Anu Chenji

Chew, chew, chew chew... I try but give up in a bit. It is wet, it is unappetising and so cold that every bite makes my teeth go chaiiinng and try to withdraw themselves back into the gums! No, it is not ice cream – I love that and besides the only thing they have in common is the temperature!

So far, I have loved American food but this one defeats me. I am at an Ikea store – gloriously happy, i may add and have great difficulty in not buying everything in sight – though I want to! We finish with various appetisers and amuse-bouches like the living room section and the bathroom section and then come to the heart of the whole caboodle – the kitchen section!

Those enormous pots, those dinky little pans (see, now i have another thing named “Dinky”! See this post), the sheer shininess of the bowls have me floating in a haze of sheer happiness – no, I was sober as my great grandmom – though how sober she was I can’t vouch for – that generation believed in their tot of “cold medicine” (aka tot of brandy)!

Hearts full, we (my friend Lakshmi who always gets the joke at the same moment I do and what better basis is there for a friendship?! We have laughed through our hostel years at IIM together so hard that we’ve actually had to sit down in the middle of Double Road to let the paroxysms pass!)), my daughter Arch and me – need to fill stomachs too. We want to continue our shopping and decide to get a bite at the cafeteria. Just a couple of choices for vegetarians but we’re used to that by now! Choice one is a no-brainer – a vegetable wrap – looks good actually – it’s a spinach wrap so green and filled with vegetables so am quite happily anticipatory.

We fill our trays with a couple of other things – the desserts and the ubiquitous caesar salad and make our way to the table. One bite of the green roll and it’s as much as I can do to not spit it out – it’s not that it’s that bad – it’s so cold that all I can taste is a mouthful of flour, raw carrot and a pasty feta – no pepper or anything else – nada! In my mind I am thinking I wouldn’t feed this to my pigs – if I had any, of course and if I did, I bet one of the pigs would turn right around and attack me, all the pig-gy-hooey-ing in the world notwithstanding!

Also, of course, my Indian heart and tummy are telling me what a fantastic idea it would be to open a hot aloo parantha stand here and what a killing one could make in the cold weather and what a great way to stay warm – after all, what heats the parantha can warm me up just as well!

But sigh, we are hungry, our stomachs are growling and so we chew our way through the growing-more-unappetising-by-the-minute green leathery stuff we are eating… with each of us having visions of what we could be chewing instead! At least, that is what I am thinking of. I ask my daughter – she says she is thinking it is food! I disagree – it is swill! But we are amicable and turn our attention to the desserts instead – a truly lovely Swedish apple cake (again cold though!).

That is my next project – to figure why in such a cold country, most food is served so cold!

And so to my visions… it helps to imagine that I am chewing something rather chewable but completely delicious – the very Indian…

SABUDANE KI KHICHDI

• Sabudana/tapioca pearls /saggubiyyam/jevvarisi – 1 cup – soaked overnight and drained
• Roasted peanuts – 1/2 cup – crush coarsely – reserving a few for garnish
• Potato- sliced into very thin pieces – 1
• Fresh coconut  – grated – 2 tbsp
• Green chili – minced – 2
• Juice of 1 lime
• Salt
• Asafoetida – 1 generous pinch
• Jeera/cumin seeds – 1/2 tsp
• Oil – 1 tbsp
• Chopped coriander – 2 tbsp

Heat the oil in a pan. Add jeera, chili and asafoetida. Fry for a few seconds. Add the potatoes and saute. Cover and cook till tender – shouldn’t take more than 3 minutes or so.

Add the sabudana, peanuts and salt. Saute till the sabudana pearls become translucent and soft.

Switch off, squeeze over lime juice and sprinkle coconut. Serve with a bowl of yogurt on the side.

How about a sabudana khichdi stall at the next Ikea store?

(Pic: Courtesy internet)

“Please, please, pleeeezze… can we name him Dinky?”

“No way!”

“Please, I’ll make you omelettes every single day for a week” – obviously the stakes are high if I’m willing to do that much!

The stakes are high – my brother Arvind has just come home with a dog and the debate about naming him is flying hot and furious!

