Author: anuchenji

“DAGNABBIT, YOUR OPPONENT HAS LEFT THE CHANNEL” flashes the message on my new… very new, few-hours-old iPad which Arch has bought me as a gift. The first thing I discover is the Quizup programme and like all ex-quizzers, am very thrilled to figure out how much i remember from my quizzing days of over three decades ago! Sadly, not much!

Been playing like a maniac – and let no one warn younger people of gaming addictions – in my experience, it’s always older people who go at it like their lives depend on it! My mother, at 83, is definitely the ‘free cell’ champion of the world! And I tend to be almost as bad with my word game addictions!

Kanch and a friend of hers who’s visiting are chatting quietly until they hear an explosion – from yours truly – “Dang, why does that Dagnabbit have to leave the channel? I was about to thrash him!”

Stunned silence from Kanch and her friend. Followed by some very serious attempts to stifle giggles… and then an attempt to explain to me that, “Amma, Dagnabbit is NOT an opponent. It’s an exclamation!!” Dagnabbit, why doesn’t anyone ever tell me things??!

Completely out of date with my quizzing- though I’m getting better at it now and even more out-of-date with current slang, I am disgusted with myself!! Till I figure out a strategy – I will use 80’s slang – no one below their mid-forties will understand it and I can pretend that I am very up-to-date when my kids look at me in puzzlement…

And so new terms came into the home… CTs for cheap thrills. Deadly for really cool. Frock or gown for dress. Stud for a very good looking guy. Crush for an infatuation. Wannabe for someone wanting to be someone else – and failing! “Happening” for something very in – happening is not happening at all nowadays!

Well… you know what they say about the best-laid plans of mice and men etc… all i got for my troubles were weird looks which made me feel quite Jurassic!

And so back to pre-Dagnabbit days lingo…

Where food is concerned, old is always gold in the household though and I can get away with all the Dagnabbits I want to!!

And so here’s a hoary old but much loved “tiffin” item… easy as sin and goes down even faster!

MANGALORE BONDA (called goli baje in Mangalore itself!)

• Maida/plain flour – 1/2 cup
• Rice flour – 2 tbsp
• Rava/sooji – 1/2 tbsp (optional)
• Onion – 1/4 cup finely chopped
• Green chillies – 2 – finely chopped
• Coriander leaves – finely chopped 1 tbsp
• Curry leaves – finely chopped – 1 tbsp
• Ginger  – grated – 1 tsp
• Cumin seeds – 1/2 tsp
• Coconut pieces – thinly sliced – 1 tbsp (optional)
• Thick sour curd – 1/2 cup
• Cooking soda – A pinch
• Salt – As needed
• Water – 1- 2 tbsp ( if needed)
• Sunflower or peanut oil – To deep fry

Mix all the ingredients except the oil and let it ‘sit’ for 4-5 hours – in the Madras summer 2-3 hours is enough! The batter should be slightly sticky and a bit ‘loose’!

If you do not have time to let it ferment, add 1/2 tsp cooking soda or 1/2 tsp Enos salts and make the bondas immediately.

Heat the oil. Make small lime sized balls of the batter with your fingers and drop into the hot oil. Fry till a deep golden brown. Serve immediately with coconut chutney. These are delicious to eat right away but cannot be kept for later – they become a bit elastic – Dagnabbit!

“Please, Kanch, hurry up with your bath… we’ll be late for school, please Kanch… ”

Sounds of humming punctuated with chatter in a squeaky little voice emanate from the bathroom – I’ve never met anyone so able to drown out other people’s voices as my younger daughter – my “only” younger daughter as she refers to herself when she’s trying to wheedle something out of me!

With two bathrooms and five people to get ready, our home, like most homes with schoolgoing children, was a mad rush till 8.30 a.m. Rush of bathrooms, breakfasts being hurriedly shovelled down throats, leftover breakfast (I am VERY nutritionally-conscious!) being packed quickly into small dabbas to be eaten on the way to school, other dabbas for lunch, instructions on which were which – all this flurry took place about two feet above Kanchu’s head – while she remained oblivious to the whole scene and proceeded with her leisurely bath, talking to the pictures of Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse on her bathroom walls!

These Disney tiles were a bit of a novelty in the ’90s, when we built our first home and Kanch was completely fascinated by them – not being quite sure whether they were alive or not! And so, just to be on the safe side (sounds a bit like the way most people pray to various deities – just to be on the safe side!!), she’d talk to them, tell them stories and proceed to carefully wash them with soap and hot water along with her own bath and shampoo them on Sundays!

