Anu Chenji

A couple of months ago, I got a surprise parcel from one of my readers – long-lost cousin Satya – all the way from New Zealand! No matter how old you grow, the excitement of opening a parcel, not knowing what it has inside – is well… rather like not knowing the sex of the baby till it is born, right?!

So, in my desire to get it open, I tear at the strings and pull away the cellotape, rather than step into the kitchen and pick up a pair of scissors to do the job neatly! There are three books inside – three lovely cookbooks – all about New Zealand cuisine – of which till now, I know less than nothing except that they probably eat a lot of lamb – based on a picture in one of my childhood books – of a herd of sheep dotted all over the greenest of hillsides… being vegetarian, I haven’t really thought much beyond the lamb!

But these books are beautiful – and I devour them – planning quickly what vegetarian substitute I can use – and oh, I was right – they do eat a lot of lamb!

Which takes me back to what we knew of the world as children – gleaned largely from various Reader’s Digest encyclopaedias, atlases and travel books, supplemented with large doses of Enid Blyton, Richmal Crompton (the creator of the “William” series) and Frank Richards (who immortalised Billy Bunter!) and a few others of the same ilk. Enid Blyton, of course, was past mistress at making the most mundane food sound like manna – when she spoke about tomatoes and lettuce, you literally drooled! Even such hardcore vegetarians as we were, potted meat and steak and kidney pie sounded completely delicious – we had no idea what either of these was!

Of American books, we didn’t really have many – I don’t think these really reached Indian shores till decades after they were published. Louisa May Alcott, as delightful as she was, did not wax eloquent on food. Neither did the westerns that we fell in love with. Other than an occasional reference to beef and beans and something strange called “bear’s paws” (I found out years later that this was another name for doughnuts – not that we knew what doughnuts were back then). Sundry Red Indian (ok, ok, native Americans – we hadn’t heard of a thing called political correctness those days!) stories did provide a clue – to things like pemmican (which sounded more like a fur coat than anything else!), jerky and of course – corn – from the story of the founding fathers! For all we knew, this was what all Americans ate all the time – bread and corn and apples (from all the trees planted by Johnny Appleseed!) and… pemmican!

The word “pizza” had not swum into our ken yet and we wouldn’t have associated it with America if it did!

World cuisine opened up only well into our teens – come to think of it, a lot of North Indian cuisine also entered our lives only about then – and later… like this new New Zealand cuisine, which Satya has opened up for me…

Presenting this really lovely dessert – a sort of hybrid between an apple pancake, an upside down tipsy cake and a waffle – easy peasy to make…

 

APPLE PAN PUFF (adapted slightly from a recipe in Annabel Langbein’s book)

 

• Apples – any crunchy, sweet variety – I used Simla – 5 – peel, core and slice. Substitute any other slightly tart fruit too
• Sugar – 2 tbsp
• Butter – 2 tbsp + 1 tbsp
• Cinnamon powder – 1/2 tsp
• Milk – 1 cup
• Eggs – 2
• Baking powder – 1/2 tsp
• Flour – 1/3 cup
• Vanilla essence – 1 tsp
• Any sweetish wine – 3-4  tbsp I used a gooseberry wine someone gifted me and I want to finish!
• 2 tbsp  honey
• Whipped cream to serve (yes!)

 

In a baking pan, drop in 1 tbsp butter and honey. Heat in the oven (at 200 C) or on the burner till it begins to caramelise. Add the apples and cook till they begin to caramelise – about 6-8 minutes. Pour in the wine and cook till it evaporates.

Mix the cinnamon, flour, baking powder and sugar.

Add the milk, eggs and vanilla and whisk till smooth. Pour in the melted butter and whisk further.

Pour over the apple base and bake for 30 minutes till golden and puffy around the edges.

 

Serve war or cold with cream and sugar sieved over if desired – I didn’t need it. It’s a soft, apple-y cake/pancake.

Will explore further and tell you what New Zealanders eat – by way of veggie food, at least!

“Dochi, do you know that is very expensive? It costs ten rupees a bottle!” admonishes the great-aunt.

“Ten rupees???!” Her eyes grow saucer-like trying to grasp this enormous figure! And she gets back to her task with added vim. All of two years old, the little girl is engaged in polishing the floor of her grandmother’s house – dipping her chubby fingers into a jar of – cold cream!

