Memories and Meals

Diwali Wishes

2007-11-11T17:42:00.000Z

Deepavali Shubhaakankshalu

Diwali Greetings

Deepavali aashamsagal

Diwali ke Shubkamnayen
HOPE YOU ALL HAD A SPARKLING & CRACKLING ONE!!!

Vada Paav: Street food at it's best!

2007-06-26T16:41:00.000+01:00

Last year around this time, I had Vada paav for the first time in a close friend's house. After a heavy shopping ordeal, as we chatted and chaatted through Vada pav, I heard with amusement - the snapshots of life in Mumbai. My husband has lived in Mumbai for a very short span, but, I have not been there, except, while transiting through the airports. Everyone who has lived in Mumbai or visited this great metro seem to have 'a twinkle in their eye', when they talk about this bustling city. Hope I will get a chance to visit this city at leisure, sometime in the near future.

Now, coming back to Vada Paav, it was with a thrust of amazement that I learnt this is one of THE famous street foods in Mumbai. 'Paav Bhaji' is quite popular in our place but I had not heard of Vada Paav before. However, when I tasted it at my friend's place, my amusement towards this unknown street food turned out into a feeling of refreshing and familiar comfort. Plainly not because - I have had this vada before, and also the paav; vada paav tasted more or less like a 'potato bun', I used to eat regularly at an Iyengar bakery during my college days.

Anyways, when I asked my dear friend to give me the recipe, the darling that she is, gave me a detailed step by step procedure of how to make it. Thanks Simar. All I had to do was to cook and snap it :) Hubby was extremely delighted at the output, however, I still look forward to eating this in a proper Mumbaiyaa joint :o)

Recipe:

Ingredients for the potato mixture:

Potatoes – 6 (medium size – boiled and mashed)
* Potatoes should be roughly mashed.
Onions – 1 finely chopped
Curry leaves – few
Mustard seeds – ½ tsp
Green chillies – 2 or 3 finely chopped
Fresh Garlic – 2 cloves (crushed)
Fresh Coriander – a handful copped
Red chilli powder – 1 tsp
Garam Masala – ½ tsp
Turmeric powder – ½ tsp
Mango powder (Amchur) – 1 tsp
Oil – 2 tbsp
Salt to taste

Ingredients for making outer layer for Vadas:
Gram Flour – 4 tbsp
Salt to taste
Red chilli powder – ½ tsp
Turmeric Powder – ¼ tsp
Soda bi-carb – a pinch
Water
Oil for frying the Vadas

Method:
1. Use heavy bottomed kadai for preparing the potato mixture.
2. Put oil, heat it and add mustard seeds, crushed garlic, curry leaves, onions. Fry these ingredients for 2 to 3 minutes on low to medium flame.
3. Now add all the masala’s – red chilli powder, garam masala, turmeric powder, mango powder, salt (Fry for 2 minutes)
4. Now add mashed potatoes, coriander leaves, and green chillies. Mix all the ingredients well.
5. Now cover the kadai and let the mixture cook for 5 to 6 minutes. Switch off the stove and let the mixture cool.
6. In the meantime, prepare the paste of the outer layer of the Vada’s. Mix all the ingredients mentioned above except water. Make the paste just like for pakora’s (the consistency of this paste should be slightly ticker than that of pakora’s)
7. Once the mixture has cooled down. Make small balls from this mixture – lime size. Keep aside.
8. Heat the oil in a separate kadai – keep it ready for frying vada’s
9. Now dip these balls in the gram flour paste and deep fry them till cooked. Drain and keep them on kitchen towel/cloth

For the green chutney - grind all these into a smooth watery mixture
1 cup of coriander
Few mint leaves
1/4 onion
2-3 green chillies (adjust to your spice level)
2tbsp tamarind juice
Salt to taste

To Serve:
Paav is nothing but a 'bread roll' . Heat a skilled and melt a stick of butter. When it starts to sizzle toast the paav and keep aside
Dab the paav with the green chutney, place the vada and cover it with another piece of paav with green chutney smeared on the inner side.

This is my entry for RCI Maharasthrian Cuisine organised Nupur. Thanks Nupur for the great event and also kindly giving me extra time on request. Many thanks to Lakshmi for the idea of RCI event.

June JFI for Jackfruit : Jack fruit seeds stir fry

2007-05-31T22:24:00.000+01:00

Bee and Jai have chosen jackfruit to be the spotlight of the month by hosting the June Jihva for Ingredients event. Sorry! I do not mean to propagate any negative publicity for this "super-star" fruit but, my experience with it, has not been very pleasant. Its definitely not the taste, because I have hardly managed to get that far.. It is the pungent and the so-called sweet smell of jackfruit :) which repells me. My whole family adores this green giant, but I and my brother veto. Now, do not get me wrong, but I do have a few friends who hate the smell of Jasmines ;) However, I have no compliants savouring the by-products of jackfruit like it seeds.

My mother used to cook these with Vegetable Pulav and the seeds tasted delicious in the combination of fragrant rice. However, it was only after getting married and stepping into a malayalee household, I was introduced to the wide variety of dishes made with Jackfruit :) I have not dared to try much yet, but just this one. Even this recipe, I did the ground-work and my dear hubby finished it off to turn into a yummy merukuvaratti. The original source of this recipe is my mother-in-law, she had made this when she was with us here in UK, last summer.

Mind you, it is quite a consuming process to get the the seeds ready before they can be cooked. It felt like it is never going to end..but once the seeds are readily peeled and scraped, the rest is easy-breezy..

So, start with 200g of Jackfruit seeds..

First remove the the outer white-paper-like-shell. Soak the seeds in water for half-an-hour or so to easily scrape out the brown covering on the seed. Scrape the brown covering with a blunt knife and reveal the white nut inside.Rinse the seeds to discard the scrapes and skin and cut them into small slivers

Take a deep breath now, the tedious job is over.

Move the prepped jack-fruit seeds into a deep bottomed vessel, add 1/2 a cup of water. Add 1tsp salt, 1/2 tsp turmeric, 1 tsp red chilli powder.Cover and cook for some time. Take off the lid to stir and make sure the seeds are not sticking to the pan or over-boiled. Let the water evaporate completely and switch off.

Now take a pan - this time probably, a shallow one - do the tadka/popu with 1 tsp mustard seeds, few curry leaves and one red chilli. Toss the cooked jackfruit seeds for a few minutes, until they are crisp and crunchy. Adjust salt and spice as per taste.

The end result is rewarding, we finished half of it even before we went on to eat it with rice and sambhar..

Thanks a lot Bee and Jai for hosting this unique ingredient as the Jihva ingredient for this month. You can find more information about Jackfruit on their very informative website.

Some milestones..and a humble Thanks!

2007-05-31T16:17:00.000+01:00

Just wanted to share with you all that Memories n' Meals has finished some teeny-tiny but, important milestones. One year ago, yesterday, I had sheepishly stepped into the blogosphere with my first post and can it be coincidence or what, on the same day 20,000 visits were marked by sitemeter statistics :)

Although, I have been one of the not-so-active bloggers like many others, I have enjoyed every moment of blogging and it has been extremely rewarding to share some treasured recipes and the memories associated with them. I am also proud to have made some very good friends here. To mark this occasion, I would like to offer my humble thanks to the below mentioned:

Indira - who is next to no one in the art of food blogging and forever an inspiration to the likes of me - with her beautifully crafted Mahanandi. Her Mahanandi's Food blog list is one of the main referrals for Memories n' Meals.

VKN of My Dhaba - many visitors have hopped from his blog to mine. Thanks VKN for this and also for initiating noble projects like Feed A Hungry Child.

Food Blog Desam - Founders Mathy and Indira have done an amazing job at putting together this RSS Feeds aggregator, which makes my life easier by not having to go to each and every blog and check out, if they have posted something new or not. Thanks to you guys, Memories n' Meals has had a lot of hits from Food blog desam, lately.

Google - I could not have survived my virtual life without google. Many people stumbled on my blog through Google.

My dear friends - Latha, Shammi, Sailu, Mythili, Asha, Pavani, Linda and all those who are linked on this blog or who have stopped by and left their comments, come rain or sunshine. (The reason I have linked people's blogs here is because either I love their food blog or we have had the comment hand-shake or both)

Last but not least, my sincere thanks to my family. My husband had to put up with me many times, while I grabbed the ready-to-eat plate and started photographing instead. I should admit that he has also taken a substantial number of pictures which, are published here on this blog. And of course, I wouldn't have been able to do this, without my mother's and mother-in-law's recipes.

So once again a heart-felt thanks and warm wishes to all those who have supported and encouraged me through this year. I shall look forward to another year filled with fun, happiness and enlightment through blogging :o) Enjoy!

Hot Summers and even hotter Mango Pickle

2007-05-25T23:18:00.000+01:00

End of March. Children feverishly grip their text books and class notes and run back home from their half-day schools to prepare for exams. Power-cuts! When the sun is high over the head, there is not even a purr sound.. Most of the roads are empty, except for an odd vendor of tender coconuts or sugar-cane juice. Everyone forgets what it is like to feel a cool breeze. Wells dry up pretty fast, and Manjeera water becomes a scant and precious resource, showing up only once in a few days. Desperate to get away from the heat a limited amount of water is used to damp the floors to have a cool lie-down. The dampness or the coolness vanishes in a second and one is back to the old manual fans and sighs… This is a familiar scene in our part of Andhra Pradesh especially in small towns and rural areas where power is cut down erratically. With temperatures intensifying day by day it is hard to be focused or be productive. In spite of all these, people find their simple joys; take pleasure in something which is available and keep up their tempos and hydration levels..

Yes, Mangoes are one of those simple joys. Green, rich and vibrantly flavored mangoes are indeed a great respite during those horrid times.. While there is still time for the elaborate Aavakaaya, raw mangoes are eaten as is, or used to make different delicious dishes.. One such dish here:

3 Raw mangoes – washed and wiped thoroughly with no moisture; then the skin is peeled and cut into small cubes
1 whole garlic and an inch of ginger – cleaned and cut ready to be made into a paste
2 tbsp red chilli powder
¼ tbsp turmeric
Salt to taste
For the popu/tadka: 3 tbsp oil, 1 tsp mustard seeds, 1 tsp cumin seeds and 1 red chilli

Take a mixie/spice grinder and fill it with the ginger, garlic, red chilli powder, turmeric and salt – mix well until a smooth paste is formed
Please make sure, absolutely no water to be used in this process
Then, add the raw mango pieces and turn the mixie in low-mode or in whip-mode, so that the mango cubes do not totally loose their identity and get mixed in the paste.
Now season this with the popu/tadka.
This mango pickle is fiery hot when it is freshly made, keep it for at least 3-4 days for the sourness of the mangoes to sink-in to the pickle.
Keep it moist-free and use generous amounts of oil and enough salt to preserve it for longer
Eat the pickle with plain-rice with fresh-home made ghee and pappula podi..

This is my another entry for RCI Andhra Cuisine.