We may have been late for school on occasion, but we definitely had the cleanest tiles ever!

It broke her heart when we moved away – to leave her beloved Mickey and Donald behind (particularly Donald, i think!) and we shifted into a home where we had a floral dado on the bathroom walls instead – imagine talking to flowers!

One of the very few kids I’ve seen who loved soft toys, Kanch was never without her favourite toy – a fluffy blue dog – which took turns to being a baby, a girl and a dog – named Just Born, Suhasini (Suva for short!) and Just Born again – no Betties and Dollies for her – they had to have Indian names!

True to her nature, Kanch loves slow cooked food – the slow roasted vegetables, Amritsari chana cooked overnight… AND her four square meals a day – we do NOT snack, tyvm! Snacking is for the birds and the parents!

Here’s one of her favourites and ours too…

LOW FAT SLOW ROASTED CHAAMAGADDA CHIPS  WITH CURRY LEAVES

(Slow roasted arbi/colocasia/chepankizhangu)

• Arbi – wash well – 1/2 kg
• Oil – 1 tbsp
• Turmeric – 1/4 tsp
• Asafoetida – 1 pinch
• Red chili powder – 1/2 tsp or more
• Tamarind paste – 1/4 tsp
• Salt – 3/4 tsp
• Curry leaves – a handful – wash well – crisp for two minutes in the microwave

Boil the arbi till a skewer inserted in the centre goes through easily. Or pressure cook for one whistle and switch off immediately.

Cool, peel and slice into thin chips – 2-3 mm thick. Spread out on a plate and dry overnight, open, in the frig or leave to dry in the open air for a couple of hours.

Heat oil in a pan, add the tumeric and asafoetida. Immediately drop in the arbi pieces and tamarind paste and stir well to coat.

Roast, without a lid, for about 20 minutes. Add the chili powder and salt and roast for a further 15 minutes till very crisp. Crush the curry leaves over. Switch off and serve with rice and a dal or rasam for a really comforting dinner!

You could always offer some to Donald too – provided you are willing to shampoo him off later 🙂

Pappannam eppudu pedathaaru? When will you feed us dal and rice? – a nice, euphemistic way of asking, “When are you getting your son/daughter married?”

Pappu or dal or lentils if you must, so dear to the heart of every Telugu, like most protein foods, has always been more expensive than other foods – cereal foods, basically… and so, for a poor family, served only during celebrations – weddings, festivals…

Even then, the Telugu is inordinately fond of his pappu – those who can afford it, eat it every single day, in preference to any other side dish that will go with the main cereal – rice or roti or millets. To confirm this, I did a study amongst my friends and family – Telugu, Tamil, Kannadiga – and while most of the non- Telugu households will have substitutes for it, like vatha kozhambu (tamarind based sauce), mor kozhambu (buttermilk based, majjiga pulusu, majjige huli) and so on, the Telugu household might make these but… BUT without the pappu alongside, staring at you comfortingly and positively inviting you to ladle on the ghee – will feel positively bereft!

I’ve even been told by Tamil friends (no, they did NOT stay friends after that!) that Telugus are gullible because of the amount of pappu that they tend to eat! Have also been told that the prices of dal in Chennai have gone up after I moved here… I have an answer to that… HUMPH!!! Am sure by that token, the price of tamarind must have gone down!

There’s even a saying which goes, Appu chesi pappu koodu meaning to live it up on borrowed money – here too the idea of luxury is to eat pappu! And how about the world-famous in Andhra (wink!) surname called Pappu? Must have been a big man (manchi personality as we say admiringly!) who could afford to eat pappu every day!

Hmm…. the song “Pappu can’t dance, saala” springs to mind – yes i know it’s a bit of a stretch but pappu really can’t dance, you know – it’s a sober entity which sits on the side of the plate or on the mound of rice or wherever you put it without a cheep of a protest! So maybe pappu can’t dance is actually a compliment?! A pappu on the plate which can dance must be so thin it runs all over the plate and you have to chase it – horrors! Watch the song and tell me what you think of Pappu vs pappu the dal – click for YouTube video.

And to prove my case, you can take a Telugu out of his or her homeland but try taking the pappu away and you’ll have a fistfight on your hands!

Here’s a rather unusual but simply to die for pappu…

TOMATO MENTHIKOORA PAPPU (TOMATO AND FENUGREEK LEAF DAL)

• Toor dal – 1 cup
• Turmeric – 1 large pinch
• Water – 2 cups

Pressure these together till soft – about 3 whistles and simmer for ten minutes. It helps to soak the dal for at least ten minutes before cooking.