I lose. The dog is named Tommy. Tommy? Really? I mean how much more disappointing could you get? I trail off- disconsolately…

A few weeks later ( almost a lifetime in a ten-year old’s life and I have gotten used to Tommy!), a new baby is born in our home – my youngest cousin. She is an object of great curiosity as soon as she comes but the interest palls soon enough – all she does is sleep – or feed – or wail! Tommy is far more interesting! Then about a couple of weeks after we’ve had time to get used to the baby, there is a namakaranam – a naming ceremony. My hopes rise again – ah, here’s yet another opportunity!

The day dawns, many pujaris come, much chanting happens and then the pujari pauses. Takes a minute to announce to everyone present – all the grandparents, uncles, aunts and parents of the baby that they can suggest names for the baby. Someone has the bright idea of passing around bits of paper for suggestions. I am more than hopeful now – I am totally thrilled – my choice is sure to be the best! After all, I have a perfectly fantastic name, why waste it – if it’s not being used on a dog, it might as well be used for a baby!

So I write down my choice, fold up the peice of paper carefully and put it in the box being passed aound. The pujari collects everything, opens the bits of folded paper, puts some aside, scratches his head over others and looks puzzled. I wait with bated breath.

He picks up one piece and opens it. With the true sense of drama that all good pujaris possess, he pauses, gets everyone’s attention before announcing grandly, “Srividya is the name the baby is to be known by.”

I stalk out in total disgust – these guys don’t know a good name when they see one. Choosing “Srividya” over “Dinky“???!

Then a couple of days ago in Cincinnati, I come across a new dish – yet another one in this extraordinarily interesting land called America! I fell in love with it at first sight, became totally besotted with it at first bite and then inspiration struck – I could name this new dish!

I ask my friend what this thing is called – she says it’s a South American delicacy called a “Pao de Queijo” – i hereby rechristen this simple delicious little cheese breads “Dinky”!

DINKIES aka PAO DE QUEIJOS (recipe courtesy www.kitchn.com)

Ingredients

1 cup whole milk

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups (10 ounces) tapioca flour or sour cassava flour

2 eggs

1 – 1 1/2 cups Parmesan cheese

Equipment

2-quart saucepan

Long-handled spoon

Standing mixer with paddle attachment (or mixing bowl and elbow grease)

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 450°F. Line a baking pan with parchment and set aside.

1. Boil the Milk and Oil: Combine the milk, oil, and salt in the saucepan, and whisking occasionally, bring it to a gentle boil over medium heat. Remove from heat as soon as you see big bubbles coming through the milk.

2. Add the Tapioca Flour: Add all of the tapioca flour to the saucepan and stir until you see no more dry tapioca flour. The dough will be grainy and gelatinous at this point.

3. Cool the Dough: Transfer the dough to the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. (Alternatively, you can do the next few steps by hand. Be prepared for a work-out.) Beat the dough for a few minutes at medium speed until it smooths out and has cooled enough that you can hold your finger against the dough for several seconds.

4. Beat in the Eggs: Whisk the eggs together in a small bowl. With the mixer on medium, beat the eggs into the dough in two additions. Wait until the first addition has been fully incorporated into the dough before adding the second. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.

5. Beat in the Cheese: With the mixer on medium, beat in the cheese until fully incorporated. The resulting dough will be very sticky, stretchy, and soft with a consistency between cake batter and cooke dough.

6. Portion the Puffs: Using an ice cream scoop, a tablespoon measure, or a dinner spoon, scoop rounded portions of the dough into mounds on the parchment-lined baking sheet. Space the mounds an inch or two apart. Dip your scoop in water to prevent sticking.

7. Bake the Puffs: Transfer the sheet with the puffs to the oven and immediately turn down the heat to 350°F. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until the puffs have puffed, the outsides are dry, and they are just starting to color. Cool briefly and eat. Leftover puffs can be kept in an airtight container for up to a week and re-crisped in a warm oven or toaster oven.

…she serves herself a mound of rice.

Then pours in a couple of teaspoons of ghee.

Sambar follows.

Rasam is next in the queue.

Then some vegetables on top.

Then a perugu pachadi (yogurt-based chutney/thayir pachadi).

Then another kind of chutney.

Then a cupful of yogurt on top of all this. I watch in fascinated horror as the yogurt trickles down what is fast beginning to resemble a landfill mountain!

