The CC is absolutely obsessed with collecting recipe books that date back to the late-60's and early-to-mid 70's.
Why the 70's?
It's the first transformation of many of these societies into the modern consumer world and it set off a wave of rather "naïve" cookbook writers almost all women who were documenting the recipes of an earlier age.
The naïveté shouldn't be taken as a pejorative. It's actually a compliment. They were literally writing down what they knew without any filter. These are really amazing documents.
These cookbooks have been updated but they have never been bettered. They are actually the source of inspiration to most modern cookbook writers who all down to a fault refuse to acknowledge the immense amount of ideas that they have nakedly stolen from these earlier writers.
The CC is always collecting these things as he travels. (They tend to be rather cheap.)
There are a few commonalities which are just extraordinary.
One is that they all tend to be obsessed with a level of precision. It is very important to them that the reader make the dish perfectly. The instructions tend to be rather precise and detailed. (This, of course, just warms the cockles of the CC's cold analytical heart.)
The other is how they were marketed. Not through the traditional channels. Often via "nail salons" or "beauty parlors" which was the domain of women. It was word-of-mouth and viral marketing at its earliest and finest.
The third is the primitiveness of the publishing industry at the time. They are frequently published in indifferent editions. Pictures are rare. The print is not glossy. The binding is falling apart. Spelling mistakes abound. However, the passion just jumps off the page!
The fourth is a level of awareness of nutrition. It's not the modern gluten-free fat-free version but they are rather interested in the fact that in an era where budgets are tight that the food not only be delicious but also nutritious.
Last but not least is the obsession with the pineapple. No, the CC is not joking. Hawaii only became a US state on Aug 21st, 1959. There was a massive global marketing campaign to sell pineapple across the world. You can see the obsession everywhere from Life Magazine to newspapers and magazines in all the corners of the world. Think "Mad Men". These women were not exempt from the pull of the siren song. Rest assured that there will be a recipe or three for pineapple in these books!
The CC has had plenty of books go in and out of his kitchen but you will take these books out of his cold dead hands!
Here's an extraordinarily incomplete list — roughly going westwards:
Middle-East
Arto der Haroutunian (Middle-East at large)
Afghanistan
Helen Saberi
India
Tarla Dalal (Gujarati vegetarian)
Ummi Abdulla (Kerala Muslim)
Joyce Fernandes (Goan)
Kamalabai Ogale (Maharashtrian)
S. Meenakshi Ammal (Tamil vegetarian)
Katy Dalal (Parsi)
Minakshie Das Gupta (Bengali)
Sri Lanka
Chandra Dissanayake
Taiwan
Fu Mei-Pei
Philippines
Enriqueta David-Perez
Caribbean
Babette de Rozières
Showing posts with label gujarati. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gujarati. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 17, 2017
Monday, April 24, 2017
The Sealing of the Pot
The CC received a clay pot as a gift recently.
It was a classic meen chatti (मीन चट्टी - literally: fish clay pot). The first word is from Sanskrit (= fish) and the second most likely from the local vernacular.
Instructions were provided to "season it" but the CC needs to understand what that means so he proceeded down the rabbit hole (as he is wont to do) about what that really entails.
Clay is quite porous as a material. However, it can be fired at high temperatures after which it becomes hard. That's how bricks are made which has been known since at least Sumerian times.
Clay is also an extraordinarily poor conductor of heat.
These combined facts act as an advantage in fish cookery.
The critical point about a clay pot is that no matter how hard you try to heat it in a reasonable time (= less than five hours, for example), it's very difficult to raise the temperature of the interior of the pot to above 70°C† — which is the outer limit of the temperature that fish proteins denature.
Of course, if you fired the crap out of the pot, eventually it would rise to the temperature of the flame but we're talking cooking here not cremation!
The other critical point is that if you don't raise the temperature beyond the denaturation point of fish proteins, they will stay soft independent of the cooking time. If you held the temperature precisely at a certain point, your fish would stay perfectly tender whether you cooked it for ten minutes or ten hours!
This is how airlines control food, for the record. The temperature is never allowed to get above the denaturation point of the proteins in question — chicken, beef, fish, vegetables, whatever!
The principle of clay-pot cooking is the same as that of sous-vide cooking except that it is being done in an intuitive way rather than formally. It also has a massive advantage over sous-vide in that you can fry or sear the fish and have it cook in the complex juices generated by it. You don't need to worry about the problem of precise timing either which was a useful fact in the frenetic frazzled world of yore unlike modern day times.
There's a price to be paid for this freedom. Nothing comes for free.
The pot is a complex apparatus. If you drop one of your metal pots, it'll get dented. If you drop a clay pot, it shatters and you get to start all over again. (Luckily, they are cheap but that's not the point.)
Poor conduction also goes both ways. It's really hard to raise the temperature and it's equally hard to lower the temperature. A certain boring-ness is required in the usage of a clay pot. You can't just dial the temperature up and down like a metal pot.
Much more importantly, you can't add hot water to a cold pot, or cold water to a hot pot. It will crack. The poor conduction means you cannot have the interior and the exterior at significantly different temperatures.
The seasoning of the pot is really quite simple once you grasp the concepts. You alternate boiling cold water in the pot and toss it out followed by coating it with cooking oil overnight. The water percolates through the pot and mends micro-holes in the clay and the oil conducted via the water generates enough carbon residues to plug the holes. It also generates a non-stick surface at the bottom of the pot over time (exactly like a great cast-iron frying pan.)
There are two fallacies about clay pots and since chez CC, we tend to be the analytic sort, we're going to dismiss them.
The first is that the seasoned clay pot is not porous — it absolutely is! The water inside the seasoned pot has to be going somewhere. It's not evaporating significantly at 70°C‡ so it must be disappearing somehow. It's evaporating through the porosity of the pot. It's being wicked§ away.
This porosity created a bit of a problem for the CC in the second round of water seasoning when the pot had been coated with oil overnight. Enough oil/water was being wicked away through the porous clay that the CC's gas flame went a little crazy. It's basically a baby version of a grease fire. It was such a minuscule amount of oil that it posed no risk whatsoever but it was quite unnerving until the principles had been grasped.
The second which is really the flip of the first is the myth that you can't cook in a dry pot without water. You absolutely can as long if you want to raise the temperature above 70°C. You could quite plausibly cook the clay pot to up to 1000° C but the CC really doubts that your puny stove generates enough BTU's for that. (Your oven only goes up to 275°C!)
Remember, if you do amp up the temperature of the pot, you will not be able to add cold water to it. You must either cool the pot down and start over or heat the water to the same temperature and add it. Most cooks do the former not the later since it's too risky.
In fact, many recipes ask you to first boil stuff till the water disappears, take the fish out, and then use the pot just like a frying pan adding the fish back at the last step. (The reverse is also true. Some recipes ask you to use it like a frying pan and then add the fish and warm water a little at a time thus lowering the temperature back down.)
Let's abstract out the principles of the perfectly seasoned clay pot.
[1] With water inside, the temperature will not go above 70°C until the water disappears.
[2] The clay pot is a very poor conductor of heat.
[3] The dry clay pot will allow you to fire it up to 1000°C.
Now that we've grasped the principles, we're ready to roll.
One of the great glories of Mughal cooking is the perfectly cooked daal. This involves the denaturing of lentil proteins and some of these lentils tend to get slimy if the skins split. The clay pot is the ideal apparatus since it preserves the skin perfectly while letting the water and spices to enrich the dish via osmosis but not allowing the lentils to burst.
The truly great dish of Gujarati cooking is undhiyu (ઊંધિયું — literally: upside-down.) The Mughals totally envied this dish! It's a classic mélange of spring vegetables, complex vegetarian meatball-esque preparations, and spices cooked in a sealed upside-down (sic) pot in the dying embers of a fire overnight at low heat. Same logic goes for long-term low-temperature cooking and the denaturing of the proteins.
If you go to North India during winter, you'll find yogurt served in clay pots. The clay pots are being used for two purposes — heat preservation and water-evaporation. Even in the cold temperatures of the North-Indian winter, the clay pots retain the heat of the warm mixture of milk and bacteria¶ and wick away enough water to make the yogurt rich and delicious.
So this device which is at least 20,000 years old (based on Chinese excavations that date back to 18,000 BC) is truly a magic apparatus. It just requires a little understanding.
We're just the latest in a truly ancient lineage.
† You can verify this quickly and empirically by sticking a finger for less than a second into the water that has been boiling in the clay pot for an hour. Nothing much will happen. If you stuck your finger in real boiling water for even less than a second, you would get second-degree burns!
‡ The CC will not bore you with the details but roughly speaking in an environment with no air-flow (e.g. your exhaust fan) the evaporation rate is linear in the temperature differential between water and air for temperatures around 100°C. Estimating your house to be about 25°C (80°F), you are only getting roughly 60% of the evaporation of boiling water. The rest of the water has to be going somewhere!
§ You can test this by covering a pot and heating water in it. It will never boil but soon much of the water will be gone.
¶ The clay pots have the advantage of porosity. The yogurt bacteria are sitting in there and they help develop the culture implicitly particularly if you make yogurt every day or week in the same pot. (The clay pots that they use are small. Individual use, one might say, in modern parlance.)
It was a classic meen chatti (मीन चट्टी - literally: fish clay pot). The first word is from Sanskrit (= fish) and the second most likely from the local vernacular.
Instructions were provided to "season it" but the CC needs to understand what that means so he proceeded down the rabbit hole (as he is wont to do) about what that really entails.
Clay is quite porous as a material. However, it can be fired at high temperatures after which it becomes hard. That's how bricks are made which has been known since at least Sumerian times.
Clay is also an extraordinarily poor conductor of heat.
These combined facts act as an advantage in fish cookery.
The critical point about a clay pot is that no matter how hard you try to heat it in a reasonable time (= less than five hours, for example), it's very difficult to raise the temperature of the interior of the pot to above 70°C† — which is the outer limit of the temperature that fish proteins denature.
Of course, if you fired the crap out of the pot, eventually it would rise to the temperature of the flame but we're talking cooking here not cremation!
