Not Unholy Combinations

My grandmother, who brought us up, would serve us food which, only much later, I realised, was not the norm. If I was offered milk at someone else's home, I would wrinkle my nose at the smell or taste because it contained sugar, and I grew up thinking tomato sauce was the traditional accompaniment to crisp-edged ootappams. (Naturally, I thought tomato sauce was Indian in origin.) Neither would my grandmother offer salt when curds was served.

Though the main breakfast was traditional, the accompaniments were not. Coconut chutney was rarely served with anything - rava upma was accompanied by some slices of lime or mango pickle, semiya upma with fresh ginger chutney, idli with various spice powders or other chutneys (one's here), dosa with lime pickle - so for me it's really no fun to go in for South Indian food and find myself stuck with coconut chutney and sambar. When we had chapatis for breakfast, thick, well browned, square and well fried, they were accompanied by a sweet and sour onion gravy made with jaggery and tamarind. I don't think we were familiar with the word kurma. My grandfather would eat his chapati with a fried egg, sunny side up, dipping pieces of the chapati in the runny yolk - not something I've done or see myself doing. And pesarattu was never accompanied by upma, its traditional mate.

Though my aunt says they were familiar with it, we were never served poori with sugar. Nor upma, nor idli. Nothing was served with sugar, in fact, and I didn't see this in anybody else's house, either, until I went to college and joined the hostel, in a different State. I was both repelled and fascinated when I saw all conceivable manner of tiffins being downed with sugar, chapatis with jam (which I took to; only, the hostel chapatis were so bad, even jam couldn't redeem them) and bread with pickle (good, a favourite midnight snack). I even spread green chilli pickle on Marie biscuits and made a snack/meal of them at times - they are a great combination but I'm not sure that green chilli pickle is available any more. I guess the only sugary breakfast we had at home was what we called toast - of the French variety. Of course, I thought that was Indian too. No wonder very few of my friends and classmates knew about it.

What unusual combinations are you fond of?

It's funny how what we take for granted at home is completely alien to others. Peanut chutney was never, ever made at home; it's so common in others'. Eggplant is combined with milk and curds in some homes, not so in mine. And I did not notice the amaranth-curds combination till recently in a relative's home, which I took to instantly. I am used to a lot of curd-based dishes with different vegetables, but none with greens. I don't often remember to make this but when I do, I always ask myself why I forget - it's so good. I was flipping through the pages of Cooking At Home With Pedatha recently and was reminded of it. This version is less elaborate than hers and doesn't contain the coconut or the daal that she included in the recipe.

Here's the recipe:
Curds/yoghurt: 3 cups, well churned
Amaranth/thotakoora: Chopped, 2 cups
Tamarind pulp: 1 tbsp
Turmeric: 1/2 tsp
Green chilli: 1, slit
Curry leaves: A few
Dry ginger powder: 1-2 tsp
Oil: 1 tsp
Salt: to taste


Grind to a fine paste
Coriander: 1/4 cup
Green chillies: 2

Tempering
Mustard seeds: 1 tbsp
Red chillies: 4, stems removed, broken into two

In a pan, heat the oil and pop the mustard. Lower the flame and add the red chillies.

As they turn colour, add the amaranth. Cover and simmer till well done, stirring now and then.

Add the turmeric, curry leaves, chilli powder and tamarind pulp. Cook for a few more minutes.

Turn off the heat and stir in the curds.

Chill, and enjoy!

This is going off to Siri for her Frozen Yoghurt event.

Frozen Yoghurt Curds/Yoghurt Amaranth/Thotakoora Greens Event Vegetarian

My Eggzacting Routine

As it turns out, I’m on a losing streak right now. Well, the word ‘streak’ here has nothing to do with the pace of my losing, because the pace is excruciatingly slow, but if I’m losing, I’m winning, because I am talking about weight.

My day starts at 5 a.m. My class starts an hour later and it’s no holds barred. “How much today?” demands the trainer, and I reply, not entirely oblivious to the other people around. The ‘much’ refers to the number of grammes I’ve lost since the previous day, and if I haven’t, the discussion moves on to what I’ve eaten the previous night, how much oil it was cooked in, and whether my bladder and bowel are clear. Whatever I say I’ve eaten is met with a raised eyebrow or a whoop of horror depending on the mood, and my requests/assertions that I will weigh in only once a week go unheard.

By this time, the others around get into the act, probing, analyzing, sympathetic, eyebrows raised or whooping in horror, as their predispositions might dictate. Gyms, by their very nature, have always been places to discuss figures, bodies, ailments, hormones, pimples, thyroids, hemorrhoids and other things biological, but the daily inquisition is a novel experience. All my exercising life, I’ve been told not to weigh myself everyday, here it’s the contrary. It also has to do, I suspect, with the trainers having to divest their wards of a certain number of kilos for their incentives to kick in, but maybe I’m simply being uncharitable and over-imaginative. My trainer’s face now hovers over every meal and morsel I have and I admit it has made me more vigilant than ever, and for that, I give thanks. Apparently, everyone in the gym has lost tonnes, even at their age, so why can’t I do it? Even as I, and you, ponder such questions, I present you with a recipe which I resorted to in the fond hope that it would be tasty and not too sinful.

As it happened, I ate three of them after breakfast (when I start cooking) and two of them for dinner, helas!!! My plan was to make patties and store them in the fridge to toast on the griddle as and when I wanted to eat them, but my assistant at home said, “Finish it off, ’ma, the batter won’t be any good if you put it in the fridge.” I didn’t argue, as they refused to form patties in my palm but did so in hers, and I didn’t want her to leave before I could deal with them!

