I hate bitter gourd; You love bitter gourd – I

This is the first episode of the “I hate bitter gourd; You love bitter gourd” series. Thanks to all my fellow foodies who gave a hearty welcome when I wrote about this series a week ago.

As an introduction this post shall discuss about what defines a person’s constitution and what defines individual’s taste.

Siddha says every thing in this world is made up of “The Pancha Boodham”. The pancha (five) bootham are:

1. Earth (mann)
2. Water (Neer)
3. Wind (Kaatru)
4. Sky (Aagayam)
5. Fire (Nerupu)

Each of the above has its own properties.

Earth element: Volume, Persistence, Mass and Smell
Water element: Mass, Fluidity, Cool, Taste
Fire element : Dryness, Sharpness, Heat, Purity, Light, Clarity
Wind element: Lightness, Purity, Dryness
Sky element :Clarity, Purity, Sound

The 6 tastes are listed as Sweet, Tart, Bitter, Salty, Hot, Tangy.

The composition of the pancha boodham created various tastes.

Earth + Water =  Sweet
Earth + Fire = Tangy
Water + Fire = Salty
Wind + Sky = Bitter
Wind + Fire = Hot
Earth + Wind = Tart

All these listings might get you boring but you wonder “what is in it for me?”All the tastes as said above are various combinations of the Pancha Boodham. Every human body in turn is made of the same and that defines an individual’s body constitution.

The next post in the series will explain the Vatha, Pitha Kaba constitutions. After which you would be able to find your own body constitution and the above listed compositions of tastes would make you realize why you like a particular taste and why you hate some.

A sweet taste if it comes from a Rasagulla would act differently in your body from the one comes from a pomegranate fruit. The various tastes when reaches the body during assimilation changes to some other taste. For example when eaten Honey tastes sweet but when it reaches the body it acts as a bitter tasting food would. Siddha says “Then naavirku Inipu, Udaluku Kaipu” i.e., Honey is sweet to the tongue but bitter to the body and hence it is recommended for diabetic patients too.

Enough of it for the kick-off post. The next post will contain details about body constitution and mapping that to the pancha boodham.
  

Manga Pachadi – Cuddalore style

Raw mangoes are always a favorite that too during the summer. Its always fun to much on thin slices sprinkled with some chilliw powder and salt or simply salt. There is a type called “Arisi Maanga” which has less tanginess and you can munch on a whole mango all together at a time.

 

Mangoes are usually paired up with summer vacations. When we lived in Cuddalore our neighbour had a big mango tree. The problem is only the trunk and the roots are in his backyard and the entire tree is towards ours. So most of the mangoes comes to us while he watered the tree

My sis a great kid on checking and identifying the mangoes in several stages. She knows which branch had the young ones, which ones were nearing ripening stage etc. We would climb on the terrace from where we can reach even the top most branches and would pluck mangoes in various stages.

 

Enough of the story and this pachadi is our family favorite and how much ever made we always lick the bowl clean. Usually its served as a side dish but I enjoy licking my fingers dipped in it from a cup after a hearty meal.

Ingredients:

Raw magoes (skin removed and cut into 2 inch cubes ) – 4 cups

Jaggery – 1 cup

Salt – 1/4 tea spoon

Peanut oil – 1 tea spoon

Dry red chillies – 2

Coriander leaves – 1 Sprig

Mustard + Jeera seeds – 1/2 tea spoon

Asfoetida – 1 pinch

How to make it ?

In a thick bottomed vessel put the raw mango pieces and add 1/2 cup of water and cover it with a lid. Let it cook for 7- minutes or until the entire thing becomes mushy. Sprinkle the salt over it and add the jaggery now. In one or two minutes the jaggery will melt nicely and get blended with the mango. Give a taste and if u want it more sweeter add little more jaggery. Switch off the stove.

In a thick bottomed small vessel add the peanut oil and once hot add the mustard and jeera seeds. Once they pop add the asfoetida, curry leaves and split red chillies. Mix in low flame for 10 – 12 seconds and pur it over the mango mix. Mix well and serve with rotis or rice and dal.