The other critical point is that if you don't raise the temperature beyond the denaturation point of fish proteins, they will stay soft independent of the cooking time. If you held the temperature precisely at a certain point, your fish would stay perfectly tender whether you cooked it for ten minutes or ten hours!
This is how airlines control food, for the record. The temperature is never allowed to get above the denaturation point of the proteins in question — chicken, beef, fish, vegetables, whatever!
The principle of clay-pot cooking is the same as that of sous-vide cooking except that it is being done in an intuitive way rather than formally. It also has a massive advantage over sous-vide in that you can fry or sear the fish and have it cook in the complex juices generated by it. You don't need to worry about the problem of precise timing either which was a useful fact in the frenetic frazzled world of yore unlike modern day times.
There's a price to be paid for this freedom. Nothing comes for free.
The pot is a complex apparatus. If you drop one of your metal pots, it'll get dented. If you drop a clay pot, it shatters and you get to start all over again. (Luckily, they are cheap but that's not the point.)
Poor conduction also goes both ways. It's really hard to raise the temperature and it's equally hard to lower the temperature. A certain boring-ness is required in the usage of a clay pot. You can't just dial the temperature up and down like a metal pot.
Much more importantly, you can't add hot water to a cold pot, or cold water to a hot pot. It will crack. The poor conduction means you cannot have the interior and the exterior at significantly different temperatures.
The seasoning of the pot is really quite simple once you grasp the concepts. You alternate boiling cold water in the pot and toss it out followed by coating it with cooking oil overnight. The water percolates through the pot and mends micro-holes in the clay and the oil conducted via the water generates enough carbon residues to plug the holes. It also generates a non-stick surface at the bottom of the pot over time (exactly like a great cast-iron frying pan.)
There are two fallacies about clay pots and since chez CC, we tend to be the analytic sort, we're going to dismiss them.
The first is that the seasoned clay pot is not porous — it absolutely is! The water inside the seasoned pot has to be going somewhere. It's not evaporating significantly at 70°C‡ so it must be disappearing somehow. It's evaporating through the porosity of the pot. It's being wicked§ away.
This porosity created a bit of a problem for the CC in the second round of water seasoning when the pot had been coated with oil overnight. Enough oil/water was being wicked away through the porous clay that the CC's gas flame went a little crazy. It's basically a baby version of a grease fire. It was such a minuscule amount of oil that it posed no risk whatsoever but it was quite unnerving until the principles had been grasped.
The second which is really the flip of the first is the myth that you can't cook in a dry pot without water. You absolutely can as long if you want to raise the temperature above 70°C. You could quite plausibly cook the clay pot to up to 1000° C but the CC really doubts that your puny stove generates enough BTU's for that. (Your oven only goes up to 275°C!)
Remember, if you do amp up the temperature of the pot, you will not be able to add cold water to it. You must either cool the pot down and start over or heat the water to the same temperature and add it. Most cooks do the former not the later since it's too risky.
In fact, many recipes ask you to first boil stuff till the water disappears, take the fish out, and then use the pot just like a frying pan adding the fish back at the last step. (The reverse is also true. Some recipes ask you to use it like a frying pan and then add the fish and warm water a little at a time thus lowering the temperature back down.)
Let's abstract out the principles of the perfectly seasoned clay pot.
[1] With water inside, the temperature will not go above 70°C until the water disappears.
[2] The clay pot is a very poor conductor of heat.
[3] The dry clay pot will allow you to fire it up to 1000°C.
Now that we've grasped the principles, we're ready to roll.
One of the great glories of Mughal cooking is the perfectly cooked daal. This involves the denaturing of lentil proteins and some of these lentils tend to get slimy if the skins split. The clay pot is the ideal apparatus since it preserves the skin perfectly while letting the water and spices to enrich the dish via osmosis but not allowing the lentils to burst.
The truly great dish of Gujarati cooking is undhiyu (ઊંધિયું — literally: upside-down.) The Mughals totally envied this dish! It's a classic mélange of spring vegetables, complex vegetarian meatball-esque preparations, and spices cooked in a sealed upside-down (sic) pot in the dying embers of a fire overnight at low heat. Same logic goes for long-term low-temperature cooking and the denaturing of the proteins.
If you go to North India during winter, you'll find yogurt served in clay pots. The clay pots are being used for two purposes — heat preservation and water-evaporation. Even in the cold temperatures of the North-Indian winter, the clay pots retain the heat of the warm mixture of milk and bacteria¶ and wick away enough water to make the yogurt rich and delicious.
So this device which is at least 20,000 years old (based on Chinese excavations that date back to 18,000 BC) is truly a magic apparatus. It just requires a little understanding.
We're just the latest in a truly ancient lineage.
† You can verify this quickly and empirically by sticking a finger for less than a second into the water that has been boiling in the clay pot for an hour. Nothing much will happen. If you stuck your finger in real boiling water for even less than a second, you would get second-degree burns!
‡ The CC will not bore you with the details but roughly speaking in an environment with no air-flow (e.g. your exhaust fan) the evaporation rate is linear in the temperature differential between water and air for temperatures around 100°C. Estimating your house to be about 25°C (80°F), you are only getting roughly 60% of the evaporation of boiling water. The rest of the water has to be going somewhere!
§ You can test this by covering a pot and heating water in it. It will never boil but soon much of the water will be gone.
¶ The clay pots have the advantage of porosity. The yogurt bacteria are sitting in there and they help develop the culture implicitly particularly if you make yogurt every day or week in the same pot. (The clay pots that they use are small. Individual use, one might say, in modern parlance.)
Saturday, March 25, 2017
Pav Bhaji
What do the laws of electromagnetism, the Portuguese, the price of cotton, time zones, vegetarianism, and the American Civil War all have in common?
They came together to invent the iconic Mumbai street dish known as pav bhaji (pronounced: paav bhaaji — the two "a"'s are actually long vowels.)
Every good military general would tell you that the best way to win a war is through economics. The naval Union Blockade of April 1861 which heavily targeted New Orleans (Louisiana) and Mobile (Alabama) made the cotton exports of the South come to a grinding halt. The savvy Gujarati speculators of the old Cotton Exchange in Bombay knew the drill. Rates were wired in and orders wired out late into the night when the corresponding exchanges in Chicago would've been open.
(Bombay made its fortune on the basis of its cotton mills — a fact that is quite clear even today in its geography. The point being that the price of cotton mattered hugely and the American Civil War and the telegraph provided a mechanism to speculate on the price swings. Note that the world was on a Gold Standard back then so that exchange rates between the dollar, the pound and the rupee, which was basically the pound, would not matter.)
The word for trader in both Hindi and Gujarati is dalal (दलाल) — it's not a neutral word. It has a slightly shady connotation to it. No trader would self-describe themselves as a dalal even though that's exactly what they are. It carries with it the negative connotations of both "speculator" and "pimp". The Japanese equivalent is kabuya (株屋) — stock-broker/stock-slinger (= speculator.)
Now you have a bunch of traders working hard into the deep night. They're largely vegetarian. They're rich (or wanna-be rich) but in the classic tradition of rich people, they're also cheap. When you have a demand, a corresponding supply opens up. It has to be fast, tasty, and yes, cheap.
Where do the Portuguese come in?
India had no tradition of baking leavened breads before the 15th-century just like most of Southeast Asia. The Portuguese were responsible for introducing the yeasty bread (pão in Portuguese) which is paav in Hindi and パン (pan in Japanese).
The dish is made from the cheapest of ingredients — potatoes, tomatoes and onions. Plus fried bread. It's a street dish. It's not fancy. You toss in whatever vegetables you have lying around. It's also infinitely configurable with different toppings depending on the individual taste buds.
The critical point is that everything could be made ahead of time. You're basically stir-frying at the last moment. Even the bread could be made ahead of time. It could even be slightly stale because it would be fried again. Every corner that could be possibly cut was actually trimmed. This is one efficient caloric machine.
Needless to say, it was an instant hit.
Nothing's changed since 1861. This dish is still a hit and will continue to be so.
It's endlessly addictive. It's one carb-laden umami-laden butter-laden bomb!
Ingredients
(serves 4)
6 small potatoes (or 3 large ones)
8-10 tomatoes
1 large onion (finely chopped)
1" ginger
4-5 cloves garlic
butter
salt
3-4 tbsp pav bhaji masala
chopped vegetables (peas, carrots, cauliflower, french beans — optional)
12-16 pieces pav
Toppings
red onions (finely chopped)
lime
cilantro (finely chopped)
Note 1: Some of the toppings are missing in the photograph. Specifically, the red onions with lime and cilantro. (The toppings are frequently mixed together so you just add as much as you like including the lime juice.)
Note 2: The CC knows that the bread in the picture is not fried. As Julia says, butter makes everything better, but sometimes a little restraint also works. (People also add extra butter on the bhaji itself which is kinda "over the top".)
Note 3: Yeah, the CC is totally aware that the picture below isn't the "real" paav but one must work with what one has in New York not what one wishes one had. It's the closest approximation to the "real thing". The bread pictured above has the right texture — hard exterior and soft interior. It's from a local bakery.
Note 4: For once, the CC is not going to post a recipe for the spices. You are better off buying this at a Indian grocery store. You could do it yourself but the proportions would be all off unless you plan on making a year's supply. Sorry.
Note 5: Note the presence of two different kinds of sourness — amchur (= dried green mango powder) in the pav bhaji masala and lime juice. This is a consistent theme in Southeast Asian cooking. The presence of a dry "mellow" kind of sourness allied with a wet perfumed "fresh" kind of sourness.
Note 6: The CC knows that it's much more tricky to describe a street dish than it is to describe a more conventional one. However, when you are faced with alternatives and problems, the key question you need to ask yourself is "Would a street vendor in 1861 worry about this problem in the middle of the night?" If the answer is no, then the CC says, "Wing it!" Except for the butter, the spice mixture, onions, potatoes and tomatoes, it's all up in the air anyway!
