed in the fridge for hours - when I beat it in the mikcee, it attained this pneumatic, souffle-like quality that had me wonder at my unlikely and rare potential for serendipitous happenings. (If only I knew it was going to be shortlived and fall flat, I wouldn't have wasted any grey cells marvelling and feeling grateful.)

If you click on it, you can see the semolina suspended in it, and a spot of cardamom

Glop connotes something unappetising but this isn't so boring, and it was tasty, and it is summer and you should have mango-something, so here's how you go about it:

Milk: 1/2 litre (500 ml)
Mango pulp: 1 cup
Sugar: 4 tbsp
Semolina/Rava/sooji: 1-2 tbsp
Ghee/clarified butter: 1-2 tsp
Cardamom: 1, heated and crushed/powdered

Boil the milk well. Turn the heat down completely, stir in the sugar and let it dissolve.

Meanwhile, heat the ghee and fry the semolina lightly. Turn off the heat and add this to the milk. Mix well but gently till milk thickens. Add the cardamom/powder.

Turn off the heat and cool it completely.

Add the mango pulp to the milk-semolina mixture and whiz in the mixer.

Chill.

By the way, did you notice the mango shape inside the green chakli? Quite season- and situation-appropriate, don't you think?

Here's the second of the promised five links to Haritha's blog. (I know, I missed out three posts in between, but I don't think it's fair to retrofit them into old posts.)

Don't forget Of Chalks and Chopsticks - get that imagination working and send me your entries by May 31.

Humour Mango milk pudding semolina/sooji/rava Dessert

A Slap of Paneer & How I Moved My Cheese - Again

2011-05-15T21:39:00.000+05:30

Recently, I got a new mikcee. A no-frills, three-jar affair which doesn't even have a jooser. As fate would have it, I've used it very little in the three weeks since I bought it.

A few days later, during my weekly shopping for vegetables, I saw nicely sliced jikini in the store - this store cuts and packs some vegetables everyday but as I almost always go there on Sunday evening, I rayrely buy them as I no longer like to store them in the fridge for whenever I next cook, which could be too days later or five days later. This time, I couldn't help myself, I bought the pack.

I also had a slap of paneer, a couple of carrots and I don't remember what else, the photo may offer some cluse.

I had coriander and I knew there were some kashyoos in the fridge. I had also seen some fresh red chiles in the store so those were there too.

So I desided to make a miksed vegetable currry - and I could test the mikcee too. After all, hadn't I bought it after a lot of research - all the Internet opinion slammed it but real-world opinion was dayametrically opposite so I went for it.

Mixed Up Paneer And Vegetable Curry

Paneer/Cottage Cheese, cubed - 250 gm
Zucchini, diced - 2 cups
Carrots, diced - less than a cup

Cumin - 1 tsp
Oil - 2 tsp
Salt - To taste

Grind the following to a fine paste with a little water (only as much as you want):
Coriander - 1/2 a cup
Cashewnuts - 10-12/a fistful, soaked for a little while
Fresh red chillies - 2

Heat the oil and pop the cumin.

Lightly fry the paneer and then add the zucchini and carrot. Saute for a couple of minutes

Turn the heat down, sprinkle a little water and cover and let it cook till done (but I wouldn't want my zucchini to be shapeless).

Then, add the salt and the ground paste/liquid, whatever it has become.

Turn the heat up just a tad, mix well and simmer for a minute or two.

Enjoy!

Don't forget Of Chalks and Chopsticks - get that imagination working and send me your entries by May 31.

Of Facts, Fiction, Food, Chalks & Chopsticks

2011-05-01T20:19:00.002+05:30

In the last few months, a few things happened that were rather stranger than fiction: Long-ago people I was busily and blithely investigating on the Internet got in touch; The Spouse misplaced his mobile phone only to find it on the slope of his car roof, after a 45-minute journey; and for the first time ever, in my entire life, someone told me I looked like the Telugu film heroines of yesteryear. I exchanged my 8-year-old-but-mint-condition fancy food processor for Rs 900 off on a no-frills mixie and wondered if it would ever forgive me for sending it away and almost checked it to see if it was shedding tears. It may be inanimate but couldn't it not have soul?

I'm sure I'm deeply empathetic and highly sensitive but when these qualities cross over into physics and metaphysics, I know it's high time I stuck to something more real. Like rolling up my sleeves and making a better effort at my blog posts, which have been less voluble and more infrequent. I've been missing Of Chalks & Chopsticks, the food fiction event that was Aqua's idea. Some discussion with her, Desi Soccer Mom and BongMom yielded an enthusiastic response and another idea - how about giving participants a picture, or a set of words that can be used in the story they are going to write?

So here it is: This is the picture that you will use for your story. It's up to you to use it or not in your post, but if you do, please mention that it's mine. It's my photo and the copyright to it is mine.

And here are some more rules, most of them copied from Aqua's page:

1. Spin us a yarn - an original one. It could either be based on a real incident or could be something competely imaginary. Explore any genre: humour, romance, mystery, paranormal etc.

2. The story you write has to have some food - it doesn't have to be a recipe.

3. There is no word limit on the story you write, but it has to be written in one single post.

4. Posts written for this event CAN be shared with other events.

5. Please link to this post and Aqua's original post mentioned above.

Post your story and the recipe between now and May 31 and mail it to me at: srablog (at)gmail(dot)com

Include the following details in your mail:

1. Name and URL of your blog

2. Title and URL of your post

I have a reputation for being a strict host and I fully intend to maintain it, so if you have any questions about the event, please leave a comment here, I will answer it and clarify the rules if need be. Happy imagining!

And here's the second of my five promised links to Haritha.
Of Chalks and Chopsticks Food fiction Event Humour

A Berry That Grows in Guntur ...

2011-04-25T23:12:00.000+05:30

... and everywhere else that curry leaf does, I'm sure!

These are the fruit of the curry leaf plant, the answer to the guessing game in the previous post.

This came off the bunches of curry leaf I bought a couple of weeks ago, and it was quite a discovery because I don't even remember these fruit despite having had curry leaf growing in our backyard at home when I was a kid. There was a faint memory of red fruit on the tree and Google Images confirmed it, but the green seems very new to me, guess I only caught a glimpse of them when they were ripe.

Two people, Haritha and Kalyani, got this right. Haritha linked to her blog, Kalyani did not. So I will link to Haritha for the next five posts, including this one. Haritha, you'd better start posting! :-D

And a link to Rachel, because it was her comment that gave me the title for this post!

Weekend Herb Blogging Curds/Yoghurt Gluten-free Potatoes

No Prizes For Guessing :( - 2

2011-04-18T22:28:00.000+05:30

Identify this. I'll give you till Sunday night Indian Standard Time and then announce the names of those who got it right.

Technically speaking, there IS a prize. It's virtual. I liked Desi Soccer Mom's idea of linking to the winner's blog so I will do the same - I will link to the winner's blog for the next five posts that I do on my blog. If there is more than one person who gets it right, I will pick a winner through computer-aided random selection.

Guessing Game

Unfried Green Tomatoes

2011-04-09T00:24:00.001+05:30

I like my tomato pappu (dal) as red as a tomato. The yellow of the dal adds its own hue so ultimately it's like a burst of orange-yellow sunshine in a child's drawing.

(Okay, this picture is less sunshiney than I want, but do as I say, not as I show.)

Take two fistfuls of tur dal (red gram/pigeon peas), add a disproportionate amount of tomatoes to it, at least five, if not more, and boil away the excess water and it's ready.

When I saw some green tomatoes at the store a couple of weeks ago, I had to grab them. Of course, I had no clue whatsoever what I was going to do with them, but I had to have them. Looking at several recipes several days later on the Net didn't help either - I wanted to use them up quick and not have to buy extra ingredients to be able to use them up so I decided I would look for recipes for kootu - it would be like the dal I'm used to yet not quite, I told myself, and it would be a healthy and easy balance between my impatience to get on with using something and not wasting it and my desire to experience a new and unfamiliar taste.

But kootu recipes usually mean the tiresome processing of a coconut, which is the rarest of rare commodities in my home. I decided to tilt the balance in favour of the familiar - do away with the coconut, with the dal of choice (green gram) and use tur dal, with pepper and fennel to impart the novelty.

As the cooking hour progressed, I took a look at the pestle and it felt incredibly heavy. Never mind, the peppercorns will split when I splutter them in oil, I told myself, and got on with it. All they did was spit. And get shiny.The fennel didn't make any difference; I should have reached for that pestle, after all! I didn't add too much turmeric because I wanted the dal to look green, and added two or three round red chillies to add some contrast to the dal.

Here's how I think I made it:

In a pressure cooker (or pan),
- take half a cup of washed toor dal (pre-soaking will help it cook faster and softer in a shorter time)
- 6-7 quartered green tomatoes
- water
- a small onion, chopped up (optional)
- 1 or 2 green chillies, slit (optional)
- a pinch of turmeric

Make sure the dal is well covered by the water but not overwhelmed by it.

Let the pressure cooker whistle 2-3 times and then cook it on simmer for another 5 minutes. (Or just cook it till mushy in a pan)

Let the pressure drop on its own and mash it as much as you can.

Add the salt and some red chilli powder, if you like, at this stage.

If it's too watery, thicken it down by cooking it some more on medium heat, uncovered.

In a spoon of oil, pop 1/2 tsp each of mustard, cumin, peppercorns and fennel. A bit of asafoetida, if you like, or garlic. And 4-5 curry leaves and a couple of curry leaves. Chop up some coriander and garnish.

I'm sending this dal to Desi Soccer Mom who's hosting My Legume Love Affair, created by Susan.

My Legume Love Affair Tomato Dal/lentils Vegetarian Humour

LessWord Wednesday

2011-03-30T00:59:00.001+05:30

These are 200 gm of baby bittergourds, slit, boiled with some salt in 1/4 cup of tamarind extract diluted with more water till just tender.

They are then drained, and fried in 1-3 spoons of oil. Then removed, after which, saute some 2 spoons of chilli powder (or a mix of it with coriander + cumin + garlic + curry leaf) in the same oil and add the bittergourds back to the pan and mix. All this on the lowest flame.

Crusty-tender-hot-seed-y bittergourds are ready!

This post goes off to Susan of The Well-Seasoned Cook who's hosting Weekend Herb Blogging now run by Haalo and created by Kalyn.

Weekend Herb Blogging Vegetarian Bittergourd/bitter melon Humour

Making It a Piece O' Cake

2011-03-15T00:14:00.002+05:30

I was seven when I first ate a banana cake. A fellow NRI (non-resident Indian) was visiting my parents and the cake had made its appearance at our house. My mother told me to try some. I did, and I told her it was "peculiar", more the smell than the taste. Going by the memory of my mother's amused reaction, I realise I had probably latched on to that big English word then and was using it quite often.

Years later, my mother bought what was then called an 'inframatic cuisinette' and would treat us in the next few weeks to grilled chicken and waffles. It was a many-in-one contraption that came with a baking tray, grill, a waffle iron and a sandwich maker. I even vaguely remember baking a cake or two in it. Then either the fancy wore off or I went off to the hostel, I'm not sure.

More years later, I asked my mother if she would let me have it and she sent it with someone who was visiting. We put it on the topmost shelf in the storeroom where it lay for many more years - till my mother visited a few days ago and we were discussing the many useless and unused things that were lying around the house and she told me to throw them off, at which my conscience reared and pricked and I resolved I wouldn't let it go without giving myself another chance.

Inframatic cuisinette

That night, I got The Spouse to bring it down and S, who helps me with the work at home, gave it a thorough cleaning - all the little spiders housed in its nooks and crannies were given a chance to escape and I told S to go at the plates with soap and a toothbrush. We plugged it in and were happy it was heating up. Now that the dry run was over, we needed to actually bake something in it.

I had been experimenting with my diet and was testing bananas, well, just one, actually, for breakfast - it's such a convenient, filling food - peel, eat, feel full - but I wasn't feeling as good as I hoped. (When did convenience food ever do you any good?)

I had eaten my way through three bananas but at the end of three days, I was feeling sick and the bananas were really ripe and squishy. Mum's visit and the discussion were fresh in my mind, so I resolved to make banana waffles and put an end to my misery - no more banana after that, that is.

I looked up recipes for banana waffles on the Net but I hadn't really bargained for waffles with banana slices on them - and my eyes glazed over when I looked for banana-in-waffle-batter recipes. No surprise, considering it was 1 a.m. In any case, how hard could banana waffle batter be? All you needed was a pouring consistency and some baking powder.

The next morning saw me mashing the two ripe bananas with a fork - it made about a cup.

Then I added 1/4 cup of sugar, mixed an egg into it and added 1/4 cup of vegetable oil.

Then I sieved 1-1/4 cup of flour, 1-1/4 tsp baking powder and a pinch of salt.

I added the flour in ladlefuls to the banana mixture and folded it in with a fork. I also added a couple of spoons of milk, simply because it was available.

By this time, I didn't have the patience for waffles - I was unsure of the consistency of the batter and wasn't willing to experiment, suddenly enough - so I simply washed my bundt pan, greased it and poured the batter into it. At this stage, I tasted the batter and added about three tsps of icing sugar. (Why icing sugar? Because it needed to be used up.)

I baked it at 180 degrees and it took less than 30 minutes to bake. It cooled in as much time and I sliced it up and boxed it.

And you know what?

It tasted peculiar. To the Spouse.

In fact, he said he liked it but said that it was 'bitter', and deigned to eat only one more piece. (But then, he is vastly prejudiced against anything unconventional in matters of food.)

The next day, I ate another piece, wondered why it tasted peculiar to The Spouse and knowing it would go ignored by both of us (by me for diet reasons), carted it off to The Land of the Failed Experiment - my workplace, not the dustbin. We could even call it The Refuge of the Failed Experiment, maybe that's more fitting.

My colleagues oohed and aahed over it, and one of them even told me I should quit my job and go into business, set up a deli, a cafe, whatever. Another asked me how I had managed to make it so soft, and marvelled at how it tasted so much like banana. Another colleague appreciated it while affirming its mild bitterness, downing it appreciatively.

And that's why I've put it up here - I rarely make cakes - I mostly detest the creaming, whipping, sieving and other associated tedious stuff, washing out the greasy dishes afterwards - but this felt like it was done in a jiffy. I know there are enough and more banana cakes and breads going around, but as my blog is all about what's a discovery to me, I have to talk about it.

Happy baking! And am I hearing it wrong or is there really a song that goes something like "I wanna be go bananananaaaa ... I keep hearing it my gym and I quite like the beat, though I can't make out any of the words!

Banana+cake Baking Humour

How Green is Your Upma?

2011-02-24T22:55:00.002+05:30

I'm not one of those who wrinkle their noses in disgust and whose faces take on a scornful expression when upma is mentioned. Most people I know dislike it. I don't eat it a lot myself for various reasons but I do like it.

As is normal with me, there is a box full of semolina in my pantry though I don't recall why I bought it. I do recall roasting it right away and storing it, which is why I didn't see any of the fine creepy-crawlies that generally populate semolina stored for long.

I was in a contrary and subversive (or so I like to think) mood this morning and decided to make the usually white upma green. I had all the accoutrements - green beans, green peas, green curry leaves' powder, and I set about making it. I wasn't disappointed.

