Songs from unstrummed guitars

The waiting rooms at my doctors office were always brightly lit and there were colorful fishes in little aquariums that spread on the walls. Yet, we could all spell out the gloominess, the darkness, the hopelessness curving onto us, waiting for the next call, next scan, next surgery dates.

I would sit there on the edges of the cushioned seats like everybody. Everybody in that room had the same body language. None would look directly into the eye of each other. We all knew on what our life depended on. Our young faces with imaginary wrinkles from the stress. Yet, I never could share it with anyone.

My swarming big family was always there, hugging kissing..caring. I was the big one, the big sister, the big aunt, the big niece, the big brave face, always giggling and carefree. Like the painting where the girl with the wind in her hair, looking out a window of sunny colorful blooms. and yet I didn't have anyone to share this pain. I held it within myself, scared to switch on the lights, scared to face a mirror.Yet I had to act as the big shoulder. the Big Girl to everyone.

One day, the person who sat next to me never looked at me but she started to speak in some strange language only I could understand. Suddenly she started to tell me her woes, just like that, without a start, without any punctuations, just deep breaths in between. I responded equally with vigor. You know, I said, I cannot even share this with my mother, yet I am very close to her. I felt she wouldn't understand...she said yes...same here.

We just stared at the fishes again. Its that feeling of that single sock that didn't get into the wash bin. That handkerchief on the clothes line, forgotten to be picked up, left for the next drizzle. Your life hanging on to strings of hope waiting for turns. Everywhere, every time. Like waiting in a long endless corridor, hearing the ticking of a huge grandfather clock, a room where there are no windows. The strange talk I had with a total stranger at a doctor’s office was one of the moments I found my feet to stand up and brave the World again.

Sometimes its just hard to believe that one exist. I did things never imagined, brutal. I was sick, poked into, scanned, buried, cut open, insulted, ridiculed, rebuked, hurt, cheated on. Sometimes by the closest dearest ones.

And at one such lowest point, a few days ago, I re meet an old friend of mine. Not exactly a friend, but he was always there in my class, his presence felt only through his music. We rarely spoke to each other other than in a long bus journey when we were forced to take it together due to a sudden public strike.

He was the guitarist in our college, never attending classes but the constant face in every concert. The teetotaler who never enjoyed the college life but was with his music. Rarely do you meet people like that in our trade, where everyone were flipping vocabulary cards for GRE and TOEFL. His fingers were always folded ...pretending to play music, strumming his guitar whether he had the guitar or not with him. And he would grin at me with when I shake my head when he fake plays. In that long journey, when I asked a child who was standing near me to be seated on my lap, he stopped and told me never to give space which you cannot. As I saw his name again on an FB list, those words just boomeranged into my life again projected from the clouds.

Strangely, he is now a photographer. I couldn't believe his new profession. Yet, I never asked why he changed but I mentioned his guitar and he said, he plays that only rarely these days. He is in Mumbai now and he is the unsettled one in our batch. My other friends in FB are full with settleness, smiling children’s pictures, the last vacations they took, the whoami-seeme displays.

His page is clean, nothing but his amazing brilliant stunning photographs. He is singing the song of unsettleness. We didn't exchange pleasantries, he never asked me what I am up to these days, the usual questions. It was okay whatever I am and it was okay whatever he is now. We dint need to know. Then silence.

There it is again, a stranger, a strange incident...gives me the vigor to stand on my feet again. Have the wind in my hair again. And learn to undo the things I so wanted to. Just needed to listen to the music from the guitars that were never played.

With that, I am starting my blog again in a new format. All I know is I love to write and I want to use the same space instead of a new one. This is going to be like a mix of songs, stories, politics, movies, and then food. Like a day of your life.

To start one, I started with a chocolate mousse. There were days when I didn't know what a hand mixer was and stiff egg whites meant, stirring in eggs and getting your hand stiff. I have come a long way, where the mousse is as heavenly as the one I had at Ebony in Bangalore a decade ago.

I followed Sanjeev Kapoor's recipe. Didnt add whipped cream, instead melted some chocolate and made rolls.