Eggs, boiled, cooled and shelled - 4
Chickpea flour/gram flour/besan - 3 tbsp
Onion - 1, chopped
Coriander - a handful, chopped
Green chillies - 3, chopped
Garam masala - ½ tsp
Salt - to taste
Oil - v little

Crumble the eggs and mix everything else with them till you get a fairly dense dough - it shouldn’t lose shape when you fashion patties of them. (My assistant says the best way to do it is on a plastic sheet, a la vada batter.)

Put them on an oiled griddle/tawa and cook on either side till brown. Dribble a drop or two of oil off a spoon around the patty if necessary. This could take a while, and still taste of raw chickpea flour after you think they’re finished, so experiment with one first, taste it and then proceed.

I am sending this in to Sangeeth's Eat Healthy - Protein Rich.

I'll sign off by saying that I condemn the rampant and brazen plagiarism we're hearing of and seeing in the blogosphere, be it a large organisation that thinks it can get away with anything, a smaller one that thinks it can intimidate bloggers into silence and helplessness or just another blog like yours and mine that lifts pictures and posts to use, even without having an obvious commercial objective.

Egg cutlet Gym Losing weight Chickpea flour/besan/gram flour Humour

Of Blogging, Breaking and Summer Bounty

I’ve been on an impromptu blogging break for quite a while now. Contrary to most others, this break has done nothing for my blog or writing/cooking skills (not that it was intended to) and further, seems to have diminished my photography skills. The ennui that has enveloped my blog life threatens to become permanent, if not for the fact that I’ve begun to miss blogging, despite not knowing what to write about. My friend V, of late a blogger herself, who misses my posts and messages me whenever she feels I've gone too long without a new one, tells me she can be my reminder service for a small fee!

I’ve always wondered what it’s like to go on a blog break, though. I’ve been obsessed with the blog ever since I set it up nearly two years ago and always looked upon those who took long breaks with a mixture of curiosity, awe and jealousy. Yes, jealous because they seemed to be able to get away from their blogs, not miss them and I couldn’t see myself doing that, which, as I knew somewhere, was somewhat unhealthy, as obsessions are. The only time I don’t miss my blog nowadays is when I’m indulging in my other obsession - travel - and that, alas, is not as frequent an occurrence as I would like it to be.

As it turns out, the only way to beat one mania is to develop yet another (or two, or three) - and that’s precisely how I came to stay away from blogging.
One of the last posts I read before I slipped away from the blogs was Jugalbandi’s Click for Bri. While my photo’s nothing to write to them about and I won’t be posting any recipes for the dishes in them (except maybe the dosakaya chutney), I did want to participate in the cause. Here’s what you can do to help Bri and here's wishing Bri a speedy recovery.

Sunday Meal is my entry for Click. It was my meal this past Sunday and features some traditional favorites in the parts I come from.

Clockwise from left: Dosakaya (melon cucumber) chutney, mudda pappu (plain, boiled toor dal with a bit of salt) and mamidikaya pulusu (mango in tamarind gravy with some jaggery). The dal and the gravy are good eaten together with rice and some ghee, if you like, or the dal can be mixed with rice, ghee and some mango pickle for yet another traditional combination.

Here is some summer bounty - pix taken on a road trip to and from home!

Palm fruit (taatikaayalu) and pot full of toddy (kallu). The mugs are probably what the toddy's served in!!!

The contents of the palm fruit are a favourite summer delight! Called taati munjalu, they are sadly missing in cities, or if they're available, they come all torn, crushed and wrapped in plastic. Supermarket-compatible, totally unappetising!

This is yet another gift of summer that I'm yet to see outside Andhra Pradesh. These are called kobbari mamidikaya (literally translates as coconut mango, probably because of the size) and are a great snack, sweet and sour even though they're green! Come to think of it, I'm yet to see one go ripe yellow, either on the outside or the inside. Each fruit cost Rs 25.

Blogging Blog breaks Bri Click for Bri Toddy palm fruit/Taatikayalu/taatimunjalu Toddy/Kallu

Heritage Comes Cheap?

Whenever there’s a reference to Andhra food, mentions of ‘gongura’ or ‘vankai’ are inevitable. Gongura is a sour, leafy green vegetable and vankai (or vankaya) is eggplant/brinjal/aubergine. Gongura is considered typically Andhra, and many people from Andhra Pradesh consider the eggplant the State’s very own special vegetable and believe they can use it in a variety of ways that others cannot. A friend’s father says tongue-in-cheek that many people in Andhra were named Venkayya (no longer fashionable) after the eggplant! Both gongura and eggplant can be curried, added to dal, ground into chutneys, pickled and what have you, each mode in a variety of ways. I’ve even heard of an eggplant halwa, but let’s get on with what I have to say.

Very often, and more so in a generation which has now reached a certain age, if something had to be dismissed voice and expression dripping with ample scorn, “Aa, gongura! D’you really believe her?” or “Vankai! As if …!” would be the choice of words for many!

I don’t know which came first, the expression or the film song, but if you want to taunt someone saying “What do you know anyway? Squat!” ‘squat’ would translate into “nimmakaya pulusu*” or “vankai pulusu”.

Are there any such expressions in your language? What are they?

