Month: November 2014

Tiramisu came into my life rather late – i think sometime in my thirties… it was like falling in love  all over again – the sweetness of the amaretti, mildness of cream, bitterness of cocoa, creaminess of the zabaglione, the sheer “rumminess” (!) of the coffee liqueur… all combining to form the most irresistable dessert on earth! I feel the same way when I eat “rasmalai” and so when I have to choose between the two, I feel like King Solomon deciding on which mother-claimant the child belongs to! Luckily since Italian restaurants don’t serve rasmalai and Indian restaurants and mithai shops don’t deal in tiramisus, so far I’ve managed to sit quite successfully on the fence!

We are a family with a combined sweet tooth that would stretch all the way from Trichy to Jamaica (both sugarcane -growing places!). We love sweets and sweets love us – in a diabetic India, there can’t be many households where sweets don’t get a bad press! Deepavali sweets, of which many dabbas are received by every household every year and equally quickly re-distributed by most of those selfsame households are carefully examined and earmarked for consumption over the next few weeks – with the softer, perishable ones going first and the dry fruits and nuts being saved for later!  With Deepavali falling usually in the month of October, is it any wonder that by New Year’s, one has put on enough pounds to drive one into making extreme resolutions – “Not another sweet this year!!” Oh yeah, say the sweets, sniggering away – “We’ve GOT you”! And so they do 🙁

I have known my mother and brother between them to put away a whole kilogram of sweets in the space of less than an hour! My brother-in-law is just as bad. “Gulab jamuns for dessert!” announces my mother-in-law to her guests and goes to fetch the bowl of g.j’s from the counter. The dish feels lighter than it should. Thinking maybe she’s put on some muscle from cooking dinner, mom-in-law carries it to the table and opens it with a flourish – presenting all of FOUR little gulab jamuns for eight people at the table! My brother-in-law, unaware of the dinner guests, had decided his mom had made him a treat for being extra good (or in his case, for having hidden some piece of mischief extra well!) and eaten the other thirty jamuns! There were consequences, obviously, which necessitated him sitting down rather gingerly for the next few days but he says it was worth every jamun!

Here’s my CHEAT’S TIRAMISU: (avoiding all the painful zabaglione making process!)

• Sponge cake – 250 gm – cut into fingers
• Instant coffee – 3 heaped tsp mixed with 3 tbsp Cointreau and 1/2 cup dark Bacardi
• 200 gm + 100 gm whipping cream (very cold)
• Icing sugar – 1 tbsp
• 100 gm condensed milk + 50 gm cream cheese – whipped
• Cocoa powder for dusting – 2 tbsp

Whip 200 gm of cream and fold into the condensed milk, cream cheese mixture.Put back in the frig. In each of five brandy or wine glasses, lay four fingers of cake at the bottom. Spoon over the coffee-liqueur mixture. Put a layer of the whipped cream-condensed milk-cream cheese mixture on the top. Sieve cocoa powder over the top.Whip the 100 gm reserved cream with icing sugar – about 1 tbsp and spoon over. Repeat layers, ending with cocoa. Chill for at least four hours before serving.

JAI MITHAIWALE KI! MITHAIWALA ZINDABAD! LONG LIVE THE PASTRY GUY! And oh, btw, that’s a LOT of alcohol in one lil’ dessert… hic!

 

Reproducing verbatim a letter written by my daughter Kanchana and her friend Gayatri to the Chairman of KFC when they were both ten years old. Have preserved this gem to give it to him should i ever bump into him – if he is not bumped off by Kanch and Gayatri long before that! Unfortunately, Mr Novak did not see fit to reply – maybe he never got it!

“Date : January 3, 2004 

Kanchana Venkatesh and Gayatri Muralidhar

11/5….

