Cutting Chai

Rasam (s)

2009-10-25T11:36:00.000-07:00

There are many types of Rasam out there; and many variations of the same Rasam as well. The word 'Rasam' may have been derived from the Sanskrit 'Ras' or juice / nectar - I am not sure. I developed a taste for this thin, spicy tomato-based dish while working in Chennai. The warden of the Working Women's Hostel cooked most of our meals, and always served hot, piping Rasam on Tuesdays and Fridays. She kindly shared her recipe for Lemon Rasam with me, when she couldn't tolerate my badgering her every week. I improved upon her recipe to suit our palate, and it is a staple dish in our home, especially during the cold northern winters of my adopted country. Each time I make Sambar, or cook tuvar dal for a dal-based dish, I keep aside a portion of the cooked dal so I can make a quick Rasam.

I also share a recipe from Lata, a close friend, whose Thakkali Rasam we absolutely love. She uses the 7-Star Rasam powder - which, in my earlier days, I would have seen as a sacrilege, preferring to make my own fresh blend of spices. Lata shrugs off what she calls my 'food-snobbery' and continues to make mouth-watering dishes with store-bought masalas.

Lemon Rasam

Ingredients:

3 tomatoes

1/2 cup cooked tuvar dal

5 cups water

1 tsp salt

Juice of one Lemon

A small bunch of Coriander Leaves

Dry roast and grind coarsely:

1 tsp Cumin (jeera)

1 tsp Black Peppercorn

5 Red Chillies

1 tsp Urad Dal

1 tsp Channa Dal

Tadka:

3 tsps Oil / Ghee

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 tsp Cumin (jeera)

2 - 3 Red Chillies

2 sprigs Curry Leaves

A large pinch of Asafoetida (hing)

Method:

1. Chop tomatoes coarsely (or pulse once or twice in a blender).

2. Add two cups of water and bring to a boil. Lower flame and cook until the tomatoes are tender.

3. Add remaining three cups of water, the cooked tuvar dal, coarsely ground dry masala, and salt. Bring to a boil, add finely chopped coriander leaves and put off the flame.

4. Add the lemon juice, and stir. Adjust seasoning.

5. Heat oil or ghee in a small vessel; when smoking hot, add the mustard seeds. When they begin to pop, add jeera, red chillies, and curry leaves. Put off the flame, and add the hing.

6. Add the tadka to the pot.

Serving suggestion:

Serve with white rice (the short-grained variety), mango or lime pickle and papad.

Lata's Tomato Rasam

It is very difficult to get Lata to commit to exact measures of anything, used as she is to her mother's way of cooking with 'a little of this' and 'a handful of that'. That she managed to do so for this recipe to produce such outstanding results, is a testimony to her own skill in the kitchen.

Ingredients:

4 Tomatoes

1/2 cup cooked Tuvar Dal

1 tsp Salt

2 tsps Seven Star Rasam powder

1 small lump Jaggery

1/4 tsp Turmeric

Tadka

1 1/2 tsps Oil

1 1/2 tsp Ghee

1 tsp Mustard Seeds

1 tsp Cumin (jeera)

1 tsp Black Peppercorn

1/2 tsp Fenugreek Seeds (methi)

A large pinch of Asafoetida (hing)

6-7 Curry Leaves

Method:

1. Chop tomatoes finely (or pulse once or twice in a blender).

2. Place tomatoes on stove with two cups of water, turmeric, rasam powder, and jaggery.

3. Bring to a boil, lower the flame, cover and cook until the tomatoes are tender.

4. Add three - four cups of water, the cooked dal, and salt. Bring to a rolling boil, and put off the flame.

5. Heat oil and ghee together until smoking hot. Add mustard seeds. When they begin to sputter, add jeera, and black peppercorn. When they darken, put off the flame and add methi seeds, cury leaves and hing.

6. Add the tadka to the rasam, and serve hot with rice, pickle and papad.

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Semiya Payasam

2008-10-12T21:29:00.001-07:00

This is my forte - I make this so often, that I can probably do it blindfolded. Even as a child, when I was asked what payasam should be made for my 'star' birthday (the only one that was celebrated), I would promptly say "Semiya Payasam'. My mother was quite happy - this is one of the easiest payasams to make. There are many versions of this payasam out there, each region taking the same basic ingredients and turning out their unique versions. Here, then, is mine. Unfortunately, when it was made for the Onam Sadhya, people served themselves quite large helpings before I got to take a photograph. Considering that there is no greater compliment to a cook than people wanting to eat what she / he cooked, I decided to forgive them. The next time I make this payasam, however, I shall zealously guard it until I take a couple of photos. Until then, the recipe will have to suffice.

Semiya Payasam

1 cups broken Vermicelli / Semiya*
2 cups Water
3 - 3 1/2 cups Sugar
1 gallon Whole Milk**
3/4 cup + 1/2 cup Ghee / Clarified Butter
1 cup broken Cashewnuts
1 cup Raisins
5-6 Whole Green Cardamoms

1. Crush cardamom pods with 3-4 tsps of sugar. ***

2. Heat 3/4 cup ghee on medium flame. Roast broken vermicelli until it turns a deep red, and looses its raw taste.

3. Add two cups water, and bring to a boil. Lower flame, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vermicelli is well-cooked. Once you add sugar, the cooking process stops.

4. Add sugar, and cook on medium-low flame until the syrup becomes thick and of two-string consistency.

5. Pour 1 cup of whole milk and loosen the vermicelli-sugar mixture. Then add the rest of the milk and powdered cardamom.

6. Stirring all the while, bring the milk to a boil on high heat. Lower the flame to medium, and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until the milk thickens and the colour of the payasam turns to a mild pink (See Notes). Remove from fire.

7. In a small kadhai, heat 1/2 cup ghee, and fry broken cashewnuts over low flame, until an even brown. Add the raisins, wait until they swell in the hot ghee, and remove from fire.