It just struck me that something we exalt and proclaim as our own, peculiar to our roots and our State is also the metaphor for something we choose to dismiss. Is it because vegetables like gongura, eggplant and even lime were kitchen garden staples, there for the asking? We didn’t have to shell out anything, or much, for them; we could get some from the neighbour and maybe not have to even give something in return; if we had to buy them, we probably had to spend only a few paise for a bunch as big as a bush. Or is it that they are exalted only now as we leave home and scatter far and wide, routine, everyday, garden-variety vegetables receding into the realms of the rare, prompting us to grow all mushy and patriotic and discuss them in our blogs using terms such as “rediscovery of my culinary heritage/roots/humble Andhra food/quintessentially Andhra” or … well, you get the drift.

I’m quite one of those who has been rediscovering the food I’ve grown up with so here’s a dish with the not-so-dismissable gongura – it’s a favourite accompaniment to mutton and chicken but I decided to try it with eggs. My new early morning gym routine promises to give me the opportunity to take a detour to the market and buy fresh greens regularly and I’m quite thrilled about it.

Here’s what you need for the gongura-egg curry:

Gongura – 1 bunch weighing ½ a kilo (500 gm)
Onion – 1, chopped
Ginger-garlic paste – 1 tsp
Turmeric – ½ tsp
Green chillies – 2, slit
Red chilli powder – ½ tsp
Boiled, shelled and scored eggs – 4
Salt, to taste
Oil – 1-2 tsp
Garam masala/curry powder – 1 tsp

Pick the leaves off the bunch of gongura. Wash the leaves in several changes of water.

Put the gongura in a pan with the chillies, salt, turmeric and red chilli powder.

Boil with a little water till it wilts and becomes a rather unified mess – what I mean is that the leaves sort of meld with each other and it’s just a little short of a paste.

Mash it with the back of the ladle.

In a pan, heat the oil, fry the onion and then the ginger-garlic paste well.

Saute the eggs lightly.

Now add the cooked gongura and mix it well with the onion and ginger-garlic paste.

Let the whole thing cook together for a while.

Sprinkle garam masala on top.

Enjoy!

I have to acknowledge three more awards. One is from Lakshmi of Yum Blog, who's given me the Witty Blogger Award and another is from Pratibha and Jigyasa of Pedatha.com who passed on the You Make My Day Award. Siri of Siri's Corner also gave me the Good Chat Blog award. Thank you!

*(The film song I refer to is “Neekemi telusu, nimmakaya pulusu …” – incidentally, 'nimmakaya' is Telugu for lime, and 'pulusu' can refer to the juice extracted or any gravy using lime).

Gongura Eggs Eggplant Humour Telugu Musings

The Maximum Convexity of the Butt

Is this the maximum convexity of your butt?” she questioned, holding measuring tape around such named part.
“Eh?” was my response.
“Is this the maximum convexity of your butt?” she repeated.
I confessed I did not understand. (Physics (and Chem, and Maths) left me scarred and I gave up ‘convex’ and ‘concave’ soon as I left school, and hearing those words after all these years set off those familiar, unwelcome palpitations.)
“I mean, is this where your butt is the most … how to put it, standing out?” she said.
“Judge for yourself,” I said, turning away to give her a better view.

I didn’t make up that question – those were her exact words. I was in the gym, an agonised weightwatcher going back to those confines after a break of more than six months. Other than the fact that most of me is at its maximum convex now, what struck me was how a simple question was rendered rather baffling because it was put across so bookishly.

People seem to have forgotten simple English, methinks. The need to appear oh so smart and polished, business-like and tech-savvy, and Westernised, too, is what drives this painful turn of phrase.

The other day, I got an e-mail from someone from whom I needed information, saying, “Get in touch with so-and-so – he will give you a good download.” Really?
And then there was the person who called and asked if he could “have access” to so-and-so. As if so-and-so was a vault and you could turn a key in his back and open him up!
There are the publicists who urge you to meet so-and-so “just for a relationship meeting, Madam” – their way of saying that it’s just a preliminary meeting, and that there are no expectations lurking anywhere. And the newbie, fresh out of college, who obviously had not mastered how, when and where to say “Fair enough.” To everything I said, he kept saying “Fairly good” with a wise and understanding expression on his face and never was I more tempted to correct a total stranger!

Rant over, I now focus on a recipe that hasn’t got much to do with any maximum convexity, unless you drench it in ghee and bury it in a mound of rice to get rid of the sting.

But before that, some acknowledgements. The blog header you’re seeing is courtesy Sandeepa. Thank You, Sandeepa.

Then, Nirmala gave this blog the Yummy Blog Award and Kalai gave me the You Make My Day award. Thank you both.

Now the Yummy Blog Award mandates that I reveal the desserts I like the most. Here they are:

Angoori Rabdi (At a restaurant, as part of a Gujarati thali)

Bread pudding (my own, that’s right, no humility!)

Khubani ka Meetha with cream, in a Hyderabad restaurant

One grandma’s laddu, another’s palatalikalu

Panna cotta with vanilla bean

Then, Lavi tagged me for a meme – I told her I’d do a truncated version. Here goes:

Last movie you saw in a theatre
Taare Zameen Par

What book(s) are you reading?
A Prisoner of Birth

Favourite board game
Scrabble

Favourite smells
Lavender, vetiver, jasmine, herbal soap

Favourite sounds
Birds chirping in the morning

Worst feeling in the world
Anxiety

First thing I think of when I wake
Did I have to wake up already?

Storms – cool or scary?
A nuisance, at the very least

Favourite drink?
Lime-ginger

Finish the statement – If I had the time, I would …
Look for ways to spend it!

One nice thing about the person who sent it to you.
She has big, beautiful eyes.

Morning person or night owl?
Night owl.