INGREDIENTS
Chocolate 150 grams
Coffee powder 1 tablespoon
Eggs, separated 4
Butter 1 tablespoon
Vanilla essence 1/2 teaspoon
Sugar 50 grams

METHOD
Melt chocolate in a bowl over a slow heat, used a double boiler or chocolate would burn. Stir in coffee powder and two tablespoons of water as the chocolate starts to melt. Simmer until slightly thickened. Remove from heat and beat egg yolks into the mixture one by one until the mixture thickens. Beat in butter and vanilla essence. Let the mixture cool until tepid. Whip egg whites with sugar with a stand mixer starting slow and increasing to high until stiff peaks and fold into the above mixture. Pour into individual glasses and chill. Remember the egg is not cooked. So used good fresh eggs. Serve within the same day.

Dedicated : To all those strangers who left me with their songs.

Banana Bread

The first Sunday of every February, United States selects a new Pope. They shift the Vatican to a stadium, build up some holy smoke, chant, sing hymns, worship and reinforce the only religion they truly believe in -- American Football and the event is the great Super Bowl. In between they watch the most expensive commercials, true to the American capitalism and eat lot and lot of food, like any festival on earth.

We too had a SuperBowl party, though I dont know or I dont care to know heads or tails. I am only bothered about the food. I made BananaBread as a snack dessert amongst many other things.

This is the super moist super delicious bread (or is it a cake) I have ever eaten or made. My guests kept on asking me whether it is a cake. It is not a cake, but then again cake it is with the texture and taste. I am bowled over. Super bowled over!

I got this recipe from Betty Crocker website and true to what was written on there, it was all that and much more.

(Recipe slightly modified)
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
4 mashed very ripe bananas
1/2 cup plain yogurt (I used Danon)
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I use King Arthur's)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped almonds
1 tsp powdered cardamom seeds

Mix the butter and sugar until it is fluffy. Add the eggs and beat it well into the mixture. Add bananas, yogurt, vanilla. Mix it well. Then add flour, baking soda, salt and just stir in the ingredients. Add almonds and mix slowly. One important thing I learned about baking is after you add flour, do not beat it. Just stir and mix slowly. This makes very soft breads and cakes.

I used a spring foam pan. Grease the pan with butter. Pour in the batter and bake in a preheated oven in 350 degrees for around 1 hour or until a tooth pick inserted comes in clean.



Take from oven and wait for two hours before you slice it.

Rasamalai

Never in my life I thought I would like cheese, lest I cook with it. But here I am licking every cheesy bit of this super easy delicious dessert a 5 year old can make.

I got this recipe from RP, but her blog is now closed :(. RP, Open up your kitchen please....

But then, if she is taking a break, why dont I write about this 5 minute in making dessert your guests are going to fall in love with. Honestly, I never cared for rasamalai, but this has made me change a lot of tiny little spots on my taste buds.

Buy a can of Whole Ricotta Cheese (refrigerate it for a day). Drop it into a bowl just right from the refrigerator. This makes it less watery. Add sugar say, 1/2 cup at first, whisk cheese and sugar using a beater, check for sweetness, add more and more and more :-)

Then, empty all that into a baking pan. I have tried using cookie pans and the picture I have here is one from it, but i really think using a cake pan or a glass pan is better and you cut them after baking. Somehow it feels it tastes better. So bake it in 350 degrees for 30 minutes or 45 minutes until a tooth pick comes out clean.

Take from oven. Refrigerate it.

Boil two cups of milk and reduce milk to one cup, add strands of saffron and enough sugar, add pistachio or/and slivered almonds.

Cut them into nice squares and add the milk sauce. They just dissolve into your mouth.

Achappam

Think this is the only snack that's made with a hot iron dipped into hot oil in India. Most of the other snacks we pour the batter directly into oil. Also, it is a little strange that this snack is a favorite mostly among Kerala Christians. So I start looking for it, I find something similar in Thailand, then out of all the places Scandinavia and then rest of Europe -- all made with rosette stone. Aha! It would have been brought in by the missionaries. And the snack resembles the shape of a Rosette.

Achappam aptly named as a snack made with achu, which means mold.

This one is one easy recipe you wouldn't think from the complex shapes. I always thought this is going to be a very difficult one which I would never get right. I was wronnnggg. What you need is an achappam mold. I got this from Kerala. The mold dangles from the handle.

