Anu Chenji

Just sat down to enjoy a plate of sev puri at arguably the best chaat place south of the Vindhyas (not sure that it could be North too!) – Gangotri in Chennai and there was a commotion at the table next to mine. Now this table had two little kids – aged about four and two years. In 2014 – this is a recipe for disaster more often than not! Any parent who’s over 40 and who’s brought up a kid or two in the 80’s, 90’s or the early 21st century will agree with me on this! 

We’ve all faced bratty children (someone else’s!) at restaurants, theatres (i will never understand how parents bring children below the age of 7 or 8 at least to watch movies which are NOT meant for children) – and no, I’m not talking “A” rated movies – just the regular “U” ones – where kids are bored and scream their heads off as soon as their tub of popcorn is over – they seem to be everywhere! We all have favourite horror stories that we’ve encountered in all these places – my own reading is it’s the parents who are the true horrors! Our children, of course, never behaved LIKE THAT! All this leads me to suspect that parents have very short memories for their own childrens’ tantrums! Mea culpa too!

I do not remember the tantrums at all – there must have been some! But back to my today’s tale. One of these kids – the two- year old – had chucked the mother’s keys under the sofa seat they were on. This was a diner type arrangement with MANY sofa seats ranged against the wall with no gaps in between. Two of the staff had to shift an entire row of tables and their corresponding sofas and every diner in these rows had to shift their seats elsewhere till the keys wer found. Bad, you think? What happened next was so shocking that I couldn’t quite credit it – the lady – obviously the mother of the two (there was no other adult with them), took the keys from the waiter and walked off without a whisper of an apology to anyone there – waiters or other guests and not a word of thanks to the two waiters who had taken so much trouble to retrieve her keys! NOW do you agree with me about the parents over forty???

Trying to get over it by remembering happier incidents! 

Two tiny four-year olds – the best of friends – walk solemnly into a restaurant with the parents of one of them (Archana) and Vinaya with us! Solemn – as befits the outing – best company manners and all that – they sit down carefully. The waiter comes over and asks them what they’d like to order. Arch, who’s been to this particular restaurant earlier – knows the drill: “Could I have the ‘meluka, please?” Vinaya, deciding that whatever her friend likes she is sure to like, also adds “I’ll also eat the meluka”! The waiter looks puzzled till I explain – ‘meluka’ is “menu card” with a lisp! Vin, having decided this is a new and exotic dish, wants to eat the same! By the way, neither had learnt to read yet – but restaurant visits were, as I’ve mentioned – solemn affairs requiring proper protocol and company manners!!

The dish they finally ordered – after all this deliberation – was a pumpkin soup – a favourite even today.

VERY LOW FAT PUMPKIN SOUP

• Pumpkin (yellow) – peeled and cut into cubes – 2 cups
• Onion  – chopped – 2 tbsp
• Cashewnuts – 6-8
• Butter – 1 tsp (optional)
• Coriander – chopped – 1 tbsp
• Cinnamon powder – 1 pinch or 1 small sliver of cinnamon – 1/2 cm
• Pepper
• Salt
• Milk – 1/2 cup

Place the butter and onions together in a pan.  Cover and heat on a low flame till onions turn translucent. Add the pumpkin, cashewnuts, cinnamon sliver (if using) and coriander. Add a 1/4 cup of water and cook till tender. Cool and whizz in the mixer to get a very smooth puree. Strain if necessary. Put back in the pan, add the salt and pepper and enough water to make a thickish but still pourable consistency soup. Bring to the boil ( if you’re using cinnamon powder, add now) and switch off. Pour one or two tbsp of milk in each bowl and then pour the soup over the top. Garnish with coriander / parsley or basil and serve immediately  with a spicy bread. – focaccia goes very well. If you want to omit the butter altogether, just add all the ingredients together in the pan except the milk. Proceed in the same way.

And don’t eat the meluka!!!

Very rarely do “star couples” last. Something to do with the amount of adulation/ attention they get used to – methinks. In the very “me, me” world that they live in, where the clamour for attention is so strong, how much space is left to accommodate a “we”?

Even in non-star pairings, there is usually (not always!) a more outgoing partner and a quieter soul – making great matches! One needs more attention, the other is happy to be left alone or maybe has learnt the fine art of pretending to listen while absorbed in his or her own thoughts! What is VERY important here is the strategic placing of the hmmm’s… (thoughtful), the Is that so’s? (invitation to carry on since I don’t know what the heck you are nattering on about!), tsk, tsk’s (indicating you are completely at sea about the topic in the air but this is a fence you can jump off on either side!) and the best – “let’s talk about this later. This is too important to talk about while driving/eating/sleeping/whatever” (subtext here is I’VE HAD ENOUGH. JUST STOP. GIVE IT A REST AND I HOPE YOU FORGET ABOUT IT BY TOMORROW)!! All these to be used judiciously in the course of conversation.