Note 7: If you've ever watched it being made on the street, you'd realize that your puny home cooking range simply doesn't have the BTU's. Additionally, the tomatoes are simply not ripe enough. They toss whole ripe tomatoes onto the sizzling skillet and de-skin them with their spatula. You have neither the heat nor the skill to do so. Do it the CC's way, OK?
Note 8: The vegetables may or may not have been part of the original recipe but they've become "traditional" with the advent of healthier eating.
Recipe
First boil the potatoes. Skin them and set aside. Mash gently.
Pass the tomatoes through a food mill to get just the pulp. If the tomatoes are not completely ripe, you may need to par-boil them for 5-6 minutes each to get them to soften.
Pound the ginger and garlic into a paste.
Heat up the butter in a pan. Add the onions and fry till they turn pink. Do not let them caramelize. Add the ginger-garlic paste and fry for a bit. Add the tomatoes and let it come to a boil. Skim if you prefer that. Let it cook for at least 10 minutes. Add the pav bhaji masala.
Add the mashed potatoes and let it cook for 8 minutes or so. This concoction has a tendency to act like molten lava splashing everywhere so cover the lid partially otherwise you will be cursing the CC.
Taste. You may need to add more pav bhaji masala. It's hard to predict how much exactly.
Split the bread into two without cutting all the way. Take a skillet. Add butter and let the bread fry on both sides. (This is optional.)
Serve the bread, the pav bhaji and the toppings on the side (as needed.)
They came together to invent the iconic Mumbai street dish known as pav bhaji (pronounced: paav bhaaji — the two "a"'s are actually long vowels.)
Every good military general would tell you that the best way to win a war is through economics. The naval Union Blockade of April 1861 which heavily targeted New Orleans (Louisiana) and Mobile (Alabama) made the cotton exports of the South come to a grinding halt. The savvy Gujarati speculators of the old Cotton Exchange in Bombay knew the drill. Rates were wired in and orders wired out late into the night when the corresponding exchanges in Chicago would've been open.
(Bombay made its fortune on the basis of its cotton mills — a fact that is quite clear even today in its geography. The point being that the price of cotton mattered hugely and the American Civil War and the telegraph provided a mechanism to speculate on the price swings. Note that the world was on a Gold Standard back then so that exchange rates between the dollar, the pound and the rupee, which was basically the pound, would not matter.)
The word for trader in both Hindi and Gujarati is dalal (दलाल) — it's not a neutral word. It has a slightly shady connotation to it. No trader would self-describe themselves as a dalal even though that's exactly what they are. It carries with it the negative connotations of both "speculator" and "pimp". The Japanese equivalent is kabuya (株屋) — stock-broker/stock-slinger (= speculator.)
Now you have a bunch of traders working hard into the deep night. They're largely vegetarian. They're rich (or wanna-be rich) but in the classic tradition of rich people, they're also cheap. When you have a demand, a corresponding supply opens up. It has to be fast, tasty, and yes, cheap.
Where do the Portuguese come in?
India had no tradition of baking leavened breads before the 15th-century just like most of Southeast Asia. The Portuguese were responsible for introducing the yeasty bread (pão in Portuguese) which is paav in Hindi and パン (pan in Japanese).
The dish is made from the cheapest of ingredients — potatoes, tomatoes and onions. Plus fried bread. It's a street dish. It's not fancy. You toss in whatever vegetables you have lying around. It's also infinitely configurable with different toppings depending on the individual taste buds.
The critical point is that everything could be made ahead of time. You're basically stir-frying at the last moment. Even the bread could be made ahead of time. It could even be slightly stale because it would be fried again. Every corner that could be possibly cut was actually trimmed. This is one efficient caloric machine.
Nothing's changed since 1861. This dish is still a hit and will continue to be so.
It's endlessly addictive. It's one carb-laden umami-laden butter-laden bomb!
Ingredients
(serves 4)
6 small potatoes (or 3 large ones)
8-10 tomatoes
1 large onion (finely chopped)
1" ginger
4-5 cloves garlic
butter
salt
3-4 tbsp pav bhaji masala
chopped vegetables (peas, carrots, cauliflower, french beans — optional)
12-16 pieces pav
Toppings
red onions (finely chopped)
lime
cilantro (finely chopped)
Note 1: Some of the toppings are missing in the photograph. Specifically, the red onions with lime and cilantro. (The toppings are frequently mixed together so you just add as much as you like including the lime juice.)
Note 2: The CC knows that the bread in the picture is not fried. As Julia says, butter makes everything better, but sometimes a little restraint also works. (People also add extra butter on the bhaji itself which is kinda "over the top".)
Note 3: Yeah, the CC is totally aware that the picture below isn't the "real" paav but one must work with what one has in New York not what one wishes one had. It's the closest approximation to the "real thing". The bread pictured above has the right texture — hard exterior and soft interior. It's from a local bakery.
Note 5: Note the presence of two different kinds of sourness — amchur (= dried green mango powder) in the pav bhaji masala and lime juice. This is a consistent theme in Southeast Asian cooking. The presence of a dry "mellow" kind of sourness allied with a wet perfumed "fresh" kind of sourness.
Note 6: The CC knows that it's much more tricky to describe a street dish than it is to describe a more conventional one. However, when you are faced with alternatives and problems, the key question you need to ask yourself is "Would a street vendor in 1861 worry about this problem in the middle of the night?" If the answer is no, then the CC says, "Wing it!" Except for the butter, the spice mixture, onions, potatoes and tomatoes, it's all up in the air anyway!
Note 7: If you've ever watched it being made on the street, you'd realize that your puny home cooking range simply doesn't have the BTU's. Additionally, the tomatoes are simply not ripe enough. They toss whole ripe tomatoes onto the sizzling skillet and de-skin them with their spatula. You have neither the heat nor the skill to do so. Do it the CC's way, OK?
Note 8: The vegetables may or may not have been part of the original recipe but they've become "traditional" with the advent of healthier eating.
Recipe
First boil the potatoes. Skin them and set aside. Mash gently.
Pass the tomatoes through a food mill to get just the pulp. If the tomatoes are not completely ripe, you may need to par-boil them for 5-6 minutes each to get them to soften.
Pound the ginger and garlic into a paste.
Heat up the butter in a pan. Add the onions and fry till they turn pink. Do not let them caramelize. Add the ginger-garlic paste and fry for a bit. Add the tomatoes and let it come to a boil. Skim if you prefer that. Let it cook for at least 10 minutes. Add the pav bhaji masala.
Add the mashed potatoes and let it cook for 8 minutes or so. This concoction has a tendency to act like molten lava splashing everywhere so cover the lid partially otherwise you will be cursing the CC.
Taste. You may need to add more pav bhaji masala. It's hard to predict how much exactly.
Split the bread into two without cutting all the way. Take a skillet. Add butter and let the bread fry on both sides. (This is optional.)
Serve the bread, the pav bhaji and the toppings on the side (as needed.)
Saturday, March 1, 2014
Sprouted Lentils
The CC is a total sucker for sprouted lentils.
What you get in the supermarkets sucks but the process of sprouting lentils is shockingly easy.
Even in the dead of this frozen winter, the CC has had no problems getting them to sprout. The reason is that sprouting is an exothermic process which means that the sprouts themselves are giving up both heat and moisture.
You soak the sprouts overnight at first; then put them in a cheese cloth in a transparent bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Put in a warm spot that gets some indirect light. Each day you must wash them to make sure that they stay moist and remove any possible fungal buildup. They will sprout like champs in two days. Wed. night soaking for Sat. breakfast (Thu. for Sun.)
Easy peasy.
The following is a great breakfast dish as nutritious as it is simple.
Ingredients
3 cups sprouted lentils
pinch of asafetida
1 tbsp. dhanajeeru (coriander and cumin roasted and powdered)
1 tsp. red chili powder
oil
salt (to taste)
1 lime (cut into quarters)
Recipe
Fry some oil in a pan. Toss in the asafoetida and fry for a bit. Toss in the dhanajeeru and the red chilli powder and the sprouts. Sautée for 2-3 minutes.
Add water (about 1 1/2 cup.) Let it simmer on low heat until the beans are edible. You may need to add more water.
It's done when the beans are cooked and the liquid is still a little watery but not soupy.
Serve at once squeezing the lime on top. The CC loves sopping up the broth with a crusty baguette.
What you get in the supermarkets sucks but the process of sprouting lentils is shockingly easy.
Even in the dead of this frozen winter, the CC has had no problems getting them to sprout. The reason is that sprouting is an exothermic process which means that the sprouts themselves are giving up both heat and moisture.
You soak the sprouts overnight at first; then put them in a cheese cloth in a transparent bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Put in a warm spot that gets some indirect light. Each day you must wash them to make sure that they stay moist and remove any possible fungal buildup. They will sprout like champs in two days. Wed. night soaking for Sat. breakfast (Thu. for Sun.)
Easy peasy.
The following is a great breakfast dish as nutritious as it is simple.
Ingredients
3 cups sprouted lentils
pinch of asafetida
1 tbsp. dhanajeeru (coriander and cumin roasted and powdered)
1 tsp. red chili powder
oil
salt (to taste)
1 lime (cut into quarters)
Recipe
Fry some oil in a pan. Toss in the asafoetida and fry for a bit. Toss in the dhanajeeru and the red chilli powder and the sprouts. Sautée for 2-3 minutes.
Add water (about 1 1/2 cup.) Let it simmer on low heat until the beans are edible. You may need to add more water.
It's done when the beans are cooked and the liquid is still a little watery but not soupy.
Serve at once squeezing the lime on top. The CC loves sopping up the broth with a crusty baguette.
Friday, February 21, 2014
R.I.P. Tarla Dalal
The CC just found out that Tarla Dalal passed away a few months ago.
A housewife who turned her skills at cooking into a food empire, her books were the original recipe books in modern-day Indian vegetarian cooking. She was no academic but she was a terrific home cook. Her focus was the vegetarian recipes of India and beyond. She changed the food habits of an entire generation of housewives.
"Every recipe is guaranteed to work!" was her catchphrase.
