Anu Chenji

Dethmond hadh a ballow in the mathethplathe

Molly ith a thindher in a band

Dethmond thayth to Molly waiting at the dool… 

aaanh, aaanh,aaanh aannnnh aaanh… 

…sings my one and a half year old daughter, lisping her way through the lyrics to the Beatles “O bloody, oh blada” – these are the lullabies that her dad sings to her from the time she is born!

I’ve been chasing her the whole morning with a cassette player set on ‘record’ trying to get her to perform – she obliges for a few seconds at a time – reluctantly – till she decides she’s had enough of this new avatar of her mother trying to get her to do things – what has gotten into my amma??!!! – and goes aaanh, aaanh aaanh – thus making recording history!

A serious lisper, Arch could lisp her way through the three languages she spoke by the age of one – perfectly, without mixing up any words – the lisp however meant i was the only only who could understand everything she said!

And so, occasionally, I’d get a call at the office when I was in the thick of a sales negotiation, “The baby wants something and I don’t know what she’s saying!! Could you talk to her please?!!” Stifling a grin, I’d manage to excuse myself occasionally but not all the time and confusion would have reached a crescendo by the time I called back!

Terrified of loud noises as a child, Arch used to try to project her fear of thunder and lightning on to other people “Thatha (her grandad) ith thaled (scared) of thundel and lighthning, Appa ith thaled, Amma ith thaled, Aani (her nanny) ith thaled but… paapa (herself!) ith NOT thaled!!” as she went off into peals of merriment! As good a way of dealing with fear as any other – at the age of one, i guess!

Over the next few days, I recorded tales of the “thidel” (tiger) who came to eat up evelybody but listened to Paapa’s entreaties to pleeez not eat up evelybody, the story of the ‘thothaloath’ (cockroach) found under ‘one man’s house’ mixed up stories of Vinayaka and his elephant head, of the plane which lands do-you-know-how – like this “Pichik, pichik, pichik… pichik” as her voice reaches an impossibly squeaky register and many others!

And so to celebrate my daughter, I am letting out the secret of of one of her favourite foods – anything involving fruit, of course! And here’s a very Indian fruit in a very Western dessert…

NO BAKE SAPOTA/CHIKOO CHEESECAKE

Time to make – 15 minutes

Time to set – 1.5 hours

Time to eat – none at all!

BASE

• Biscuits – 8-10 – doesn’t matter what variety as long they’re not salty!
• Butter – 3 tbsp

Whizz together in the mixer till you get a fine crumb. Press into the base of a springiform mold.

FILLING

• Peeled, chopped chikoos/sapotas–  1 cup
• Condensed milk – 1/2 tin – 3/4 cup
• Whipping cream – 1 packet – 200 ml
• Gelatine or agar agar – 1 1/2 packets – melted with 2 tbsp of hot water – set aside after whipping really well.
• Juice of 1 lemon

Whip everything together with a handheld blender till seriously well mixed and pour into the biscuit base.

Set for an hour and a half or less till firm.

You than have youl theeth-thathe and eat it too!

Two little girls are watching their great aunt change the diaper of her new born grandson.  One is about seven the other three. The baby is, as babies do, kicking out lustily and generally making the grandmom work for it! The little girls  are interested – very interested – their Barbies don’t behave like this so life is definitely looking very fraught with possibilities just then!

K takes her fingers out of her mouth to ask the inevitable question, “What’s that thing?”

Explanations follow – about boys and girls. Then my aunt asks, “You have other little boys as cousins, don’t you? Haven’t you seen this before?”

Pat comes the reply – “Yes, but this is so small!!!”

Phew!!

P.S.: All names in this story have been changed for reasons of not incurring teenager wrath!

K used to be fascinated by little babies when she was rather small – i think most small people are fascinated by people smaller than themselves, in fact by everything that is smaller than themselves! A question of perspective maybe? In a world where almost everything is larger than themselves, and definitely most people are larger than themselves, the sudden introduction of a small but moving, live thing is bound to excite curiosity! And thus is born the let’s-see-if-we-can-change-this-thing’s-diaper, bathe-this-small-thing attitude!

Our neighbour who already had a little girl of about K’s age, had a baby – a little girl. K couldn’t wait to get back from school every evening – the only time I had no problem getting her to put away her things, have tea and change before she rushed across to the opposite house, yelling to them to wait, she was coming and to NOT start the baby’s evening bath before she arrived to “help”! She was quite convinced that the mother relied completely on her – otherwise she (the mom) couldn’t have gotten the baby bathed!

