Stalking in Cyberspace

Ok, ok, the title was just a piece of sensationalism! All I wanted to say was that the answer to the question in my previous post is 'stalks'. GD and Mamatha got it right. Congratulations! They are the stalks of Malabar Spinach .

As the post was an afterthought, I didn’t take any pictures of the leafy greens or the stalks but you can see a good, clear picture here. We usually make a stir-fry or gravy of this with amaranth stalks but this time, after I finished using the leaves in daal, the stalks looked too good and fresh to throw away, so I used them for this stir-fry with a bit of the daal I had soaked for the main dish a little earlier.

Funnily enough, the stalks reminded me a lot of ladies’ fingers/okra – they gave off a bit of slime when I tossed them in the pan but gradually the goo wore off and I was rewarded with a crunchy, bright, dry stir-fry that was great with curds/yoghurt but can also be used as an accompaniment with a sambar or chaaru/rasam. It can even be served with plain rice.

Stalks, chopped – 2 cups
Toor daal/yellow lentils – a fistful, soaked for about 30-40 minutes
Garlic – 3-4 cloves, bruised/chopped
Red chillies – 3-4, broken
Mustard seeds – ½ tsp
Split urad daal/black gram - 1 tsp
Chilli powder – 1 tsp
Salt, to taste
Oil – 1-2 tsp

***A frying pan with a lid.

Heat oil, add mustard seeds.

Once they splutter, add the black gram, brown.

Add the red chillies and garlic.

Now add the daal with just enough water – it should cover the daal, but barely. Lower the flame.

Cover, and let the daal cook till it’s soft but not mushy. (It should hold its shape.) The test – if it’s not done, it will have a spot in the centre – boil till that spot disappears and the colour is uniform.

Now add the stalks, sprinkle some water, saute. Add salt and chilli powder. Cover.

Keep checking to see that the stalks don’t stick to the pan – sprinkle some more water if they do. Cook covered.

I didn’t cook it too long so there was quite a lot of bite and crunch in them, you can go in for a softer version.

I’m sending this off to Kalyn’s Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted this week by Rachel’s Bite. Bon appetit!

Weekend Herb Blogging Malabar Spinach/Ceylon Spinach/Bachalikoora/Green Leafy Vegetables Toor daal/Lentils

No Prizes For Guessing :(

What is the green stuff you see in the bowl? Answer/recipe on Sunday.

Flaking Out

Operation Springclean is making me eat healthy. Well, somewhat, if you ignore the peanuts I added to this dish. Those of you who read my previous post know I have a lot of healthy, organic stuff languishing in my pantry – today, I chose to deal with organic red rice flakes (poha, atukulu, aval, beaten rice).

I wanted to make a tamarind version but there was no recipe in my books, no cartridge in my printer, and no memory in my brain, so I couldn’t register when I had to add the tamarind extract to the flakes, and those recipes on the Net didn’t mention how much water I had to soak the tamarind in.

I first tasted Maharashtrian poha only last year. A couple of friends and I had gone to Matheran for a break, and before we fixed up transport to go to our resort, we had breakfast at the canteen at the local authority. It was full of monkeys, grimy and rather sparsely furnished but there was no other option and we needed breakfast after the early morning ride from Bombay. My friends, used to living in Bombay, passed up the poha and asked for toast and omelette but I opted for the poha – I’d only heard of it till then, had never had the real McCoy.

Of course, I’d had these red rice flakes even then and attempted poha from a cookbook but on both occasions it ended up tasting wrong even though I had no standard to compare it with – I just put it down to the thickness of the poha – today I realized I should have soaked it for twice as longer.

The poha at the Matheran canteen, was, of course, a revelation – it triggered off the memory of ‘atukula pulihora’ that my grandmother had rustled up for a friend and me a few years ago when we visited her but that was more like lemon rice. That was made with white flakes, as was this - with a few peanuts, a little sugar, and not much tempering. I think there was a bit of onion as well, I can’t be sure though it was only eight months ago – put it down to fatigue!

The recipe I’m posting today is a variation of that. Again, I made do with what I had at home – having a pantry bursting at the seams doesn’t necessarily mean I have everything it takes all the time, so I had to buy a few peanuts, make do with fewer limes than I wanted … you get the drift.

Here’s what you need:

Red rice flakes/poha/atukulu (the thick variety) – 125 gm/1-1/2 cups
Peanuts/groundnuts – a handful, roasted, coarsely crushed

Tempering:
Mustard seeds – ½ tsp
Split, husked urad dal/black gram – ½ tsp
Red chillies – 3-4, broken
Green chillies – 1 big or 2 small, slit
Coriander - chopped, a handful
Curry leaves – 1 sprig
Oil – 2 tsp
Salt

Wash the rice flakes well in a colander – make sure every grain is washed and wetted through – and let it be for 45 minutes. The right consistency is when the flakes should feel firm when pressed but mash easily – I know that sounds contradictory but you will understand when the flakes yield. Check after 30 minutes, if they aren’t ready, wash them once more. But soaking, or washing in hot water, is a no-no because they break or disintegrate very easily.

Heat oil, season with mustard, urad dal, red chillies and curry leaves, in that order. Let 1) the mustard pop, 2) urad dal begin to brown, 3) red chillies turn brighter and 4) curry leaves crackle.

Add the peanuts, swish around the pan just once.

Now add the green chilli(es) and the rice flakes.

Season with salt.

Mix well, but with a light hand.

Add coriander, mix.

Eat with a squirt of lime juice or plain.

Poha Peanuts/Groundnuts Vegan Red Rice Flakes

My Wild Oats

Once, just once, I want to see my pantry bare. Devoid of everything except the very basic stuff I use in normal cooking – salt, chilli powder, curry powder, some lentils, some rice. This has not happened in years, and I fear it never will, thanks to my predilection for buying all fancy and not-so-fancy stuff, under the justification of being health-conscious, gourmet, adventurous, environment-friendly, farmer-supportive, moving-towards-organic and more such labels.

I’m sure at least a few of you will identify with me and my pantry – little bundles of plastic secured with rubber bands filled with spices, bottles and jars of bran, oats, wholegrains and alternative grains such as buckwheat, bought in the hope of using that exotic cookbook which promptly goes missing, cake sprinkles and coloured sugar crystals which you hang on to despite knowing you will never ever use them, exotic spices from my Goa trip two months ago, which haven’t seen the light of day, various ready-mixes (without preservatives, of course) bought in bouts of let’s-be-prepared-for-guests (who are swiftly whisked off to restaurants as soon as it’s mealtime), brown Basmati rice fondly intended for a healthier biriyani, calming chamomile tea which only induces more stress as I discover I haven’t even opened the pack each time I see it, even an everyday pack of red chillies that refuses to get exhausted and clings on dully to the gloomy interiors of my cupboard.

Just once, I want to see all these used up – thence, there will be no well-meaning but wasteful stocking up, no unsightly reminders of my spendthrift ways, only what I need for the next few days – so here I am, with a concoction of oats which is a beginning to this noble end.

Wild oats, as the name says, because I literally threw in whatever I had in the refrigerator, soul sister of my pantry, to make this an appetizing yet healthy dish – tomatoes on the verge of rotting, a cup of capsicum chopped two days ago, shelled peas which were wrinkling because I hadn’t found a lid for the container …

I intended this to be more like a tomato bath/upma, but despite five tomatoes, it didn’t look as red as I wanted it to. But then the green in it was no mean thing – capsicum, peas, curry leaves, coriander – not to mention a pinch of turmeric.

Here’s the recipe, then:

Quick-cooking white oats – 2 cups, dry-roasted
Water – 3.5-4 cups
Tomatoes – 5, medium-sized, chopped, as fine as you can
Green capsicum/bell pepper, chopped – 1 cup
Boiled green peas – 1-1/2 cups
Green chillies – 2-3, chopped
Garlic – 3-4 cloves, bruised

Tempering:
Oil – 2-3 tsp
Mustard seed – 1 tsp
Cumin seed – 1 tsp
Curry leaves – 1 sprig

Salt, to taste
Turmeric, a pinch
Coriander/cilantro – to garnish


Heat the oil.