Chennai

India

David Novak, Chairman and CEO

Yum! Brands

1441 Gardiner Lane

Louisville, KY 40213

                                                        Sub: KFC’s cruelty to chickens

Dear Sir,

We are of the opinion that the manner in which you (KFC) treat the chickens is unacceptable. After all, chickens like us have feelings and have the right to live. A chicken’s life is as important to it as your life is to you. Chickens are like dogs and cats but people don’t realise that chickens are as important as dogs and cats. Before you burn the chicken’s beaks, please think of how it would feel if somebody burnt your nose. Before you throw the chickens in boiling water, please think of how you would feel if you were thrown into boiling water.

Please give the chickens more space to live and please don’t separate them from their families. After all, none of us would like to be cramped up with a bunch of strangers, or taken away from our families. Put yourself in their (the chickens) positions – cramped up in a tiny cage with a million other people, dropped into boiling water while you are still conscious, having your bones broken by people crammed on top of you and having your neck slit open while still conscious.

We would appreciate it if you would put the chickens to sleep in a more kindly manner. They might not be human, but they can still feel pain. Human beings are not the only inhabitants of this earth. And it’s only in our minds that we are the most important.

Yours sincerely,

( Gayatri M and Kanchana V)

Ages: 10

p.s. Perhaps you could use chloroform to kill the chickens as it won’t hurt them much.”

My own helpful suggestion is to find a vegetarian option to KFC – presenting Kadhai paneer!

KADHAI PANEER

• Paneer – 200 gms – cut into 1 cm cubes. Soak in warm, salted water and set aside
• Onions – sliced – 2
• Tomatoes – chunked – 2
• Capsicum – cut into 1 cm squares – 1
• Zucchini – optional – 1 cup sliced
• Green chili – minced – 2
• Red chili powder – 1/2 tsp
• Ginger – julienned – 1 cm piece + 1/2 tsp fried juliennes
• Garlic – optional – 2 cloves – minced
• Jeera – 1/2 tsp
• Sugar – 1/2 tsp
• Chaat masala – 1/4 tsp
• Garam masala – 1/2 tsp
• Salt
• Ghee – 1 tbsp
• Sunflower oil – 1 tbsp
• Kasooti methi – 1/2 tsp
• Chopped coriander – 1 tbsp
• Chopped mint – 1 tbsp – optional
• 1/2 lemon  sliced

Heat the oil and ghee together in a pan – kadhai. Add jeera and sugar and when it sizzles, add the green chili. Stir and add the onions. Fry till golden brown. Add ginger and garlic and fry. Add the tomatoes, capsicum, zucchini, paneer and salt. Cover and cook for 3-4 minutes. Add the kasooti methi, chaat masala and garam masala. Cover and cook for another 3 minutes till vegetables are tender but still retain their crunch. Switch off and sprinkle herbs over. Sprinkle some fried ginger juliennes over. Squeeze lemon just before serving with rotis or rice.

And oh, if you happen to meet Mr Novak, give him a dirty look from Gayatri and Kanchana!

 

“Akka is so bulliput, no?”

“What?”

“Akka is so bulliput”! (pronounced to rhyme with lilliput)

I get it – “Akka is so beautiful”! Kanch, who is still too little to go to school, has woken up from her afternoon nap to find her sister sleeping next to her. K is “watching over” her older sister (two fingers in her mouth) and admiring her!

For all that she is four years younger, Kanch, for the longest time in her childhood, was her older sister’s self-appointed guardian, trying to protect her from bullies and suchlike!

On one trip to the Hyderabad zoo, Kanch was getting too close to the crocodile enclosure and I warned her away. She asked me why. “Because if Paapa (baby – how she referred to herself at the age of two) goes too close, she’ll fall in and the crocodile will eat her”. Both fingers in her mouth, she contemplates this for a while, then “if Akka goes close, will the thothodile (crocodile!) eat her up?”

“Yes”.

More contemplation. then she turns to her sister – “Akka, don’t go near the crocodile. Paapa (self) will go, eat the crocodile and then Akka can go!” Phew!! Akka nods in serious agreement!

The things that Kanch thought edible when she was young had me constantly on my feet to pull away sundry goodies like insects, chalk, glossy mags (only the glossies, mind you!) and in one horrifying moment – a dead rat (saved in time)! That she actually turned out a vegetarian and a strong PETA (People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals) supporter is a constant source of surprise!