(Recipe adapted from K.M Mathew's pachakarama)

White rice flour powdered fine - 1/2 kilo.
Egg - 2
Freshly squeezed coconut milk - 2 cups.
Sugar - 1 cup
Vanilla Essence - 1 tsp
Salt - just to adjust taste
Black sesame seeds - 2 tsp
Cumin seeds - 1 tsp

Beat the egg well and add to the flour along with coconut milk. Dont pour the entire coconut milk at one go. Slowly add to the flour.

The batter should be thicker than the dosa batter but dippable and pourable. Add rest of the ingredients, adjust salt or sugar accordingly. If you add too much sugar, it wont come off the mold. So first dont add the give sugar. Try with some and then add and adjust.

The most interesting part is the making. You have to get this right with some practice, like, say 5 minutes :)

Heat vegetable oil with the iron mold dipped in.

The oil should not smoke, but should be hot hot.

Now, dip the mold into the batter, only half way of the rosette shape. Dont dip it completely. If you are unsure just dip it lightly. Then put it into the oil and just shake it a little bit or use a fork. If everything is good, a little shake and nudge is all it requires to come off the mold and into the oil. Then dip the mold again into the oil, and into the batter. The key is the mold should be hot and with the oil. So the batter will barely cling to it until we dip it again in oil so it will release.

Fry until it turns color lightly and take off from the oil and strain the oil from the snack using a tissue covered plate.

Palm Sunday Kozhukkatta

There was this Sunday at church where we kids could play, play with smooth cream and green leaves, curl it up into shapes, making crosses, or just folding it until the brown creases show through and pretend they were work of art – all the while parents wouldn’t mind as long as we didn’t destroy the leaves or start a sword fight or trying to hold the thinner ends and try to fish or make them unholy by making them touch ground. It was this special day when you make kozhukkattas the previous night, it was not for the kozhukkattas but for the making and rolling and the filling and the smacking by our moms for dropping them on the ground that we waited for this special day. It is called Palm Sunday where Catholics celebrate the remembrance of arrival of Christ on a donkey into Jerusalem where the people waved and welcomed him with palm leaves singing Hosana (hence the name Hosana Sunday in Malayalam).

Certain areas in Kerala like Trichur make kozhukkata, others make pachoru (sweetened rice), and some others make avalnurukku, -- basically something sweet for this special day.

Today, Palm Sunday is the start of the Holy Week, a week full of ceremonies before Easter. It was surprising to me that Good Friday was not a Holiday in U.S, probably because you couldn’t wish Happy Good Friday and sell some stuff, like a Good Friday Fairy or something at McDonalds like a Good Friday Burger. Good Friday, though the name is suggestive of something good happening is not ‘good’ but a sad Friday since that’s the day Christ was crucified, and please don’t wish anyone Happy Good Friday since my friends have done that to me.

This recipe is for kozhukkatta. It is steamed rice dumplings filled with sweet coconut

Rice Flour used for making Appams – 1 cup (i.e. roasted and powdered rice flour)
Water – 2 cups
Ghee – 1 tsp
Salt

Mix the below list of ingredients with hand thoroughly and keep aside.
Cardamom powder – ½ tsp
Cumin – 1 tsp
Freshly grated coconut – 1 cup
1/2 cup jaggery

Bring water to a boil and take off from heat, add salt and ghee. Now slowly add rice flour ¼ cup at a time and make it to a smooth ball. Knead it well. You should be able to make small balls and it should stick. Divide dough to equal portions and make small balls. The important thing is to have a medium sized ball, since the filling will make it bigger and when you steam them, it won’t cook well.

Keep aside ½ cup of freshly squeezed coconut milk to stick the ends of the dough balls and to fill any holes that form. You can either make small balls and flatten them out and fill them with the coconut mixture or you can make a big depression inside the ball and fill it up. Dip your fingers in the coconut milk occasionally so that it is easier to handle the dough. Make sure the dough is lighter when you fill them with coconut mixture.

Steam them in idli cookers for 10 or 15 minutes. Serve with coconut milk as a dipping sauce. Refrigerate the leftovers for no more than one day.