You can have it as it is or even try it out as a spread for u’re bread.

Thirukkai meen kuzhambu – Paravai Muniamma style

Paravai Muniyamma is known for her village recipes from southern Tamilnadu even though she is a famous singer. She hosts a Sunday afternoon show in which she quickly whips up snacks, vegetarian and non-veggie dishes. What I like the most out of her’s is the ingredients that go into the dish. You can imagine the aroma that would rise when the dish is cooking. She grinds the pastes required in a stone grinder and cooks in earthernware which would definitely add the distinctness for any dish.

Also at the end she would sing a nice folk song about the dish and about the person she would invite to taste it. Last week she demonstrated Thirukkai meen (Whip tail sting ray fish) kuzhambu. Amma had made this umpteem number of times during my pregnancy and lactation days but she cannot wait to make it again in Muniamma’s way.

And what to say, we had a treat

And I am giving the recipe below. No changes to the recipe!

Ingredients needed :

Thirukkai fish (cleaned and cut in to 3 inch squares) – 1/2 KG

Small onions – 20

Garlic pods – 20

Tomato – 1 big chopped

Tamarind – 1 medium sized lemon soaked with 1 teaspoon of salt in 4 glass of water for 15 minutes

Gingelly oil – 4 T spoon

Vadagam – 1 T spoon for taalipu

To be ground to a paste:

Black peppercorn - 3 T spoon

Red chillies – 6

Cumin – 2 T spoon

Coriander seeds – 4 T spoon

A little piece of kombu manjal or 1/2 teaspoon of turmeric powder

First take all the ingredients for the paste and grind it to a smooth paste with little water. Squeeze the soaked tamarind to get all the extract and then filter it in a colander. In the tamarind liquid mix the ground paste and well.

In a thick bottomed vessel heat the gingelly oil and once hot add the vadagam. Let it turn golden brown and add the garlic pods. Saute till they turn golden and add the small onions and saute till they turn pinkish. Add the tomatoes and cook till they turn mushy. Add the tamarind-masala mix now and mix well. Check for salt now and add if required more. Let it boil for 10 minutes. Add the fish pieces and cover the vessel with the lid. Let it cook for another 10 minutes and by this time the oil will get separated. Garnish with coriander leaves. This is a thick gravy like kulumbu and the fragrance it spread the whole house when boiling is extra ordinary. The ingredients and their quantity might sound that this is a fiery kuzhambu but actually not. The coriander seeds and the mixing of the paste in the tamarind liquid actually mellows the pepper’s hot taste.

Thanks to Paravai Muniamma for this wonderful recipe!

Choco Mava Peda – RCI Bengal

When Sandeepa announced this RCI Bengal its just a coincidence that I discovered Tarladala’s Mithai recipe book the day before. It was almost more than 3 weeks but only last weekend I was able to buy the Kova required for the sweet.

It came out well as I played along a bit in the layering part and with addition of nuts. And here comes the recipe.

Ingredients:

Unsweetened Kova – 100 gm

Sugar – 100 gm

Cardomom seeds powdered – 1/4 tea spoon

Coco powder - 1 Table spoon

Cucumber seeds – 1 Tabel spoon

 Ghee – 1 Table spoon

How to make it ?

Heat a thick bottomed vessel and add the kova and sugar. Mix well as the sugar starts melting reduce the flame and cook till the mix leaves the pan. Add the ghee and give a fianl mix and take it out of the stove. Let it cool completely. Divide the mixture into 1/3 and 2/3.

Combine the coco powder and cucumber seeds to the 1/3 part and mix well. Spread the 2/3 part in a plate greased with little ghee and leave it in the refirgerator for 10 minutes. Now take it out and spread the coco mixture evenly on top of it. Again leave it in the fridge for 10 minutes. Take it out and slice it into desired shapes. A very simple but delicious sweet!

This is my entry for RCI Bengal conducted my lovely Bong Mom Sandeepa!

