Author: anuchenji

Nothing brings Madras and Marina beach to mind as this cry! I once heard an Anerican who was asked about what his experience of India was like and his response was that no matter where one went, even if it was on the most deserted stretch of road and you went behind a tree to do your business (this was in the days before the mushrooming of toll plazas and loos!), you could be sure of an urchin or two popping up with a grin as you finished – unnerving!!

Sitting on the beach in Madras is rather like that – you could be a courting couple, a suicidal soul, an elderly thaatha-paati or even a stray dog – all of you are fair game for the serenade of the “Sundal” seller! With an old aluminium tin can (remember those cans in which oil used to be sold at the corner ‘kirana’ store?), much-patched shorts and a shirt hanging out at the tails, the ‘sundal’ guy is recognisable everywhere and welcomed sometimes – obviously not by the courting couple!

Also, it’s Navaratri time – can sundal be far behind? “Bommala koluvus”, the excitement of setting up the shelves and dusting the toys, the creation of a beach or a village or a temple scene with paper and toys and sand and blue washing powder for the sea ringed with white rangoli powder for the waves – and the overarching joy of ten whole days of holidays!! The pleasure of going from household to household, being asked to sing a song (being completely tuneless, I escaped this ordeal most of the time, except when an unwary new family moved into the colony!!), passing judgment on the quality of sundal in each household – most were good, the odd one was dissed but in general, we were an accepting lot.

This being one of my favourite festivals, i was determined that my children should enjoy it too and had a koluvu for many years. Kanch, my younger daughter and her friend Tara were always excited about this and Kanch used to insist on placing her pet gorilla toy in the middle of the Bay of Bengal – which is where she thought he came from! The two of them also firmly believed that they were part of the exhibit and as soon as guests had seated themselves, used to get up and twirl their paavadais round and round till they got giddy and sat down and the paavadai went “busssss…”! Talk about song-and-dance sequences!

Soaked and boiled chana – 2 cups

Fresh coconut – grated – 2 tbsp

Raw mango – 2 tbsp – chopped

Green chili – 1

Red chili – 1

Curry leaves -2 sprigs

Oil – 1 tsp

Mustard seeds – 1/4 tsp

Urad dal – 1/2 tsp

Asafoetida – 1 pinch

Salt

Heat oil in a pan. Add the mustard seeds and let them crackle. Add urad dal and asafoetida. Add the curry leaves. Add chana.

Pulse together in the mixer the coconut, mango and the chilies. Add this to the pan along with the salt and mix together for a minute.Switch off.

You are now qualified to sell sundal on Marina beach. Practise your sales pitch: “Thengaaa… maaangaaa… pataaanee… sundaaal”

Wedding in the family home signifies great excitement. All the little girls in the neighbourhood are invited and everyone turns up in “Paavada-chokka” (the long skirt and blouse combo – one of the prettiest things ever), flowers in their hair and for those who are blessed with mothers with deft fingers and time on their hands, “poola jadalu” (flowers woven into long plaits). My mom used to try valiantly to do this for me but invariably the whole assembly would be top-heavy and fall off before i reached the end of the road! Not to mention leaving me with a splitting headache!

Back to our wedding. Said little girls turn up with little gifts – flowers from their gardens mostly, also pretty shells or rocks or coloured paper streamers left over from birthday parties or whatever else could be used to decorate a “mandapam”. “Invitations” to the ‘bommala pelli’ were scribbled on pieces of paper and passed around to all the little people – strictly NO boys!

The venue was a tiny dressing room in our old fashioned home and the mandapam was below the dressing table! Much excitement over the wedding of two of our dolls – both female but one necessarily had to become a groom – am sure child psychologists and feminists today would go ballistic over gender confusion, gender identity, gender stereotyping blah, blah stuff! We, luckily, were blissfully unaware of the word ‘psychology’ and feminism ran in the blood anyway!!

Mantras were chanted and the dolls were duly wed and then came the serious business of eating the wedding “meal”! My mother, ever a generous soul, would provide us liberally with cashewnuts and badam (almonds) and kishmish (raisins) which were distributed out with complete fairness so everyone got their quota of 2 cashewnuts and 4 raisins or whatever it was – no army quartermaster could be fairer than a 7-year old!

Formal goodbyes were said before everyone trooped off to play something more invigorating after the wedding. Come to think of it, that’s why those wedding feasts never made us fat – now we just sit around and nap after wedding lunches and look where we’ve gotten to!

