Why I celebrate Christmas!

Christmas is almost over and this post is late, very late at least by two days. But that is okay since I was celebrating the season with full glee. Baking cakes sending them to friends, arranging parties, thinking about finger food, decorating the house, going around houses for Christmas carols, Christmas shopping and what not.

This is exactly why I celebrate. I love festivities and their tradition and I like to celebrate every occasion. Celebrating Christmas is all about sharing. So as Eid or Onam or Diwali. It is sharingthe human spirit. A normal life is mundane. We need some color and we need it often. We need some joy and laughter. We need togetherness. It is not about having turkey or ham or Christmas food. It is about coming together to celebrate with others. It just shows we exist in this World as humans, the peaceful kind, the sharing kind, the smiling kind, the hugging kind.

The best part about all celebrations is being a woman. We make sure we keep the flame of tradition and pass it along. We are there teaching the World to share and to be kind. If it were left only to men, there would have been only one celebration -- the keg parties. I would even stretch it to say, these traditions is celebrating motherhood or womanhood over and over again.

“He was alive for last Christmas”
“It was three days before last Christmas we thought of moving back home”
“That was the best Christmas. I was with him and we held hands.”

Don’t we timeline our sad and happy memories with festivities? They surely keep us going. So Celebrate and create new traditions and LIVE!

Now on to a good Christmas spirit story.

I was completely busy at my work for the past two months sleeping only few hours. I always wanted to go for the cake decoration classes as our dear Archana at spicyana was constantly inspiring and urging all of us with her fabulous creations. Only because of her I knew that it is not fairies that decorate with icing, but it is the little elves like me and you. Due to my wonderful procrastination, It took me almost one year to finally signup for a class. And when I was the busiest of all at work and home, I went and joined. :-)

Though I always reached a ten minute late for each class, carried the cake open through the store running for the class, had icing all over my face, I loved every second of it. This is the best thing I have done in years. Love you my dear Archana for this. It is only because of her. It is because of blogs and it is because of her kind sharing.
Here it is. I made my first decorated cake. Ummmaaah!

Merry Christmas and a Wonderful New Year 2008 to all you, my lovely blogmates!

Guess Me!

Brides blush with me. Who am I?

Shrimp and Drumstick in coconut milk

There is a giant drumstick tree at our relative’s place nearby and it is a feast for the eyes to see the bunch of drumsticks hanging from each small branch. Drumstick trees are so brittle; the trees often break due to the strong winds here. Yet, they are resilient and they grow back again from the branch with much vigor. It is amazing to see the tree growing around 6 feet in a year.

We all raid the tree, scrape the drumsticks, cut them into bite size pieces and freeze them until it starts to fruit again.

A very delicious curry is made with drumsticks and shrimp. There are many versions of it and mine is a very simple version as usual.

Drumstick pieces scraped and cut and split into two – 2 cups
Shrimp cleaned and deveined - 2 cups

Coriander powder – 2 table spoon
Crushed black pepper – 1 tsp
Red chili powder – 1 table spoon
Green chilies slit – 4
Onion – ½ cup
Curry leaves – 1 sprig
Ginger scraped and crushed – 1 tsp
Garlic pods – 7 diced thin
Kudampuli - 4
Turmeric powder – 1 tsp
Salt enough

Coconut milk thick – 2 cups

Cook drumsticks with all of the above adding salt in 1.5 cup coconut milk and 2 cups of water. When drumsticks are almost cooked, add the cleaned shrimp and cook for 5 or 6 minutes. Turn off heat and stir in the rest of the coconut milk. Adjust salt.

Heat 1 tsp oil, sauté thinly diced 2 tsp shallots (can use onion too). When the shallots turn brown, add two whole red chili (broken into two) and a sprig of curry leaves. Add to the dish.

Serve with rice.

Fried Rice

At school I would peek at my friend Arya’s lunch box and would wish we could switch mommies. Arya’s lunchbox always had food packed in aluminum foil in a plastic box that had cute stickers on it and her food looked as if she got a share of what the real fairy pretty people would eat. Her lunchbox was not runny or messy and would look like her, short haired and trim, very proper and polite, saying the right words with a soft node. She would always have some fried rice and a fruit with the right amount of flavors and color, everything subtle like pretty pink lace on her handkerchief that was pinned on to her shirt. Oh! How I wish my mom would be that sophisticated to prepare my lunch boxes like those that looked straight from a story book.

Mine was packed in a steel lunchbox up to the brim with rice and fish curry that would run a little outside which was wrapped in a check kitchen towel and it always contained a shocking colored vegetable thoran instead of an expensive fruit. At our house, food was always prepared during the early wee hours of the morning. Momma would fill the lunchbox with steaming hot food and I have seen her blowing away the steam in a hurry so that it doesn’t condense when she closes the lid. There was no need of reheating the food since it would still be piping hot during our lunch time.

We would get ready in frenzy for school and she would run behind us to give us the lunchbox that always looked like a baton exchange in a 400m relay. She would have her saree in a mess, her hair frizzed up and a dirty kitchen towel on her shoulder and would hold the hot lunch box with her saree pallu and would stuff it into our school bags while we were running and then would hold me tight and kiss me when the whole school bus was watching and would say, you should eat the rice completely without brining a morsel back, and I would be so embarrassed and would instantly wipe away the kiss and wished badly I had Arya’s mommie. I always saw Arya’s mommie in a starched crisp house-coat just waving at her, pretty and calm, no frenzy there, and Arya was always ready when our school bus stopped in front of her house.

Arya’s mom would prepare the lunch the previous day and would re-heat it and give it the next morning. It was always fried rice since it was so easy to make and it won’t run and it looks good in a lunchbox.