Chocolate brownie with Dulce de leche (From David Lebovitz)

Do you remember the can of Dulce de leche I made few days ago ? Half of the can was lying in the fridge and that went into this delicious chocolate brownie this weekend. David Lebovitz has made this and nicely decribed it here. No wonder it was the same as he described even though I played with the flour substituting half of the AP flour with a blend of oats powder and corn flour.

When I took it out of the oven after the prescribed 35 mins of baking the center part was still giggling but the sides were already pulling apart the pan menaing further baking would burn it for sure. So I timidly waited for around 15-20 minutes for the cake to cool down. And as I doubted the Dulce de leche had created that giggling effect and when I inserted a knife in the center of the cake it came out little sticky because of the intense chocolate that went in to it.

 

But it was heavenly. Very choclaty, little goey in the middle nad simply superb. So, Citizen and Country men! I have decided to make all my brownies this way herein after

Since it turned to be good now I shall reveal all the playing I done with the ingredients. Actually I made a chocolate tart for my elder one. Bought some readymade mini tart shells and filled them with the basic whipped cream + chocolate ganache. I drizzled some whipped cream to make spider web patterns (actually he wanted a spider man cake-thats who he calls it) and I hoaxed him with this. He is quiet satisfied though

More than half of the ganache I made was leftover. So I decided to use it in this brownie. For the required 170g os chocolate to be melted in butter I used only 100g of chocolate melted in butter and the rest was this ganache. This gave a very creamy choclatey taste than from the bit drier version of my usual brownies. Also as specified above the 1 cup flour is substituted with 1/2 cup AP flour + 1/4 cup corn flour + 1/4 cup Oats powder. Also I skipped the nuts part even though would love it. As the kids spit them out every time

And this gave me this wonderful brownie! I would recommend all chocolate lovers to try this version. I bet you’ll be fallen for the taste.

Bread Peas Masala – A sandwich of the ’60s

When bread is not a common food at home, when it visits homes only during days of sickness people were not aware of sandwiches here atleast in the coastal villages of Tamilnadu. Amma used to make a french toast occasionally and serve with a tomato chutney.

But the hotels during 1960’s were serving this wonderful dish. Appa is a great fan of this particular dish. Even though its very common and can be made anytime in a day now, those were the days when Appa used to visit his favorite hotel to give himself a treat. Appa was living on hotel food during his bachelor days of work. He is such a nice foodie (that should have go into my gene) as even in the remote village he worked, he was able to find places which serve good, quality and tasty food and he won’t mind walk/cycle miles to have them. Once he has said he used to visit a hotel sharp 10:30 AM everyday morning to have his hot plate of biriyani which would keep him full till 3 PM in the evening. He used to describe about how many hotels owners took efforts to serve good food. It was done as a ritual and those were the days when the owners walk around and monitor the service the entire working time. Those people know their customers by names and develop a nice wrap-around which made the customers hooked to their business for long term.

And coming to the title this particular dish contains 2 / 3 servings of Peas masala (recipe follows) and 2 large slices of crisply toasted bread. The peas masal would be in a slightly gravy consistency and not too dry. The bread peices are toasted with little ghee / butter till hard and crisp in slow flame in a tawa. Appa was able to describe it exactly even now.

This Sunday I treated appa with his favorite dish and he said its almost close to the original except that the peas masala was bit dry. But he enjoyed it thoroughly.

Ingredients:

2 Slices of Sandwich bread

Fresh Green peas -  1 cup

Onion – thinly sliced 1 medium sized

Tomato – chopped 2 T spoon

Ginger & garlic paste – 1/2 tea spoon

Sambar podi – 1/2 tea spoon

Turmeric powder – 1 pinch

Salt – as per taste

Peanut oil – 1 T spoon

Butter / ghee – for toasting

 

How to make it ?

Apply ghee or butter on the bread slices and toast in a slow flame on a tawa until crisp and bit hard.