Roughly, this is how I made it:

I chopped up a fist-sized onion and two green chillies

I microwaved a cup of chopped green beans and an equal amount of peas till they were three-fourths done, about three and two minutes each.

I heated about two spoons of oil, tempered it with a teaspoon each of mustard and urad dal/hulled, split black gram.

Then I fried the onion till pink. And then I added the green chillies and vegetables, sauteed them for a minute.

Then I added two big spoons of curry leaf powder and salt. For more information on curry leaf, you can go here.

Then I added water - I intended to use four cups but I was so carried away by the brainwave (of the green upma - rendered oh so fibrous and healthy) that I probably added only two.

Only after adding two cups of semolina to the boiling water, I realised I had goofed, so I hurriedly added a random amount, but you, you do as I say, i.e., add four cups of water.

Then I prayed like anything to get the semolina to soften.

My prayers were answered.

I thanked God and immediately ate some of it.

I'm sending this off to Simona who's hosting WHB this week, administered by Haalo and created by Kalyn.

Weekend Herb Blogging Semolina Vegetables Upma Curry+leaf

Mixed Vegetable Kachri

2011-02-17T23:53:00.001+05:30

Scene1

Spouse, Sra having dinner

Spouse: Uncle just didn't like this dish, you know, he found it too sour, but I loved it, of course, because I love sour stuff.

Sra: Hmm.

Scene 2

Dinner next day

Spouse: Hey, there's brinjal (eggplant/aubergine) in this!
Sra: No, there isn't.
Spouse: Come on, I can see the pulp, all squishy.
Sra: Yes, it's there.

Spouse, Sra continue with their dinner

And so there was, the brinjal pulp. But it wasn't any ploy to get the Spouse to eat something-that-he-doesn't-which-is-good-for-him, just a way to include more vegetables into a mixed vegetable dish and include him in the process of cleaning it out faster!

Most of the vegetables are stuff that the Spouse won't even deign to look at when their identity is clear - yellow pumpkin, beans of the country variety, small gourds further cut up, you get the picture ... It did have something the Spouse took a liking to, though - kachri powder from my recent trip to Rajasthan.

See that wrinkly little thing there, looking like a bleached walnut, a crumpled dead leaf? It's actually a gourd itself, like a small, tiny watermelon. My friends and I visited the market near our hotel in Jaipur at about 8 p.m specifically for this - I bought about half a kilo of the fresh ones and during the vegetable seller's patient description of how it could be used in a chutney, lost patience but kept nodding, so naturally, I did not know what to do with it when I got back home. More frustratingly, peeling it didn't help - it depleted the gourd of three-fourths of its substance and I was left with very little to use - the peel was quite tough and took much of the flesh with it!

I probably didn't know how to do it right, because there's a picture below from my trip that shows that someone in Rajasthan got it right!

I put it in dal and it tasted very much like dosakai (melon cucumber). But I got tired of it after two dals and gave it away. Perhaps there is a recipe for fresh kachri chutney on the Net, but none else.

Then I launched into the dried kachri that I had bought in Jaisalmer (which is also where I saw the fresh kachri first). It needs to be pounded to powder, a chore I somehow enjoy. Perhaps pervertedly, but I do.

I used Tarla Dalal's recipe at first but two tries on, I've developed my own mix of vegetables with whatever's available, and spices. In doing so, I'm probably violating some hallowed rule about amounts and proportions or ratio of hard to soft vegetables and non-includables, but that makes it an ever-original, and evergreen recipe, doesn't it, with surprises at every stage! Most recently, I used a combination of yellow pumpkin, brinjal, dondakai/tendli/coccinea and I forget what else, with this recipe.

What you need:

Assorted vegetables, chopped - to make 3-4 cups
Garlic: 5-10 cloves, minced (optional)
Shah jeera/jeera/caraway/cumin seed: 1 tsp
Plain chilli powder/mixed up chilli powder: 1-2 tsp (I use the latter)
Turmeric powder: 1 tsp
Tomato: 2-3, diced
Kachri powder: 1 tbsp
Lime juice: To taste
Salt: To taste
Oil: 2-3 spoons

Temper heated oil with the cumin/caraway and the garlic.

Add the vegetables and the turmeric and chilli powder and mix well. Cover and cook on a slow flame till the vegetables are cooked, ensuring they aren't sticking to the bottom of the pan.

Add the tomato and salt and cook for a few more minutes.

Add the lime juice and kachri, and mix well.

This is a very popular meat tenderizer. See a pretty picture and more info here.

And here's more info from Tarla Dalal herself!

Quite a few recipes mention amchur as a substitute and I've made similar curries with both - the tastes are very, very different.

Here's a post that attracted my attention and two more discoveries and experiences of kachri from the blog world.

This post goes off to Graziana of Erbe in Cucina who's hosting Weekend Herb Blogging now run by Haalo and created by Kalyn.

Weekend Herb Blogging Mixed vegetable Vegetarian musings

Not Quite Curd Rice

2011-02-04T01:18:00.001+05:30

As you know, losing weight is one of my obsessions. And in pursuit of that, going around organic food stores in search of interesting things to eat and replace routine things with, my pastime.

That's how I came across amaranth seed (or rajgeera as it's known in Hindi) a year or two ago. The leaf (thotakura, in Telugu) is popular, I regularly use it with dal or by itself to make a stir-fry. It looked like tiny globules of dry yeast, stuffed into plastic packs with cooking instructions typed on white paper. I took a pack home, and quite liked it. I learnt this was the same grain that the rajgeera chikki (brittle) or laddu was made with. There's also popped amaranth sold in these organic stores - the suggested use is as breakfast cereal, but I'm coming around to realising microwaved idlis, eggs and fruit are my kind of breakfast. (I'm the kind who buys idli batter off a shelf but today, there were reports in the newspapers that 55 per cent of the readymade batter brands, including four well-known ones, were contaminated with fecal matter, so I won't be buying it for a while, I'm sure.)

Back to amaranth, though! The pack suggested it could be eaten with dal and curds/yoghurt, just like rice. I don't remember what I did with the majority of the pack, but I do remember how good the curds mixed with the cooked seed tasted, and that's what I made today, with my second pack of amaranth.

I have a small problem, though - this current pack has some mud/stones in it, and I don't quite know how to rinse this teensy-weensy grain efficiently - in a way that the mud/stones are weeded out, but it's not too bad. Maybe I just got a badly done batch - as long as I don't find out it's fecally contaminated, I'll be fine.

Quite the wonder food it seems to be, with no gluten, high levels of iron and amino acids not often found in grains:

"Amaranth seed is high in protein (15-18%) and contains respectable amounts of lysine and methionine, two essential amino acids that are not frequently found in grains. It is high in fiber and contains calcium, iron, potassium, phosphorus, and vitamins A and C.

The fiber content of amaranth is three times that of wheat and its iron content, five times more than wheat. It contains two times more calcium than milk. Using amaranth in combination with wheat, corn or brown rice results in a complete protein as high in food value as fish, red meat or poultry."

Read more here.

There's a lot of information about amaranth seed on the Internet, it sounds good and healthy though I have only done a little bit of reading about it, and I may eat it more often to give my meals more variety - and, of course, hopefully consume fewer calories or a better class of calories in the process. Here's a curd preparation with it - tastes like the traditional curd rice in my South Indian home, with the seed giving it the touch of the exotic!

Here are the seeds.

Close up, they look big, but they aren't.

This is a cup of amaranth seed after being cooked in 1.5 cups of water brought to the boil

and simmered until absorbed.

Up close, doesn't look very appetising, does it?

But persevere.

Take about two ladles of curds/plain yoghurt and add it to a cup of cooked amaranth seed. Add some salt to taste.

Temper a spoon of hot oil with a little bit of mustard seed, cumin, red and green chilli, chopped and broken up, and some curry leaves.

Garnish with coriander.

Enjoy!

Somewhere along the way, I forgot I knew that amaranth was also a colour. Did you know?

I'm sending this off to Weekend Herb Blogging hosted this week by Janet of Taste Space, administered by Haalo and created by Kalyn.

Weekend Herb Blogging Amaranth/Rajgira/Rajgeera Curds/Yoghurt Gluten-free Humour Vegetarian

Fancy Fennel, Simple Salad

2011-01-30T16:40:00.001+05:30

This past week, I undertook something that I hadn't ever. I invited a large number of people over for dinner. Eight, to be exact. (And yes, that is a large number for me.) I was very nervous as I haven't cooked for that large a number in all these years. It was a day off from work and I spent about 6-7 hours prepping and cooking and assembling, with a break of about two hours for shopping and lunch.

There is a hypermarket at the far end of the road we live on and getting there is a journey. But the reward for it were some small (read relatively inexpensive) boxes of strawberries, good black grapes and a bulb of fennel (which produces the saunf we Indians are familiar with) that I've never seen here earlier. I took the smallest of those, which cost Rs 40, knowing I would make a salad that I'd eaten I don't remember where earlier.

The fennel stayed in my fridge for three days - naturally, I'd forgotten all about it as I'd not opened the vegetable crisper as I hadn't needed to cook because there were lots of leftovers from The Dinner for Eight People - till I remembered about it yesterday. (In the process, I also noticed a big bunch of greens, which I converted into two stir fries, one with the leaves and one with the stalks.) Then I set about looking for recipes and then for sites which would tell me how to process fennel into paper-thin shavings. I realised rapidly it wouldn't be a simple case of taking the peeler and shaving it - it involved 'removing tough outer portions', 'cutting off the stalks and saving them for use in soups later' and such.

I regret to say my fennel didn't come with any 'ferns' or 'fronds' (just a few tiny, ragged, blackening-at-the-tips leaves) and the inner portions seemed as tough as the outer portions. My bulb of fennel was rapidly attenuating as I attempted to remove the Tough Outer Portions, so I simply stopped discarding the T. O. P. after a minute or so and cut it into thin strips.

'Aromatic' is an understatement, and, I think, rather inaccurate. My fennel smelt of an entity that could straddle the paint and petroleum derivatives categories and yet be pleasant - I can't be more accurate than that myself.

I looked for recipes for simple fennel salad and chose this though I didn't have half the ingredients with me. (I had powdered Parmesan cheese in a tin, which I didn't want to risk using.) So I made it with just fennel, lime juice, olive oil, salt and pepper but felt that it lacked something, so added a sliced onion to the mix. It was just right.

Fennel bulb, cut into strips: 150-200 gm
Onion, small/medium: 1, sliced thin and well separated
Olive oil: 2 tbsp
Lime juice: from 1 big lime
Salt and fresh cracked pepper, to taste

Mix the olive oil, lime juice, salt and pepper and whisk a little with a fork till it begins to emulsify. Pour it over the fennel and onion and mix. It tastes good a couple of hours later.

I read that India produces about 30,000 tonnes of fennel (not sure how recent the link is) but I do wonder, what happens to all those bulbs?

I'm sending this off to Astrid who's hosting Kalyn's Weekend Herb Blogging this week, now managed by Haalo.

Weekend Herb Blogging Vegan Salad Fennel Fennel

Dragon's Teeth

2011-01-14T00:43:00.001+05:30

That's what Uncle, the creator of this pudding, called it. "You can take a picture of it and use it on your blog," he said. The Spouse said it was indeed a work of art and that I should see it. So off we went after a Thai dinner to behold his creation.

When they said "art", I had assumed Uncle had done some finger painting on it, like he is wont to once in a while. I've seen him make a checkerboard pudding in pink and yellow, draw a star in vanilla yellow amidst a top layer of chocolate. One of his favourite pastimes is to call an ordinary jelly and custard pudding a 'blood and gore' pudding and serve it to people who are so sensitive they cannot bear to see a wobbly entity such as jelly, even one sans the slightest quiver - it's the knowledge that it could have quivered, not that it actually did, that puts them off.

So when I entered the house, I thought I'd see some pudding in fantastic shades of flaming orange and red with pointy motifs around the edges but what I saw was this:

Once I got over the surprise of seeing the strawberry and black grape creation, I could do nothing but photograph it with my mobile camera. The Spouse then extracted his big camera from its case and took just two shots, and this is one of them. I couldn't bring myself to disturb it so Uncle finally took a spoon and a bowl, dug into it and served himself some, after which The Spouse and I followed.

This is actually a rather simple layered pudding put together with various flavours of custard powder, sponge cake, raspberry syrup, milk and sugar. I've never attempted to make it myself but one useful trick that I have picked up from Uncle is what he calls his secret to thick curds (yoghurt) from standard-issue slim milk. He is full of (mock) indignation over my stealing all his secrets so I won't share that with you, though it's not really rocket science - it's just that when I was all green and younger and a cook with little experience, it seemed like a big deal to me, but it was common sense, really!

Dessert Fruit

When My Soup Runneth Over ...

2011-01-05T01:32:00.002+05:30

May I speak to Mr Sra ji, on the so-&-so section ...?"

"I am Sra, who's this?"

"I want to speak to Mr Sra ji, on the so-&-so section, and it's a male."

"I am Sra, and I am very much female."

"No, the other day I called and spoke to someone called Mr Sra, it was a male, and he gave me his e-mail ID and I wanted to send some info and anyway the ID was not appropriate maybe I am mistaken or something but I want to ..."

"Who is speaking, where are you calling from and what do you want to talk to me about?"

"Haan, I wanted to speak to Mr Sra ji, about ..."

"I am Sra, and I assure you there's no one else by that name here ..."

"Haan anyway, I want to know ki agar ... (lapses into Hindi - now should we discuss how she assumes I know Hindi, but it's okay, I'm not too bothered about these things unless someone tells me - they actually did - that they thought all the South Indian languages were one and the same ...)

This exchange took place today but I go through this every other day as someone or the other gets confused with my name and it's become a spectator sport, even though I'm a participant. I love seeing the variations my name goes through and have a hearty laugh at its metamorphoses from time to time. Yesterday, there was a similar funny moment in the gym which had me howling with laughter.

P, whom I've come to know over the last few months, is a fellow worker-outer at the gym. We've shared several moments of wild laughter, philosophical discussion and my-(body part)-refuses-to-shrink kind of talk, all perched on exercycles, treadmills and such.

Recently, I told her I write a blog. I told her its name and then we got on with our lives and our exercising. It was only yesterday that she said, "Hey, I still haven't visited your blog, what's it called? My Soup Runneth Over?"

"P, you're thinking of my cup runneth over ... It's called ..."

"Oh yes, hah hah hah (by now, both of us are laughing hard), I knew it had something to do with ..."

" ...When My Soup ..."

" ... soup, I knew it had something to do with soup ..."

I just checked Google to see if the words "my soup runneth over" brought people over to my blog. They don't, not in the first few pages at least. But here are some search terms that did bring people over, over the last couple of months:

1. Famous hostess alive

2. Can you extract capsicum from chilli to make painkilling paste?

3. Vegan qurbani (Vegan sacrifice? Nah, they must have meant qubani ka meetha)

4. Big qurbani knife photo

5. Where can I find Phalsa berries in NYC? (Where can I find phalsa in India, besides Hyderabad?)

6. Kinowa recipes (You can find quinoa, not kinowa, here and here)

7. South indianpuking hostal.in (What the hell! But it's probably this, and other associated searches)

Keywords Humour Search terms

May The Year Ahead Be Full Of Gifts

2011-01-01T00:15:00.000+05:30

Here is wishing you an exciting, prosperous, recession-controlled, job-secure, promotion-assured, hike-replete, war-free, quake/flood/tsunami-
free, fun-filled, air/water/rail/road-safe, terrorist-free, friends-filled,
romance-blooming, healthy NEW YEAR!!!