Put in the mustard seeds, let them pop.

Add the cumin seed and curry leaves.

Now add the tomatoes and green chillies and saute well.

Add the salt, turmeric, mix well.

Let the tomatoes get all squishy.

Then put in the capsicum and boiled peas and let it acquire a ‘curry consistency’.

Now add the roasted oats, mix well and add 3 cups of water. Check for doneness. If it’s not soft enough, add more.

It won’t be slide-down-your-throat soft, but it shouldn’t be pasty, either – you will know when you test it between your fingers/taste it.

It was a smasher, and the best part was that it didn’t even taste ‘boringly healthy’ – it almost slid down my throat, effortlessly. Now there’s just a third of the oats left in its jar – I’m tackling a jar of 3-year-old whole moong tomorrow – hopefully, by the end of the year, I’ll have an Old Mother Hubbard moment!

Oats Tomatoes

Pearls of Health?

Ever since I tasted barley pulao at a health food restaurant, I’ve eyed the barley packets in the store with some curiosity. I’ve often seen descriptions of cooked barley as a chewy affair but I prefer to think of the grain as one that offered me the opportunity to savour its taste and texture, unlike rice which is gone in a trice!

After checking images on the Internet, I’ve come to the conclusion it’s pearl barley I used, though the pack didn’t say so. Pearl barley is a processed form of the grain, with the husk and more components (and so nutrients) removed, but I get the impression it’s still a better alternative to rice and wheat. (My barley was white enough for me to believe it was processed.) There’s more information here and here.

In any case, it doesn’t go down as easily as rice or roti, so there must be some truth that it’s healthier – the path of logic proceeding from the point that whatever’s yummy is bad for you and whatever’s not so tasty is good for you!

A recent visit to the restaurant again hastened me into buying some barley and experimenting with it. I didn’t put too many elements in it as it was the first time and I wasn’t sure how long it would take to cook and how well it would absorb the flavours. The result was a tasty and mild dish that looked pretty with all the raisins and almonds that I used to give it some crunch.

Pearl barley – 1 cup
Water – 4-5 cups

Bay leaf – 1
Cinnamon – 2-inch piece
Cloves – 2
Cardamom – 1

Onion, chopped – ½
Green chillies, chopped – 2
Almonds – a fistful, chopped
Raisins – a fistful, soaked for a while in water
Olive oil – 1 tbsp
Salt – to taste

I will take you through how I cooked the barley first – as it was new to me, I first boiled three cups of water and added the barley to it. I let it absorb the water but the grain still had a hard core so I added one more cup and then another. Midway through the fifth cup, I decided the barley had cooked well enough so I drained it and added some salt to the barley.

In a pan, heat the oil, add the whole spices.

Add the onions, fry till translucent.

Add the green chillies, fry till they lighten.

Lower the heat. Now add the almonds and raisins, swish them around briefly.

Add the cooked barley, mix well.

Plain, thick curds/yoghurt makes a great accompaniment, as I was to discover last night. This could even make a filling breakfast if the idea of garam masala/curry spice in the morning doesn’t put you off.

Barley Vegan

Culinary Crossover

Tagine and couscous are as native to Morocco as lime pickle and channa masala are to India. What happens when these two come together with nothing but the intention of finishing some of the stuff in the pantry in as authentic (!) a manner as possible? It’s a glorious mess when you discover it’s easier to depend on hazy memories of the recipe rather than spend some time searching for the book on Moroccan cuisine. After all, it’s your only time off in the week, don’t you just have to get on with it, give it a snappy headline and put it on the blog too? And it can't be any worse than Pepper Paneer Pasta, can it, though deconstructing it leads you to cream, cheese and pasta, which is what go into pasta all the time!

I’m sure there’s a tagine with chick peas, though my book seems to have a chicken tagine which called for some slices of pickled lemon, the vinegary kind. And channa masala calls for a souring agent. When time is precious on a Sunday morning which you would rather spend vegetating on the couch than soaking tamarind for extract, and in the absence of an instant one such as amchur/dried mango powder, lime pickle comes in handy. I put things together willy-nilly and the result was a not-very-strange but not-very-traditional gravy.

The lime pickle I used is a traditional Andhra recipe but as haphazard was the operative note, I used three teaspoons of it in the tagine masala - now how’s that for a crossover name? It was hot, naturally, but definitely tamed by the onions, tomatoes and ginger-garlic paste that kept it company.

Here’s the recipe:

Couscous - 1 cup
Channa/chickpeas/garbanzo beans - 1 cup, soaked overnight if you’re using the dry ones
Onions - 3, chopped
Tomatoes - 3, chopped
Green chillies - 2, slit
Ginger-garlic paste - 1 tbsp
Garam masala/Curry powder - 1 tbsp
Cumin seed/Jeera - ½ tsp
Turmeric - ½ tsp
Salt, to taste
Lime pickle - 3 tsp, with pieces
Oil - 2 tsp
Coriander, for garnish

Boil the chickpeas or pressure cook them till soft.

Heat the oil, add the cumin seed.

Now fry the onions till they become transparent.

Add the green chillies, saute.

Now add the ginger-garlic paste. Mix well, fry a while.

Add the turmeric, salt, curry powder and mix really well.

Now add the tomatoes, mix well, cook on simmer, covered, till mushy.

At this stage, the gravy will begin to talk to you. If it needs more water, give it some.

Add the chickpeas and the lime pickle.

Mix well, check the consistency of the gravy and add more water if you want to thin it down. Let it simmer for 3-5 minutes.

Check for taste, turn off the heat. Garnish with coriander.

Bring five cups of water to the boil, add a pinch of salt, add couscous and cook for 7-9 minutes. Drain.

I prefer to serve the couscous and the gravy separately so that whoever’s eating can decide the proportions for themselves.

I'm sending this off to Presto Pasta Nights hosted by Ruth at Once Upon a Feast

I've also joined The Foodie Blog Roll. You can find it in my sidebar, details when you click on it!

Presto Pasta Nights Couscous Lime pickle Chickpeas

Open Sesame

Yes, there’s the answer - those photos in the previous two posts were of sesame paste and what it ultimately became _ Nuvvula Porutu (which translates as Scrambled Sesame). This is a very unusual dish that I came across in a Telugu cookbook called ‘Kantamani Vantakalu’ by Ms J. Kantamani. This is just the second time that I'm making it - the first time, it turned out bitter, this time, not too bitter. The bitterness had to do with the time it was kept on the stove but I think I have the solution.

I'm not having fun doing this post because of various reasons. I'm agonised about whether it will go through, and I just discovered that posting through Flickr is eating up the right side of the photo. That means another round of help forums and I'm really tired of that, what with all the trouble Blogger is giving me publishing photos! So I'll go straight to the recipe.

Sesame seeds – 200 gm
Onions – 5 (big), chopped
Oil – 8 tsp
Green chillies – 6, minced
Salt – to taste
Chilli powder – 1-1/2 tsp
Turmeric – ½ tsp
Curry leaves, chopped coriander – a little
Garam masala/curry powder – ½ tsp (optional)

Wash and soak the sesame seeds for 30 minutes or more. Grind into a fine paste (well, as fine as you can).

Heat the oil in a pan, fry the onions and green chillies well.

Now add the salt, chilli powder and turmeric and turn the heat down to the lowest setting.

Now add this paste, curry leaves and coriander to the onions in the pan, give it a quick and thorough stir (be careful) and add the curry powder if you’re using it. Remove from the heat.