Before I sign-off just a few words about Andhra cuisine. The famous and traditional recipes, right from the lovely pickles to the pesarattu, from the Hyderabadi Biriyani to Bagara Baingan, are what we Andhrites not only love and cherish from ages, but also share and feed everyone.
The variation is immense; each household has a set of traditions, having certain commonalities with respect to the region. Restaurants esp. Andhra messes serve full-meals with upto 15-20 dishes. Andhra cuisine is embraced by millions and is now being beautifully crafted as a testimonial by all the lovely food bloggers. Kudos to lovely Latha who is doing a wonderful job at organizing this event and . In spite of her busy schedule she has worked up a lot of Andhra recipes and gave the bloggers immense motivation and inspiration to blog more. Last but not least my hearty congratulations to Laskhmi who is the originator of this brilliant idea called Regional Cuisine.

Nanna's Beerakaaya Annam

2007-05-24T21:26:00.000+01:00

During our childhood my Nanna(father) and Amma(mother) worked in shifts. Nanna used to go to work early in the morning and return by mid-afternoon. Amma went off just before noon and returned during the evening. There was a baby-sitter/helper who used to look after us for the couple of hours, when both of them were away. Nanna came back after college and we had fun times. Sometime we used to have lots of fun by sneaking away yummy things from the kitchen like Cashewnuts , Bournivita or just plain ol' sugar :) I also have a vivid memory of him making this delicious beerakaaya annam in a small brass chembu (pot). It is a very simple one pot meal, which brings back lovely memories of my childhood. Oh, I very much wish to go back to those innocent childhood days ... Well, it is not very possible to go back in time, but here I re-create the dish to work out the nostalgia.. Enjoy!
I would like to submit this recipe to the RCI Andhra cuisine organised by my dear friend Lata .

400g/2 cups - Sona masuri Rice
100g /¼ cup - Chana Dal / Sanaga Pappu/ Bengal Gram

For the seasoning/tadka/popu:
1 tsp Mustard seeds
1 tsp Cumin seeds
Few Curry leaves

4-5 Green chillies (Chop finely)
2 small onions (Chop into medium sized cubes)
1 tsp of ginger garlic paste
1 big Ridge gourd/ Beerakaaya (Peel and cut into big cubes)
Few coriander leaves

Take the rice and Bengal gram in a container, wash, drain and keep aside.
In a good sized pan, pour Oil, then do the seasoning/tadka with mustard, cumin, curry leaves.
Add chopped green chillies, onion to the seasoning/tadka and sauté until the onion looses its crispiness
Add the ginger garlic paste, fry a little longer until the raw smell of the paste is relieved..
Add the cut and washed ridge gourd and fry for two minutes, mix in the rice and bengal gram and fry for another few minutes.
Transfer to a rice cooker or a pressure cooker and cook until done. If cooking in a pressure cooker cook until 3 whistles (might differ from cooker to cooker) so please use your judgement to see if the rice is done.
Take off the heat, garnish with coriander leaves and serve with a side of pickle and raita.

Chikkudu Kaaya Vepudu (Indian Broad beans Fry)

2007-05-13T19:12:00.000+01:00

Variety in the world of food is always exciting to foodies like us. However, we are not excepted from craving for our favorite dishes. For me, sometimes the craving is for a special dish such as - Biriyani, a rich spicy curry, desserts or cakes. And, then, there are times when a different kind of craving hits me from nowhere - a craving to have a simple dish . Recently, this craving is for simple dishes which are made of things that were ignored or rather taken-for-granted while back in Andhra. Chikkudu kaayalu or Indian Broad beans are one such vegetable. These days, when I see these beans in the local Indian shop I jump up and stuff my grocery bag. Now, when I see the announcement of the RCI event for Andhra Cuisine, I feel this post would be an apt entry for it. Thanks Latha and Lakshmi for organising this wonderful event!

Chikkudu kaaya is a seasonal but, widely available vegetable in our part of Andhra Pradesh. The simple recipes made out of these beans are both tasty and nutritous and go well with rice or roti (esp Jonna rotti).Chikkudu kaayalu/ Indian broad beans - are very juicy.. When freshly cooked the aroma is very refreshing and appetising. A bunch of these beans lightly sauteed in minimal oil - with a pinch of chilli powder and a table spoon of salt, is enough to work wonders to your palate. I have added potatoes to increase the quantity of the curry. Also seems like DH loves the texture and taste imparted by these beans on the potatoes.Another thing I love about these beans is that they do not require to be chopped. They can be destringed and broken into pieces with bare hands, very less attention required during the process. I usually enjoy doing this in front of the TV and DH cannot resist helping in :) Try it yourselves and see ..

1/2 kg Chikkudu kaayalu
1 Onion (optional)
3 medium potatoes
1/2 tsp red chill powder
Salt to taste
Oil as required
For popu/tadka: mustard seeds, cumin seeds, curry leaves

Wash the Chikkudu kaayalu, destring each of them by pulling out the tips and then breaking them into half to check for any remaining strings and remove. Break each bean into roughly 4 pieces.
Take a pan (non-stick if you have one), heat for 2 minutes, add mustard seeds, cumin seeds and curry leaves one-by-one for the popu.
If you are using the onion, add now, fry until it turns brownish and crispy
Add the cubed potatoes and saute until tender.
Stir in the chikkudu kaaya now, saute for 2 minutes, close with a lid and let it cook for another 4-5 minutes.
Chikkudu kaaya vepudu is now ready to eat :)

Kerala Sambhar

2007-05-08T21:51:00.000+01:00

The Kerala speciality Avial always seems to be accompanied by its close cousin Sambhar. Both these delectable dishes use the most available vegetables in Kerala and are cooked with a varied base, yet make a wonderful combination. Whoever worked this idea of having Avial and Sambhar as the mains in an Onasadya, did it with a careful and tasteful thought.
I used to make sambhar in a totally different way, but, ever since I had my mother-in-law’s sambhar, I quit making anything else. This is one of my acquired-favorites. Whenever my mother-in-law made it, I told her that I wouldn't mind eating this Sambhar everyday.. She uses a straight-forward approach in making this, no drama what-so-ever; cut vegetables, pressure cook them with dal, boil it with tamarind pulp and added spices and garnish with the tadka..
The ingredient list is long but the easy & un-complicated method of making this sambhar has incorporated it as an everyday dish in our lives now. Off to the recipe ..

Ingredients:
Toor Dal – 1 cup

Vegetables:
Drumstick - 1
Cucumber/Bottle gourd – ½ medium
Carrot - 1
Potato -1
Brinjal - 1
Tomato – 1 big or 2 medium
Pearl Onions – 10-15
Big Onion - 1

Other:
Asoeftida (whole – not powder) – ½ inch square piece
Turmeric – ½ tsp
Chilli Powder – 3 tsp
Coriander Powder –2 tsp
Sambhar Powder - 2tsp
Tamarind – 1 lemon size
Curry Leaves
Salt – to taste

To season:

Fenugreek seeds
Cumin seeds
Mustard
Red chilli
Curry leaves

To garnish:

A generous amount of coriander leaves

Method:

Take the toor dal and all the vegetables in a pressure pan. Wash well and drain, now add 2 cups of water. Then add the chilli powder, turmeric, salt, asoeftida, curry leaves to the dal and vegetables. Close the pan and pressure-cook until 3 whistles. Meanwhile the squeeze the tamarind juice and keep aside. Once the pressure cooker is ready to open, check that the dal is cooked to a mash able consistency and the vegetables have softened to a great extent but still maintain their shape. Now, add the tamarind juice, coriander powder, sambhar powder. Add more water if necessary and boil for a few minutes. Switch off and season with all the ingredients listed above. Garnish with generous amounts of coriander leaves.

JFI -WBB for Greens: Palak Pulav

2007-04-27T16:46:00.000+01:00

Memories are quite important to me, whether they are tied to a book or a recipe..I narrowed down the recipe for this month's JFI-WBB to "Palak Pulav" (Spinach Flavoured Rice) and my mind could not resist reminiscing about the first time I had made this pulav..

Some of my friends had been on a trip to the beautiful Smokies. Among them was a friend who had freshly landed from India. A pure hard-core vegetarian who was completely lost, when he was ushered into the likes of McDonalds and Burger King; the so-called fast food havens. He was not impressed and long before their two day trip ended, not only he but, everyone was badly yearning for some home-cooked Indian meal. I was at home possibly whiling away my time, still rudimentarily a novice at cooking. Just as they were a couple of hours away from home, my friend B calls me and asks me if I can make something for all them (4 or 5 people) by the time they arrive. I quickly foraged the fridge and listed down what we had at home, B being the genuine cook she was, gave me quick but meticulous instructions on how to make this pulav with palak. I cannot say if everyone was famished or just happy to have home-made food, they enjoyed it, with a dollop of raita of course.. So guys, if at all, you make a trip to a beautiful mountain range and come back home famished, and you are lucky to have the following ingredients in your fridge and pantry:

Spinach (baby or non-baby): 1 bunch
Rice : 2cups
Garlic : 4 cloves
Green Chillies : 3-4
Onions: 2 big (thinly sliced vertically)
Spices: Cloves (2) ; Cinnamon (1/2 inch piece) Cardamom (2) Bay leaves (2) Cumin (1tsp)
Oil and Salt : As needed

Cashews : 7-8

Think no more, just get to work and feed those starving tummies with the green-richness of spinach; made as a one-pot-meal with the ultimately nourishing and ubiquitous greens..

For serious cooking go straight to Step 4
1) Most important: Change into some comfortable clothes; For ladies - Also, remove make up and tie those loose ends of your hair :)) For Men- Please do not switch on that idiot box
2) Ignore and do not fret about all the mess you had left before you zoomed-off for the trip
3) Get your focus right into the kitchen; strictly no thinking about the dirty clothes to be washed or the bills incurred during your trip
Sorry .. just kidding ! Couldn't help my humour bites today; it just seems to be in the air..

4)Cook the rice with enough water and keep aside.
5)Take the oil/ghee in a heavy bottomed pan , heat for a few minutes, add all the spices.
6) Add garlic slices and slit green chilles; Saute until aroma comes out and garlic starts turning brown.
7) Add cut onions and fry thoroughly until they are browned
8) Wash and add cut spinach and saute properly to eliminate the rawness of spinach . Wait and see how the spinach wilts and joins the onions to make a good base for the pulav
9) Add salt and garam masala and saute for some more time
10) Mix-in the boiled basmathi rice; taste if the salt and masala are right enough

11) Garnish with fried cashews in ghee/oil, serve with yogurt or Raita (if you still have the patience to make it!)

Thanks Indira for the idea of Jihva and bringing out all the wonderful recipes tied to a single ingredient. Great work as always..

Vishu Aashaamsakal..

2007-04-15T21:19:00.000+01:00

Picture of our Vishu Kani this year

Wish you all a happy Vishu and Tamil New Year...

Regards,
Nav

Jihva for Tomatoes - Tomato Chutney

2007-04-04T22:19:00.000+01:00

Who doesn't like the taste of red, luscious, beautiful tomatoes ? I congratulate RP on selecting such a versatile, and one of the most popular ingredients - for this month's Jihva. The best thing about these pretty-looking fruit/vegetables is that they are not limited to just one single cuisine. Or, should I say, tomatoes are one of the few vegetables, which are generously and lovingly used in many a popular world cuisine. Another key fact is that they are readily available in almost any part of the world, all through the year. (Readers, I would be interested to know if it is difficult to find tomatoes in your part of the world) . Tomatoes are in the high-list of things, which make my mouth-water as-soon-as-i-hear-the-name. Hence, I did not want to miss this great event.

