Anu Chenji

New jobs, long hours, new cities, setting up homes for the first time, severing or at least distancing of close friendships, figuring out long commutes (which we were unused to after living in small towns where everything was “next-door”), new marriages for some of us… many new experiences… some exciting, some exhausting, some frankly overwhelming… my undergraduate and post-graduate classes had split up to various cities around the country and were facing their many challenges in many different ways.

Like i said a couple of days ago, some of us chewed up the new experiences, extracting the livin’ bejeezus out of them and then spat out the skins, others scraped the skin off carefully with their teeth and neatly setting aside the ‘kachra’ (rubbish)… warily before sliding into the stream of life…

…..these were the pre-internet days, in fact most people had not set eyes on a computer till then… so support systems (no, the REAL ones, not the computer varieties!) had to be built from scratch, one learnt primarily from one’s own mistakes, one picked oneself up, dusted off and looked around sheepishly to see who had witnessed the fall and was probably giving you a wise grin from the sidelines… and one went on…

…one grew older, had kids, got into the EMI trap, picnicked with kids and families, we started meeting up again and built close relationships that have lasted a lifetime for most of us and have served as lifelines in times of trouble… and learnt that caring and being cared for are truly the best things in life!

…but in those early days, we made do in a lot of ways. for a number of my friends, official trips meant a stretch on the pocket as daily allowances – battas – were strictly small and if you could find somebody’s house to crash in for the night rather than pay for a hotel room, you could manage the rest of your travel… my parents’ house in Hyderabad – being one of those hospitable types, saw a number of my friends staying over for the night (whether i was there or not!) as they came on work from distant cities… they all ended up being good friends to the parents too… and were happy to host my parents in turn…

As I’ve mentioned earlier in these stories, my mom is a past mistress at the art of jugaad – the very Indian art of ‘making-do’, quickly and efficiently and with the least amount of fuss. On one trip to Bombay, she stayed with a couple of friends of mine and found them struggling to manage two fulltime careers, long commutes and cooking meals! Unlike more conventional (and perfectionist) cooks, she had learnt cooking late in her twenties and being immersed in her own career, she quickly decided she’d learnt enough to get by on and she has – over the past fifty odd years since then, ‘made-do’ very well indeed! 

Moved by the plight of this young couple, she taught them a khichdi – a one pot meal – which they made every day for the next two years! My friend K is grateful to her to this day saying that they got by and survived and in fact, thrived on this one pot wonder! And for old times’ sake, they still resort to it every now and then…

Here it is, the one pot, barely-any-recipe-needed, any-idiot-can-make-it dish!

VEGETABLE KHICHDI (for 2 people)

• 1 cup rice 
• 1/2 cup masoor/moong/chana dal or a mixture of all three (except that chana dal has to be soaked for half an hour prior to cooking)
• 2 cups mixed vegetables – carrots, beans, peas, potatoes,tomatoes, cauliflower, spinach, chowchow – any mixture of these
• Salt – 3/4 tsp
• Green chilies -1 or 2 – slit
• Pepper – 1/2 tsp
• Jeera (seeds or powder) – 1/2 tsp
• Red chili powder – 1/4 tsp
• Ghee – 1 tsp
• Chopped coriander/mint – 2 tbsp
• Turmeric – 1/4 tsp

Put everything  (except coriander/mint) in a large bowl (about 1.5 litre capacity), add 3-4 cups of water, cover and pressure cook for 2 whistles. Lower heat and simmer for a further five minutes. Switch off and let rest while you bathe or have a drink.

Open, sprinkle herbs over, open a carton of yogurt and a bottle of pickles and a packet of chips (if you insist on fatty foods!), settle down to watch reruns of Downton Abbey or whatever is your particular poison and dig in – to a healthy, satisfying dinner – the best of the jugaad varieties! It’s a most forgiving dish too – more or less water than needed – never mind – it tastes just as good. Feeling sick in the tummy? Add more water! Feeling celebratory? Add a couple of cloves, cinnamon, flakes of garlic, some ginger – anything you feel like almost… well, maybe I wouldn’t go so far as adding mints or Coke… but… almost anything else. Run out of rice? – never mind… add semolina or vermicelli (cook for a few minutes only though). Forgot to pick up ghee at the store? Reach for the butter… no butter? Go fat free and garnish with feeling virtuous!

“Squeak, squeak, squeak… “

No response.

Slightly higher pitched, “Squeak, squeak, squeak… !”

This time there is a response – the six-foot, two inch karate coach looks around in puzzlement… some noise from somewhere? Could it be a cricket?

One small hand tugs at his leg… enlightenment dawns… and he smiles down at the two feet, six inch two-year old trying to attract his attention.

“Squeeeeeaak…” she goes.

But from a distance of four feet (in height) and a voice that could have served as a model for Agatha Christie in the mystery where the opera singer shatters the champagne glass (The Listerdale Mystery, I think), he can’t figure out what she’s saying… so the mountain bends down to Mahomet, “Yes, Kanchana?”

“How many jogs shall I jog, Sir?” she asks him seriously, taking her two middle fingers out of her mouth (which is their permanent habitat) long enough to bring out the words.