Please dont wish me Happy Palm Sunday too, for there are some ceremonies and traditions where you just dont have to wish :-)

Melting Moments

I am a big fan of spicyana and her fairy like creations. It is not only that she creates beautiful artifacts; she handles the camera at amazing angles and will make you drool over the fantastic pictures. Her aesthetic sense is amazing.

So when she made ‘melting moments’ last Christmas and packed goodie bags, I so so wanted one of that.

I don’t have Archana near by me so I had to make them myself and lo the right time for these ‘melting moments’ is indeed Christmas.


I liked the part in the recipe where it said, it will keep good for storage and so I could make them ahead.

Recipe Courtesy: Joy of Baking.

Sift one and half cups all purpose flour and 1/2 cup cornstarch and 1/4 teaspoon salt and whisk them together.

Using a beater beat 1 cup of butter and add ¼ cup of powdered sugar and beat them together to a smooth consistency. Add 1 tsp of vanilla for flavor and add the flour to this and mix thoroughly.

If the dough is firm, you can right away make the balls. Or refrigerate to make it firm for one hour or so and then make small balls (one inch) and keep them on a baking sheet with parchment or wax paper. Keep the balls one inch apart as they will expand while cooking.

Preheat oven to 350 and bake them for 10 minutes. Now cool them and then transfer to a surface coated with powdered sugar. Arrange them in a single layer and sprinkle powdered sugar

This is my first batch and I used vanilla flavor. These are so easy to make I am going to try these with different flavors.

Melt them in your mouth moments!

Kerala Rich Fruit Cake

This time I made a lot of cakes all at once, Usually I make them batch by batch so that I could correct in the later batches. I tried my luck this time and took one whole day for baking… it was smelling Christmas all last Sunday and as the cakes sit there waiting to be eaten it sure smells like a Bakery. So Welcome to Ginger and Mango Bakeries.

I am not a good baker and I follow K.M Mathews cake recipes to the dot. I am very reluctant to make any changes to it, since I don’t know the complicated science of baking.

This recipe is from her book, Naadan Pachakarama.

I don’t know whether any part of India other than Kerala has this tradition. Maybe Goa? This is a big tradition of cake baking, rich fruit cake. But let me tell you, I had fruit cake in Italy and I didn’t like it a bit. It was soo hard and chewy. This Kerala fruit cake is a mix between fruit cake and plum cake. It is very soft, has lots of fruit and nuts and will keep well for days.

I multiply the quantities and this time I multiplied them by 8 times. If you want to make just one cake for a smaller family I would say to divide these quantities by 4.

One thing about baking is measurement. Do not guess the measurement like you would do for a curry. You have to buy that measuring spoons, measuring cups and the kitchen weighing machine if you ever think of baking. If the recipe calls for room temperature, yes it definitely means room temperature and you cannot directly mix the ingredients from the refrigerator.

Another thing is the freshest ingredients and these do make a big difference in the quality and the storage of the cakes. I usually buy them only the previous day.

The easiest part of this cake is the soaking.

Black raisins – 150 gm
I buy fruit cake mix dried fruits which come in a single packet – 200gm.
(You can buy different dried fruits and mix them together in proportion.)
Now buy some cheap brandy and soak them. For this quantity of fruits you would require ½ cup of brandy.

See the last post for soaking.

Soak the fruits I would say one week ahead. You can also soak them two or 1 days ahead. Soak them for one week in a non-metallic jar and stir them every day to get them mixed nicely in brandy. Keep them airtight and also in a large jar since the fruits plump up when soaked.

The recipe calls for dicing the fruits before soaking. I have tried that and God it is so much work. So these days I don’t do it since I make this in large quantities. You have to dice a raisin into two if you want to follow the recipe. This is to make sure the cake while slicing won’t have crumbs. Ah! I don’t care, let it crumb, let it crumb, let it crumb! :)

Dice a cashew into four. Like that keep ¼ cup raw cashew nuts ready and soak them in Almond essence and keep aside.

Okay, so soaked them? Now onto the next step, caramalization.