Some very successful pairings are when the partners take turns to be the “star” of the piece/day/event – helps if you are good at very different things. It will NOT do to get competitive – “my biryani is WAAY better than yours” or “not a bad effort but you took the second curve TOO fast” (racing couple!) or a “a cupola HERE?? Are you mad – it’ll look like a strawberry mousse, not a house!!” (architect couple, in case you’re wondering what a cupola is!)

So, there having now expounded my theories of pairings (based on close to thirty years of marriage and watching many other marriages!), let me get to the crux of the matter – far more important than all those small disagreements above – FOOD PAIRINGS!

One of those marriages absolutely made in heaven – I’d go so far as to call it a Gandharva marriage – the highest form of marriage as per the Vedas – is that of Sir Pongal and Lady Vada. The lady is undoubtedly the star of the piece but there are times like when you are tired/ill/just had too much – when the knight comes to the rescue – rather like those times when nothing but the frayed nightdress will do – and you’d KILL anyone who tried to give it away!

Vadas – of two kinds – have had their place in this narrative but now comes the turn of the quintessential comfort food for most South Indians – Pongal – to take its place centre stage – a dish so perfect it has a WHOLE festival named after itself!! Here’s a challenge – name any other dish which has this distinction – imagine a festival named mutter paneer or chocolate cake – even America does not have a festival called apple pie!

PONGAL /VEN PONGAL:

• Rice – (raw rice, not the parboiled variety) – 1 cup
• Moong dal / pesara pappu / patham paruppu/ green gram dal – 1/2 cup 
• Ginger – 1″ piece – minced
• Cumin seeds/ jeera – 1/2 tsp whole + 1/2 tsp crushed
• Peppercorns – 1/2 tsp
• Green chili – minced – 1
• Turmeric – 1 pinch
• Salt
• Ghee (very important – no substitutes!) – 2 -3 tbsp
• Cashew nuts – broken into halves – 2 tbsp
• Curry leaves – 2 sprigs
• Mustard seeds – 1/2 tsp
• Asafoetida – 2 generous pinches.

Heat half a tbsp of ghee in a pressure cooker and fry the washed moong dal for 4-5 minutes. Add the rice, ginger. minced chili, turmeric, salt, crushed jeera and 5 cups water. Pressure for 4-5 whistles. Open when the cooker has cooled off – do not force open. Mash well with the back of a ladle.

Heat the rest of the ghee in a small pan (popu garita / thaalchi kottra karandi – what a mouthful!). Add mustard seeds. When they pop, add the pepper, jeera, curry leaves, asafoetida and cashewnuts and fry till nuts turn a golden yellow – about a miute.

Pour over the pongal.

Serve with pacchi pulusu (thin, watery sweet and sour gravy with tamarind and jaggery and flavoured with pepper, jeera, green chili and ginger). Of course, if your yin and yang are in perfect harmony, let it reflect on the plate – with BOTH  pongal and vada! 

 (pic-courtesy internet – sorry – still travelling!)

“Amma, can i have a saturdegg today instead of a friedegg?”

“What?”

“This is Saturday, no? Can I have a saturd-egg instead of a fried egg??”

“So what’s a saturdegg, Arch?”

“You know when you make a mish-mash of it and put things in it, like tomato sauce and stuff? And then you make a sandwich of it? That!”

Ah, NOW I get it – egg paste sandwiches and the ‘satur-degg’ (that’s how she said it – like ‘degg’ was the operative word – was a five-year old’s attempt at humour!

Considering in what all forms Arch liked to consume eggs, this was a perfectly acceptable request. There was a time, when she was about three, that she used to carefully nibble the white of a hard boiled egg, place the yellow on her plate and proceed to mash it up with her fingers (and most of herself!) into a paste with strawberry jam – it HAD to be strawberry jam only- no pedestrian stuff like mixed fruit jam would do for her “gourmet” tastes (!) and proceed to eat the resultant yellow-pink mess with great and evident enjoyment! 

With great restraint, I let her be, hoping she’d grow out of this weird taste – and she finally did – after a few months – to everyone’s relief!

I think if I were to audit this blog, the number off egg recipes would probably outnumber everything else – that’s how much we love our everyday ke ande! When I was in a student hostel for a couple of years (and our hostel, unlike the general run of student hostels) had excellent food – in variety and quality – I ate an egg breakfast EVERY single day for two whole years – despite the calls of masala dosas, idlis and vadas!

