Anu Chenji

” Happy Mother’s Day, Amma”!!

I rub my eyes open blearily to the sight of two absolutely cherubic faces, beaming from ear to ear and carrying with extreme care a tray with a steaming cup of tea, a saucer with two rusks, flowers in a little jar and a napkin! Even now, the memory of it brings a warm, fuzzy feeling – imagine how i salted the tea with my tears back then! The two who created this treat for me were 7 and 3 years old respectively, with Kanch taking her fingers out of her mouth long enough to give me a grin that said – “i supported my akka through this ordeal – i woke up soooo….early – see!”

There had been much whispering the previous evening and a thickly veiled attempt at finding out my preferences – “how much sugar do you like in your tea, amma?” with the cover up following- ” how much sugar does one normally take?” so i wouldn’t get suspicious! 

Many hugs and kisses followed with Kanch wanting to give me a thousand kisses (she could count up to ten so many repetitions had to happen!). Arch, being the “cool” older sibling, had to be more restrained but watched me with an eagle eye as i sipped my tea – oops!

“Very nice, bubs, how much sugar did you put in?”.

“Like you said, Amma, three quarter teaspoons – so i put in three and a quarter teaspoons”!!

I drank the rest of it heroically – it really was well made – except for the sugar! Smelled the roses and the curry leaves they had been decorated with to make a posy (aren’t they pretty, amma? – well, of course – they were the most beautiful things in the world – next to the kids!) and admired the ironed napkin. 

Today, they definitely make the best tea in the world – next to my husband – who really makes THE very best tea and has been doing it for the past coming-on-to-thirty years every morning!

Here’s his contribution:

THE BEST TEA IN THE WORLD ACCORDING TO PS

For one cuppa:

Boil one cup water. As it’s boiling, add 1/4 tsp BOP (Broken Orange Pekoe). Switch off and add 1 tsp Orange Pekoe leaf. Cover and let brew for 3 minutes. Strain into a warm cup. Add three quarters of a teaspoon of sugar ONLY! Add a few drops of warm milk till the colour is like a muddy river on a rainy day and …enjoy!!

Just read a hilarious post on “15 things you experience when you have a South Indian friend” posted by my nephew Parshu on Facebook – clearing up popular misconceptions about South India that North Indians hold. I have one more to add to this – in my five decades so far, I have yet to meet a North Indian who doesn’t absolutely LOVE tamarind rice  (aka pulihodharai, pulinchaadam, pulihora) and am constantly being asked to make it for potluck lunches… one Punjabi lady told me that no matter what she does, her sambar ends up tasting like rajma and as for tamarind rice – this has completely flummoxed her – how do you make something so tasty without onions and garlic and… ‘tamaatar’?? The one exception to this is my sister-in-law – Shipra- who makes absolutely brilliant South Indian food despite hailing from the other end of the country – all the way to Jammu!!

There really is something about cuisine though, that is tied up with our genetic heritages – if an Italian were to be deprived of his pasta or a Bengali of his rosogulla and a South Indian of rasam and sambar and pappu, i think each of these would just shrivel up over time and… die! Dissenters to my theory are bound to be below 25 years of age and I’ll wait for you to grow older before arguing with you!

The tamar-e-hind – or date of India as the Arabs called it – grows all over the world, apparently and the USA is the second largest grower after India! Hmmm…. wonder whether anyone in America has ever thought of a tamarind- flavoured apple pie or a spaghetti with tamarind balls? urrr… One interesting fact about this fruit is that it is unique in the fruit world in having significant amounts of calcium!! Brown tamarind toothpaste for strong,white teeth… i think i’ll patent the idea!

 A few years ago, I was invited to judge a cookery contest at a school, the participants being about 13-14 years old. There were some horrendous things to taste and some halfway decent stuff but there was one kid who actually ventured to make tamarind rice. Never mind that it was semi-raw – i gave her full marks for trying to make something other than an omelet! 

Having poked much fun at my mom in these columns, I have to give her credit where it’s due – she really does make the best tamarind rice in the world! 