Boil ¼ cup of water. Now take a pan and in low heat, add ¼ cup sugar and keep on stirring, You will see the sugar getting dissolved and changing color. When the sugar is browning and not burning, it produces an instant coffee color. Take from heat and slowly add the hot water and keep it again in the flame. While adding water be extra careful, since it will splash and burn your fingers. Now keep stirring continuously until it forms caramel color syrup. Take from heat and let it cool.
(This time I didn’t brown the caramel as I should have to a deep dark brown, fearing if a small mistake would destroy my entire batter. A little more of browning is good)

Now on to Butter. Please do not use substitutes, you are eating a cake. Unsalted Butter. Make sure it is not salted and yes, do not let your hubby dears do the shopping for this.

So, Butter at room temperature. That means it should not be a stick and rather it should be soft and gooey to touch.

Butter 250 gm. With a hand mixer or in a stand mixer, lightly beat the butter until fluffy.

Now add 300gm powdered sugar to this and beat it thorough until you don’t see any lumps.

Separate 5 eggs at room temperature as whites and yellows. To do this, make a small hole on the top of the egg and pour out all the white and the yellow will stay inside the egg shell.

Add the yellow to the butter sugar mix and beat it slightly until they mix good.

Sift 250gm of unbleached All purpose flour. Yes sifting is important. Make sure you are not buying flour premixed with rising agents etc. This is the plain All purpose flour and unbleached. Add 1 teaspoon of baking powder to this flour and sift.

Now add this sifted flour in small quantities to the egg butter mix and beat it slow. You cannot use a hand mixer now, since the mix is going to be hard. So either use a stand mixer or use your hand. Incorporate the flour into the mix. After this add ¼ cup of fine sooji into this.

Now you can add the cold caramel. Beat the egg whites separate and add to the mixture. Add 1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract to the batter. Add one teaspoon of lemon essence and mix.

You are now ready to add the nuts and the fruits. Mix a little flour to the cashew nuts so that they dont sink to the bottom of the cake batter.

Fold the fruits and the nuts into the cake batter and mix with hand slowly.

Now keep aside this batter with a closed lid for 6 hours.

After that you can start baking. Either butter the cake pan or cut wax paper or parchment paper and use it inside the cake pan so the cake wont stick to the pan. What I do is, use butter or margarine and make spots inside the cake pan and then add the wax paper so it will stick to the pan and then pour in the batter

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and when ready, bake the cake. Make sure when you pour the batter, pour only half of the cake pan. Since the batter would rise while baking.

Bake it for on hour or so. Keep checking after 50 minutes by inserting a toothpick into the cake and if it comes clean with no batter, your cake is ready.

This cake needs to age. Yes, at least it would need to age for 2-3 days before you get the real taste. The process of aging is a must for these kind of cakes. So when the cake is real cold after baking, cover it in wax paper and aluminum foil and keep aside in an airtight container.

After 24 days of advent and midnight mass, we would reach home from the church and we all gather around the table for my mother to serve the cake. The cake keeps us kids busy while she heats the curries to break the fasting of 24 days. My mother bakes beautiful cakes in her small electric oven. It was round in shape and would look like a flying saucer especially when it is baking with small red lights. Anyone remembers that small electric oven?

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.

Ginger Candy and Injithair

It has been a couple of blog years since I took part in JFI. I know I know they have been missing my entry :-). RP reminded me of JFI and this time the ingredient is JFI-Ginger. How can a ginger girl from ‘Ginger and Mango’ not take part in that?

So, I thought of all complicated dishes and ended up on this very complicated dish called Injithair in South Kerala. This I have seen only served during Onam festival sadya.

Grate some ginger 1 cup, 3 green chilies, crush them together, add 1 cup of curd.
That’s it. Injithair is ready.

Then I remembered how long back Sarah wanted the recipe for injimuttai or ginger candy. This candy is sold especially in bus stops by small vendors, for this can alleviate the nausea and discomfort during the bus journeys. This was the only candy that passed the test of parents and you could eat them lot.
I didn’t get the recipe for injimuttai. I searched for ginger candy and ended up with lot of recipes. I am unable to remember whether the ginger candy we used to eat was made from whole ginger or ginger juice? Anyway I made with ginger pieces. Boil 1 cup of diced ginger pieces in water for 15 minutes and strain. This makes the ginger pieces softer.