Well, I would like to share with you all, yet another, all-time favourite of mine.. and that would be "Tomato Chutney". It is the chutney, which brings out the true Andhrite within me, it makes me drool; over-eat; and simply sit & dream about.. Without much more ado, here we go to the recipe:
Tomatoes : 3 medium, select the ones which are not too ripe, green ones are the best. Cut them into big chunks and keep aside
Green chillies : 6-7 or alter as per your spice level.
Sesame seeds : 2 tbsp - one of the main ingredients. Roast them for 3-4 minutes and keep aside
Ground nuts: 1 tbsp - roast for a few minutes, remove the skin and keep aside
Dessicated Coconut: 1 tbsp (optional, but enhances the taste a lot)- roast until it starts turning brown, remove and keep aside

Take 1 tsp of oil in a pan heat and fry the split green chillies until they start discoloring; drain and keep aside
Fry the tomatoes for just a few minutes and stop before the juice starts coming out. The idea is to just get rid of the raw taste and hence the suggestion; not to overcook .
Once the sesame seeds, ground nuts & coconut are cool enough, grind them to a smooth powder and keep aside .
Now blend together green chilles, turmeric, jeera, salt along with sesame seed powder into a smooth paste
Once the tomatoes are cool enough, add them to the above mixture and blend for a few minutes. Take care that mixture does not turn too watery ..

This versatile chutney is a great accompaniment for many main dishes. It can be eaten traditionally with rice, roti or breakfast items like idli, dosa. Or, you could be more adventurous and, use it as a base for sandwiches or a dip for your tortilla chips..

Happy Ugadi!

2007-03-20T10:58:00.000Z

Dear Readers,

Happy Ugadi - Sarvajit Naama samvatsara subhakankshalu!

Picture By: Dear Husband

Most of the Telugu households welcome the traditional new Year with all zest and fervour by celbrating the festival Ugadi. Ugadi not only marks the beginning for the telugu new year, but also welcomes the glorious green season of the delicious mangoes, comes with the blossoms of the pungent, but the wonderous medicinal neems. If you have heard of Ugadi, it is very likely that you have also heard about the famous Ugadi Pachadi, which is served without fail on the day of Ugadi. Ugadi Pachadi is a blend of the six tastes nature offers to us, traditionally called as "shadruchulu". The six tastes are:

Teepi - Sweet

Pulupu - Sour

Chedu - Bitter

Vagaru - Tart

Karam - Hot

Uppu - Salt

Each taste parallels with the kind of experiences an average person comes across in his/her life. This Pachadi signifies and sends a strong message that we all ought to take our sweet or bitter or any other kind of experiences in the same manner. It accentuates the idealisticrepresentation of the right blend in one's life.

Now to the recipe: Ugadi Pachadi has probably a record number of recipes, the main theme being " the blend of the six rudimentary tastes". Here is the version prepared in our home

Water 7-8 cups

Tamarind paste - 2 tbsp

Jaggery - 4 tbsp

Green Mango - 1 medium

Green chillies - 1 or 2

Neem flowers or tender neem leaves - few

Salt - to taste

Take the water in a mixing bowl (traditionally done in an earthen pot)

Extract tamarind pulp and mix it with the water

Grate/powder the jaggery and mix in water

Cut the green mangoes into small cubes and and to the above mixture

Also add neem leaves, green-chillies, salt

Garnish with Cashew nuts, Chiroli (Saara pappu) , Roasted Bengal gram (Putnaalu) , Poppy-seeds (Ghasaghasalu) ..

Some fond Memories associated with Ugadi festival:

Nanna (Father) making the ugadi pachadi in a freshly bought matti kunda (earthen pot). He mixes tamarind and jaggery in the pot and arranges all other ingredients in small round steel plates on the dinning table. Anyone and everyone who comes home that day is forced to have the pachadi and Nanna does not leave them until they have had a glass or two.

Amma (Mother) making all other delicacies such as mango pulihora, masala vada and other sweets and savouries.

All telugu newspapers and magazines (Swati, AndhraPrabha, Vanitha..) featuring cartoons and jokes about Ugadi Pachadi. Most of them are in lines of: if you want to scare someone who is visiting your house; treat them to Ugadi Pachadi :)) Believe me it is not that bad..

Panchaga Sravanam on the radio and telivision channels

Beginning of the hot-summer season which means school holidays; sleeping on the terrace; eating loads of mangoes and ofcourse irregular powercuts and shortage of water
See Mythili and Sailu's posts about Ugadi and their versions of Ugadi Pachadi

Happy International Women's Day

2007-03-08T20:58:00.000Z

All the Woman Food bloggers out there, Happy International Women's Day.

Picture Source: http://www.internationalwomensday.com/

Cheers,
Nav

Look what I have got!

2007-03-02T17:15:00.000Z

I have not posted on my food blog in ages, life has continued to be surprisingly hectic with all it can possibly offer- moving into our own sweet home, visiting India, changes at work and struck by the mighty influenza.. Elaborate cooking has been a far cry, so I have not experimented much these days. Easy-breezy well proven meals, take-aways and eating out have been so prevalent that am badly hoping to get back to my old-self of working up a good menu, cooking from blogs etc. For starters, here are some goodies I had brought from India long long ago. Was supposed to post these back in January, although it is never too late I guess, to share them with the blogger friends here.

The famous biscuits from Karachi Bakery near Mozzamjahi Market, Hyderabad. This bakery is on one of the busiest roads from Afzalgunj to Nampally. When we got there we were wondering where we should park our car, but later on we realised that there is a facility to park vehicles towards the rear of the bakery. If you have any Hyderabadi connections, do not miss the cashew and fruit biscuits. These days they also seem to have a new variety of chocolate biscuits, have not tried them though!

Assorted sweets and savouries made by Amma and an aunt.

Most NRIs who hail from Hyderabad should be familiar with the above packets, yeah the famous Joshis. They have made life easier for Telugus like us, who (literally) cannot live without pickles. Their expert packing material and techniques have helped me carry the pickles and powders made by my mother, across the seas, and savour them to my heart's content. With this packing, I never had to worry about a spill and spoiling my clothes. Joshi's have several branches in Hyderabad city and they even sell tasty pickles, chutney powders and masalas. We often visit their stores in Badichowdi (it is in the bylane exactly opposite Badichowdi Police Station) and finish a bit of girlie shopping in the nearby shops .. Shanti Novelties, Balaji exclusive, Miraj just to name a few. Mind you, this bylane is jam-packed and so is the stores, I almost had a small tiff with the guy in the store as he started to serve the customers who came later on.. I was then enlightened that people who buy pickles in their stores have priority over the ones who just come to get their home-made pickles packed. Sometimes it is very prudent to keep your sanity, get your work done and get out of the place. Anyways, Amma also made us some Pulihora Pulusu (Tamarind Sauce for Tamarind Rice) and home-made ghee, which I got Joshi-packed :)

BTW, thanks Pavani for tagging be about the 3 things, and pulling me back into the blog world. I owe this to you:

Three things I love:

1. My family
2. Sleep
3. Admiring anything natural

Three Things I hate:
1. Self-obsession
2. Exploitation
3. Wet Weather

Three People Who make me Laugh:
1. People in American Sitcoms
2. My husband
3. My brother

Three things that Scare me:
1. Natural Disasters
2. Life and Death
3. Petrol Prices

Three things I don’t understand:
1. Why some great people have such short time on this earth
2. Why it does not turn out the same when I cook the same thing in the same way everytime!
3. Greek and Latin

Three things on my Desk
1. Lots of papers
2. A box of tissues
3. Cups of water

Three things I’m doing right now:
1. Thinking about what I am doing right now
2. Thinking about my next step in career
3. Enjoying the snow outside

Three things I want to do before I die:
1. Keep my family happy
2. Write a literary piece
3. Help the less fortunate

Three things I can do:
1. Read & Write
2. Cook
3. Keep my friends

Three things you should listen to:
1. Your Conscious
2. The people who care about you
3. Wind Chimes

Three things you should never listen to:
1. People who flatter you
2. Unwarranted advices
3. Barking Dogs

Three things I would like to learn:
1. Baking
2. How to use commas properly
3. How to be efficient and cook good meals as fast as possible

Three Favorite foods:
1. All Rice dishes e.g Pulao, Biriyani, Tamarind Rice, Tomato Rice
2. Chaat e.g Paani Puri, Bhel Puri, that puri, this puri
3. South Indian Breakfasts e.g Dosa, Idli, Vada

Three beverages I drink a lot:
1. Water
2. Water
3. Water

Three Favorite book/TV show I read/Watched as a Kid:
1. Balajyothi
2. Adventure Series such as Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Fin
3. Russian stories

Three people I would like to tag:
1) Latha of Masala Magic

2) Priya of Akshayapatram

3) Mythili of Vindu

Coriander Rice and Vegetable Korma

2006-11-08T14:26:00.000Z

A few months ago, a friend M invited us for dinner. She had made Gobi parathas, Coriander Rice and Curd Vermicelli. Ummm.. Appetising..! Everything was amazing and we simply loved and got hooked to the coriander rice. Ever since then, I have been meaning to make it, but either it was missing coriander at home or lack of the right combination. This weekend, we were tentatively expecting some friends on Saturday for lunch. There was a huge bunch of coriander in my fridge, neatly tucked in a rounded container between layers of kitchen towels.

On a side note, I had bought this coriander from the Punjabi store, two weeks ago. They sell 4 bunches of greens for £1, consider it as bargain, since the greens or herbs (esp. coriander) we get in Tesco or ASDA are totally bereft of flavour and also comparatively expensive. So every time, we make a trip to this store, which is 20 miles away from where we live, I stack up at least 2 bunches of coriander and 2 bunches of any other greens such as methi (fenugreek) or Palak (spinach).

The freshness and lush-green richness of the coriander always mesmerizes me, it is a feast for most of my senses – pleasant to the eye, wonderful smell and comfortable taste.
Anyway, here goes the recipe of the Coriander Rice, followed by Vegetable Korma, which goes very well with the Coriander Rice, and also Palappams..

For the Coriander Rice:
Rice – 3 cups
1 bunch coriander
1 inch Ginger
5-6 Green chillies
Onions - 2
Beans – ½ cup (Optional)
Peas – ½ cup (Optional)

The Spices:
Cloves -3
Bay leaf - 2
Cardamom - 3
Cinnamon – ½ inch

Boil the rice in flowery consistency (you know what I mean!) and keep it aside.
Grind to a smooth paste the coriander, green chillies and ginger. It is absolutely fine, if the paste turns out to be a bit watery.
Take a good-sized pan, heat it enough before you put the ghee, and temper the above-mentioned spices.
Add the onions, sauté until translucent, toss in the beans and peas if you are using. (I did not add beans and peas as my side dish was vegetable korma, which already had a plenty of these)
Mix in the coriander-ginger-chilli paste and sauté well until the raw smell escapes
Add the boiled rice and mix thoroughly but carefully so that you are mixing the gravy well with the rice, without mashing away the rice grains.
Garnish with ghee-roasted cashew nuts.