My mom never cared about those pretty and polite things in life. She wanted her child to have the freshest food and no fried rice but her signature fish curry and vegetables. Now years later, I will die for my mother to kiss me everyday, leaving the wetness on my cheeks before rushing off to office and get that steel lunch box and to do that baton exchange. If wishes were horses…

This is Arya’s fried rice recipe. This is very simple to make. Fried rice is Chinese, but somehow it ends up looking like a little Indian whenever I make it.

White rice. In fact it is better to use previous day's cooked rice. Fried rice was invented so you could dress up the old rice and make it look good. – 2 cups cooked and refrigerated.

Green Onion stalks chopped – ½ cup
Cucumber with skin chopped into thin strips. Steamed – 1/4 cup
Beans cooked – ¼ cup
Green Peas cooked - ¼ cup

You can use a mix of any kind of vegetables that you have. Don’t use vegetables that would seep out color into the rice. I normally use watery kind of fast cooking vegetables.

Mix ¼ cup soy sauce and ¼ cup chili sauce and keep aside. If you want it hotter, I add crushed red chili flakes to this.

Heat a wok or a frying pan, add 1 tsp of vegetable oil and fry the cooked rice for two minutes, then add the vegetables and the sauce mix and sauté everything quickly and coat the rice in this.

Now lower the heat and move rice to the sides of the wok away from the center and to the center of the wok or the pan, break an egg and scramble it quickly and incorporate into the rice. Sprinkle salt. Soy sauce is salty so make sure you adjust salt accordingly.

Serve with soy sauce or some fried meat or fish.

Guess?

Who am I? You dont eat my leaves. I am so shy I dont grow above the ground. I am so tasty I have a fan club in Kerala. I dont look like my big brother at all. Tell me tell me, who am I?

Chicken in a lot of gravy!

I used to often take long night journeys to reach Banglore in ‘Video Coach Buses’*.
Rash drivers, treacherous routes, air horns every other second and a grainy video with the wickedest songs – oh ma…Painful journeys! They would stop for dinner at around midnight at small offbeat dinner places called dhabas in Hindi where the drivers would get free dinners for coming in with a bus load of hungry starving people.

At these places I would always order porotta and chicken curry pooh-poohing my mother’s advice not to eat non-veg at shady offbeat places. I used to crave for the gravy than the chicken. The mesmerizing flavor and color soaking the porottas, separating each carefully folded porotta layers to a mushy sponge and I soak my fingers playfully in the fragrant gravy just to remember the feel against my skin…drool…wait a minute, I am writing about chicken curry, right?

This is a delicious chicken curry if you love gravy than the pieces.

5 cups of cleaned, skinned, bite size chicken pieces with one cup of onion, one tomato, 3 tsp red chill powder, enough salt and ½ tsp turmeric.

Dry roast lightly 5 tea spoons of whole coriander, 10 cloves, 5 cardamom, ½ tsp mace, 2 tsp big cumin, 1 cinnamon stick and grind to a powder.

Mix in everything with the chicken pieces. While cooking chicken, do not add much water. Close and cook in medium flame.

When cooked, sauté ½ cup onion to brown, 3 sprigs of curry leaves, add chicken and then add one and two cups of thick coconut milk to this curry. Simmer for 5 minutes only. Do not boil it again.

Serve with rice or porottas…mmm…your fingers wet and soaked…okiez okiez… stop…stop!

* They were called Video Coach Buses A/C – It would be written in big bold letters. I have no idea why. It had a video player, maybe that’s why.

Pindi Thoran

My writing has gone rusty. I stare at a Word document for minutes and nothing comes to my head. Too much of a break from blogging makes you so out of league from everything. There are great food events going here and there and there is a big event FAHC, yet I feel completely disconnected. Not that I used to write great stuff earlier, but something which took me a maximum of 15 minutes to write a post is now a humongous job for me.

I am sure that’s what has happened to a lot of other bloggers too who were regulars, their blogs now look abandoned and lonely. Their mamas are having starting trouble to write something. So this is a warning dears, do not go out of league and take a long break….

You might find this post squeaky squeaky with all that rust, but I know all you darlings out there is worried only about the food. :)

Kerala has this big fascination for banana stems. We use all portions of a banana plant. The fruit is used in cooking and eating, leaves as organic throw away plates and the stem and the flower after a fruit is matured in cooking. After the fruit is matured, you cut the fruit from the plant and hang it in a warm place for ripening. A single banana plant has only onetime fruiting capacity and should be removed. When you cut off the stem, you peel away the greenish layers and there you get a creamy white round part. This is known as unnippindi.

Poets describe a woman’s hands as round and slim and smooth like an unnipindi where unni means small. It is also known as vaazhappindi, where vaazha means banana. Essentially pindi is the name without any metaphors added.

I shake my head and grin when I hear about all the fiber talks in television and health magazines. They talk as if this is the new invention. Hello, this was there long existing...this fiber thingie in vegetables and you missed it all this while is what I want to say to them.

Pindi is fiber. Simple! You can get all the vegetables that claim to have fiber, add them up but a small piece of pindi can shame them all.

What does it mean? That it is a little hard to cut and clean it. First wash it and cut into round thin pieces. From each round, brush over a small stick to catch all the fiber. Yeah don’t be surprised, I was talking about fiber right? Do this to all pieces and discard the fiber ball.

Cut into small pieces; immerse it in water with a little turmeric added to prevent discoloration. This actually will feel like sugarcane pieces. Wash and strain

Splutter mustard seeds, one sprig of curry leaves and split red chilies. Sauté ¼ cup onion then add the cut pindi(1 cup), add little salt, add 1 tsp red chili powder, ¼ tsp turmeric powder and cover and cook in low flame. When half done, add grated coconut if needed, mix well and cook until done.