And they absolutely do.
Her recipes were scrupulously researched initially by her and then when she had "made it" by an army of assistants at a time when it was unusual to even think of such an idea. They are literally perfect. There are no mistakes which is a rare and wonderful achievement in any domain.
R.I.P.
A housewife who turned her skills at cooking into a food empire, her books were the original recipe books in modern-day Indian vegetarian cooking. She was no academic but she was a terrific home cook. Her focus was the vegetarian recipes of India and beyond. She changed the food habits of an entire generation of housewives.
"Every recipe is guaranteed to work!" was her catchphrase.
And they absolutely do.
Her recipes were scrupulously researched initially by her and then when she had "made it" by an army of assistants at a time when it was unusual to even think of such an idea. They are literally perfect. There are no mistakes which is a rare and wonderful achievement in any domain.
R.I.P.
Monday, February 10, 2014
The Indian Peas' Process
"What is it about Indians and peas?" a friend asked the CC recently, "Why are they so obsessed about them?"
A most worthy question and certainly one that requires more than an offhand answer and since its her birthday, the CC will answer at leisure.
("Does the CC ever answer not at leisure and without copious footnotes?" is the query from the peanut gallery which is a question he will ignore.)
Perhaps this should be a series? "What is it about Russians/Korean/Japanese and mushrooms?", etc. which follows roughly the same line of questioning and the same analogous answer as well.
The answer, slightly speculative as it might be, involves geography, growing seasons and plant biology.
Peas are ancient and have grown all along the Mediterranean and the near East since ancient times. Even in what is modern-day India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, we are talking at least 2500 B.C.E. or earlier.
Peas are annual plants. They produce a seed within the year and die.
Peas are a cool season crop. They can only germinate from late spring to early summer. In fact, last summer, the CC couldn't get fresh peas at all the farmers' market because the waves upon waves of heat destroyed all the pea crops.
India lies just north of the equator and has a short winter but an even shorter spring. Summer arrives with a vengeance right around April.
So the answer should be clear. You can only grow these for the shortest of growing seasons in the winter which is not as cold as the rest of the world. The window is barely a few months (Feb. to late Mar.) which explains its nature as "delicacy" not particularly different from the way that asparagus is considered a delicacy in Europe or North America.
In fact, the Mughal emperors used to grow them in Kashmir which has an extended growing season for peas because of its altitude. We have additional evidence from ingredients in rare royal dishes which are paired with peas like mushrooms. These are not any old mushrooms. They were morels (gucchi) from Kashmir. Morels are seasonal, rare and expensive and require foraging since they couldn't be cultivated easily.
(We are just beginning to understand the science to cultivate them right now!)
Also, if you look at it from the Emperor's perspective, you can't just chomp down a bunch of foraged stuff. You have to have an "official taster" to make sure you're not getting poisoned from mushrooms which means you need even more of them than just for the dish.
Almost every modern-day Indian dish that substitutes the common button mushroom comes from these rarefied dishes that served Emperors once upon a time!
In the modern world, all of this is not particularly germane because you can get ingredients shipped from anywhere in the world right down to your home. Not to mention frozen stuff which doesn't matter if you are going to purée the peas anyway.
However, cultural habits are reinforced by geography first and foremost and modern technology cannot make up for millennia of habit. (Have absolutely no argument for the fact that "habit" and "culture" are nothing more than pseudo-legitimatized bias in some shape or the other!)
So peas. And Indians. And pea-shelling, pea-eating, pea-loving Indians.
Of course, this wouldn't be complete without the CC providing a favored recipe. This one is a Gujarati classic that is both simple and lip-smackingly delicious.
Ingredients
2 cups fresh shelled peas
3 small tomatoes (chopped really fine)
1 tbsp. dhanajeeru (equal parts cumin + coriander, roasted, and ground fine)
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp amchur (dried green mango powder - NON-NEGOTIABLE!)
1 tsp chilly powder (or to taste - not so important)
pinch of asafoetida
1 tbsp. corn flour or chickpea flour
oil
salt
Recipe
Heat up the oil. Fry the asafoetida till it is fragrant. Add the rest of the spices and the tomatoes and fry till they are soft. Add the peas and some water and let it cook till done.
Sprinkle the flour all over and mix vigorously till the sauce is thickened.
Eat with rotis or parathas. The CC is biased. He prefers the latter.
This stores well. Easy to reheat too although the peas will not have the starchy crunch which is partly what makes the dish so irresistible.
A most worthy question and certainly one that requires more than an offhand answer and since its her birthday, the CC will answer at leisure.
("Does the CC ever answer not at leisure and without copious footnotes?" is the query from the peanut gallery which is a question he will ignore.)
Perhaps this should be a series? "What is it about Russians/Korean/Japanese and mushrooms?", etc. which follows roughly the same line of questioning and the same analogous answer as well.
The answer, slightly speculative as it might be, involves geography, growing seasons and plant biology.
Peas are ancient and have grown all along the Mediterranean and the near East since ancient times. Even in what is modern-day India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, we are talking at least 2500 B.C.E. or earlier.
Peas are annual plants. They produce a seed within the year and die.
Peas are a cool season crop. They can only germinate from late spring to early summer. In fact, last summer, the CC couldn't get fresh peas at all the farmers' market because the waves upon waves of heat destroyed all the pea crops.
India lies just north of the equator and has a short winter but an even shorter spring. Summer arrives with a vengeance right around April.
So the answer should be clear. You can only grow these for the shortest of growing seasons in the winter which is not as cold as the rest of the world. The window is barely a few months (Feb. to late Mar.) which explains its nature as "delicacy" not particularly different from the way that asparagus is considered a delicacy in Europe or North America.
In fact, the Mughal emperors used to grow them in Kashmir which has an extended growing season for peas because of its altitude. We have additional evidence from ingredients in rare royal dishes which are paired with peas like mushrooms. These are not any old mushrooms. They were morels (gucchi) from Kashmir. Morels are seasonal, rare and expensive and require foraging since they couldn't be cultivated easily.
(We are just beginning to understand the science to cultivate them right now!)
Also, if you look at it from the Emperor's perspective, you can't just chomp down a bunch of foraged stuff. You have to have an "official taster" to make sure you're not getting poisoned from mushrooms which means you need even more of them than just for the dish.
Almost every modern-day Indian dish that substitutes the common button mushroom comes from these rarefied dishes that served Emperors once upon a time!
In the modern world, all of this is not particularly germane because you can get ingredients shipped from anywhere in the world right down to your home. Not to mention frozen stuff which doesn't matter if you are going to purée the peas anyway.
However, cultural habits are reinforced by geography first and foremost and modern technology cannot make up for millennia of habit. (Have absolutely no argument for the fact that "habit" and "culture" are nothing more than pseudo-legitimatized bias in some shape or the other!)
So peas. And Indians. And pea-shelling, pea-eating, pea-loving Indians.
Of course, this wouldn't be complete without the CC providing a favored recipe. This one is a Gujarati classic that is both simple and lip-smackingly delicious.
Ingredients
2 cups fresh shelled peas
3 small tomatoes (chopped really fine)
1 tbsp. dhanajeeru (equal parts cumin + coriander, roasted, and ground fine)
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp amchur (dried green mango powder - NON-NEGOTIABLE!)
1 tsp chilly powder (or to taste - not so important)
pinch of asafoetida
1 tbsp. corn flour or chickpea flour
oil
salt
Recipe
Heat up the oil. Fry the asafoetida till it is fragrant. Add the rest of the spices and the tomatoes and fry till they are soft. Add the peas and some water and let it cook till done.
Sprinkle the flour all over and mix vigorously till the sauce is thickened.
Eat with rotis or parathas. The CC is biased. He prefers the latter.
This stores well. Easy to reheat too although the peas will not have the starchy crunch which is partly what makes the dish so irresistible.
Monday, April 9, 2012
Fada ni Khichdi
Documentary evidence has it that when the Emperor Shah Jahan (of Taj Mahal fame) finally conquered what is modern-day Gujarat, he was so enamored of the extraordinarily humble khichdi (a traditional rice and lentils dish) that he insisted that the royal chef make it regularly!
The chef, used to making much fanciful stuff, was more than a little peeved at making something so pedestrian. The royal chef fancified it a bit (but not too much) and a compromise was reached of making it at most "once in a while" which translated to "weekly" since Emperors can insist on pretty much get away with anything that they desire!
That this is not just some legend comes down to us in the form of the royal chef's cookbook/notes which have survived intact.
What this tells you is that even Emperors get tired of the same ol', same ol' no matter how fancy it is. Novelty is the name of the game, and even a peasant dish from a newly conquered territory can fascinate the Emperor and from there on, be elevated to finer culinary standards.
It should be noted that this is a trend among most high-end restaurants today which are busy trampling all over themselves to turn offal and lentils into new dishes, both substances being the cheapest of the cheap, and thus the provenance of the peasant not the gourmand.
The dish below is a traditional variation on the Gujarati khichdi that uses cracked wheat instead of rice (again variation and novelty, and it's even "traditional".)
The idea works on the same principle as a risotto but the mixture tends towards the soft and chewy but not mushy. The vegetables add color, nutrition and texture.
Ingredients
1 cup yellow moong daal (split yellow daal)
3/4 cup bulgur wheat #3 (coarsest grind)
1 cup potatoes (diced into cubes)
1 cup green peas
1 cup green beans (diced)
1 cup cauliflower florets
1 cup carrots (diced into cubes)
1 cup onions (diced fine)
2 tbsp ginger + green-chilli paste
1/2 tsp turmeric
sea salt (to taste)
1 stick cinnamon
3 cloves
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp black peppercorns
asafoetida
3 tbsp ghee
Recipe
Soak the moong daal and the cracked wheat in ice cold water separately for at least 30 minutes.
Remove, and dry thoroughly.
(To be blunt, this last part is painful because it's hard to get enough surface area to get the stuff to dry thoroughly. Do the best you can but remember, the drier it gets after soaking, the greater your chances of making the dish "memorable".)