For the Vegetable Korma:

Boil the following vegetables with turmeric (1/2 tsp) and salt (to taste)
Potato – 1 big
Carrot – 1
Beans – 1 cup
Peas – ½ cup
Cauliflower – 1 cup

Grind coarsely:
Garlic – 3 or 4 cloves
Ginger – 1 inch
Green Chillies – 3 or 4

Grind to a paste:
Coconut (fresh) – ¾ cup
Cumin Seeds – 1 tsp

The Spices:
Cloves -3
Cardamom - 3
Cinnamon – ½ inch

Rest of the ingredients:
Onions – 2 (cut into small cubes)
Tomato Puree (1 tbsp) OR Tomatoes (2)
Coriander Powder – 2 tsp
Red chilli powder – 1 tsp
Garam masala – ½ tsp
Salt (to taste)
Coriander (to garnish)

Heat oil in a deep-bottomed vessel; add the spices, then the onions. Sauté until the onions just start turning brown
Add the ginger-garlic-chilli paste, sauté until the raw aroma leaves.
Add the tomatoes or the puree and sauté until oil starts to come out.
Add the boiled vegetables, mix well and add the coriander powder, red chilli powder, garam masala and salt
Keep for a few minutes and add in the coconut-cumin paste. Add water if needed for the gravy consistency, cover and cook for just a few minutes.
Switch off and garnish with fresh coriander.

Source of the Recipes: Coriander Rice - Friend M

Vegetable Korma - MIL

A Bright Day with Palappam

2006-10-29T15:15:00.000Z

We had a special visitor today, in our part of England. It has been several weeks or rather months since we have seen him so closely and with no interruptions. Needless to say, everyone was excited ... The clothes came out all clean and fragrant, to line up on the clothes-line in the backyards, and were glad to be away from the hot-horrid radiators.. Children were happy to huddle on the residential roads with their colourful mini-bikes, scooters and skateboards. I could see the jets pencilling their paths through the clear skies. As I heard on the radio, it was just like a SPRING DAY. Yes, the SUN came to visit us in full-form and painted our lives a bright hue, right enough to kick me out of the bed and make the soft-and fluffy palappams...

Do you want to make them too?

You will need:
Raw White Rice - 2 cups
Cooked White Rice - 1 cup
Fresh/Desiccated Coconut - 1 cup (I used dessicated)
Yeast - 1 pack
Salt - 2 tsp
Sugar - 8tbsp
An Appam Chatti - a round bottomed vessel- just like a karahi - preferably non-stick.

1) Soak the raw rice for at least 6 hours
2) Grind the raw rice into a paste adding sufficient amount of water. Keep it aside
3) Grind the cooked rice and coconut separately adding some more water, into a smooth paste. Mix it with the raw rice paste in Step to make smooth paste like batter.
4) Meanwhile take the yeast, mix in warm water and 1tsp sugar, keep it to ferment for about half an hour OR follow the instructions on the pack.
5) Once the yeast is ready, mixed it to the batter along with the salt and rest of the sugar. Keep it for a few hours until you see the whole mixture raised-up well enough. You can start making appams at this point.
6) Take the appam vessel, drop a little oil just enough to grease and pour a ladle full of batter prepared in Step 3. Take the appam chatti into both your hands and swirl in one direction(clockwise or anticlockwise), to spread the batter all around the vessel until it covers good part of it. Close the lid and let the appam cook for a couple of minutes and slowly remove the appam. Serve with vegetable korma, egg curry or stew.
Vegetable Korma recipe to follow..
Source of Recipe: MIL

For more Palappams:
Lovely bloggers such as Gini and Annita have posted their versions of detailed recipes with great pictures ..

Request to Readers:
After learning how to make Palappams from my beloved mother-in-law, I am very keen in passing on these Kerala treats to my folks in Andhra. What a great way of uniting two diverse states as a part of National Integration! :) Anyway, I am asking for a kind favour from any of my fellow bloggers or visitors to this blog. If anyone knows about a place/shop in Hyderabad where I can get Kerala kitchenware such as puttu maker, idiyappam maker, appa chatti would you please let me know ? Thanks in advance!

Avial

2006-10-08T19:12:00.000+01:00

It has been a while.. nah, a long while since I could manage to blog anything. Busy-ness crept into our lives slowly, but mind you, we did not let it consume us. We made reasonable provisions to breathe fresh air, enjoy ourselves, eat loads of good food. As we are getting back into our older- comfort routines, I present you all the God's own country's speciality dish, Avial. When my mother-in-law was with us here, she made this dish, at least once in a week. On one such occasion, I managed to sneak some pictures while she was at work. The detailed recipe of Avial follows..

Avial needs absolutely no introduction to the people who come from Kerala, but for those of you who do not know, it is a medley of a variety of vegetables, packed with nutrition and richness of coconut. Most of the vegetables used in Avial are found extensively in rural and urban parts of Kerala. When you know the recipe, it makes you wonder how creative, easy and tasty is this dish ..

Once, when we were meticulously cutting all the vegetables for Avial, my Sister-in-law filled me with the origins and history of it: Seems that at a great king’s great wedding, there were lot of vegetables left over and the head-cook came up with this recipe which used up all the left over vegetables and tasted yummy as well. Since then, Avial became part of the traditional "sadya" (Feast), especially during weddings. Avial seems to be a simple dish to make, but having all the ingredients in right proportion is the key thing. So, let's start with what you need:

Ingredients

Picture shows clockwise, Cucumber, Drumstick, Long Beans, Snake Gourd and Yam

Measurement- Malayalam/English/Telugu
1 small- Vellarikkai/Cucumber/Dosakaaya
½ nos. - Padavalangai/Snake Gourd/Potlakaaya
1 or 2 medium-Vadudhanagai/Brinjal/Vankaaya
3-4 strands- Payaru/Long Beans
1 big -Munigekai/Drumstick/Munnakaaya
1 cup -Chaena/Yam/Kandha gadda OR pullaganda
1 Carrot
Few- Chekka Kurivi/Dry Jackfruit seeds/Panasa vithanaalu

Other things you need:

Curry leaves - 2 stalks
Fresh shredded coconut - 1 and half cup
Cumin Seeds - 1 tsp
Tamarind - a marble size
Coconut Oil(Optional)

The above-mentioned vegetables are supposed to be the authentic ingredients of Avial, but people who migrate to distant lands (and still share strong attachment to the homely food) make do with the available vegetables in the place they live in; vegetables like carrot and potato are duly substituted in such cases.

Now to the method:

Cut all the above mentioned vegetables in long pieces approx 1 inch in length. Cucumber, Carrot and Chaena need to be scraped out of the skin but for snake gourd light or no scraping will do.

Cut vegetables smeared with turmeric, salt and chilli powder -ready to be boiled- remind me of Holi somehow!

Take a saucepan grease it with one teaspoon of coconut oil – put all the cut vegetables in a saucepan - pour little water – you do not need too much water as many of the above mentioned veggies ooze out water during the boiling process anyways – add turmeric powder, salt, two three slit green chilies, curry leaves and boil thoroughly until all the vegetables are soft and reduce in size.

Soak the tamarind and keep aside. Grind the coconut along with cumin seeds and 2 green-chilies. Mix the ground paste and tamarind with the boiled vegetables and cook for some time .

Season with curry leaves and a teaspoon of coconut oil, mix well and serve with sambhar, hot rice and pappadam.

By the way, we had a spectacular Onam Sadya, check out the picture below, to feast your eyes (if not the stomach) and welcome back to Memories n' Meals :)

Clockwise they are: sambhar, poppadums, banana chips, kaalan, biopot yogurt, avial, cabbage thoran(cut off from the picture, sorry!), lady's finger kichadi, Rice, Inji curry, Home made Mango pickle.

Source of Recipe: MIL

Updates

2006-08-08T17:07:00.000+01:00

Just wanted to inform beloved readers and fellow bloggers about a couple of things:

Thanks to Pavani, I have finally managed to add Categories to my website. Also, I have decided to reserve Memories and Meals mostly for food related posts. Since, I cannot shut myself up from the rest of things that are going on in my head, I have created "Nav's Corner" on blogspot. So keep checking my corner as well.. :)

Catch-up

2006-08-08T17:03:00.000+01:00

Anyone else out there, yearning for 48 hours a day? Time is magically running (at the speed of light!) and I am unable to get around to write the recipe for Chilli Chicken. Hence you see, I have updated the previous post with "Recipe; Sooner or later" from "Recipe; Coming Soon". I thought of saving the trouble for people, who after seeing my post, seriously started thinking to re-define the phrase "Coming Soon".

Oh well! Moving houses, rigorous changes in our daily routines, loads of loitering around the shopping malls and also preparing ready meals (including washing dishes, argh!) has absorbed our 24-hour-days like a leech. Never mind, since there are great things to share as well. We have been feasting on loads of yummy food.. Yeah! There lots of cooking going on, but food seems to be taking very less transition time in the following direction; cooking pan -> plate -> mouth. Hence, hardly any time left to take pictures or document anything. Apart from that, we are also lucky to have; great times with the family, a more spacious house and all these wonderful things, which made way into our kitchen all the way from India and UAE, thanks to my MIL and SIL;

These wonderful Tupperware containers (from India) are a bit on the expensive side, but I and all the ladies in our family feel they are amazing kitchen jewellery (No, the gentleman do not necessarily concur ;) ) These containers are absolutely stain-free, keep the food very fresh due to the vacuum packing and very easy to clean. See the bright yellow ones with 3 partitions, these cuties are an unquestionable treat to take your lunch in. There is no liquid oozing hazard and my lunch-eating experience is not anymore like in the past. Previously, what with the poor Ziploc box being shoved from the fridge to the microwave - it was like stuffing ourselves with dry, pallid, deprived-of-all-the-spice-&-salt meal. But not anymore!

All the traditional God's own Country things that filled our kitchen and put a spacious smile on my face; puttu maker and idiyappam maker;

Roti maker from UAE, costs only eqv to Rs.750.

Some more airtight plastic containers, an awesome Prestige dosa pan, some cheena chattis (round bottomed aluminium pans) and a Tupperware oil can.. (from UAE)

What more can you ask for? :)

Yummy Yummy Chilli Chicken

2006-07-15T17:43:00.001+01:00

Getting ready for the show - Ingredients brought down from the shelves

Marinated chicken waiting to be fried

Yummy Yummy chilli chicken waiting to be eaten

Recipe: Sooner or Later ;)

Sad beyond words..

2006-07-14T14:40:00.000+01:00

Sad, Morbid and Inhuman act took scores of innocent lives away..
Words are not enough to descirbe the pain and grief befalling the victims of Tuesday's(11th July) bombings in Mumbai.

Please help..http://mumbaihelp.blogspot.com
From NDTV
MUMBAI HELPLINE: (022) 22005388
COOPER HOSP: 26207254, 26207256
HINDUJA HOSP: 24451515, 24452222

Chaamagadda Antu Pulusu

2006-07-11T11:43:00.000+01:00

Pulusu is a tangy-juicy assortment prepared in traditional Andhra households with tamarind and/or tomato as the supplemental essential ingredients. I am not very sure why they call it "antu pulusu", will update once I confirm with my mother. She is my Encyclopedia for Telugu etymology. Coming to the pulusu any and every vegetable can be the main ingredient, but it is best made with fiber and carbohydrate rich tubers. Chamaagadda (Taro root or Colocasia in English) is one such tuber which is although rich in carbohydrates and a bit fattening, it is many people's favorite. DH likes it to be crisply fried and I drool at the thought of pulusu ;) but both of us adore this root vegetable a lot. When we had the luxury of going to a nearby Indian vegetable shop this time, I shoved some taro roots into my shopping cart. Chaamagadda cannot be refrigerated and also they could not be trusted to remain outside for a long time without being affected by fungus. So, before anything goes wrong I set off to make this pulusu, my personal favourite.