For 1 cup of ginger, add ½ cup of sugar and 2 cups of water and bring to a boil and then simmer until the sugary water evaporates completely. Make sure ginger pieces do not start to stick to the pan. Take off from heat, arrange the ginger pieces on a wax paper and dry them. (I used brown sugar and the candy resembled garnet)
I am not sure whether the ginger candy or the nostalgia tasted great.

My India, My Country

When idea-girl Indira came up with the theme of Independence, I wanted to write about some food that would be equally pleasing to North, South, East and West. Nah! I was not at all successful. I think we might agree on Kashmir some day, but not on a common food likeable by all of us.

The thought of food made me think of a great man who fasted seventeen times for all of us. Without him we Indians cannot mention the word freedom. Without his non-violence and leadership our freedom would have been a lot more bloody and our country would have turned a hell. Without his guidance and willpower, our leaders would have been lost with a huge country with so many different languages and cultures.

When British left us, we were robbed to the last penny. Famine and violence were everywhere.When they left us, they wished, we ‘uncivilized’ Indians would fight among ourselves and would disperse and they could laugh at that.

We might be a little poor, we might be a little corrupt, and we might have lot of follies of a nation celebrating only the 60th Independence Day.

Yet, we are surviving…beautifully! We are having the last laugh.

India has gained respect in the eyes of others. We didn’t do that by bombing another nation or demeaning another country. We did it with our passion and internal strength. For that, I am a lot thankful.

Thinking of fasting, it occurred to me that Gandhiji ended his fasting with nimbu pani. Yes, a simple sweet lemon juice.So, I made lemon juice…in a different way. It is called bonji in Trivandrum, Kerala. The fun part is equal amount of sugar and salt is added. It gives the lemon juice a very special taste. It is mainly available in small shack teashops. Since sugar is beaten well to dissolve with a steel spoon against the steel glass and it makes a taka taka noise and this process is called bonji adikkal which translates somewhat to beating bonji :-)

To celebrate our hard-earned freedom we need something sweet. Distributing sweets to near and dear is our common way of celebrating any happy occasion across India.

So, I made payasam. Kerala's own 'Pal Payasam'. God's own Country's special!
This sweet dessert is made with matta red rice.
Bring 3 cups of milk to a boil. Add ½ cup of sugar. Add 1 cup of washed rice. Let the rice cook in this. Add 1 tsp of cardamom powder.Heat 1/8 cup of ghee. Sauté 2 tbs of raw cashew nuts and 2 tbs of raisins. Add to the payasam.Serve as a dessert.

Freedom is sweet. Wishing and hoping every child on this earth would enjoy freedom!

Munthirikkotthu (Sweet Moong Dal Balls)

Yipppee!! I am jiving for Jihva!Finally, finally I could make something on time to take part in the great Jihva for Dals.
This is a very traditional and very uncommon recipe from Kerala. To be specific, only seen and known in Central Kerala, or to be more precise, the exact centre point in Central Kerala. If you keep two steps to the left or right, you won’t find it and most people wont even know about it. (Now, please don’t tell me, “Hey I live in Bihar, we make this every day. This is our common snack and all”. I want to feel like I am giving out a secret authentic recipe :))

I wanted to blog this, particularly because it is disappearing fast. I asked ten Malayalees and only one of them have even heard about it. My mom-in-law makes it and packs them in loads when we travel back to U.S. If we are flying from my home, my mom and brothers would finish half the package...giving me excuses like ‘We never ate something like this’, ‘You already have half more packet for the two of you’,'You can ask her to make more, we cant’ and the rest of the package my husband finishes off with a vengeance the first two days after we reach here, claiming on homesickness. I end up with crumbs! This is her recipe for Munthirikkotthu (Munthiri means grapes in Malayalam and kothu means roughly powdered. However, there is no grapes in thisroasted rice

Roast 1 cup of split moong dal and 1 cup of raw rice separately in a pan brushed with ghee.roasted moong dal
Roast them well until moong dal turns golden and rice turns a little brown.ground mixture

Grind it together to a coarse sooji rawa consistency. Don’t grind fine.

Alternatively, you can only use moong dal for this.Then double the amount of moong dal in this recipe when it replaces rice.

