Anu Chenji

A hardworking, run-off-her-feet doctor with an eager 6 year old daughter wanting to help her do a very grown-up thing indeed – make aavakai. The mom has time to do this only in the night, after her day’s work at the hospital is done and home chores are taken care of. So – as a special ‘treat’, the daughter is allowed to stay up till late- very late – like past 11 o’clock. I remember finding out just how hot chili powder could be on the skin when my hands started to burn and mom gave me cashewnuts to pacify me – i thought it was worth it to get burn-y hands for the sake of a handful of cashewnuts!  As for the lateness, considering that my bedtime, even today, at 50, is 9 p.m. – for a 6-year old me – this was a stretch indeed!

Aavakai – so dear to the heart of every Andhra – the making of it, the bottling, the de-bottling are all rituals that every Telugu approaches with reverence in their hearts. You might not say your prayers or light a lamp or whatever every day but you dare not violate the sacred rituals around aavakai making and bottling! For instance, you can’t make it if you or anyone in the house has an infection- what if a germ gets in THERE?;  Can’t make it if you haven’t washed your hair that day (what if some stray flake of dandruff falls into the mangoes? Can’t make it if you, your hands, your clothes are all less than squeaky clean; and finally, the one with which I’ve terrorised the Tamilian family into which I’ve married – DON’T BREATHE when i open the ‘jaadi’ (jar)!

Making aavakai every summer is a ritual that i look forward to – the process of shopping for mangoes – traveling to the ‘mandi’ early in the morning armed with buckets, cans of water (for washing the mangoes i pick carefully after pressing them and smelling them), the pile of cloths to wipe them, overseeing the actual chopping by the vendor, lovingly dropping them – gentle – you can bruise them! – into the bucket, coming home, wiping the pieces dry, mixing the spices and finally adding the pieces a few at a time with the masala and oil and dropping them into the big jaadis, which have been readied by washing them in hot water and drying them well in the sun. It’s like a spiritual awakening almost! Husband has always participated enthusiastically on these jaunts – including the injunction ‘don’t expect anything more than curd rice for lunch today – i have to make AAVAKAI, remember?’! The prospect of a year long supply of his favourite side is enough inducement!

Mangoes- green, very sour and unripe, weighing about 150 -200 gms each. Feel them to make sure they’re not soft or bruised and smell them for that lovely sharp raw-mango smell. – 1 kg

Cut into pieces about an inch long and with a bit of the tenka (the hard nutty covering of the soft seed inside). Remove the soft seed (jeedi) completely and wipe each piece with a soft, dry, lint-free cloth. Let the pieces dry in the shade for about an hour.

250 gm mustard powder

200 gm chili powder (ask for pickle chili powder)

225 gm table salt

225 ml gingelly (sesame) oil – get the best quality cold pressed oil – it’s worth it!

20 gm whole black chana

20 gm – methi seeds

1 tbsp turmeric powder

2 whole pods of garlic – peel, dry in the sun for about and hour and mix into the avakaya

250 gm of jaggery – powder and dry in the sun for about an hour and then mix well into the avakaya.

Bottle the avakaya – remember the bottle must be squeaky clean and sun-dried. Cover the lid with a thin muslin cloth and tie it with a nada (like a pyjama!). Open the next day – after bathing – we didn’t go to all that trouble with cleaning the pieces for nothing, did we?? Mix it well, check if there is oil floating on top otherwise pour a little. Cover again and repeat for two more days.

Kotthaavakaaya (new avakaaya), the words guaranteed to make a slave of any Telugu for life, is now ready. And pssst… while unnamed peoples in my Tamil family tend to desecrate it by eating it as a side with curd rice (total abhisthu!!), the only REAL way to eat it is at the start of a meal or as a whole meal – with hot rice and a dollop of ghee…

“Rasam, rasam, rasam…”, cries out the server at an upanayanam function for my cousin in Bangalore. The food so far had been uniformly hotter (chilli hot) than our taste buds were used to at home and tongues were on fire.

“Rasam, rasam…” We – my brother an I – call out hoping for a sweet juice – preferably lemon – of which we  were inordinately fond, being able to down a jugful in a few minutes flat. “Rasam” in Telugu meant juice and being seven and eight years old, respectively, we had no clue that it meant anything else in another language! Imagine our chagrin, when instead of something long and cool to quench the fire on the tongues, what we got was a ladleful of hot, VERY HOT – chaaru (Telugu equivalent of the Tamil rasam) poured onto our rice. Neither of us was particularly fond of chaaru and to add to our woes, we had to chase this runny imposter all over a leaf. Sequel: We – and our clothes – needed a good rinse after!

My mom, being a kind-hearted sort of person, managed to keep her amusement in check but not the rest of the cousins – who had a field day hooting ‘rasam’ after us!

“Juice”, particularly lime juice, remains a favourite to this day and there is no better way to make it than the lime-mint cooler that i learnt from the chef at the restaurant chain “Sangeetha”.

Lemons – 2

Fresh mint – 1 tbsp

Sugar (or substitute) – 4-5 tsp

Salt – one pinch

Ginger – 1/2 cm piece

Ice – 6-8 cubes

Water – 3 cups

Chop the lemons into 8-10 pieces each – DO NOT remove seeds or skin or anything – most of the essential oils are in the skin and you get a real lemony hit.