Here’s one of our very vegetarian favourites – gummadikayi perugu pachadi. It’s fantastic with pulihora (tamarind rice) or rotis or as a low-cal snack by itself.

GUMMADIKAYA PERUGU PACHADI/ POOSHNIKAYI THAYIR PACHADI / PUMPKIN YOGURT CHUTNEY

• Gummadikaya (red pumpkin) – sliced into large flat pieces about an inch square) – 2 cups
• Thick yogurt – 1.5 cups
• Green chilies- 2
• Grated coconut – 2 tbsp
• Mustard seeds – 1/2 tsp + 1/2 tsp
• Minappappu – urad dal – 1/2 tsp
• Curry leaves – 1 sprig
• Jaggery – 1 tbsp
• Turmeric – 1 large pinch
• Asafoetida – 1 pinch
• Salt
• Sesame oil – 1 tsp

Grind the green chilies, 1/2 tsp mustard and grated coconut to a smooth paste and set aside. It’s easier to grind the mustard if you pound it a little in a mortar and pestle with a few drops of water first.

Cook the pumpkin with a couple of tbsp of water, turmeric and jaggery till tender. Add salt and mix. Let cool and whip in the yogurt and the ground paste. The pumpkin will break up a bit – that’s how it’s supposed to be.

Temper – heat the oil in a small “popu garita” (small saucepan with a handle used for tempering) and add the mustard seeds. When they splutter, add minappappu (urad), curry leaves and asafoetida and pour over the pumpkin pachadi.

Goes superbly with any mixed rice – tomato, tamarind, coconut, raw mango..I eat the leftovers as a snack by itself. Or whiz it in the mixer and make a dip for vegetable sticks.

Better than eating crocodiles and dead rats, eh Kanch??!

 

“Allo… allo… hiss… crackle… splutter… one glass bellam… rice….milk… ” goes the line before getting completely cut off. I think i know the ingredients now and I have my mother’s genes – we shall make do, somehow! 

The call was to my aunt – Kalyani pinni – one of those super cooks in my family – and this was soon after I’d gotten married and shifted to Madras. My very first Sankranti (Pongal) in my new home and i wanted to impress my guests with my chakkara pongal (sweetened rice desert). Not having the slightest clue how to go about it was no deterrent to ambition (more of my mom’s genes)!! My aunt’s chakkara pongal was world famous in Madras 😉 and so the call was to her.

Unfortunately, this being the 1980s, it was not so easy to get  a telephone connection and our connection was still some months away on the waitlist. If I needed to make a call, I had to run down, cross the road to the medical shop opposite (honestly, those days i think there were more medical shops in India than telephone connections!) and yell at my loudest over an uncertain connection at a decibel level above the noise of the traffic. Getting a recipe over a line like this was quite an affair. The pharmacist was used to people coming in and making calls on business or matters of urgency and must have been quite a repository of other people’s lives, i guess, but this was probably the first time he’d listened in on a call for an “urgent” recipe! By the time I finished and turned around, I found I’d gathered quite an audience all eager to learn how to make chakkara pongal! They say we all touch people’s lives in many ways that we are unaware of – my aunt definitely taught a bunch of interested strangers of many creeds and colours how to make a super dessert!

Remember that I had an uncertain “recipe” at best and so i made do – the first one was just about passable but today it’s my chakkara pongal that is world famous in Valmikinagar!! (Modesty is not my middle name, you see!)

You don’t need an uncertain line for this one!

CHAKKARA PONGAL

• Rice – 1 cup – washed
• Jaggery – 1.5 – 2 cups (grated)
• Kalkand (rock sugar/misri) – 2 tbsp
• Milk – 1.5 cup
• Coconut milk – 1 cup
• Water – about 2 cups
• Green cardamom – 3 – peeled and powdered (the easiest way to do this is to pound it in a mortar and pestle with 1/2 tsp of sugar – you get a really fine powder)
• Edible camphor ( pacha karpooram) – 1 small pinch
• Saffron – a few strands – mix with one tbsp of warm milk and set aside
• Cashewnuts and almonds – slivered – 2 tbsp
• Raisins  – 2 tbsp
• Ghee – 1/2 cup (and don’t let any dieter talk you out of this!)