8. Add the contents of the kadhai, including the ghee to the payasam. This can be served hot, or cold as desired.

Notes: I tend to remove the payasam, only if I can see the vermicelli bubbling along with the boiling milk. The milk should have turned a light pink colour and it should taste like condensed milk. Semiya payasam is not as thick as the Punjabi Sevaiyan. You should be able to pour it from a ladle in one continuous stream. I would suggest that you watch the payasam carefully. Remove it from the fire too soon, and you are not only left with thin, watery payasam, it will taste more of sweetened milk, and less like payasam. Remove it too late, and you can spoon it into your mouth like pudding when it cools. The exact moment, when the payasam is what it should be, neither too thick nor too thin, comes with experience. It shouldn't deter you from trying this recipe out, though. All successful recipes are a result of practice.

*I use Elephant Brand Vermicelli - the plain one, not the roasted. I do not like other brands like Bambino, or True, because they are too thick. If you use the latter, please reduce the amount of vermicelli or you will find your payasam thickening before the milk has had time to condense properly. What you will end up with is a vermicelli milk pudding.

Also, the cup measure I use - it is a steel glass that takes 10 oz of liquid - I use that to measure both the broken vermicelli and the sugar.

** I use whole milk whenever milk is called for in a recipe - I find that it gives the best taste. As does ghee. I would rather take smaller portions of desserts made with the right ingredients than make them with low-fat milk and sugar substitutes. If you feel it is better to use 2% milk (any thing less than that, and you may as well not make payasam) then remember that the payasam will not be as creamy. You can, however, reduce the amount of ghee - though it will lessen the taste. Substituting Dalda for ghee is not advisable - a) because Dalda is hydrogenated shortening, and you are asking for more health troubles than while using pure ghee and b) it leaves an after taste. You can add / reduce the sugar depending on taste.

*** Crushing the cardamom pods with sugar ensures that none of the essential oils of the spice are lost. Also, it is easier to powder small quantities of cardamom in the smallest bowl of the mixer, or with a mortar and pestle, if you add some sugar.

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Varutharacha Sambar

2008-10-12T19:22:00.000-07:00

So many days since I last blogged. Well, it seems like Onam was over a long time ago, and Dussehra has come and gone, and it is almost time for Diwali, and I still haven't finished posting the recipes from the Onam menu :-) Things have been rather hectic, but that is no excuse. So here is the last but one recipe from the Onam menu.

The story of this recipe is rather interesting. I am one of the few people in the world who cannot make Sambar using ready made Sambar powder. (I also cannot make Gulab Jamun from mixes, but that is another story, another recipe, and I shall tell it another day.) When I make Sambar using the powder, what results is a thin watery concoction, with the vegetables floating miserably on the top and the dal sunk despondently to the bottom!

Amma, more or less, (more, rather than less) made sambar using her blend of sambar powder. She roasted the whole spices in ratios only she knew about, ground them, and stored them in an opaque jar on the kitchen shelf. The reasoning being that the more spices are exposed to heat and light, the faster they loose their freshness.

My sister cooks because she has to. Her indifference to the whole process, does not make her a bad cook. She is an excellent one! She is the only person I know, who opens her fridge at 8 pm, finds remnants of assorted vegetables, and sets either a fantastic mixed vegetable curry and dal with chappatis or a tasty, steaming pulao and cool raita on the table at 9 pm. And this, without turning a hair!

I, on the other hand, am a hard-working cook. It's more reasoning than intuition, in my case. :-) Anyway, fact remains, I can't make Sambar using Sambar powder. My ammachan, whom I asked once, told me how to make Varuthu Aracha sambar. (Translated: Roasted, ground Sambar) No matter what I did, it would never turn out as tasty as the Sambar my sister used to make, using store-bought Sambar powder. (She couldn't be bothered to make her own, and if amma gave her some, then that was alright!) That was probably because my ammachan didn't know conventional measurements either.

Anyway, matters rested there. In the meantime, I got married and came to Bombay. Since I had left my job after marriage, and my in-laws had gone down to Kerala, to give us some time alone, I had the whole day to myself. My husband would go to work, and how much cleaning and rearranging can you do anyway? (Well, my mother-in-law came back after a month to find her kitchen rearranged to suit me, which is the subject for another blog!) One day, I decided to go out and explore the neighbourhood. As I opened the door, my senses were filled with the fragrance of freshly cooked Sambar. I followed my nose down the stairs, and found that it emanated from flat no 3, two floors directly below our flat. I did not know our neighbours well enough at the time to go barging in demanding Sambar recipes. For months after that, I would stand outside our flat, in the landing on the second floor, drinking in the fragrance of the Sambar (and other dishes) wafting up the stairwell.

A couple of years later, my son was born. By now, I knew 'moonnam number maami' (Literally translated, 3rd number Maami, or more gramatically, the Maami from flat no: 3) which is how every one referred to her, very well. And she, upon learning that I could actually speak Tamil, unbend enough to talk to me when we passed each other in the building compound. I finally mustered up enough courage to compliment her on her Sambar and ask her for the recipe. She gave it to me, only Maami was the sort of instinctive cook who knew nothing of teaspoon and tablespoon measures. Her only measuring tools were her fingers - so everything was in cryptic short hand - 'mothalile thalichu kottiyitte, tarkari pottitu, puli podunga' and so on and so forth. Which was all very well, but I had no clue how much puli (tamarind) to use, the amount of dal, the measure of vegetables... and what was more, horror of horrors, she used Sambar powder! Things moved along, and as far as possible, I did not make Sambar.

One day, I ran into Sushi, Mami's (This was Sharma Maami. Our building was full of Maamis) daughter. I was telling her of my ongoing tussle to create a decent Sambar, and she offered to show me what she did - so the recipe below owes its source to two different people, whose brains I picked, and two recipes that I combined and adapted (see Notes, below) to make my own. After very many tries, this is one recipe that has exact measures for the spices. Well, my exact measures. Sambar powder, like many other mixed spices, is a subjective combination and there are as many Sambar recipes are there are people who make them. This, is mine.