The kind lady humored her! “Mrudula’s baby” (Mrudula being the older sibling of said baby) was favourite topic for about six months till she suddenly realised that Akka (Arch) thought babies were very un-cool – end of baby fad – and sadly, it hasn’t reappeared so far!

So I ask Kanch – since this story is about you – let’s have a recipe… she comes up with something quite inedible involving rice and eggs and cheese! And so, in the interests of saving my readers’ insides, here’s an authentic…

CALCUTTA EGG ROLL

• 1 paratha – the very flaky, full of fat kind made with maida – like a Malabar paratha or the Tamil veesi paratha – the making of which is an art in itself! Just buy it!
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp milk
• Green chili – minced – 1/2 OR
• Red chili powder – 1 pinch
• Salt – 1 pinch

FOR FILLING

• Onions – very finely sliced – 1/2
• Green chili  minced – 1/2
• Cucumber – sliced – 1 tbsp
• Salt – 1 pinch
• Chopped coriander or mint – 1 tsp – optional
• Lemon juice or vinegar – 1/4 tsp
• Sugar – 1 pinch

Mix all these together and set aside.

Beat the egg with everything else except the paratha, of course! Pour on a heated, greased tava. As soon as it begins to set, place the paratha carefully on top.

As the egg cooks, flip the paratha to which the egg is now stuck – over. Let it cook till the egg is set. You now have an egg paratha! Place the filling down the middle, squeeze ketchup over (if you like it, I don’t!) and fold over as shown in the picture!

Am sure even hens are fascinated by their eggs – their little ones!

Continuing the saga of the same holiday at Nellikuppam – a never-to-be-forgotten holiday for all of us who were there – even by my aunt Kalyani pinni’s standards of hospitality, this holiday had reached a zenith – we continued on to Madras where we spent a few more weeks – some fifteen of us children – at my other aunt’s place. Now this aunt, Malathi pinni– was great fun but also a working woman – so adult supervision was conspicuous by its absence!

One day, Arun – the cousin with the butter-wouldn’t melt-in-my-mouth eyes, decides that he needs to practise his hair dressing skills – maybe that was one of his career plans back then – with Arun, one never knew! And so, armed with a pair of large and lethal-looking scissors from my aunt’s sewing basket and a small, also lethal-looking pair from my uncle’s shaving kit, he sets to. His first victim is his sister Akhila, whose faith in the older brother is rather touching, though misplaced! In her defence, Arun could be very persuasive!

And so settling Akhila down lovingly at the dining table, our man proceeds to sharpen his tools – eyes gleamng with anticipation. Luckily, Akhila’s back was turned to him otherwise I’m sure she’d have run screaming for mercy! A little snip here, a little snip there… oh no, too much here, let’s do a little bit more there… oh dear, the left is a little lopsided, let’s cut a bit more on the right to even it out… you get where we’re going, right?! And before we know it, Akhila is looking like a hen that’s got mixed up in a cockfight – straggly and slightly bald in spots where the enthusiastic ‘hairdresser’ has had his atttention distracted!

Akhila is not one to say die easily and her faith in the big brother’s abilities remain unhampered. Not so the rest of us, who run screaming for mercy!!

Arun had to face the music, of course, but he’d had his hijinks already!

Another afternoon, after a VERY large lunch – one of our favourites – small onion sambar and ‘skin potato’ curry, a game of cards was set up.  Now, as everyone knows, games of cards are very boisterous affairs involving much expenditure of energy in shouting and jumping up and down and obviously resultant pangs of hunger! We foraged and came upon this huge dabba of murukku which had been kept for our tea as a surprise by Malathi pinni. We decided we’d give her a surprise – by saving her the trouble of serving it out and all the effort it involved! And so, the murukus were rationed out – with strict adherence to rules of fairness – a lesson we’d learnt really well from our grandfather!

My aunt comes back from work, goes into the kitchen and comes out with a big grin, cradling a large dabba with which we are all too familiar, in her arms.

“Guess what you’ve got for… tea… ????*&^%&” and her voice peters out in shock! The music has to be faced… everyone sort of slides behind the other one in front till we’re fairly playing a game of musical lines! Arun, of course, is the honest Joe, who decides that the music is never so bad when we actually face up to it..”Malathatha, we all ate it. All of us are responsible!” he announces.

The fireworks disappear as rapidly as they arose – my aunt always could see the joke!