Serve with rice or roti. It tastes so good!

There it is, I have finally written a post and not bad took me only 20 minutes. :-)

Bacon wrapped scallops

It is summer time here in U.S and schools are closed for three months. Daily It is almost some kind of outing and partying. I am tired, tired, tired. Kids are having a great time demanding attention and making every parent fervently pray for school reopening.

Whenever it was big summer vacation, everyday my Mom would scold and curse the Government and the entire school system. She would be fed up of us making the house a mess, jumping up and down from the sunshades and trees like little monkeys, running like little mice inside and out, destroying everything on our way.

Whenever I host a party, I make sure I make 4 or 5 appetizers. Kids love appetizers and even the fuzziest kid would be happy and would eat something. Grown ups always love appetizers to nibble on while making a conversation.
This is the recipe for bacon wrapped scallops. It is very easy and simple to make.

Buy fresh bacon, toothpicks, and scallops. If you get fresh large scallops it would be good. But if you get frozen ones also, it is okay. Make sure they are large scallops not the baby ones.

Marinate scallops in ginger + garlic + chili powder paste. Don’t add salt, since bacon is very salty. This time I made a different marinade. I made a paste of cilantro and mint and green chilies to make a green marinade.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. On a baking tray, keep a wire rack and arrange the bacons like as shown in picture. Roll the bacon around the scallops and insert a wet tooth pick(place the toothpicks in water for sometime) to hold it together. You can also add a garlic pod if you want on top.
Now bake them for 10 minutes. Serve hot. Tasty!

Guess?

I like it, you like it. World goes crazy over it especially a dose of this in the morning is a must. The flower turns into a fruit. Whats it?

(This is specially for sweet Sig for asking me to put at least a guessing game. ) :-)

Ridge Gourd Theeyal / Peechinga Theeyal

I remember once a colleague of mine tasted theeyal from my lunchbox and she was hooked. She was not a Malayalee and fell in love with the Theeyal. In her description, Pulikulambu went to school and university and graduated to become Theeyal.

Theeyal is a very tasty flavorful dish from Kerala. Theeyal I think would roughly translate it into ‘in fire’ or “brunt”. Though the dish is not hot, it is made with browning the coconut. Thus the name?

You can make theeyal with any type of vegetables, or you can even mix all vegetables. You can make it even with Shrimp. Making of theeyal has to be very specific, following the exact instructions to get the right taste.

I made Peeching Theeyal or Ridge gourd Theeyal. Growing up, I never even saw this vegetable among our vendors. I think Ridgegourd is not a preferred Kerala vegetable. But once I started cooking with them, I started to like them.

I scrape the sharp edges and take off the inside seeds if the seeds are thick.

Cut them into pieces, wash – 3 cups

1.5 cup grated coconut and 2 shallots fried to a light brown color. Keep aside.

Dry roast ½ cup coriander seeds, 1 tsp fenugreek seeds, 1 tsp of whole black pepper for two minutes. Add 6 dry red chilies and roast them. Please make sure not to burn them. Add 1 tsp cumin seeds and roast them again for a few more seconds. Grind with coconut mixture and ½ tsp turmeric and salt adding only two tsp of water to a very smooth paste.

Tamarind paste – 2 tsp or 2 inch size tamarind in warm water, squeezed and strained.

Heat 1/4 cup oil, lightly fry the ridge gourd pieces and keep aside. Now in the same oil, splutter mustard seeds, saute whole red chilies two split into two, sauté 1 sprig of curry leaves and add the ground coconut paste. Add tamarind water and the ridge gourd piece and slow cook for ten minutes. Prepare this dish ahead and make sure it sits one or two hours before serving.

The flavor and taste is exquisite. Serve with rice or roti or even idli or dosa.

Green Mango Chammanthi - GBP

Wondering what a chammanthi is? Read this and RP's.

This time for GBP Summer 2007 Entry( my second entry), I don’t have anything to write for this post. Let the pictures speak.







3 Green Chilies, 2 Shallots, Salt, 1 cup Sour Green Mango slices peeled – Crush them first, then add 1 cup of coconut and crush them again. I use a wet grinder for making Chammanthi.

Note: If you are buying store bought mangoes in U.S, it might not be that sour, so add 1 tsp of vinegar to the mango slices to get the right sourness.

Guess?

Now, all you smartie pants out there, guess this.

(Warning: Any more threats, verbal abuse towards this poor me for putting pictures of my backyard will not be taken lightly. Will be forced to put more :-))

Jackfruit Seeds and Drumstick Leaves Thoran

A JFI Event started by our dear Indian Food Blog Queen Indira and the super cool ingredient choice by our cutest Bee – and you thought I would have only one entry?

Jackfruit Seeds are edible portions of the jackfruit. They have a nutty taste. I had some left over Jackfruit Seeds and some drumstick leaves. Jackfruit seeds which bee roasted are of ripe jackfruit. You roast only ripe jackfruit seeds. With the raw jackfruit, you don’t normally do that.

This is a simple delicious thoran. Acutally it tasted so good, I snacked on it than eating it with rice :)

Scrape jackfruit seeds, slice it into long pieces and cook them with salt and turmeric. – 1 cup

Crush ½ cup coconut, 1/3 cup shallots, 5 green chilies, 1 sprig of curry leaves, 1 tsp cumin seeds, 3 pods of garlic, salt and turmeric.

Mix this with the cooked jackfruit and add the washed and squeezed drumstick leaves.