Don’t ignore it or take it easy while it’s in the pan – it will go from nutty and sweet to bitter in a jiffy! The book says it is supposed to taste sweet. I, of course, took my own sweet time to take it off the fire – but it was much better than my first attempt.

The solution I mentioned above: the key words are ‘quick and thorough stir’. A couple of swishes of the ladle, and please turn off the heat, you can continue mixing it later if you feel the spices haven’t melded for a uniform colour.

I really don’t have any information on the history of this dish or where it’s made, in which part of Andhra Pradesh. Definitely not where I’m from, what we mostly see there of sesame is something called a ‘jeedi’, a hard ball of candy made with jaggery. And, of course, gingelly oil, which is extracted from sesame seed. And as a sprinkling for ariselu (adirasam in Tamil). So maybe this is from Telangana or Rayalaseema where sesame is used more widely to give body to curry bases, as in the famous Mirchi Ka Salan of Hyderabad.

I love its warm, mellow, nutty taste, but be aware that it’s one of the most notorious allergens the world knows!

This is to be eaten with rice!

I’m sending this off to Latha of Masala Magic who’s hosting RCI-AP this month.

Regional Cuisines of India Sesame Seed

Another Chance

I was attacked by a pang of guilt - is the previous photo for the guessing game all too white and undistinguishable for it to remind people of anything but cashew paste and coconut (despite the title, but hey, isn't that the point? Oh well, no harm in being nice!) So here's the finished product, be good sports and take a few more guesses! I promise, the recipe will be next, God and Blogger willing!

Guessing Game

Coconot! (Republishing)

coconot2, originally uploaded by sra.

Guess what this is? What it's not is clear in the title.

Folks, I'm having some trouble publishing pictures and making the comments link active - please bear with me.

Guessing Game

Swift and Simple

It’s nostalgia time again at my blog. This dish stems from the days of my first job which often involved long and late hours. My colleague and friend would take me to her house to spare the relatives I was staying with the bother of having to open the door for me at that hour.

At her place, her mom would be ready with some hot food, after wolfing down which we would sit in my friend’s room and chat throughout the night and fall asleep only when dawn broke and our throats began to rasp and our eyes fell shut much against our will. Often, another friend would join us. Then we’d be up again at 9 or 10, by which time her mom would have breakfast ready. And then we’d unwillingly go about the rest of the day.




Her mother would often make this chaaru with moong dal. I remember a couple of tomatoes and an onion going into the pressure cooker along with dal, but my variation is to include many other vegetables and finish it off with a generous dose of lime juice, which provides all the flavour.

What you need:
Mixed vegetables, chopped – 2 cups (I used carrots, drumsticks, chikkudukaya/avarekkai, radish, yellow pumpkin)
Tomatoes – 1 big, chopped into small pieces
Onion – 1 medium, quartered
Green chillies – 2, slit lengthwise
Moong dal/Split, husked green gram – ¾ cup, boiled and mashed

Chilli powder – ½-1 tsp
Turmeric – a pinch
Salt to taste
Curry leaves – 5-10
Coriander leaves – to garnish

Mustard seeds – 1 tsp
Fenugreek/methi seeds – 1/4 tsp
Oil – 2 tsp

Lime juice – from 2 big limes/as per taste

Pressure cook/boil the veggies till done – they shouldn’t lose their shape.

In a pan, heat the oil. Add the mustard seeds, let them splutter. Then add the fenugreek and the curry leaves.

Saute the onions till transparent. Then the green chillies till they lighten in colour.

Now add the mixed vegetables and the tomatoes. Add turmeric, salt and chilli powder. Saute for a minute.

Now add the mashed moong dal and dilute it with water till it reaches a thick soup consistency. Let cook for a couple of minutes. (I like it to be of light and flow-y consistency.)

Check for taste. Remove from heat. Garnish with chopped coriander leaves.

Let cool completely. Stir in the lime juice.

Tastes good with papad and vadiyalu/vadams. I'm sending this off to Latha of Masala Magic who's hosting RCI-Andhra Pradesh this month.

Regional Cuisines- Andhra Pradesh Moong Dal Green gram Vegetables Lime Juice

Stewing in the Heat!

Summers are, among many other things, an opportunity to show off how much we in this (any) city are suffering the most, compared to whoever’s trying to boast of how much they have to endure in their city!

The conversation goes something like this:

Us: Ooh, it’s so hot!
Them: Here it’s torrid! You’re so much better off, look at us!
Us: Why? It’s humid and yucky here, it sticks!
Them: Yeah, but it’s searing, dry heat here, that’s worse!
Us (gripping the phone harder, how dare they assume we suffer any less?): I don’t know, it feels like hell all the same!
Them: Oh, it’s dreadful here, believe me. At least you have the sea breeze!
Us: Huh! That’s a myth! Come here and go out in the afternoon, you’ll find out!
Them: Oh, my place is the worst! Now, if only we were in (so-and-so city), things would have been different!
Us: Hey, it was 43 C here today!
Them: We have power cuts too!
Us: Yeah, well, there’s no telling when we will start having them either! And you have a nice, airy house, we’re cooped up in flats in these cities … (and I can’t even open my kitchen windows as we don’t know when the carpenter will come, he hasn’t even gotten back to us with the estimate for the rat mesh, it’s been a week, the place reeks of cooking, grumble, grumble …)
Them: Ok, ok, what else …

Isn’t this a familiar scenario? We’re always trying to outdo each other in the heat stakes, but life goes on, the heat has to be borne, meals have to be made, events have to be participated in, which brings us to the crux of this post – two stews for RCI-Andhra Pradesh, hosted this month by Latha of Masala Magic.



Colocasia and tamarind are the common ingredients, so if you have half a kilo (about a pound) of the first, you can divide it between both. Stew 1, on the left, is chamadumpala pulusu, and that on the right is a mixed pulusu which includes chamadumpa. If you have some stray and suitable vegetables crying to be used up, this is your dish!

Stew 2

Colocasia/taro root/chamadumpalu – ¼ kg, boiled but not mushy, peeled, cut into roundels
Tomato – 2 medium, chopped
Green banana – 2 medium, boiled but not mushy, peeled, diced (You can also use six okra/ladies finger, halved, but make sure you fry them in Step 2.)
Brinjal/Eggplant – 3-4 small, round ones, quartered (you may put them in water with a pinch of salt till you use them)
Onions – 2, medium, chopped
Green chillies – 4, chopped
Turmeric – ¼ tsp
Salt to taste

Tamarind – ½ a fistful (Soak in a cup of water, squeeze about 30 minutes later for the juice, discard pulp – hot water speeds up the process)

Tempering
Mustard seeds – 1 tsp
Curry leaves – 3-4
Fenugreek seeds – ½ tsp
Oil – 3 tsp

Coriander leaves – for garnish

1 Heat oil, add mustard seeds. Once they splutter, put in fenugreek seeds and then the onions and the chillies. Fry well.

2 Now add the brinjal, green banana, salt, turmeric, saute, and then let it cook covered, on simmer.

3 When the brinjal is soft, add the tomatoes, continue cooking on simmer, covered.

4 Once the tomato cooks to pulp, add the colocasia, stir, let cook for two minutes.

5 Now add the tamarind juice, let it cook again for a while. You can add water if it’s too thick for your liking.

6 Garnish with coriander.

If it’s too sour, you can add a bit of jaggery at the end.

Now for Stew 1

Colocasia/taro root/chamadumpalu – ¼ kg, boiled but not mushy, peeled, cut into roundels
Onions – 2, medium, chopped
Green chillies – 2, slit
Chilli powder – 1-1/2 tsp
Turmeric – ¼ tsp
Salt to taste

Tamarind – ½ a fistful (Soak in a cup of water, squeeze about 30 minutes later for the juice, discard pulp – hot water speeds up the process)

Tempering
Mustard seeds – 1 tsp
Curry leaves – 3-4
Fenugreek seeds – ½ tsp
Dry red chillies – 2, in bits
Oil – 2 tsp

Jaggery – 1-2 tsp
Coriander leaves – for garnish

Heat oil. Temper with the mustard seeds, curry leaves, red chillies, fenugreek seeds.