Eggs over easy or sunny side up?
Over easy

Favourite pie?
Apple

Favourite ice-cream
Vanilla choco-chip

The recipe I have today is a fiery and simple one. I received a present of ripe red chillies and didn’t know what to do with them for two weeks. Finally, I used them for a chutney.

Ripe red chillies: 200-250 gm, chopped
White onions (or any colour): 3, quartered or cut into eight pieces each
Tamarind – lime-sized (Wet in a little water much ahead, no need to soak it in a lot of water)
Salt, to taste
Garlic – 5-6 cloves, skinned

Tempering
Mustard seed – 1-1/2 tsp
Cumin seed – 1 tsp
Hulled, husked and split urad/black gram dal – 2 tsp
Curry leaves – a few
Oil – 2 tsp

Heat oil, temper with the black gram. As it begins to turn brown, add the mustard, cumin and curry leaves.

When they pop and the gram turns a nutty brown, add the chillies, garlic and onion. Fry them till they become glossy and onions become translucent.

Cool, add salt, tamarind and grind in a mixer. Beware, it’s really hot.

For a variation, you can mix a bit of this well with some curds/yoghurt, temper this again and eat it with rice or use it for idlis, dosas and the like.

I have since been enlightened about how chillis and raspberries belong to the same family, so this is my submission to Dee for AFAM-Raspberry.

Red chilli/Pandumirpakaya pachadi Curds/Yoghurt Meme Onion Humour

Reliving Rajasthan

A train journey of over two days, sights to remember for a lifetime: Brown earth, bright yellow fields of mustard; a tableau of camels placidly bobbing alongside turbaned masters; peacocks, tails sweeping and brilliant; women in the brightest clothes; spicy samosas and tea in earthen cups at stops along the way; a nip in the air; and then ker sangri for dinner at aunt’s place; bales of block-printed fabric; daal-baati churma in a busy part of town; peacocks freely wandering in and out of houses, even in the midst of a bustling neighbourhood; tourists gasping with amazement and delight as a guide lights a candle in a room full of tiny mirrors; the horror and tears shed over Roop Kanwar ...

When Padmaja announced RCI-Rajasthan, it was time for me to dig out Tarla Dalal’s Rajasthani cookbook from the innards of my bookshelves and look for an unusual recipe to highlight. The gravy base is a traditional Rajasthani one of curds and chickpea flour (Bengal gram flour/besan), but what struck me was the addition of red chana, which the author describes as whole red gram.

Now I’m not sure if this is the same as kala chana or black chana, having never seen anything labeled red chana before (but red gram is Bengal gram, I know), I used the black chana, which is actually a reddish brown, for this dish.

This dish is also called Chane Jaisalmer Ke (a city I did not visit, incidentally) and traditionally served with missi roti but goes well with rice or bajra rotis, the author recommends. A cupful or two sans either rice or roti makes for a filling meal, as I discovered.

Black chana/chickpeas, soaked overnight and drained
Cumin seed – ½ tsp
Mustard seed – ¼ tsp
Bay leaves – 2
Red chillies, whole – 4
Asafoetida – 1/8 tsp
Dry ginger powder/sonth – ¾ tsp
Green chilli – 2, slit
(The author recommends 1 tsp of ginger-green chilli paste but I didn’t have fresh ginger on hand.)
Red chilli powder – 1 tsp
Turmeric – ¼ tsp
Curds/yoghurt, beaten – 1 cup
Bengal gram flour/besan – 2 tsp
Chopped coriander – 4 tbsp
Oil – 1 tbsp
Salt to taste

In a pressure cooker, heat the oil, temper with the cumin and mustard, bay leaves, red chillies and asafetida.

When the seeds pop, add the black chana, ginger powder, green chillies, red chilli powder, turmeric, salt and 2 cups of water. Pressure cook for about 2-3 whistles till the channa is cooked. Wait for the pressure to escape.

(The chana will take considerably longer if you’re not using a pressure cooker – you can follow the same sequence even with a pan or a wok.)

Whisk the curds and the flour together. Add it to the cooked chana and bring to a boil stirring continuously. Simmer for 5 minutes.

Serve hot, garnished with coriander.

My observation – the gravy was rather watery, despite the flour, and despite my boiling it down for a while. I’m not sure what the consistency is meant to be. Tasty, anyhow!

RCI Rajasthan Curds/Yoghurt Kala Chana Black Chana Vegetarian Gravy Memories Nostalgia

When Reality Finally Bit!!!

It was, as parties are sometimes wont to be, quite civilised. Most of us were meeting for the first time, so there was a lot of good behaviour, much warmth and fuzzy, lots of compliments, no wild games, absolutely no gossip or nasty comments about the rest of you food bloggers. Zilch. (What a disappointment!) Even if you e-mail me or accost me on chat for the inside story, I won’t have any unless I manufacture some. We were a most unhealthily self-absorbed, egoistic, narrow-focus group who only discussed our food, our figures, our families, our work, our food, our figures …

Some of us were so polite or so timid we didn’t even want to guess who the others were. A couple of us could be heard shouting “No way! Don’t give up so fast! You have to guess!” and had to beat off others saying, “Hey, hold on, don’t tell her who you are!” before they could give themselves away.

And the ones who finally guessed didn’t have it easy, either. “Now, tell me, what made you think she was Lavi and I was Renuka? C’mon, tell me!” demanded some others.