Varutharacha Sambar

1 1/2 cups Toor Dal / Tuvara parippu *
1 tsp Turmeric
A lemon sized ball - Tamarind**
1/2 a butternut squash or 300 gms yellow pumpkin
3 Drumstick ***
2 Tomatoes
Salt
1/2 a bunch - Coriander leaves

For the Ground Masala:

4 1/2 tablespoons Coriander / dhania / kothamalli seeds
1 tbsp Urad Dal
1 tbsp Channa Dal
1 1/2 tsps Fenugreek / Methi / Uluva seeds
20 - 25 red chillies (More or less, depending on the heat of the chillies and your taste for spice: See Notes for clarification)
(Slightly less than) 1/4 cup grated coconut
2 sprigs Curry Leaves / Kari Patta / Kariveppin Ila

Tempering / Tadka

3 - 4 tbsps Oil
1 tbsps Mustard / Rai / Kaduku
1 tsp Urad Dal
1 tsp Channa Dal
2-3 Red Chillies, broken into pieces
2 sprigs Curry leaves

1. Rinse and pressure cook the tuvar dal with 1/2 tsp turmeric and enough water to cover the dal. In a separate cooker vessel, place the tamarind with 1/2 a cup of water, so it can cook with the dal. Once the cooker can be opened, remove and mash the cooked dal gently with the back of a ladle. Place the dal and the tamarind aside.

2. Wash and cut the squash/ pumpkin into medium sized (about 1") cubes. Wash and cut the drumstick into 2 - 2 1/2 " long pieces. Wash and cut tomatoes into eighths. Wash, dry and cut the coriander leaves finely.

3. Dry roast the ingredients for the ground masala, on a low flame. When done, the coconut should be a reddish brown, the dals should be crisp and have lost their raw taste, and the methi seeds should have darkened. Use a mixer to dry grind the roasted spices, then add water a little by little until you have ground the masala to a fine paste.

4. By now, the cooked tamarind will be cool enough to handle. Mix it well with the water in which it cooked, then using a strainer, strain as much of the pulp as you can. You should be left with a thick tamarind sauce, and the residue will have the texture of damp blotting paper.

5. Place a heavy bottomed vessel on the stove on medium heat. Heat oil, and add mustard. When it begins to sputter, add the urad dal, channa dal, broken red chillies, and curry leaves in that order.

6. Once the dals start to darken, add the cut vegetables. Stir for a minute, then add the cut vegetables. Stir for a minute, then add the tamarind paste, and the remaining 1/2 tsp of turmeric. Bring it to a boil, and then add the ground paste from the mixer.

7. Pour 1 cup of water into the empty mixer bowl and rinse out the remaining paste into the vegetables. Bring to a boil.

8. Add the mashed dal, tomatoes and salt. Add 3 cups of water, bring to a boil again, cover and cook on low flame until the vegetables are cooked through, and the dal and masala have blended properly. Check the seasoning. If the Sambar is too thick, add some water now, and mix well. Add the coriander leaves, and bring to a final boil, before putting off the stove.

Notes: Susheela's combination of spices for the ground masala did not work for me, because I like my Sambar spicy and hers was mild. Just increasing the number of chillies did not help - it overshadowed the other spices. I had to do a judicious mixing and matching to ensure that the spices were perfectly balanced, according to my taste. Where Susheela's help was invaluable however, was in providing me a base from which to experiment. From Moonnam Number Maami, I took the procedure. What resulted is what you see above.

There are other vegetable combinations that can be used to make Sambar:
Drumsticks with Potatoes
LadiesFinger /Okra with Yellow Pumpkin
Brinjals / Egg Plant with Yellow Pumpkin
Ladies Finger / Okra with White Gourd /Winter Melon
Onions with Potatoes
Small Madras Onions (alone)
Drumsticks with Ladies Finger /Okra

A North Indian friend of mine even used to put carrots into her Sambar, which, to me was sacrilege. But I had an Andhrite friend who informed me that her mother often out carrots in Sambar, so I suppose, you can put what you like :-))

* I use a 6 oz yoghurt cup to measure my dals.

**Tamarind paste is a good substitute. Use 3/4 tbsp paste mixed in half cup water. Use directly in step 6. There is no need to pressure cook it beforehand.

***I have used frozen drumsticks with equally good results. Use about 6 -8 pieces; there is no need to thaw them beforehand. Just add them with the pumpkin and they will cook just fine.

Clarification: Someone commented that 20 - 25 chillies would be too much by Indian standards. So, I must clarify that I live in the US and the chillies I get from my local Indian store seem to be very mild. Unless I use atleast 20, the Sambar is going to taste like Dal with vegetables. Please check the heat quotient of the chillies you use. I do not want to kill anyone. :-)

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Pacha Kadumaanga

2008-09-22T22:09:00.000-07:00

I have been so busy over the weekend that blogging was the last thing on my mind. Here, in the Northeast of the US, the weather is getting colder, which means a lot of work to get the house and yard in shape for the winter. So, my husband and I were outside all day, clearing the yard of debris, and thatching the lawn so we can overseed it before the first frost. Not that we have a great lawn. What we do have is an over-enthusiastic dog, who thinks he is a puppy even though he is three and a half years old. Anyway, this long diatribe is causing me to digress from the purpose of the blog, which is to write of all things yummy. Right now, the focus is going to be on a dish that, while it mimics the mango chutney, is as different from it as chalk from cheese. It is a dish that really is a condiment - not a side dish. My mother used to make at home when I was a child - though my father and older brother did not like it very much.

I must admit that it takes some getting used to. The raw mustard (pacha kaduku) that is ground into this dish gives it a piquant flavour that has people either loving it, or hating it. Unlike its more popular cousin, the 'arachu kalakki' , 'pacha kadumaanga' does not add curd to alleviate its rather strong taste. It is one of those dishes that stands on its own, demanding that it be liked for what it is, not for what it can be. So, without much ado, here is

Pacha Kadumaanga

1/2 raw mango *

1/2 a coconut, grated

1 tbsps mustard seeds

10 - 12 red chillies

Salt

Tadka

1 tbsp coconut oil

1 tsp mustard seeds

2 - 3 red chillies, broken into pieces

1 sprig curry leaves

Wash, peel and slice the mango roughly.

Grind to a smooth paste with grated coconut, chillies, mustard and salt.

Use as little water as possible. Remove to a dish.

Now, add a 1/2 cup of water to the empty mixer bowl and swill it around.

Add it to the ground mango-coconut paste, and mix well. Check the seasonings.

Add more salt if necessary.

