Rajasthani corn curry: Yummy yellow curries and Rajasthani aunties

 
“Bhuttaaaa… bhuttaaa… mokkaaa jonnaaaloooo… ” still echoes in my ears from childhood. The bhuttawala – the guy who sold the most amazing tender corn – the “correct” Indian variety, not the sickeningly sweet American corn which has taken over the market today -lament, lament… it’s almost impossible to get Indian corn varieties in Madras any more 🙁 
 
The guy used to sell roasted and masala-ed corn with the bite of chili and the tang of lemon – for 5 paisa each!!!  That’s like 20 to the rupee and at today’s exchange rates, 1800 to the dollar!! Okay, okay, I know I’m not accounting for inflation and all the funda about exchange rates but we’re only talking about corn, for heaven’s sake – I’m NOT giving a lesson in economics! Okay, having said all that, it was 7.27 rupees to the dollar in 1973 – or 145.5 corns as close as i can make it! Whatever… but the idea was that we could gorge ourselves on a rupee’s worth of corn if kind relatives who came and stayed and went tipped us generously with a buck apiece as they often did. I don’t think I can afford 145.5 corns today! Gorge ourselves we often did and the resulting tummy aches were always thought well worth it!
 
Cut to 1992… a small child comes home from school. “Amma, can you make the yummy thing Vinaya brought in her lunch box today?” What was the yummy thing? “It was yellow and it had some watery thing around it and it had pooris to go with it”! Quite a description but it could have fit almost any curry coming out an Indian kitchen. Also needed to find out who Vinaya was and then meet her mother and get a recipe from her – all of which happened in the next few weeks and brought me one of my dearest friends in life – Vinaya’s mom! Till today, the curry is called “Rajul aunty’s corn curry” by my extended family!
 
The “yellow thing” with water around it turned out to be a Rajasthani corn curry – one of the yummiest corn curries i’ve ever had in my life and one of the simplest to make!
 
Rajasthani corn curry
 
Corn cobs – 3. Indian if you can find them but if i were to wait for this i’d end up never making corn curry! Break off one inch bits from the ends; should be able to get about one or two from each cob.
 
Pressure cook the big and little bits altogether for one whistle.
 
Onions – 3 medium
Garlic pods – 8 to 10
Dhania (coriander powder) – 1.5 tsp
Jeera (cumin powder) – 1 tsp
Chili powder – 1/2 tsp
Salt
Oil and ghee – 1 tbsp each.
Milk – 1 cup
 
Remove the corn cobs from the cooker and let cool. Scrape the corn off the bigger pieces with a knife. Keep the small 1″ pieces intact
Grind the onions and garlic together to a very smooth paste.
 
Heat the oil and ghee together in a saucepan and add the onion paste and fry well.Sprinkle a little water if it shows signs of ‘aduganting’ (bottom sticking – so much better a term than plain old burning!).
 
Add the dry powders and continue to stir. Add the corn – the scraped stuff and the pieces and a glass of water along with the salt. Cover and cook on a low flame for ten to 15 minutes. Add more water if too dry. Add hot milk and switch off. Voila – yellow, swimmy, yummy corn curry!
 

Omelette: Ode to the best omeletter in the world

 
Today, the end of the month – I’ve treated myself to a guest blogger!!! I thought long and hard about who I should invite and then decided the mantle of that honour should fall on my oldest companion in cooking – we started cooking lessons when were 7 and 8 years old respectively. Presenting my brother in real life – Arvind Chenji!!! We have even gifted each other cookbooks for birthdays when we were about 12 or 13 years old!
 
Over to Arvind…
 
Variety, they say is the spice of life. My mother believed the opposite. Faced with the prospect of eating the same vegetable that we somehow managed with complaints in the morning, my mother added a different spice and a dose of water to it and dished it out in the evening. Which is how I coined’ Spice is the variety of our life’.
 
Not that it affected my mother. She laughed merrily at my attempt at wit and sarcasm and continued producing a series of disasters from the kitchen. The only good that happened was Panda. Trinath Panda, an employee at the secretariat who moonlighted as a cook at home. He actually managed to fill the unending pit beneath the chest and ensured that my brother and I grew up with some flesh on our bones.
 
He joined the house hold to cook dinners. I was so fascinated with his cooking that I would leave my books and sneak into the kitchen to observe the maestro as he dished out the best omelettes in the world.
 
Panda too put up with an inquisitive and pesky brat with immense patience and affection. It was from him that I learnt to cut onions and all other vegetables with speed and panache.
 
Listed here is the recipe for an omelette a’la Panda.
 
Omelette a’la Panda
 
2 eggs [ definitely chicken]
1 small to medium size onion finely chopped
1 small tomato also finely chopped
a small bit of fresh ginger minced
optional extra : a few sprigs of coriander leaves
salt and red chilli powder to taste
 
Put the pan on the stove and of course, light the stove. One teaspoon or more of oil which should be run all over the inside of the pan once hot.
 