Cover and cook in low flame until the drumstick leaves are cooked.

Serve with rice or roti.

Artichoke Thoran

What will Americans do to a foreign vegetable? They would add cheese slices on it and put in between two breads.
British? They would make it a tikka or fry it in batter and serve with chips.
A malayalee woman? Add some coconut shavings and make it a thoran.

That’s exactly what I do when I see all these alien looking vegetables like Asparagaus, Artichokes etc. I used to read in story books about asparagaus, artichokes etc and wanted to see these vegetables at least once. That time there was no Internet and now anyone in any corner of the world can easily see a picture of anything. Exciting isn’t it? A child sitting under a table (supposedly study time), reading a story book, munching a mango with some salt, wondering what this vegetable would look like that keeps on coming up on her story book pages, can now just click on the mouse and can get every information she needs.

She grows up, gets married, lands in a small town at an alien land, where the most familiar vegetable you get is a cabbage. Rest everything looks completely out of this world. With a deep sigh, with the memories of all those veggies she told her mama she hates while at home, floods in with a deep hurtful taste, she picks up one of these alien vegetables and make a thoran and voila…home…now seems a little more nearer.

Recipe for Artichoke Thoran.

How to clean?
First wash thoroughly in between the leaves and then cut off the stalk and two inches from the top.
Then pluck out all the outer leaves until you reach the leaf where it is half yellow and half green. The outer leaves are hard and chewy. For thoran, you need to take only the soft inside leavesCut it into two. Dip the cut portions in ½ tsp turmeric water since artichokes turn black immediately. Now take out the violet colored leaves and the small hairy portion which holds the violet leaves.
Dice it small (two artichokes prepared like this would yield 1 cup).
I had one cup of moong dal sprouts too. Blanch the sprouts.

Small onion – ¼ cup

Heat 1 tsp oil, splutter mustard seeds, 1 sprig of curry leaves, 1 whole red chili split into two, add diced onion and 1 crushed garlic, 3 green chilies, sauté until onion is translucent, add diced artichoke and the blanched sprouts, add salt and turmeric cover and cook in low flame. After 10 minutes, add ¼ cup of grated coconut and mix and cook for another 5 minutes.
Keep the fire in maximum and open cook for one or two minutes until dry.
Serve as a side dish for rice or roti.

Now don’t you want to know what it really tastes like? It tastes like banana flower. Yes! Ditto! Missing banana flower thoran? Make with artichokes!

Note: The leaves you pluck out from the artichoke can be put into sambar. It would be like drumstick sambar. You eat artichoke the same way you eat drumstick. The outer leaves you discard for a thoran are chewy. You just suck on it like you do for drumstick and discard the harder skin.

Guess

Yeah, Yeah I know it is easy! But, I am not here to make your life more difficult.:)

Coconut red chammanthi

Don’t call my chammanthi chutney please. Chutneys are not chammanthi. Chutney is watery version of a chammanthi. In Kerala, this red chammanthi is made in a stone ammikkallu. View a picture of ammikkallu from another blog.

I don’t know the English term for ammikkallu. It is a flat bed stone with a round rolling stone. You place the ingredients on the flat bed stone and with the rolling pin, you crush and grind the ingredients and a chammanthi made like that is bliss.

I have seen portable version of these heavy stone in India. One of these days when I can sneak one into my suitcase without my husband's knowledge, I will surely bring it here. But for now, I have to make it in a small wet grinder. I have Revel small wetgrinder and is perfect for small quantities like chammanthi.

At home, mom would prepare the chammanthi using the stone crusher and finally make it into a ball shape. Somehow, the ball shape of the chammanthi is etched into my mind, whenever I make it, I have to have it finally in ball shape.

This is eaten with rice. Rose matta rice kanji, roasted papad and red coconut chammanthi….mmmmm.

How to make it?
Fresh grated Coconut – 2 cups
Red Chili powder – 2 tsp
Fresh Tamarind without the seed – 1.5 square inch (Do not use the paste)
One small shallot
Salt

Coarse grind all this together without adding any water. The water content the coconut is more than enough. Do not grind it fine. Then it becomes a chutney like consistency. Make it into a ball shape (optional) :-)

Serve with rice. This usually goes with only rice.

JFI - Chakkapuzhukku (Mashed Raw Jackfruit)

I have been missing out on many JFI’s mainly due to laziness. But as soon as I saw this JFI ingredient by our cute Bee, I knew I couldn’t miss it. JFI-JackFruit. Whoa! Can anything be more Indian ingredient than that? Can any food blogger with turmeric tainted blood stay away from that?

I couldn’t! and guess what? My mom who doesn’t even know I blog, sends me packets and packets of fresh jackfruit through a friend just two weeks ago. This is what you call heavenly godly coincidence.

Then, what do I do? I being a true blue Malayalee think about all different kind of recipes for JFI to surprise everyone and end up with the good old Chakkaapuzhukku, a very Kerala dish. Aarggh...! I think I am cursed.

I don’t have to search the internet to write down these. Just need to jot down my memories. While growing up on plenty of jackfruits every season in Kerala, I grew upon two varieties. One is koozhchakka, a very fibrous variety, but not as tasty as the other one which is varikkachakka. Varikkachakka has a special variety known as thenvarikka which really tastes like honey. Varikkachakka fruit is very firm and you can eat as much as you want without getting a stomach ache.

1. jackfruit seed removed and halved
2. thin skin covering of the jackfruit seed
3. white strings on the whole fruit
4. whole fruit plucked from the thick skin
5. how the seed is attached to the whole fruit.