May you get no bills from you dentist, your cardiologist, your
gastroentereologist, your psychiatrist, your plumber and income-tax
folks ...

May your hair, teeth, abs, your face-lift and your stocks not fall, may your blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol and your mortgage interest
not rise and may someone love you, forgive your faults, be blind to your
blemishes and tell the world about your virtues.

May what you see in the mirror delight you and what others see in you delight them ...

(From a forwarded e-mail)

May the coming years be full of gifts of all kinds - may they give you what you need, what you want, what you deserve. Happy New Year!

Happy New Year Humour

Plk Mngdi

2010-12-29T00:23:00.001+05:30

Technology, specifically, the cell phone, has brought my friend V and I, who go a long way back, closer. Almost every night, we SMS (text message) each other quite a lot. The Spouse begins to feel the day is incomplete if he doesn't hear my mobile phone ping and wonders why she or I haven't begun yet. Sometimes I've to tell him it's because she knows I'm staying back late at work, or that maybe our fingers are too knotted up from all the texting. And sometimes I text her just to quell his restlessness, that V's in my cell and all's right with the world. (Sorry, Mr Browning!)

Neither of us use the 'predictive text' feature - I find it too troublesome to bother with, I don't know why she doesn't, but we have our own SMS lingo which we seem to follow rather well, skilled at it over a few years of practice and the rather common tactic of doing away with the vowels. But a couple of days ago, I was rather foxed with this: "Don't rmbr td dint hve ful rec then ggld." Er ... Okay, she "didn't remember", "then Googled", i got dat, but who or what was 'td' and what wasn't there, in between? She was telling me about the Ker Sangri we got during our recent trip to Rajasthan and which she'd finally attempted, and I was asking her which recipe she followed. So I texted her back - "ur sms lngo 2 hrd 4 me 2 get" (Your SMS lingo too hard for me to get). Then she texted back properly to say she tried Tarla Dalal's site but it didn't have the full recipe so she Googled it and found it somewhere else and she doesn't remember the source. Whew!

Then it struck me I had to use up my stash too. But I remembered that the grocer who sold it to us in Jaisalmer told us it would turn out well if soaked overnight and well, overnight was over the previous night. But the golden yellow mangodis glinted from the dark corner of the shelf, and I had a bunch of Rs 15-spinach (ordinarily Rs 6, have you been reading about the horribly expensive time we're having, vegetably speaking) so I made the Palak Mangodi instead. Palak is spinach and Mangodi are bits of sundried moong dal (green gram) or urad dal (black gram) paste, usually used as an accompaniment to various curries in Rajasthan, from what I gather.

This is from TD's book on Rajasthani cooking but I halved the recipe as I had only one bunch of spinach - and added a tomato. I was also careless and added the original amount of onion prescribed.

1 bunch spinach/palak
1/2 cup mangodi, crushed (some info here)
1 tsp cumin seed/jeera
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1 tsp ginger-green chilli paste
1/2 tsp garam masala
a pinch turmeric
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1-1/2 tsp oil
salt to taste

Cook the spinach briefly in hot water, dunk in cold water and drain completely.

Then puree the spinach and tomato. Keep aside.

Add a cup of water to the mangodi and pressure cook for 3 whistles. Drain, keep aside.

Heat the oil and add the cumin seeds. Once they splutter, add the onions and saute till pink.

Add the ginger-green chilli paste and saute for a few seconds.

Add the rest of the spices and the puree. Let it cook for a while.

Now add the cooked mangodis and salt and simmer for five minutes. We ate it with rice, roti and by itself, nice all three ways.

I'm sending this off to Priya who's hosting Susan's MLLA this month.

MLLA Spinach Mangodi Vegetarian Humour

Star of Wonder, Star of Light

2010-12-21T23:59:00.000+05:30

This star and its shadows confronted me this evening when I got back home from work. I fished out my cell phone and took a couple of pictures. Then I went up to my apartment, brought my camera downstairs and took some more pictures. Then it turned out there's an event in NCR called Festive Photos and I'm hoping Jacquie will accept it even though the round-up is due any moment.

Season's Greetings!

Meetha, Doubled, Tripled

2010-12-16T01:22:00.001+05:30

It was an evening when my heart ruled over my head. There was a buffet waiting in the restaurant but I stubbornly decided to go out of the hotel, find a store and buy myself a snack. It was too early for dinner, but I could do with a snack.

The hotel in which I was staying shared space with several blocks of apartments, and there was a store somewhere amidst all those apartments. I took the long walk over to the other side, located the store and bought myself two packets of chips and a bar of dark chocolate with almonds.

I didn't wait to get back to my room. I opened one pack of chips and tried them - not a fan of assembly-line chips, I rarely buy them, but this was not bad, I thought, reflecting on the taste and detecting a hint of clove! It was only a 35 gm pack, so most of it was gone by the time I reached my room. I am fond of hotel rooms - I love the fact that they are 'housekept', unlike my own house, and I try to leave them in as pristine a state as I find them. I tried to enjoy the room, sitting in the chairs, reading at the table, watching the TV, and sinking into the big bed underneath a cool blanket (it should be a warm blanket but the air-conditioning keeps it cool, even after you turn off the AC).

Two meals of conference food were bad, and though I tried to wriggle out of one, given that it was laid out in the open for humans, mosquitoes and other flies to flock to it, my gracious hosts didn't let me go back to my hotel hungry, shooing off the caterers who advanced every minute to pack up. So I had to eat something there and after trying a few bits here and there, managed to down some rice and dal and escaped to the sanctuary of my hotel room. The irritation of not having had a fulfilling meal went to my head and I reached for the chocolate, dreaming of the breakfast buffet ...

Second day of conference and I had planned to go out to lunch with my friend, but a text message from the powers that be put paid to that plan - I had to call Friend and tell her to have her lunch, I'd call her when I was leaving ... the silver lining to the disappointment was that I got to eat a little bit of the double-ka-meetha that was being served.

Rich, moist and spongy. It must have haunted me, because back home the next day, I went shopping for a loaf of bread and proceeded to make it as per a recipe in Pratibha Karan's 'Hyderabadi Cuisine'. I made one change - instead of the rose water she mentions in the recipe, I used orange flower water because I have a full bottle of it and haven't used it yet since I acquired it two years ago. I didn't use the almonds, just a packet of cashews. And oh, I also didn't stick to her direction to use 2/3rds of a cup of ghee. I used less.

Or probably more. Because I didn't measure it, used it in tablespoons.

So here's what you do. Take 10 slices of bread, cut off the crusts. (What do you do with them? Dump them if you're not environmentally-friendly, dry them and crumb them if you are, or glaze them and lattice the pudding with them later. Glaze them how? I don't know, I just assume it can be done.)

Fry the de-crusted slices in tablespoons of ghee till they are golden brown both sides.

Meanwhile, to 500 ml of boiled milk, add 200 ml of cream and reduce to half, stirring now and then, in simmer mode right through.

Make sugar syrup with 1 cup of sugar and half a cup of water.

Put the fried bread in a greased baking dish. Pour the milk-cream reduction over the bread, and the sugar syrup as well. Sprinkle with saffron and cashew nuts.

Bake in a pre-heated oven - no temperature was specified so I put it somewhere between 130 and 180 C, fancying that I remembered some baking instruction that heavy cake batters needed lower temperatures. Whether I remembered right or not, it was a good thing to do because the milk reduction took its time to reduce further and everything got brown and toasty, cashew nuts included, without getting burnt.

Eat it up, share it, throw it out - fast - it's extremely heavy and can clog arteries and everything else that can be clogged. It's that delicious!

Dessert Bread Vegetarian Humour Hyderabadi

Kadhai Rajasthani

2010-12-06T13:02:00.001+05:30

Hah! Thought it was a Rajasthani curry, didn't you? It is a recipe, though.

Recipe for Kadhai Rajasthani: Take some time off, go to Amber Fort in Jaipur and see these huge kadhais.

How could I have forgotten to post these pictures in my previous post? Anyway, here's some trivia for you - I haven't watched Jodhaa Akbar but apparently these kadais feature in the movie. Jodhaa cooks kheer for Akbar in these kadhais. So I read on the Net.

The vast and rambling Amber Fort is also complex and maze-like. I saw these kadhais about 90 minutes from the top before I managed to get to them. I didn't figure it out - I made my way to several points in the fort through a combination of stumbling and guesswork. There are no directions anywhere, not even on the audio guide, if you're lucky enough to be able to listen to it.

There was no information about these kadhais. I shot these pictures from high above, as much as my 14X optical zoom compact camera would allow.

There are more pictures of Amber Fort here.

Swimming pool, bathtub, what other uses can they be put to? They would need a ladder, though. In various palaces and museums, we saw oversized vessels and containers like these that needed ladders to access them.

Like this. This was one of the two containers of Gangajal (water from the Ganges, considered sacred, and believed to wash away sins, including those accruing from crossing the ocean) that the then king, Sawai Madho Singh II, took to England when he went to attend the coronation ceremony of Edward VII. These are reported to be the biggest sterling silver containers in the world.

Kadhai Rajasthani

Rajasthan Amber Fort Jaipur Travel Humour

Rajasthan - Vinaigrette of Past

2010-12-01T21:39:00.000+05:30

Vignette, vinaigrette, does it matter? But the tag line of the hotel I passed by did make for a big grin - and I knew that would be the title for my next post. Here are some delicacies we tried in Rajasthan over the past week, across Jaisalmer, Jodhpur and Jaipur.

Dinner at a canteen in the Jaipur Railway Station. The round breads in the plate in the foreground were a pleasant surprise. We got those when we ordered a 'kulcha' - it took us a few seconds to realise they were more pav (of the pav bhaji kind) and less kulcha - the South Indians in us immediately noticed their resemblance to ootappams. We liked them so much, we ordered another plate. The gravy was a thin channa/chick pea gravy, which was spicy and rather ordinary.

Behind, you can see some kachodis. They were filled with dal, spices (saunf/fennel, dhaniya/coriander) and red chillies. Very tasty, very heavy - and very, very hot! The other plate (covered by an arm) contains pooris.

How long has it been since you had a Cassata? This brand used to be famous all over India once, now I suppose it's not marketed everywhere any longer. This was dessert, and comfort, in the cold Jaipur night, in a women's waiting room where we huddled trying to forget we had only two confirmed tickets for a group of four.

Roasted papad and bandhani tablecloth - all set for our first full Rajasthani meal in our hotel!

Ker sangri - the desert vegetables Rajasthan is so famous for. I never realised it would be so oily. (Granted my picture/version in the link above is no adequate representation either, but none of the pictures on the Net seem to contain so much oil!)

Gatte ki sabzi - oily again, but quite tasty.

Samosas (right) with a dry, spicy filling and chilli/mirchi vada at a snacks/sweet shop in the market.

More savoury snacks. The one in the foreground is a maida preparation intended to resemble fried cashewnuts.

Mawa kachori, filled with milk solids and nuts and sugar, which Jodhpur is famous for. We had this in Jaisalmer, though.

A hole is punched in at the centre of the kachodi and some sugar syrup is poured into it. The periphery also is wetted with the syrup.

Maybe we didn't eat it at the right places but we didn't like it very much as the mawa just tasted burnt and the other batch we had reeked of kerosene from the stove rather than anything else!

Yes, all these curries were very oily! This was a methi-papad curry, the methi being the fenugreek seed and not the greens.

That's a Rajasthani thali. Clockwise from the yellow dish is the kadhi, dal, churma, roti, ker sangri and the gatte ki subzi.

Breakfast at Pokaran - mirchi vada and kachodi frying.

Another Rajasthani thali - rotis, dal, potato curry, kadhi with pakodas, cauliflower and potato curry

This churma was a delight, fragrant with ghee and cardamom

The chaas (light buttermilk spiced with roasted cumin and carom (ajwain)

This stall serves up jaljeera, lime juice, shikanji and lemon soda.

My friend asked for lime juice with mint - this is what she got, I guess it was shikanji!

Yet another Rajasthani thali - notice the churma, it's different in this thali.

Churma, close up - it's been processed in the mixer!

The baati of the classic dal baati churma. After we were served this, a waiter came up with more baatis and ground sugar, crushed a baati in our plates, drenched it in sugar and told us to eat it up with the dal. In a more ignorant past, my first reaction would have been to gag, but I tried it now with a more open mind. Strangely enough, it didn't make a difference or affect me much, so I was content with just a taste.

You can see more pictures from my Rajasthan trip here.

Rajasthan Rajasthani food Travel Rajasthani thali

Potato Whatchamacallit

2010-11-13T01:22:00.001+05:30

I don't know too much Hindi. Yes, I grew up and studied in a State which believed in the three-language formula and went through over eight years of school studying Hindi as the third language but I am still confused about the gender of various nouns and consequently, the propositions that precede them. Most of the Hindi I know comes from watching TV, and the task is made easier nowadays by watching DVDs of Hindi movies with English sub-titles. This also means that I understand more of textbook Hindi than real-world Hindi.

All this goes to say that I can only imagine what Chak De India or Chakh Le India mean. Yes, I have Googled, but when you have answers like this:

"Chak de" is used instead of "chakh de"
Meaning of "Chak De" is Uttah De

Chakna means Uthana
de means Dena

It is oftenly used when calling "Chak De Fatte"
Which means "Duniya ko Utha do Means "Chha Jao"

it's not much help.

Google further, you say.

I did, and it confirmed my assumption that the meaning is something to the effect of "Get going, India!" Or something equally inspirational, like "You rock, India!"

Now, this post has nothing to do with Hindi or Shah Rukh Khan or hockey, but it does have to do with the food show called Chakh Le India on NDTV, which is where I saw this recipe for this potato fry/curry/whatchamacallit.

This was ages ago, and all I remember about its provenance was that it came from a couple who ran a home stay or a guest house somewhere in the hills in North India - I've tried looking for it in the NDTV web site under Himalaya, Himachal, Uttarakhand and such, but it's throwing up 821 recipes and I do NOT have the time to sift through those. So you're stuck with the result of my memory of that recipe. Which is not bad at all, so you're not stuck with it, really.

There's not much to it. The only special thing that you have to do with this is combine a little bit of turmeric, a spoon of chilli powder and coriander powder each, mix it with about half a cup or less of water and leave it to meld for about 15 minutes.

By which time you'd have peeled (perhaps) and cut about three potatoes, sauteed them in a couple of spoons or more of oil with some cumin and maybe some mustard seed (maybe even some wild mustard - which is what jakhya is supposed to be - for a most exciting crunch), and sprinkled some salt over them and stirred to mix.

(Please go through the comments in the post I linked to - they have some information on jakhya.)

Now add the spiced water, cover and cook till they are done.