And so, here’s to much experimentation and many egg inventions with a classic 

EGG PASTE SANDWICH

• Boiled eggs – boiled for 7-8 minutes till soft but not runny – 4
• Tomato sauce – 2 tsp
• Mustard paste (the best way is to stone grind 1 tsp of mustard seeds with a few drops of water into a rough paste) – 1 tsp
• Mayonnaise – 1 tbsp
• Grated cheddar – 2 tbsp OR 2 cheese slices OR 2 tbsp cheese spread
• Butter – 1 -2 tbsp
• Pepper – 1/2 tsp
• Green chili – 1 – minced
• Salt
• 1 or 2 tbsp hot milk
• Lettuce leaves – a few – for the sandwiches

Peel the eggs while still hot – if you use a kitchen towel to hold them, you won’t have to hop around as you burn your hands!). Mash up with the rest of the ingredients into a knobbly paste – using  a fork. The eggs can stay in little pieces. Add the hot milk a little at a time to make a not-too-wet paste. Sandwiches with multi-grain bread or whole wheat bread or burger buns are the best with this paste.

 And, NO – jam, even strawberry jam, is NOT a good idea if you want to tweak this recipe!

FB, on its feed, popped up a photograph of a college friend – Sandip – posing with Steffi Graf! Brought back some priceless memories for me too – of my daughter Archana’s very early years…

With a tennis and cricket-mad father, it was inevitable that Arch’s attention should very soon turn to both these. At the height of Steffi’s career in the early 90’s. Arch figured out the sports page in the paper – she couldn’t read but learnt to recognise pictures and questions would be asked about news of Steffi that day while she’d clamber on to her Appa’s lap and demand to be read snippets of news she jabbed her finger at! Since she insisted on holding the paper during this process, often upside down, it was a very patient appa who read out the news squinting at the paper! She would also insist on ‘reading’ out news herself sometimes. “So what’s in the paper today, Arch?’ was always met with a news item – snippets that she made up like “one man found a thotholoath (cockroach!) under his house today” or “one thidel (tiger) came to one house” – all of which had to be met with suitable expressions of horror from parents as she went off into gales of laughter at having successfully fooled us!

Back to the sports page. She was drawing, with intense concentration, a picture of a girl. Asked who, the answer was “Theffi Dhaff” (Steffi Graf) – having just heard that Steffi had won a match. A couple of days later, she was crossing out her carefully drawn masterpiece. Asked why, the answer was ” Steffi Graf chacchipoyindi” (SG is dead!). Puzzled, I inquired further. Turns out that her heroine had lost a match and Arch thought she had died!! (didn’t know the difference  which is maybe like how Steffi felt that day too!!)

On another occasion, her appa was reading out a piece about the South African cricketer Kepler Wessels and she turns her face up with a puzzled look – “Appa, Wessels? His name is ginnelu?” The word ‘ginnelu’ is Telugu for “vessels”! Occasional confusions of a multilingual household, i guess!

There was no confusion, however, with one of her favourite snacks – then and now – “murukulu” in Telugu being the Tamil “murukku” of which she demanded a supply from her ammamma (grandmother) whenever she visited.

Here are the famous “MURUKULU” – the best in the world!

• 1 cup chana dal
• 1 cup urad dal
• 1 cup moong dal/ green gram dal
• 1 cup putani / putnala pappu/pottu kadalai / roasted gram
• 4 cups rice
• 35 gm butter
• 35 hot oil
• Salt
• Red chili powder – 1.5 tsp
• Omam / ajwain/ caraway seeds – 1 tbsp
• Sunflower oil or groundnut oil to deepfry

Wash the chana dal, urad dal and moong dal togther nd spread out on a large sheet to dry for a few hours – in the shade. Ditto for rice. DO NOT wash the roasted gram. Then dry roast the dals and cool. Ditto for rice separately. Grind all the dals and rice into a fine powder. If doing at home, sieve out the coarser stuff – can use it to thicken soups later. 

Mix the chili powder, ajwain and salt into the flour. Pour in the hot oil and butter. Add water a little at a time to knead into a semi soft dough. 

Using a muruku gottam (mould) – the star shaped one, squeeze out over hot (NOT smoking hot) oil into a circle with several spirals. The oil will foam up and subside. Turn over after a minute to fry on the other side, lowering the flame. Remove when golden brown on both sides. Repeat. Store in a steel tin. 

And Sandip, you can offer some to Steffi from one of her youngest (then) fans!

 (And pls excuse the quality of the pics – am traveling and these were taken with a phone cam)