1/2 kg Taro root/Colocasia/Chaamagadda/Arvi/Chembu
1 lemon size tamarind
2 tomatoes
7-8 pearl onions or shallots
2 green chillies
1 tsp ginger-garlic paste
Salt to taste
1 pinch turmeric
1-2 tsp red chilli powder (adjust to taste)
1 pinch methi powder
2 tsp dhania powder

1 pinch asoeftida

1 tsp mustard

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 stalk curry leaves
Corn flour (optional)

Immerse taro root in water and boil for 10-15 minutes. You can run a fork through the tuber to see whether it is cooked enough. Try not to over boil as these tubers tend to get mushy and sticky if they do. Peel off the skin and keep aside.
Slit the green chillies vertically and cut in half, peel skin off the onions and chop the tomatoes.
Soak tamarind for some time and extract the juice by separating the pulp, keep aside.
Take one and half teaspoon of oil in a deep-bottomed vessel, drop in asoeftida, mustard, cumin, curry leaves, green chillies, onions in that order.
When onions turn slightly transparent add the ginger-garlic paste and fry until the rawness of the paste is gone.
Add chopped tomatoes and some salt. Fry until the tomatoes start leaving oil.
Then turmeric+red-chilli powder+ methi powder+dhania powder and mix well.
Now add the peeled taro-roots, stir carefully so that they are not mashed for about 5 minutes.
Pour the extracted tamarind juice, add 2 cups of water (or the liquid consistency you like) and keep it to boil for another 10 minutes.
To increase thickness of the pulusu you can add a tea spoon of corn flour (mixed in quarter cup of water) or couple of tsps of boiled plain toor dal.

Tastes wonderful when had with plain white rice :)

My posts are going to be intermittent as our family is going to join us for the next couple of months and also we are moving to a different house.. Exhausting but Excited :^)

Pulihora - Tamarind Rice

2006-07-03T15:29:00.000+01:00

This weekend we had some guests at home and in the name of our lovely guests, we goaded ourselves with our favourite tamarind rice, until our palates were satiated to the brim. Before our wedding, when DH mentioned that he did not like Pulihora at all, my heart had almost skipped a beat. After several "How could you not?" musings, a few months ago, I decided to try making it just once, and see if he likes or not. For my great relief, turned out that he never really tasted authentic Andhra Pulihora and once he tried the pulihora I made, it instantly found it's way into his favourite dishes list :) Oh, so much with the triumphs of transforming one’s taste buds from (disl)ikes to likes!

Pulihora does not need any introduction for most of the South Indians, especially people from Andhra Pradesh. For others, here is a brief intro. ‘Puli’ or ‘Pulupu’ in Telugu means ‘Sourness’ and ‘Hora’ comes from the word ‘Ogiramu’ meaning ‘Rice’. Tamarind’s sourness dominates this variety of rice and is neutralised just right enough with the fiery hotness of green chillies, the wholesome crunch of fried peanuts and the flavourful richness of curry leaves. The combination of all the ingredients not only makes Pulihora a sumptuous deal for the stomach, but also a great feast for the eyes. Check out the pictures below for the heavenly mix of red/brown, yellow, green and specks of black.

In our neighbouring state of Karnataka a slightly different version of Pulihora is made. It is called ‘Puliyogare’ in Kannada, they add a few extra ground spices or what one might call, masala powders. Kannadiga friends do correct me if I am wrong. Coming back to Andhra, Pulihora finds its place as a main delicacy during all festive occasions, Sankranthi, Ugadi, Dasara and Deepavali, especially in my home. It is also offered as the ‘divine’ prasadam in many Hindu temples and devoured by the bhaktajana (devotees) as mahaprasadam (offering to the God) .

It is a great picnic meal too. Brings back some of my fondest childhood memories, when my parents and little brother visited me in the boarding school on Sundays. Amma always prepared ‘Pulihora’ early in the morning before they came to meet me on those days. Pulihora, paper plates, a bottle of thick home-made curd and some sweets and savouries; all packed in a handy jute shopping bag, they would set off on a 65km drive on "Hamara Bajaj Chetak" two wheeler. What amazes me is that they used to get a single day off for the whole week, and had to make this tedious journey mostly in the scorching sun, just to see me. They made sure to tend towards all my needs and leave me with enough goodies and lots of love and affection, to keep me going for the next weeks. I still can feel a racing heartbeat and the piled-up excitement within me I used to feel then. It used to make me run with a smile as a big as a mile to the garden outside our school, when someone called out "Nav! Your parents are here". I always had a load full of tears in my eyes when they left. The only thing that cheered me up, was my little brother’s teasing about my emotional session. Even before I could think of it, he would start teasing "Come on! When are you going to cry?" and I used to be able to warmly smack him and fake some strong detachment while I carried all the heavyhearted homesickness back to my dormitory.

It was a tough decision for my parents and me when we had to choose between a well paid-off good standards education and being afar from the strong and soothing shades of home. Looking back at it: although I have missed some important family moments, it has left me with a humble gratitude towards the precious threads that weave us family members together through the highs and lows of life.. Extremely nostalgic!

Well! Before I totally digress, I think I have to get going with the recipe now :) I have noticed there are some variations in other people making Pulihora when compared to what is prepared by my Amma and Ammamma (grand mother). Here is how she makes it and I believe as a daughter, I have been trying to keep up her name :) Try it out and let me know!

100g Tamarind

2 cups of White Rice preferably Sona masuri

2Red Chillies

3 tbsp oil

5-6 Green chillies

3 Curry leaf stalks

Salt to Taste

2 pinches Asoeftida
1 pinch of Fenugreek powder

1 tsp Mustard

1 tsp Cumin

2 tbsp Groundnuts

1 tsp turmeric

Method:
1) Soak the tamarind for around half an hour in water and extract the juice free of all the pulp and seeds

2) Shift the tamarind pulp to a cooking vessel, add 2 red chillies, few drops of oil, a stalk of curry leaves, a pinch of asoeftida, a pinch of turmeric, a pinch of fenugreek powder (optional) & little salt and put it to boil until the tamarind becomes a thick consistent paste and all the water evaporates. This can be stored in a refrigerator if you keep it in a moist-free and tightly closed container for a few days or nearly a month.

3) Cook rice separately (make sure the rice doesn’t get sticky) and once it is cooked spread it out in a wide bowl/dish to cool slightly may be for 5 minutes.
4) Mix the rice evenly with one tbsp of oil, salt to taste and turmeric. Take care not to mash the rice grains. You can use a spoon here but I do not mind using my hand to mix thoroughly without having to mash the rice grains.

5) Mix the rice with the tamarind paste (from step 2) following the same instructions as in step 4. Keep aside.

6) Heat the remaining oil in a pan and fry the groundnuts, drain them and add to the rice

7) Temper the rice with asoeftida, red chillies, mustard, cumin, curry leaves and green chillies in that order.
8) Serve it with Tomato-potato gravy curry, yogurt and papad/potato chips.

Extracting the tamarind pulp is the most tedious out of the whole recipe, so soaking in water beforehand, does make a lot of difference.
Believe me, Pulihora made with ready-made tamarind paste is not really worth
the effort, so I strongly recommend fresh tamarind.
If you are storing the tamarind pulp for a longer time, make sure the pulp,
the container and the spoons used are free of moisture.
Did you know that pulihora tastes even better the following day? Just like
mango pickle, the sourness of tamarind needs a bit of time to creep into the
rice granules and delights the person to crave some more.
A great addition to the tempering would be challa/majjiga mirapakaayalu in step 7.
You can make do with other ingredients, but rice, tamarind(obviously), curry leaves, green chillies and mustard are absolutely necessary for this dish.
Source of the Recipe: Amma

Jihva for Ingredients: Dal - Spinach Kootu

2006-06-30T15:38:00.000+01:00

Sailu is doing a great job of organsing the 'Jihva for Ingredients' event this time (Indira is the originator of the JFI idea) . Sailu has chosen 'Lentils' as the ingredient for this event on July 1st, which seems so apt and fitting..There can be cookbooks dedicated just for lentils, which are packed with recipes for a variety of breakfast items, soups, main course dishes, desserts and so on. I myself had to choose from a whole lot of recipes and finally decided to go with Spinach Kootu. The following recipe is a contribution for the 'JFI - Dal' event:

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Spinach when cooked well tastes amazing and the feeling that it is a healthy food is a two-fold incentive both to the palate and the heart. I was running out of choices with spinach dishes when we were invited for dinner to a Tamil friend's house. Apart from rest of the wonderful dishes she had made that day, she made Spinach Kootu. I liked it instantly, but never managed to ask her the recipe. Some wild searches on the internet and I came up with this easy-breezy recipe (Tamil friends please forgive me if it is not an original kootu recipe:) ) Not too much trouble, very tasty and more importantly very healthy. Haffun!

1 bunch spinach
1/2 cup moong dal
2 tsp rasam powder
4-5 tsp dessicated coconut
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp mustard
Vegetable oil
Salt to taste

1) Pressure cook the moong dal and spinach along with a pinch of turmeric and 1/4th tsp of oil
2) Take the dessicated coconut and rasam powder in a blender and mix it well
3) Take a deep bottommed vessel, pour some oil, add in the order: mustard seeds and cumin
4) Pour the pressure cooked dal and spinach and mix well. Keep it for boil for 3-4 minutes
5) Add in the coconut - rasam powder mixture and stir well. Add salt as per to your taste, let it boil for few more minutes and switch off.

Serve with hot rice or chapatis.

Carrot Halwa

2006-06-25T20:39:00.000+01:00

Ever heard about the "Carrot and Stick" approach ? This approach is taken by combining a promised reward with a threatened penalty. When this approach is used to get a certain task done, one either gets a carrot as a reward or a stick as a punishment, depending on how well they have accomplished the task. Here is a funny story about origins of this phrase..

But believe me "carrot" is really rewarding. Especially, when shredded into thin slivers, boiled in whole creamy milk, then fried gently in aroma-woozing butter and stirred-in sugar, it IS intoxicatingly rewarding! So wait not any more.. here I go with the recipe!

5 medium size carrots
1/2 litre of whole milk
2 tbsp of butter
4 tbsp of sugar (according to ur taste)
4 cardomoms
Cashews, Raisins and your favourite nuts

Method:

1) Grate the carrots into thin slivers
2) Take a deep dish and pour all the milk in it. Add the grated carrots and boil until all the milk evaporates (This might take a while so keep stirring the milk so that the grated carrot doesn't touch the bottom and get burnt) . Remove from heat and keep aside.

3) Take a frying pan and pour the butter, fry the nuts, add the carrot from step 2 . Fry for a 5 minutes and stir in sugar.

4) Fry until oil starts to come out and the great aroma of buttery, milky carrots fills in. Switch off and serve it chilled or hot.

Recipe Source: A Friend J.S

Story-telling Endeavours : The Two Lights

2006-06-20T11:29:00.000+01:00

There she lay in the comfort of her nightsuit on the living room couch. Just knowing that the two lamps adorned the silver oak chest in the far-end of the room, gave her a reassuring feeling. She believed the lamps filled the dark room with just enough light to clear her soul. "Yes, that's what it is !" she amused herself yet another time, when she revelled with the thoughts of the person who gave those lamps to her."As long as you have the two divine lights, you will never be afraid of the dark nights. They are not just a gift, they are more than a treasure" said her grandmother when she lovingly bestowed the two lamps to her, on her 16th birthday. Wherever she went, the lamps went with her. They always occupied an immacluate spot in the room she spent most of her time, and they had no lesser a spot in her heart.