Your potato curry/fry/whatchamacallit is ready. I love little special touches like the spice water - it makes me feel I've tried something new, even a "simple" dish like this feels "special" and so do I, without the bother of having to use tiresome spice pastes ground in the tiresome mixer or grinder or whatchamacallit.

This dishy dish goes off to Susan at The Well-Seasoned Cook who's hosting Kalyn's Weekend Herb Blogging, now managed by Haalo.

Weekend Herb Blogging Potato Humour

The Laksa That Took A Detour

2010-11-02T01:18:00.001+05:30

It doesn't take much to feel connected to someone or something. Not years, not weeks. A few forays are enough. That's how I feel about South-East Asia.

First, there was Thailand, then Japan (not strictly SE Asia, but close), Singapore, then recently I went to Taiwan, and on my way back, to Thailand again. Recently, I made plans for a trip to Malaysia and Indonesia but they fell through. With all this, I feel extremely connected to the region :) despite the trips being rather fleeting.

When I first visited Thailand, I could not stomach the smells of food wafting off the carts on the streets. Trying to spend prudently in Chiang Mai, my friend and I opted for the plain (and not the spicy) sausage and divided it into two. We immediately spat it out because it was sweet, so unlike what we expected from a sausage that we told ourselves not to be cheap and then bought the spicy, herbal one which cost 20 Baht. Thankfully, it was delicious. We tried much other street food, but the smell would get to us, and in Bangkok, we ate at a Lebanese restaurant close to our hotel for two days. Even the famous Thai yellow curry was relished in the sanitised confines of our hotel's restaurant, and the som tam was had trying to forget that the vegetarian version I wanted was made in the same mortar and pestle that had, for the previous customer just moments ago, mashed tiny crabs that looked like upturned dead frogs (which was why I had opted for vegetarian).

More travel exposed me a little more to sushi but I think I will stick to the vegetarian version, substitute though it may be. Walking in the hot sun in Singapore only made us thirsty, not hungry, and we didn't eat much. The one day that we could have, we were whisked off to the local branch of a well-known Chettinad restaurant by our well-meaning Indian friends - neither my attempts at deflecting the invitation nor my request for local food were comprehended.

By the time I went to Taipei, Taiwan, and visited its street markets, I didn't smell anything anymore. I didn't even remember there would be a smell. I tasted century eggs and the seafood dumplings that tasted of an unidentifiable ingredient went down my throat without any hesitation. I would have probably tried stinky tofu had I known how to identify it, but all the tofu looked benign to me. (There's no reason why the stink should reflect in the looks, is there? Some of the most snazzy and snotty characters I've come across used to reek, and wouldn't wash their hands after using the toilet.) But I digress - I don't mean that I liked everything I ate, but didn't feel so strongly about it either.

Researching Malaysia reminded me of Laksa. I wasn't very disappointed when the plans fell through but soon after, Aparna's post on a vegetarian laksa had me itching to make it soon. I finally made it yesterday. I was tired of meat and seafood so I too made it vegetarian. I went to the original recipe that she had mentioned, Ottolenghi's, and took it from there. By the time it was finished, it was laksa more in spirit and less in, well, the flesh, in a manner of speaking.

I used an onion instead of shallots. I used the notoriously hot red chilli pickle from Andhra Pradesh instead of sambal oelek. I used dry lemongrass bought in Thailand three years ago.

At first, I didn't have any bean sprouts, and substituted the tofu puffs with paneer/cottage cheese (a bad idea). I ignored the sugar but finally used a spoon of jaggery when the sourness set my teeth on edge.

And though I initially planned to use up a packet of soba noodles, I decided to go with rice. Short grain matta rice. You see, I just bought a 5-kilo bag because the one-kilo ones were no longer to be found, and as the other food in the house would go better with rice, I decided to use a bit of that for the laksa as well.

It was good, but something was missing. I added some salt, it made it better but that was not it. This was the vegetable-paneer-rice-laksa-lime combination

Then for the next meal, to the above, I added a hard-boiled egg and topped it with some sprouts and used lots of pepper. The lime wedge was there but I forgot to add extra. It was great!

For tonight's meal, I fried some tofu with a tablespoon of white flour mixed in water, and ate it with rice and sprouts and pepper - this time, the lime was forgotten, and the vegetables were given a go-by. Not so great, and more filling than I would have liked it to be!

I was tempted to use white rice for this meal as we needed to cook some rice and matta rice takes much longer to cook, but The Spouse said white rice would be overwhelmed by the laksa, and that the plump and sturdy matta would hold its own, so I went with matta again.

I would go for the second option - the one with the egg, sprouts, rice and vegetables. Next, I'm looking forward to making khaw suey - now if only I'd known I could look for it in Chiang Mai ...

Laksa travel Laksa Rice soup musings

Back to Basics-3, The Round-Up

2010-10-21T23:48:00.000+05:30

Here's the Back to Basics round-up that I hosted for Desi Soccer Mom, its creator. Please tell me if I've missed out on any entries that have been sent to me.

Jaya of Spice & Curry tells us how to make home-made mustard powder, and how to use it too!

Swathi of Zesty South Indian Kitchen lets us in on her recipe for rasam.

Hema of Salt to Taste gives us a recipe for another staple popular in some parts of the South.

I haven't made anything basic for this event, even though I am the host, but I'm directing you to this more than four-years-old post of mine on how to make flavoured ghee. That's what I intended to republish anyway.

Weekend Herb Blogging Curds/Yoghurt Gluten-free Potatoes

Feeding My Inner Malayali

2010-10-05T00:50:00.000+05:30

I should have known there was a Malayali in me when, ages ago, I got off the train and a woman came up to me and started speaking in Malayalam ...

I should have known it when, six years ago, in a boat on Vembanad lake, I found myself speaking to the boatman in Malayalam, quite oblivious of the fact that I didn't know the language ...

I should have known when we went shopping and all I remember buying is the kodampuli and an umbrella from a locally famous umbrella store for the gadget-loving Spouse - this brolly came with a light!

I should know, because I often get mistaken for a Malayali, though I don't know what it is about me that is Malayali!

I know there is one in me because I quite like the food from Kerala, and I was inspired to make a curry with something that only Malayalis use, as far as I know.

The inspiration also owed to other factors:

- A 6-year-old stash of kodampuli - yes, from the same trip that took me to Vembanad and had me speaking to the boatman in a language I never knew I knew

- Rediscovering that said stash a few months ago after having thought I had cleaned it out

- And most recently, a non-Malayali friend's experiment with yam, coconut milk and kodampuli which I tasted and really liked last week. Her kodampuli too owed its existence in her home to a trip. Not to Vembanad, but to Thekkady. And while both of us bought it with fish curry in mind, we also used it for non-fish curry. (And no, I don't think she can speak Malayalam or spoke to the boatman in Malayalam and if she did, I don't know whether she knew she didn't know the language.)

I had two green bananas I wanted to stew, and I decided they were 'It'. I didn't check for any further Malayaliness, but decided to adapt a hazy idea of a green banana and tamarind gravy to this recently rediscovered delight. Usually such gravies, much relished in Telugu families such as mine, are made this way. I was too lazy to check, so went by memory and imagination.

This way:

Green banana – 2 medium, boiled but not mushy, peeled, diced
Tomato - 3, chopped as fine as possible
Turmeric – 1/2 tsp
Salt to taste
Chilli powder - 1-2 tsp *

Kodampuli – 3-4 pieces, soaked in about a cup of water

Tempering
Mustard seeds – 1 tsp
Curry leaves – 3-4
Fenugreek seeds – 4 (yes, 4 seeds)
Cumin seed - 1/2 tsp
Split and hulled black gram/urad dal - 1 tsp
Split and hulled chana dal - 1-2 tsp
Dry red chillies – 2, broken
Oil – 2-3 tsp

1 Heat oil, add the fenugreek seeds and then the urad dal. As the urad turns colour, add the mustard seeds. Once they pop, add the rest of the ingredients under 'Tempering' and fry well.

2 Now add the tomato and saute well. Add a little water, if you like.

3 Now add the green banana and mix. Add the salt, turmeric and chilli powder, mix well.

4 Now tip the kodampuli and the water in which they were soaked into the banana. (At that moment, I hadn't known if that was how it's used; I just did it because the kodampuli looked hard and unyielding even after soaking for 30 minutes, and the water didn't look very different either.)

5 Let it boil, checking now and then to ensure the gravy doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan. Add water if the consistency is too thick.

6 At home, tamarind gravies are finished off with a final addition of jaggery. I resisted the urge to do that with this experiment.

I will try this again, with other vegetables.

* Note: I added the third tomato and some more water and boiled it a little more after finding the gravy too hot.

What are the inner 'others' in you - and why do you think they are?

A Reminder: Desi Soccer Mom's Back to Basics is being hosted here - the deadline is October 17, so send in those entries!

Kodampuli/Kudampuli Vegan Humour Kerala/Malayali Green Banana

Back To Basics - 3

2010-09-17T23:52:00.000+05:30

Back to Basics, Desi Soccer Mom's event, is being guest-hosted here this month. The event aims to be a repository of knowledge for ingredients and techniques that are basic to cooking. What's basic for one, can, of course, be advanced for someone else, depending on the kind of cooking and cuisine they are used to.

Here are the guidelines, expectations and rules. I expect to be my usual strict hostess self unless Superhostess raps me on the knuckles and asks me to ease up.

Most of the information below is copied from DSM's post for the first edition of the event.

What the event looks for:

1. How to and tips on how you make your life easier in the kitchen, by grinding pastes or freezing seasonal fruits and vegetables.

2. Recipes for rubs, marinades and masalas

3. Prepping tips - freezing dal, tomato-onion gravy, etc.

4. Recipes for concentrates like this lemon concentrate used to make lemonade.

5. A food recipe that goes with the above is totally optional but welcome.

If you got the drift, start posting the kitchen secrets. Here are the rules:

Rule No. 1: The entries must be original. If inspired or copied from another source, please give credit.

Rule No. 2: Link your post to this post and DSM's orginal post.

Rule No. 3: Older entries are fine as long as you link them here.

Rule No. 4: DSM says she wants exclamation points (!) kept to the minimum and totally avoid them in the title, if you can. (This is an original rule from the blog Indian Food Rocks.)

Please don't send pictures.

Send it to me at srablog AT gmail DOT com.

Please send me the link, your name and blog name.

Please say Back To Basics - 3 in the Subject line of the e-mail.

The deadline is October 17 and I may or may not accept late entries depending on when I do the round-up.

Event Back to basics

It's Been A Pleasure Talking To You

2010-09-14T00:26:00.002+05:30

In real life, anniversaires and anniversaries are markers of another year survived, grey hairs accumulated (and done away with), kilos accumulated (maybe even shed), successes and failures great and small, or even of an year that was mercifully staid and uncomplicated in what it proffered. My cynical self (I have other selves as well) would agree with Oscar Wilde: "Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event." While I rarely celebrate non-blog milestones on the blog, I do mark the blog anniversary religiously, sometimes eventfully.

For now, though, it's a time to thank you all for spending time here and telling me (or not) what you think of everything that's posted here. I would love to find out why you come here, who you are if I don't know you already, how I've made your day, changed your life for the better and so on and so forth though some of you have told me on and off earlier, but I don't believe in such egotistic excesses ... er ... exercises. (Really, believe me ;) I wish Blogger provided smilies and winkies so I could use them here).

And while numbers don't matter much to me unless they tot up to gazillions in my bank balance and in my blog stats, a Fourth Anniversary does seem like I've lasted here awhile and it's been a pleasure.

Thank you, and keep visiting!

Blogging Anniversary Humour

Ice-Cream Something

2010-09-09T01:39:00.001+05:30

It's past midnight and just a few minutes ago, She gave up telling Herself She would get a start on something She only needed to do at work tomorrow.

"You're too tired," She said to Herself. "How are you going to put together a report when you feel so weary?" So She continued to surf, reflecting that if there was one thing that could attract and distract and provide endless amusement even as it seemed pointless and hopeless, it would be the Internet. (She means that this mouse potato expects no tangible result from all the surfing. It's a state of being where the journey assumes more significance than the destination, but more on its unapparent significance later, whenever it becomes apparent.)

What did become very apparent, though, was that She could do a short post on the blog and impart some purpose to a sleepless night. Existentialist debate of the abovementioned kind can be happily replaced by hedonism.

The day before She made this, She had lunch at an Aunt's house. The Aunt unveiled something like this but She was too lazy to ask how it was made. She kept thinking, surfing unpointlessly that night and then She told herself, "It's common sense - you know there was ice-cream and there were biscuits, and what melts can freeze again, so just crumble some biscuits, add them to some melted ice-cream and freeze it back." As She prepared to shut down, she continued to surf, and came upon this site which confirmed Her frozenmeltingfreezingagain thought process was the right idea. Her friends liked it too.

The dark chocolate art on top was an inspiration.

This dessert is going to a mad tea party.

Ice-cream Dessert Biscuits/Cookies Humour

Eating Out in Taipei

2010-09-02T12:30:00.003+05:30

The first stall that I encountered in the Lin Jiang (Tonghua) night market - they were selling pork dumplings and chicken, among other things. The pork dumplings had some black sesame sprinkled on them. The price for five was NT$40.

Steamed shrimp - mild and delicious

This stall had a variety of foods - meats on a stick, tofu, several bowls of broth bubbling away. I didn't know how to eat them but just bumbled along. It turns out that one way of eating them is that you have to choose your meats, tofu and veggies, which are priced separately. Then they will be boiled in a broth and given to you on a plate with some sauce, and the broth, topped with some celery, comes in a cup.

Meats on a stick - a phenomenon that I've seen in Thailand and Singapore as well, and which one can find throughout the other neighbouring countries, which I hope to visit someday soon!

One of the abovementioned assembled meat-veg-soup combinations

Another stall selling food. In the foreground, in those little cups, is what I think is chowanmushi, savoury Japanese custard containing seafood and mushrooms, which I tasted on a trip to Japan.

There are a variety of sweet potato snacks and desserts - I was too full to try any!

Some more, all colourful

And then some!

Sticky rice cakes, with black sesame and peanut powder, being steamed

And they're ready!

Lest you opt for the white sausage, be warned, it has rice and beans in it, not meat!

Name the body parts! Chicken feet, hearts and livers, great delicacies in Taiwan, I'm told!

Look at the stuffed lady's finger/okra. It was tasty - and cold.

Offerings at the Longshan Temple

Many, many more of them

Century eggs on tofu, I think

Shellfish!

I don't even know what this is!

And finally, ending on a pretty note!

To see some non-foodie travel pictures, go here.

Weekend Herb Blogging Travel Taiwan Taiwanese cuisine Night market Street market Lin Jiang Street Tonghua night market Huaxi night market Longshan temple Taipei

Everybody Loves A Happy Ending - Of Chalks & Chopsticks

2010-08-11T01:11:00.010+05:30

When the sweet-faced teenager navigating a shopping cart in the narrow aisle asked her to “excuse me, Aunty”, she turned and stared. “I’m not your aunty,” she told him severely, and as he watched the boy’s face fall, Amar turned away and smiled to himself, but not without some exasperation.