In a seperate vessel, bring roughly 4 cups of water to a simmer. Keep warm.
Bring the ghee to a simmer. Toss in the cinnamon and fry for a bit. When fragrant, toss in the cumin, cloves, black peppercorns and asafoetida. Fry for a bit. Add the onions and fry languidly for 3-4 minutes until limp but not colored. Add the turmeric and ginger-green chilly paste and fry for a while.
Fry the potatoes for a bit.
Then fry the daal and the cracked wheat for a bit. Add 3 cups of water, and let cook at a low simmer for about 8 minutes. Add more hot water if it gets dry.
Towards the end, add the rest of the vegetables and let cook together. (Yes, this is a little tricky since you need to time everything exactly.)
The chef, used to making much fanciful stuff, was more than a little peeved at making something so pedestrian. The royal chef fancified it a bit (but not too much) and a compromise was reached of making it at most "once in a while" which translated to "weekly" since Emperors can insist on pretty much get away with anything that they desire!
That this is not just some legend comes down to us in the form of the royal chef's cookbook/notes which have survived intact.
What this tells you is that even Emperors get tired of the same ol', same ol' no matter how fancy it is. Novelty is the name of the game, and even a peasant dish from a newly conquered territory can fascinate the Emperor and from there on, be elevated to finer culinary standards.
It should be noted that this is a trend among most high-end restaurants today which are busy trampling all over themselves to turn offal and lentils into new dishes, both substances being the cheapest of the cheap, and thus the provenance of the peasant not the gourmand.
The dish below is a traditional variation on the Gujarati khichdi that uses cracked wheat instead of rice (again variation and novelty, and it's even "traditional".)
The idea works on the same principle as a risotto but the mixture tends towards the soft and chewy but not mushy. The vegetables add color, nutrition and texture.
Ingredients
1 cup yellow moong daal (split yellow daal)
3/4 cup bulgur wheat #3 (coarsest grind)
1 cup potatoes (diced into cubes)
1 cup green peas
1 cup green beans (diced)
1 cup cauliflower florets
1 cup carrots (diced into cubes)
1 cup onions (diced fine)
2 tbsp ginger + green-chilli paste
1/2 tsp turmeric
sea salt (to taste)
1 stick cinnamon
3 cloves
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp black peppercorns
asafoetida
3 tbsp ghee
Recipe
Soak the moong daal and the cracked wheat in ice cold water separately for at least 30 minutes.
Remove, and dry thoroughly.
(To be blunt, this last part is painful because it's hard to get enough surface area to get the stuff to dry thoroughly. Do the best you can but remember, the drier it gets after soaking, the greater your chances of making the dish "memorable".)
In a seperate vessel, bring roughly 4 cups of water to a simmer. Keep warm.
Bring the ghee to a simmer. Toss in the cinnamon and fry for a bit. When fragrant, toss in the cumin, cloves, black peppercorns and asafoetida. Fry for a bit. Add the onions and fry languidly for 3-4 minutes until limp but not colored. Add the turmeric and ginger-green chilly paste and fry for a while.
Fry the potatoes for a bit.
Then fry the daal and the cracked wheat for a bit. Add 3 cups of water, and let cook at a low simmer for about 8 minutes. Add more hot water if it gets dry.
Towards the end, add the rest of the vegetables and let cook together. (Yes, this is a little tricky since you need to time everything exactly.)
Monday, February 14, 2011
Haandvo
The greatest of all vegetarian dishes (at least in the CC's unhumble opinion.)
Poetry should be written about this stuff, and wars raged but it hasn't happened yet so the CC assumes that he lies alone in his passion. (Sigh!)
This is a lentil and rice flour mix that has been fermented (lactobacillus!), and then mixed with ginger, green chillies, spices and vegetables, and topped with the classical Indian technique of spices fried at the last minute in oil (vaghar, baghar, chowk, etc.) In this case, the spices are sesame seeds as you can plainly observe below.
Finally, the whole thing is baked with coals above and below.
Eat it with a sip of buttermilk (yogurt + water) and watch the mixture evolve as you chew. Each bite will be subtly different as your saliva works its magic with the two components in tandem.
The crispy brown bits are the best part (Maillard, Maillard, Maillard!)
The Gods themselves designed this dish because they got bored of ordinary, every day perfection!
Poetry should be written about this stuff, and wars raged but it hasn't happened yet so the CC assumes that he lies alone in his passion. (Sigh!)
This is a lentil and rice flour mix that has been fermented (lactobacillus!), and then mixed with ginger, green chillies, spices and vegetables, and topped with the classical Indian technique of spices fried at the last minute in oil (vaghar, baghar, chowk, etc.) In this case, the spices are sesame seeds as you can plainly observe below.
Finally, the whole thing is baked with coals above and below.
Eat it with a sip of buttermilk (yogurt + water) and watch the mixture evolve as you chew. Each bite will be subtly different as your saliva works its magic with the two components in tandem.
The crispy brown bits are the best part (Maillard, Maillard, Maillard!)
The Gods themselves designed this dish because they got bored of ordinary, every day perfection!
Monday, February 15, 2010
India Trip : Day 1 : Post 5
This is khandvi, a Gujarati staple and specialty.
Silky smooth in texture, and spicy in taste, it was demolished within minutes of arrival (yes, you bastards! you know exactly who you are!!!)
But why not? It's a masterpiece of conception, execution and delivery.
First up, in involves chickpea flour, spices and water and blended over heat into a thick batter. Then, the batter is spread out real thin onto flat oiled surfaces while it is still hot, and left to cool.
The batter which dries up is then rolled into thin rolls which are sliced.
Following that, oil is heated to a high temperature, and mustard tossed into it. This hot mixture is then poured all over the (sliced) rolls.
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Khandvi
Incidentally, this technique of frying spices in hot oil and pouring on or into dishes -- baghar or tadka -- which perfumes the entire dish with the spices is the only unique innovation that Indian cuisine has ever made.
This is not as pejorative as it sounds - all the other techniques - roasting, steaming, frying - arise all over the globe. In fact, the Indians were taught the concept of steaming by the Chinese traders in the 10th century.
An innovation at this basic level is extraordinarily high praise indeed!
Silky smooth in texture, and spicy in taste, it was demolished within minutes of arrival (yes, you bastards! you know exactly who you are!!!)
But why not? It's a masterpiece of conception, execution and delivery.
First up, in involves chickpea flour, spices and water and blended over heat into a thick batter. Then, the batter is spread out real thin onto flat oiled surfaces while it is still hot, and left to cool.
The batter which dries up is then rolled into thin rolls which are sliced.
Following that, oil is heated to a high temperature, and mustard tossed into it. This hot mixture is then poured all over the (sliced) rolls.
.jpg)
Incidentally, this technique of frying spices in hot oil and pouring on or into dishes -- baghar or tadka -- which perfumes the entire dish with the spices is the only unique innovation that Indian cuisine has ever made.
This is not as pejorative as it sounds - all the other techniques - roasting, steaming, frying - arise all over the globe. In fact, the Indians were taught the concept of steaming by the Chinese traders in the 10th century.
An innovation at this basic level is extraordinarily high praise indeed!
Friday, February 5, 2010
India Trip : Day 1 : Post 2
First up, the Gujarati combination of sweet and savory. Jalebi-Gaanthia.
Jalebi refers to a disgustingly sweet (and highly addictive) combination of fried spiced wheat dough dunked in the saturated sugar solution. Note the use of the word "saturated". It's not enough to have a sugar syrup. You must heat it to a high temperature so that more sugar can dissolve. You might as well label the product "Death to Diabetics!" but it's delicious!
Gaanthia refer to the highly-spiced chickpea-flour batter that is spiced. They are extremely crumbly and totally addictive. Particularly with the jalebi's above.
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Jalebi
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Gaanthia
Jalebi refers to a disgustingly sweet (and highly addictive) combination of fried spiced wheat dough dunked in the saturated sugar solution. Note the use of the word "saturated". It's not enough to have a sugar syrup. You must heat it to a high temperature so that more sugar can dissolve. You might as well label the product "Death to Diabetics!" but it's delicious!
Gaanthia refer to the highly-spiced chickpea-flour batter that is spiced. They are extremely crumbly and totally addictive. Particularly with the jalebi's above.
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Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Sprouted Mung
These babies get a bad rap particularly when you see the really awful stuff you get in supermarkets.
They are supposed to be delicate with wispy sprouts full of nutrition not the godawful stuff that is grown under artificial lights and have sprouts the size of roots (which are pretty effin' tasteless to boot.)
For a recipe, follow this.
They are supposed to be delicate with wispy sprouts full of nutrition not the godawful stuff that is grown under artificial lights and have sprouts the size of roots (which are pretty effin' tasteless to boot.)
For a recipe, follow this.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Theplaa
The quintessentially Gujarati dish. Stereotypically even.
So stereotypical that we used to refer to the more rural types as theplaa's back in the day. Heck, the typecasting seems to have spread far beyond the borders of India because a Japanese-American friend of the CC's who lived in London commented on it once.
That having been said, let us not be deprived of the brilliance that is theplaa.
Just for the record, the concept is pseudo-generic. You really can use any flour. However, if you are a moron that uses only wheat flour (like most of the Gujarati population), you will what the CC considers the main feature of theplaa namely that chewing it turns the spicy deliciousness into sweet (thank you, chemistry of saliva!)
You must use millet for that. The CC will flat out not eat theplaa that does not feature millet. It's cheaper, has a fantastic non-boring texture, and a rich taste.
Why on earth would you possibly go against that?
Ingredients
3 cups baajri flour (millet)
1 cup wheat flour (read instructions below)
1 cup chopped fenugreek leaves (methi)
1" ginger
3-4 garlic cloves
3-4 Thai green chillies
1 tbsp sesame seeds
1 tsp ajwain seeds
1 tsp asafoetida
2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp ground red chilli powder
yogurt mixed with water (to make the dough)
salt (to taste)
Recipe
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ginger-garlic-green-chilli paste
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Add salt, turmeric, red chilli powder, sesame seeds, and the ajwain seeds.