"I thought you were asleep, what are you doing in here ?" her mother's voice interrupted her thoughts. "Nothing ma! just wanted to feel the lights around here". The words instantly brought tears to the mother's eyes. Those words were heard from her blind daughter who had lost her eyes in an accident, few months ago. "I just switched them on dear, you were clearing your soul all this time. Now, let me help you get into your bed!" said the mother as she wiped her tear drops.

A month or two ago Jason Evans had organised a photo contest (a short story of 250 words based on the picture) and I stumbled upon his blog just after the deadline passed. I still had to give it a try. The picture (from Jason's site) and the story (is mine) as above .. Also, check out Jason's new contest!

The things I miss about home and food ..

2006-06-18T21:39:00.000+01:00

I have been tagged ... This is my first tag.. never been tagged before.. that too by three people, and the topic is so irresistible. Okay! I am little too excited :) Bubbly Mythili, Lovely Linda and the Baking Goddess Archanat have tagged me with 10 things I miss the most of my mom's cooking. Thank you guys! Here I go with the Meme:

Love can be expressed in many forms. Feeding children with their favourite food has been one of the key means of articulating their love and affection for my parents. I will list down 10 dishes I miss the most that my mother makes and also few things my father makes or brings home.

Picture taken a year ago, reminding me of home ...

1) Sorakaaya Pappu - A simple lentil dish made with bottle gourd. I cannot describe the taste, one simply needs to eat it to savour the heavenly taste,with plain boiled rice and may be a dollop of fresh homemade ghee. This is always a must in my first meal of the day whenever I return home.
2) Tomato Pachadi/Chutney and all other chutneys she makes -As I mentioned in my first post mother makes all chutneys and pickles so well. The spicy and tangy taste of tomato chutney cannot be matched with anything else. When made with raw green tomatoes in the traditional mortar and pestle it tastes heavenly.
3) Gongura Pachadi - I cannot help pointing out Gongura pachadi as a separate one, simply because it deserves one! The Priya gongura pickle is renown for it's taste, but I would not even touch it, if I have my mother's gongura pachadi with me. All my friends and roommates in hostel had become great fans of her Gongura pachadi. So, she sometimes had to wear the hat of an official gongura pickle supplier for my friends and me :-) and I still remain the proud daughter who has never made anything with gongura.
4) Pulihora - Tamarind Rice - This is a whole post by itself. Check out the pulihora post..
5) Veg Pulav/Aloo Bath - A flavoured spicy rice dish cooked with vegetables, predominantly potatoes, hence the name Aloo bath. She makes this usually when we have guests at home.
6) Murukulu - Every time I went back home, Amma definitely made segu/murkulu/billappalu and some sweet. Everyone at home would start relishing these savouries as soon as they were made, but I was notorious not to eat even touch them until they are almost gone. My cravings would start to hit the high when the savoury container would be almost out of stock. Now, I seriously miss them :(
7) Kobbari Podi - A simple powder made out of fresh coconut, green chillies and seasoned with curry leaves, mustard and cumin.
8) Chaamagadda Antupulusu - Lip smacking dish made with colocasia (also known as taro root), tamarind pulp, sesame seed powder and pearl onions. My brother and I would fight for the colocasia pieces.. I love this, my all time favourite dish.
9) Gavvalu - Gavvalu in Telugu means 'seashells' in English. Made with Maida/Plain flour shaped in the form of seashells and dipped in hot sugar syrup. There are very less sweets I really savour and this is one of them.
10) Masala Vada - A doughnut shaped snack made with some spices and bengalgram. It is another "post by itself"...

Now to the list of things I miss about my father:
1) Ugadi Pachadi - He gets really excited about making Ugadi Pachadi on every Ugadi, the Telugu new Year. Ugadi Pachadi is a mixture of shadruchulu or six tastes sweet, bitter, sour, tart, salty and spicy. We buy a new mudpot and make the Ugadi pachadi in that. May be I can post more on this for next years Ugadi.
2) Beerakaaya Kichidi - It was in our childhood, he used to cook this in a small brass chembu (round tumbler like vessel usually used to drink water) A kichidi made with rice, ridge gourd and bengal gram. I have not had it many times after we grew up but, the memory is still fresh and I long to have this again.
3) Bringing home, fruits and other favourites: Chickoo/Sapota and Custard Apple are my favourite fruits and father always brought home these fruits, did the necessary cutting and seasoning (esp. the melons) .
4) Boiled peanuts, Green gram sprouts, Grated carrot and cucumber - We used to call it 'the raw food', which has been lately very much being encouraged by some spirutal and mind-clinic institutions like SSY. My father too, always believed and encouraged us to eat fresh vegetables and things like sprouts.It is not difficult to make any of these here, but I just lack the motivation and may be it is the lack of 'my father's familiar touch', they do not taste the same when I make them here.

I am tagging Pavani (when she is back from China) and JenJen, if they are okay with it.

Milky Memories of Childhood and Creamy Mushroom Curry

2006-06-14T18:48:00.000+01:00

I thought of going straight ahead with the recipe but then, started to write a small introduction to 'cream of milk' and then digressed to think about "how 'milk' actually makes its way into our kitchen back home" and in between the milk and the cream, I churned up the following! Enjoy ..

‘Paalu teesukondamma’ ("Please come and take the milk") is a familiar wake-up call for me when I am back home. Every morning as it dawned, there stood a skinny middle aged man, knocking at our door.. His one hand would be laden with a sturdy aluminium can filled with fresh-frothing milk and the other hand clutched a measuring cup made of the same greyish looking sober metal.

Mother would be very busy in the kitchen preparing our breakfast and lunch, father occupied with his plants in the garden and my dear brother would be still snoring his pleasures away into the dreamland :) So, it was left to 'sleepy-eyed me' to collect the milk as I could not ignore the fact that there was someone at the door. I would drag myself to the kitchen to grab the paala ginne (a milk sauce pan, charming stainless steel vessel solely used for boiling and storing the day's milk), and then make my way to the front door with one eye closed and the other one half open :D Trying hard to bring a smile on my face to greet the milkman, I collect the milk and then put it to boil on our gas-stove. Having served us our share of milk for the day, the milkman would briskly walk to his bicycle which is heaped with another five or so big aluminium cans and peddle away to vend his dairy-wealth to other people in the community.

Things have changed drastically and still changing. It has become a norm in bigger cities and suburbs to have 'packeted milk' . I also remember how the quality of milk thinned out gradually. I am not sure if we can really blame the milk vendors for the adulterating greed, but water-in-milk (sometimes milk-in-water ha ha) has been a trying reality. Well, here in western countries there is not much to argue or bang our heads with, simply go to a supermarket, choose from the umpteen number varieties of processed milk, grab a litre/gallon milk, save it in the fridge and keep reusing .. Yet, the pleasures of taking in the scents of boiling fresh milk is soothingly fresh in my memory.. Most of us Indians are quite dairy dependent and the tons of possible ways, dairy can be consumed. It can be duly drunk as it is, make aromatic tea and coffee, ferment it overnight and make soft and fluffy curd, get a little more lavish and make a dessert like 'palapaayasam' and have you heard of meegada ?

For those who are uninitiated, 'meegada' in Telugu, simply means cream of milk. I fondly remember that my mother always took an extra precaution to separate the cream from milk and stored in separate container to prepare home-made ghee/butter. There is nothing like eating a dollop of fresh meegada with a topping of sugar on it. (I have come across many people who hate it, as well) . Apart from being an essential ingredient of many desserts, meegada/cream can also be used in cooking with some vegetables and meat, when you are in moods of overindulging yourself or whoever you are cooking and caring for. I tried it with Mushrooms, check out the recipe below:

Ingredients:
Cinnamon - 2 one inch sticks
Cardamom - 4
Black Pepper 12
Green chillies -2Garlic - 1inch
Onions - 2
Green chillies -1
Ginger - 5 cloves
Tomato - 1
Salt to taste
Turmeric - 1 pinch
Coriander powder - 2 tablespoons
Cumin Powder - 1/2 tablespoon
Red chilli powder (Optional)
Cashews - 6
Cream (Single or Double, the way you like it)
Closed cup mushrooms

Method:
1) Clean the mushrooms, discard the stem and cut each mushroom into half and make parallel thin slices (like the ones you see on pizza toppings)
2) Cut one onion into medium cubes, slit the green chillies, chop garlic and ginger finely. Cut another onion into thin long pieces and keep aside
3) Roast the cashew nuts and grind them into a powder
4) In a round skillet heat some oil, when hot enough, add cloves, cardamom, black pepper
5) After a minute, add the green chillies, ginger and garlic
6) When the ginger and garlic are fried well and start changing to brown colour add cubed onions and fry them until they loose the crispness
7) Put the cut tomato and fry for 3-4 minutes. Sprinkle some salt, turmeric, dhania powder and jeera powder. Mix well and keep for another minute and switch off. Keep aside to cool
8) When the above mixture is cool enough, grind it into a smooth paste along with cashews
9) Now heat a frying pan and add some oil, when hot enough pop some cumin seeds and add the long pieces of onions cut in step 2
10) When onions are well fried, stir in the mushroom and fry them for around 10 minutes until the mushrooms are soft but not very soggy. Switch off and keep aside

11) You can use the same frying pan in step 9 if you want here . Pour half a teaspoon of oil, add the ground paste from step 8 and 1-2 cups of water depending on how thick you want the gravy to be. Add the cream and stir well, until close to boil. Add the fried mushrooms and onions and keep for another 5 minutes. Just before switching off, add the garam masala and mix in
12) Garnish with fresh coriander and serve with rotis, parathas or pilau rice.

I should warn you that this is not a hot spicy dish, and has a mild creamy-sweetness linked with the cashews and the cream. For extra spice, red chilli powder can be added in step 7 while adding the rest of the powders.

Palakoora Chutney (Spicy Spinach Chutney/Dip)

2006-06-14T16:05:00.000+01:00

A day off from work means a lot to me, but when I think about it, it boils down to gaining just 8 hours from the regular routine. One is very tempted to an extra hour’s sleep, a couple of extra hours of watching the television and then some chatting time on the phone. That is exactly what happened to me yesterday, morning dwindled down into afternoon without any notice and I had not been able to dismiss a single thing from my ‘To do on the day-off list’. I thought the day gone is gone, let me at least utilise the time left to make some fresh food for dinner. While the fridge happily greeted me with ‘Washed and ready to use – Baby Spinach’ from Tesco, I decided to make ‘Palakoora chutney’ as one of the items for our dinner.