But she’s not done yet – she plonks down a fiery red piece of avakai (mango pickle) where the crater of the volcano is beginning to form and balances an appadam (poppadum) delicately on top.

Then to add an almost impossible element, she puts a laddoo (a sweet, very sweet item) on top of the appadam.

She then plunges her fingers right down to the heart of the volcano and mixes up the whole thing and proceeds to eat every last bit – evidently with great enjoyment!

The creator of this rather innovative way of eating a full Indian thaali is a guest – a young Indian girl who’s grown up outside India and has no patience to sit through what a thaali meal really is all about – twelve or more courses! She’s found a solution – which would horrify all purists and small children (none more purist, I assure you!) but which seems to work for her!

This was way back in the seventies when young India was still being raised with a million strictures ranging from everything to everything else – what time you should get up (early, earlier and earliest being the formula!), what you should do immediately after that. DO NOT, under pain of things-worse-than-death open your mouth till you’ve brushed your teeth (I still can’t, btw – open my mouth to say hello to anyone without brushing!) How you should bathe, write, eat – thaali food being always served in a particular order in a particular direction and so on and so forth – you get it? Your life was regulated! And so, to see someone eating with such gay abandon and disregard of every rule in the gustatory book – was seriously liberating! I obviously tried it at the very next meal but being a purist even then – gagged on the mixture!

But that young girl, let’s call her G – taught me a thing or two about examining convention – I was never so willing to accept ‘things’ after that!

A couple of days ago, at a Mexican diner, I watched the buildup of a similar meal for our takeaway – a burrito bowl. Having lunched on a very forgettable bagel (see yesterday’s post on how to give it a makeover!) and blessed with genes which do not let me forget that they, along with the rest of the cells in my body, were formed by rice, I was pining for any rice based number! Arch suggests a Chipotle joint. Am quite fascinated by how things are piled one on top of the other and quite looking forward to eating it – hoping that it will not be a repeat of the disastrous Indian thaali scramble!

It is truly rather delicious. I can’t resist doing a bit of a makeover on it in my mind – add a bit of mint here, a wee teaspoon of minced green chili, half a teaspoon of jaggery to balance out the salt and so on – hey, I am a self-respecting cook and believe I can improve almost anything with maybe the exception of some of those Swiss chocolates! But will stick with the original here! I am leaving out the chapati wrap because I wanted only rice!

BURRITO BOWL

FOR THE RICE

• Cooked white rice (any short-grained non-sticky rice like samba or ponni or Warangal mussoorie is good for this) – 2 cups
• Chopped coriander – 2 tbsp
• Zest of lime – 1 tbsp

Toss all together with a tsp of olive oil and set aside.

FOR THE BEANS

• Black beans or pinto beans or rajma/red kidney beans -1 cup – cooked
• Garlic – chopped – 1/2 tsp
• Chili powder – 1/4 tsp
• Green chili – minced – 1
• Ground cumin/jeera – 1/2 tsp
• Salt
• Jaggery or sugar ( sorry, cannot resist!) – 1/2 tsp
• Any souring agent – tamarind paste – 1/4 tsp or dried mango powder – 1/2 tsp

Add everything and bring to a boil.

FOR THE TOMATO AND CORN SALSA

• Chopped tomato – 1/2 cup
• Boiled sweet corn – 1/2 cup
• Minced garlic – 1 flake
• Salt
• A generous pinch of sugar
• Juice of half a lime
• Chopped mint – 1 tbsp
• Minced green chili – 1/2

Mix it all up.

FOR THE FAJITA VEGETABLES

• Mixed coloured capsicum – 1  cup
• Chopped onion – 1/2 cup
• Eggplant – cubed – 1/4 cup
• Tomato – chopped – 1/2 cup
• Garlic – 1 flake – minced
• Chili pwd – 1/4 tsp
• Sugar – 1/4 tsp
• Oil – 1 tsp

Heat oil, fry the onions a bit, add the rest of the vegetables and seasonings and cook till tender.

FOR THE GUACAMOLE

• 1 cup avocado – chunked
• Garlic – 1 flake
• Juice of 1/2 a lime
• Salt and pepper

Mash it up!

EXTRAS

Shredded lettuce, sour cream and shredded cheese – any mild-ish cheese – Monterey Jack.