As the bloggers trickled in and started giggling (like yours truly who had no clue Who’s Who as she got in the door), the guessing games began. “But you’re not the dead giveaway you said you were!” said one to another, while another revealed her name only to be chided for talking too soon. “I can’t, I can’t, please tell me who you are, I’m here only for five more minutes,” begged Bharathy, who was on a flying visit, only to be told, “Well, take three more minutes to guess, and we’ll put you out of your misery in the next two.” Some bloggers were guessed by the food they brought.

There was a profusion of food, and Lakshmi, our gracious host, got stuck with most of it. And this ungracious guest told her she wouldn’t mind throwing her home open for the next meet, as long as the leftovers weren’t given to her. Talk about seizing the moment! Ugh!

There was ethnic (Jayashree’s chakkavaratty or Chakravarthi, as Valli blithely kept calling it), artistic (a sprig of curry leaf oh so beautifully centred in Arundathi’s dish of mango curry), exotic (a Greek bread called Ladenia made by Rachel, our Darling Baker), sinful (Nirmala’s Florentines, great big round things of chocolates and nuts), time-honoured (Kamalika’s chakkara pongal) and rapidly disappearing (Kamini’s potato tikkis) and much more for which I don’t have the adjectives right now. And of course I have to be contrary and focus on the non-food part – my illustrious friends have discussed and published all that, many thanks to them.

A couple of us even went the extra mile and brought party favours of coconut burfi and banana bread, bless their loving, giving souls! And all of us have unanimously, wholeheartedly agreed that we should meet again in another three months, every three months, in fact. And no Dad, we won't have to close down our blogs - we handled it real carefully!

In the style of the tease that I have become in the last few weeks, here are a few photos from the potluck. We had fun, didn’t we? Eat your hearts out, you others! Or have one of your own soon and tell us all about it!

Naan-sense - making the naan. No, you don't have to guess whose hands those are!

Breaking bread, the first few moves

Are you being served? Rossogulla-time!

Backsides are allowed, they said, when I asked permission!

Sweet farewell! Arundathi's banana bread was one of the party favours. Valli's coconut burfi was the other.

Food Bloggers Meet Humour Report

Rediscovering An Old Faithful

Friends who know me well will attest to my reluctance to try the same dish twice. I’m known to order the newest or most peculiar-sounding dish on the menu (often to be told it’s not available) and appreciate it heartily. It’s not unless I go home or to a relative’s house or read the blogs that I realize I only rarely make traditional favourites at home.

That’s because I’m always looking for something new to make my meals more interesting, and often, the “Oh- it’s-just-that-routine-old-thing” attitude kicks in when I spy these vegetables on the shelves. But sometimes, something propels me to make it, and going back to old faithfuls to me is as good a new venture as eating strange and fascinating stuff, as it’s been ages since I’ve eaten any of these.

Yesterday, at an aunt’s house, I had some really spicy scrambled eggs, a dinner staple when I was still living at home. That really prompted me to get on with this post – I’d made this a week ago but haven’t made the time to post it due to other new-age distractions, DVDs being one of them.

Where I live, I don’t get very good specimens of this vegetable, but I try and make do. This dish, dosakaya koora (melon cucumber curry), is light and uncomplicated; I also think it’s a perfect accompaniment to a bowl of fresh curds/yoghurt if you want a low-calorie one-pot meal.

Dosakaya/melon cucumber – 2, peeled, de-seeded, diced/cubed (taste and make sure they aren’t bitter)
Onion – 1, chopped
Green tomato/red tomato – 2, chopped
Oil – 1 tsp
Mustard seed – ½ tsp
Cumin seed – ½ tsp
Curry leaves – a few
Red chilli powder – ½ - 1 tsp
Turmeric – ½ tsp
Salt, to taste
Water

In a pan, heat the oil and temper with the mustard, cumin and curry leaves.

Add the onion, fry it till translucent.

Now add the cucumber, fry for about 30 seconds. Add the turmeric and fry some more.

Now add the salt and chilli powder, about ¼ cup of water and simmer covered.

It cooks very easily so make sure it’s not all squishy before you add the tomatoes.

Once you’ve added the tomato, cover it again and let it simmer. You can add a little more water to hasten the cooking process.

It’s generally eaten with rice but also as I described above.

Bon appetit!

Another dosakaya recipe from my blog here

This is my entry for this week's WHB started by Kalyn, and hosted by Anh.


Dosakaya Vegetarian Old Favourite Old faithful Melon cucumber

Bloggers' Meet: Reality Bites?

Bloggers' meet? Nope, just us gals relaxing with some lime juice after a day out in the sun on our recent mid-week break!

My Dad and I just had this funny conversation over the phone:

Dad: What’s up?

Me: A group of us food bloggers are meeting up soon. (Okay sports, no clues, no comments on the participants, place, or anything … indulge me, please!)

Dad: (Begins to laugh) Oh, is it just a meeting or is there going to be any cooking there?

Me: Oh, apparently we’re all supposed to make and carry some stuff there, not sure whether it’s meant to be presents for the others or to be consumed there.

Dad: (and me, now both laughing) Watch out! Blogging is fun only as long as you write about food without having to actually cook.

Me: (dissolved in helpless laughter) True. I can’t make any snacks so I’ve asked if I can buy stuff and dole it out … I also have to go for some wedding-related ceremony that morning.

Dad: So take some stuff from the meal there and distribute it among your friends. OR, take something somewhat moist or liquid, so you can pass it off as fresh, just cooked?

(More guffawing from both sides.)

Dad: Beware, you may have to close down your blogs if you actually meet and sample each others’ wares – these things have to be handled carefully!

Phone drops from my hand as I double over with laughter ...