In a small kadhai, heat coconut oil till it smokes.

Add mustard.

When it begins to pop, add broken red chillies and curry leaves.

Pour over the pacha kadumaanga.

* I used barely one side of the green mango that I picked up from my neighbourhood Indian store. Before you add the tadka, check to see that the tastes are balanced. If it is too sour, grind a little more coconut and add it to the dish. On the other hand, if it is too bland, you may need to add some more mango pieces. In which case, take two spoons of the ground paste, and grind it along with the extra mango.

It was a hit at the Ona Sadhya, and my husband jealously guarded the little that was remaining, while I was packing the other dishes for our friends to take home. :-)

This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be deeply appreciated.

Avial

2008-09-18T19:08:00.000-07:00

Ha! Had my dinner, yet the thought of writing about Avial is making my mouth water. Perhaps because, avial was never a staple dish at home. It was 'special' - made only during Vishu, Onam, someone's pirannaalu etc.... As a child, avial was the only dish that could make me cheerfully eat my vegetables. We were brought up to eat what was put in front of us, and never mind if we liked it or not! So, when it came to vegetables like beans, onions, chembu (taro root), or koorkha (I have no clue what it is called in English! I know it is a root vegetable), I would hurriedly swallow them in the beginning, and then cheerfully eat the rest of my rice with dal or plain curds. And pappadams. Lots of pappadams.

It often amazes non-malayalees that we can make quite a number of dishes with the same basic gravy. I remember a friend's husband once remarking condescendingly about Mallu cooking - "What is so difficult about it? Grind coconut, green chillies and cumin together, add steamed vegetables - there! you have Kerala vegetarian cuisine!" Out of sheer politeness - I was a guest in her house - I kept quiet. Not so her old grandmother, who withered the 'marumakan' of the house with one pointed statement. "Our greatness is in making the same gravy taste different when combined with different vegetables."
I don't think the poor man quite regained his status in his wife's grandmother's eyes.

Be that as it may, avial is an easy dish to make, though time consuming. The basic gravy is the same. But cutting the vegetables is not an easy task. They all have to be julienned, more or less the same size, and that is an intricate job, not meant for the impatient. My achamma (paternal grandmother) used to say that when she was a child, a girl's worth (and a woman's) was measured in how neatly she could cut assorted vegetables for avial. (This, when she saw 10-year-old me chopping vegetables with happy abandon, not bothering whether they were sticks, or chunks, or cubes - I just wanted to get back to my Enid Blyton and raw mangoes. )

Ammachan, on the other hand, was the one person I knew, who could cut each vegetable so accurately, that when the vessel was full, each piece was the same length and thickness as the other. That calls for some accuracy. I am afraid I still do not have that accuracy, or patience, considering that I used frozen chena / suran chunks for want of the fresh one.

I consoled myself with the fact that it would still taste the same; my husband said 'I am going to eat it, not marry it' when I told him of the kumbalanga mishap, so it must have been ammachan's curse that the avial became too watery. I can just hear him say 'vekkanengil vidhiyavannam vekkanam' - the malayalam version of "If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing well'.

Anyway, it did taste good, so I have no apprehensions about posting its recipe. :-)

Avial

500 gm Pumpkin / nadan mathanga
500 gm White pumpkin / kumbalanga
1 carrot*
2 raw plantains, preferably the Nendran variety**
15 long beans /nadan payaru
200 gms yam
3-4 drumsticks

1 coconut, grated
2 tbsps cumin seeds
15 - 20 green chillies, depending on its heat

1 tsp turmeric
salt
4 cups sour curds, well-beaten, at room temperature
3 tbsps coconut oil
3 sprigs curry leaves

Peel, wash and cut all the vegetables crosswise into thin juliennes. Try to keep them the same
length and thickness to hasten cooking. ***

Put all the cut vegetables into a large heavy bottomed vessel. Add turmeric, salt, 1 sprig curry leaves and one cup of water. Shake the vegetables so the salt and turmeric are evenly distributed. Cook on high heat until the water begins to boil. Cover, lower heat, and cook until the vegetables are done, yet still firm. While the vegetables are cooking, grind coconut, cumin and green chillies to a fine paste. Once the vegetables are cooked, add the curds and stir gently. Cook over gentle heat until the curd starts to boil at the edges. Keep an eagle eye over this part of the proceedings. 'Oru Thala', (one bubble) my mother used to warn me, or the liquid will curdle. Add the ground coconut, and wait for that one bubble again. Turn off the heat. Add the coconut oil, and immerse the remaining sprigs of curry leaves into the oil. Serve at room temperature.

Avial has to sit a while for its flavours to deepen.

*I used only one carrot, just to add a bit of colour. There are no hard and fast rules about the vegetable combination. You can add whatever you have on hand. The rule of the thumb is that the pumpkins - both yellow and white - are the main vegetables in the dish. You can play around with the quantities of the other vegetables, adding or subtracting as you see fit.

** Raw nendran bananas are the traditional choice for nearly all vegetable dishes that call for raw plantains. I have found that here, in the US, the long green plantains available in the grocery stores are a decent substitute. (I have even made good banana chips out of them. )

***It may be advisable to add the pumpkin juliennes, after the other vegetables are half-done. Pumpkin cooks easily, and tends to become a mashed mess by the time the other vegetables are well cooked. Butternut squash is a good substitute, though it is a tad sweeter. They both cook very quickly, so the same advice goes for the latter.

While the vegetables are cooking, once in a while, catch hold of the sides of the vessel and shake. Keep stirring to the minimum. When the vegetables are sliced to thin slices, it is easy to break them while stirring. Check to see if any more water is necessary. Be very judicious while adding water - add a small quantity at a time. Avial is a thick dish, with no real gravy to speak of.

This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be deeply appreciated.

