Month: November 2014

 

“So what if there’s too much salt? It’s not going to kill you!”

“And so what if the vegetables are a little raw? Think of it as a salad – it’s good for you!”

The exhorter is my mother and the dish in question is our everyday food – sambar. My mother took the adage “necessity is the mother of invention” quite literally to mean herself  – as the mother of three hungry growing children! (That my brother and I still continue to grow – though not vertically anymore – is another matter altogether!). And so we ate “salad sambar” and many other interesting things which landed on the mound of rice on our plates – including things not “normally” put in sambar like beans and beetroot (resulting in an interesting deep red sambar!).

“Good for you” was the cornerstone of our existence – even today, if I hear the words, i tend to gulp it down fast – except if it’s oatmeal porridge – which no matter how good it may be for me – is not food fit for humans! 

The same was not true for cousins and aunts who came to visit  – my mother made no distinction between her children who were used to “mingu!” (“Swallow that!”) and cousins brought up by mothers who were more indulgent (and better cooks!) – with the result that there would occasionally be tears at the table as a cousin decided that she just couldn’t swallow that!! We three had developed survival strategies for just such situations – like sneakily hiding the nth paratha (my mother also believed in quantities!) under the plate and carefully carrying it to the sink where the maid who washed the plates the next morning never tattled on us – how i loved that woman! Also dunking the despised Threptin biscuit at the bottom of the evening glass of milk so it was drowned in it and invisible from the top (so we thought!). 

The result of this tough and “mingu” upbringing was a set of kids who can eat anything – well, almost anything – i was forgetting the oatmeal! 

And so presenting today the dish that made us grow strong and healthy – we ate SO much of it!! – Sambar!

 SAMBAR (the Tamil arachavittu  -coconut- ground -variety)

To fry with a few drops of sesame oil and grind to a smooth paste with a little water:

• Dhania – corainder seeds – 3 tbsp
• Red chilies – 6-8
• Asafoetida – a little lump the size of your pinkie nail (gorantha in Telugu!)
• Methi  – fenugreek seeds – 1 tsp
• Chana dal – 1 tsp
• Urad dal – 1 tsp
• Coconut – 2 tbsp

Set the paste aside.

• Cooked toor dal (kandi pappu/thoram pappu) – 2 cups
• Tamarind paste – 2.5 tsp
• Jaggery – 1 marble sized lump
• Vegetables – drumstick or radish slices or gummadi kayi (yellow pumpkin) sliced or carrot or shallots or well lots of things possible – i DO NOT recommend beetroot and since my mother is following this blog – Mummy, PLEASE NOTE! – 1.5 cups
• Salt
• Water – about 3 cups
• 2 green chilies – slit

To season:

• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 1/2 tsp  mustard seeds
• 1/2 tsp urad dal
• Karepak – curry leaves – 2 sprigs
• Asafoetida – 1 large pinch
• Methi seeds – 1/4 tsp – optional but i love the smell and taste.
• Coriander leaves – 2 tbsp

 Heat the oil in a pan. Add the mustard seeds and when they pop, add the methi, urad and asafoetida. Add the curry leaves and then the vegetable you are using. If shallots or okra, fry for a few minutes. If colocasia, boil first, peel and cut into slices and then fry. If you INSIST on using beetroot – please ask my mother! 

Then add one cup water and cook for about 5-6 minutes till the vegtables are three-quarters done. Add the tamarind paste, jaggery, the ground paste and salt. Add two more cups of water till the consistency is reasonably thick but can be poured. Cover and simmer till done – about 5-6 minutes more. Add the green chilies and let it come to the boil. Switch off.

Add coriander leaves and serve hot with plain rice, ghee, appadams, a dry roast vegetable on the side (potato, green plantain, beans……ok, ok, beetroot is also good here! )

And there you have the quintessential South Indian (invented by a Maratha!!) dish – also called “hot and sour sambar soup” – honest to goodness that’s what some chef called it on an American TV show once!!

“Let’s figure out how much this is going to cost us, okay?” Two very interested kids – at 8 and 4 – sitting in front of me while i outline how we’re going to do a budgeting exercise – for a birthday party. Having just bought a new flat, we’re neck deep in debt but birthday parties are high on the list of priorities!  And so starts a budgeting exercise aimed at teaching the kids about how to manage money and how much stuff costs. Once they figure out what this is about, suggestions flow in fast including one from Kanch who suggests placing her tiny , black gorilla doll – one of the freebies we used to get in the Binaca toothpaste cartons – on the cake – to save money on icing!!!

Food items are listed – potato patties, burgers, watermelon juice instead of Coke, sprout chaat (from Kanch again who has a ‘thing for sprouts!), devilled eggs (from Arch who has an equal ‘thing’ about eggs!), fruit trifle, the all-important return gifts chosen and so on..birthday cakes having always been home made and home-iced, we only have to decide on a theme- based on Kanchu’s helpful gorilla suggestion!

Armed with papers and pencils, we traipsed off to the shops. Much calculating – with help from Amma – happened. Some things were dropped as “so costly”! Others added. A couple of hours later, we returned home, with the kids feeling very grown up – after all, they had helped to run the household budget! Obviously much showing off happened in school over the next few days!!

Party day dawned and much slaving over the stove with even Kanch “helping” with sandwiches and laying out food and generally putting away stuff – for which i had to do some major hunting later on! The gorilla took pride of place on the cake – a lemon sponge. And so….on a budget of 800 rupees, we had what was voted one of the best birthday parties ever!