Usually you ripen the varikkachakka and eat is as a fruit. People prefer ripe varikkachakka as a fruit than the koozhchakka. Raw koozhachakka is prepared into curries etc. It is said that if you feast on too much koozhachakka, you get a stomach ache. I am not sure on this or whether the elders made us believe it.

Most jackfruit trees need special care while growing to make it varikka. Even if you buy varikka varieties to plant, it might end up as a koozha, since I remember my dad telling, the trees offshoot should be trimmed early or something like that.

Cutting jackfruit is a very tedious process. It is full of oozy sap that will stick to anything in contact. In most Kerala homes, there is an open verandah at the backside near to the kitchen, where all these kind of work is done. My mom or grandmom would sit down on the floor, with one leg folded upwards. They then hold the chakka with the left hand and with the right foot and would cut it into pieces with a hoom hoom noise as the knife goes down. We all sit round waiting it to be cut and distributed to savor it. I remember this process when I hear someone crib about cutting pineapple. I would think, wait until you cut a jackfruit.

While handling whole jackfruit, one needs special care to avoid the sap from sticking to your clothes etc. So you need to be very careful while cutting it. If you eat it directly, your hand also will be coated with a light film of sap. To wash it off, you first apply coconut oil and then wipe it clean with a cloth and then wash it off. There is a superstition that if you wash it off directly without oil, next year the tree won’t bear any fruits. I think this is a technique to remind everyone that without applying coconut oil to your hands first, you cannot actually get it cleaned thoroughly.

Even eating jackfruit is an art. My mom would cut the whole jackfruit into small portions with the skin on. We kids would then pluck off the fruit from the hard skin, take out the white strings attached to each fruit, bite into it and cut open into two. Then we take off the seed and a thin skin which covers the seeds and eat the fruit. Seeds, the white string covering, the thin cover of the seeds should not be eaten. Seeds can be eaten cooked.

Chakkapuzhukku Recipe

This dish is made with raw koozha jackfruit.

Half the jackfruit like 1 and cut each fruit into two inch pieces. – 3 cups

Cook covered with little salt and turmeric powder and ½ cup of water. When cooked, crush 1 cup of coconut, with ½ teaspoon cumin seeds, 5 green chilies and one sprig of curry leaves. Add the mixture crushed to this dish, mix well and cook covered for 5 more minutes and mash the cooked jackfruit lightly.

Heat 1 tsp of coconut oil, sauté two whole red chilies broken and add to the dish.This is served as a main dish usually with chicken or some meat curry.

My picture doesn’t show it completely mashed, since I didn’t know how the picture would turn out, but you would need to mash it little more, maybe for 5 more minutes to get the right consistency of a puzhukku. Puzhukku in Malayalam refers to boiled and mashed.

This post is also for my dear Revathi who had so many questions about jackfruit.

See 1. KappaPuzhukku
2. Jackfruit Erisseri

Semiya Payasam

There is a silly rumor out there that this girl InjiPennu of Ginger and Mango doesn’t know much of cooking and she makes very easy dishes which won’t take more than 15 minutes. Well, ahem. It is not because I don’t know okay, I work full time as a senior chef at a French Restaurant cooking up ohlala dishes, I purposely take it easy and blog the easiest everyday ones. I have my dear friend RP of MyWorkshop as an alibi to this claim. (RP, keep quiet!)

So, here comes a very complicated dish to shut all those rumor mills.

Buy a packet of readymade semiya payasam from some Indian shop, Double Horse brand is very good.

Follow the instructions or boil two litre of milk, empty the packet and cook it until done that is 15 minutes. That’s it, the contents of the packet has everything except milk.

That’s it, sweet payasam ready.

Payasam is Kerala’s signature traditional dessert. Any feast ends in payasam. Though Semiya is not really traditional, it is the easiest payasam and so easy to cook up, even without readymade semiya packets. Semiya is Malayalm for Vermicelli.

If you buy plain semiya, boil two litres of milk, roast the smeiya in ghee until they turn light brown (Thanks Bindu for reminding of this in the comments), cook 1.5 cup semiya in the milk, add sugar and keep stirring until the milk reduces to a three quarter of the original.

Heat 3 tsp of ghee, roast 3 tsp raisins, and keep aside. In the same ghee, roast 2 tsp whole cashew nuts and add everything with a little cardamom powder (cardamom seeds powdered) to the dish and mix. That’s it.

Vaazhakkoombu Thoran or Banana Flower Fry

There are a lot of blog posts by fellow bloggers for this banana flower side dish. But is there one with a banana flower plucked from your own banana plant? :-)

Well, this is my first entry of the GBP Summer 2007, hosted by dear Deepz at LetzCook.

A banana flower side dish from my garden. Vaazhakkoombu thoran. Vaazhakkoombu is Malayalam for banana flower.

Remember this Odissi dancer? It has grown and become a big banana plant. I had some honey from the same.

When the bananas start to mature, you can break off the flower from the banana bunch(?).

Banana flowers are without a doubt extremely nutritious with all that fiber content. It is a very tasty dish when prepared properly. The main thing one need to take care is the outer violet or res skin. Do not include that. It will taste bitter. Peel the skin until you reach the crème colored inside.

Cut of the stalk or the end-portion, dice them very small. If you have only one banana flower the amount will be very less when you cook it. So, I add whole moong beans.

Banana Flower diced and immediately immersed in water with a little turmeric. This keeps the color intact or the diced pieces will turn black. – 2 cups
Cooked whole mong beans (Cook this in a pressure cooker) – 1 cup
Shallots – ½ cup
Green chilies slit – 4
Garlic with skin crushed – 2 pod

Heat 3 tsp oil, add ½ tsp mustard seeds. When they splutter, add one whole red chili, add 1 sprig of curry leaves, and add the garlic. When garlic turns slight brown, add shallots and sauté them until translucent.