Maambazha Pulisseri

2008-09-17T18:22:00.000-07:00

Recipe three from my Ona Sadhya :-) Since we are playing favourites, let me post mine. I have a confession to make, though. I never did like any of the dishes which used mangoes, when I was a child. To, me it was a waste of a good mango, which was better off eaten raw; preferably, with a red chillie/salt/kaachiya enna mixture. I also tended more toward the raw mango, preferring its tartness to the sometimes cloying sweetness of the ripe ones. Also the dishes made with the ripe mangoes tended to be on the sweeter side, and I liked mine hot and spicy. Maybe it is because I do not have access to side dishes made out of mangoes that I now miss them a lot. Also, as I grow older, I am beginning to appreciate the subtle flavours of maambazha pulisseri -it is sweet, but the hint of underlying spice is tantalising to say the least. There is also the tartness that sour curds gives the dish - made well, this is a dish that balances flavours well.

Let me say at the outset that this is a variation of that traditional dish. I miss the delicious varieties of mangoes that would traditionally be used for this dish; not having access to them is no reason not to cook a dish, so, armed with the knowledge of the basic recipe, I set out to adapt it to the needs of the moment.

So, without much ado, here folks, is my

Maambazha Pulisseri

1 ripe Mango ( I used a Mexican variety that we had picked up from Costco; any sweet mango will do)*
1/2 a tin Ratna Alphonso Mango pulp (NOT the Kesar variety)
250 gms white pumpkin / kumbalanga **
3 cups sour curds at room temperature, well-beaten
1 coconut, grated
15 - 20 green chillies, depending on its heat, and your capacity for spice
1 tbsps cumin seeds
salt to taste
1/2 tsp turmeric
3/4 tsp red chilli powder
1 sprig curry leaves

Tadka

3 tbsps coconut oil
1 tbsps mustard seeds
3-4 red chillies, broken
1 tsp Fenugreek seeds/ uluva/ methi
2 sprigs curry leaves

Place the mango pulp into a heavy bottomed vessel, with the turmeric and red chillie powder. Bring to a boil, lower heat, and simmer. Wash, peel and de-seed the mango and cut it into 1" pieces. Add to the pulp, cover and continue to cook on low heat until the mango pieces are cooked through. Cut the skin of the white pumpkin, and wash before you cut it into 1"pieces. Cook separately with a little turmeric, and 1 sprig curry leaves.

In the meantime, grind grated coconut with green chillies and cumin seeds, with as little water as possible. The resultant paste must be 'venna pole' - 'like butter' - using a Sumeet mixer helps :-) even if it is not as finely ground as when using a grinding stone.

Add the cooked pumpkin to the cooked mango pieces. Add salt to taste, and remove from fire. Add well-beaten curd and cook on low heat until you see the first bubbles appear on the side of the vessel. Immediately add the grated coconut and mix well. Adjust the salt, if necessary. Turn off the heat. If you are cooking on an electric stove, remove the vessel from the stove. Add 1 tbsp of raw coconut oil, and 1 sprig of curry leaves and mix well.

In a small kadhai, heat the remaining oil to smoking point. Add the mustard seeds; when they begin to pop, add red chillies, uluva, and the remaining curry leaves (in that order). Swirl over the pulisseri. Enjoy!

* If ripe mangoes are not available, then at a pinch, you can use a can of alphonso mango slices in syrup. Just drain the slices, and cook as above. Cooking time will reduce considerably, so make sure you cook the mango pulp on its own till it looses its raw taste, before you add the slices. It will also be considerably sweeter than using fresh fruit, so adjust your spices accordingly. All cooking is a matter of personal taste, so don't be afraid to experiment.

** Traditionally, if they ever used any other vegetable in the pulisseri, Vellarikka was the vegetable of choice. Since that is rarely available in the US, I have been using white pumpkin with no appreciable taste difference. Dudhi / lauki is another option. In any case, where is my recipe following traditional norms? :-) It tasted good, though.

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Erisseri

2008-09-16T20:55:00.000-07:00

This is the second recipe in the Ona Sadhya series - I did promise to post one recipe each day :-)

This happens to be one of my son's favourites, the other being Olan. There are many variations of Erisseri out there, but I have never been very fond of the Kaya-chena (green plantain / yam) version. I realised there was one which used mung dal, but that is something beyond my ken. This recipe is one that came to me from one of my aunts - so maybe I should classify this as Girijammayi's Erisseri. She is a Nair, though her father belonged to our Warriam. Her mother was an excellent cook, the sort who could make you eat your fingers along with her food, and she is one too. She lives alone these days, her daughter nearby, and is one of the most warm and affectionate people I have met. She is also an extremely cheerful lady, one whose demeanour does not reflect the toll that life has taken - her husband died quite young, and she lost her younger daughter when the latter was just eighteen.

Anyway, following my promise to give credit where credit is due, here is

Girijammayi's Erisseri

1 cups Red Beans / lal chouli / karamani / chuvanna payaru
500 gms Pumpkin
1 sprig curry leaves
1 large coconut - grated (reserve 2/3 of it for the tadka)
20 red chillies (more, or less depending on the heat)
2 tbsps cumin seeds
1/2 tsp turmeric
salt

Tadka

2/3 of the grated coconut
1 tsp mustard seeds
3 - 4 red chillies
2 sprigs curry leaves
3 tbsps coconut oil

Wash the red beans until the water runs clear. Soak them in fresh water for an hour. Then pressure cook the beans until done. I tend to cook them on high heat until the first signs of pressure, then I lower the heat and cook for another ten minutes. It ensures that the beans do not overcook.

Cut the pumpkin into 1 - 1 1/2 inch chunks, then place them in a vessel with just enough water to cover the vegetables. Add turmeric and a sprig of curry leaves and bring to a rolling boil. Lower the heat, and cook uncovered until the vegetables are done, but still firm. Drain the cooked beans, add them to the vegetables along with salt and bring to a boil again. Turn off the heat.

Grind 1/3 of the grated coconut with red chillies and cumin seeds, and very little water. Bring the pumpkin -beans mixture to a boil again, then add the ground coconut. Take the erisseri off the fire. Check the seasoning, and add more salt if necessary, while it is still hot.

In a small kadhai, heat 1 tbsp coconut oil, then add the remaining grated coconut and fry over medium heat until a deep red. Remove and keep aside. Heat the remaining oil, and add mustard seeds, red chillies and curry leaves - in that order - and pour over the erisseri.

Erisseri is normally a side dish, and is served quite thick. If you want it to be your main dish, add a little more of the water in which the beans were cooked.