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Add the rest of the ingredients. You can see the darker color of the baajri flour along with the lighter wheat flour. Somewhere underneath you can see the fenugreek leaves too.
Don't add all the wheat flour. Keep some aside.
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Now, you need to knead the dough with the yogurt-water mixture.
It is absolutely critical that the dough be made with the yogurt-water mix not just water.
The dough is going to super soft and a bit sticky (there is complex chemistry at the heart of this.) Gently keep adding more wheat flour, until the dough becomes manageably solid-ish. It will NEVER get truly solid, and always remain slightly soft.
You need to gently roll it out, and pan fry it. Another trick that works is to just roll it out with your fingers on a lightly oiled piece of aluminum foil before pan frying.
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Theplaa
So stereotypical that we used to refer to the more rural types as theplaa's back in the day. Heck, the typecasting seems to have spread far beyond the borders of India because a Japanese-American friend of the CC's who lived in London commented on it once.
That having been said, let us not be deprived of the brilliance that is theplaa.
Just for the record, the concept is pseudo-generic. You really can use any flour. However, if you are a moron that uses only wheat flour (like most of the Gujarati population), you will what the CC considers the main feature of theplaa namely that chewing it turns the spicy deliciousness into sweet (thank you, chemistry of saliva!)
You must use millet for that. The CC will flat out not eat theplaa that does not feature millet. It's cheaper, has a fantastic non-boring texture, and a rich taste.
Why on earth would you possibly go against that?
Ingredients
3 cups baajri flour (millet)
1 cup wheat flour (read instructions below)
1 cup chopped fenugreek leaves (methi)
1" ginger
3-4 garlic cloves
3-4 Thai green chillies
1 tbsp sesame seeds
1 tsp ajwain seeds
1 tsp asafoetida
2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp ground red chilli powder
yogurt mixed with water (to make the dough)
salt (to taste)
Recipe
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Add salt, turmeric, red chilli powder, sesame seeds, and the ajwain seeds..jpg)
Add the rest of the ingredients. You can see the darker color of the baajri flour along with the lighter wheat flour. Somewhere underneath you can see the fenugreek leaves too.Don't add all the wheat flour. Keep some aside.
.jpg)
Now, you need to knead the dough with the yogurt-water mixture.It is absolutely critical that the dough be made with the yogurt-water mix not just water.
The dough is going to super soft and a bit sticky (there is complex chemistry at the heart of this.) Gently keep adding more wheat flour, until the dough becomes manageably solid-ish. It will NEVER get truly solid, and always remain slightly soft.
You need to gently roll it out, and pan fry it. Another trick that works is to just roll it out with your fingers on a lightly oiled piece of aluminum foil before pan frying.
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Saturday, May 3, 2008
Vaal ni daal
This one here's a Gujarati classic.
We're going to make it the ol' school way. The irony of ironies is that the ol' school way is also the lazy person's way. Somewhere along the line there was a glitch in the transmission matrix, and generations of Indians have been wasting their time for no particular good reason.
As to who pissed in the pasta, the CC only has a vague guess, and no particular way of proving the hypothesis.
Rest happy in being modern (both indolent and ironic) and also ancient (preserving the flavor.)
Ingredients
1 cup vaal (split hulled field beans, soaked)
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup cashewnuts
3 dried boriya chillies (read notes below)
1 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp ajwain (carom seeds)
asafoetida
salt
oil
Recipe
A few notes on the ingredients.
You need the vaal soaked at least for 5-6 hours. These are very soft beans, and are pretty much going to "disintegrate" in the recipe.
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The boriya chillies are these round ones that you can just fish out at the end. They are called that because they look like berries. The word is a cognate of "berry".
You need these babies.
If you don't have them, just substitute by regular ones, or in the worst case, a tiny bit of chilli powder. However you're definitely missing something. These are unique, and you can't just wish them away. Even most the CC's relatives dumb it down but the CC has ol' school purist tendencies.
A final note. You will see the recipe call for sugar. That is a sign of failure. With just pure skill (and the notes below), you will be able to get that characteristic sweet taste without any sugar.
That's our old friend, Maestro Maillard one more time with two ingredients, the vaal itself which has a unique sweetish taste, and the raisins.
After all these notes, you may think that the recipe is hard. Au contraire, mes amis, the recipe is almost shockingly simple.
The pictures are not great but there's really no time in the first few steps. Apologies.
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Fry the cumin, and the ajwain and the asafoetida (not shown.)
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Then, the boriya chillies. Note the coloring of the cumin.
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Then, the cashews.
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And, the raisins.
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Finally, the beans which you have to ensure are dry after the soaking because you want to fry them, not just boil them. Not yet, anyway.
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Watch the color turn darker.
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Finally, add the water. You can always add more later.
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Let it simmer on a slow burn until the beans are soft to your liking. The CC likes them on the chewy side.
While it is cooking, you will "smell" the heat from the chillies. Trust your senses. Fish them out when it "feels" right. You will know exactly what the CC means by this the first time you make it. It's pretty unambiguous.
The chillies will add a slow smoldering subtle heat to the final proceedings. This is quite emphatically not a "hot" dish. If anything it verges on a balanced interplay of sweet-spicy-savory.
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Vaal ni daal
We're going to make it the ol' school way. The irony of ironies is that the ol' school way is also the lazy person's way. Somewhere along the line there was a glitch in the transmission matrix, and generations of Indians have been wasting their time for no particular good reason.
As to who pissed in the pasta, the CC only has a vague guess, and no particular way of proving the hypothesis.
Rest happy in being modern (both indolent and ironic) and also ancient (preserving the flavor.)
Ingredients
1 cup vaal (split hulled field beans, soaked)
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup cashewnuts
3 dried boriya chillies (read notes below)
1 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp ajwain (carom seeds)
asafoetida
salt
oil
Recipe
A few notes on the ingredients.
You need the vaal soaked at least for 5-6 hours. These are very soft beans, and are pretty much going to "disintegrate" in the recipe.
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The boriya chillies are these round ones that you can just fish out at the end. They are called that because they look like berries. The word is a cognate of "berry".You need these babies.
If you don't have them, just substitute by regular ones, or in the worst case, a tiny bit of chilli powder. However you're definitely missing something. These are unique, and you can't just wish them away. Even most the CC's relatives dumb it down but the CC has ol' school purist tendencies.
A final note. You will see the recipe call for sugar. That is a sign of failure. With just pure skill (and the notes below), you will be able to get that characteristic sweet taste without any sugar.
That's our old friend, Maestro Maillard one more time with two ingredients, the vaal itself which has a unique sweetish taste, and the raisins.
After all these notes, you may think that the recipe is hard. Au contraire, mes amis, the recipe is almost shockingly simple.
The pictures are not great but there's really no time in the first few steps. Apologies.
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Fry the cumin, and the ajwain and the asafoetida (not shown.)
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Then, the boriya chillies. Note the coloring of the cumin.
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Then, the cashews.
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And, the raisins.
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Finally, the beans which you have to ensure are dry after the soaking because you want to fry them, not just boil them. Not yet, anyway.
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Watch the color turn darker.
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Finally, add the water. You can always add more later.
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Let it simmer on a slow burn until the beans are soft to your liking. The CC likes them on the chewy side.
While it is cooking, you will "smell" the heat from the chillies. Trust your senses. Fish them out when it "feels" right. You will know exactly what the CC means by this the first time you make it. It's pretty unambiguous.
The chillies will add a slow smoldering subtle heat to the final proceedings. This is quite emphatically not a "hot" dish. If anything it verges on a balanced interplay of sweet-spicy-savory.
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Monday, April 21, 2008
Steamed Vegetable Dumplings
The CC's dad forwarded him a recipe from the local newspapers. The CC liked the look of it, and it consisted of old ideas in a spanking new bottle so the CC decided to try it out (that, and the fact that the ingredients were coincidentally precisely what the CC needed to use up.)
The verdict? Gobbliciously good.
High on fiber too leading to a quadruple-flusher the next day (not that you needed to know that but what can the CC do? The blog mandate permits it.)
The CC changed one thing though. He will never understand his forefathers' love of the cabbage. Flabby, vile, nasty with a historical side-helping of being "good for you". Read Pliny, if you don't believe the CC.
So what's the old, and what's the new?
New would be combo of ol' Gujarati technique with North Indian spices and ingredients, and a free helping of New World stuff like corn thrown in to seal the deal.
Old would be the method of steaming the dumplings (which the Indians received via Chinese traders circa the 10th century incidentally), and the lentil batter (quite ancient.)
Just for the record, the final texture is astonishingly similar to the steamed pork dumplings (shu mai) served at dim sum, a thought that possibly scandalizes the CC's vegetarian forefathers.
Oh well! The CC was never long on formality.
Ingredients
carrots (shredded)
spinach (blanched, and chopped fine)
corn
1/4 cup whole masoor soaked (or just use any lentils)
3 cloves garlic
1" ginger
3-4 green chillies
rava (substitute with bulgur wheat)
cilantro leaves (finely chopped)
lime juice
salt
Recipe
The quantities are approximate because it's hard to screw this up, and you will have control in the last step anyway. If you have a food processor, you're golden. Won't even take you 20 minutes. (And since the CC is a full disclosionist, yes, he used frozen spinach, and frozen corn. Gasp, the horror!!!)
As you might have guessed, you can really use any vegetables but you do need some shredded stuff to help the dough all hold together.
Soak the lentils for at least 6 hours. This is the only real prep step.
Grind the garlic, ginger, green-chillies into a paste. Grind the lentils into a paste too (can be combined.)
Mix all the ingredients except the rava. Add the rava in small quantities till you get a very loose dough but one that you can form balls in. (This is the reason everything is approximate since you can control the texture here.)
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The little balls ready to steam on the CC's steamer thingy. They were steamed for about 8-9 minutes.
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Steamed Vegetable Dumplings
The verdict? Gobbliciously good.
High on fiber too leading to a quadruple-flusher the next day (not that you needed to know that but what can the CC do? The blog mandate permits it.)