So take a long dish (looks better!), layer rice at bottom and add beans, fajita veggies, salsa and guacamole. Top off with lettuce, cream and or cheese – I would prefer to leave the out – in the interests of taste!

And so there we are – at a Greyhound bus station. Haven’t been to a bus station in India in decades, so look around with interest. It’s warm, it’s all metal, slightly grimy, a little fuggy, not terribly crowded and like every other place I’ve seen so far, so little noise! No hawkers, no families rushing around shouting instructions to children and spouses to put a handkerchief on that seat to reserve it, no bargaining with moongphalli (peanut) vendor, no arguing with the bus driver’s assistant (always referred to as the “cleaner” though I’ve seen them do a bunch of things but never seen them clean a bus) to hoist my bag right up there on top and tie it down carefully, mind you!

Helpful women employees though, assisting you with what you need to do and where to wait and all that. We are early (we are from Madras, remember? We are born early – so as not to miss the bus… that the dad has to take to his office after the mom has duly co-operated in a premature delivery… so that Thaatha-Paati (the grandparents!) can take their train for their theertha yatras (pilgrimage) without worrying about having to cancel their plans!

Arch tells me the bus doesn’t stop anywhere except one or two scheduled loo stops but not for lunch. It’s an eight-hour journey almost so we decide to pick up food to go. There’s a canteen thing at the bus station with packaged sandwiches – not a solitary vegetarian option! So we go out, walk several blocks in a circle (should that be a square?) – and I figure out what an American block is about… not a shop in sight.

We trail back to the bus station and examine the sandwich racks again… no one here seems to want anything that grew on a plant! We find packets of bagels – am excited – have heard so much about these. A few hours later, having finished packets of thattais (nippatlu – a kind of fried riceflour snack – totally delicious) and an apple each, we are STILL hungry.

Carefully cut open the bagel – it’s a blueberry bagel – hmmm… seems rather hard? – and smear the little packet of cream cheese that goes with it.  Bite into it – if I had to be polite to someone who had offered me one, I’d say “Interesting”. Since I don’t have to mind anyone’s feelings here, I just make a face! It’s cold, it feels clammy to my tongue and it tastes of almost nothing except dough and salt! This is a bagel?!

My daughter sees my face – “No, Amma, this is just a bad bus station bagel. Will get you a realy nice one in a proper bagel place!” I am relieved – surely America can’t be surviving on this stuff?!

My tummy is full even if my soul is not. I go to sleep as the bus drones through Indiana and Ohio… to dream of pulihora and appadams! The dream moves on and I’m setting up a bagel stall in Columbus. But inspired by Gujju ingenuity, it’s a chaatwaala bagel – in other words, a bilaayati bagel ka bharatiya baccha – a dabeli bagel, not to mention a far healthier version of the dough + cheese – any greens version! George Columbaris appears in my dreams and tells me it’s the best thing he’e ever eaten!

Here’s my…

BAGEL MAKEOVER – DABELI BAGEL

• Bagels – 3-4 – sliced, very lightly buttered and warmed up on a pan
• Patties – a mixtire of boiled and mashed sweet potatoes or potatoes, carrots and peas. Add chat masala, dried mango powder, cumin and coriander powders and red chili powders and salt. Shape into patties the size of the bagel and shallow fry till crisp
• Lettuce shredded – 1 cup
• Pomegranate seeds – 2 tbsp
• Chopped onions – 3 tbsp
• Chopped coriander – 2 tbsp
• Mint chutney – 1/2 cup (1 bunch mint, 1 green chili, 1 tsp lime juice, 1 tsp sugar, 1/8 tsp chaat masala, 1 flake garlic, salt – grind in the mixer)
• Date chutney or ketchup – 3 tbsp
• Hung curd whipped with grated cucumber, a little crushed garlic and green chili – 3 tbsp
• Sev – or any crunchy savoury crushed chips

Smear the mint chutney generously on one half of the bagel – inside side.

Smear the hung curd on the other half.

Add the lettuce.

Place the patty on top.

Drizzle tamarind chutney/ketchup. Top with pomegranate seeds and sev/chips and coriander.

Like the makeover?

Wanna open a stall at a bus station?