Presenting today’s dish – the gorilla’s throne :

LEMON SPONGE

• 180 gm plain flour
• 160 gm sugar – powdered
• 100 gm butter (I used Amul table butter)
• 50 ml sunflower or olive oil
• 3 medium eggs
• Baking powder – 1.5 tsp
• Vanilla essence – 1 tsp
• Yogurt – 2 tbsp (optional)
• Grated zest of 2 lemons or 1 LARGE lemon
• Juice of 2 lemons with 2 tbsp sugar dissolved in it

Put everything except the lemon zest and juice and mix up a storm. Add the zest, swirl it in and pour into a baking tray. Bake in an oven preheated to 180C for 25 to 30 minutes till golden brown on top and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Switch off. /while still hot, brush the lemon-sugar syrup over the top of the cake and return to the warm oven. Serve when cool. Super light, super tangy and altogether very gorilla-ey!!

(pics courtesy internet)

 

“Baaba maama is coming to dinner today and I’m making paayasam (milk based pudding).  Stand here and keep stirring it every couple of minutes or so”. And having given me clear instructions – in her opinion – my ever-busy mother runs off to the clinic – housed in our garage. I stand and I stir. But no one told me to not do anything else. So, in one of the two minutes breaks – must have been the frst one , why waste time?? – i ran off to get the latest book I was reading. After that, I followed my mother’s instructions to the ‘t’ – stirring every two minutes. What she HAD omitted to tell me was that there was an end point to the whole process – that the paayasam would actually get done at some point! So, i continued to stir and i continued to read. My subconscious (if i had known back then that it existed!) – was aware that weird smells were emanating from the neighbour’s house and I also felt sorry for them not having a “sweedish” (sweet dish pronounced at the speed at which Hyderabadis normally bring out their words!) made in my uncle’s honour – to look forward to.

Considering that the houses of those days had large gardens and high compound walls, whatever the neighbour was cooking must have been REALLY weird for me to smell – so I reasoned!

A couple of hours later, my mother comes running in – paayasam check! That’s when it dawned on that it was not just the neighbours but us who wouldn’t have any dessert – and that the weird smell was arising from the pot which I had been so assiduously stirring! I tried telling my mom that since the milk-based dish was now a rather dark brown, maybe we could pass it off as “chakkara pongal”        ( another rice dessert sweetened with jaggery and therefore brown in colour!).  But no marks were given for creativity (the bane of those days!) and the dish including the pot, were thrown out! My uncle – Baaba maama – kind hearted soul that he was  -told me years later when I grew up  – that the whole episode had given him more enjoyment than any bowl of regular paayasam would have done!

Let me redeem myself with a really simple and really delicious paayasam – one of the oldest puddings known to civilisation – the recipe remains almost unchanged from Vedic times! In Telugu, this is called “parama-annam” meaning celestial food.

ANNAM PAAYASAM (RICE KHEER)

• Milk – 1.5 litres
• Rice – washed – 2 tbsp
• Sugar – 12 tsp
• Saffron  – a few strands

Heat the milk in a heavy-bottomed vessel – a pressure cooker or an ‘uruli’ are great. Wash the rice adn add it to the milk. Cook on a low flame, stirring frequently till the rice is tender – about 20 minutes. Add the sugar and continue to cook till the rice is really soft. Add the saffron strands and switch off. Cover and cool before serving. 

 

 “Of course i ate my vegetables; didn’t i eat so many paavakai vathals (dried karela wafers) at lunch today?? And no, i don’t want any more veggies!!” protests my never-say-die 6-year old nephew who’s spending the summer with us. 

“What rubbish!! Wafers don’t count! No nutritive value whatsoever. Eat the greens or else…” is my unspecified threat!

I not only have the job of making him eat what i consider nutritious stuff but also have to manage the perceptions of my younger daughter who’s watching this whole exchange with great interest – i can SEE the wheels turning in her head – if Adarsh can get away with this, maybe i can try stuff too!! Unfortunately for them and fortunately for me, i was born decades before them and had tried many of the same tricks in the book – and figured out that parenting is also about staying one step ahead in the bargaining game! Both nevvy and daughter finally give up in sheer disgust – it’s difficult to get ahead of Amma! Which takes me back a few years earlier to when Kanch (my younger one) was about 3 years old. Suspicious of her playing “quietly” behind me on the bed for over ten minutes, without turning around, i told her to “stop doing whatever she was doing”. Stunned silence and then, “how did you know?” pipes the squeaky voice… “coz Amma has eyes at the back of her head”, I answer lazily. For the next 6 months, Kanch scrabbled around in my hair and scalp trying to find the “eyes at the back of Amma’s head”!!

Back to the vegetables… the everyday struggle with vegetables has had mothers doing very creative things with food but the struggle with karela (bittergourd / kaakarakai/paavakai) is something that ends only as the kids approach adulthood and actually develop a taste for it – and sometimes- it never happens! 

One of those strange kids who’ve always liked this bitter vegetable – I’ve learnt many ways of cooking it. One of my favourites is a Kerala curry I learnt from a friend – Rosemary – simple and so delicious that i make a large batch and snack on it through the day! 

BITTER GOURD FRY

1. Bitter gourds – long ones – 4 – slice into thin rounds without removing the seeds. Microwave for 3-4 minutes on high.
2. Onions – 3 – sliced into rings
3. Salt
4. Oil – 2 tbsp
5. Turmeric – 1/4 tsp
6. Chili powder  1/2 tsp
7. Asafoetida – 1 large pinch

 Heat the oil in a large saucepan. Add the onions and fry for 3-4 minutes along with the asafoetida and turmeric. Add the gourd and cook uncovered, turning over occasionally till the onions and the vegetables are done – this will take upwards of half an hour. Add the salt and chili powder and continue to roast till crisp. Switch off and leave uncovered till cool. 

AND you don’t need eyes at the back of your head to figure out it’s nutritious!