Roast ¾ cup of coconut also after this in the same pan. Don’t brown it, just roast the coconut very dry. Also, Roast 1/2 cup of cashew nuts in ghee and dice them small.

450gm of Jaggery or Brown sugar powdered and liquefied with 3/4 or 1 cup of water.

Melt Jaggery and add water and make it a liquid. Add coconut to this mixture. Make sure the heat is low so as not to burn the jaggery or sugar.

While the sugar syrup is hot, Mix the moong dal, rice, ¼ tsp of cardamom powder, ¼ tsp of dry ginger powder and cashew. The mixture should not be watery.The trickiest messiest part is now. We need to make small balls with this mixture before the sugar hardens. Make small balls in your fist and press them tightly. You might need some extra hands if you are not quick enough.

This was hard for me, so what I did was, I took a 1 tbs measuring spoon and pressed the mixture into this and flipped the measuring spoon downwards so the mixture forms small balls, flat on one side. If you don’t have heat resistant hands, it is very hard. My measuring spoon trick would be good for you.making small balls with the mixture
My mom in law makes small round perfect balls, all with her own hands. While I was doing this, I really felt so bad for my mom-in-law. I will be busy shopping, talking,getting excited etc., while she is painstakingly doing all this for us and we just gulp them all without even thinking about all the hard work for a moment. I have never even seen her making this. I only see neat little packets. I am so bad :(

Let the small balls cool down completely. The sugar will harden when it cools which will make the balls hard.

Make a batter with the same consistency of ‘idli batter’. Add water to 1 cup of All Purpose Flour and 1 cup of idli rawa or rice which is coarsely ground. Roast ¼ cup of some black sesame seeds in ghee and add to this batter along with some salt.

Now dip the small balls in the batter and fry them in any frying oil. Dry them completely.This stays good for one or two months in a glass jar.Serve it as a snack.What’s the best way to your husband’s heart? Re-creating his childhood!

Rava unniappam (Sooji mini pancakes)

I can't take it any more. I am reading about so many recipes with this unniyappam pan and so many different names. But what happened to the sweet delicacy called unniappam (or unniyappam or sweet mini pancakes) which I love, made with the same pan?

Small tea-shops you find at every corner in Kerala smell of this in the evening tea-time. They make it and store in large glass cases to test small kids, I think.

You can be groomed to become a well-behaved child every single day, but you know, you can’t help but ask your parent to buy you this, when you pass the tea-shop and will end up crying because parents normally like to deny anything you ask, especially from a shacky tea-shop.

Since it is fried in oil, at home, my mom would make it only when there were like hundreds of people, so she wouldn’t have to ‘waste’ the oil. The end result being, you can get your hands on only one or two of these, while your ‘brutal’ cousins and other relatives are having unniyappam chaakara in their mouths.I made it with Sooji or Rava.(There is another version with Rice flour and coconut which I will post later sometime)

The first thing you need is a special skillet as you can see from Indira’s recipes. Don’t worry, you don’t have to go to India but you can buy the pan (Western version) here.

Recipe:Mix 1 cup of Sooji with 1 tsp of ghee.Add enough milk to make it a thick mixture. The mixtures should be of thick consistency, a little thicker than idli batter. Mix in 1/4 cup mashed small banana.Add 1/4 cup jaggery crumbs heated with ¼ cup water and strained - 1/4 cup
OR if adding sugar, add brown sugar -1/2 cup.Mix everything together (try to make the mixture fluffy with air bubbles) and let it sit for one hour.

We need to fry this in oil (Mostly at temples,they fry this in ghee). Use any vegetable oil. Pour oil into each impression. Fill oil upto 3/4th full in each impression. Heat the oil.

When it starts to smoke, pour the batter into each impression filled with oil. DO NOT COVER the skillet. After 5 or 6 minutes, flip the uniappam to the other side and cook. (I couldn’t take good pics, but follow the steps in the recipe, and make it the same way except we don’t cover and we pour oil filling half of each impression.)Serve with hot tea or coffee. The smell of jaggery in oil is heavenly. I used brown sugar i.e. why the light brown colour, if jaggery is used it will be dark brown in colour.