The CC changed one thing though. He will never understand his forefathers' love of the cabbage. Flabby, vile, nasty with a historical side-helping of being "good for you". Read Pliny, if you don't believe the CC.
So what's the old, and what's the new?
New would be combo of ol' Gujarati technique with North Indian spices and ingredients, and a free helping of New World stuff like corn thrown in to seal the deal.
Old would be the method of steaming the dumplings (which the Indians received via Chinese traders circa the 10th century incidentally), and the lentil batter (quite ancient.)
Just for the record, the final texture is astonishingly similar to the steamed pork dumplings (shu mai) served at dim sum, a thought that possibly scandalizes the CC's vegetarian forefathers.
Oh well! The CC was never long on formality.
Ingredients
carrots (shredded)
spinach (blanched, and chopped fine)
corn
1/4 cup whole masoor soaked (or just use any lentils)
3 cloves garlic
1" ginger
3-4 green chillies
rava (substitute with bulgur wheat)
cilantro leaves (finely chopped)
lime juice
salt
Recipe
The quantities are approximate because it's hard to screw this up, and you will have control in the last step anyway. If you have a food processor, you're golden. Won't even take you 20 minutes. (And since the CC is a full disclosionist, yes, he used frozen spinach, and frozen corn. Gasp, the horror!!!)
As you might have guessed, you can really use any vegetables but you do need some shredded stuff to help the dough all hold together.
Soak the lentils for at least 6 hours. This is the only real prep step.
Grind the garlic, ginger, green-chillies into a paste. Grind the lentils into a paste too (can be combined.)
Mix all the ingredients except the rava. Add the rava in small quantities till you get a very loose dough but one that you can form balls in. (This is the reason everything is approximate since you can control the texture here.)
.jpg)
The little balls ready to steam on the CC's steamer thingy. They were steamed for about 8-9 minutes..jpg)
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Ponkh
A January-February specialty in the agricultural regions of Western India, ponkh (in Gujarati; in Marathi = hurda) are the young immature seeds of sorghum (jowar.)They are delicious raw, or roasted, and are eaten, among the Gujarati population, with a fiery peppery sev (= fried chickpea dough.) Sometimes people add sugar or sugar bits but the CC never cared much for that.
Unfortunately, they have a shelf life of about a day (after which they turn all sticky and nasty) and so they don't travel at all.
The CC used to be a big fan (as was his grandfather before him.)
[ On a side note, this idea for the post was a suggestion by a fellow reader who also pointed out its seasonal nature thus forcing the CC to write about it pronto. Take a bow, young lady. You know who you are. ]
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Karela Kaju Kishmish
The CC has posted this particular recipe before but he finds it impossible to invent new tricks each time so you will have to be content with a "show-n-tell" instead.
Ingredients
4-5 small karelas, cut into rounds
1/3 cup peas (frozen is fine.)
1/3 cup cashews (broken)
1/3 cup raisins
1/2 tsp asafoetida
2 tsp cumin seeds
2 tsp coriander seeds
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1/4 tsp turmeric (optional)
4-5 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp poppy seeds
salt to taste
Recipe
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The mise-en-scène; from left clockwise: raisins, peas, broken cashews.
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Karela's (bitter gourds)
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Peeled karela's
They look like naked mole-rats, don't they?
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Cut the bitter gourds into rounds, cover with salt, and mix.
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Add water, and soak for at least an hour. The goal is to leech out the bitter part via osmosis. (Don't worry about the salt; you can always control the recipe later.)
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Rinse them thoroughly, and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. Dry thoroughly.
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First, we pan-fry the bitter gourd rounds.
When they look fried, add the brown sugar, and let it caremelize.
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Watch how everything turns dark brown.
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When they are fried, drain them using paper napkins. They should be thoroughly dry before the next step.
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Dry roast equal proportions of coriander seeds and cumin. When it gives off a fragrant smell, pulverize it into a powder (dhanajeeru.) The CC just uses a coffee grinder.
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Fry some oil, add the asafoetida, fry, add the above dhanajeeru; the red chilli powder, the fried bitter gourd, the raisins and the cashews. Add a tiny amount of water.
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Add the peas, and the poppy seeds towards the end. If it looks too wet, let it cook uncovered. You want it to be on the dry side.
Ingredients
4-5 small karelas, cut into rounds
1/3 cup peas (frozen is fine.)
1/3 cup cashews (broken)
1/3 cup raisins
1/2 tsp asafoetida
2 tsp cumin seeds
2 tsp coriander seeds
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1/4 tsp turmeric (optional)
4-5 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp poppy seeds
salt to taste
Recipe
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The mise-en-scène; from left clockwise: raisins, peas, broken cashews..jpg)
.jpg)
They look like naked mole-rats, don't they?
.jpg)
Cut the bitter gourds into rounds, cover with salt, and mix..jpg)
Add water, and soak for at least an hour. The goal is to leech out the bitter part via osmosis. (Don't worry about the salt; you can always control the recipe later.).jpg)
Rinse them thoroughly, and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. Dry thoroughly..jpg)
First, we pan-fry the bitter gourd rounds.
When they look fried, add the brown sugar, and let it caremelize..jpg)
Watch how everything turns dark brown..jpg)
When they are fried, drain them using paper napkins. They should be thoroughly dry before the next step..jpg)
Dry roast equal proportions of coriander seeds and cumin. When it gives off a fragrant smell, pulverize it into a powder (dhanajeeru.) The CC just uses a coffee grinder..jpg)
Fry some oil, add the asafoetida, fry, add the above dhanajeeru; the red chilli powder, the fried bitter gourd, the raisins and the cashews. Add a tiny amount of water..jpg)
Add the peas, and the poppy seeds towards the end. If it looks too wet, let it cook uncovered. You want it to be on the dry side.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Vaal
Also known as "split lablab beans". They have a unique sweetish taste, and silky texture.
The CC was known to compose odes to this bean at a very young age.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Sprouting (An Addendum)
The CC should mention that normally you won't need to mist the cheese cloth more than once even in the height of a brutal summer because the sprouting process releases so much moisture.
This once again emphasises the advantage of cloth over plastic. The ability to evaporate, and effectively reach an equilibrium with the surrounding air.
In winter, whatever you do, do not mist the cheesecloth. You will end up with mold.
Here's a classic Gujarati recipe for sprouted moth/matki beans. The word is hard to transcribe so here's a picture instead:
The beans sprout easily, and are crazy delicious.
For the record, the CC hates the commercial sprouts. For one they are "over-sprouted" (they are almost plants.) The taste doesn't compare to the mild delicate taste of freshly sprouted beans (and the CC will go into the science in a future post.)
But let's get back to the recipe.
The recipe is a classic breakfast recipe. Yep, the vast majority of the world prefers freshly made breakfast, and the CC is one of them. Eat your heart out, land of peace and granola!
Ingredients
2-3 cups sprouted moth
1 tbsp dhanajeeru (roasted coriander+cumin, powdered)
1 tsp red chilli powder (go easy!)
pinch of asafoetida
salt (to taste)
lots of lime juice (to taste)
Recipe
The recipe is kinda trivial.
Fry some oil in a pan. Toss in the asafoetida; wait 5 seconds; toss in the dhanajeeru and the red chilli powder, and the sprouts. Saute for 10-20 seconds. Add water (about 1 1/2 cup.)
Let it simmer on low heat until the beans are edible. You may need to add more water. You're going to have to play this one by mouth.
Toss in the lime juice at the end.
The stuff is supposed to be slightly watery (but not soupy) at the end. The taste should consist of the spices, a very mild heat, and enough tartness to cut the heat, and just a tad more. None should dominate (this is still breakfast we're talking about!)
You can just eat it by itself but the CC loves to soak up the juices with a nice crusty baguette (how's that for multiculturism?)
This once again emphasises the advantage of cloth over plastic. The ability to evaporate, and effectively reach an equilibrium with the surrounding air.
In winter, whatever you do, do not mist the cheesecloth. You will end up with mold.
Here's a classic Gujarati recipe for sprouted moth/matki beans. The word is hard to transcribe so here's a picture instead:
The beans sprout easily, and are crazy delicious.
For the record, the CC hates the commercial sprouts. For one they are "over-sprouted" (they are almost plants.) The taste doesn't compare to the mild delicate taste of freshly sprouted beans (and the CC will go into the science in a future post.)
But let's get back to the recipe.
The recipe is a classic breakfast recipe. Yep, the vast majority of the world prefers freshly made breakfast, and the CC is one of them. Eat your heart out, land of peace and granola!
Ingredients
2-3 cups sprouted moth
1 tbsp dhanajeeru (roasted coriander+cumin, powdered)
1 tsp red chilli powder (go easy!)
pinch of asafoetida
salt (to taste)
lots of lime juice (to taste)
Recipe
The recipe is kinda trivial.
Fry some oil in a pan. Toss in the asafoetida; wait 5 seconds; toss in the dhanajeeru and the red chilli powder, and the sprouts. Saute for 10-20 seconds. Add water (about 1 1/2 cup.)
Let it simmer on low heat until the beans are edible. You may need to add more water. You're going to have to play this one by mouth.
Toss in the lime juice at the end.
The stuff is supposed to be slightly watery (but not soupy) at the end. The taste should consist of the spices, a very mild heat, and enough tartness to cut the heat, and just a tad more. None should dominate (this is still breakfast we're talking about!)
You can just eat it by itself but the CC loves to soak up the juices with a nice crusty baguette (how's that for multiculturism?)
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Undhiyu
This is perhaps "the" Gujarati dish. A delicious medley of spring vegetables slow-cooked to perfection.
On a personal note, the CC never liked this as a kid, but age even if it doesn't bring wisdom, does indeed bring more things to eat. Hurrah!
The dish quite literally means "upside down". A whole slew of delicious vegetables, spices, and prepared foods were tossed into a clay pot, the whole ensemble was sealed; the pot was placed upside down in a pit, and a fire was built on top of it. The embers surrounded the entire pot, and the dish was slow-cooked.