• Tomatoes – 3 large – slightly sourer country tomatoes are better for this – chunked and roughly pureed
• Methi leaves/menthikoora/fenugreek leaves – cleaned and chopped – 1.5 cups
• Red chili powder – 1/2 tsp
• Onions  – chopped – 1 medium
• Garlic – 6-7 pods (optional  but desirable!)
• Tamarind paste – 1/4 tsp – can omit this if the tomatoes are very sour
• Jaggery – 1 tbsp
• Salt
• Oil – 1 tbsp

TEMPERING:

• Mustard seeds – 1/2 tsp
• Methi/fenugreek seeds – 1/4 tsp
• Red chilies – sliced – 2
• Cumin seeds – 1/2 tsp
• Asafoetida – 1 generous pinch
• Curry leaves – 2 sprigs

Heat the oil in a pan. Add the mustard seeds and when they splutter, add the rest of the tempering ingredients. Then add the onions and garlic and fry till golden brown. Add the methi leaves and stir for a couple of minutes. Add the tomatoes and continue to cook till softenend. Mash the mixture with the back of a spoon. Add the salt, dal, jaggery, tamarind paste and red chili powder.

Serve with hot rice and ghee. Bet even you will dance after this!

I like lemons. Only when they are doused in sugar. Which means very sweet lime juice, sweet lemon pickle, lemon sponge, lemon curd, lemon meringue… well you get the gist – the sour stuff is palatable only when it’s paired with it’s counterpart – lots of the counterpart, in fact!

I’ve had people asking me why the rasam and sambar taste a little sweet in my home. That’s because of the Kannadiga genes from my father’s side (Kannadigas are the best vegetarian cooks in the world, btw, and if you want to dispute THAT, you’ll have to do it down below – in the comments section! 😉 ) – genes which entail a built-in sense of balance – of sweet and sour, chili and salty and an overall sense of tastiness. Something that has been endorsed by science – don’t believe me? check this Washington Post article which is all over the internet today – predictably! Here’s the link : http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/03/03/a-scientific-explanation-of-what-makes-indian-food-so-delicious/

All this learning and awareness of regional differences in cuisines came over the decades but when I was a very young bride, having decided to marry a Palghat Iyer, I was in for a shock – mostly in terms of cuisine! The sambar knocked my teeth back with its sourness, the rasam brought tears to my eyes with the kharam (chili heat) and I’m not even going to talk about things like pulikacchal and vatha kozhambu – couldn’t get them beyond my incisors!

It took me a while but I learnt to even like many of these dishes though the ultra sour stuff like puli inji (slices of ginger cooked in tamarind – very hot and very sour!) still take some working up of courage! Hubby, like a true Iyer, did NOT relish the sweetish element that I introduced into the sambars and rasams and we’ve had many a fight with me flinging the lump of jaggery at him when he objected to my putting it in the sambar!

On one memorable occasion, I flung it at him but unfortunately, forgot that I had put the jaggery down and picked up a bunch of keys and threw the keys at him. Well, not being very gifted at sports (holding the distinction of being always the last person to picked on the throwball team throughout high school!) and husband being consummately gifted at sports, my throw went awry and he ducked and the keys hit the chandelier which came crashing down! End result was much laughter and a bill from the landlady – which we really scraped the bottom of the barrel to pay!

He’s learnt to get used to and to even relish the jaggery in the sambar and pulikacchal now while I’ve learnt to overlook the puli inji without a shudder – there is a delicate balance!

One dish with which I had no such problem is the beloved-of-all-Palghats-and-maybe-all-other-Iyers-I-wouldn’t-know is the narthangai or citron pickle. Bitter and sour, the dish has absolutely no element of my beloved jaggery and sugar, but I love it! The one thing I do want to eat when my tummy is unwell, guaranteed setter-right of illnesses of various kinds – I won’t guarantee heartache but pretty much everything else!

Last month, traveling in the Himalayas, I came across this tree laden with the most delicious looking citrons – variety called kidarangai – see pic – and begged one off the owner (well, I was going to pinch it but then caught sight of an old man watching me suspiciously so I had to ask!)

Bought a few in the market and brought them all the way back to Chennai to make this pickle. The method for pickling narthangai and kidarangai is the same.

NARTHANGAI/KIDARANGAI/NAARINJA/DABBAKAI/CITRON PICKLED IN BRINE

• Narthangais or kidarangais– 3 large
• Salt – 1 tbsp
• Turmeric – 1 tsp
• Roasted fenugreek powder – 1 tsp
• Red chili powder – 2 tsp (OPTIONAL) – if you want a hot pickle
• Gingelly oil – 2 tbsp

Wash and dry the fruit well. Slice the tops and tails off the citrons.