Add onions, green chillies and turmeric, fry well.

Put in the colocasia, add the chilli powder and mix.

Now add the tamarind extract and salt. Cook on simmer.

I usually add some jaggery at the end to give it a hint (just a hint) of sweetness, but it’s optional.

Now revel in these stews of your own making!


Regional Cuisines of India Colocasia/taro root/chamadumpalu Vegetarian Tamarind Gravy Stew

Another Avatar

Three, or is it four, MBPs (Coffee's event) have gone by but I haven’t participated for various reasons, mainly because I was too lazy for the hard work that the themes demanded but as it was sweets this time, I decided I would try the simplest dessert I came across and set about making this.



That it turned into something else is entirely my mistake, or my genius, as you like it. A misunderstanding of 1 cup evaporated milk and 1/3 cup sugar as 1 cup of sweetened condensed milk is probably what changed the nature of the dessert, not to mention the fruit mix that went into it.

Nandita had recommended two cups of mango puree. I had a variety of fruit but a single unit of each – one small mango, one big pear, one medium golden apple. I’m the impatient sort, and there are so many more events I want to participate in, so without waiting to buy more mangoes, I pureed everything into a reluctant two cups.

That done, I proceeded to open a can of condensed milk, patting myself on the back for using up stuff from the larder, but that was a short-lived joy, as I discovered I’d had this can since 2004!

I soldiered on gamely – after all, who said we had to eat what we made for MBP as long as we linked to the host and the original recipe and posted a photograph –whether it went into me or my dustbin would be my secret! I pulled the ring on the can and out burbled a toffee- or was it jaggery- coloured substance! It didn’t smell but there was no way I was sullying a potentially good (ok, tolerable) photograph with this gook! Oh no, the trash can received its first bit of refuse for the day, the grocer down the street got an order for home-delivery of a tin of condensed milk (and half-a-dozen eggs as incentive), and I settled down with a murder mystery.

Two hours later, doorbell rung, transaction made, I take the condensed milk into the kitchen, and horror of horrors, things have changed since 2004! The manufacturer has decided it’s cheaper to dispense with convenient packaging (read ring) and go to the old ways, so there I was, hammering one of my biggest and best knives into the can with the handle of my Oxo vegetable peeler. Serves me right – I finally want to take a stab at MBP and this is what it entails!

Well, after the milk came sputtering out of the various gashes I managed to make, I mixed it with the puree, the 1–tbsp-china-grass-melted-in-200-ml-water solution and tenderly ladled it into ramekins, the rest into a larger bowl and went off for a much needed, long and leisurely bath.

Unhappily, the pudding didn’t set. I hadn’t expected much by way of colour, of course, as the puree’s colour got diluted by the milk, but it was still like baby food. One ramekin went into the freezer. After I returned from work, I went straight to the fridge and poked another ramekin gingerly! Tough luck, it remained soft. But the freezer had yielded results!

Dinner followed, and it was time for the photography session. A mango was diced, a plate produced, the stuff decorated, pictures taken, lessons learnt! It can only get better next time!

Monthly Blog Patrolling Mango Condensed Milk

A Visual Feast

Wondering what this is about? Read more about it here

Postcard Jugalbandi Food Art Panchadara Chilakalu

Ever the Twain Shall Meet

Apologies to Rudyard Kipling, but this is Pepper Paneer Pasta! Does the alliteration set your teeth on edge? Or is it the combination that’s doing it? Are you thinking, ‘Oh, no! unholy combination, I’d rather go somewhere else?’ Are your fingers snaking towards the next link on a self-rescue mission?

I would probably feel the same way too, if I were to see this elsewhere. But as it happens, it’s my blog, my copy of Tarla Dalal’s Microwave Subzis, an unhealthy overdose of salt (my doing) plus a birthday gift of organic wholewheat pasta that inspired this dish. And the ingredient that gave me the notion this paneer/cottage cheese dish could be added to pasta was the Spouse, who said the cream and pepper in it reminded him of pasta.

The photo is all white and brown and singularly unattractive, but believe me, the paneer and the pasta combine well!

The cream in my pantry was fast approaching its best-by date and after the bread pudding, this was one more dish that offered me a route to its (the cream’s) salvation. And when I saw this book in the store, I had to buy it. Not only was it reasonably priced, it had several illustrations. And in the heat of the Indian summer, the promise of quick cooking in my small and hot kitchen, made all the more difficult by windows closed to prevent the visit of an unfriendly rodent, was a Godsend! (If you’re wondering why couldn’t she open the windows as she began cooking and close them when she finished, it’s because I’ve to climb on to the kitchen ledge, open the mosquito netting the rat/mouse bit into, open the windows, descend, cook, then climb back up, close windows, stick netting back in place, and climb down – that’s too much hassle and too many calories more than I can afford to lose - yeah, right!)

Now that my post is long and chatty enough, let’s cut to the chase. Here’s how I made the Pepper Paneer – the measures are mine, not the author’s.

What you need:
200 gm paneer/cottage cheese, cut into ½-inch cubes
6 tbsp heavy cream
3 tbsp milk
2 tsp oil
Salt to taste

Grind to a coarse paste:
½ cup chopped onion
9-10 cashewnuts
1 tsp ginger-garlic paste
2 tsp peppercorns

Combine the oil and the paste in a microwave-proof bowl and microwave on High for two minutes.

Add the cream, milk and salt, mix well and microwave on High for 30 seconds.

Add the paneer, mix well and microwave on High for 1 minute.

Taste at this stage. If it’s fine, you can stop there and eat it with rotis or naans or whatever. If it’s too salty, one of the options is to mix it with pasta and not waste it, like I did.

For the pasta:
Add two handfuls of wholewheat maccheroni rigati to 2 cups of boiling water. Boil for 9 minutes, drain, lubricate with a splash of edible oil if you like (not necessary) and immediately toss with pepper paneer.

Bon appetit!

I'm sending this off to Presto Pasta Nights hosted by Ruth of Once Upon a Feast.

Pasta Cashew Wholewheat Paneer/Cottage Cheese Cream Pepper Vegetarian

The Colour of Summer ... and a Recipe

Hot, bright, sunny, sizzling, blazing, sweaty, sweltering, baking, scorching, roasting, glowing, shimmering shining, radiating, searing – there are any number of adjectives with connotations positive and negative to describe the nature of summer. To us in tropical countries, summer is often an unwelcome quantity of heat, dust, ants, and more irritants; it is also the season of a bounty of delights that include mangoes, watermelons, jamun (Indian blackberry), muskmelon, oranges and much more.

As children, summers are a time for fun, excursions and treats, but you also had to answer those tiresome annual exam question papers all over again. In my school, at least. Summer is the time for older relatives to summon kids and ask for some chilli powder to sprinkle on green mangoes, only to discover it is kumkum (vermilion powder used to decorate the forehead)!

Summer is the time for munjalu (tadgola/ nungu/ toddy palm fruit/ ice-apples) to be sold in baskets or brought in from relatives’ villages in a conical sack fashioned from the tree’s leaves. Summer is the time when Grandfather, with his graceful surgeon’s hands, skillfully peeled these and slipped them into our waiting hands so that they could slide down our throats like silk. A time that found him diligently cutting mangoes into a steel basin and putting it in the fridge so they could make a juicy, cool treat for us later. Yes, summer is all this and more – in terms of food, its colours are yellow, orange, grey, purple, pink, red, green.