Put all the ingredients above, reserving 2 glasses of water, into a mixer and whip on high speed – for 2-3 minutes. Strain out (don’t press the residue – the juice will become too bitter) and add the rest of the water. Drink immediately. If you leave it and drink later, the juice turns bitter. Drink immediately – and you are in lemonade heaven! If you have guests coming, just get everything ready, including chopped lemons, in the mixer and leave in the frig till you are ready to whip – it, not the guests!

Oh, and btw, congratulations – you are now ready to open your first business venture – a lemonade stand!

Growing up in a household where nutrition was god and taste was considered a poor second to “healthy food for growing bones” meant that till I was about 16, my ideas of culinary glory was ‘mudda pappu’ (boiled dal), ghee and whatever was the dry vegetable of the day! I still could live on these btw!

At 16, I moved to live in my aunt’s house in Madras for a couple of years and was introduced to many foods I hadn’t even heard of – vatha kozhambu, poritha kootu (or porcha coots as i thought of it!) and other stuff which I found initially very weird. I used to get strange looks from the cook – who was a master of his art and probably thought his skill was wasted on a such a philistine. But then again, he (Sankunni Menon) became very fond of me – okay, this kid may eat only mudda pappu but she sure studies hard (I did!) so let me take her culinary education in hand. and so, slowly, my unsophisticated tastebuds learnt the difference between sambar and vatha kozhambu (psssst… till then I’d thought of vathaks as a yuckier form of sambar!)

Sankunni was the reason i did well in the 12th standard exams too – I used to study till late in the night and again get up very early – Sankunni used to make a large flask of coffee for me last thing at night so that I’d have coffee as soon as I woke up – god bless his kindly soul!

One of the dishes I learnt to love was poritha kootu (or porcha coots as i prefer!) and when I went back to Hyderabad I pestered my mom to make it for me. She never was one to say no – even when she didn’t know how – so we ended up with a very strange, gritty dish which effectively put a stop to all further desire for porcha coots! It was only after I set up home of my own that I learnt just how simple this dish was. Here goes podalangai (potlakai or snake gourd) porcha coots:

Snake gourd – 1 tender long one (don’t buy the short ones – they’re only masquerading as potlakais!) – chopped into 1 cm pieces – (ashgourd, pumpkin, round yellow cucumbers – dosakais- are all acceptable as a substitute)

Cooked green gram dal – 1 cup

Grated coconut – 3 tbsp + 1 tsp

Red chilies – 2-3

Pepper corns – 4 or 5

Cumin seeds – 1 tsp

Turmeric – 1 pinch

Chili powder – 1 pinch

Mustard seeds – 1/2 tsp

Asafoetida – 1 pinch

Curry leaves – 2 sprigs

Oil – 1 tsp (preferably coconut oil)

Salt

Boil the snake gourd with a pinch of turmeric. Grind together the 3 tbsp of grated coconut, red chilies, pepper corns and cumin seeds adding a little water. Add this paste together with the dal to the vegetables and salt and bring to a boil. Switch off. To season, heat one tsp oil in a small pan, add mustard seeds and let splutter. Add 1 tsp grated coconut and let it roast a few seconds till reddish brown. Add chili powder, asafoetida and curry leaves and pour over the kootu.

This goes really well with either rice or phulkas. For the Iyer in my house 😉 – plate with poritha kootu, avial, appalam, vadam and majjiga mirapakayalu, taamara kazhangu – can he ask for more??

 

Gutti vankaya koora – variously known as ennai kathrikayi (Tamil), something badnekaya in Kannada – ok, I’m having a senior moment here and can’t remember- is inseparable from the heart of a true blue Telugu. If you call yourself a Telugu (note how carefully i am avoiding the Andhra-Telangana question!) and do not like this curry, I suggest you get your gene pool carefully analysed!

 

I hated this vegetable as a child – in common with a million other kids, most likely! Refused to eat it when my mom tried to disguise it in various ways – all right, mom was NOT a good makeup artist! As kids, we were allowed to have such privileges – as saying no to any food – only for so long. Soon enough, it dawned on my dad that right under his very nose, one of his kids was growing up to be – in very colloquial Telugu – “raanu raanu Raju gaari gurraalu gaadidelu avutunnayi” literally ” as the days go by, the Raja’s horses are turning out out be donkeys”!! Therefore, in the interests of only daughter not turning out to be a donkey, said daughter had to be taught a lesson.

 

Matters were taken in hand and over dinner one day. Vankaya (eggplant, the hated vegetable) was the curry. I refuse. Dad asks why. Because I don’t like it (see how fast the transformation to donkey was happening!)

 

Dad : Are you hungry?

Me : Yes (duh…!)

Dad: You want food?

Me: Yes (by now far gone in donkeyness)

Dad: This is food. Eat it!

Me: No.