While the pan is on the stove, either on the chopping board or a bowl, mix the onion,tomato, ginger, salt and red chilli powder with vigour. Like you need to extract the juice from the onion. Then put the mixture into another bowl where the two eggs have been cracked open and pronounced fresh. Beat the whole concoction with a fork till it is thoroughly mixed.
 
By now, the pan would be pretty hot and you should be able to see the heat waves rising above it. Pour the mixture into it, cut the flame to minimum and cover with a lid.
 
After a minute or more, raise the lid and flip the omelette over with a flat spoon , cover again for a little while and serve hot. Cheers!
 

Vegetable cutlets: Of squeaky voices and ‘grown up’ sisters

 
“Excuse me, Sir, but could i talk to my sister?” one absolutely cherubic 4-year old’s countenance presents itself at her 8 year old sister’s classroom door. The face belies an iron will not to be done out of her share of goodies which her mother has inadvertently mis-packed.
 
A very embarrassed older sister comes to the door of the classroom. Loud hiss: “What do you want? Can’t you see I’m in the middle of a maths class?”
                                      
“But, Akka, I think you got my cutlets and i got your salad!” Imagine this in a 4 year old voice which is way off the pitch scale, earning consequently for its owner the nickname of “Squeaky”, audible to the whole class and you have  a classfull of 8 year olds rolling about in laughter – very happy for the comic relief in the midst of algebra! As also an “Akka” who by now looks as though she would cheerfully murder the 4 year old sibling.
 
The younger one has her lunch hour at noon; the older one half an hour later and the mom in question (me) having packed tomato rice and cutlets and a salad has – in the morning rush – packed two dabbas of salad in one’s lunch and two dabbas of cutlets in the other’s, to the younger one’s intense disappointment but like i said earlier, she wouldn’t be diddled out her favourite cutlets!
 
End result – one very upset 8 year old stalks home in the evening: “Amma, you have to teach Kanchana to behave – tell her she can’t come to my class”! No harm was done, however, and the story passed into the school’s folklore!
 
So here’s the dish that Kanch couldn’t do without!
 
Veg cutlet
 
Potatoes – 1/2 kg – the floury variety – boiled and peeled
Carrots – 2 – peeled and boiled
Peas – 1 cup – boiled
Coriander (dhania) powder – 2 tsp
Cumin (jeera) powder – 1 tsp
Himalayan pink salt (kala namak) – 1/4 tsp
Asafoetida – 1 large pinch
Chili powder – 1/2 tsp
Finely chopped green chilies – 1 large
Chopped mint and coriander – 1 tbsp each
Juice of 1/2 lemon or raw mango powder (amchoor) 1/2 tsp
Salt
Cornflour – 1 tbsp
 
Mash the potatoes and carrots together along with all the spices and salt. Mix in the peas. Fold in the cornflour without overworking it. Shape into flat discs about a cm thick and fry on a flat tawa (pan) with a few drops of oil on each. Serve with ketchup, of course!!! And watch your pitch rise from alto to soprano!
 

Varuthakozhambu: Vat-ral-koz-ham-bu and other tongue twisters south of Nellore

 
“Anu atha, what is Vat-ral-koz-ham-bu?” asks my nephew Shriram who’s just landed in Madras and been taken to visit the sights – one of which is a famous local sweets and savouries shop. Puzzled, i walk over to the shelf that he was staring at in fascination.
 
Omg, you’s better start learning a bit of Tamil, or rather, Tamizh, now that you’re going to be here for five years! You’d better learn to pronounce Vatra kozhambu properly or else you’ll get beaten up sometime in the years you’re going to be here!” And he proceeded to receive his first of many lessons in pronouncing the Tamil “zha” – the lessons continued for five years till he left Madras but he never got beyond a “C” in pronunciation!
 
Can’t blame him though, i married a Tamilian and it took me 6 months of hardcore Tamil immersion before i got it right! Not to mention having an uncle whose Ph.D thesis in phonetics (honest-to-god, I’m NOT making this up!) was based on this one sound – unique to the Tamizh language! For those of you still struggling with it,, try curling your tongue upwards into a “U” and saying “llll” through the curve – enjoy!
 
My own first encounter with this dish was a disaster – it looked like a browner version of the familiar sambar and so i piled it on – four large ladlefuls – on to my rice – only to have my tongue curl up backwards and upwards in the sheer shock of the sour taste and i went “llllll” in disgust! Am pretty sure now that’s how the Tamilians got to invent the sound “zha” – the shock of vatral kozhambu (or vatha kozhambu – easier to say!) – the first guy must have gone “llll… ” and his “paattu master” (the ubiquitous music teacher in every good Tamilian household!) must have decided he had a prodigy on his hands!!! ZH-UH!!!
 