That this could make a post hit me last week when I was landed with a pile of mango skins all golden and gleaming – I set about photographing these peels after cubing the mangoes and tucking them away in little individual containers in the fridge – they make a cool, sweet, tangy refreshing treat all by themselves. Eat them plain and succulent, the juice running down your chin greedily, squished into vanilla ice-cream or use them in a variety of desserts, they rarely fail to please. I know that’s probably a sweeping generalization, but I can’t help feeling it’s true.

Of course, I’m talking about Indian mangoes. I haven’t tried the ones found outside India but family and friends complain the ones in the US are not quite the same. The newspapers last week were full of news about how the first batch of mangoes was exported to the US after years; maybe you can taste some so you know what they mean. But that was just one variety. There are several. There are some that you can’t peel, either, the rasalu – they are so fibrous and full of pulp that the only way to eat them is squeeze them slowly but surely from the bottom so that the juice finds its way up, puncture the top and ingest it.

Want to know how to cube mangoes? It’s probably old hat but I’m allowing myself to get carried away – if it’s a firm mango, just ripe, wash it thoroughly, peel it with a peeler. Make sure it doesn’t slither out of your hands. Once you’ve peeled it, score both sides lengthwise and breadthwise with a sharp knife. Now stand the mango in a plate/dish, and use the knife to sever the scored side as one half – the cubes will separate neatly by themselves. Repeat on the other side. Do the same with the bits on the side. Scrape the remaining flesh off the stone or just eat it with abandon!

If it’s squishy, don’t bother peeling it. Cut it into slices and serve. Or cut it into two discs lengthwise, one on either side of the seed, and scoop the flesh out with a spoon. Cut it into two halves around the middle, from one point round to another, through to the stone, so that it forms two cups when you twist one side against another – like an avocado? – one will stay attached to the stone (which you will have to remove), the other will be hollow – fill it with fruit or more ice-cream, dig in!

And now, to come back to the present, I have a recipe that’s quite different and unconnected. It’s for mutton fry – here’s how you go about it.



Mutton – 500 gm
Onions – 3, finely sliced, fried brown (sprinkle some salt on them, fry in two tbsp of oil, in simmer mode – takes time, but worth it)
Ginger-garlic paste – 2 tsp
Turmeric – ½ tsp
Salt – to taste
Chilli powder – 1 or 1-1/2 tsp
Garam masala/curry powder – 1-2 tbsp
Water – 1.5 cups
Oil – 1 tbsp
Coriander/cilantro – a little, chopped, for garnish

Apply salt, chilli powder, ginger-garlic paste and turmeric to the mutton, pressure cook with the water. Make sure the meat doesn’t turn mushy (for beginners, this is trial and error, I’m afraid) - this took me about 15 minutes after the cooker came to full pressure. Let the pressure drop by itself. Once you open the cooker, strain the stock and put it away – you can use this for soup later. Saute the meat in the oil, check for salt and chilli, add the curry powder and the browned onion. Fry some more, turn off the heat and add the coriander. The addition (or substitution) of fresh cracked pepper makes a nice variation. You can even use a green chilli in place of the chilli powder.

I am sending this off to Weekend Herb Blogging hosted by creator Kalyn this week.

Colour of Summer Mangoes Mutton WHB

The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread

Or is it? Bread pudding, I mean. As we are now told, white bread (and flour) is one of the nastiest things to ever happen to this world, we’d rather get our carbs from wholegrains. Yes, it’s soft and tasty, goes down better than breads made with wheat and oats and rye and spelt, but healthy it is not, in large quantities, of course. It’s the bread universe’s equivalent of chips or nuts – start with one, there’s no telling when you can stop.



Ever gone on a strict diet or altered your eating plan to make it low-carbohydrate? Sometimes, you’ll find yourself entertaining visions of fluffy, white bread, smelling all fresh and yeasty, slathered with butter and jam. If your resolve has weakened and you’ve found yourself reaching for just that one croissant spread with melty butter and jam, you’re well on the way to more!

And if that’s not enough, we have to have bread pudding as well! Another luscious, utterly satisfying, wicked, tempting, all-such-adjectives creation. Not only is it white bread, it’s soaked in a bath of eggs, sugar, cream and milk, showered with raisins and nuts and served with beaming smiles urging you to taste just a bit! As if that would suffice! And to think this super-rich dessert was the poor person’s way of using up stale bread three or four centuries ago!

If you’ve noticed that I don’t have too many dessert recipes on my blog, you would know this post is the equivalent of a blog binge – but what do you know, I tasted very little of it! Two scoops went into the fridge but the lion’s share went to feed a hungry friend who stays in the hostel, and our mid-afternoon tea group at work.

We had been talking about bread over tea, and I was telling my friends how an uncle of mine said one shouldn't waste the crusts on bread in bread pudding but save them to lattice the top. This was met by hoots and snorts of sarcasm and indignation - as if it wasn't painstaking enough to cut the crusts off the bread, you had to save them, glaze them with egg white and criss-cross them over the pudding too, had you?

I don't recall how the mood slipped into a more benign one but the little conclave had my hostel friend longingly ask me to make bread pudding. I promised her I would, but told her I would put some marmalade in it because I wanted to use up some that was hanging on to my pantry.

Oh yes, put in anything you want, I'll eat anything, she said.

Excitedly, and thinking of my blog, innovative recipes, Sitemeter statistics and a torrent of comments, I'll put in some fruit as well, mangoes perhaps, I said.

Oh, please don’t put fruit, that will make it healthy, she said.

Oh, okay, then, it will be truly unwholesome, I promised.

Though I went looking for sophisticated recipes in my numerous cookbooks and on Google, a bad night’s sleep and another search on the Net led me to this very simple, no-fuss, relatively light and healthy recipe with no added sugar. It seemed unusual too, in that it asked for lemon juice and no vanilla.

However, to honour my promise of making it thoroughly unhealthy, I had to fill it with sin – that involved substituting most of the milk with heavy, heavy cream and adding two tablespoons of sugar though none was mentioned. I do know that I didn’t use the ¾ cup of orange marmalade that the recipe called for, but I really wouldn’t claim it a saving grace. The method stays uncomplicated, and my tea group said it didn’t taste eggy despite the lack of vanilla, and that the lime juice added a nice flavour.

Here’s how you go about it:

5-6 slices white sandwich bread
3 tbsp soft butter
Orange-ginger marmalade - as much as is needed to spread on those slices – I only know I used 1 or 1-1/2 tsp per slice.
3 eggs, beaten lightly
1 cup heavy cream
¾ cup milk
2 tbsp sugar
3 tsp lime juice
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

Heat milk, dissolve sugar in it, let cool.

Toast bread, spread with butter and jam. Cube the toast (don’t cut the crusts), put in a buttered dish/casserole.

Mix eggs with cream and milk, lime juice and nutmeg.

Pour this mixture (custard) over the bread.



Bake in a slow oven at 150 C (300 F) for 45 minutes.

Try hard to ignore the sound of your arteries thickening. (G)Ulp!



PS: There are several recipes for bread pudding with alternative, wholegrain breads on the Internet.

Dessert Bread Pudding Orange Ginger Marmalade

No Couch Potato This!

It was a shot in the dark. I vaguely remember reading somewhere or someone telling me that you could marinate potatoes in curds/yoghurt and fry them later so when I found some nice-looking spuds in the store, I brought them home as they held out the promise of lasting long. Well, that was not to be, as they started sprouting no sooner than they went into the storeroom so last night found me scrubbing and peeling and dicing rather than turning into the couch potato that I love to be at that time of the day!

Potatoes processed, I marinated them in a mixture of curds and spice powders, stuck them in the fridge and went off to the Land of Nod. This morning found the marinade had become pale yellow buttermilk (well, that’s the consistency) – though it looked pretty, I was rather dismayed because I had no clue how to use it in the stir-fry I’d planned these potatoes for, until the Spouse said we could use it in the lamb he was cooking for lunch.

