Anu Chenji

“Ooooooohh, snaaake, snaaake!” Three kids, oiled from top to toe waiting for the dreaded Sunday morning mandatory “oil baths”, decide to make the most of it by chasing each other round and round the garden clad in bare necessities and armed with long, green, snakelike gourds in their hands – potlakai, podalanga, parval, chichinda – the various names by which this vegetable is known in India are nowhere near as descriptive as it’s English title – the snake gourd. Being the youngest at about 5 or 6 years old, I half believed it was a snake !

That Sunday morning ritual was dreaded for many reasons. First the process of being oiled meant you got kneaded and pummelled and squashed and your nose got pulled – to make it longer – well going by the length it reached, the rest of my face caught up with it only in my 30s!!! I had one aunt whom i shall not name here but who i think used to pummel us more than the others – maybe the frustrations of her existence got too much for her by the weekend (!) and the oil massage used to be accompanied by a rising crescendo of howls of despair and many complaints to mom later!

The best part of it was when were let out – makes us sound like a pack of dogs, doesn’t it? – to run about and play in the sun for a while till the water was heated in an old copper boiler. What a deadly dose of Vit D we must have absorbed in the running around – whether we played “snake” or not. Then followed the agony of having your skin almost scraped off with “nalugu pindi” (a mixture of chickpea flour and turmeric): “GOOD FOR YOU”!

Your hair and very likely much of your head was nearly pulled out by the “sheekai” (soapnut powder), a brown and in my opinion “kaaram”(chilli-hot) substance which inevitably leaked into our eyes and made the howls even louder. And all this with boiling hot water from the “anda”!

It was some kind of torture system devised to take a perfectly happy, reasonably clean kid and designed to turn him/her inside out in the adult’s quest for that stray particle of dirt which might cause you to… what? Die? I never found out! End of process you came out smelling like a pakoda from all the flour and turmeric, eyes streaming and a feeling of deep gratitude that you did not have to face this again for another blessed 168 hours (7 * 24) and the incurable optimism of childhood that something, anything might happen to prevent the next one! Alas, that hope was very rarely realised…

And what happened to the snake which allayed the agony of Sunday baths? Many things were made out of it – in my memory it was either overcooked into a mush or under-cooked so that it tasted like a sharp-ish cucumber. Then I grew up and learnt how to actually cook it!

Here’s one which my family loves – stuffed potlakai – my way.

1 long, tender snake gourd -wash and cut into pieces about 2″ long With your pinkie or a narrow spoon, remove the insides – seeds and tissue. These are tender so easily removed.

Mix together:

Roasted and powdered sesame (til) seeds – 1 tbsp

Roasted chickpea flour(roasted besan) – 1/2 cup

Jeera powder – 1 tsp

Dhania powder – 1.5 tsp

Kasooti methi (dried fenugreek leaves) – 1 tsp

Coriander leaves – chopped – 2tbsp

Chili powder – 1 tsp

Turmeric – 1 large pinch.

Salt – about 3/4 tsp

Oil – 1 tbsp

Stuff the pieces with this masala powder. Heat oil in a large, flat pan and add the pieces. Cover and cook, turning over occasionally for abut 12-15 minutes till the vegetable is tender. Open and cook for a few minutes more.

Serve hot with rice. Don’t forget to have your oil bath before this otherwise how will you make FULL use of the potlakai – to scare the littlest kid with and to get your dose of Vit. D????

P.S: Wonder what they did with all the besan they washed us with?? Recycled as… no, no perish the thought. It’s too yucky!

Rarely does real life live up to the promise of what books or movies describe. Take the case of Enid Blyton’s food for example. Which of us has grown up not salivating over “potted meat” sandwiches, tomatoes,scones and lettuce – even those of us who were highly vegetarian?

 

I know a little girl who went to England when she was about ten years old, still in the throes of the Famous Five’s picnics, the “steak and kidney” pies, “tinned sardines” and ginger beer, insisting that the grandparents (who lived there) get her all these amazing goodies to eat.

 

The grandparents, poor things, having already gone through the rigours of “British cooking, tried their best to dissuade her. “Are you quite sure you want it, dear? It’s not all that it’s pumped up to be; let’s have pizza instead”. Or maybe – since these were the days before pizzas became as ubiquitous as they are today – let’s have curry instead (whatever ‘curry’ is ) – remember the setting is England!

 

The child however, who had already sent letters off to Mallory Towers and St.Clair’s believing quite firmly in the existence of these, would not be dissuaded. So off they went – to a steak shop and ordered exactly what she wanted – steak and kidney pie. I don’t have to do any cutting a long story short stuff  – because the story only lasted for about ten seconds after the waiter set down the dish in front of her with a cheery, “Here you go, darling”. Our young friend cuts into it, looks around to see if the restaurant has some drainage problem (the smell, you see), decides not to let a bad drain come in the way of her dream meal and puts a forkful in her mouth. She lasted for all of the ten seconds it needed for her to get to the washroom – she hadn’t known that kidneys performed a certain essential but unmentionable function, you see, or that the smell of said function might continue to waft out the cooked fellas!