Remember that a larger quantity of grated coconut is roasted and used for the tadka, than is used for grinding. It is this roasted coconut that gives Erisseri that unique taste.

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Kurukku Kalan

2008-09-15T21:31:00.001-07:00

Let's start with Kurukku kalan - my husband's favourite. I made it in my bronze urali which hasn't seen much use since I bought it from Kerala last year. This Onam, I decided that if the kalan was to be tasty, it needed the benefit of the heavy urali. So, out it came from the basement, and was well washed and dried on uthradam, the day before thiruvonam.

Since Onam fell on a Friday, there was no one at home to partake of a Onam Sadhya. I decided to make just the kalan and erisseri on the day of Onam, and have the real feast on Saturday, when friends were joining us for dinner. After all, when one hasn't had an Onam lunch, it made no difference whether we were going to eat the sadhya on Thiruvonam or Avittam (My ammachan would have termed this sacrilege, but unlike in Kerala, here in the US, we don't normally get a holiday on Onam.)

Kurukku Kaalan

2 raw plantains - preferably the Kerala Nenthran plantains (If not, use the long green plantains that are available at the local Indian store)
250 gms raw chena /suran / yam
500 gms sour curd* - well beaten and at room temperature
1 coconut - grated
2 tablespoons cumin seeds / jeera
2 tablespoons (or more) finely powdered pepper
12 green chillies (more or less, according to taste and the heat of the chillies.)
1.5 tablespoons turmeric / haldi
salt to taste

For garnish / tadka

6 tablespoons coconut oil
2 table spoons mustard
4 - 6 red chillies
2 sprigs curry leaves / kariveppin ila / kari patta**
1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds / uluva / methi

Put the finely powdered pepper and turmeric in a heavy bottomed vessel with 3 cups of water. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer until the pepper is well cooked. (This is done so that the pepper looses its raw taste and does not sear your tongue.)

Cut the chena into small 1/2 inch cubes. Remove the skin of the plantains - make four shallow lengthwise cuts along the length of each plantain, cutting only as deep as the skin. Place the edge of your knife along each slit and press downslightly. The skin should peel off in sections. If you are using raw Nenthran plantains, save the skin. You can make a delicious mezhukku varatti with it.

Once peeled, cut the plantains into two, lengthwise. Then cut each half into 1/4 inch sections, taking care that the pieces are more or less of the same size.

Wash the cut vegetables and add to the pepper-turmeric water simmering on the stove. Bring to a boil, then lower heat, cover and cook until the vegetables are tender, and break when you press slightly. Slowly add the beaten curd and stir well, making sure that nothing is stuck to the bottom of the vessel. Bring to a boil once more, then simmer, uncovered until the curd thickens and looses its 'boiled curd' taste. (This will take some time.) Add salt, and continue to cook until the curd has thickened enough to form a coating around the vegetables.

In the meantime, place the grated coconut, cuminseeds and green chillies in the mixer bowl. Grind on the lowest control until the green chillies have mixed well with the coconut. Then, adding as little water as possible, grind the coconut as finely as possible. It may take some time to do this, since you do not want the coconut mixture to get hot.

Once the curd has thickened, lower the flame and add the ground coconut mixture to the vegetables. As soon as the first bubbles appear around the edges, turn off the heat, and remove the vessel from the stove.

Check the salt - adjust the seasonings while the kalan is still hot.

In a small kadhai, heat oil. When smoking hot, put in the mustard seeds. As soon as they pop, add the fenugreek seeds, broken red chillies and then, the curry leaves. Pour the hot tadka over the kalan. Allow to cool. Kalan is at its best when made a day or two before it is served.

Note: * It is very important the curd used to make kaalan is very sour. And, it has to be home made. Also, beat the curd until it is smooth, otherwise it tends to curdle when heated. Somehow, commercially made yoghurt does not give the desired taste. Kaalan can be made very much ahead of time - it was said that earlier, large bharanis (china jars) would be filled with the vegetables cooked in curd with pepper, turmeric and salt. When you needed fresh kalan, you took out the amount of cooked vegetables that was needed, heated it, and added freshly ground coconut paste to the mixture. Then you added the tadka and there! you had one dish without too much trouble. Cooked properly, the vegetables would stay fresh for a long time, since the sour curd, salt and turmeric act as preservatives.

** I am very happy to post that I harvested my very own curry leaves for this sadhya! :-)

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Onam

2008-09-15T20:35:00.000-07:00

The month of Chingam (August - September) heralds the beginning of the Malayalam year. And the harvest festival of Onam, celebrated on thiruvonam , heralds the bounty of nature. It is interesting to note, however, that while Chingam is the first month of the year, we celebrate Vishu as our New Year. Vishu falls in April, in the month of Medam. Two important festivals, celebrated wherever Malayalees live, celebrations that cut across caste and religion.

Onam is significant in that a) it re-tells the legend of Mahabali, and talks of an age of prosperity and contentment. In that re-telling, it hopes to achieve a paradise on earth that was lost in the mists of time. b) It celebrates a prosperous harvest. After a rain-drenched Karkidakam, Chingam is a month of prosperity, something to look forward to.

As children, we looked forward to Onam, because that was one of the two occasions on which we got new clothes - Onakkodi. The other was our birthday - not the date on the English calendar, but our pirannalu - piranna nalu - the day of our birth, according to the Hindu calendar. I remember wondering why my birthday changed every year. It was very hard to keep track of a moving birthday! As I grew older, however, I started looking forward to finding out just when my pirannalu would be. As my birth month came nearer, I would pore over the Mathrubhumi calendar in our kitchen, voicelessly mouthing the names of the months, until I got to Edavam. Then, laboriously, I would move my finger across the naalu printed under the dates - Ashwati, Bharani, Karthika, Rohini ... until I came to the date that had Thiruvonam printed under it. I would then circle it with a pen, and keep reminding amma that my birthday was coming. We never celebrated an 'English' birthday ever - I have no memories of birthday cakes and candles.

Today, when I celebrate my sons' birthdays on their actual date of birth, I have to smile to myself. I excuse myself saying that it is easier for me to keep track of their birthdays, when it does not move around so, and easier for them, because they know exactly when to look forward to cakes and presents. I wonder, though. Maybe it is fun to have a roving birthday. You never know when you are going to get presents!