I acquiesced, but as things progressed, knew it wouldn’t gel with that dish as it already had gravy of its own. By this time, I had picked the potatoes out of the marinade, stir-fried them on high heat, then turned it down to simmer, covered them and softened them. I hated the idea of pouring the marinade down the drain so in sheer desperation, I poured the marinade into the potatoes and let it take its own course!

And wonder of wonders! The curds did not disintegrate into a million particles as usual but went on to thicken ever so slightly into gravy of the perfect consistency that I’ve only ever seen in other people’s homes! What an accomplishment!

Here’s how you go about it:

Potatoes – 500 gm, peeled, diced into 1-inch pieces
Mustard powder – 1-1/2 tsp
Cumin/jeera powder – 1 tsp
Coriander powder – 1 tsp
Chilli powder – 1/2-1 tsp
Turmeric – a pinch
Salt – to taste
Curds/yoghurt – 1 cup
Oil – 2 tbsp

Beat the curds, add the spices. Add it to the potatoes, marinate overnight in the refrigerator.

Pick the potatoes out of the marinade. Reserve marinade.

In a pan, heat the oil, stir fry potatoes on high. Turn heat down to simmer mode, cover and let the potatoes cook till half done – they should yield when you try to cut through, but grudgingly, not too easily.

Then add the marinade, mix, and cover the dish again. All through, make sure the dish is only simmering, never on high or even moderate heat.

I'm sending this off to Kalyn's Weekend Herb Blogging hosted this week by Sher of What Did You Eat.


Check for done-ness and turn off the fire. Enjoy!

Weekend Herb Blogging Curds/Yoghurt Gluten-free Potaotes

A Colourful Affair

Yep, all of us know this could only mean a tame vegetarian dish with lots of veggies in it. Nothing to do with anything more colourful than that, fortunately or unfortunately!

The picture of this in a Hyderabadi cookbook has had me itching to make this dish for about two weeks. However, fate had assorted germs in store for me and that meant very little cooking, leave alone blogging. And yesterday, when I did summon the energy to make this, which involved a lot of slicing and dicing, and photograph it, I ended up worse than I had felt in the past two weeks – the pain I developed from all the coughing, sneezing and blowing my nose froze into a funny crick – the only benefit was that the fumes from the onions cleared up my sinuses for the next few hours!

Should I continue with this post? It's obviously labour-intensive, didn’t do much to cheer me up and didn’t look like anything in the original illustration - but ended up being much appreciated at my great-aunt’s place that evening.



I didn’t follow the original recipe at all because it called for a lot of oil and frying first and frying next and so on, so here’s my adaptation – a mixed vegetable dish that you can adapt to your own tastes. It’s a great way to rescue the veggies in your fridge, by the way! Add potatoes, cauliflower, any vegetable that occupies space in your pantry and weighs heavily on your conscience! The result is an almost rainbow-striped dish with a light gravy that’s high on taste and low in calories? Yes, I think so, relatively speaking.

Carrots – 300 gm, cut into ½-inch pieces
French Beans – 300 gm, cut into 1-1/2 inch pieces
Eggplant/Brinjals – 4-5, cut into 2-inch pieces
Capsicum/bell pepper – 2 big, diced
3 medium onions – finely sliced
2 tsp ginger-garlic paste
A pinch of turmeric powder
1 tsp red chilli powder
1 cup curds/yoghurt, beaten
2 green cardamom
4 cloves
1 bay leaf
1/4 –inch piece cinnamon
¼ tsp fennel seeds (saunf)
Salt to taste
Oil – 3-4 tbsp
A bit of curry powder/garam masala, if you like

Parboil carrots and French beans.
Fry brinjal till more than half done in a little oil, remove, fry capsicum the same way, remove.
Fry the whole spices till they turn colour, then the onions till golden brown.
Add ginger-garlic paste, fry.
Add salt, turmeric and chilli powder, mix till they blend well with the onions.
Add the cooked and fried vegetables. Put in the curds. Stir and cook on simmer, covered, till the vegetables are fully cooked. Sprinkle a little water while cooking, if required. Add the curry powder and stir. Serve.

Vegetarian Curds/Yoghurt Gluten-free

Rai-ta!

I like 'punny' headlines and give them a fair bit of thought. Though I'd been racking my brains since morning to think up a witty title for this raita, I didn't realise the pun was staring me in the face. For my dish in this post is a mustard raita, and in Hindi and possibly certain other languages, mustard is known as 'rai'.

Well, actually it's a tomato raita but the predominant flavour is that of mustard. The idea struck me when I visited a supermarket that stocked hulled, split mustard and methi, rarities in a South Indian kitchen. The methi met its inevitable fate of infestation and dustbin before I could get myself to explore what to do with it but the mustard lent itself beautifully to this unusual raita.

So without further ado, here's the recipe, it's pretty fluid, experiment with whatever vegetables you want, proportions too. I've tried this with cucumber and grated carrot as well. Be warned, though, that it can be pretty pungent.

2-3 tomatoes, chopped
1-1/2 cups curds/yoghurt
1-2 tsp of split mustard
A pinch of salt
1 or 1/2 of a green chilli, chopped, de-seeded if you like

Beat the curds, season with salt, mustard, add the green chilli and vegetable. Let it rest for a while, chilled if you like. Consume! This tastes great by itself but will probably go well with a mild rice preparation or even a bland variety of bread.

Tomato Raita Mustard Curds/Yoghurt

A Kut Above

Was it the original apple in the Garden of Eden? Was it the reason why it all began? Come to think of it, it’s amusing to think of this everyday, squishy vegetable as being the love apple that led to the original sin.

There is quite a bit of information on the subject and for me, this round of Jihva For Ingredients, hosted by RP of My Workshop, was an occasion to rediscover the tomato. When the ingredient was announced, I was a little disappointed – an unusual Tomato Bread Pudding was already on my blog (no picture, though, as I deleted it by mistake and re-posted it). So were Oaty Tomatoes. And a busy month ensured I couldn’t give it much more thought. I usually try to post a recipe that at least I find special/unusual as it keeps my interest alive and kicking, so after some hurried exploration, I settled for the Hyderabadi tamater kut. Which turned out to be a good choice, because it’s all tomato but so different from the everyday tomato curry or soup or gravy that’s made in our homes.

Frenzied workday cooking doesn’t always remind you that there is food waiting to be smelt and savoured from beginning to end. Though I made this on a work day that was sure to be frenzied, boiling a kilo of tomatoes with a bit of spice jolted me out of automaton mode into a brief connoisseur, reminding me this was how tomato daal smells at home, how tomato used to smell soon after it was boiled to make the day’s chaaru, which came in very handy for me to recover my appetite after a long bout of jaundice.

“Ever seen a dried tomato?” asked a school friend one day, with an I-know-you’d-never-have-seen-it glint in her eye. I hadn’t. She bent over to reach for her school bag, extracted her rough notes from it and from its pages, produced a thick and transparent slice of tomato – it has never ceased to amaze me. How did she do it? How could it not have rotted? And despite it being a dried tomato, how did it still feel so fleshy? She had pressed it much as we used to press leaves and flowers between pages, and come up with this. I tried it later, but didn't have the patience to keep a soggy slice inside my notes inside my school bag, so it must have gone into the dustbin.

I don’t have too much more nostalgia to dish out about tomatoes but do remember that there’s a song from an old movie about a hero caught between two heroines likening himself to a tomato in a sandwich!

I have searched for information on the dish but could come up with little on why it’s called Kut. I wonder if it could be a Hyderabadi variation of ‘Kattu’, the Telugu word for a kind of chaaru/rasam usually made by roasting and powdering daal. This Kut recipe involves straining boiled and mashed tomatoes into a soupy liquid, simmering it with spices and a bit of flour to thicken it and tempering it.