The lesson my aunt is trying to teach is about valuing things and waste – obviously! The lessons that are learnt by little kids sometimes make you sit back on your feet – Dochi takes it to mean that the cold cream is so valuable that she had better do a really, really good job of trying to make the floor shine!

A few years later, the same little girl, now slightly older, has acquired a brother, Arjun, whose antics challenge the world around him – all with the sweetest, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-his-mouth beam on his face that made it impossible for anyone to be cross with him for long (come to think of it, a little over two decades later he hasn’t changed much!) And so one day, at the lunch table, he’s at his favourite pastime – pushing the food around his plate. His patient grandmother is cajoling him to eat and he tells her, “But, ammamma, see the eagles are landing!” pointing to one lone fly buzzing around! The word in Telugu for fly (the insect variety that is, not the action it performs) is “eega”. The plural would be “eegalu”. Our pal, caught in a hard place between his Telugu genes, the Tamil-speaking Madrasi setting and the primarily English-speaking home, tries to make sense of his world by Anglicising whatever words he knows of in Telugu and Tamil! Thus paraphrasing Jack Higgins without ever having heard of him (he was only three years old!).

Another cousin, angry with his mother about some withheld privilege, chases her around the table, yelling, “I’m going to kill you, I’m going to kill you!” The shocked mother scrambles around the table, evading the boy’s hands, wondering where she’s gone wrong and pleading with him to please not use such language. The seven-year old pauses, “Oh, I meant only the Tamil “kill” ma. not English “kill”!” The word “killu” in Tamil means to pinch! The mother devoutly delivers up a prayer of thanks!

For most of us living in countries/cities not native to us, our vocabularies have been hugely enriched by the things our children say and do…

Unlike this “pure” Andhra dish which stays completely true to its origins…

 

VADIYAALU PAALU KOORA/Milk based gravy with ashgourd fries (for 2 servings)

[Recipe courtesy my dear friend Shreesha’s mother]

 

• 1 small katori (about the volume of 1/3 cup) – boodide gummadikaaya vadiyaalu/ashgourd fries/petha vadis – these are made by soaking urad dal overnight, draining and grinding along with green chili paste, salt and grated ashgourd (wintermelon) from which the water has been drained. This water is used for grinding. The paste is then made into little flattish discs and sundried for 2-3 days till crisp. These are stored for the whole year and fried as needed. I microwave them sometimes – when I have guilt pangs, basically!  They also make a great substitute for vegetables in a gravy or you could add them to a curry or a gravy when you have unexpected guests and need to “multiply” food!
• Hot milk – 1 cup
• Chopped onion – 1 medium
• Green chilies – chopped – 1 or 2
• Curry leaves – chopped – 2 sprigs
• Salt
• Koora podi – 1/2 tsp – optional. See this link for the powder
• Oil – 1 tsp
• Ghee – 1/2 tsp
• Mustard seeds – 1/4 tsp
• Urad dal – 1/2 tsp
• Jeera – 1/4 tsp
• Asafoetida – 1 pinch

 

Heat the oil in a pan and shallow fry the vadiyaaly till they turn a deep golden brown – see pic. This will take about two minutes. Set aside. You could deep fry the vadiyalu and drain.

In the same pan, add the ghee. Heat and splutter the mustard seeds in it. Add the urad dal and jeera and roast till the dal is golden. Add the onions, curry leaves and green chilies and saute for 3-4 minutes till the onions turn golden brown.

Add the hot milk – if the milk is cold, it will curdle.

Add the koora podi (curry powder) and salt. Remember the vadiyalu already have salt so add just enough for the onions and milk. Add the fried vadiyalu and cook on a very low flame for about 5 minutes. The milk may curdle but it will taste just as good!

 

Yummy with rice or rotis – this has a distinctively smokey flavour which is quite delicious.