The big man is Gopinath, the karate coach who teaches my older daughter, six-year old Archana. As I have to drive her to karate class and wait for her to finish while baby sitting Kanch, I ask if I could join the class too. There are a few other older people around so there is no problem. Kanch, at the age where she wants to do everything the elder sibling wants to do (wonder whether they ever grow out of it??!), maybe be the elder sibling even, also asks the coach if she can do “kalate“. Without the lisp, he might have been able to say no, she’s too young but the big guy is no proof against a strong-willed two-year old with big eyes, squeaky voice and a lisp! And so the whole family is now into karate! My first lesson, I knock the glasses off my opponent’s nose and break them – much to my embarrassment!

Kanch, on the other hand, has much more successful lessons. Not quite sure what to do with such a small child, he asks her to jog twice around the ground. For a child who seems to have learnt to run before she could walk, this is a sinecure. Tucking her fingers firmly into her mouth, she sets off, legs twinkling as she covers the ground before the coach can blink and she’s back… asking, “how many jogs should I jog, Sir?!!”

And while she does learn a few karate moves, that is acually the start of Kanchu’s athletics career.

Much of the early years with children is spent in figuring out tasty, healthy recipes which they always want more of! And just now, immobilised much of the time, these fat-free and low-fat recipes are what I seem to crave… I’m sure I’ll get back to vada and sweet cravings once I’m back on my feet 🙂 Till then, let’s eat healthy…

RED RICE POHA KOZHUKOTTAIS

• Red rice aval/poha/atukulu/beaten rice – 2 cups
• Fresh grated coconut – 1/2 to 1 cup – depending on how guilty you’re feeling about fat!
• Green chili – minced – 2
• Sour yogurt – 2-3 tbsp
• Curry leaves – 2 sprigs – crisped in the microwave for two minutes and crushed roughly (this way nobody spits them out!)
• Salt
• Mustard seeds – 1/2 tsp
• Chana dal – 1 tsp
• Urad dal – 1 tsp
• Asafoetida – 1 large pinch
• Chopped coriander – 2 tbsp
• Majjiga mirapakaaya (green chilies soaked in yogurt and sundried)/moru mizhaga/majjige mensinkaaya – 2
• Sesame or coconut oil – 2 tsp

ACCOMPANIMENT:

• Any raita, chutney, plain yogurt is great with this.

METHOD

Soak the poha for about 20-30 minutes, squeeze and set aside. 

 Heat one tsp oil and fry the majjiga mirapakaaya. Cool and crush them with your fingers. Drop into the soaked poha. 

Heat another tsp oil, add the mustard seeds, chana dal, urad dal. When the seeds pop and the dal turns golden, add the curry leaves, minced green chilies and asafoetida. Drop into the poha. Add salt, coriander and coconut.

Knead the poha well using your hands adding as much yogurt as necessary to make a soft dough.

Divide into lemon-sized balls and steam for 7-8 minutes till done.

Serve with any of the accompaniments above or jus pop ’em in your mouth plain.

Guaranteed to increase the pitch of your voice!

Two days off writing and I’m feeling like a junkie who hasn’t had a ‘fix’ in a while! Lying awake at night with my head buzzing with stories – all of which disappear into zero memory space in daylight! Ah well, there are always more fish in the sea that those came from!

Saw this hilarious picture this morning in one of the food sites I subscribe to – see pics above – dividing the world into two types of people – depending on how they chew their drumsticks – no, I’m not talking about the ones that come out of chickens – but the long, hard bean so beloved in the south of India and the sambar of which makes most South Indians come surging back from near-death experiences even! (Well, I don’t know about any recorded case but it would make me come back!)

Ah, but i was forgetting – the types of people depend on how they chew their murungai (munagakaada in Telugu, sahjan in Hindi – a word which I didn’t know earlier and wiki just told me) are of two types. The ones that break the individual two-inch pieces longitudinally into three segments and draw out the flesh by using their front teeth – neatly and cleanly removing the flesh and spitting out three clean-looking sticks in one designated corner of the plate – the Ambi mamas of this world, in fact! The other type who put the whole two-inch piece inside and chew and chew to extract every last possible microgram of juice from it and then spit it out in one unsightly lump – anywhere on the plate – the Raj Kirans or the Gabbar Singhs of this world, in fact! 

Much like how we live life – extracting every last possible ounce out of it – the yummy, fleshy part along with the tough, fibrous parts or carefully following the middle path and getting just enough but not all – of the juice out of it! The other weird thing is that the former type always think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence and the latter look on the former with something akin to horror bordered with just a hint of longing!  

Moringa oleifera (the name deriving from the Tamil murungai) is one of the commonest backyard trees in most kitchen gardens – in the days that we had kitchen gardens, that is… and even today, walk down any street in Chennai and you’ll see a few dozen of these trees lining the road, the long, slim fruit swaying in the breeze and begging to be plucked! 