Onam festivities traditionally start on the day of Atham - the Atha pookkalam (flower arrangement) is different from the arrangement on the other days. On Atham, the decoration is customarily square. A clay mound, depicting Mahabali is kept in the centre of a cowdung plastered area, and flowers are arranged in a square around it. The choice of blossoms, their colour, the leaves that are used to accentuate the whole, they all sing paeans to the talent of the woman who does the arrangement. Houses are cleaned, and the courtyard is swept, fresh pookkalam is laid out every morning - all culminates in the grand feast on Thiruvonam.

Our Onam breakfast used to consist of pazham nurukku (steamed, ripe Nenthran bananas), with freshly made quartered banana chips. There would also be sarkkara payasam from the Bhagavathi Kshetram near our house. The thirumeni who officiated at the temple made the most delicious nei payasam - after he retired, none of the priests who followed have been able to achieve the same taste. Today, nei payasam is always measured against a remembered taste.

In those days, the young men in the vicinity would come to our house dressed as tigers, to do the traditional Pulikkali. Amma used to say that when they were young, they used to have a swing hung up on a convenient tree branch, and Kaikottikkali was performed by the women. By the time, we came along, our house was strangely bereft of these traditions. I must enter a caveat here - I do not dance. I correct myself :-) I cannot dance. But I still feel sorry that these traditions weren't followed. This is how traditions die out - one cannot pass on what is not experienced!

We used to wait for lunch and the veritable feast that we knew would be there. Maybe it was in remembrance of feast past that I decided that this Onam had to be different. I normally make the Naalum koodiyathu - the four main dishes that are the staple of every Onam sadhya. This year, however, I felt like going the whole hog. So. my Onam menu looked like this:

Rice
Curds
Avial
Kurukku Kaalan
Olan
Erisseri
Mambazha Pulisseri
Pacha Kadumaanga
Sambar
Rasam
Inji Thairu
Pappadam
Chethu Maanga
Semiya Paayasam

I must say that with the exception of the Avial and the Olan, both of which became watery due to the excess water in the Kumbalanga, ( I am NOT a bad workman blaming his tools, but you do need to get the tender elavan for these dishes than the moothu naracha kumbalanga that I got from our neighbourhood Indian store!) the rest came out very well. I shall try and post the recipes over the next couple of days, along with photographs.

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CHAKKA VARATTI

2008-09-12T10:31:00.001-07:00

Today is Onam, and what better way to start off the recipes on this blog than with the recipe for Chakka Varatti. I cannot think of an English equivalent for the same - to call it 'Jackfruit Jam' would be sacrilege - almost as horrible as calling payasam 'Pudding'!I can't really put this under 'Desserts' because the term did not exist, I think, in the Malayali vocabulary of those days. When we were children, we took every opportunity of eating chakka varatti - irrespective of the time. So, I shall file this under a general 'sweet tooth' heading, for want of anything better.

I must confess, though, that living in the US, I really have not made chakka varatti for a long time. This is the general recipe I remember from my childhood days, and as far as my ammachan was concerned, I don't really think he bothered with measurements. He knew instinctively what should be used, how much, and when.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, we spent hours deseeding the jackfruit pods. They were cooked in huge bronze uralis with very little water. Only when the pods were cooked through, would ammachan add the jaggery. This was melted, again with very little water, and strained to remove any impurities. Now came the hard part. The jackfruit pods would have become almost mashed, and to prevent it from sticking to the bottom of the urali, one had to constantly stir it. I was too young to do anything much, but if I remember right, my sister used to help my grandfather. The heat given off the wood stove was immense, and stirring large quantities of hot jackfruit-jaggery mixture on a hot summer day, was not a task for the fainthearted. As the mixture thickened, it became that much more difficult to stir. By this time, judicious amounts of ghee were stirred in, little by little, and the mixture cooked, and ammachan and my sister stirred until it seemed like they could not stir anymore without their arms dropping off their shoulders. What resulted was pure ambrosia. Cooled down, it was transferred to huge bharanis and added to the groaning kalavara shelves.

My mother, living in a city as she did, proceeded to streamline the process, using the pressure cooker to cook the jackfruit pods, and then proceeded to mash them using the mixer. It probably did not taste as good as it did when cooked in an urali, but it saved a lot of time and trouble.

Chakka Varatti

500 gms Jackfruit (de-seeded, cooked and mashed)
500 cups jaggery
200 gms ghee (melted)

Place the jackfruit pods in a heavy bottomed vessel with very little water. Raise heat to high, and when the water starts to boil, lower the heat and cook, covered until done. When cooked through, mash using a potato masher. (Quick Fix: Pressure cook the pods with very little water, cool the cooked fruit, and use your mixer to mash the fruit.)

In the meantime, add a little water to the jaggery, and melt it over low fire. Be careful, since you do not want the jaggery to form a syrup, or worse, burn.

Add the melted jaggery to the cooked fruit, and stir, until the mixture starts to thicken. Gradually, add melted ghee, a little at a time, and continue to stir. The jackfruit mixture will start by absorbing the ghee. Continue adding ghee and stirring, until the mixture turns a deep reddish brown, and starts to leave the sides of the vessel. At this point, the ghee will separate from the mixture.

Remove from the fire immediately, as it will continue to cook until it cools.

What is important is that you must continuously stir the mixture, otherwise it will stick to the bottom of the vessel.

Quick Fix 2: Fresh Jackfruit is available in the Chinese stores in the New England area. When not in season, the canned/tinned jackfruit pods available at most Indian grocers are a good substitute. Drain the pods, wash them well, and drain them again. Proceed as above. Cooking time will be cut short when using canned jackfruit.

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A Beginning....

2008-08-22T17:51:00.001-07:00

I have always been fascinated by food. Not just eating it, but the making of it. The smells, the look, the taste... the kitchen was a fascinating place. No doubt because I was too young to worry about cooking for a large family, on a daily basis, the kitchen of our house in Kerala became a rather attractive place, with its large wood stoves, the walls black with the soot of the ages, the tall window over the 'kottathalam' that overlooked the kitchen well, a coir rope tied to a tin bucket's handle, and the daily routine of drawing fresh, cold water for cooking and cleaning .... like many homes in Kerala at the time, the kitchen and dining room were separate from the living quarters. We called it 'adukkalappura' - it included the kitchen, dining room, store room, granary and the bathroom.