And in memory of that day, here are those murukulu or janthikalu in Telugu…

JANTHIKALU

•  Rice flour -2  1/2 cups
• Senagapundi/besan/chickpea flour – 3/4 cup
• Salt – 1 tsp
• Red  chili powder – 1 tsp
• Caraway seeds/ajwain/omam seeds – 1 tsp
• Sesame seeds – 1 tbsp
• Hot ghee – 2 tbsp
• Oil for deep frying
• Murukula gottam – the implement for squeezing out the dough – see pic.

Mix all these ingredients together. Adding water a little at a time, make a medium soft dough. 

As you are doing this, heat the oil to below smoking point. If it gets too hot, switch off and let cool a bit. 

Pinch off a bit of the dough and drop it into the oil. It should sizzle and rise up but NOT turn brown immediately. 

Squeeze the dough out straight into the oil in concentric circles and let fry, turing over once till pale golden brown and crisp.

Keep stacking them into a steel dabba (very important for authenticity!!) with a paper napkin at the bottom. Let cool completely before putting the lid on.

Great accompaniment to anything in life, including haircuts by inexpert brothers!

Another lovely contribution – what unusual dishes you always did have, Priya  – no wonder your ‘dabba’ was so popular! From one of my oldest and dearest friends in life – Priya. Priya’s literally saved my bacon today – knowing I was too nauseated to even write about food, she sent me this! – Thank you, my dear!

My second contribution to Anu’s blog comes after so many memories were brought alive after reading her tales! Anu’s first tryst with alcohol brought memories of a party which we had hosted where just the tasting of the punch being prepared had us in merry spirits for the entire evening. Anu’s family food tales bring memories of the countless times we reached her house famished after some (mis)adventure  to the mouth- watering smells of food that greeted us.

Today’s story about Anu is fruity and so is the accompanying recipe!

One fine day Anu and the gang were sitting on the steps outside the geography dept. giggling, a daily occurrence, which you would know if you studied in Nizam College during those years! We decided that we were not going to attend classes that day – so what were we going to do? Much discussion happened and a newspaper consulted which ruled out a “morning show”.

Anu, at this point announced grandly, “I know the perfect thing “and with a follow-me gesture marched out of the gate. The rest of us did a ‘follow the leader’ and ran behind Anu to the bus stop, chased the only bus which went to Jubilee Hills, landed  at Check Point, which was a back of beyond remote location and ended up at Anu’s under construction house for a picnic!

We explored the house, found an old newspaper, spread it, sat down and promptly ate all our lunches and then half an later realized we were just as hungry. A good host, never to be defeated, Anu led us to the garden where we spent a most hilarious afternoon on the roof trying to get to the fruits! I can’t remember a more enjoyable picnic or food that tasted ever so good.

With markets flooded with pineapples – here is how to make a Anannas ka Korma for a fruity picnic. (A certain gentleman who does not approve of my cooking ghaas-phoos may substitute potatoes with mutton!)

ANAANAS KA KORMA

• A few potatoes – cut and cubed
• Half a sweet pineapple – cut and cubed
• Onions 2 – finely sliced
• A bowl of slightly sour curd
• Ginger garlic paste
• 2 table spoons of char-magaz (water melon seeds) or a handful of cashews ground to a paste
• A bunch of mint, coriander and green chilies chopped
• Mixed spices whole – pepper corns, cardamoms, cloves and cinnamon stick, jeera seeds
• Salt, red chili powder, turmeric powder, garam masala powder, coriander powder – to taste
• A few tea spoons of oil

Drizzle some oil on the potatoes and roast lightly either in the oven or pan (they were deep fried in the good old days).

Marinate the pineapple and roasted potatoes in a sauce made with the curd well beaten together with ginger garlic and the cashew paste, turmeric and red chili powder, garam masala powder, coriander powder. Keep aside.

In a karahi or non-stick pan, heat a couple of tea spoons of oil, add the whole spices, allow them to splutter, then add the onions and sauté till soft but still white.

Add the marinated vegetables together with all the marinade, then add the mint, coriander and green chilies, add salt and water.

Cover and simmer on slow heat till the vegetables are fully cooked. The pineapple should still be firm and the masalas should be cooked to a light brown colour.

Squeeze half a lemon on the korma and add a dab of ghee. Eat with roti or rice.

Never fear – when Priya is there – you’ll never go hungry!