Here’s how you go about it:

You need
A kilo of tomatoes
1-1/2 cups of water
2 tsps of ginger-garlic paste
3 medium onions, sliced
1 tsp red chilli powder
A pinch of turmeric
¼ tsp fenugreek seeds
A few sprigs of curry leaf
1 tsp cumin/jeera powder
1 tbsp sesame seeds, roasted and ground (need not be fine)
2 tbsp gram flour/besan/senagapindi, roasted and mixed with a little water to form a paste
2-3 tsp oil
Salt to taste
Six hard-boiled eggs, halved lengthwise (optional)

For the tempering:
½ tbsp cumin seed
½ tsp mustard seed
¼ tsp fenugreek seed
¼ tbsp nigella seed/kalonji
3-4 dry red chillies
a few curry leaves
2 tsp oil

Pressure cook/boil the tomatoes with the water, ginger-garlic paste, ¼ tsp fenugreek seeds and cumin powder. Mash it well within the cooker, sieve through a strainer – I got 6 cups of extract – I can’t bring myself to call it puree because it was more soup than puree! (At this stage, add a green chilli or two, some salt, then temper it with mustard, jeera, some pepper, curry leaves and bit of fenugreek, and you've got yourself some nice tomato chaaru. Add some tamarind extract to it if you think it's not sour enough and boil it briefly - but before you temper it.)

In a frying pan, heat the oil and fry the onions till brown. This can be time-consuming, so sprinkle a bit of salt on the onions to make them fry faster – yes, it really works.

Now add the tomato puree, salt, turmeric, red chilli powder and the ground sesame seed. Stir in the gram flour paste. Simmer for about 10 minutes on a medium flame.

To temper, heat the oil (in a separate pan). Add the mustard seeds, cumin, whole red chillies, nigella seeds and then the fenugreek seeds. Finally, add the curry leaves. Make sure the fenugreek doesn’t look burnt-brown – it can turn the whole dish bitter. When the red chillies brown, add this to the tomato soup/puree and cover. Serve hot. Add the eggs, if using.

The initial taste disappointed me. It seemed that the fenugreek was burnt and I was stuck with a bitter, gritty dish that no one would touch with a bargepole. Photo session over, I went off to work. When I returned and settled down to dinner, unloaded this dish from the fridge (grimacing at the thought of having to possibly finish it all myself), heated it and put some on my plate. Was I pleasantly surprised! There was no trace of the morning’s bitterness, and it had finally condensed into puree!

Tags: Tomato Curry Kut Tamater Hyderabadi

More

pictures from my trip. You can see them here.

Revelation

I was away for 10 days before putting up the previous post. This is one of the longer driving holidays we've been on and it was quite busy, packed with things to see and do. We went to Goa, and stopped off in parts of Karnataka that we drove through, so we saw waterfalls, beaches, forts, plantations, temples, churches and me being me, went to quite a few stores in search of local specialities as well.
The first picture that I put up for the guessing game came from a small plantation attached to a temple in the Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka, specifically from a place called Honnavar, about two hours from the Goa border. We took different routes to and from Goa and several stretches of both routes were flanked by these plantations.



So, as Sia, Mallugirl and Maneka guessed, the first picture is the fruit of the areca palm (also called the betel nut, though the betel, a leaf, actually comes from a different plant, a vine).It's considered a bad habit to eat too much nut powder (a mixture of areca and spices) but in small doses after a meal, it can aid digestion. It's believed to strengthen the teeth and gums too.



The palm grows to a height of 70 feet and the fruits, just like miniature coconuts, grow beneath the fronds - you can see a spray-like formation in the picture - that's got several tiny fruits growing along each prong.



When ready, they are picked and sun-dried and then split open for the nut. The process differs based on the region but this is what I gathered from speaking to the priest at the temple.
See a picture of the betel leaf, nuts, nut-cutters and some more information here.

It was again Sia, Mallugirl and Maneka who guessed the cashew apple. I've seen plantations but have never seen the fruit on the tree. I tasted it just once but the nut had come off, so I can say this is the first time I've seen the real, whole McCoy. I'm notorious for extracting the peanuts and cashew nuts from the snacks that are passed around; my friends even credit me with a technique for that all my own!
The picture in the previous post was from a wayside plantation in Goa - the air is fragrant with the scent of these trees. I deliberately used that picture because the nut had dropped off. The fruit was ripe, waxy and oily, too much of a temptation not to pick. I clicked it, then I flicked it!



There are red fruit too, as you can see in this picture. The fruit are crushed and their juice fermented and distilled to make feni. This photo is from a distillation unit that was housed in a plantation we visited. There are a few plantations in and around Ponda which offer various packages for tourists (there may be others elsewhere, too) - with and without stay. I didn't know till recently that the oil of cashew is used as an anaesthetic for leprosy, and to cure warts and corns.



.....................................................................................

And now, we come to the final picture of the previous post. I'm thrilled (heh heh)no one who commented could guess what it was. I didn't too, when I saw it lying in the Sahakari Bhandar in Panaji. I was busy searching for cocum when I spied this. Another shopper nearby looked at me strangely when I asked her what it was but it was totally a new discovery to me - I've never, ever seen it in that form.
It was with some reservations that I posted it as the third question in the guessing game - it was not a spice I was "born into", it's not a spice I use in my daily cooking, I saw its other common forms only a few years ago (blush, blush!) and began using upon the recommendation of friends, but did that mean no one else would know it in this form?
Apparently, it's as strange to you all as it is to me, so here goes - it's asafoetida! Yes, inguva, hing, perungayam in Telugu, Hindi and Tamil. I like saying those unaccustomed to it react similarly to how most vegetarians react to the smell of frying fish - with a shudder and noses wrinkled, but for all its sulphurous pungency, this resin comes with a host of benefits, digestive, curative (whooping cough, asthma) and is even used in perfumes, I've read, difficult though it may be to believe. It's even called 'devil's dung' because of its smell! What a nickname to earn!

I'm sending this off to Weekend Herb Blogging hosted this week by Kate of Thyme for Cooking.

Tags: Areca Betel Nut Cashew Weekend Herb Blogging

Lessons From A Trip - What Are These?

I've just come back from a long-ish trip - some of the high points were the discovery of the stuff in these photos. I've never seen them in these forms before, can you guess what they are? A very happy Ugadi/new year to all of you!

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Disco Greens

Or red amaranth, but then there wouldn’t be many buyers, or in this context, readers drawn to this post! There’s a story behind the headline, though.



The Indian readers among you will know of an old Hindi movie called Disco Dancer, a big hit which spawned a number of similar movies/dance sequences in other Indian languages. Anything shiny and sparkly came to be called ‘Disco …’ after that, be it clothes, costume jewellery, stationery, and as I was to find out a few years ago, vegetables as well.

That day, I had gone shopping for vegetables and spied these gleaming, red bunches with a wizened old woman selling a variety of greens. I knew what they were, of course, but keen to know what they were called in Tamil, the local language, I asked the lady.

With panache and authority, and a look that said she needn’t explain more, she said, “Disco Keerai,” stunning me into inexplicable repulsion … and departure in search of better, and less ostentatious, acquisitions.

My repertoire of dishes with leafy vegetables was restricted to a rather single-formula daal (lentil preparation), stir-fry and chutneys. I don’t make too much more even now but since then, was lucky to find a book called Green Leafy Vegetables by Shyamala Kallianpur, published by the author in 1997. There are several recipes for the most popular/commonly available greens and fewer for the not-so-well-known ones.

This recipe is the only one in the book for red amaranth. (The sample in my photo is cold and sad, do excuse, but gives you an idea of its looks.) I’m sure it has done the rounds of the blogs, especially those specializing in Saraswat cuisine, but whenever something is a new discovery to me, however old and traditional to others, it seems to go into my blog nowadays.