Fry the cashewnuts, almond slivers and raisins ina little ghee and set aside. In a heavy-bottomed vessel, cook the rice in a mixture of milk and water. When the rice is almost done, add the coconut milk, jaggery and kalkanda and continue to cook till rice is very soft and the whole thing is blended well. Add the ghee and cook for a further 3-4 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the camphor, cardamom and saffron milk and mix well. Switch off, let rest for a few minutes before decorating with nuts and raisins and serve. It’s even better the next day! Ask the guys around the telephone at the medical shop!

( pic courtesy internet)

 

For the longest time, I was convinced that Venkateswara Swamy ( Balaji/the Lord of the Seven hills/Perumal/Edukondalavaadu) and my father, coicidentally named Venkatesh were the same “person”. My dad had the same rounded chin, chubby cheeks and even features that Lord Venkateswara is represented with – in all his portraits – maybe these pics were based on N.T.Rama Rao’s portrayal of the god!

As children, there was an implicit acceptance of a “god” figure that in teenage years one questions so deeply! Faith was not a word that we knew particularly but was rather a part of life. In the same way that kids of my generation went wherever the parents took us – whether Tirupathi or grandparents’ house or any aunt/uncle/friend of theirs whose homes we visited  for holidays/transitory passing ‘throughs’ – in our childhood eyes, these were random things which just ‘happened’ and that we did not even think of questioning! The result, of course, was a rather blissful and blissfully ignorant existence till something came along to disturb it!

Life, in short was about ‘eat, sleep, do last minute mugging for exams’ while you wished earnestly that you were that cow placidly chewing cud in the maidan which didn’t have exams and report cards and parents’ signatures being needed on said report cards!

…Or that dog lounging on the street whose blissful existence precluded having to stand in a line, shiveringly awaiting your turn to get a smallpox shot (yep, back in the dark ages, we still had to take these!), the only consolation being that every other kid in the colony was also standing in the same line! Mothers were generally kind and there was always something extra special – a treat awaiting you at home for lunch. For some weird reason, my favourite for a long while was not a sweet but the very ordinary “majjiga pulusu” (moru kozhambu/kadhi/yogurt-based soup). Some of the best prasadams I have eaten in the many Venkateswara temples which dot the South of India have involved perugu – yogurt in some form or the other.

Presenting yet another dish of the gods:

MAJJIGA PULUSU

• Slightly sour yogurt – 2 cups – churned with one cup water
• 1.5 cups vegetables – ashgourd / chowchow (again!) / shallow fried chaamagadda (arvi/colocasia)/ lauki / shallow fried long pieces of bhindi (okra)
• Fresh coconut – grated – 3 tbsp
• Red chili – 2
• Green chili – 2
• Chana dal – soaked for half an hour – 1 tbsp
• Dhania powder – 1/2 tsp
• Roasted methi seeds – fenugreek – 1/2 tsp
• Jeera – cumin seeds – 3/4 tsp
• Asafoetida – 1 large pinch
• Turmeric – 1 large pinch
• Salt
• Jaggery – 1 tsp

To temper

• Coconut oil – 1 tsp
• Curry leaves – 2 sprigs
• Mustard seeds – 1/2 tsp
• Red chili – 1
• Jeera – cumin – 1/4 tsp

Add a little water to the vegetables in a deep pan and bring to a boil. Cook on a low flame along with the turmeric till half done. Grind into a smooth paste – red chili, green chili, chana dal, dhania, coconut, methi, jeera and asafoetida. Add the paste to the vegetables. Add the beaten yogurt and continue to cook on a low flame, adding salt and jaggery. Once the vegetables are done and the raw smell of the yogurt is gone, temper. Serve with plain hot ice, vadiyaalu (vadaams/ fries) and a plain vegetable curry on the side. Bet Lord Venkateswara will smile on you and let you be born the cow which doesn’t have exams in your next birth!