Here it is – Tamarind Rice – as mother makes it 🙂

•  Tamarind – 1/2 cup – soaked in one cup water for half an hour and juice squeezed out. Do this a couple of time – to get about 1.5-2 cups tamarind water.
• Sambar powder – 3 heaped tsp
• Cooked rice – 4 cups ( the rice shouldn’t be very soft. As soon as it’s cooked, spread it out on a plate to dry after mixing in one spoon of sesame oil)
• Turmeric – 1/2 tsp
• Methi (fenugreek seeds) – 1 tsp – dry roast and powder.
• Red chilies – 5-6
• Asafoetida – 1 very generous pinch
• Mustard seeds – 1 tsp
• Chana dal – 1 tbsp
• Urad dal – 1 tbsp
• Groundnuts (optional but i love the textural contrast) – 3 tbsp
• Separately roast and powder  together – 1 tbsp sesame seeds, red chilies – 2 -3 , asafoetida – 1 large pinch
• Curry leaves – 4-5 sprigs
• Sesame oil (only!) – 3 tbsp
• Jaggery – 1 lemon sized lump
• Salt – 1.5 tsp
• Mustard seeds – 1.5 tsp – soaked and ground to a paste with 1 tsp water (OPTIONAL) and fried ginger juliennes – 2 tbsp

To garnish:

Fry cashew nuts and curry leaves till crisp and pour over the top at the very end.

To start:

Heat the oil in a pan. Add the peanuts and fry on low heat truning over occasionally till crisp. When they are almost done, add the mustard seeds and let pop. Add the chana dal, urad dal, red chilies, asafoetida and curry leaves. Fry for a few seconds. Add the sambar powder and turmeric and as soon as they sort of go “bussss” in the oil – add the tamarind water. Add the salt and jaggery and bring to a boil. Add the methi seeds powder and let it simmer for about 15 – 20 minutes till the raw smell of tamarind is gone and there’s a saliva-indusing smell! Can add a little more water if it’s drying up too soon. The final consistency should be quite thick , not quite a paste though. Switch off and let cool a bit. Mix it in with the cooked rice along with the sesame seeds powder. Don’t overhandle the rice but mix in lightly with your fingers till all the grains of rice are fully coated. 

Optional – if you want a more “Andhra” pulihaara, add the mustard paste and ginger juliennes. You could also add the ginger to the tamarind while it’s cooking. 

Let the pulihaara sit for at least an hour before serving. Make lots because it tastes waaay better the next day. 

Serve with chips or appadams for the quintessential South Indian travel meal.

“Neyyi urikitu konduvariya?”  asks my mom-in-law a few days afer my wedding, as we were laying the table for lunch. My knowledge of Tamil extended to a few words like “vaadaa” and “poda” (rather impolite ways of telling someone to come or buzz off) and this string of words flummoxed me completely.

“Neyyi” i could figure out – it’s the same word in Telugu too – meaning ghee but what on earth was the rest of the mumbo-jumbo? Tried finding equivalents in the many lingos that I’d picked up thanks to a mixed parentage and the closest I could think of was the very Telangana “uriki” meaning “run” – was she asking me to run for the ghee? Why? Wasn’t it in a vessel? Was I supposed to carry it in my palms so it wouldn’t run? What, what, whaaat? I did run – but not to the kitchen – ran straight to the bedroom where hubby was working and asked him what on earth did his mom mean?

Much laughter ensued from the rest of the family – my initial Tamil learning struggles have been the source of much unholy glee (NOT ghee!) for the family – but I did have the last laugh – I now speak Tamil like a native and there are lots who never guess it’s not my mother tongue!

Neyyi – in any language – is one of my favourite accompaniments and the day I decided to stop eating ghee rice in the interests of health is a black-armband day in my reckoning – still sneak in a spoonful occasionally but it’s not the same unthinking relish as you get in childhood!