I don’t often see red amaranth in the market and it’s been ages since I last cooked/ate it so I don’t remember the taste, but the book, the blog and the anecdote were too great a combination for me to resist. As was the opportunity to play heroine and rescue the grated fresh coconut I bought a few days ago from its inevitable destination – the dustbin. (Just as death is life’s only certainty, my friends, so is my trashcan my vegetables’ only certain fate.) And so, here comes the dish, which the author calls Bhajji Amshi. I omitted the jaggery the author mentions, but the rest of it remains.

Red amaranth with tender stalks, chopped – 8 cups
A 2 cm cube of jaggery (optional, I would say, but probably not traditionally omitted)
Salt to taste
Water – 3 cups

Grind together to a paste:
Freshly grated coconut – 1 cup
Raw rice, soaked in water for 10 minutes – 1 tbsp
Tamarind, soaked for a while – a lime-sized ball
Green chillies – to taste (she recommends 8-10, I used 5)

Tempering:
Oil – 2 tsp
Garlic, peeled and bruised – 8-10 cloves

Wash the amaranth leaves well. Chop along with the tender stalks. Put it in a pan, add three cups of water, salt and jaggery, if you’re using it. Cook covered on low heat – this will take a while – make sure the leaves wilt and some water evaporates.

Add the ground paste to the cooked amaranth and bring it to a boil.

Heat the oil in a small frying pan and fry the garlic slightly. Put this in the curry and immediately cover it so that the flavour permeates the dish. Serve with rice.

Amaranth is full of goodness, and makes for some interesting trivia. To read up, go here and here.

This is my submission for Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted this week by Anna of Morsels and Musings.

Tags: Greens Red Amaranth Coconut Vegan Weekend Herb Blogging Thotakoora

The Chilli of the Valley

Well, there’s no valley (or lily) – it’s more a headline that’s intended to make an impression! But in a larger sense, it IS the chilli of my valley – the seeds came from an aunt’s home, went to another’s, came back to yet another’s – which is where I got them from. And the aunt last to be mentioned, actually my great aunt, gave me this recipe.

I’d almost have missed this dish. Aunty was reluctant to serve it because it was a day old when we visited her but I shamelessly lobbied for it to be included in the meal, ended up eating everything I could and even carried the leftovers home, not to mention the rest of those same chillies in the refrigerator! Along with the recipe, of course!



My grandmother (Aunty’s sister) would slave over this dish – I haven’t eaten it often since she stopped cooking. My own efforts, a muddle of deduction, shortcuts and impatience, resulted in this taste remaining a fond memory, but thanks to these generous aunts, will no longer remain so!

My grandmom used green capsicum (bell peppers) for this dish. She would prepare the mixture patiently, decapitate the capsicum carefully, stuff them with the mixture, put the caps back on, tie them with thread, stand them in a frying pan in a puddle of oil, then lay them down and fry them on all sides till the skin was discoloured, even on the verge of turning black, softer and succulent.

The attraction is the mixture inside combining with the juicy skin, and any that escaped would make a nice, dry, fried, powdery bonus. It’s lovely eaten with rice – I’m not sure what it is about us that makes us tear apart vegetables that have been put together so carefully once they approach our plates, but that’s one of life’s quirks, I guess.

Well, my great aunt’s recipe involves the microwave, so the cooking time, vigil, oil, everything involved in that long process is shorter, but just as tasty. Forgive me if there are no exact measurements, I was just too keen to get on with it, and approached it but with two thoughts in mind: I’m going to discover the secret, it’s going into my blog!

It is a laborious process if you're using small chillies but it’s worth it, and coming from a person who prefers a simpler style, that’s saying a lot! Also, I didn’t use the capsicum that my grandmom did, these are miniature versions that grow in my aunts’ kitchen garden, like I said. And it’s a one-off dish for me, I don’t think I’ll be able to get my hands on these chillies till my aunt visits again!
So here goes:

Capsicum/Biggish round chillies
Some besan/chick pea flour/senaga pindi
A whole pod of garlic, peeled
Cumin seed/jeera – 3-4 tsp, roasted dry
Salt - to taste
Oil – 2-3 tsp + 1 tsp
Some butter, just a dab or two

For tempering:
Mustard seed, cumin seed, split urad dal/black gram, dry red chilli



Roast the flour for a minute or two in a thick-bottomed pan. (Till it changes colour slightly.) Watch it like a hawk, it gets burnt easily.
Grind/mash the cumin and peeled garlic into a rough paste. Mix this with the flour, adding butter to bind – it’s like rubbing butter into flour for cake, you get fine crumbs.

Slit the chillies/capsicum and get rid of as many seeds as you can – try to get at the hard core of seeds and tip it out with the tip of your knife. Try not to let the knife go through the other side – I’ve heard that a safety pin works well but I’ve never tried this trick! Don’t remove all the seeds unless you have zero tolerance to heat, though; keep a few – that’s what imparts taste.



Stuff the chillies with the flour mixture. It’s not impossible to keep the chilli/pepper from ‘leaking’ even if it’s punctured on the other side, but if you’re unsure, keep it together with a toothpick (as I’ve done with some in the picture; I’ve also done that to some whose caps I sliced off in an experimenting mood).

Apply oil on a microwaveable plate, arrange the chillies on it, smear them with a light coating of oil or trail a spoon of oil over them, and microwave for six minutes on High – by High, I mean the highest power, that’s what I did. I did this in three spells of two minutes each, though, because I wanted to be sure I didn’t char them black. Those who don’t use a microwave oven can follow my grandmom’s methods detailed earlier in this post.

Now, in a frying pan, heat a spoon of oil, temper with the mustard, cumin, black gram and red chilli, put in these chillies, leftover mixture, if any, and quickly saute it. You’ll know it’s done my way if the skins wrinkle just a bit more and look a little drier. With bell peppers, you’ll probably have to wait a little longer.

This turned out to be an expensive dish to make – I went to the gym late, spent good money on faster transport and on the way back home, bought a shirt I’d usually only wear on holiday for a considerable amount of money as it was calling out to me from the sales gallery next to the gym – none of which would have taken place if I hadn’t been so righteous about exercising late in the day despite all that time spent in the kitchen! Look what a bit of nostalgia does!

CHILLI FACTS & TRIVIA (FROM THE INTERNET)

Chillies are a good source of Vitamin, A, B, C and E with minerals like molybdenum, manganese, folate, potassium, thiamin and copper. They reportedly contain seven times more vitamin C than orange. Ever since the chilli came to India at the end of the 15th century, it has been included in Ayurvedic medicines. Chillies are said to be good for slimming down but stimulate the appetite as well!

Christopher Columbus discovered chillies in the Caribbean in 1492 and called them peppers, thinking they were related to black pepper.

The correct spelling in English is chilli. The plural is chillies. It is etymologically derived via Spanish from the Nahuatl word for the plant. It has no connection with Chile.

Generally, fresh red chillies are 2-3 times hotter than green, and dried pods are 2-10 times hotter than fresh pods. However, the hottest can vary from plant to plant in the same field.

The fiery sensation is caused by capsaicin, a chemical that survives both cooking and freezing, but it also triggers the brain to produce endorphins, natural painkillers that promote a sense of well-being. The antidote to the heat is milk products, bread or chocolate. Water just spreads the burning around!

Wilbur Scoville in 1902 developed a method for measuring the strength of capsaicin in a chilli pepper, which originally meant tasting a diluted version of a pepper and giving it a value. Mild bell peppers rate at zero, jalapeño is mid range 2,500 to 5,000 Scoville units, cayenne, aji and pequin 30,000 to 50,00 units, the habanero between 100,00 and 500,000 units. Apparently it can be measured by computer these days. (Recently, the Assamese variety called Bhut Jholakia was named as the hottest chilli.)

For more info, visit this site.



This is my submission for Weekend Herb Blogging hosted by Kalyn's Kitchen this week.

Tags: Green chillies Capsicum/bell pepper Besan/Chick pea flour Vegan Weekend Herb Blogging Gluten-free