The bus rolls to a halt and a young girl, lost in a daydream, steps off. Unfortunately the bus hasn’t quite stopped yet and she falls flat on her face on the tarred road. The bus driver and conductor are very concerned but she picks herself up, more embarrassed than hurt, dusts herself off and walks off home. It isn’t till she reaches home and cleans herself up that she realises that she’s hurt herself quite badly – the knees are badly skinned (I still carry the scars). I don’t mind the pain but the brand new pair of Levi’s I am wearing (swanking around in, actually!) are quite ruined – and that, as any kid who grew up in those decades will tell you – was quite a tragedy!

Ours was the last generation, I think, who had new clothes bought for precisely two or – if you were rich – three occasions in a year – Deepavali, one’s birthday and sometimes Ugadi. You wore these through the year and passed them on to smaller cousins as you outgrew them and your wardrobe (basically one half of a cement shelf in the parents’ room!) got replenished by hand-me-downs from older cousins. New clothes were not precisely bought either – readymades were rare and expensive. It was far cheaper to buy material and get your stuff tailored by the local tailor – who catered to the entire family – dad, mom, boys, girls, old people – the works. The “master” was always instructed to stitch clothes that would last – for a couple of years at least. With the result, new clothes were inevitably baggy, literally” hanging loose” everywhere and reaching at least five or six inches longer than your current measurements!

In all the photographs of our childhood, my brothers are dressed in shorts which hang at least four inches below their knees and would qualify for bermudas today! No, no, they were not forerunners of fashion, and being no more than four years old, just victims of the age of “saving” and “making things last” almost forever!

Most large families bought taans (a full roll) of material as it was cheaper and everyone would have something made of the same material! I remember a neighbour, a gentleman with nine children, whose kids turned out one Deepavali morning clad in shiny bright purple – ranging from long skirts (paavadais) and blouses and frocks for the girls, shirts for all the boys and finally the mom comes out – in a purple blouse! As clothes got handed down from oldest to youngest, the littlest fellow must have spent the better part of his life clad in bright purple – bet he won’t even eat eggplant now!

The loss of my new pair of fashionable brown corduroy Levi’s ( a brand not available in India till well over a decade later), sent by a cousin all the way from America, was quite shattering! The fact that I almost shattered my kneecaps too didn’t seem to matter so much somehow!

So there I am, having administered first aid to myself and trying to not think about the pain, when the doorbell rings. I groan – it’s not easy to walk and there’s no one else at home. Plus it hasn’t been so easy to find something to wear that doesn’t hurt the wound so I am in a nightdress – something that I hate wearing in the daytime! Grumbling a bit, I hobble to the door and open it. A young man in a khakhi uniform is standing at the door. I don’t recognise him, though he looks vaguely familiar.

“I am so sorry, Madam (huh, I’m all of seventeen years old!), but I came to check if you were hurt badly. I am the driver of the bus you got down from today and I am so sorry blah, blah… ” he says. My jaw drops. For one, I am pretty sure that I wouldn’t have fallen if I hadn’t been daydreaming and for another, the guy has actually taken the trouble to find out where I live and come after his shift to apologise – for something that is not even his fault!

Does my country have a heart or what???!!!

Just like this dish which lifts the hearts of Telugus world over… you can take a Telugu out of India, but can you take gongura pacchadi out of his bloodstream?!!

 

GONGURA  THOKKU  OR  GONGURA  DIP

(Recipe courtesy my aunt Malathi Mohan)

 

• Gongura …… 1 bundle
• Black gram dal ….. 3 tbsp
• Dhania seeds …..1 tbsp
• Jeera ….. 2tsp
• Hing powder  …… 1 tsp or more as per taste.( Hing cake is more flavoursome)
• Jaggery  …… 1 tbsp
• Red chillies ……8  nos
• Methi seeds ….. 1 tsp
• Salt …. 2tsp (to taste}
• Gingelly / sesame oil …. 4 to 5 tbsp
• Garlic … 1 whole, peeled
• Onion …1 big, cut into big chunks

 

Pinch the leaves from the stem, wash well and air dry on a kitchen towel. Chop roughly to small pieces for ease of grinding, later.

Roast the dry ingredients and grind to powder, then cool. Grind roughly for thokku and finely for the dip.

Heat 1 tbsp. oil , fry the onion and lightly roast the chopped leaves. They will lose the green colour with heat, so let some remain green. Allow to cool.

Grind the leaves with the powder, adding salt to taste. Roughly for thokku and soft for the dip.