 

So who do you think won? The king in question or the donkey? Big DUH! I got sent to bed with no dinner and learnt to shut up and not just eat eggplant but to relish  it – it appears on my table at least twice a week and i can eat any which way! So here’s one of my two favourite ways:

 

 

1/2 kg firm, purple brinjals (or eggplants)

1 large onion – grated (optional)

1 green chili – chopped

Koora podi (curry powder – recipe below) – 4 tbsp

Mustard seeds – 1/2 tsp

Curry leaves – 2 sprigs

Turmeric – 1/2 tsp

Salt

Oil – 1 tbsp

Tamarind paste (1/4 tsp) mixed with a tbsp of water

 

Wash eggplant and remove the stalks. Slit brinjal from top and bottom – making transverse slits upto half it’s length, i.e. each slit is perpendicular to the other. Mix the curry powder, turmeric, green chili and salt together and stuff this mixture into the slits. Can also mix the onion into the mixture or fry it separately.

 

Place these in a microwavable bowl, cover and microwave on high for 5 minutes.

 

In a separate pan, heat the oil and season with mustard and curry leaves. Also add onions if you haven’t used them in the stuffing already. Drop the eggplants into the oil and sprinkle tamarind water on top. Cover and cook, turning over  (them, not self!) occasionally – about ten minutes – till tender.

 

Serve with hot, white rice, a big dollop of ghee (yeah, yeah, okay, you’re watching the calories), but the curry itself has only ONE tbsp of oil, remember?! And plain boiled tuvar dal with salt (aka mudda pappu)!

 

 

Tuvar dal – 1 cup

Chana dal – 1 cup

Udad dal – 1 cup

Red chillis – 1 cup

Asafoetida – 2 pinkie nail size lumps

Coriander seeds – 1 tsp

 

Roast separately and powder together – this is a very useful powder which I use for a lot of dry vegetable curries – potato, carrot, chowchow etc.

 

 

 One very small child  – about two years old, hanging on for dear life to the sides of a planters’ chair – for those of you who have forgotten what this is – it’s like an easy chair with extended arms for the ” planter” to put his drink on of an evening! – and trying desperately to look over but not quite making it… what she could see, though, was the goodies being made for her and all the other little kids in the grandfather’s (the occupant of said chair – a teetotaler btw!) lap for evening tea.

 

Soft, white bread, brilliantly red jam and white butter made from that day’s milk – kiddies heaven! That is my very first memory because my grandfather died that year and i have no more memories of him. Why i am sure it’s a memory is because of the remembrance of perspective – i couldn’t see over the side!

 

A grandfather to be proud of – who earned a medal for gallantry in the Indo – Afghan conflict of 1931- i never even knew about this war till i came across the medal in my dad’s papers. A man of such integrity  – please bear with me – i just have to tell you this story. Grandfather – Chenji Padmanabha Rao – was posted in Rangoon during the 1930s. 3 kids – two daughters and my dad. One day the kids were playing, they found a 4-anna coin in a sandpit. Come home in great excitement – after all, 4 annas those days was riches to a child – and showed it to the dad. He told them to go around the colony asking if anyone had lost it. 4 hours pass and back traipse the kids – no one has lost it, so now, anna (that’s what they called the father), can we keep it? No, says the man, if you haven’t earned it, it never can belong to you so go put it in the temple ‘hundi’!! What a lesson in honesty – my eldest aunt – Bajjama – kid no.1 of the 3, related this story to me some 65 years later…

 

Thus began my love affair with bread – soft and white back then, multigrain or wholewheat now…the smell of bread baking drives everyone crazy!

 

 

1.5 cups whole wheat flour

1.5 cups plain flour

1 sachet – 7gm yeast

1 tbsp – milk powder

2 tbsp – sunflower oil or if you insist on sinning, butter!

Salt – 3/4 tsp

Sugar – 2 tsp

Water – about 1.5 cups

 

In half a cup of warm water (from the above 1.5 cups), prove yeast. For newbies, this means sprinkle the yeast on the surface of the water and let it sit for about 5-10 minutes. A scummy, pale coffee yucky looking thing will form 😉 – yay, our yeast is proved – i.e, it is alive and kicking! If this doesn’t happen, throw out and go to the shops to get fresh yeast. Add the sugar, salt, milk powder and oil and mix. Add the flours and mix till the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the water a little by little and knead well till you get a soft dough. Turn out on to a floured surface and knead it till it cries mummy – at least ten minutes. The longer you knead, the better the bread. Cover and let it double in size – should take about an hour but in Madras, it gets done in half the time! Knock it back and shape into the kind of loaf / rolls you want. Don’t knead at this stage. Let it rest for another 15 to 20 minutes till it doubles again. Brush with milk and bake in a preheated oven at 190 C for about 1/2 hour till golden brown on top and it sounds hollow (like how you are beginning to feel  by now!). Switch off and let cool or if you are TOO hollow, eat!

 

Someone had taught my mother how to make tomato jam – boiling and straining out pulp and seeds etc. but my mother decided that since skin and seeds won”t kill us – let’s leave them in – and thus was born the simplest, yummiest tomato jam ever.

Tomato jam: – Boil together 6 ripe tomatoes , 10-12 spoons of sugar and 4 cloves till jammy!!! Dat’s it. folks!