Bloggers' meet Real life Humour Reality bites

A Sheep Called Kabab

At the resort we stayed, in the middle of almost nowhere, there was a pet ram called Kabab. You can see it tethered to the tree on the left. This was the view from our room - there was a stone bench outside in the verandah where we sat and tried to commune with nature, often rudely interrupted by Kabab, which at other times would refuse to respond to our calls. I wonder, did it have a sense of the macabre, and protest its naming?

Our holiday home was close to the Shivanasamudra waterfalls. This is the Gagana Chukki, which had more water than its partner, the Bhara Chukki, a little distance away. These falls collect in a pool at the bottom, which one gets to by descending some rough-hewn steps for 15 or 20 minutes. Then, you can go for a ride in coracles, or swim at your own risk despite the warnings.

Camping, India-style. At the Bhara Chukki waterfall, we noticed this lorry - it was filled with people young and old, in various stages of activity - awake, sleeping, chatting, cooking ... Inside, it was even fitted with a platform to utilise the space - some sat on the platform and some underneath.

The Keshava temple at Somnathpur, 55 km away from our homestay. We had the choice of taking an autorickshaw or a van to the place. Good sense prevailed, and we chose the van. We saved our backs and bones - and had a wonderful time combing the walls and identifying the various gods, goddesses, the flora and the fauna which resided on them in sculpture.

Our hosts had one of their employees take us on a morning stroll around the resort - this is one wild flower that I haven't noticed earlier! In fact, I'd noticed it the previous day, but hadn't had my camera on me then. We forded small streams and pools, saw banana and papaya plantations, tried to get rid of the little stones that got into our shoes and were glad to come back to breakfast and a bath.

Three girls in a boat. On the Cauvery at sandy Talakkad, in a coracle. There are five temples big and small scattered over a mile or so amidst eucalyptus and cashew groves, and the scent changes as you move from a profusion of one to another.

Ending the hot, summer holiday on a cool, cool note - that's warm Jamaican Rum Cake with a scoop of ice-cream.

Cold chocolate with a scoop of cold chocolate ice-cream - can it get any better? We had dessert at every single meal!

Shopping at last! From the South to the West, on a work-related trip. We had just an hour to shop after two days of meetings before we finally went to our hotel and freshened up for an authentic Gujarati meal - we were taken to Law Garden Market in Ahmedabad and came away with some gorgeous crafts; in my case, cushion covers with Kutchi embroidery. We didn't get to see much of this city, nor of Rajkot, the other city we visited, but still, I can now say I've been to Gujarat! And thus a little more well-travelled!

Travel Karnataka Somnathpur Keshava Temple Shivanasamudra Gagana Chukki Camping, India-style Ahmedabad Law Garden Market Crafts Kutchi Embroidery Talakkad Coracle

Of Coconut Milk and Bengal

As schoolchildren in a small town, we only had a few schoolmates from other ethnicities. So when someone came in on a transfer to this district headquarters from a strange town or bigger city, and if they spoke no other language but English to us, their exotica didn’t fade for quite some time. We also had the other kind – children who were originally from our State but who had rarely lived there, and who would fondly refer to their past place of residence as their true home, often discounting or denying the influence of Telugu and Andhra Pradesh in their lives, amusing/irritating/angering us as we saw fit.

One such of my classmates was a Telugu girl who had some family connection to Bengal, I think her grandparents had worked there; I remember that much about her though I don’t remember where she herself came in from. She was not like the others, spoke Telugu quite well, but constantly referred to Bengal, aloo dum and curds mixed with sugar. To put it mildly, that last thing took us some getting used to, but it was also my first exposure to Bengali cooking, if only in hearsay.

It was not till about seven or eight years ago that I found my first Bengali cookbook – not a very slick production, the author didn’t even sound Bengali (though there’s no rule that ethnicity determines authenticity), but the recipes worked very well. Though I have added another book or two on the cuisine to my collection since then, I always turn to this book when I look for Bengali recipes because the tastes of whatever I made from this were the same that I experienced in an ethnic Bengali feast I was lucky enough to sample a few years later (ratification, I mean).

However, I have to admit that this recipe sounded most un-Bengali to me, though I do know that coconut milk is used now and then. Only, I was familiar with chingri malai curry, not with egg malai curry – well, either I’ve not been reading the Bengali blogs too attentively or I haven’t been cooking or eating enough Bengali food, but this curry seemed as South Indian as it could get.

IF you don’t count the deep-frying of potatoes and egg yolks that is prescribed.

However, in the interests of our arteries, we can safely avoid this portion and go ahead with the discovery of Bengal.

This, of course, goes to RCI-Bengal, hosted by Sandeepa.

Egg Malai Curry

Eggs – 5, yellows only
Tomatoes – 3, big; blanched and sliced
Onion – 1, big
Garlic – 2 cloves
Ginger – ½ inch
Sugar – ¼ tsp
Potatoes – 2, medium-sized, boiled, peeled and quartered
Coconut Milk: 1 cup
Ground cumin – 1 tsp
Bay leaves – 2
Turmeric powder – ½ tsp
Garam masala – ½ tsp
Salt – to taste
Chilli powder – to taste
Coriander leaves, chopped – to garnish
Oil, to deep fry
Ghee, to sauté – 3 tbsp (I used oil, and only 1 tbsp)

Grind onion, ginger and garlic to a paste.

If you want to be true to the recipe, deep fry the egg yolks and potatoes on both sides. If not, you can use the boiled potatoes and fried eggs (a bulls eye, fried both sides, no runny yolk).

Heat the oil, add the bay leaves and onion-ginger-garlic paste.