 

But that is a sad story. One where reality not only lived up to expectation  but surpassed it is the story of the seed cake!  The first time i tasted this was the home of an elderly Anglo-Indian aunt – a friend of the family whose name was Miss Mary (really!) but who was universally know as Baba aunty.

 

The cake itself looked lovely – golden and full of tiny little seeds with more fragrance than anything so tiny has a right to possess but when you bit into it – omg – the sheer luxuriance of flavour that burst in your mouth was enough to transport you right back to Blyton’s England of the 1930s!

 

I’ve experimented hugely but i think i’ve got it right.

 

 

Maida (plain flour) – 150 gm

Cornflour – 30 gm

Table butter – 100 gm

Eggs – 3

Powdered sugar (easier to cream!) – 180 gm

Vanilla essence – 1 tsp

Caraway seeds (these look like tiny shahijeeera seeds but have a strong aniseed-y fragrance) – 1.5 tsp

 

The cake is made as usual – cream butter and sugar together till light and fluffy, add eggs and mix, fold in flour. Add caraway seeds and vanilla. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 C for about 30 minutes till a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.

 

This is a fantastic teatime, coffeetime or anytime at all cake 🙂

And i promise it really tastes better than even Enid Blyton can make it sound!

 

“Anu aunty, is this you??!!” – am overjoyed to see the message on Facebook – from a little girl who’s been our neighbour some two decades ago and who has since emigrated to Canada – she and her little brother were two of the cutest little munchkins – therefore the joy of reconnecting! And the next sentence took me back all those years ago to when both the mothers and the doting grandmother would gather on the terrace in the evening to feed the four little kids dinner together – and this little girl – Tas – would be waiting to see if i’d bring “rasam” or anything else she loved!

 

Many squeals of excitement ensued over the catching up of old friends from long ago  and of course, the ubiquitous “how big you’ve grown and how tall Akif is and how’re the grandparents and the parents” kind of talk later, there was one added little message – “Please, Anu aunty. Can you post the recipe for the baby potato pulao that you used to make?” Wow – for a kid who left India when she was about 4 or 5 years old, this was SOME memory!

 

One evening when the kids were coming downstairs, Arch slipped and fell headlong into a cactus plant that someone had left on the landing. Abortive attempt to try and remove the rugae (the fine hairlike spikes on cacti) had us running to the doc who sent us to a surgeon who told us the only way was to pull out the darn things by using tweezers. Back home to borrow tweezers from neighbours, high beam torches too and well, have you ever sat up a whole night trying to pull near invisible hairy things from a little child’s legs and arms? Both parents were in no condition to go to work the next day! But we DID pull out all the hairy fellas! Might have pulled out some hair too – going by the squeals!

 

As a reward, the kids got baby potato pulao for dinner – am sure Tas identified with the “babiness” of the baby potatoes!

 

Tas, dear, this one is for you!

 

 

Baby potatoes – 1/2 kg – boiled and peeled

Methi (Fenugreek) leaves – 1 cup full – washed thoroughly. 

Basmati rice – 1.5 cups

2 cups water 1 cup milk or coconut milk

Salt

 

Grind together for a wet spice mixture.

 

1 green chili

3 -4 flakes of garlic

1″ piece ginger

3 tbsp yogurt

Whole spices:

Dalchini (cinnamon) – 2″

Cloves – 4 or 5

Black cardamom – 1 – crushed

Cardamom – 1 – crushed

Biryani ke phool (paasi poo – a lichen which grows on rock) – optional – 1/2 tsp

Jeera (cumin) seeds- 1/2 tsp

Shahjeera seeds – 1/4 tsp

Nutmeg – 1 pinch

Turmeric – 1 large pinch

Saunf (aniseed) – 1/2 tsp

Asafoetida – 1 large pinch

Ghee – 1 tbsp

Oil- 2 tbsp

Onions – 4 sliced finely and fried separately – to garnish

Mint leaves – washed and chopped – 1 tbsp

 

Cook the basmati rice with the water, milk and the ground wet spice mixture and salt.

 

In a separate pan, heat the oil and ghee together and drop in all the dry spices. Stir on a low flame for a minute. Add one tbsp of the fried onions, the fenugreek leaves, potatoes and salt and cook, turning over occasionally. This should take about ten minutes. Mix with the rice and cover and cook for a few minutes more. Garnish with mint and fried onions. Fried cashews too- if you’re feeling festive. This pulao needs just a  plain raita to go with it!

 

And, oh, don’t go near cacti – they don’t go well with pulao!