Cashews and almonds and raisins remain favourite snacks to date and are rarely cooked – mostly just popped into the mouth. But when i do cook ’em, more often than not, it’s to make badam kheer – cold and delicious.

Almonds – 3/4 cup – soak for an hour and peel.

Cashewnuts (optional) – 2 tbsp

Chironji (charupappu, charoli) nuts (optional) – 1 tbsp

Milk – 500 ml

Water – 3 cups

Sugar – 10-12 tsp (sorry, but that’s how i measure sugar – not at all sure about cup measures!)

Saffron – 1 pinch

Pachakarpooram (edible camphor) – a very tiny pinch – be very judicious in using this – it’s heavenly but a very little goes a long way!

Grind the almonds and cashew nuts to a smooth paste using about 1/4 cup of water. Mix the paste with the rest of the water in a heavy bottomed pan. Cook, stirring nonstop – this takes about 7 minutes  – till the raw almond smell goes. Add hot milk slowly into the pan. Add sugar. Bring to the boil, stirring all the while. Switch off and add saffron and pachakarpooram. Stir for a few minutes more. If using chironji, roast in a few drops of ghee, cool and add to the kheer,

Serve chilled. If you’re feeling lazy, just eat the nuts!

“Kobbari thokku” (coconut chutney)

“Inkoka rakam kobbari thokku” (another variety of coconut chutney)

“Marinkoka rakam kobbari thokku” (Yet another variety of coconut chutney!

“Maree inkorakam… “ you should have got it by now. As also added two words to your Telugu vocabulary!

This is an extract from the diary that my grandmother wrote for me a couple of decades ago when she spent a few days with me and at my request, jotted down a load of hardcore Andhra recipes in her spidery crawl. Even now I only have to look at the diary to bring memories of a sweet, soft as butter outside, tough as torsteel inside lady – smelling of Chandrika soap and “punugu” (musk) of which she always had a tiny bit stashed away in a little silver thumb-box in her steel trunk.

That steel trunk was a source of all sweet things in my childhood – lovely smells, soft saris and always a small surprise hidden away for grandchildren, of which she had many. Ammamma taught us many lessons about generosity and sharing through her stories and her deeds.

Inspired by her, I went on to experiment with many unusual ingredients for chutneys until now. My family has learnt to dread the question: “Guess what thokku (hey, you learnt the word in the first paragraph, remember?) this is?” The answers vary from vodka to old shoe leather but that’s only to shut me up – I promise they’re not a reflection on the thokkus!

Here goes a new one which goes with dosas and idlis and even as a sandwich spread!

Grated carrot – 1 large

Grated raw mango – 1 cup

Green chilis – 2

Red chili powder – 1/2 tsp

Jaggery – 1 tsp (more or less depending on how sour the mango is)

Salt – 1/2 tsp

Mustard seeds – 1/2 tsp

Urad dal – 1 tbsp

Asafoetida – 1 pinch

Chopped fresh coriander – 2 tbsp

Sesame oil – 1 tbsp

Heat oil and drop in mustard seeds. Let splutter. Add the urad dal and the asafoetida and the dal brown. Add the green chilis and fry for a few seconds. Add the mango and carrot mixture and stir for a couple of minutes. Switch off, add the coriander, salt and jaggery. Let cool. Grind to a not-too-smooth paste with a little water.

Ready to make up “inkoka rakam” carrot-mango thokku on your own?

Yes, of course, sweetie, here you go. And I lifted the two-year old with whom I am having this conversation on to the kitchen counter to have a look.

The gourmet brat looks at the pasta from all angles, examining it as critically as any prof would a new theory and then takes her thumb out of her mouth to pronounce judgment : “I don’t like things with things in them!”

Well, you try battling over food with a two-year old! I spent the next ten minutes picking “things out of things” before she consented to put a forkful in her mouth!

This was the exchange between the two-year old daughter of some visitors and me! The parents in question must have had quite a time feeding the little tyrant every day. How many Indian dishes can rightly be described as things without things in them and could be considered an almost full meal?!

Being the nutrition freak that i am, thanks to my mother and my nutritionist aunt, it is almost impossible for me to envisage making things without things in them!!!

Well, here’s the closest i can come to making things with very few things in them – spaghetti with meatless meatballs!