When that seems well-fried (changes colour, loses smell is my cue), add the blanched tomatoes, salt, sugar and all the spices. Fry till dry.

(Well, dry isn’t exactly what I noticed, but it does become thick and concentrated.)

Turn down the heat, add the potatoes, then the coconut milk. Let simmer.

Once it begins simmering, add the yolks.

Simmer for five more minutes. Garnish with coriander leaves.


You can use the egg whites to make an omelette or scrambled eggs. Here’s an idea.

I'm away for a week or more, so until then, Ugadi greetings!

Regional Cuisines of India Bengal Bengali Potatoes Eggs Coconut Milk RCI Bengal Tomato Telugu

In a Pearing Hurry!

My creation for AFAM-Pears looked like sludge, though a rather pinky, pretty version, and it held great literary possibilities for my blog. The dramatic sentence that was supposed to be the opening line of this post crumpled and withered under the pressures of the day, and I had reckoned without that great leveler and humbler – the Internet.

The Net seems to beat you to every smart, original thing you wanted to say or write or cook up. If Slush can be something edible, so can sludge, I told myself, thinking it was a sentence with great potential that would develop during the day. Sludge, I thought, was my creation, the name, at least, but Google ‘Sludge Recipe’, and voila, there’s a multitude leaping out at you.

This was intended to be a pear-apple-oats-and more smoothie for breakfast but I was too lazy to reach for the oats, so I cored a pear and an apple and whizzed them in the mixer with four tablespoons of curds/yoghurt and a spoon of honey.

Once I tasted it, I decided it needed more texture and added a few broken walnuts to it. (I didn't whiz it then - the broken walnuts stayed whole, if you know what I mean.)

Then I photographed it for a while.

Then I slurped it up with a spoon.

AFAM-Pear Curds/Yoghurt Honey Apple Walnut Sludge recipe Breakfast

Testing My Metal

Idli stand

This is the first time I'm participating in Click, and of the several tens of photographs I clicked for this event, this seemed the best. I cast it in sepia because it's one of the oldest breakfasts I know and the appliances in this photo - the idli stand and the pressure cooker - are hoary old fixtures in most South Indian homes.

My recipe for idlis is one of the easiest, and fail-proof: Buy the batter from the store, oil the idli stand, fill it with some batter and steam it for about 10-12 minutes in the pressure cooker. Let cool and unmould. :-D

Click-Metal Idli Idli+Stand

Tranquil

This is a trip that I missed. To one of my father's native villages. Dad took these pictures when they all went there for a weekend three months ago.

The last time I went was over ten years ago - we went in a tractor to the estuary, and from there by boat to the sea to immerse my great-grandmother's ashes. A very young cousin, then barely seven, in a brook-no-nonsense voice, stated, "She is dead" (in English, mind you) when somebody sentimentally mentioned my great-grandmother's life in the hereafter, and my grandfather yelled at my uncle who ruminated, as practical as he was fatalistic, that if we drowned, it would have to be at that point in the journey because the sea was the deepest there.

View from the house

Misty morning

Tranquil backyard

Colourful boats

Scenery Boat backyard Dad's photos Misty morning Village

Pickled Link

Ageing pickle
swirled into batter
Its oil crisping this crepe.

I’ve been whetting Srivalli's curiosity about my entry for her Dosa Mela. Well, this is it!

The batter is plain, good old dosa batter, bought from a store, in my case. The pickle is home-made mango pickle, brought from home last year. Considering that most of my recipes of late have been entries for various events, this follows in that new tradition.

Method: Take a ladleful of batter, place it on the tawa/griddle. Put a spoonful of pickle in the centre and now begin spreading the dosa.

Once you’ve spread it to the extent you like, take a spoonful of oil from the pickle (most traditional pickles are steeped in oil, as photo linked above will show) and drizzle it around the circumference.

Wait till the underside gets crisp and the upper is spongy and cooked. If you like, you can turn over and crisp the other side too! And I didn't find the need to eat it with any accompaniments like chutney or sambar - if I eat a dosa, it's with mango or lime pickle anyway. This is ... uh ... an integrated solution, have I got the jargon right?

For a tutorial on dosa making, see Asha's post here

Dosa Mela Mango+Pickle Dosa

Lazy Potatoes

Lazy days are great for food – you can start something in a desultory manner, with the odds and ends that you have at home, and end up with a stunner. This case owes its existence to a telephonic argument with a friend on which city, hers or mine was better (so what if it's full of traffic, even your city is no better, at least in my city traffic moves, in yours it doesn't, and it's so hot, but my city is good for people with allergies, their allergies go off, i hate the thought of moving to your city, and so on and so forth), someone at the door demanding our attention, snatching bits of a TV show, a late breakfast, and cooking and peeling the potatoes – all this time the onions were lying frying in the pan, attended to only now and then, and that's what really made this dish what it was.

Ingredients:

Baby potatoes: 500 gm
Onions: 2, minced
Turmeric: 1 tsp
Chilli powder: 2 tsp
Curry leaves: 2-3 sprigs
Salt: to taste
Mustard seed: 2 tsp
Black gram dal, split, hulled (urad dal): 3 tsp
Cumin: 1 tsp
Dry red chilli: 2-3, split
Oil: 2 -3 tbsp

Boil/pressure cook the potatoes until just tender. This takes about two whistles in a small pressure cooker. When the pressure drops, open the cooker, drain the potatoes and cool.

In a pan, heat the oil.

Pop the mustard seed, then add the cumin, black gram and dry red chilli.

As the black gram turns brown and the chilli a bright red, add the curry leaves and the onion.