“Bhuttaaaa… bhuttaaa… mokkaaa jonnaaaloooo… ” still echoes in my ears from childhood. The bhuttawala – the guy who sold the most amazing tender corn – the “correct” Indian variety, not the sickeningly sweet American corn which has taken over the market today -lament, lament… it’s almost impossible to get Indian corn varieties in Madras any more 🙁 

 

The guy used to sell roasted and masala-ed corn with the bite of chili and the tang of lemon – for 5 paisa each!!!  That’s like 20 to the rupee and at today’s exchange rates, 1800 to the dollar!! Okay, okay, I know I’m not accounting for inflation and all the funda about exchange rates but we’re only talking about corn, for heaven’s sake – I’m NOT giving a lesson in economics! Okay, having said all that, it was 7.27 rupees to the dollar in 1973 – or 145.5 corns as close as i can make it! Whatever… but the idea was that we could gorge ourselves on a rupee’s worth of corn if kind relatives who came and stayed and went tipped us generously with a buck apiece as they often did. I don’t think I can afford 145.5 corns today! Gorge ourselves we often did and the resulting tummy aches were always thought well worth it!

 

Cut to 1992… a small child comes home from school. “Amma, can you make the yummy thing Vinaya brought in her lunch box today?” What was the yummy thing? “It was yellow and it had some watery thing around it and it had pooris to go with it”! Quite a description but it could have fit almost any curry coming out an Indian kitchen. Also needed to find out who Vinaya was and then meet her mother and get a recipe from her – all of which happened in the next few weeks and brought me one of my dearest friends in life – Vinaya’s mom! Till today, the curry is called “Rajul aunty’s corn curry” by my extended family!

 

The “yellow thing” with water around it turned out to be a Rajasthani corn curry – one of the yummiest corn curries i’ve ever had in my life and one of the simplest to make!

 

 

Corn cobs – 3. Indian if you can find them but if i were to wait for this i’d end up never making corn curry! Break off one inch bits from the ends; should be able to get about one or two from each cob.

 

Pressure cook the big and little bits altogether for one whistle.

 

Onions – 3 medium

Garlic pods – 8 to 10

Dhania (coriander powder) – 1.5 tsp

Jeera (cumin powder) – 1 tsp

Chili powder – 1/2 tsp

Salt

Oil and ghee – 1 tbsp each.

Milk – 1 cup

 

Remove the corn cobs from the cooker and let cool. Scrape the corn off the bigger pieces with a knife. Keep the small 1″ pieces intact

Grind the onions and garlic together to a very smooth paste.

 

Heat the oil and ghee together in a saucepan and add the onion paste and fry well.Sprinkle a little water if it shows signs of ‘aduganting’ (bottom sticking – so much better a term than plain old burning!).

 

Add the dry powders and continue to stir. Add the corn – the scraped stuff and the pieces and a glass of water along with the salt. Cover and cook on a low flame for ten to 15 minutes. Add more water if too dry. Add hot milk and switch off. Voila – yellow, swimmy, yummy corn curry!

 

 

 

Variety, they say is the spice of life. My mother believed the opposite. Faced with the prospect of eating the same vegetable that we somehow managed with complaints in the morning, my mother added a different spice and a dose of water to it and dished it out in the evening. Which is how I coined’ Spice is the variety of our life’.

 

Not that it affected my mother. She laughed merrily at my attempt at wit and sarcasm and continued producing a series of disasters from the kitchen. The only good that happened was Panda. Trinath Panda, an employee at the secretariat who moonlighted as a cook at home. He actually managed to fill the unending pit beneath the chest and ensured that my brother and I grew up with some flesh on our bones.

 

He joined the house hold to cook dinners. I was so fascinated with his cooking that I would leave my books and sneak into the kitchen to observe the maestro as he dished out the best omelettes in the world.

 

Panda too put up with an inquisitive and pesky brat with immense patience and affection. It was from him that I learnt to cut onions and all other vegetables with speed and panache.

 

Listed here is the recipe for an omelette a’la Panda.

 

 

2 eggs [ definitely chicken]

1 small to medium size onion finely chopped

1 small tomato also finely chopped

a small bit of fresh ginger minced

optional extra : a few sprigs of coriander leaves

salt and red chilli powder to taste

 

Put the pan on the stove and of course, light the stove. One teaspoon or more of oil which should be run all over the inside of the pan once hot.

 

While the pan is on the stove, either on the chopping board or a bowl, mix the onion,tomato, ginger, salt and red chilli powder with vigour. Like you need to extract the juice from the onion. Then put the mixture into another bowl where the two eggs have been cracked open and pronounced fresh. Beat the whole concoction with a fork till it is thoroughly mixed.

 

By now, the pan would be pretty hot and you should be able to see the heat waves rising above it. Pour the mixture into it, cut the flame to minimum and cover with a lid.

 

After a minute or more, raise the lid and flip the omelette over with a flat spoon , cover again for a little while and serve hot. Cheers!