Heat the remaining oil, fry the garlic slices, sprinkling two pinches of salt, add the ground mix, and  jaggery and cook the mix till it leaves the sides of the pan in one single mass.

Mix the thokku with hot rice and ghee. Serve with plain raw onion.

 

The dip can be used with pita chips or any other innovation that Madan Valluri is adept at. Actually, it was Madan who made me realise that this can be a dip too if ground well. Thanks, Madan. This beats all other western dips in my opinion!!

For the longest time, I thought there were some foods that could only be bought in shops – it was quite unthinkable to make them at home. Hmmm… come to think of it, for a lot of people I know, that goes for pretty much anything except Maggi noodles – which can be made at home – in two minutes!

The recent ban on Maggi has meant that for all these poor souls, there is simply nothing at all which can be cooked at home… which brings us to the thought… real estate developers should really cash in on this trend and stop wasting precious FSI space building kitchens and stove tops and ceramic tiles and the rest of the hoohaa that you use to sell kitchens – and apartments with! You see, Mr-Real-Estate-Developer-who-makes-fat-profits, these guys are just not interested! Use the space to give them a karaoke bar instead, or maybe just a plain ol’ bar! Watch your profits go higher than that sixteen-storeyed tower you’re building – and pay me royalty for the idea…

But back to normal people who need to make their three square meals a day – ever wondered why they call them square meals when almost all plates you see (except the ones in fancy restaurants which make you bankrupt as you pay for one meal!) are round in shape? We need kitchens and these function – more or less through the year.

Candy (particularly those egg-shaped pastel coloured all-day suckers!) and pootharekus (Andhra rice paper sweet) apart, which I have never seen anyone make at home, I pretty much managed to get past this barrier of making fancy food at home. The food philosophy (I learnt this fancy phrase watching, actually devouring – Masterchef Australia, by the way!) that most of us grew up with was – if anything yummy can be bought “outside”, it is always yummier – and “healthier” (key phrase!) made at home! Even though the evidence piled up on the other side (read the many adventures involving my mother’s living out this philosophy!) the idea was so ingrained in us that we were quite brainwashed!

The one exception that I came across was my friend Viraja, who, despite being a superb cook, always advised me, “Don’t spoil the family  by giving them fancy food at home. If they want it, sell restaurant food for all you’re worth – it’ll save you a lot of trouble. After all, why make it at home when you can buy it outside??”

Today, I realised there are still some fences that I need to jump – in my head! Was munching my way through a packet of virulently green crunchy masala peas when I realised that this is one of those things that we never make at home… despite it being one of my favourites  – the more virulently green, the better, as far as I’m concerned! They used to be sold by bandiwallahs (pushcart vendors) outside schools – for ten paise a pop – a pop being a small cylindrical aluminium container which measured out about half a cup of the delicious crispy toasty, very spicy (fire out of the ears, wipe your forehead, keep a tissue handy kind of fierce spiciness!) little spheres.

And so, here’s a recipe:

 

ROASTED MASALA GREEN PEAS

 

• Frozen green peas – 500 gm
• Oil – 2 tbsp
• Salt – 2 tsp
• Chili powder – 1 tsp
• Asafoetida – 1/4 tsp
• Cumin powder – 1 tsp
• Chaat masala – 1/2 tsp – optional
• Juice of 2 limes
• Sugar – 1 tsp

 

Spread the peas out on a towel to dry for about an hour. Pat dry.

Mix all the other ingredients in and spread them on a baking tray lined with paper. They should be in a single layer.

Bake at 350C for about 30-35 minutes, shaking the tray every ten minutes till crunchy and dry (the peas, not the tray!)

 

Let cool completely and store in a tin. Just eat them plain or serve dressed with chopped onions and tomatoes and a little lime juice sprinkled over the top.

Or, if you own one of those new condos which you’ve bought from the real estate builder whom I’ve been advising, just buy them in a packet and open them!

“The old man is tying a dhoti.”

Huh?

“The old man is tying a dhoti... ajooba dhotar nesthaat, ajooba dhotar nesthaath, ajooba dhotar nesthaath… ajoo… zzzzz…” and the voice fades away into the gentle breathing of childhood sleep….