Here goes the dish dear to the hearts of everyone south of Nellore!
 
Vatra kozhambu
 
Drumsticks (not chicken, i’ve told you this earlier but the hard, 2-foot long bean called “murunga” in Tamil and “moringa moringa” to give it it’s botanical due) – 2 cut into 2 cm long pieces. Or spring onions – 1 handful. Or dried “vatral 2 tbsp – salted and sun-dried variety of seeds
Sambar powder – 3 tbsp
Tamarind paste – 2 tsp 
Jaggery – 1 to 1.5 tbsp
Rice flour for thickening – 1 tsp)
Sesame oil – 2 tbsp
Fenugreek seeds – roasted and powdered – 1 tsp
Turmeric – 1/4 tsp
Asafoetida – 1 generous pinch
Curry leaves – 2 sprigs
Salt
Garlic pods- optional) – 10
 
To temper:
 
Mustard seeds – 1/2 tsp
Chana dal (bengal gram dal) – 1 tsp
Urad dal – 1/2 tsp
 
Heat the oil in a pan, add the mustard. Let it splutter and add the chana dal and the urad dal. Let them turn golden brown and add the curry leaves and asafoetida. Add the sambar powder and turmeric and turn over for about 30 seconds. Add the vegetables and mix well. If using shallots, fry for a little longer. If using garlic, add at this stage and fry for a couple of minutes.. Add two cups of water, cover and cook for 5 minutes. Add the tamarind paste, jaggery, salt, fenugreek seed powder and a slurry of rice flour. Cook for a further 10-15 minutes till the vegetables are tender and the fragrance is so overpowering that you begin to lick the ladle ;). 
 
Switch off, serve with hot rice and appadams.  
 
Vathaaks (our nickname for this) tastes even better the next day. Keeps for a week – I challenge you to! 
 
Oh, an btw, roll your tongue over and say “lllll…..”!!
btw, working with only one eye open – having a small polyp removal today -so there may be some spell errors – please to forgive!!!!
 

Dibba rotte: Ooby doobies, Grammy awards and Palghats

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“Dibba rotte. Say it”.
“Oobie doobie”
“Dibba rotte – see how easy it is.”
“Oobie dooby.”
 
I give up in disgust. I’ve been trying to teach husband the name of this unusual Telugu dish he’s fallen in love with and the recalcitrant Palghati refuses to learn… thereby following the Tamil convention of renaming everything particularly road names – that can be renamed and to a composition in praise of the said dish.
 
“Oobie dooby doo,
Where are you?
I want to be eating you
Right noooooowww…”
(sung to the tune of Scooby Dooby Doo)
 
May never win a Grammy but perfectly representative of hubby’s (and rest of the family’s) feelings towards this crisp and golden brown on the outside, light and fluffy as ‘mallepoo’ (jasmine flower) inside – breakfast dish served with ginger pickle (allam pachadi).
 
Husband being from Palghat and me a mixture of Andhra and Maharashtra settled in Hyderabad via Bangalore made for an interesting set of new foods we learnt from each other, or in this case, from mother-in-law as husband’s ability to cook in the early days extended to making a mean cup of tea!
        
I learnt this dish from my mother who learnt it from her mother. Dibba rotte is a traditional Andhra recipe and is usually cooked in a heavy kadai set on dying embers after the morning’s main meal has been cooked. Usually eaten in the evening it however makes for a great breakfast dish.
 
Dibbe rotte
 
Urad Dal – 1 cup
Raw rice, soaked for about 4 – 6 hours – 2 1/2 cups (or raw rice rava – semolina – available in some supermarkets)
Cumin seeds – 1/2 tsp
Pepper – 1/4 tsp
Asafoetida – 1/4 tsp
Red chilli – 1
Salt – 1 tsp
Gingelly oil – 1/2 cup
 
Grind the soaked urad dal and the soaked raw rice separately. Grind separately to idli batter consistency in a blender along with cumin seeds, pepper, asafoetida, red chilli and salt. Mix batters together. If using the raw rice rava, just add it to the ground urad batter.
 
Whip the batter and let it rest, covered, for about an hour. This batter makes about four medium-sized dibba rottes. The batter should not ferment.
 
Heat a thick bottomed kadai, add 3 tbsp of oil and pour about a quarter of the batter into it. Cover and cook on a very low flame (about 15-20 min) till the bottom develops a thick golden crust. 
 
Turn over using a large spatula. Cook the other side, uncovered, this should take about seven-10 minutes. Slide carefully on to a plate, cut into wedges and serve hot with ginger pickle or avakkai. Enjoy – and battle the re-naming brigade!
 

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