Luscious green colour of Spinach is a symbol of prosperity and health; spinach itself is an abundant resource of Vitamins A & C, folate, iron and other minerals. Although it is packed with great nutrients, it is very important to cook spinach in the right way, else the insipid taste of raw spinach in your mouth is not very appetising (well, personal opinion there!). So my mother always made us either Palakoora pappu (Spinach cooked with Lentils) or Palakoora chutney (Spinach chutney/dip), which made us kids readily eat the greens without any protests. Palakoora Chutney, the aromatic medley of fresh green spinach, fiery hot green chillies, rich-nutty sesame seeds and the small-in-size but sharp-in-taste shallots. We usually have this chutney with plain boiled rice, but it can be a glad accompaniment with roti, paratha or may even serve as a dip with your favourite chips/crisps. Before giving out the recipe, I should warn you that (if accurately made) there is a tendency to over-eat the rice or roti along with this chutney, so stay aware :)

Ingredients:

2 bunches of fresh spinach
1 tablespoon of sesame seeds
6 medium green chillies (increase/decrease according to your spice level, but I would say spicier, the better)
2 shallots (small onions)
1 lemon size tamarind
2-3 cloves of garlic (optional)
1 teaspoon of cumin seeds
1 pinch of turmeric
salt to taste
Vegetable oil as required

For seasoning/popu:
1 teaspoon of mustard seeds
1 teaspoon of cumin seeds
1 teaspoon of black gram (minapappu/ urad dal)
1-2 sprigs of curry leaves
1 pinch of asafoetida
1 teaspoon of vegetable oil

Method:

1) Roast the sesame seeds until they start popping out and keep them aside. When sufficiently cool, grind them into a powder
2) Soak the tamarind in water and extract the pulp out of it, make sure not to make it too liquidy
3) Take a frying pan, pour some oil and fry the green chillies until they lightly change colour white (an ashy white colour) and keep aside
4) Cut the shallots into quarters
5) In the remaining oil (add more oil if required according to the amount of spinach), add the shallots and cut spinach and fry until the spinach shrinks and all the water is evaporated. This is where you have to be careful and fry spinach until you get rid of the raw taste of spinach
6) Separate the shallots from the spinach and keep aside
7) Put the green chillies in a blender and grind separately. Add cumin seeds, turmeric, salt, tamarind pulp and sesame seed powder made in step 1
8) When the above ground mixture looks more or less like a paste, add the cooled down spinach. Grind this mixture lightly, be careful not to make it too watery
9) Add the shallots from step 6 and whip the mixture very lightly, not spoiling the shape and texture of fried shallots. Transfer to a serving bowl
10) For seasoning, take the oil in a frying pan, pop asafoetida, mustard, cumin seeds, black gram and curry leaves in the same order, switch off and add to the well-blended spicy spinach mixture of step 9

Adding garlic is optional. If using, fry and grind along with the green chillies in step 3
Garnishing with coriander or mint is not very necessary but there is no harm in doing it.
My mother duly notes that one has to be cautious about not blending the shallots along with spinach, as they tend to associate a sweet taste to the chutney (while the chutney is meant to be hot!). Although frying them together helps to dissipate the juicy liquids of spinach into the shallot pieces and saving them from getting burnt. The best way to do it is to cut the shallots in big chunks, so that it will be easier to separate them.
This chutney can be stored for at least a week, if stored and refrigerated in a dry, tightly closed container.

Enjoy the Palakoora chutney with rice or roti, while I try and post my next recipe!

Source of the Recipe: Amma

THE ZIGZAG WAY by ANITA DESAI

2006-06-07T17:15:00.000+01:00

This is my first official non-food post. After being a little busy for the past two months we finally had a quiet weekend this time. A book in hand, some soothing music in the background, tucked cosily under a comforter and napping in between the pages, that is what ‘a perfect Sunday’ morning is for me! I know what you should be thinking, but I sometimes do give it up to indolence :D Anyway, this time it was one of those weekends we didn’t want to overwhelm ourselves with too much to do. Spent all of Saturday finishing up the chores and then Sunday was to sleep-in and finish off reading the long pending book by Anita Desai. I came across SAWNET which has a comprehensive list of many South Asian Women writers. Every now and then, I pick up an author from SAWNET and see if our local library has any of their books. That is how I stumbled upon ‘The Zigzag Way by Anita Desai’. I have recently finished the book and considering it to be a small book (less than 200 pgs), it took me a looooooooong time to finish. It is a story about how an American student, Eric ends up unravelling his family history while he inadvertently follows his researcher girl-friend to Mexico.

Desai interweaves several threads in the story. First Eric is introduced as a traveller staying in an odd inn of a remote Mexican town. The narrative then gets on with Eric and his girl friend’s background as students in Harvard university and how they land up in Mexico for different reasons. When Em, Eric’s girl friend leaves to carry on her field studies, he takes a lecture about Huichol Indians "and their belief in the powers of the peyote cactus" given by a lady with a "Teutonic name," Dona Vera, Queen of the Sierra. Turns out that the lecture is in a language Eric did not understand, and could only decipher certain names and places. A strange feeling that all this is going to connect him to his lost family-legend sets him off on an adventure to the Sierra Valley and the mining-ghost town. The story continues with an account of Eric’s stay in Dona Vera’s Hacienda, where he meets other people who have come to study about the Huichol Indians. A snippet of Dona Vera’s past, her strange demeanour and even stranger connection with Huichol Indians are hereby described. Eric does not really get along with Dona Vera and the strange premises of the hacienda and also since his interests lie more in the ‘mining town’ than the ‘Huichol Indians’, he flees abruptly from there and lands in the inn previously mentioned. And then the narrative gets on with a flashback about Eric’s grandparents. Another anecdote of how these Cornish people landed in a distant mining town in Mexico, the untimely demise of Betty, Eric’s grand mother, the fate of Eric’s father as a mother-less child who finally lands up in a fishing community in the north-eastern tip of America (Maine). The final episode unfolds to be the ghastly affair of Eric wandering in the cathedral and amongst the Dead in the cemetery trying to find his grandmother’s grave and finally discovers what he was looking for ...

Although all the pieces above mentioned were scattered (as all the great novelists tend to do) and roughly came together at the end, the book really disappointed with the lack of captivity and substance in the narration. The connection seems very vague and there is no particular flow that can be attributed to the book. It felt like there were many dangling links. I could not understand the importance of describing some of the characters at length and clearly, justice has not been done to these characters at the end. There seems to be some mystery in the book, but not anything that is “inviting and makes you want more”. Despite the fact that, the reviews seem to rave about the ghostly substance of the novel and so does the cover page, I felt it to be nothing near to any hair-raising or spine-tingling experience, simply an informative- plain story. I was so close to giving up the book sometimes, but ‘a hope’ to find something interesting on the way, kept me reading it till the end.

Yet, I should agree that Anita Desai’s language is quite commendable. She had a beautiful and picturesque way of describing the settings, be it the ambience of the Mexico City on the backdrop of the volcano, or the cemetery in the ghost town huddled with masses of people with their candles and offerings to the DEAD. Given that some reviews compared her writing style to Tolstoy‘s, I do not want to be prejudiced by simply reading one book of hers, so may be this will change my mind.

"I still have not figured out whether to have separate blogs for the posts related to food and the ‘others’. So please bear with me for some more days, before things come through and I categorise each post. You might be seeing so many irrelevant things on the same page.."

Tomato Garlic Rasam

2006-06-05T21:53:00.000+01:00

Before I came here, people always warned me about the depressing weather in England. But, I was so full of optimism and excitement that, I happily shoved away all those warnings and thought “it cannot be THAT bad”! Well, I set my foot into this beautiful country and as I got acquainted with the gathering clouds of every other minute, non-stop drizzles during the weekends and ever-so-gloomy-winters (when we see the sun for hardly 8 hours), my heart kept cringing for the sunny and brighter days. And, I have been waiting since then, but imagine! 9 degrees Celsius at the start of June; it was enough to break the spell of my hopefulness and confidence.

I would not be surprised if it suddenly shoots up to 25 degree Celsius tomorrow and then fall back to below 10 within a day. May be not! When the seasons become so unpredictable, we tend to be good hosts of viruses and all other micro-beings. Let me not get started on the unpredictability of the weather here...

Ranting in the way of blogging does help a little, but when I wake up to a sore throat, blocked nose and a blanch tongue, there is one thing that comes to my rescue … Tomato Garlic Rasam! After all, it is but human nature to adapt to the circumstances and find ways to keep ourselves in the right temperatures and temperaments. We have learnt some great things about garlic in the last post, so why not try this easy-to-make tomato rasam with the rich medicinal values of crushed garlic and soothing flavour of ripe tomatoes?

What do you need:
8-9 Cloves of fresh garlic
5 big tomatoes
1 sprig of curry leaves
1 split green chilli
1 tsp of mustard
1 tsp of cumin
1 pinch of asoefetida
2 tsp of rasam powder (optional)
1 tsp of Oil
Salt to taste
Coriander to garnish

Coarsely crushed garlic and tomatoes ready to be pulped

(From upper left corner- clockwise order) Curry leaves, asoefetida, crushed garlic, green chilles, cumin, mustard)

How to make it:
1) Cut the tomatoes into quarters and mash them into pulp. One easy way of doing it is by microwaving the tomatoes. Place them in a microwave-safe bowl and sprinkle little water and microwave for a 3-4 minutes. Let the tomatoes cool down and then mash them into pulp using a frisk or hand. You can also pressure cook the tomatoes instead of microwaving.
2) Cut the garlic cloves into medium sized pieces and crush them with a rolling-pin or in a pestle as shown in the picture
3) Heat a deep bottomed vessel and pour the oil
4) Add the asoefetida, mustard, cumin, curry leaves, green chillies in that order and sauté for a minute
5) Add the crushed garlic and fry it until the aroma comes out and it turns slightly brown. Be careful not to burn it.
6) Add the pulped tomatoes along with the juice and some additional water
7) Keep it covered for some time and bring it to boil
8) Add salt and rasam powder and keep it on heat for some more time
9) Garnish with freshly cut coriander and serve hot with rice

A close look at the beautiful rasam ...

Recipe source: R, a friend
Caution: Garlic is known for its pungency and may not be suitable for some people with stomach dis-orders, so use this recipe with your own discretion.

Mistress of Spices - Garlic

2006-06-05T20:46:00.000+01:00

Looks like I am a little too late to post for Mythili’s ‘Mistress of Spices’ event. But since I got the material ready I am going ahead with the post. Hope Mythili will consider it.

I have chosen ‘Garlic’ as my subject. Most of us do not need an introduction for this amazing herb, but there are also some important facts we all should be aware of garlic.

In different languages:

English: Garlic
Hindi: Lasoon
Telugu: Velluli
Malayalam: Veluthulli
Kannada: Belluli
Botanical: Allium sativum
Family: Liliaceae

Origin: Originated in Central Asia, garlic has been cultivated in Mediterranean countries for many centuries and in Britain since the beginning of the 16th Century. It was known to Chinese much earlier (3000 BC). Even today, it is a regular item of Chinese diet and is regarded as a medicine for several ailments. It is now widely grown in India, China, Philippines, Brazil & Mexico.

Garlic is the Root or bulb of the plant. Each bulb has tpically eight to twelve cloves and a garlic plant is grown from individual cloves rather than the flower or seeds.

Cooking: Garlic is used in cooking in whole, crushed, ground or powdered forms. It is most often used as a seasoning or a condiment in many oriental dishes. Garlic has a sharp and pungent flavor, which is often mellowed by frying in vegetable oil. Garlic Naan, Aavakaya (Mango Pickle with Mustard powder and other spices), Lehsuni Dal (Lentils with Garlic), Hummus (a mediterranean dip made with chickpeas, garlic and tahini), Garlic Bread (Italian) are to name just a few dishes, in which garlic is an essential ingredient. In many Indian households, garlic and ginger paste is made in advance and stored in tightly closed bottles and kept the refrigerator for use in everyday cooking.