Saute the onion for a couple of minutes. Turn down the heat to minimum. Let the onion fry.

Meanwhile, start peeling the potatoes. This can take a while, so keep turning the onions to prevent them from burning.

At some stage, or simply when you get tired of turning, add the turmeric, red chilli powder and salt to the pan, mix well. Let fry again for a while.

Now, after you’re done peeling the baby potatoes, add them to the pan. Mix them well with the contents. Raise the heat a little and keep turning the potatoes. This just depends on your patience. The more you persevere, the better the result.

When it looks nice and well-coated with all the spices, and you decide you have better things to do on a Sunday than keep going into the kitchen to make a sinful dish that you’re better off not eating, turn off the fire and end the endeavour right there!

This goes off to Kalyn's Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted by Kel of Green Olive Tree.

Weekend Herb Blogging Potatoes

Drinking From The Blogs

Watermelon, guts spilt,
Limes, strangled
Ginger, skinned, bruised,
Blended, strained
A glorious whole.

That’s haiku for you, at least in spirit, if not in form! Now that I’ve revealed the ingredients and method in a most sublime manner, go find the proportions in the original recipe here. I adapted Prema’s prescription to suit my lazy and sugar-free self, and I didn’t miss the sugar at all. (Neither did my guinea pigs, both avowed sugar-lovers.)

This goes to sassy Sig at Live to Eat – she’s hosting MBP for Coffee.

If you missed the AFAM-Pomegranate round-up, it’s right here.

MBP Monthly Blog Patrol Mixed Drinks Non-alcoholic Watermelon Ginger Lime

Peels, Eats and Leaves - The AFAM Round-Up

Will a dish with seeds count, she asked on chat. Of course, I used leaves, for Heaven's sake, the other she said. Not only seeds, leaves and even peels were used in the making of this event. And hopefully, no egos are going to be harmed in the making of it, either - I've listed the entries in the order I received them, and used as many of the photos as possible. A couple of you didn't send photos and a couple of you sent me photo links which I didn't know how to use or explore - anyway, I'd taken care of the escape clause in the AFAM announcement. Let me know if I've goofed somewhere, will remedy it as soon as possible.

Also, as I'm fairly new at round-ups and have done just one other, do you have any tips to offer on how it can be done easier? I guess I should have created a post as soon as I received the first entry, and should have kept updating it as the mails came in, but I didn't. So this took a while and seemed like a lot of hard work. How do you do round-ups?

First in the line is my friend from my home state - now don't charge me with nepotism, regionalism, communalism, etc, she just happened to be the first - and I've been having fun leaving long Telugu comments on her blog. She made this beauty of a drink.






Next came she - her name makes me think of gardens and garlands, and her blog reminds me of the king and queen, separated by a curse, the former having to spend some time as a chef in another kingdom. Would spiced rubies look like this? Find out how she came by this treasure.








From her comes a post full of information on the significance of pomegranate in her culture. And an unusual dish as well.








Doesn't Bill Gates have taste, or doesn't he know a good thing if it meets him in the elevator? Otherwise why on earth wouldn't he pay her any attention? Do you think this dish would have made a difference?






Leftovers and Photoshop both inspired her to make this - isn't it pretty? Head here for a cooling lunch.








Next is a dish which effectively pinpointed the seed of the problem. Find out how this blogger finally found the formula for a favourite dish of her DH. And there's more here.











This meal-sized salad is a riot of colour and does very nicely for a winter salad. Find out how she made it.







Elegance in a posh glass, thanks to the blog. Find out how she achieved it, happily.








Discover where pomegranate comes in in this toast she makes to the power of love!








In their own words, they are at least XX-rated, and it's very much an affair of the tart.








This is one heck of a tangy, fruity, star-studded treat that she came up with.






Colour me pink, the rice called out to her, and she did.







A good snack and an instant hit, that's what she said they were!







A chole bhatura is the test of any restaurant's cuisine for her friend but the friend's recipe proved lucky for her.








Inspired by a book she was reading, this blogger laid out a Persian spread, and a brilliant soup is part of it.






"A doddle to make", these pomegranate and crystallised ginger muffins. Check out the recipe here.






Curiouser and curiouser. In this dish, our fruit of the month is paired with walnut. Go here to find another dish with the influence of the Mediterranean.







Not quite ice-cream, but let the picture fool you! Find this exotic combination here.







The arils go on to garnish wholewheat muffins in this dish. Look at her lovely photos - you can even see the fibre in the wheat, or that's what it looks like!







Check out these all vegetarian muffins from a blogger who has a lovely pomegranate as her profile picture.









And now it's a pudding in muffin cups. How did she come by them?








More pudding, and the base is bread. She certainly got creative!






Check out this pomegranate feast - nothing prissy about it!









An old favourite, brightened by the ruby red of the fruit. Find it here.









Logically, it should have been a shade of pink, but it surprised her by turning green!







A new blogger's first-ever entry to a blog event, and an unusual one at that!







An unusual element of the pomegranate makes its way into this dish. If you have the runs, learn from her!







This salad is this new blogger's first event entry. Check it out!







When "a slight grumbling of the tum" combines with an unwillingness to make a snack, she found this recipe soothed.






An everyday dish becomes an experience in this entry. Scurry over to her blog to find out more.







Check out this riot of colour at her blog. It's really a visual feast, and emerged after she thought long and hard.







Her first attempt went to seed, but another has all the trappings of the exotic, rice, juice, lentils et al.






And she leaves!





AFAM-Pomegranate Event Round-up