Needless to say, this is quite literally impossible in the modern kitchen (although if anyone is willing to do the work, the CC will fly to anywhere within the 48 states with the ingredients.)
The dish crucially relies upon "green garlic" (a.k.a. "spring garlic",) and no! substitutions may not be made.
Most of the ingredients listed below are reasonably exotic in the US (although one can easily get them in Indian grocery markets in spring and summer.) Thankfully, someone has had the wisdom to provide them in frozen form which while not quite ideal, is not bad.
The whole recipe is going to take the better part of half a day to cook (if you want to do it right, and the CC knows you do!)
The uncommitted need not apply.
There are many parts to this recipe so the CC is going to present the recipe sectionally. Commentary is added in italics for your delectation.
Please don't forget the final goal. Dump the entire melange into a pot, and slow cook.
Recipe
Methi muthiya
1 bunch fenugreek leaves finely chopped(methi)
1/4 cup whole wheat flour (the Indian fine-ground kind not the supermarket one.)
3/4 cup chickpea flour (besan)
1 tbsp green chilli-ginger paste
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
juice of 1 lime
salt to taste
Mix all the above, and knead into a soft dough. Add some water if needed.
Divide the mixture into 20-25 portions, and shape each like miniature American footballs.
It's a joy to watch experienced cooks shape these balls. They work so fast that it's hard to believe!
These need to be fried. Pan-fried is fine with a thin layer of oil as long as you keep rotating them. Drain on a paper towel, and keep aside.
The Spices
1/2-3/4 cup fresh green garlic (chopped)
4 tbsp dhanajeeru (roasted cumin-coriander seeds powdered)
2-3 tbsp green chilli-ginger paste
3/4 cup cilantro (finely chopped)
1/4 cup fresh coconut grated
2 tsp chilli powder
1 tbsp carom seeds (ajwain)
1 tbsp lime juice
salt to taste
You can just use the food processor for this. And, "frozen grated coconut" is available in Indian grocery stores. This is the ultimate modern convenience since freezing doesn't affect the texture.
The Vegetables
2 cups surti papdi
2 cups purple yam (kand), diced into cubes
2 cups yellow yam (suran), diced into cubes
2 cups "new" potatoes
1 cup sweet potatoes, diced into cubes
4-5 small eggplants (the tiny, round Indian ones)
3 plaintains
1/4 tbsp asafoetida
4-5 tbsp green chilli-ginger paste
Here are some of the ingredients:
green garlic
kand
surati papdi
The eggplants and the plaintains need to be cut in a special way since they are going to be stuffed with the spices above.
Some pictures are worth a thousand words:
See the slits? That's where the spices from section 2 are going to get stuffed into.
Heat 8 tbsp oil in a pan. Add the asafoetida, followed by the green chilli-ginger paste and fry for a bit. Add the eggplants, and the plaintains, and fry till the eggplant is just slightly tender.
Add all the stuff to the pot, and seal the pot. Traditionally, this is done using dough but foil will do in a pinch.
Reduce the heat to the lowest setting, and cook for roughly 40-50 minutes. Don't open it!
(Alternately, you could just put the whole thing in the oven at 400F for about an hour.)
On a personal note, the CC never liked this as a kid, but age even if it doesn't bring wisdom, does indeed bring more things to eat. Hurrah!
The dish quite literally means "upside down". A whole slew of delicious vegetables, spices, and prepared foods were tossed into a clay pot, the whole ensemble was sealed; the pot was placed upside down in a pit, and a fire was built on top of it. The embers surrounded the entire pot, and the dish was slow-cooked.
Needless to say, this is quite literally impossible in the modern kitchen (although if anyone is willing to do the work, the CC will fly to anywhere within the 48 states with the ingredients.)
The dish crucially relies upon "green garlic" (a.k.a. "spring garlic",) and no! substitutions may not be made.
Most of the ingredients listed below are reasonably exotic in the US (although one can easily get them in Indian grocery markets in spring and summer.) Thankfully, someone has had the wisdom to provide them in frozen form which while not quite ideal, is not bad.
The whole recipe is going to take the better part of half a day to cook (if you want to do it right, and the CC knows you do!)
The uncommitted need not apply.
There are many parts to this recipe so the CC is going to present the recipe sectionally. Commentary is added in italics for your delectation.
Please don't forget the final goal. Dump the entire melange into a pot, and slow cook.
Recipe
Methi muthiya
1 bunch fenugreek leaves finely chopped(methi)
1/4 cup whole wheat flour (the Indian fine-ground kind not the supermarket one.)
3/4 cup chickpea flour (besan)
1 tbsp green chilli-ginger paste
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
juice of 1 lime
salt to taste
Mix all the above, and knead into a soft dough. Add some water if needed.
Divide the mixture into 20-25 portions, and shape each like miniature American footballs.
It's a joy to watch experienced cooks shape these balls. They work so fast that it's hard to believe!
These need to be fried. Pan-fried is fine with a thin layer of oil as long as you keep rotating them. Drain on a paper towel, and keep aside.
The Spices
1/2-3/4 cup fresh green garlic (chopped)
4 tbsp dhanajeeru (roasted cumin-coriander seeds powdered)
2-3 tbsp green chilli-ginger paste
3/4 cup cilantro (finely chopped)
1/4 cup fresh coconut grated
2 tsp chilli powder
1 tbsp carom seeds (ajwain)
1 tbsp lime juice
salt to taste
You can just use the food processor for this. And, "frozen grated coconut" is available in Indian grocery stores. This is the ultimate modern convenience since freezing doesn't affect the texture.
The Vegetables
2 cups surti papdi
2 cups purple yam (kand), diced into cubes
2 cups yellow yam (suran), diced into cubes
2 cups "new" potatoes
1 cup sweet potatoes, diced into cubes
4-5 small eggplants (the tiny, round Indian ones)
3 plaintains
1/4 tbsp asafoetida
4-5 tbsp green chilli-ginger paste
Here are some of the ingredients:
The eggplants and the plaintains need to be cut in a special way since they are going to be stuffed with the spices above.
Some pictures are worth a thousand words:
See the slits? That's where the spices from section 2 are going to get stuffed into.
Heat 8 tbsp oil in a pan. Add the asafoetida, followed by the green chilli-ginger paste and fry for a bit. Add the eggplants, and the plaintains, and fry till the eggplant is just slightly tender.
Add all the stuff to the pot, and seal the pot. Traditionally, this is done using dough but foil will do in a pinch.
Reduce the heat to the lowest setting, and cook for roughly 40-50 minutes. Don't open it!
(Alternately, you could just put the whole thing in the oven at 400F for about an hour.)
Monday, January 15, 2007
Bitter Gourds
This is the proverbial line-in-the-sand.
On one side, are the I-like-Indian-food-if-its-not-too-spicy types, on the other, are the true connoisseurs of regional Indian cuisine.
The karela is the dividing line. It separates the women from the girls.
A couple of tricks to make it slightly less bitter. If you cut it into fine rounds, soak it in heavily salted water for at least an hour (longer is better.) This is just simple osmosis at play.
If you plan to stuff it, slit it lengthwise, remove the seeds, and sprinkle with coarse salt (a.k.a. "kosher salt".) Don't worry about the salt, you can always wash it away later. More is good.
Right before you prepare it, you need to squeeze the fruit to further remove the bitter juices.
Fried Karela with Cashews and Raisins
Ingredients
5 small karelas, cut into rounds, debittered (as above)
1/3 cup peas (frozen is fine.)
1/3 cup cashews (broken)
1/3 cup raisins
1/2 tsp asafoetida
2 tsp cumin seeds
2 tsp coriander seeds
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1/4 tsp turmeric (optional)
4-5 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp poppy seeds
salt to taste
Recipe
Roast the cumin and coriander seeds in a skillet for a bit. Don't allow them to burn. Put them in the coffee grinder, and make a fine powder. You will see this referred to frequently as dhanajeeru (dhana = coriander seeds, jeeru = cumin seeds.)
Heat 2 tbsp oil in a skillet. Add the bitter melon, and fry for a while. Add the sugar and let the sugar caramelize over the bitter melon. (You may need more sugar.) Take the stuff out of the pan, and dry pat with a paper towel.
Heat 1 tbsp oil in a skillet. Add the asafoetida, followed by the dhanajeeru, the chilli powder, and the cashews. Fry for a bit, add in all the ingredients, and let it cook till the peas are cooked.
On one side, are the I-like-Indian-food-if-its-not-too-spicy types, on the other, are the true connoisseurs of regional Indian cuisine.
The karela is the dividing line. It separates the women from the girls.
A couple of tricks to make it slightly less bitter. If you cut it into fine rounds, soak it in heavily salted water for at least an hour (longer is better.) This is just simple osmosis at play.
If you plan to stuff it, slit it lengthwise, remove the seeds, and sprinkle with coarse salt (a.k.a. "kosher salt".) Don't worry about the salt, you can always wash it away later. More is good.
Right before you prepare it, you need to squeeze the fruit to further remove the bitter juices.
Fried Karela with Cashews and Raisins
Ingredients
5 small karelas, cut into rounds, debittered (as above)
1/3 cup peas (frozen is fine.)
1/3 cup cashews (broken)
1/3 cup raisins
1/2 tsp asafoetida
2 tsp cumin seeds
2 tsp coriander seeds
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1/4 tsp turmeric (optional)
4-5 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp poppy seeds
salt to taste
Recipe
Roast the cumin and coriander seeds in a skillet for a bit. Don't allow them to burn. Put them in the coffee grinder, and make a fine powder. You will see this referred to frequently as dhanajeeru (dhana = coriander seeds, jeeru = cumin seeds.)
Heat 2 tbsp oil in a skillet. Add the bitter melon, and fry for a while. Add the sugar and let the sugar caramelize over the bitter melon. (You may need more sugar.) Take the stuff out of the pan, and dry pat with a paper towel.
Heat 1 tbsp oil in a skillet. Add the asafoetida, followed by the dhanajeeru, the chilli powder, and the cashews. Fry for a bit, add in all the ingredients, and let it cook till the peas are cooked.
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