Some of the best memories of our childhoods were the summer holidays – many, many of them – that we spent with really large bunches of cousins at one aunt’s place or another. Kalyani pinni’s place was always THE top favourite for us to go to – for one, my aunt was a heart-as-large-as-the-world person, ready for a laugh at just about everything under the sun, a superb cook who really understood the thing about ratios and proportions vis a vis age and food – that small people needed large quantities of food to get through the rigours of playing, swimming, chatting and lazing about on the swing… that in between meals, said small people needed to be supported with prodigious quantites of murukus, laddoos and sundry other snacks! In other words, Kalyani pinni was the very best kind of egg!

Her laugh – completely inimitable – started out as a low chuckle in her throat, went down to a rumble in the tummy and then having gathered force on its journey, burst forth as an explosion of – sheer hilarity!

One of these holidays at her place – then in Nellikuppam, a small sugar growing town – overgrown village actually – where Parry Confectionery had a factory – was particularly memorable. There were some fifteen of us cousins, not counting a few aunts and pets and sundry other people – like the cook – who impacted our existence hugely! The house was bursting at the seams with some thirty people!

The days were spent in the swimming pool – with one epic session of six hours ending in a heat stroke for yours truly! Feeling sick and quite miserable in my tummy, I spent a few minutes wandering around the house looking for a cool place to lie down. Everyone else was still downstairs at lunch. Opened the door to my aunt’s room and the ‘coolth’ of the airconditioned room (a/cs were a rarity in the 70s!) beckoned irresistably. Quietly and gratefully curled up on my aunt’s bed, considerately leaving a large part of it vacant for her, sank into the land of nod – blissfully oblivious to the fact that I had been missed downstairs (how that was possible with so many kids was in itself a mystery!), looked for all over, search parties despatched to the library and the swimming pool and the club house and wherever else they could think of!

Finally, my uncle decided I’d turn up sooner or later and decided to go off for his afternoon siesta – and discovered one tired kid fast asleep in his bed!

They were a kind set of people – no scoldings resulted – though my aunt chuckled over it as a good joke!

With an army to feed, every mealtime was like a factory production! Remember Nellikuppam was a very small place so supplies were not easy to get in either! And so, when my uncle went off to Cuddalore to play a tennis match, he was charged with buying bread and eggs ‘enough’ for the next day’s breakfast. With so many people, he decided he couldn’t take a risk and came back with six large – very large – loaves of bread and six dozen eggs!

Now ‘enough’ is a very subjective concept as everyone from the Buddha to the Mahatma has been trying to teach the world – unfortunately their teachings hadn’t reached our lives yet! And so, next morning being a Saturday, my uncle went off for his usual early morning tennis game. Came back after a few hours, ravenously hungry and looking forward to fresh toast and a nice omelette. Like I said, ‘enough’ is a subjective matter. No bread for toast and no eggs for the omelette!  What??Whaat? What about all the stuff I bought yesterday? 

Oh, that? The kids finished it! Six loaves and 72 eggs!

While this conversation was going on, the demolishers of said eggs and loaves were quietly disappearing to various corners of the colony… we could play Injun when we wanted to!

He was a good sport so made do with some hastily rustled up upma.

For some reason, the one dish that really sticks out in my mind from that summer is the beerakai pappu that made an appearance frequently on the table – much to my delight because I love pappus in many forms!

Here’s the quintessentially Andhra staple…

BEERAKAI PAPPU/RIBBED GOURD DAL/PEERKANGAI PARUPPU/TURAI DAL

• Beerakais -ribbed gourd – 2 large, tender ones. Peel, taste for bitterness (discard if bitter) and cut into 1 cm cubes.
• Toor dal – 1 cup – pressure cooked till soft with 2 cups water and a pinch of turmeric.
• Tomatoes – chopped – 2  – optional
• Green chilies – 2 – sliced
• Ginger – 1 cm piece – grated
• Curry leaves – 2 sprigs
• Coriander leaves – 2 tbsp  chopped
• Salt
• Pepper powdered – 1 large pinch

TO TEMPER:

• Mustard seeds, urad dal and jeera – 1/2 tsp each
• Asafoetida- 1 large pinch
• Ghee – 1 tbsp

Heat the ghee in a saucepan. Add the mustard. When it splutters, add the jeera and urad dal.

Add curry leaves and asafoetida. Add the cut beerakai pieces. Add tomatoes if using. Cover and cook till almost done.

Add the  cooked dal, salt, green chilies and pepper and simmer for a few minutes more. Switch off, sprinkle coriander on top and serve with hot rice.

Guaranteed cure for most ills -including sunstroke, I’m sure!