Add banana flower, add ½ tsp turmeric powder, enough salt, mix and cook covered in low flame for 5 minutes. Add moong beans and ½ cup coconut and cook covered for another ten minutes.

Cook in high heat for tow or three minutes uncovered to dry the dish.

Serve with roti or rice.

Okay, how are your plants doing? Are they all getting ready to enter GBP 2007?

Spring...and a good camera...

Just for this day, I got hold of my cousins digital point and shoot and had a riot taking picures of our garden which is starting to bloom again this Spring. Was clicking frantically until the battery was dead. hehehe.

Have uploaded them on my Malayalam blog.

Here is the link.

Mutton Stew

Most Malayalee Christian families make Stew as an accompaniment with the soft and lacy paalappam. Kerala Mutton Stew without any doubt is a completely Western dish changed to adapt to the Malayalee palate. I don’t need to check any history but the basic method and soul of this dish screams foreign. Hence, Stew is spice-less according to Indian standards.

I was not a big fan of this watery version of a mutton curry as I called it ealier. My mom too hated it and I don't remember her cooking it ever. Though I didn’t mind eating it, I never had any interest in cooking it. Which Malayalee wants to cook something where you don’t have to fry some spices which will burn your nose, grind some spices which will burn your hands while mixing it to the dish? Whenever I checked the recipe it had an ingredient ‘flour’ or maida (as we call it). Nah! I am not going to put flour into a Kerala dish.

Then one day I was bullied. “You cook mutton stew!” shouted the indispensable potluck 'head' one fine day in an obscure meeting of housewives.

I want to cook something complicated, I pleaded. But they were adamant.

So I checked the recipes books and liked one written by the old faithful Mrs. K.M Mathew.

I am not gloating here, but seriously I liked what I made. It is not watery if you cook it properly. It is not spice less if you follow the instructions and sneak in a little more pepper. Viola! I love stew. I now make it regularly as an accompaniment to appam. My husband and his whole family love gravies. So he loves stew since he can make his fingers swim in the gravy unlike any other dishes. Stew is technically supposed to have lot of gravy than any other curry.

Mutton – Cut into bite sized pieces. Yes, bones are welcome. – 3 cups
Cinnamon sticks – 1 inch length as whole – 2
Clove – 10
Green Cardamom whole – 8
Whole black pepper – ¼ cup crushed. Do not grind, just crush.

Onion diced – ½ cup
Green chilies slit – 6
Ginger diced very thin – 1 table spoon
Garlic – 20 pods
Curry leaves – 1 sprig
Potato – 1 cup

Unbleached All purpose flour – 1 table spoon
Vinegar – 1.5 teaspoon

Fresh Thick Coconut milk Cream – ½ cup
Coconut milk thinner – 3 cups
(If using canned coconut milk, take out the crème from the top without shaking the tin. This will be the thick coconut milk)

Heat 5 tsp oil, in low flame sauté the Cinnamon sticks, cardamom, clove and black pepper. Sauté onion, green chilies, ginger and garlic diced, and curry leaves. Keep aside this whole spice mix.

Heat 2 tsp oil, add flour and sauté again for two minutes in low flame. Add the mutton and sauté again. Add vinegar and enough salt and cook this meat in thin coconut milk. Cook in medium flame. Stews are supposed to be cooked slowly, but if the mutton is too hard, cook it for ten minutes in a pot and then cook it in the pressure cooker.

When meat is 3/4th done, add the sautéed whole spice mix and the potatoes. Add 1.5 teaspoon of vinegar again into this and add salt again. Cook covered until meat is well done. Lower the flame completely, add the thick coconut milk and add 15 count whole black pepper. Keep for one minute and remove from heat.

Whenever thick coconut milk is added to any dish, make sure the milk gets only lightly warm. It shouldn’t be boiled. This you should make sure depending on the type of stove you use. If you use a heating coil, make sure you pot doesn’t sit on the coil after switched off.

Serve with rice or appam or any other rice based dishes. Since this dish is very mild in spices, you can turn up the heat by increasing the crushed pepper.

Recipe source: Mrs. K.M Mathew Cook books.

Also read:
Shynees Mutton Ishtu
Bee's Vegetable Ishtu

Guess

An Indian woman and her kitchen cannot live without me. But I am too bitter to eat. What am I?

Nature's Shampoo (Thaali)

This is not about food. I can eat all I want, but who will take care of my hair? :-) I just want to note down some Kerala traditions.

Malayalee women are known to have abundant lustrous long, a little curly and dark black hair. We massage our hair and scalp with a little coconut oil everyday and wash it off. Many wonder how we do it everyday. But once you get used to the routine it is just a normal thing as brushing your teeth.

Earlier, that is even before my grandmother, kondakettal was the fashion.

Source Excerpt: Kondakettal (hair being bunched upon the left side of the head with strands of jasmine flowers circling it) was accepted as the coiffure of the art form. In any old picture of traditional Kerala women one can see this coiffure, let alone the royal women in Ravi Varma paintings.

This is a movie still of a recent Malayalam movie (Ananthabhadram). Wanted to show you the old hair style. No, this is not how we wear our hair now. :-)

Couple of years ago, short hair became fashionable and there were many Western type hair styles. I remember Remo in Cochin for a show and looking around wondered what happened to the stories of Malayalee women with long hair because all he could see were short haired women. Hehehe. However, now long hair is back in fashion.I never cut my hair short, but honestly few times I have had the urge to do so. But you know once you cut it; it will take years to grow it to the same length.