Why couldn’t she let things go? Did she have to kick up a fuss all the time? And it wasn’t as if she wasn’t of Aunty-age, after all … As if she had heard him, she came up to him, wagged a finger and said, “I’m Aunty only to my niece and my friends’ kids, not to every Tom, Dick and Harry in the supermarket.”

Amar knew the quality of the time they would be spending together would deteriorate rapidly if he continued the conversation. They had lost enough time, and he wasn’t prepared to let her slip through his hands yet again.

It struck him that this behaviour was a pattern - he’d say something, she would respond, and a few lines later, he would shut up, for fear of putting her off. When he had finally gathered the courage to tell her he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her and did not shut up easily, it hadn’t worked.

They had spent hours in the miserable canteen, eating those erosive, grey dosas and a chutney which tasted like it had been fermented with great deliberation. Often, the cook would draw off a line of sweat from his forehead with his thumb and flick it off nonchalantly, and continue frying his work of art. Amar had gotten inured to the sizzle of sweat on the canteen-sized tawa but the day she noticed this was the last day both of them ate dosa there.

“Good riddance, at least now you won’t go after those dirty dosas!” she had said, and he looked at her, astonished. Wasn’t it for her that he had gotten used to those foul pancakes, hadn’t it been she who had declared, in that opinionated style of hers, that nothing else in the canteen was worth eating, and how could any sentient human being eat anything but those?

Amar smiled at the memory. Then there was that incident where she had railed, raved and ranted for an entire week because “that debauched lowlife” had asked her to go out with him. He had been pleased, of course, but pretending to be a selfless friend, he’d egged her on gently. “You shouldn’t be so inflexible, he might be worth it, so what if he smokes and drinks a bit?” he’d said.

“Other things aside, did you know kissing a smoker is like licking an ash-tray?”, she’d retorted, and he’d felt himself go red. He didn’t want to ask how she knew - was it from the funny sticker with that line they had laughed at in the gift shop or did she really have some experience …

When Amar looked back on those four years that they’d worked together, his eyes would twinkle at the memories. Maybe he shouldn’t have given up so easily - at least that’s how it felt, though he had then believed he had tried enough.

His mind cast back to the day he had invited her for dinner, all ready with the proposal. He knew she loved good food. Was that the way to her heart? Would a sizeable chunk of velvety rich chocolate cake have her eating out of his hand? Amar caught himself laughing at the incongruity of it - people would have you believe that was the way to a man’s heart, and here he was, wondering whether it would work in her case. Ask her, and she would be certain to say the surest way to a man’s heart is through his chest!

She was bad at remembering birthdays, so he could pretend it was his birthday soon, ask her over for a home-cooked meal and ask her how she felt about him. Thus a Saturday evening three weeks later found him cooking up a storm in his apartment. His roommate had made himself scarce but he had had to keep the door open to let the neighbours, and her, know there would be no hanky panky …

He arranged the meal with great care. He knew of her love for salads, so he’d made a salad of French beans topped with grated hard-boiled eggs. He’d scoured the cookbooks for an exotic recipe and put together another salad made with roasted sweet potatoes, carrots and crunchy, raw chow chow. He knew she liked unusual combinations of ingredients, and he hoped he’d got it, get it, right with this one. This salad had its origins in Brazil. (Now that would be an interesting place to honeymoon in!) Then there was a shrimp and avocado salad. How he had tended to the avocados, pressing them gently everyday to see if they would give just that little bit, had attained the perfect stage of ripeness! Then, for dessert, there was rich chocolate cake, and bread pudding with chunky, bitter marmalade.

She was right on time, with two bottles of non-alcoholic wine in hand. (She had to do that even for his birthday, didn’t she, stick to her no-booze principles!) She pushed the door a little wider open, and made herself comfortable in the sofa.

There was no conversation for a few minutes, then he switched channels and a rain dance from a popular movie came on, patches of the heroine showing through her wet, transparent clothes as she and the hero, wig and false moustache askew under all that water, whirled and twirled around each other. She launched into a diatribe on “exploitative film-makers and ageing, randy heroes” and “heroines who didn’t know any better”. Not the mood he intended to set at all - he jumped up, went into the kitchen, served the tomato soup - and changed the channel. He asked her how her day had gone and managed to steer the conversation to the food.

They ate leisurely, discussing the food, especially the Brazilian salad. She had talked non-stop, had something to say about everything: Chow chow! Really? I can’t believe you used it in a salad, and I can’t believe it doesn’t taste crappy; The sweet potatoes don’t really do it for me, though, maybe you didn’t roast them well enough; That’s grated egg? I thought it was coconut!; I love shrimp, but I dislike the smell of fish; You’d have made a great chef, Amar, maybe you should write a cookbook one day! She ate the last of the chocolate cake and the bread pudding, lapping up every crumb, licking the spoon clean as he looked on fondly.

They went back to the living room, the clock had just struck nine. He offered mints, she didn’t want any. He placed the dish of mints on the table, took a deep breath and leant towards her.

“Deepti, I need to ask you something,” he said.

“Ask away,” she said, eyes fixed on the TV.

“Look at me, it’s serious,” he said.

“Okay, what?” she said, turning to face him.

“Let’s get married,” he said, bluntly, even as he wondered how he’d managed to strip the moment of all romance.

But her reaction puzzled him. She didn’t look delighted, nor did she look offended. She smiled, rather sadly. “I can’t, Amar, I’m not the marrying type,” she said.

“Why not?” he asked. “I’m quite a good catch,” he joked, knowing how it burned her up that traditionally it was the man who was supposed to be the prize.

“Oh, stop joking, Amar! I’m serious. I’m not sure I won’t get bored with the whole thing. And I don‘t like the gender imbalance in a marriage.”

“Gender imb …? Listen, you know you won’t have to bother about that with me. And we love spending time with each other, don’t deny that.”

“Yes, Amar, but we aren’t married yet, that’s why. Marriage kills romance and friendship, and I would hate to hate you,” she said, getting up and collecting her things. “Thanks for dinner, I’ll see you Monday.”

He couldn’t persuade her, though he tried over the next few weeks. Then family circumstances forced her to move back home, and any hope that he had of convincing her died slowly. He didn’t think he could ever look upon her as merely a friend …

But here they were again. He looked the same, but there was a fair sprinkling of grey in his hair. She had greyed too, but her haircut did a good job of masking it. In the same city for the last three years, and neither had known, till they ran into each other in the supermarket. There was only the slightest hesitation before they’d enveloped each other in warm hugs. They had abandoned their shopping, gone down to the cafeteria and caught up with their lives over a cup of coffee, till the waiter finally interrupted them to say it was past 10 p.m. and closing time. The manager looked at them pointedly - the bill wasn’t proportionate to the amount of time they had spent there - and they hightailed it out of there, suppressing laughter and vowing not to go back for a while.

Neither had found a partner, Deepti because she had had no reason to believe her reasoning was wrong (“just look at my friends, caught in a rut, stuck in monotonous matrimony, I enjoy my solitude”) - and Amar because he believed it was wrong to look for a ‘next best’ when he still missed Deepti. Two decades had taken the edge off the ache, but seeing her - and her warm reaction - had rekindled hope.

Two months later, he was again cooking a meal for her, to celebrate her getting a raise and a new assignment at work. She still loved salads, but was going easy on the puddings, she said. And she had allowed him to pick up a bottle of wine, though she wouldn’t drink any. Had she mellowed at least a little bit? You wouldn’t think it given the way she had glared at that boy in the store. And to their utter amazement, the Golden Oldies programme on TV was playing the very same rain dance that had made her erupt the last time they ate together.

“Switch off that darn thing, Amar!” she yelled, even as he scrabbled for the remote control, “I can’t believe this revolting song is haunting us again!” Silence reigned for a while as both of them fell quiet.

Looking at her watch, Deepti got up. “I’ll leave now,” she said.

“Not so fast!” he said, reaching for her hand. “Let’s get married, I’m still a good catch.”

“So’s a haul of smelly fish,” she said, with a straight face, even as she took his hand in hers.

{Fiction ends.}

This goes off to Desi Soccer Mom who is hosting Of Chalks and Chopsticks, Aqua's brainwave.

This story is for all of you who were disappointed with the not-so-happy ending in the previous story.

The grated egg salad is here.

The shrimp and avocado salad is here.

And the salad that did not do its intended job, of getting Deepti to say yes to Amar's first proposal (do you think it was because he was clueless, which guy would woo a girl with chow chow anyway?), will come later. Until then, sweet dreams!

Of Chalks and Chopsticks Food fiction Humour Romance

Of Chalks And Chopsticks - The Round Up

2010-08-04T19:17:00.001+05:30

1. The sabzi had become a bit watery and Nikita had acidly remarked that now she understood why there was a water shortage in Mumbai and everyone had laughed.

2. And then after few more minutes her Kaka was gone. With that, he left some wonderful memories to cherish for Vabhavi and her parents. Few years later they also moved to this big city. And since then whenever her Kaka would come to meet up with them, he never forgot to bring a big pack of samosas.

3. She was so engrossed in grating that she gave a start on hearing the door bell. With bits of carrots all over her, she jumped out to open the door, only to get the shock of her life. Standing on the door step was Dev along with few friends. They came to help grate the carrots, and even got the graters!

4. Doctor asked the boy whether he eats all the vegetables and fruits and does he drink milk or not. The boy answered yes I do, I eat everything mom gives. Doctor was happy and gave him a toy car to play and sent him home.

5. 'You have a lot to explain ...', said Sruthi,wiping her tears.

'Relax babe,let me get you something to comfort you ...'

A few minutes later, ... came out with two bowls of soup...

6. I love coriander, but that is exactly why I scaled mountains, I swam rivers, I pierced forests, I fought terrors and obtained coriander seeds!! Now we have acres and acres of land growing coriander for our kingdom! This Prince is hopelessly out of touch with current events!!

7. As I pushed open the door, my senses were gently assaulted with the tantalizing aromas of spicy daal, fragrant rice and vibrant bell peppers nestled on a bed of moong sprouts.

8. She climbed one of the trees with ease and found that there were more green mangoes on that one. She thought about having them with some salt & red chilli powder and that was enough to motivate her to start picking them and throwing them on to the back pack that she was carrying.

9. Her fingers wallowed in the sensuous touch of the sticky, hard, golden lumps of jaggery as she chopped them into tiny pieces and added them to milky grated coconut to make a filling for her karanjis.

10. As she looked at the last dregs of her tea and idly rotated it watching the small tea leaves swirling around the cardamom peels, she realised that she hated being alone for long.

11. The red and green glass bangles on her thin, rough wrists would make a sweet tinkling sound while she rolled the smooth black nora, grating the poppy seeds by rhythmic regular pressure of her hands.

12. “There is not too much space on the counter to knead the dough,” he says. “Let’s quickly vacuum the floor. Then I can knead it on the floor.”

13. She could overhear the guests appreciating the food she had slaved over all day, crispy Aloo Tikkis, spicy Baingan Bharta, creamy Aloo Dum, hearty Palak Paneer, subtly flavored jeera rice, Vegetable Pulao and cardamom infused Shrikhand.

14. Was she as surprised to know he was no longer a dusty, rural lad but a chef in a fancy restaurant in the country's Capital, much celebrated for his innovativeness? "Simplicity, improvisation, imagination," was his favourite, oft-quoted line.

Please mail me in case I've omitted an entry or a link.

Desi Soccer Mom is hosting the August edition - please participate!

Of Chalks and Chopsticks Food fiction Round-up

Of Apples, Cheese, Chalks & Chopsticks

2010-07-28T02:00:00.001+05:30

They were meeting after twenty-five years. She looked the same, though he could detect a thread of silver here and there in her still luxurious hair. Surprise, not excitement, had been his first reaction when she mailed him out of the blue, saying she needed to meet him. He couldn't bring himself to ask her why. Slowly, though, curiosity and elation took over and he began to look forward to the visit.

The last time he saw her, they were around 20 years old. Her lip had curled in derision when she saw him playing kabaddi along with the other village boys on the beach. He should have known then, that he couldn't expect to be anything to her but a rustic.

"But I'm going to be an engineer," he had protested silently, and could hear her retort, loudly in his head: "So what, you don't have the style!"

He knew she would be married off in the next couple of years. This village visit, he was certain, was to indulge her passion for photography, he was sure it was nothing to do with getting in touch with her roots - she was never to be found without her camera. Every little thing found its way into it - the ixora bush in his house, the haystack, the paddy fields, even the vividly painted staircase.

Though he resisted it, his parents' secret hopes began to rub off on him - that she would become their daughter-in-law, bring home a fat dowry and he would never have to worry about working hard, making money and supporting a family. Her wealth would take care of all that.

Her parents remained mute to the suggestion. She had gone abroad to study and was now a celebrated photographer. Her subjects had changed to more serious ones - ethnic conflict, migration, famine, women's empowerment. He would never have guessed it was more than a passing fancy but who was he to say? Was she as surprised to know he was no longer a dusty, rural lad but a chef in a fancy restaurant in the country's Capital, much celebrated for his innovativeness? "Simplicity, improvisation, imagination," was his favourite, oft-quoted line. Oh yes, he had learnt the English alright, he'd show her!

Would she like to join him for dinner, he'd mailed back. She said yes. Had she turned vegetarian? No, but she liked inventive vegetarian and vegan food, could he come up with some? Had her tone turned teasing? Was she testing him? Flirting with him? Did he have a chance, after all? He'd heard she wasn't married either ... His parents' unrealistic expectations for him had ensured he hadn't gotten married, but of course, they, him included, went around telling people it wasn't easy to find a girl for the likes of someone as talented as him.

He planned the menu with great care. He remembered how she had come upon a pale, coral shell on the beach and said it resembled an ice-cream cone.

Should he serve her ice-cream in a cone-shaped shell? Would she remember those rare moments of pleasantness that had passed between them when she was not being her haughty, city-bred self? The only time she had exhibited any interest in him and his family was when they had their meals - she was full of questions as to how a certain curry was made, why their rice was brown, why their food tasted better than in the city.

He planned a feast. And he served up one that was much appreciated. She asked him about his choice of a career. He lied and said he'd chosen to go into catering because it was creative, and that engineering was run of the mill. (In truth, he gave up after the second year.)

"What about you? But it's not surprising, I suppose," he said.

"Yeah," she said with a laugh. "You know me, I was a shutterbug, but somewhere along the way, I decided to combine it with a greater purpose than pure pleasure, so I specialised in photojournalism," she said. Then both fell quiet. He wanted to ask her about herself, but the gauche village boy surfaced.

"So what brings you here? Work?" he asked.

"No. Life," she said.

His heart leapt in excitement. Would there be a romance ... and marriage, at last?

"Really? What do you mean?"

"Guess! I bet you can't," she said.

"Are you coming back to these parts, hanging up your boots?"

"Not really." (So there was still hope that she COULD be hanging up her boots, after all.)

"You came here to see someone? Someone special?"

"No, no one special. Just you."

Disappointment, nay, despair, filled his heart. Thank God he had bowed his head and she wouldn't be able to make out how hurt he was.

"What is it then?" he asked, with a smile he knew was too bright, tiring instantly of the guessing game.

"You know your signature apple and paneer stew? I want the recipe," she said.