The one ghee-laden dish that I just cannot resist is Mysore Pak and the person who makes it the best is again – mother-in-law!  My father-in-law was famous for the quantities of this dish he could put away. Once, when there was no time to make it, my m-i-l had asked him to go to a sweet shop to pick up half a kg of Mysore Pak. He came back with a large box but very little inside. “Are you sure this is all they packed? This looks like only a quarter kg to me,” asks sharp-eyed m-i-l. “Well, they gave me a box and I brought it home” he tries to wriggle out of an awkward situation. But being a poor liar – a la Billy Bunter – the best he can manage it is – ” I don’t know. I never opened it and I never ate any!!!” The dear man has opened it right outside the shop and polished off a good quarter kg of a very rich sweet!!

Here is a recipe for Mysore Pak that you just CANNOT eat less than a quarter kg of!

•  Besan (chickpea flour / senagapindi/kadalemaavu) – 1 cup
• Sugar – 1.5 cups
• Ghee  (melted) – 1.5 – 1.75 cups

Heat the sugar adding a little water till you get  a one -string syrup – if you pick it up between two fingers and draw them apart, there should be a string between them). On a low flame, add the besan and stir furiously till you feel your arm dropping off and the besan is fully incorporated with no lumps. Start adding the ghee, a tablespoon at a time, stirring constantly. The whole mass will froth up initially and then start to leave the sides of the vessel and adhere to the ladle. Keep adding more ghee and stirring till the mass stops absorbing ghee. Pour onto a greased loaf tin and wait for a few minutes. Cut into squares or rhombi. Let cool completely before removing the pieces and storing in a tin.

“Don’t eat with both your hands, paapa. Eat with only the right hand”. 

And very gently, a large adult hand washes my left hand clean and shows me how to eat with the right hand only. It takes some doing, but i mastered it! This is one my earliest memories of life and the teacher is Mrs. Rajan Raju – “Aunty” – our neighbour and landlady and a second mother to me all my life… Aunty taught me to eat. An expert needlewoman, she taught me to to put in my very first stitches – large running ones of which i was immensely proud! With an extremely busy doctor mom, she was also the go-to person for all our small troubles. She sent me too all the “seeru” (gifts at auspicious ceremonies) for my Seemantham (a sort of baby shower) and a couple of months ago, when i visited her, insisted on packing me several kilos of her fabulous aavakai!

As always, while i pay tribute to people, the things that i remember are also to do with food! And so, my 3 year old’s memory has imprinted exactly what i was eating in my memory! Pappannam (dal and rice but made the Telugu way – with thick tuvar dal, loads of ghee and hot rice – a staple till was about 16 and a favourite even today! In fact, one of my colleagues when i first started working and we used to have communal shared lunches from our dabbas, after tasting my various “pappus” for several weeks-  told me that the prices of dals had gone up solely because of my consumption! On another occasion, I had consulted a Kerala Ayurvedic doc for some tummy trouble and he gave me a looooong list of things i was not supposed to eat – to all of which i nodded – can do. At the very end, he said that i had to give up toor dal and eat only parboiled rice!! The Telugu in me rebelled and i told him anything but! Well, toor dal continued to feature on my plate and my tummy trouble disappeared on it’s own – my mind must have taken a hand in the healing after the shock of the doc’s strictures!

The moral of the story is that separating Andhra and Telangana is easier than separating a Telugu from her “pappu”!

For the past few weeks, i’ve been giving slightly challenging recipes – like the biryani recipe yesterday. Am going to make it up by giving an NRI-student type recipe – that’s the euphemism for “no-cook” or “almost no-cook” food!

Here’s a dal that can be had with rice or rotis or by itself and requires no more effort than boiling up the dal and enough knife skills to chop up an onion!

A very different dal: Zero-fat salad dal! 

For when you really don’t have time to cook and can’t stand the idea of one more takeout!

1 cup cooked  green gram dal (i.e. 1/2 cup pappu cooked with 1.5 cups water and a little turmeric).

Add to the dal:

2 tbsp chopped onion

1 tsp chopped kothimeera

1 finely chopped green chilli

 1/2 lemon squeezed over it and salt to taste. 

Mix it up and eat with your roti – hey presto – salad dal! – smoky taste of pesarapappu (moong), lemon and bursts of fresh onion, zing of green chilli!

Oh, and eat with whichever hand makes it tastier!