Hibiscus plants are abundant in each and every Kerala home. We make a shampoo out of it. It is so simple to make and very good for your hair. Pluck some hibiscus leaves, like a handful and put it in like one cup water. Shred or grind it in a mixer or what I do is, I just squeeze squeeze with my hand while watching TV. Then strain the thick juice which is a little slimy and use it to wash my hair. No need to use anything else. You can refrigerate this upto one week. This is known as thaali in Malayalam.

If you continuously use it for more than a week, your hair just turns sooo soft and healthy.

GBP Announcement

We can grow veggies in Winter
We can grow veggies in Winter
(repeat after me please)

Don't believe me? Please check out the wonderful Green Blog Project Winter 2007 Round Up by the lovely Mandira of Ahaar.

Missed the deadline for Winter. You mean, it is already Spring there? Dont worry. We have one coming up on Summer, GBP Summer 2007. Who is hosting it? Ah! I tricked Deepz into doing that :).

If you just landed from another planet, check out What is GBP all about? :)

Break!

(Trying to post this via email.)

On a break! (Yes, I am broke too!) :-)

Keep all those dishes warm until I get back home. tata. cee you. bye bye.

Sour Ginger / PuliInji

I had lot of plans for Winter GBP including carrots, cabbage etc. But since I got sick, everything flopped. But hope there are some entries for those veggies this coming GBP round-up.

I only have one entry for this Winter round-up. Mandira of Ahar is hosting this year's Winter GBP. Deadline is on April 10 2007.

Last year we had a wonderful GBP round-up with 41 entries. It was fantastic! (I lost my old post with around 40 plus comments on my old blog when Blogger beta died on me. Could recover only the post but not those valuable comments) :(

Inji is Malayalam for Ginger. If you know how to type Ginger, you will be bombarded with lot of information.

An old article from Indian Express caught my attention,

Excerpt:Cochin ginger , still considered the finest of ginger varieties by exporters .

Cochin ginger is second only to the legendary Jamaican ginger for its suitability for drying. While most of the ginger available in India now is suited only to be used as vegetable, low fiber content has made the Cochin ginger an all-time favorite with exporters.

Even though Ginger is from China, Ginger cultivated in Kerala has an exclusive flavor, due to the uniqueness in soil. It is smaller in size, has less fiber and has less water content than the commonly found variety. Potency of Kerala ginger is double fold than the other varieties.I had planted some ginger in a pot six months ago. The leaves die when ginger is mature.

As usual, there are many methods to make Sour Ginger or Puli Inji. I have heard Kerala Brahmins don’t add coriander seeds to this dish. My version has coriander seeds. This method of preparation is from Trichur or towards Northern Kerala. If you move towards the South, they add coconut pieces to this dish and preparation is slightly different. However this is the best way of preparation for longer shelf life.

Ginger scraped and cleaned cut into 2 inch pieces crushed into thin fiber like pieces. Crushed is the word here, Do not use a food processor and make a paste please. – 1 cup.

Whole coriander seeds – 3 tsp, Fenugreek seeds – ¼ tsp, Chili powder or red dry whole chilies – 1 tsp, Mustard Seeds – ¼ tsp. Roast everything in 1 tsp gingelly oil for one minute. If chili powder is used, add it towards the end and take off from fire immediately.
Grind to a watery paste with tamarind water (3 inch tamarind piece soaked in 1 cup of warm water and strained).

Shallow fry ginger in coconut oil until light brown. Strain the oil. In a non-reactive cooking pot, add fried ginger and the tamarind paste, salt and 2 cups of water and let it boil in high flame. Do not close with lid. Remove from fire when the dish thickens and add 2 tsp of jaggery to balance the flavors.

Heat 1 tsp of coconut oil (can use the strained oil from frying ginger), splutter 1 tsp mustard seeds, saute 1 sprig of curry leaves, ¼ tsp of fenugreek seeds. Add to the dish. Serve with rice.Sour Ginger prepared this way stores well for one month in your refrigerator and a whole week outside. This is served like a pickle or condiment. It is said, this is equivalent to 101 curries. The taste is so unique and delicious; if you ever taste it once; a slight memory of this dish creates floods in your mouth. I can confidently challenge anyone to come up with a dish in ginger better than this.

If you have never tasted this simple yet World’s best recipe on ginger, do try.

Curd v. Yogurt

Ref: Pulisseri comments

Curd is an Indian variety of Yogurt. Look what Wiki says,

Dahi yoghurt of the Indian subcontinent is known for its characteristic taste and consistency. The English term for a specific yoghurt in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan is curd.

Even if Wiki didn’t say that, I was pretty sure about it.

Curd’s texture, smell, taste is way different from the yogurt you get in U.S. I had painful cravings for pulisseris when I was curd-less in my life in U.S. I will try to make pulisseris with yogurt and it will end up pathetic. First the coconut taste will dominate and second there will be no puli (sour) in the dish which is a must. My life was incomplete and puli-less. Since I used to have longer stopovers from India to U.S, bringing curd culture was very difficult. Then I chanced upon a curd culture from a temple and my life has never been the same.Some tips and tricks. What you should do when you get hold of that curd culture to keep it alive? First make a large container of curd. Then distribute it all your friends. Yes, I know, I know...but this is not for the ‘sharing’ thing, but it is for keeping the curd culture alive when you are on a vacation or you just spoiled the entire batch of curd etc. But you will come across as a sharing angel, hehehe. Devious, uh?

How to obtain curd culture in U.S?