Medicinal properties: When crushed or finely chopped it yields allicin, a powerful antibiotic and anti-fungal compound (phytoncide). It also contains alliin, ajoene, enzymes, vitamin B, minerals, and flavonoids. Garlic is recommended for asthma, bronchial congestion, arteriosclerosis, worms, liver and gall bladder problems. Garlic is also good for heart, digestion, skin diseases, piles and cough.

Gardening Tips: The soil may be sandy, loam or clay, though Garlic flourishes best in a rich, moist, sandy soil. Dig over well, freeing the ground from all lumps and tread firmly. Divide the bulbs into their component 'cloves' - each fair-sized bulb will divide into ten or twelve cloves - and with a dibber put in the cloves separately, about 2 inches deep and about 6 inches apart, leaving about 1 foot between the rows. It is well to give a dressing of soot.
Garlic beds should be in a sunny spot. They must be kept thoroughly free from weeds and the soil gathered up round the roots from time to time. When planted early in the spring, in February or March, the bulbs should be ready for lifting in August, when the leaves will be beginning to wither. Should the summer have been wet and cold, they may probably not be ready till nearly the middle of September.

Other Facts:
Charak, ancient Indian old physician, once told that only anomaly in garlic is its bad smell and someone famously named it to be the ‘stinking rose’. Some Hindu Brahmins abstain from eating garlic and onions, believing they are too stimulating and interfere with the ability to reach a high spiritual plain in meditation and self-reflection. People who follow Jainism also avoid eating garlic, onions or potatoes because they practice ahimsa, the philosophy of non-violence. Concern that they might be destroying potential life forms or souls, they recognize that a bulb of garlic, with its many individual cloves, could possibly produce many more plants. Potatoes, too, develop many eyes, each one a potential plant.

Storage and Cleaning:
Garlic is best stored at room temperature in a container that allows ample air circulation, such as a basket or a clay garlic pot with holes on the sides. The parchment-like skin from individual cloves needs to be removed before chopping. Lightly crushing the cloves with the ball of the hand or flat of a knife makes this job much easier.
Also, if there is a huge amount of garlic being used in cooking, the skin can be easily removed by drying them in the sun for a couple of hours.

Source Links:
http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/g/garlic06.html
http://www.vegparadise.com/highestperch.html
http://www.agriculture-industry-india.com/spices/garlic.html

Bendakaaya/Bhindi/Okra Masala

2006-06-05T20:24:00.000+01:00

Well, let me start with something simple. We got some fresh bhindi this weekend, and it didn’t take me too long to decide on what to make with it. Lady’s finger, known as okra/gumbo to the wider world, is rich in dietary fiber, a good source of Vitamin C, folate, other Vitamin Bs and some essential minerals. I sometimes wonder why it is called lady’s finger, may be because it is best when it is soft and delicate as a LADY’s finger :-)

I prefer to make this dish rather than the ‘bhindi fry’, because of several reasons (although I agree that bhindi fry is very tasty). It is easy to cut bhindi into longer pieces while bhindi fry needs smaller pieces. Bhindi Masala requires very little oil and the end-result quantity is comparitively more. So here we go.. The easy-to-make, juicy and spicy bhindi masala with the correct blend of onions, tomatoes bhindi and spices.

Ingredients:
Mustard – 1 teaspoon (1 tsp)
Cumin – 1 tsp
Black gram/Urad dal – 1 tsp
Oil – 1 and half tsp

Curry leaves – 1 or 2 sprigs
Green chillies – 3 long
Ginger – 1 and half inch

Onions – 2 medium
Tomatoes – 2 medium
Bhindi – 500g

Coriander/Dhania Powder – 2 tsp
Turmeric – 1tsp
Salt to taste

Method:
1) Cut the onions into medium sized cubes, slit green chillies into half and chop ginger into small pieces
2) Wash the bhindi and drain in a colander and if you are too particular about getting rid of the stickiness of bhindi, pat them with a paper napkin or a dry cloth. Cut each bhindi into 2 inch long pieces
3) Heat oil in deep bottomed vessel and add mustard seeds. Wait until they splutter and add cumin, black gram, curry leaves, chopped ginger, split green chillies in that order.
4) Add the cubed onions and saute until they turn light brown in colour. The onions are supposed to be on the crispy side and should not be completely mashed
5) Add the tomotoes and some salt, saute until the tomatoes are tender and bring out the oil. Cover the vessel for sometime if needed.
6) Mix in the dhania powder and turmeric
7) Add the bhindi. Cover and cook until they are soft and not crunchy anymore.

Bhindi masala is now ready and can be served with hot rice or chapathis :-)

WELCOME NOTE - FAQ

2006-05-30T13:47:00.000+01:00

Dear Reader,
Welcome to "Memories 'n' Meals"! After being a silent and dedicated reader of all those wonderful food blogs for the past couple of months, I finally decided to take the plunge now! My mind says it is not a good idea to make the welcome note a very long one, but my heart says that I HAVE TO storm out everything I have to say! (Of course in an organised way) So here it goes.. a typical FAQ style.

What is Memories 'n' Meals?
It is a weblog, which portrays my humble venture for keeping track of my thoughts, ramblings, ideas, experiments and experiences, especially the ones directly related to Food. Hmm.. to keep it simple, there will be some recipes and a lot of ramblings ;) Ok Ok! Will try to keep the ramblings down :))

What is the reason for starting the blog ?
Well there are several reasons...

MARK IT DOWN - tracking: To keep a log of some important and some trivial things with a touch of colour and a stream of words.
PASS IT ON - sharing: To start an avenue where we could share our thoughts and experiences especially with our loved ones, about what is going on with us in these distant lands.
KINDLE THE SPARK - Inspiration: Obviously like many others I have been really inspired by the overwhelming number of great food blogs out there. The colourful pictures, inside stories, accurate recipes, zealous events kept me awe-struck and left me wondering at what a wonderful virtual land I have stepped into!
KEEP IT UP - variety: Exposure to various cuisines could be an enriching experience, but definitely comes with a 'price' to be paid. I get completely lost at times and feel that organising the recipes will help me keep up the variety.
GIVE AND TAKE - obligation: I think I have gained a lot (no, not weight!) from the world of food blogs and it is time to reciprocate with some contributions as well. Life has become much easier, believe me! All these meticulously written recipes with pretty pictures and a shade of humour, all just a click-away.

Someone who is just a town away from your home-town,
Someone who invariably saves you an expensive phone call back-home,
Someone who writes about exactly the same thing you had been craving for the past few days.
Someone who comes from the other tip of the sub-continent and yet shares the same food tastes as you have…
The idea of blogging is simply amazing, isn't it ?

What can the reader expect from Memories 'n' Meals?
A mix of recipes from different states of India. Mainly South Indian - Andhra, Kerala, Karnataka, Tamilnadu and may be a few from North India as well.
Food Experiences such as eating out at Restaurants, finding new tastes and cuisines, etc
Anything and everything related to food
And of course, my ramblings, as I promised earlier :D

Are the recipes influenced by anyone else?
Certainly.
To start with, my mother. Most naturally, I think she is the best cook in this world. Of course, most of us think that mother's food is unmatchable to anyone else's. But, apart from her children, there are many other people who think that my mother is an expert in making pickles, chutneys and lots of other fantastic dishes. There is nothing like going back home and eating just the plain old dal, tomato chutney and rice prepared by her. I have been trying hard for a while now, to match the taste of my mother's simple delicacies, and had no avail so far. Another great thing about her is the way she manages to find time, in spite of her busy working schedule, to make a variety of sweets and savouries that could be bought out-side.
My father has been a great influence as well. He is a great foodie and always encourages healthy food habits. I should admit that I inherited the liking to fresh fruits and vegetables from him. He turns out to be the main cook in our house when it comes to Aavakaya and Ugadi Pachadi, the two famous traditional dishes of Andhra. Apart from cooking, he is an avid gardener who likes to grow his own fruits and vegetables. We have always boasted of having some exotic plants in our backyard, and the credit goes to my dear father.
And of course, my dear husband (DH). I shouldn’t be saying that he would influence my recipes, because he is an integral part of all the recipes I am going to post here. I am one of the lucky few, whose husband is interested in the art of cooking and never minds to give a helping-hand in the kitchen. Touch wood! More than often, he takes control of the kitchen into his amazingly dextrous hands, and surprises me with this mouth-watering food, in no time. I am striving to become a fast & attention-to-detail cook like him.
Also, my mother-in-law. Although I have had, what should I say, just a glimpse of her cooking when I stayed with them for 9 days after our wedding, I really loved her food. She makes wonderful avial, tasty coconut chamanthi, a variety of thorans and all other traditional Kerala delicacies. I am looking forward to spend more time with her in near future, break the language barrier and learn at least half of those yummy recipes from her cookbook.
Then, my friends and roommates in the University who taught me to cook. I was in a, what they call in Telugu as, 'cheyyi kaalchukone'** stage, when I joined them. I was in that stage as I never got a chance to cook anything other than rice, tea and coffee. So my roommates decided to initiate me into the wonder world of cooking, by hook or crook, as the dreaded thought of eating whacky food (on the days I had to cook), descended on them. Hence, there is going to be definitely some swaying on to that side.
Saroj's Cookbook - Before running into the food blogosphere, this was my one-stop shop for recipes on the internet. The collection is endless and I have always liked the results when I cooked out of Saroj's cookbook.
Last but not the least, I am positive that I will be influenced by a whole lot of bloggers out there! I shall be updating the 'Links' section soon to include most of them.

**('Cheyyi' means 'hand' and 'kalchukone' means 'to be burnt'. In Telugu they mock people who are novices at cooking by saying that 'they burn their hands' in the kitchen).

Why the name Memories 'n' Meals?
The answer is a little saga in itself. I am the kind of person who drifts to sleep as soon as my back hits the bed. One day, I suddenly decided to start a food blog when I was talking to my DH. As I went to bed that night, I couldn’t get a wink of sleep as I started to think of the most appropriate name for the blog. I kept listing out all the possible names I could think of, as I tossed and turned over in the bed. The words jumbled in my head to form a theme as my brain google-searched for more ideas and the clock struck 1am.. There was a high probability of a great war between the 'newly born blogger in me' and the 'sleepy me' and eventually SLEEP won. But as I drifted into the wonderlands of slumber, I saw myself writing the following list in the drafts section of my email or was it our kitchen white board?

MealsReady/BhojanamTayyaru, AnOdeToCooking, PicklesnPastries, WhenSpiceHitsYou, TantalizingYourTastebuds, DeliciouslyPoetic, CookingInVariety, MainstreamCooking, IndulgentlyYours, DreamsnSpices, SpicesnDreams, SpiceYourLife, VirtualDelicacies, VinduBhojanam, MemoriesnMeals
[ Feel free to use any of the above titles if you are interested but do not forget to acknowledge ;) ]

I finally settled with Memories 'n' Meals because it precisely describes what this blog is all about. Meals that will wind into memories and memories filled with meals and miscellaneous things.

What Memories 'n' Meals is not?
This blog is not the following:

An advertisement of any product, any recipe, any cuisine, any website
A threat or harm to anyone who believes in some specific cooking-technique or recipe
An avenue for ego-clashes and silly bickering
A mouth-piece of any organisation which engages in illegal or malicious activities

Oh forget it! You know what it is not :)