Slice into thin roundels and each roundel into four quarters. Add the salt and turmeric and mix well.

Cover and set aside. Shake every day for 4-5 days till the pieces are soft and the colour changes. Mix in the roasted fenugreek powder.

Mix the chili powder in if using and stir well. Heat the gingelly oil and add on top. Mix. Bottle in a sterile jar.

Super with curd rice or generally to lick. I love carrying it around for travel sickness too!

And no, I don’t advocate any jaggery in this – try throwing stuff at me – I’ve learnt to duck too!

A friend sent me a forward this morning listing the Darwin award winners for this year – a list of those whom evolution seems to have left behind… and the winners fall somewhere between a Galapagos turtle and a dodo on the ‘survival instinct’ scale. I hasten to add that no insult is intended to the dodo at all – after all, it existed for millions of years before man set foot on Mauritius! And no dodo could have known that it was being viewed as food by these ‘other’ interesting flightless two-legged birds!

The Darwin award winners, on the contrary, have lived and walked among their own kind all their lives – my vote for intelligence goes to the dodo!

Am not going to give you the whole list here but I cannot resist the winner! Here goes:

“AND THE WINNER IS… ”

Zookeeper Friedrich Riesfeldt (Paderborn , Germany ) fed his constipated elephant 22 doses of animal laxative and more than a bushel of berries, figs and prunes before the plugged-up pachyderm finally got relief.

Investigators say ill-fated Friedrich, 46, was attempting to give the ailing elephant an olive oil enema when the relieved beast unloaded.

The sheer force of the elephant’s unexpected defecation knocked Mr Riesfeldt to the ground where he struck his head on a rock as the elephant continued to evacuate 200 pounds of dung on top of him. It seems to be just one of those freak accidents that proves… ‘*Shit happens*’

* *RIP Mr Riesfeldt **

I got to wondering how come all these awards are given to people only in the US of A – surely the US does not have a monopoly on sub-dodos? And I’m sure enough of them walk the other countries on earth! But then, only the US probably has enough money to do research and dig out these facts! Inviting all my readers here to please send me in your own stories of experiences with the… Darwinians!

Will start with sharing my own… once upon a time, some forty years ago – when I was about ten years old, my parents had a family over to dinner – a rather common occurrence, so why do I remember this family in particular? First they had a little girl – about my age and sharing my own name – except she pronounced it “Onuradha” – my first meeting with someone from the eastern part of India. I had trouble initially figuring out what she was saying – am sure she had equal trouble with understanding my South Indian accent too. So, before dinner, everyone was sitting around in the garden, the older people having a drink – beautiful Hyderabadi winter evening when you felt glad to be alive! The cook brings out several plates of onion pakodas as appetisers. Hot pakodas – steam curling up above the plates…. yum… my new friend grabs a few, goes “Owww…” with the super-hot, fresh from the stove temperature. We all have little plates into which we drop ours waiting for them to cool off. Not Onuradha. She grabs hers, goes over to the garden tap, opens it and proceeds to douse her pakodas in cold water! We’d never seen this before and I am glad to say, never since! And then pops the now-gooey mass of besan and onion into her mouth!

Her parents turn red… we turn to our parents for a cue… obviously dying to laugh… but the famed Hyderabadi tehzeeb (culture), not to mention glares from both parents – effectively zips our mouths… till later in the evening when the guests have gone…

Even my parents permit themselves the ghost of a smile!

Reproducing those pakodas today:

ONION PAKODAS:

• Large onions – 2  – sliced very fine
• Besan/gram flour – 1.5 cups
• Rice flour – 2 tbsp
• Greeen chilies  minced – 2
• Ajwain/caraway seeds/omam – 1 tsp – crushed
• Curry leaves – 3 sprigs – chopped
• Ginger – 1/2 ” piece – grated
• Saunf/aniseed – 1/4 tsp – crushed (optional)
• Salt
• Red chili powder – 1/2 tsp
• Chat masala – 1/4 tsp
• Melted ghee – 1 tsp
• Oil for deep frying

Mix all the ingredients except the oil. Do not add any water at this stage. Let the onions rest in the batter for about 15 minutes – they will sweat a bit. Mix again and add a little more water if necessary to hold the onions together. Pinch off small lumps and deep fry on medium heat till crisp and golden brown.

Serve hot with ketchup or tamarind sauce.

DO NOT douse in water unless you’re a contender for the Darwins!