Temples are good source if they have kitchens. In U.S most temples are welcome to everybody. So go ahead, visit the beautiful temples and ask someone to show you the kitchen. I am sure you will be helped. We Indians are good and helpful people, especially inside the temple premises. hehehehe

Visit Bee’s information about curd. I still doubt whether she has the authentic curd until I have tasted it. ;)

What next? I will send you the curd culture. Yes, I will do it; if you leave me the address as a comment here (I am moderating comments so your address will not be revealed).

I am willing to ship it in next day air to one person. If someone is willing to pay the shipping costs, I will ship it to more people. But the first person who asks me will get it free. Leave a comment here with your postal address. You should have a blog or I should know you at least from your comments here and there. I am not going to ship it to complete strangers. Sorry.

When you get it, please ship to someone else and pay it forward. Let the Curd spread! Let us stop the invasion of Yogurt in our lives. Hehehe.

You cannot make pulisseris with yogurt you get in US. End of discussion. :-) . One more time someone tells me U.S yogurt is curd, grr….

Plantain Pulisseri

I can safely say most part of authentic Kerala cuisine is curd based. We love our pulisseris. We make it in a hundred different ways with a hundred different ingredients. Ah-ha! I know, if you are in U.S, you are thinking of something called yogurt. Nope, Nah! Yogurt is not curd. Phlueeze.

How to make Curd? Read Dhanya or Indira. I make mine in full throttle whole milk.

Where to get the real Indian curd active culture? If you have a Hindu temple in your state, mostly their kitchen will have it. Beg, borrow, steal!

Or, next time bring it from India if you will reach home in 24 hours. Mix a little bit of active culture with milk and throw it into your suitcase, it would turn curd by the time you reach U.S if you don’t have any lengthy stopovers.

You cannot make this dish with yogurt. You have to have curd, the real sour curd.Pulisseri in Malayalam means ‘sour dish’.

Two Raw Plantains – Wash thoroughly but do not take off the skin. Just scrape out the protruding rims on the skin. The skin gives it a very unique taste. Cut them into 2 inch pieces. Cook them thoroughly with a little salt and ¼ tsp turmeric powder in water. Cook until done.

Grind together 1 cup coconut, ½ tsp cumin seeds, 5 green chilies into a fine paste. Add to the cooked plantains. When it boils, lower the flame and cook for another ten minutes. With lowered flame, add 4 cups of beaten curd to this and keep on stirring until the curd is just warm to touch. Do not boil it.

Take off immediately from heat.

Heat 1 tsp coconut oil, splutter ½ tsp mustard seeds, 2 sprigs of curry leaves, 2 red chili split, ½ tsp fenugreek seeds in that order. Add to the dish.

Serve with rice.

Shrimp with Mango

Note: Yahoo Portal Content Theft Identification Parade. Check it out!.

I really want to break free from this 'curry' tag given to all our dishes. Almost all Indian dishes are universally tagged as 'curry'. No, every Indian dish is definitely not a curry. “We have different names!" Can’t you hear them scream? I can.

So, it is just Shrimp with Mango, Malayalam name for chemmeenum mangayum.

Shrimp is not Prawn. I remember having an argument with my boss at a restaurant and me googling the whole Internet for information. Before I moved to U.S, there existed only one i.e. prawns. In U.S however everything is a shrimp.

Chemmeen, smaller size of prawns is much tastier. Kochi in Kerala, India is very famous for its shrimps, prawns, tiger prawns harvesting. Kerala’s backwaters are perfect for prawn harvesting. However most of the catch is exported and we locals don’t even get to see them. In India, Shrimp or Prawns harvest season is normally from February to March. That’s the only time you get them a little cheap.

This shellfish is a delicacy everywhere in the World. It is said to be a little high in cholesterol. Clean shrimp. Take out the outer shell, pinch out its head and tail. Cleaning shrimp this way is called as chemeen nulluka or pinching shrimp if translated from Malayalam. This phrase is also used to tease Christians who miss the head and tail of a Sunday mass. Try to pinch the head and pull out the dark vein that runs through the middle. Or, just part the belly and take out the vein. Wash thoroughly.

For 3 cups of cleaned shrimp,
Mango slices (I buy frozen mango slices from Delight Brand, since it is difficult to get sour green mangoes in U.S) – cut into 2 inch. Mango should be sour. – 1 cup

Grind together 1 cup of fresh grated coconut, 1 tsp fenugreek seeds, 3 tsp red chili powder, 2 tsp coriander seeds, ½ tsp turmeric powder with enough salt. Grind to a fine paste with 1 cup of water.

Add the coconut paste to the shrimp and mango. Add 6 tsp of garlic diced, 3 tsp of ginger grated, 1/4 cup of shallots diced. Add enough salt and cook everything until it boils. Adjust to medium heat and cook for another 5 or 6 minutes uncovered.
Do not overoook shrimp.

1 tsp mustard seeds, 1 shallot diced thin and round, 1 spring of curry leaves, 2 whole dry red chili split into two. Sauté in 2 tsp of coconut oil when hot. Sauté until the shallots turn brown. Add to the dish.

Serve with rice.

Honey

I remember…

…the times when I was a little kid, asking the taller ones in the family to get me the small cluster of flowers underneath each crimson cover of a banana blossom, from those tall banana plants…please..daddy..please..one more we will open?

…getting all excited and going from one banana plant to another in search of this honey in the early mornings, the big leaves of the plant wet in yesterday’s rain…

…sucking the honey from its cute little pouches…sucking until my eyes come out, my cheeks become hollow…sucking on my lips to get the last bit of that pure honey…

I remember…home…soaked in honey…

Can you see the small white pouch? That’s where the honey is stored in a banana plant’s flower.