Payasam For A Rising Star

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

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

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

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'

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?

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

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

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 ...

... 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What's Your Tradition?

This is something that has been on my mind for a while but reading Indo's and Sandeepa's latest posts, I decided it's time I did some musing too, though my post is not directly related to theirs.

As bloggers, and those who write mostly about food, there's a lot we write about 'the tradition in my family'. We romanticise (me included) how our mothers and grandmothers made this or that, how a recipe is traditional, peculiar to our homes, or twisted (you know what I mean - with a twist in it), etcetera etcetera. In my case, it's not only the loss of these treats that makes me nostalgic, it's also that I sometimes cannot bear to face what I've cooked myself that makes me miss them, the people and the dishes, all the more.

I would even go so far as to say that I really don't know much about my community's special culinary tradition, if it has one, or that in the home I grew up, we just didn't discuss food much (unless it was to tell me to eat less of it). It was there, it was tasty and varied enough to make us look forward to it and we ate it. Of course, if there was some new-fangled dish, like cauliflower pickle, it would be discussed and perhaps forgotten promptly, I really don't know.

My mother works, and so doesn't have any time to spend in the kitchen unless the cook takes a day off. My grandmother cooked for us as long as she could, and then a cook took over. Excited about a new cook, who came from a canteen, we asked him to make something special, and he was handed the vanilla essence when he asked for something that sounded like essence. We had chilli chicken flavoured with vanilla essence that day.

None of the women on either side of my family were taught to cook. It was always 'Study, study, knowledge and career aren't as easily achieved as cooking'. In fact, an aunt says she would often wish her mother had taught her how to cook - when she migrated to a new country, she found herself at a loss, not knowing what to make or how to make it. Perhaps my grandmothers' unfulfilled dreams for their own lives made them decide their children shouldn't end up just cooking and planning meals day after day. Some of my aunts are great cooks but I think it was their own interest and circumstances that helped, but no one, not even my great-grandmothers, as far as I know, said anything about it.

It's a life skill, of course, but to women who were immersed in housekeeping, probably not one of great consequence. One of my great grandmothers, who passed away just 12 years ago, would always ask me if I'd got a raise, but never a traditional question. At the most, she would tell me to spend well and eat well, but that's it. And some of the aunts were so uninvolved with food that after a hard day's work, they would heat up cold rice, mix it with salt and chilli powder and make a meal of it.


I don't know what I'm trying to achieve through this post, probably trying to say how 'traditional' isn't always traditional. And that perhaps, 'no tradition' is a tradition all its own. I'm no authority on anything but it is generally agreed that the 'masala box' is quintessentially Indian. But in fact, we never had one at home. I do, but not my parents. Even if they do, it's probably tucked away somewhere in the storeroom. My grandmother, and the cook after her, mix up the mustard, cumin and the urad dal in a jar and just throw in a bit of it when they need to temper something. The cardamom and cloves are in the storeroom as they aren't used as much as the other spices, and the salt, turmeric and chilli powder are in their own containers. So strange, and novel, was the discovery of a masala box to me - everything in one place, in plastic, steel and even Tupperware (not that I possess the very latter).

Then there's the spice level. Just as Sandeepa gets "Rosshogulla" each time she tells someone she's a Bengali, I get "Oh, spy-sssee! (spicy)" or "I love the avakai pickle you guys make!" I have to confess we are a great avakai family, with vats of it being made every year for our own consumption as well as that of aunts and uncles living overseas, but the funny thing is, we don't call it avakai. We just call it 'mamidikaya pachchadi', avakai coming from the mustard powder that goes into the pickle.

And I don't ever remember eating food so spyzee (spicy) that it would have you burn and bleed over the toilet the next day - that was more or less the odd case, it's not as if we Telugus uniformly make that kind of spicy food. And I hate it when 'Andhra restaurants' paint their food in red (chilli powder) just so that they can keep up with the popular image of the mouthwatering, and yes, eyes-watering food the State is supposed to produce!

Am I giving you the idea of a very practical, even boring, family kitchen? Practical, maybe, but not boring. The cooks themselves (grannies) did not go into raptures over this recipe or that, they must have had enough for a lifetime, or perhaps believed in the 'eat-to-live' principle. (Two generations later, younger now than they were then, and on a bad day, I feel the same way.) But parties always saw cocktail sausages and French fries on toothpicks, pressure cooker caramel custard; festivals saw the traditional pulihora and payasam. And to me tradition and habit were as much those as rice and curd and pickle as well as ootappam with tomato ketchup, milk without sugar, and tiffin with anything but coconut chutney.

Musings Humour

An Education From Stalks

We all know that a cauliflower is nothing but a cabbage with education, right?

"Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education."


So here's a lot of education for you, about four cups of the stalks.


Waste not, want not, we say. Waste I didn't, but would I want it?


As it turned out, (a resounding) YES!

The recipe is from here. The measurements are mine.

Cauliflower stalks, chopped up: 4-5 cups
Jeera/Cumin seed: 1 tsp
Asafoetida, a pinch
Salt to taste
Turmeric powder: 3/4 tsp
Red chilli powder: 1 tsp
Coriander powder: 1 tsp
Amchoor/dried mango powder: 1 tsp
Garam masala powder: 1 tsp
Oil: 2 tbsp
Coriander leaves: To garnish

Heat the oil in a pan and add cumin seeds. When they change color, add the asafoetida.

Now add the chopped up stalk, salt and all the spices except the amchoor and garam masala. Mix well.

Cook covered on low heat till stalk turns tender.
(When it felt like this was taking ages, I transferred it to a pressure cooker and pressure cooked it for three whistles with half a cup of water.)

When the pressure falls, open the pressure cooker and add the amchoor and the garam masala. Mix well and simmer till any residual water evaporates. Garnish with the coriander.


This cauliflower fed us for three days. Call it kima (mince) or upma, here's another thing I made with it.







The stalks are off to Susan who's hosting Kalyn's Weekend Herb Blogging this week, now administered by Haalo.

Weekend Herb Blogging Cauliflower stalks Vegan