"You came all the way to meet me for a recipe?" he asked incredulously.

"Well, yes. I'm taking a break from all the tragedy I cover. My partner and I are producing a coffee table book on traditional and innovative recipes - and when I came across a mention of you somewhere on the Internet, I knew I had to have it for the book. It's too zany to go without mention," she said.

He realised he'd been nodding weakly. Partner? What sort of partner? Life partner? Business associate? Another journalist? And zany? His recipe was zany? But was any of this more cruel than her saying, "No, no one special. Just you."?

"One minute," he heard himself saying, and then he found himself printing out the recipe. He didn't hear her thank him, didn't hear her tell him how she didn't expect he would part with it so easily. All he could hear was a voice in his head saying, "This too will pass."

{Fiction ends.}

Disclaimer: The above piece, purely fiction, has nothing to do with the photos in this post, I just used the opportunity to show off my photographs - from my much-awaited, much-enjoyed recent vacation. It also does not have much to do with what I think of rural lads or kabaddi or the male of the species in general. I wish them the very best - but that doesn't include wives and easy money they don't deserve.

I came up with this wacky recipe this morning when I over-salted the paneer and the only thing that struck me as remedial measure, besides sugar and jaggery and amchur which I didn't want to use, was lime, and then when it didn't work, apple and some tamarind. It turned into a faintly tangy but mostly mellow dish.

Paneer, cubed: Two cups
Whole cashew nut: Four
Roasted sunflower seeds: A fistful
Onion: 1, sliced
Ginger-garlic paste: 2 tsp
Peas: 1/2-3/4 cup, boiled
Apple: 1/2-3/4 cup, diced
Watery, thin tamarind extract: 1/4 cup
Salt, turmeric and chilli powder

Soak the cashew nuts and sunflower seeds in a little water for about 20 minutes and grind to as smooth a paste as possible.

Saute the onion, then the ginger-garlic paste and then add the ground paste.

Let it cook for a while and then add the peas and paneer.

Mix well and then add the salt, turmeric and chilli powder. Add some water if it's too thick and let it boil well.

Add the apple and cook on low heat, just a tad above 'simmer'. Once you feel the apple softening, add the tamarind liquid, bring to a gentle boil and turn off the heat.

This is for Of Chalks and Chopsticks, the event created by Aqua, which I'm guest-hosting this month. Hurry up and send me your entries, the deadline has been extended to July 31.

Of Chalks and Chopsticks Vegetarian Fiction Humour Paneer Apple

Of Chalks And Chopsticks - Extending Deadline

2010-07-27T13:30:00.000+05:30

If you've concocted a recipe but not a story yet (or vice versa) for the event, you're sailing in the same boat as me.

I'm extending the deadline till July 31 - hurry up and send me your entries.

Payasam For A Rising Star

2010-07-13T23:27:00.007+05:30

I'm a 'rising star' - or so my gym would have me believe. Today, I found out that my name had been put up on a poster in a decorative script under that head and my weight loss of 1.5 kg had been marked against my name. (Later, at weigh-in, I found I had lost 500 grammes more, so the net loss is 2 kg).

So what do rising stars eat - especially when they are on a strict diet, monitored by two sincere, feeling dieticians who continue pouting even after you've told them you made up for the piece of chocolate cake at the office party by having only a guava three hours later and a whites-only-full-of-veggies omelette two hours after that?

I really won't take you through my diet sheet. Suffice it to say my meals nowadays are full of brown rice, oats, millets and broken wheat in various permutations and combinations - I don't remember if I've ever eaten most of this stuff! And what's a diet without a little temptation, which was raked up by this and egged on by this, after which I followed a trail of links, then lost patience - 'WTH! Boiled, parboiled or raw, I'm just going to make it and see how it turns out!'

So I took

1/4 cup of Kerala matta rice
1 pack (200 ml + a little more) of coconut milk
1 cup + An indeterminate amount of water (lots)
6 spoons (not tsp, not tbsp, just any spoon) of dark jaggery

And

A healthy dose of plump cashewnuts
A tsp of ghee/oil
Some powdered cardamom

I pressure-cooked the washed rice with a cup each of water and coconut milk. It didn't boil enough, so I put in the indeterminate amount of water (maybe even more than a litre) and pressure cooked away, for several whistles (maybe 8-10).

After the pressure fell, I opened the cooker, added the leftover coconut milk and stirred and stirred. I began with one spoon of jaggery, and finally stopped at six when it became clear no amount of jaggery would sweeten that mess.

I turned off the heat.

Then I fried the cashews in the ghee and added it to the mess along with powdered cardamom.

Ultimately, not bad at all! I actually enjoyed the tablespoon of payasam I had as a post-lunch treat - maybe I was content with it because I'd skimmed off many cashewnuts before that.

In a typical case of dieter's dishonesty (hey, did I just coin a term?), this didn't make it to my food diary. It would save the dieticians some angst, and it was only a tablespoon, after all.

And still I was to become a rising star!

It's been three days, and the payasam, despite being in the fridge, is still moist.
Just 1/4 cup of rice turned into the amount you see in the picture, so be prepared! I don't know how I'll ever finish mine, considering that I'm going away and The Spouse won't even look at it.
To veganise this, just use oil instead of ghee to fry the cashews. Coconut oil will probably make it more coconutty.

Remember, I'm hosting Of Chalks and Chopsticks, so please send me your entries - there's just two weeks left.

Payasam Dessert Vegan/Vegetarian Rice

Of Parties & Peanuts

2010-07-06T23:28:00.008+05:30

As inadequate as pop quizzes are, they are fun to do. Often, there are questions where none of the choice of answers apply; heck, even the question doesn't apply.

Like this question, for instance:

What's your usual pick-up strategy?

Dress in something revealing, then go to a bar or dance club and mope at the counter with a martini until someone notices me.
All I have to do is walk out my front door, it seems. I get a lot of people - both guys and girls (regardless of which i am) hitt (sic)
People notice me I make sure of that. If I can beat 'em at arm wrestling, or show off my hot dance moves, I pretty much have 'em
Just be there for them, get to know them. People trust me and are attracted to me because they know I don't play head games
Uh ... tell them I like them?
I 'get' whoever I damn well want however I damn well want. Nobody says no to me.
Impress them with my intellect. Poetry doesn't hurt, either.

(Taken from the Internet)
This time, though, I think I do know what my party personality is. It’s ‘wallflower’ or ‘group wallflower’. Let me tell you why.

Last year, I attended something called an ‘offsite’ as part of work, the evenings of which included much entertainment, food, drink and dancing. Many polite hands were proffered, and all declined - I can’t and don’t dance. At the end of the day, the hosts said they wouldn’t let me escape the next day. Indeed, someone dragged me on to the dance floor but I clapped rhythmically and as long as some part of me was moving, I figured, there would be no pressure. Then the dancing picked up pace, everyone forgot about me, and I began taking a step back, and then one, and then one more, till I was back on terra firma.

Then

Last week, I attended a party thrown in honour of some folks visiting here from abroad. They were from The Spouse’s side and I had never met them before.

I didn’t meet them at the party either.

(Well, technically, I met one of them, the wife, who smiled and nodded as part of a perfunctory, fleeting wordless introduction that was all nods and waves with heads, hands and teeth. )

I spent the next few minutes clinging to a few aunts, then chatting with someone who looked equally lost and then being introduced formally to another. (I had seen her quite a few times earlier but we had had to ignore each other as we hadn‘t been introduced.) Another lost soul disengaged herself from a chair, hovered around us tentatively, and was immediately included into our little group.

“Relative or friend?” we asked each other, and identity being established, settled into our chairs and looked out on to the lawn where a huge screen was showing Brazil going going gone Dutch. And thus we remained, snacking on short eats that are typically served in clubs, till one of us received a text message from Mom somewhere in that long, narrow hall that dinner was, finally, being served upstairs. (Oh, in between, I ran into someone I actually knew a bit and amused myself teasing her that I would put the picture of her in her very fashion-forward, very plunging blouse on my photo blog. She threatened to slap me, of course, but when I told her I would morph it and jazz it up even more, she relented and asked me to send her too a copy.)

But back to the party - here’s one snack that’s super easy to make. It’s relatively quick too, though I’d call it super-quick only if it materialized out of thin air and presented itself all ready on my table.

What you need to do is mix

A big handful of dry-roasted peanuts/groundnuts, skinned
Half an onion - chopped
Half a green chilli - minced
Lime - one, juiced
Salt, to taste
Oil - a few drops

And you can have a party all your own!

This goes to My Legume Love Affair, brainchild of Susan and hosted this month by Siri.

I’m hosting Of Chalks and Chopsticks this month, so please put on your thinking caps, write those stories and send them to me. You have until the 28th of this month to do so!

My Legume Love Affair Peanuts Vegan

The Week That Was + Of Chalks and Chopsticks

2010-06-27T16:06:00.007+05:30

A month ago, I did my eyebrows for only the second time in my life, painted my toenails a metallic, stamp-pad-ink purple, saw to it that my party clothes still fit me and prepared to go on vacation.

Sadly, it didn't happen.

About three days ago, I wiped off the nail paint, threw some clothes into a suitcase, went to work and much later, got out in a tizzy and clapped hand to mouth so that my heart wouldn't spill out as the cab I took to the airport to more work in another city jostled others to ensure the flight wasn't lighter by several tens of kilos.

I reached the destination a few hours later and couldn't sleep for another hour - until I had yielded to the temptation of one of a pair of Fuji apples provided by the hotel.

The next day was spent cooped up in a grey meeting room, getting facts and figures right, and ignoring some newer speakers to ensure I had got the previous speakers' facts and figures down right. Then there was dinner, with some of the same speakers, but mercifully, no facts and figures.

The day was also interspersed with some texting and calls, this time about getting the logistics right of my visiting friends or the friends visiting me the next day. I'm glad to say that the logistics worked out well - I caught up with friends old and newer, a wonderful spread at lunch and much laughter and companionship, ignoring the calls of the cabbie to hurry up as my flight back home was looming closer.

I finally left in a haze of euphoria, and even the late, late realisation that I had been booked on a low-cost flight where no dinner would be served unless I paid through my nose didn't affect me as I feasted on the memories of the day.

With so much on my plate, I haven't been my usual prompt blogger self these days. Nor the strict event hostess I have a reputation for being, that is, I haven't even announced the event (not that I am lowering my standards, oh no!).

Well here it is now - I am hosting the third edition of Of Chops and Chalksticks ... er ... no, Of Chalks and Chopsticks, so please send in all those stories that you've got playing out in your head - come on, make it a wild success, you can be the hero/heroine as long as there is some food also playing a prominent role in the story. It needn't be a recipe, so what are you waiting for?

Send in your entries to srablogATgmailDOTcom by July 28, 2010.

The subject line should say: Of Chalks and Chopsticks - 3

The e-mail should provide the

Blogger's name

Title and URL of the post

Some information, borrowed from earlier editions

The writing should be original, i.e, yours.

There is no word limit or theme - you can write on anything so long as the story stars food. It has to be written in a single post.

Old posts posted again are accepted (but a new one's always more exciting.

These posts CAN be shared with other events.

Link your post to this post and Aqua's post (mentioned earlier).

Event Of Chalks and Chopsticks Food+Fiction Travel humour

Operation Jackfruit

2010-06-14T23:31:00.023+05:30

We got this bounty today. Some of it is not yet ripe and is hopefully, ripening in the heat of this summer's night.

How did it come about? K, who works with us, harvested this on his farm and brought us one, and cut it up for us. Cut it up doesn't describe it adequately enough. Neither does the word procedure. It is an operation, out and out.

The way he did it: Several sheets of newspaper, a small bowl of oil, sharp knives, one big, another small ...

... lots of strength and more patience. The round, white core at the centre is tough and need to be prised apart.

The oil helps mitigate the gummy stickiness that will adhere to your hands when you are cutting through the fruit. Notice the knife on the left, covered with it, all grey-white.

He cut it in half first ...

Then quartered it

... and cut it into eighths if it is a large fruit. Ours was not large.

Then, steadily, and with much concentration (throughout the operation), he cut off the sections of the central core.

Now the individual segments are easy to separate - they were earlier attached to the core. You can see it in the section on the right, where the core has been removed. It's almost like carving them out. He separated what looked like strips of jackfruit to get at the segments - it seemed to me that you need quite a bit of experience, else, you could cut through a segment and waste a lot of the bounty. K seemed to know exactly where one segment began and another ended. I guess I would have known too, had I also participated instead of taking photographs.

K also had this interesting technique where he scored the core's length and width.

He said doing so helped him minimise the damage to the segment's tops, and prevented some of the flesh from thus being wasted.

It makes for a more precise method, he said.

The exposed segments ...

... after the strips have been separated ...

... completely - a clearer picture

I read on the Internet that the strips are used to make jackfruit chips. They were tastier than the segments, which weren't as ripe.

Bon appetit!

Disclaimer: This is only a pictorial report, not intended as instruction. This post is the result of my being carried away with the golden opportunity I got, pun fully intended. I do not recommend any method, this or any other, as I
1. have not tried it myself
2. don't intend to
3. don't trust myself to do it well
4. believe one needs a fair amount of practice before I go recommending it to others.

Hence, I am not/do not hold me responsible for any blood that you may shed or any injury, whether to body, pride or other aspects, that you may suffer if you attempt this.

Having said that, I will proffer one serving suggestion: Stick a toothpick in each segment, put them on a nice platter and pass them around as appetizers. I was really wowed when I saw that done somewhere.

This is going to Jaya's Back to Basics event.

Weekend Herb Blogging Jackfruit Fruit

Dressing Up 'Food That's Good For You'

2010-06-08T23:21:00.007+05:30

Did you have to be bribed with idli and sandwich smileys when you were younger so that some nutrition could be forced into you? What are those, you ask? Oh, you know, that's when you put pea eyes, tomato mouth and carrot nose on a nice, white dumpling to get the tiresome kid to eat a sensible breakfast, never mind that YOU're losing all YOUR nutrients in the process!

I often have this problem with The Spouse who is rather opposed to "food that's good for you". However much I dress them up, most vegetables stay firmly away from his plate, unless they're served to him in other people's houses - I recently saw him gush over yam, chunks of it, in tamarind gravy at his aunt's place, something I'm willing to bet he wouldn't even recognise at ours. And there's no point talking about brown rice, he will simply "perish the thought!" The only reason he tasted my tomato upma, I suspect, was because it was on his aunt's table and that huge plank of wood must have added to its appeal. I have almost given up making him give up on ghee supplied by some fond and rustic relatives, rice and ghee added to senaga karam (chana dal powder) supplied on request by his fond and urban mother-in-law, rice and ghee added to red chilli pickle supplied by loving aunts and cousins and sundry goodies supplied by ourselves. But the thought of being defeated - and the amount of waste all those leftover supplies make for - make me keep trying.

A while ago, I bought a small packet of something called 'low-carb' rice. It looked normal enough but when I finally cut it open, I realised I'd been looking at the wrong side of the pack - there WAS a transparent patch at the back and it was very distinctly light brown.