“Wake up, Tej, time to get ready for the exam,” and the poor kid is awakened – not rudely though…

….mumbling, “Ajooba dhotar nesthaath… ajooba…” all the while he is getting ready for the Marathi exam at his school in Mumbai.

His dad (born and bred in Madras, barely able to string two words of Hindi together!), also helps matters along by prompting  helpfully… “Ajooba… ajoobaaa… ” and applauding with joy every time the kid finishes the sentence – “…Dhotar nesthaath“!! Yay!

And thus, murmuring this formula for success, they arrive at school… in time for the exam.

Proud dad wishes kid all the best, confident kid (he knows all about ajoobas and dhotars, remember?!) waves jauntily and positively swaggers into the exam hall , finds his place and sits down. The question paper is handed out. Kid peers at it, sure that he’ll ace the exam…. wait… whaaaat?? No mention of old men and their dhoti-wearing skills???! Phussssss… goes the confidence… he struggles through the exam, trailing home sadly at the end of the day – it so not fair – I know Marathi and that lesson on old men and dhotis – how can they not give the question in the exam?!

The dad, being a sympathetic sort – remember our pal with the towel around the long hair  in the lift? Also the gentleman with the BMW keys? Same dad – he understands the son’s predicament very well – having been in the same predicament in a Sanskrit exam decades ago! Let me digress a bit and go back some thirty five years into another exam hall – in Madras this time. The subject is slightly different – Sanskrit – but the principles of old men and dhotis stay unchanged.

In those days, one could write the Sanskrit exam in English – basically as long as you understood the question, it was okay to answer any which way! Having been assured by a good friend – the nerd of the class (it is always a good idea to keep in with the nerds!) that he would help him with the exam, our pal has gone completely unprepared – to find Mr Bill Gates-to-be’s pen flying across the paper – in Sanskrit, not English! We are defeated! We do the next best thing – we become a very sympathetic dad – vowing never to let son down in any language paper – hence the dhoti-tying session!

The son trails home disconsolately. The dad reassures him : “Never mind about the exam. The important thing is that you learnt Marathi!”

And thus, there is a father-son duo floating around in Bombay looking for an occasion to practise their Marathi – when they can remark fluently and like native speakers of the language, The old man is tying a dhoti!  Unfortunately, till the time of this going to the press, the occasion has not arisen…

One doesn’t need an occasion, though, to make this unusual Marathi dish…

 

CAPSICUM AND SPRING ONIONS CURRY WITH CHICKPEA FLOUR

 

• Capsicums/bell peppers – 2 large – slice into thin slivers – about 1 cm long by 3 mm thick
• Spring onions – 1 bunch – about 2 cupfuls. Slice the white onion part into rings and the green stems into 1 cm long pieces.
• Chickpea flour/besan – 1 cup
• Chili powder – 1 tsp
• Dhania/coriander pwd – 1.5 tsp
• Jeera/cumin pwd – 1 tsp
• Turmeric – 1/4 tsp
• Asafoetida – 1/8 tsp
• Sugar – 1 tsp
• Salt
• Oil – 2 tbsp + 1 tsp
• Garlic – 1 or 2 flakes – crushed (optional)
• Ginger – 1/2 tsp – minced
• Green chili – 1 minced
• Juice of 1 lime
• Chopped fresh coriander to garnish

 

Mix the powders and the flour together. adding salt. Roast in a dry pan for 5-6 minutes till it becomes a golden yellow and smells nutty. Heat the 2 tbsp of oil and pour it into the besan. It will froth a bit – not to worry – just watch your fingers!

Transfer to another plate to cool. If you leave it in the same pan, it will continue to brown. When cool, mix well with your fingers to break up lumps.

Saute the capsicum pieces on high heat with a few drops of oil for 3 – 4 minutes. Set aside.

In the same pan, add 1 tsp oil and saute the ginger, garlic and green chili. Add the whites of the spring onions and stir fry on high heat for 3-4 minutes. Add the greens and continue to saute for a minute more. Add the besan mixture and the capsicums and the sugar. Stir well, cover and cook for about 5-6 minutes till vegetables are tender.

Remove from heat. squeeze over lime and garnish with coriander…

 

Serve with rice or rotis or pooris… to the old man waiting to tie his dhoti!