Long verandahs stretched from one end to the other on three sides, the one beside the kitchen overlooking the cow sheds, where my ammachan's (maternal grandfather) cows would nod over their feed. They provided the milk, and other dairy needs for the entire household, and in summer, the household expanded to envelop into its fold myriad cousins, aunts and uncles. The granary was always full by April, the 'nellu' coming in from our paddy fields in Pudukkad. Ammachan was a gardner, a tiller of the soil, and the 'kalavara' was stacked with the efforts of his labour - pumpkins, raw plaintains, brinjals, beans, bitter gourd, ginger, tamarind - the list was endless.

Summer brought with baskets and baskets of mangoes with names like'Neelan', 'Moovandan', 'Godavari' - the last named looking like a larger version of the Totapuri - all so mouthwateringly tasty when eaten with chillipowder and salt. Then there were other varieties that were best eaten ripe. 'Chandrakkaran', 'Alphonso', the above mentioned 'Neelan' - it was a fight between the women who wanted to make 'Maanga Pachadi' and 'Maambazha Koottan' and the children who felt that cooking mangoes was a sheer waste! Plaintains by the dozen - or 'kola kannakkinu' as ammachan would have said - 'Kathali', 'Poovan', 'Cheru Pazham', Sarkara Kathali' - the variations were endless.

Jackfruit, hanging by the dozen, and while I was not too fond of the fruit myself, ammachan made the most delicious 'chakka varatti' out of the ripe flesh. He had only one condition though - we had to pluck the ripe pods and deseed them. This was a long drawn out process, and a messy one. We would apply coconut oil liberally on our hands and the knives, to avoid having the sap stick (not very succesfully, I may add) and as many pods as went into the vessel would go into my sister's mouth.

After what seemed like hours spent deseeding many, many jackfruits, ammachan would begin preparations for cooking it the next morning. Huge 'uralis' would be brought out of the store room, and Thangu, our long-serving (and long-suffering) maid would scrub it clean with wood ash and a 'chakiri'. Bricks would be laid in the courtyard behind the kitchen to form an open stove, and dry wood and twigs would be collected to start the fire. Early next morning, ammachan would start to cook the jackfruit pods with a little water in the urali. It was a feat to keep the fire low, and the heat constant, but he managed it. The fragrance of the 'chakka varatti' was more than your taste buds could bear.

Finally, when you think you cannot take it any more, ammachan says 'Mathi'. (Enough.) I remember ammachan saying that if made well, this chakka varatti can last a whole year - without any preservatives. As the mixture cools, it hardens even more, until you have to pull really hard to get a piece off. The resultant sticky hands are worth it!

Childhood memories are strange that way - everything seems sharper somehow, the fragrances stronger, the visuals sharper, the sounds clearer. I can still smell hot ghee, cooking fruit and jaggery, mingling with the scent of the woodsmoke; still see the smoke hanging almost motionless in the still air. Only ammachan is no longer there. He was conservative in many ways, but very open minded in other ways. He loved to cook, and while he did not eat meat or even eggs, he was always about our culinary experiments, and would always taste them. Only, it had to be served to him either at tea time or during dinner. He never snacked in between meals.

It was probably that inner discipline that stood him in good stead, even as he aged. He could still walk everywhere, and even though my brother forbade him from going to work in the grounds because of his ill health, he made sure that the workers would not slack off.

This is my tribute to my ammachan - who ensured that when summer holidays rolled along, the store room was filled with homemade snacks like chips made from bananas, jack fruit, bread fruit, and sweets. Tender cocounuts were always stacked in one corner to quench our thirst, golden mangoes nestled in straw-lined baskets, and bunches of bananas leaned drunkenly against the walls.

He may not like all the recipes posted here, but he will appreciate the fact that I cook, and, wherever he is, he would still like to taste a bit - only if I serve it to him with his meals, however!

It is also a tribute to the very many good cooks I have met - my mother, my sister, my sister-in-law, my aunts, my father, my eldest brother, my husband, his aunts, friends ---- the list is endless. It is my misfortune that I do not have a single recipe from one of the best cooks I have had the pleasure of knowing - my paternal grandmother, achamma. It was said of her that she could even make 'Kanji' taste good. I have seen (and eaten) the results of her cooking at my aunt's house in Madras, but even though I often thought about it, I never did sit down and talk to her about food or write down her recipes. She was an amazing woman in many ways - she sewed her own clothes, loved to cook and eat, remained very fit until one day, she had her dinner, sat down to watch her favourite TV show and... died. My maternal grandmother, on the other hand, had no great love for cooking, and it showed in the indifferent dishes she served up. Her interests were quite different. She was extremely well-educated for her generation (she was a BA (Honours) from Madras University, very well-read, reading the classics in English and Malayalam, even as she thoroughly enjoyed her Mills & Boon. She played Badminton for her college (Maharajah's College, Ernakulam) was well-travelled, and erudite. She had apparently nursed ambitions of taking up nursing, but that was not a career to be thought of, for a famous doctor's daughter.

My mother learned cooking in self-defense. While I remember her turning out many tasty dishes while we were children, my father has horror stories of the early days of their marriage. My sister is indifferent to cooking. Ironically, she is an excellent cook, cooking more by instinct than by following recipes. She is another person who can turn out an excellent meal within no time, and leave you licking your plate and fingers. My brother learned to cook while he was staying alone in Arathur, and soon learnt to turn a mean ladle. Even today, my sister-in-law, an excellent cook herself, will insist that he make 'Uppuma'. She claims he is better at it than she is.
With women like these surrounding me, and the men in my life not shying away from 'the women's domain' , it is no wonder that I became fascinated by the process.

This, then is a tribute to all good cooks - may we continue to share recipes of dishes that excite us, may we continue to make guinea pigs of every one around us in our quest for that 'perfect' dish, may we continue to enjoy cooking for the sheer delight of changing the ordinary into culinary temptations that no one can resist.

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