Now, had he not seen me open it and pour it out into the pressure cooker, he may have eaten it - but I think the sequence of events was that he did, made a face several times and sulked but ungraciously conceded he would try it because "it doesn't seem to be like the usual brown rice I know you don't like" (said in a loud and earnest tone). Unfortunately, the pack instructions failed me - and it was hard and remained brown. He may well have gone to bed angry and hungry, I really don't remember.

I couldn't eat it either. (I was never very good at self-flagellation.)

It stayed in the fridge for a few days till I began to suspect something was wrong with it because it wasn't going bad. So I dumped it.

Then came about some circumstances where, for over a week, we were eating at someone's place everyday and I too began to contribute to those meals. As it was a hectic and difficult phase, I could not even shop for supplies but had to make do with what was available at home. For once, I had had potatoes, some carrots were withering in the fridge as usual and I had just exhausted my supply of peas. I didn't know if I had run out of Basmati and I didn't want to find out. Some black chickpeas were turning to speckly white dust in their container.

Some of our meal companions wouldn't eat onion and garlic, it had to be quite a big amount (to serve about a dozen people) and it needed to be something I could make swiftly so that once I woke up the next day and finished with it, I could try to snooze again, find time for Yoga, social networking and lunch before I set off for work. Not to mention having a bath, of course!

One of the cookbooks I love is Tarla Dalal's Gujarati cookbook. I haven't made all that much from it but I love to flip through it and look at the pictures. It's seen me through many a sleepless night. So I chose the Vagharelo Bhaat which seemed pretty swift and straightforward.

I doubled the quantities and made my substitutions: Brown rice for Basmati, kala channa for green peas, and some oil added to the ghee. (Mine is organic, again bought to lure The Spouse away from what could be some hormone-ridden one.)

If he reads this, he will find out it was the brown rice he once so violently rejected, rendered so palatable by soaking, oodles of ghee, the potatoes, other bits and pieces, and, of course, the communal (as in 'community', not 'religion', lest you wonder) nature of the occasion.

Brown rice: 3 cups (soaked for at least 30 minutes, then washed delicately several times, and drained)
Potatoes, diced: 3 cups
Kala channa/black chickpeas: 1 cup, soaked overnite, cooked till soft
Carrots, diced: 1/2 cup
Cloves: 4
Cinnamon: 1-inch blade
Cumin seed/jeera: 1 tsp
Asafoetida/Hing: 1/2 tsp
Turmeric powder: 1 tsp
Chilli powder: 2 tsp
Garam masala: 1 tsp
Ghee: 5 tbsp
Oil: 1 tbsp
Hot water: 6 cups
In a large pot/pressure cooker, heat the ghee, add the cloves, cinnamon, cumin, asafoetida and fry for half a minute.

Add the vegetables and salt and stir for about four minutes.

Add the turmeric, chilli powder, garam masala and rice and stir again for five minutes till well and evenly mixed.

Add six cups of hot water, cover and simmer till the rice is cooked. If you're using a pressure cooker (like I did), put it on simmer for about five minutes after three whistles. It was perfect.

I did not hesitate to use so much ghee and oil because this meal was spread across many people and I'm hoping none of them ate more than their recommended allowance of fat and starch. A happy consequence was that I didn't have any charred and crusty residue at the bottom of the pressure cooker.

Rice Vegetarian Vegetables Potatoes Humour

Were You Looking For Me?

2010-05-31T22:34:00.003+05:30

It's a long time since I listed the keywords/ search terms people find me by. Here are some gems from the past few months. I find them funny because I'm sure some very earnest, solemn soul sat at a computer and chose these combinations of words, probably unaware that they would strike others as amusing

1. Fish pickle project report - which sent them here

2. How to make traditional AFAM soup (AFAM being the monthly fruit event started by Maheswari about three years ago)

3. Red coloured creeper, small bunch flower

4. Showered with raisins and nuts - here

5. Words for pickles in my soup

6. Blogs about a doctor, the wiz and old chopsticks

7. Colour coming out of black beans

Keyword humour Search + Terms Humour

Quinoa - A Love Story

2010-05-20T23:40:00.001+05:30

It was late evening and Sri, who had just come back from work, was washing the quinoa thoroughly. That involved quite a bit of dexterity, the way She would have it. It had been almost a year since she brought it back with her from her vacation abroad, and life had begun to take form, little black creepy-crawlies making their way among those pale brown grains. She had almost lost it when she saw him squeezing the quinoa well under water. "Sri!", she had screamed, "You're going to squish all the insects, just run water over it several times till they all float up and pour it away, then maybe you can wash it vigorously. Call yourself a most intelligent guy but I have to instruct you in the most common of sense!" she said, her face all twisted in irritation.

Sri opened his mouth to yell back but closed it as a tidal wave of dejection washed over him. Why why why had he said yes to this girl? What had possessed him? He should have read the warning signs. At what was supposed to be a romantic evening on the beach soon after they got engaged, she told him she couldn't and wouldn't cook breakfast and other meals as per convention. Well, it must have been romantic, because all caution and instincts of self-preservation deserted him and he leapt to the occasion and told her, "Why bother about all that, I can cook and I'm not particular about traditional breakfasts."

But she had tried, that one year that she couldn't work because of the shift - mango milkshake, just mango, something or the other ... and he had rejected a series of whatever she offered - cereal, upma, cornflakes ... And then she had begun working and life had been fine as they had had a cook for most part. Then they moved again and decided a cook was a luxury ...

But they had had fun, hadn't they? Even though there were times when she wasn't suitably appreciative ... "All you've done is dunk paneer and peas in a pack of tomato puree and heat it up," she would cry; at other times, he was "the most thoughtful spouse ever, thank God you aren't like my friends' husbands!" They had kneaded flour, experimented with yeast, made naans and sheermals, grilled paneer, fried breaded chicken, laid out five-course meals for friends and family. Where had all that gone?

They had gotten older and busier. More world-weary. And while food wasn't the last thing on their minds, and they had learnt a lot more about it, its preparation at the end of the day was a chore. It was past 9 p.m. Why couldn't they just go out to dinner? When would this quinoa boil, when would the entire salad be put together and when, finally, would they have dinner and would he be able to play Hearts on the computer?

"Sri!"

Her voice interrupted his reverie and he hurriedly filled the bowl of quinoa with some more water to give it another rinse. "You're still at it, Sri? Just finish with it and spread it out in a plate to dry."

"What do you mean? This has to dry before we make the salad?"

"Well, of course!"

"So when will we have dinner?"

"Whenever you want!"

"What about the kinowa?"

"It's keenwah. Keen-wah. Get it? I told you that twice already."

"Alright, keenwah. What about the darn salad?"

"The darn salad is for the darn blog. It's for tomorrow. Finish up and come soon - I've brought fried chicken and chocolate mousse and ice-cream, they're waiting."

Healthy and hurry don't go together. She understands!

It was hard to tell which came first - the rush of joy at the mention of that unabashedly unwholesome menu or the sigh of relief that the salad could be put off! Or was it neither of these but a surge of love, coupled with the reassurance that he had chosen right, after all?

This piece of fiction goes to Bong Mom, who's hosting Of Chalks and Chopsticks, Aqua's idea.

The original recipe came from here.

1 cup quinoa
2 cups water
2 cups frozen shelled peas, thawed
1 tablespoon freshly grated lemon zest
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons chopped coriander
1/2 teaspoon salt
Red peppers or de-seeded red chillies - I used pickled red chillies but washed them clean before I used them.
1/4 cup toasted sunflower seeds

Toast quinoa in a pan over medium heat, stirring often, until it begins to pop, about five minutes. Transfer to a fine sieve and rinse thoroughly.

Boil the water in a medium saucepan over high heat. Add the quinoa and return to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to a simmer and cook for eight minutes. Remove the lid and, without disturbing the quinoa, add the peas. Cook another 7-8 minutes, until the peas and quinoa are tender. Drain any remaining water.

Whisk lemon zest and juice, oil, coriander and salt in a large bowl. Add the chillies and the quinoa mixture. Toss to combine. Top with toasted sunflower seeds.

As it contains a substantial amount of legumes, I'm also sending it to My Legume Love Affair 23

MLLA Of Chalks and Chopsticks Humour Story Humour Quinoa Vegan

Salad Days

2010-05-12T22:42:00.006+05:30

It's often the very small things in life that can make you feel wildly happy.

(Ah yes, the armchair philosopher has begun spouting Wisdom for the Week - but do humour her - just as you would a rather green-behind-the ears DJ on a music channel proffering love and life advice - it's just some home-spun experience extrapolated to a world, nay, universal view ...)

Well, yes, how would you account for the fact that one of life's happiest moments, perhaps the only one, was when she discovered how to get dry yeast to work?

And the second happiest moment, just a few days ago, when she discovered her favourite brand of frozen (cleaned and deveined) prawns had made a comeback?

And the third happiest moment was when she discovered that she had refrigerated the avocado at the perfectly ripe moment so much so that when she cut through it, there was a paragon of green, glossy, buttery perfection in her hand?

Out went plans for an avocado, papaya, tomato salsa, in came what we shall now call a 'shrimp' and avocado salad. By the way, the difference between a shrimp and a prawn is this. (But I didn't go through it because it seemed boring, and who knows, my prawns might have been shrimp anyway!)

(It's a synthesis of various recipes I found on the Net, try as I might, I cannot zero in on the two I synthesised.)

But enough of meandering, here's how this impressing-friends salad is made!

Shrimp 500 gm
Oil: 1 tbsp
Red chilli powder: 1 tsp
Garlic, minced: 2 tsp
Salt, a pinch

Avocado: One, diced (sprinkle lime juice all over immediately to prevent browning)
Hard-boiled eggs: 3, cubed
Tomatoes, de-seeded and julienned: 1 cup
Carrots, julienned: 1 cup

Dressing
Olive oil: 3 tbsp
Lime juice: 4 tbsp
Sesame oil: 1 tbsp
Salt
Crushed black pepper

Stir fry the shrimp/prawns in the oil with the ingredients for just 2 minutes.

Now add the tomatoes, eggs and carrots.

Whisk the dressing ingredients well and pour over the salad.

Mix well, but with a light hand so that the eggs don't disintegrate.

Chill.

This salad goes off to Marija of Palachinka, who's hosting Kalyn's WHB this week.

In other matters, the second edition of Chalks and Chopsticks, Aquadaze's idea, has rolled around and the Bong Mom is waiting for you to spin your yarns and send them to her. Go on, do that and delight all of us, yours truly is a co-host.

Weekend Herb Blogging Salad Prawns/Shrimp Humour

A Thing of Dirty ...

2010-04-30T21:59:00.008+05:30

... is a joy forever.

If you need an unusual mould for your cottage cheese or puddings, use the strainer in the sink.

And don't forget to pay me a royalty.

Technique:

Buy four packets of milk.

Freeze for a week or more.

Then, empty one pack into a pan, set it to boil on the lowest flame, watch it curdle, throw it away.

Next day, repeat the action - and face the same consequences.

The third day, history repeats itself.

On the fourth day, put it in the pan, recognise the signs, give up.

Neatly deposit the block of milk-ice in the kitchen sink.

Leave well alone, even though there are more recent packs of milk in the freezer.

Go into the kitchen about 40 minutes later for a drink of water. Et voila, what do you find?

Disengage carefully, with the back of a spoon.

Look for the camera, click away.

Humour Kitchen accident

Cabbage, Chalks And Chopsticks

2010-04-21T11:44:00.007+05:30

The jaundice had whittled her down by half or more, and everyone was exclaiming over the transformation. She was just nine, too young to hope the loss of appetite would be permanent in the interests of her figure. Her grandparents fussed over her, making sure she took the Liv 52 and other medicines on time, pleading with her to eat “something at least”. She just couldn’t, she had no hunger and the oil-less food that was served, lovingly and carefully made by Ammamma, did nothing to titillate her numb taste buds.

She welcomed the break from school, though she wondered what it would do to her rank. After three weeks, would she still be able to come first in the monthly exam? Or would she be somewhere in the middle of the list? Dad always said, “If you’re not in the first five, then …” and would trail off ominously.

When she wasn’t lying down and reading books, she would be receiving visitors, mostly her other set of grandparents who lived close by. That grandfather was a doctor, and he would often tweak the skin under her eyes to see if the yellow had faded.

“How are you feeling today?”, he would ask, and she would tell him she was alright. One day, the skin on her lower lip began to chap, and when she pulled at it, it peeled off, just like that. That day, when he came to see her, she peeled off some and showed it to him. “Tatayya, what is this, is this normal?”, she asked, holding out a scrap of skin. “Oh, it’s alright, don’t worry about that. Are you feeling hungry today?”, he asked.

“I want to eat tamata chaaru. Can I?” she said. “Go ahead and eat it, absolutely no harm in it,” said Tatayya.

Ammamma was amazed, even a little hurt, she guessed. “Papa, if you had wanted it you could have told me, I‘d have made it for you for lunch,” she said.

“No Ammamma, I felt it only now, will you please make it for dinner?”

“I will, darling, is there anything else you want?”

“Umm … no, just tamata chaaru.”

That night, at dinner, she ate rice and tamata chaaru to her heart’s content, the grains floating in a thin, red river. There was some spicy cabbage-channa dal to keep it company. The cabbage was a mixture of fiery red and yellow, the channa dal undistinguishable from it at first glance. Had Ammamma got it wrong? It was usually a pale green, why did it look almost orange today?

Hesitantly, she asked Ammamma to serve her some cabbage. She put some in her mouth. It didn’t taste of anything. She had a little more rice mixed with chaaru. Then she had some more of the cabbage. She did this two more times, alternating between the rice and the cabbage. Some taste began to come through - slightly spicy cabbage steamed with dal cooked a little earlier, a little bit of resistance when a grain of dal asserted itself amidst the soft shreds. The tang of the tomato and the heat of the cabbage tickled her palate, and she was on the road to recovery - both of good health and every single lost kilo.

Here’s the recipe for the cabbage:

Cabbage, chopped: 1 medium-sized (3-3.5 cups)
Channa dal/Split chickpea: ¾ cup, soaked for a while and cooked until soft but not mushy
Mustard seed: 1 tsp
Cumin seed: ½ tsp
Urad dal/Split & skinned black gram: 1 tsp
Broken red chilli: 4-5 pieces
Curry leaves: 3-4
Salt, to taste
Chilli powder: 1-1.5 tsp
Turmeric: 1 tsp (or less)
Oil: 1-1.5 tbsp (actually you may not even need that much; definitely not if you’re jaundiced)
Some water, optional

Heat the oil and pop the mustard, cumin and urad dal. Add the curry leaves and red chillies.

Before the chillies and urad dal turn black, add the cabbage and saute well.

Lower the flame and add the salt, chilli powder and turmeric. Mix well, cover the pan and let it cook in its own steam. If you’re not confident of that, add one or two tablespoons of water before you cover it.

Once the cabbage is cooked, add the channa dal and mix well with the cabbage. Cover again and simmer till the dal absorbs the flavors.

Tomato chaaru: Put two small pieces of tamarind, 3 sour tomatoes, rasam powder and salt in about a litre or more of water and pressure cook for a while (or boil for a very long time till it looks all well blended and mushy.)

Temper with ½ a tsp of mustard and cumin and 3-4 curry leaves in ½ a tsp of oil.