One of the most bountiful plants in the world, it gives you everything from iron (leaves), to minerals and vitamins( the flesh) to oil (seeds) and… would you believe it – soap! Yep, from the leaf powder! To top it all, it even gives you an aromatic oil – which Body Shop uses in their Moringa line of products – in fact, except for the bark (skin), everything else is useful – beauty is definitely not skin-deep in this case!

And here’s an unusual fat-free curry from Kerala – which takes about ten minutes to make.

DRUMSTICK AND POTATO CURRY

• Drumsticks – 2 large – cut into 2″ pieces
• Potatoes – 2 large – sliced into fingers
• Salt
• Turmeric
• Asafoetida – 1 pinch

To grind together:

• Fresh coconut – 2 tbsp
• Jeera/cumin seeds – 1/2 tsp
• Curry leaves – 3 sprigs
• Red chili – 3-4
• Spring onions/shallots – a handful
• Tomato – 1 large – chunked

Pulse these together in the mixie for a few seconds – it is a very rough, knobly paste.

Cook the drumsticks with 3 tbsp of water and the turmeric. When they are half cooked, add the potatoes, salt and the masala paste. Cover and cook till vegetables are tender – about 7 minutes.Add a little more water for the gravy.

No tempering needed. This is a superb accompaniment to plain dal and rice. 

And as you eat, figure out whether you are the type who chews the daylights out of life or the sober and sensible Ambi maama!

One of the people in my life who had a profound influence on my early years was my maternal grandfather – Nemali Krishnamurthy. Thatha was a most interesting gentleman, deeply interested in everything in life – from flora and fauna to cuisine to English literature to waltzes and foxtrots – at which he was an expert – so much so that he actually won first prize at a club Christmas ball when he was over seventy years old!

Born with a diamond spoon in his mouth, Thatha had a very privileged upbringing – with an English governess, horse-riding and dancing lessons! For a while, he was a Prince and then became well, if not quite the proverbial pauper, definitely lost the family fortune! But men and women of those days were made of a tough fibre – he picked himself up, continued to live life king-sized and enjoyed every bit of a bit – a true bon viveur. Grew roses, bred dogs, had to have his drink of an evening and on the other hand, the Hyderabadi habit of making a ceremony of paan (betel-leaf bundle) rolling with bits and pieces added carefully from his silver dabba, dancing at the club, history, neighbours – there was nothing he was not interested in – all with a large and hospitable heart!

Very Anglicised (not a bad word those days, though we squirm a bit in our more politically correct times!), he was a stickler for absolutely ‘propah’ diction and taught me how to ace the practice we had at school of having to read the news at assembly every morning. He taught me how to read the paper, condense the headlines and deliver them with panache – came in very handy later during B-school presentations! 

He was quite tolerant of most things that parents and grandparents are fussed about today but an absolute stickler for what he considered were values that could not be violated – one of these being sneaking – tale-telling. He didn’t care that the neighbouring gardeners of various grape and mango gardens used to complain about his grandchildren stealing fruit and then running away too fast to be caught – thought it rather a sport, in fact but catch one of us telling tales out of school and BANG – retribution was as swift as it was dreaded! To this day, I think none of his nineteen grandkids will forget those lessons!

When I was about eleven years old or so, thinking myself unobserved, I was dancing away happily in front of the mirror to a film song. Thatha came in without my noticing him and when I did, I was terribly embarrassed – I was a pre-teen- remember? One is embarrassed about everything in life! He must have known it because all he said was he’d teach me a few steps if I wanted!

My thatha also used to make the most divine upma in the world – a simple dish that is very easy to ruin, I assure you!

Here’s my thatha’s…

UPMA

• Bombay rava–  semolina – 2 cups
• Ghee – 2 tbsp + 1tsp
• Green chilies – 3 – slit
• Ginger – 1/2 ” piece – grated
• Onions – 1 – chopped very fine – optional
• Curry leaves – 2 sprigs
• Salt
• Sugar – 1/2 tsp
• Mustard seeds – 1/2 tsp
• Chana dal – 1 tbsp
• Urad dal – 1 tbsp
• Asafoetida – 1/4 tsp
• Sesame oil – 1 tbsp
• Boiling water – 3.5 cups
• Cashewnuts – a handful – halved

Heat the oil and ghee together. Add the cashewnuts and fry on a low flame till golden yellow. Remove and set aside. In the same oil, add the mustard and chana dal.

When the mustard begins to splutter and the chana dal turns golden, add the urad dal and fry for a few seconds more.

Add the asafoetida and curry leaves. Add the green chilies, onions and ginger. Fry till onions are translucent.

Add the rava and fry for 3-4 minutes. Add salt. On a very low flame, add the water, stirring constantly. The rava will become lumpy if you leave it unattended.

Keep stirring for 3-4 minutes. Then cover and let it cook for a further 3-4 minutes. Open, sprinkle sugar over and a tsp of ghee and cover again. Switch off and let it rest for a few minutes. the sugar will melt and keep the rava grains separate so you get  a lovely poola maadiri (like flowers!) texture. Loads of variations – peas, tomatoes and so on..

Mix, sprinkle cashewnuts over and serve.

Give you energy to waltz!