Spaghetti 1 packet. Boil as per instructions and rise on cold water

Onions – 3 medium – sliced

Garlic – 5-6 flakes

Tomatoes – 4 large – chopped

1 green chili – chopped

Tomato puree – 1/2 cup

Sugar – 1/2 tsp

Salt

Nutmeg – grated – 1/4 tsp

Herbes de Provence – 1/2 tsp (or mixed herbs)

Coriander – chopped – 2 tbsp

Hot milk – 1 cup

Oil – 2 tbsp

Heat oil in a large saucepan and add the sugar. Caramelise. Add onions and stir for a minute. Add garlic and keep stirring till onions are golden brown. Add tomatoes and cook till soft. Blitz with a bar blender for a minute in the same pan till you get  a knobbly puree. Add the tomato puree, salt, nutmeg and herbs and boil. Reserve hot milk and add just before serving.

Potato flakes – 1/2 cup or boiled and grated potato – 1.2 cup.

Gulab jamun mix powder – 1/2 cup

Grated cheddar (or paneer) – 1/2 cup to mix + 2 tbsp to serve

1 green chili – chopped

Chopped coriander – 1 tbsp

Marjoram – 1/2 tsp.

Pepper – 1/4 tsp

Mix all of these together lightly – do not over-knead – shape carefully into small lemon sized balls and let them rest for 5 minutes. Heat a frying pan or a tawa and shallow fry these, turning over till golden brown. I occasionally bake mine – about 12 minutes. (makes about 16 balls)

To assemble, mix a little olive oil in the spaghetti. Serve one helping. Mix the hot milk into the sauce and spoon over. Add a little grated cheddar on top and place 4-5 “meatballs” on each plate. Sprinkle coriander leaves and serve.

Voila – things with as few things in them as my conscience will allow!

My mother-in-law was a formidable lady with her penchant for crisp Bengal cotton saris in pastel hues and perfection in all things. Her elegant and neat appearance (a string of pearls or corals at her throat when she had to step out) reflected in her gleaming kitchen – no messes on the counter, no piled-up dirty dishes in the sink, methodical and meticulous in all that she did.

No room for slatterns and shirkers! Her repertoire of recipes was limited but eclectic, having lived in many parts of India with her railway man husband. Her cooking did not entertain deviations, shortcuts or substitutions. When she made tea, it was an elaborate and unhurried process, much like the Japanese tea ceremony, enough to set the modern day – languishing in the living room- guest’s teeth on edge!

Up early, there was no sitting down or resting till lunch was eaten and cleared. No morning coffee, no lounging on the couch, no breakfast till the tulsi plant was watered and no snacking between breakfast and lunch. Afternoon time was relaxing in the easy chair, with her feet up on the ancient swing occupying pride of place in the centre of the hallway and the day’s newspaper on her lap.

What I took away from her and reconstruct every time, as close to the original as possible, is her Gongura Pulusu. A quintessential Andhra dish liberally sprinkled with garlic pods (a normally unlikely condiment in a Brahmin kitchen), it is an interesting twist to the regular greens and dhal, the sourness of the gongura and the sweetness of the jaggery giving it a piquant taste.

This dish was originally adapted from the famed Gongura Mamsam  to suit vegetarian palates. Alum pachadi (long-lasting ginger chutney) which my mother-in-law made in huge quantities and distributed generously to family and friends was a great favourite and a perfect accompaniment to a myriad things, be it rice, chappathis, idlis, dosas, sandwiches and even as a topping for chats. My sister-in-law is the holder of this recipe and I will get it from her the next time round.

Gongura (Roselle) leaves : 1 medium bunch

Bengal Gram (Channa) Dhal : 1 cup cooked, with the dhal appearing separate.

Red Gram (Toovar) Dhal : ½ cup cooked and mashed

Garlic  – 8 pods

Green chillies – 3

Turmeric – ½ tps

Jaggery : according to taste

Salt : according to taste

Gingelly oil : 3 tsps

Mustard : 1 tsp

Fenugreek  : 1 tsp

Asafoetida : a pinch or more

Red Chillies : 4

Heat oil in pan and add the seasoning and sauté. Add chopped gongura leaves and sauté lightly. Add green chillies, garlic, turmeric and salt and cook till the leaves are soft. Mash lightly and add the cooked dhals. Add jaggery and if required chilli powder, adjusting according to the sourness of the leaf. The consistency should be of that of a thick dhal. Best eaten with rice.