This post goes off to Aquadaze's event, Of Chalks And Chopsticks. Spun a yarn yet? Hurry, you have another 10 days left.

Of Chalks and Chopsticks Cabbage Vegan Humour Food Fiction

Of Lucky Escapes, Quinoa & The Past Week

2010-04-09T23:42:00.006+05:30

The week started off with what was meant to be a spouse-pleasing biriyani, but the dustbin, not his stomach, became its receptacle instead.

Don't try to imitate the dum action by weighing down a light and unsteady lid with a heavy stone mortar and pestle. They will overturn the lid and fall inside the biriyani if you're lucky, otherwise spill the biriyani all over the stove and under the microwave, in which process you would burn your arms too.

I was lucky.

After fishing out the hot mortar and pestle from the hot biriyani and washing your arms to make sure the experience doesn't leave any scars, a most familiar fire and brimstone smell (well, not really, it smelt like well done kababs) tells you your biriyani is going going gone to hell anyway - that you should have trusted your gut instincts and added some water to the meat underneath the rice in the heavy-bottomed pan despite the instructions in the fancy cookbook.

Cook in its own steam? Hah!

It's a few days later and you remember having soaked some dried cranberries overnight a few days ago, forgotten that you drained and stored them in the fridge. You have an hour before work starts, why don't you set about making the salad as planned with quinoa, that wonder grain with all the eight essential amino acids, among other goodnesses?

Step 1: Retrieve the cranberries. Reach in, pluck that dish out and realise it was the milk after it spills all over the fridge and under. There's some on your feet too - rub it in for a free beauty treatment! Clean up the mess (the bonus is that the dust bunnies under the fridge come out).

Step 2: Set to making the salad on the dining table with the TV news on in front of you. Topple the basket of TV remotes over, fix all the loosened parts and leave it in the same precarious position.

Mince, chop, boil, grind.

Chill.

The salad, that is.

Meanwhile, YOU can go have the third bath of the hot, humid summer's day that it is, sit under the fan a while to try and calm and cool the tortured spirit and flesh and give thanks that bigger misfortune hasn't befallen you.

Get through the day thinking of this new, never-before-in-your-experience salad.

Here's the original recipe, or is it from here? (And below is how I made do.)

1 cup quinoa
2 cups water
4 tbsp honey
1 tsp finely chopped garlic
1 1/2 teaspoons minced green chillies
1/2 cup dry cranberries, soaked overnite, drained
Juice from 2 big limes
1 tbsp finely chopped fresh mint
1 tbsp finely chopped fresh coriander
1/4 cup finely chopped red onion
Salt to taste

Rinse quinoa several times. Boil water, add quinoa and simmer 20 minutes or until all liquid is absorbed. Let rest, cool a bit. Add some salt, fluff.

Meanwhile, combine half the honey, garlic and green chillies in a bowl.

Whiz the cranberries and remaining honey and lime juice in a mixer.

When quinoa has cooked and cooled a little, stir in both mixtures.

Add the mint, cilantro and red onion to the quinoa and mix thoroughly, but not with a heavy hand.

Chill.

This goes off to The Cabinet of Prof Kitty who's hosting Kalyn's WHB this week, now administered by Haalo.

Weekend Herb Blogging Quinoa Salad Vegetarian

Of Chalks And Chopsticks

2010-04-05T12:00:00.003+05:30

Soon after I took Sandeepa's cue and wrote my foodie short story, Aquadaze mailed us both wondering whether we'd like to turn this into an event. Both of us liked the idea a lot, I think mainly because it would get us to dust the cobwebs off our fiction writing, and asked Aqua to kick it off.

Well, she has. So please head over to her blog, read the rules for Of Chalks and Chopsticks and put on your thinking and writing caps - we would love to read the outcome of your fevered imagination!

Event Fiction

The Nutcracker And The New York Times Natural Foods Cookbook

2010-04-03T10:51:00.004+05:30

A short while ago, I wrote a post saying I didn't know if my family/community had many cooking traditions, and what they were. I'm sure they did, just that I never bothered with them that much. But we did have one tradition, no, two, that I remember right now. One was to pour ice cubes into a napkin, gather the ends and clutch it so that none of the ice-cubes fell out, and bang it heartily against the wall. And we would have crushed ice. (Though I no longer remember what it was used for.)

The other, more mine than family's, was this.

The Nutcracker

Don't do that, the doors will get damaged, my grandmother would say, but who would listen to her? (I'm sure one of the adults showed me this trick.) The walnuts, whenever they were available, would be cracked like that in the space between the door and the hinge jamb, and consumed. I wouldn't crack that many walnuts, and never did the doors get spoilt.

A few months ago, my mother sent me a bag of whole walnuts. (Aside: I'm suddenly anxious to buy more whole walnuts even though I have half a bag of them with me still, are they still sold whole?) Anyway, I was more exasperated than happy and I suspected she was getting rid of them (there will be rather indignant recriminations if she reads this, I'm afraid) but managed to sporadically use up about half of them in sundry cakes - I recently went through a baking phase.

They are beginning to smell rather odd from being cooped up inside a plastic packet inside a plastic container, and I despair of using them up before they smell more desperate.

But asides and digressions aside, here's what I rediscovered in my cookbook shelf:

This is The New York Times Natural Foods Cookbook, by Jean Hewitt. How I could have not tried something from this since I bought it a few years ago beats my comprehension (or have I?). It's in excellent condition and the inside cover has 'Senke' written on it. Of the many links that I came across about this book, I read just a few, and all of them related how the writer had stumbled on to this cookbook at a sale. Here is some more information about the book.

Bereft of a mystery or a sitcom to immerse myself in, I took this book to bed, and came across this Mediterranean Cucumber Salad, which I made today. It was attractive to me because I had all the ingredients, though the cucumber was regular size, not small, and the raisins were not monukka. I let it chill from morning to evening and ate two helpings of it for dinner. The Spouse has promised to have it for breakfast.

I think the raisins did it. Made all the difference, I mean. This recipe was contributed by "Jane Margulies, New York, NY"

Here's what you need:

Cucumber, peeled, seeded, diced: 1-1.5 cups
Curds/Yoghurt: 1 cup
Raisins: 3 tbsp
Onion, chopped: A small fistful
Walnuts, chopped: 1/4 cup
(Sea) Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Mint leaves, chopped: 1 tbsp

Place the cucumbers in a bowl. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well. Chill and serve very cold.

And yes, I've started another tradition here - using my expensive, branded, and very impressionable (read 'not stain-proof'), ab stretch exercise mat as background for my pictures. What crazy traditions did you follow?

This post is off to Haalo who is hosting Weekend Herb Blogging this week, the event started by Kalyn.

Weekend Herb Blogging Curds/Yoghurt salad vegetarian humour

In An Instant, Pickle & Fiction Both

2010-03-25T23:20:00.006+05:30

Aunty and her friend were chatting in the back garden, the long lines of drying clothes ensuring they couldn’t be observed very well from inside the house. The niece came out and called to them. Aunty’s brow furrowed in irritation but when she separated a skirt and a sari and peered through them, her gaze softened - her niece had come bearing a plate of green mangoes along with a knife for them to enjoy.

The mangoes had been downed from the tree just a couple of hours earlier with a tall stick to which a hook was attached. The backyard was home to several trees - mango, gooseberry, coconut, sapota/chikoo and banana. Ammamma would get the mangoes and gooseberry plucked and pickle them, pickling day being an event to remember. And even though the pickle would mature only after a few days, a little bowl of it, pungent and somewhat bitter with unmellowed mustard and fenugreek, would always be scooped out into a gleaming steel dish and set on the table with some homemade butter to be enjoyed with some soft and steaming hot rice.

“Oh, why did you bring the knife? You could have hurt yourself!” said Aunty.

“No, Aunty, Ammamma said it wouldn’t hurt because the knife is on the plate and I’m holding it properly. Eat the mangoes.”

“But she forgot the chilli powder and the salt, go, get us some, will you?”

“Ok, Aunty!” said Niece and bounded back into the house.

Aunty began cutting and slicing the mangoes. Funny, she and her friend are wearing saris with a paisley motif. Nice coincidence, that!

Friend and Aunty continued to converse, about History classes, exams and the merits of an MA versus a B. Ed. What could be taking Niece so long? “Sra …!” she called. There was no answer, but she could see her mother moving about in the bedroom facing the backyard. After a while, she called again, exasperated. Ten minutes had passed, and no sign of Niece. What on earth could she have got up to? Resigned, she prepared to walk inside and look for Niece, and get the salt and chilli powder herself, when Niece came out.

“Aunty, here’s the chilli powder and salt.”

“Why did you take so long?”

“Ammamma went in for a bath, and she told me where to look for them in the storeroom.”

“Oh, ok! No, don’t go away, sit and chat with us …”

Aunty smeared the chilli powder and salt on to three slices of mango, handed her friend one and took another herself. Niece refused.

The next moment, an odd look crossed the faces of the adults, and they yelped. And spit out the precious, homegrown mango. Because what the beloved niece had fetched was not red chilli powder, but kumkum.

I knew what my next post was about, but not how it would be written. When Bong Mom mailed me this evening suggesting I also try my hand at Food Fiction, I responded enthusiastically, little knowing inspiration would be in low supply. But determination overtook that weakness and I’ve dipped my toe in the water. Like Sandeepa’s, only a part of this is fiction. The mangoes, red chilli powder and salt are not.

Here’s a recipe for an instant mango pickle. It’s an old, old favourite, one I've tried my hand at, but better guidance came from here, and happily, tasted just like the one made by grandmoms and great aunts.

Raw mango, chopped unpeeled: 4 cups
Red chilli powder: 4 tsp
Salt: 4 tsp
Roasted fenugreek powder: 1 ½ tbsp
Gingelly oil: 8 tsp
Mustard seeds: 2 tsp
Garlic: 5-6 cloves, peeled, bruised

Marinate the mango pieces with a tsp of oil, the chilli powder and salt for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, add the fenugreek powder to the marinated mango and mix again.

Heat the rest of the oil and pop the mustard. Add the garlic and let fry till it’s sated with oil. Cool a little and add it to the mango. Mix well and cover.

I know it’s supposed to keep for a few days but I’d rather store it in the fridge as I’m no expert in pickling. I just know enough to tell you that everything used during preparation, mangoes, hands, vessels all, should be squeaky clean and squeaky dry.

Mango pickle Mango chutney Food fiction Humour Nostalgia

Egg & Spinach Baked With Nut Crust

2010-03-18T22:12:00.008+05:30

I'm the Pacman!

Laziness got the better of the scrambled eggs and leeks you wanted to make for lunch.

Later in the evening, you remember a handful of grated cheese resting in the refrigerator for the past few days.

There are over a dozen eggs waiting to be used as well.

Your resolve to eat less, if not lighter, in the nights would be well exercised with a simple combination of the two, you think, the mere thought making you float.

Come home, whip out the cheese and four eggs.

There is three-fourths of a cup of chopped leeks in the refrigerator.

Mince three chillies and two cloves of garlic.

You notice a bunch of spinach as well, so wash it well and chop it, it makes about two cups of spinach.

In about a tablespoon of olive oil, saute the garlic.

Once it's all nice and smelly, add the spinach. Let it wilt well, hurry this along by stirring it. Make sure there's no water left from the spinach.

Now add the leeks and the chillies. Add a little salt. Saute a few seconds. Let cool.

{{Idea!!! There are flaked pistachios and almonds in the pantry, and some broken cashewnuts as well!}}

Meanwhile, beat the eggs with a pinch of salt and half of the cheese.

Mix it with the greens and pour into a greased baking bowl.

Mix the rest of the cheese with the nuts and spread over the eggy mix. Both ingredients should be dry.

Bake at 200 C till a knife inserted in the centre comes out dry.

This eggy delight goes off to Yasmeen of Health Nut who's hosting Kalyn's Weekend Herb Blogging, now managed by Haalo.

Weekend Herb Blogging Eggs Spinach Cheese

Not Going By The Book

2010-03-15T22:39:00.008+05:30

Two months ago, Jayashree tagged me in a meme, asking some of us to show off our favourite books/cookbooks. Very honestly, I can't home in on just one and say it's my favourite because I approach different books for different cuisines.

Very often, though, I find myself turning to Aharam which is a nice combination of the traditional cuisines of Tamil Nadu. It also makes an effort to highlight the non-Brahmin vegetarian cuisine of the State, unlike many books on vegetarian South Indian cuisine, known and little known, which seem to say vegetarian and Brahmin cuisine is one and the same thing.

"Indeed, the non-Brahmin vegetarian cuisine from Tamil Nadu is totally different from the delicious sambhars, kootus and poriyals that are part and parcel of Brahmin diets. Most of the curries with green masala, red masala and pepper masala double as vegetarian curries, potatoes being added instead of meat, accompanied by any other vegetable of your choice, like knolkhol, carrots, beans, cabbage or peas."

There are some interesting recipes in this book. Snake gourd cutlets, for instance. Radish-chickpea curry, another. I've never made those. I've tried out some non-vegetarian recipes but not too many, because many of them call for coconut. Which I do not have on call. And I am lazy. Unless I find it ready-shredded. Then I am just a little less lazy about grinding it to a paste. Aside over, yesterday, I made this Kaikari Pulav (Vegetable Pulav) with my own twists and departures - it brought back my rice-eating days to me and made me feel accomplished, if not tired, because I slaved over it for 90 minutes.

That is nothing to do with the recipe, but everything to do with my small kitchen. Have you ever felt hampered by the lack of space in your kitchen? I have to shift things around everyday to be able to find space for the chopping board, the various bowls, water bottles, the spice jars ... ugh!

Anyway, here's my version of the original recipe.

Rice (I used a mixture of Basmati and ordinary): 1.5 cups
Potatoes, cubed: 2 cups
Peas: 1 cup
Shallots, chopped: 10
Big onion, chopped: 1

Grind to a paste
Cloves: 4
Cinnamon stick: 1.5-inch
Cardamom seed: from 4 pods
Green chillies: 4
Ginger-garlic paste: 1 tbsp
Fennel seed: 1 tsp
Poppy seed: 2 tsp

Seasoning
Ghee: 2 tsp
Bay leaf: 1 big or 2-3 small
Oil: 2 tsp
Mint: 2 tbsp (I used the spicy mint chutney that I had)
Chopped coriander leaves: 3 tbsp
Salt to taste

Clean and wash the rice. Soak it in water.

Heat the oil and ghee in a pressure cooker and season with bay leaves.

Add onions and shallots and fry till they are a light brown.

Add the ground masala and fry for a few minutes on low heat. Add the mint chutney and coriander leaves.

Add 3 cups of water, mix well and add the salt. Add drained rice and vegetables. Close the cooker and after the first couple of whistles, turn down the heat and let cook for 4-5 minutes.

The author suggests a garnish of boiled and halved eggs and fried cashew nuts and coriander leaves, and to serve it with a raita and egg curry. She also prescribes some chilli powder, turmeric and coriander powder in the 'grind to a paste' list which completely skipped my eye. We enjoyed the outcome though, and it was spicy without being hot, spicy without causing heartburn.

Weekend Herb Blogging Curds/Yoghurt Gluten-free Potatoes