For the Peas masala:

In a thick bottomed vessel heat the peanut oil. Once hot add the ginger garlic paste and fry till they turn golden brown. Now add the sliced onions and saute till they turn pink. Add the tomatoes and cook till they turn mushy. Add the sambar podi and turmeric powder and salt and saute for 5 seconds. Now add the fresh peas. If you are using dried peas soak them in water overnight and pressure cook for 2-3 whistles and add it to the gravy. Saute all of them for 1-2 minutes till the peas wilt slightly. Add 1/2 cup of water and cook covered until the peas get cooked. If pre-cooked peas are used this time can be just enough for the entire mixture come together like a thick gravy. Decorate with chopped coriander leaves and take it off the stove.

 

Serve the warm bread slices along with the masala.

And coming to the fun part of this post Appa narrated an incident when he took his friend for a treat to that hotel. His friend is a person not so used to spoons and forks and this particular dish is served with a fork and a spoon. Somehow due to several visits appa have mastered the technique of using those “special instruments” to break the hard toasted bread but his poor friend is very new to these. After the waiter has served them Appa had demonstrated how to cut the bread using the fork and the spoon. When his friend tried the same steps (would have applied more force I think) the crispply toasted read slice flew like a flying saucer and landed exactly in the next table. You can imagine the after the effects but these two bachelors (my father having an innocent face) had somehow esacped before the situation turn furious We cannot stop laughing how many ever times we hear this incident!

Grapes and Pineapple – What a combo?

When my sister said she had made this drink with grapes and pineapple my question was “What a combo?” I know grapes are tart tasting and the pineapple on the tangy side and thought the combi would be totally spoiling. But when she gave me this glass of drink it was absolutely fantastic. Whats there in the combo after all the proportions play a game

 

She generously gave me the proportions to share it in this blog.

Ingredients:

Black grapes (seedless) – 10-15 numbers

Half of a slice of a pineapple

Sugar to taste

How to make?

Blend everything with 1/2 cup of water and strain to get this colorful and refreshing juice. I searched for grape juice recipes in fellow blogs so that I can send it to lovely Sig but think this does not qualify for her MBP as I cannot find a this combo. If anybody could help please let me know

A treasured spoon – for CLICK metal

Yes. Truly this is a treasured spoon. Its a silver spoon with wonderful carvings. Can you guess the age of this ? It would be at least more than 20 years as it was almost 20 years since it came to our house. Amma bought it from a gold smith when I was doing 8th grade. It was a second hand sale but amma was fascinated by the carvings done on it.

Since then she had treasured it for years. She had never used it for serving or feeding anybody but only for doing neivedhyam (offerings to GOD) during festival days. A few years back appa wanted a spoon to offer thulasi theertham with it and amma was more than happy to give it to him. Appa being a very religious person used to perform pooja and abhishekam at home everyday. He used to clean the spoon with soap and scratch pad everyday. One fine day amma discovered due to this regular scratching the carvings in the spoon started wearing out. She immediately got back the spoon from appa and tucked it back in the safety locker.

Nowadays the treasured spoon comes out for our darshan only during festival days that too indulged in a bowl full of payasam!

When Jai and Bee announced this month’s theme for CLICK is metal, one thing that came to my mind is this spoon. Amma was really happy that her treasured thing is going to participate in such a wonderful event. She generously gave it for a polish and it was absolutely lovely looking. I tried my best to capture it properly even though all the loving memories and amma’s attachment towards this little piece is invisible.

But when I was trying to click it, my younger one came and picked it up eagerly and before me getting alert she banged it on the floor. Before grabbing it from her hands I timidly turned towards my amma who was sitting next to me. To my surprise I could find nothing but a glorious smile on her face. She was happy to see her grand daughter playing with her treasured little piece instead of getting furious on seeing it getting banged on the floor! Crazy grand mothers!

Thoodhuvalai keerai thuvattal

Trilobatum or Thoothuvalai keerai is a wonder green. Its great in curing cold and asthma complaints. People suffering from wheezing and cold if could have this regularly can get rid of it and develop good lung strength.

Many of my fellow food blogging friends have written about it but I am adding one more recipe to this list too. We in our backyard have planted this herb and it has grown up nicely in the recent showers. Yesterday we could pluck a plate full of leaves which amma made into a delicious thuvattal.

This picture is taken in our backyard.

Ingredients: Thoothuvalai keerai – packed 1 cup

shallots – 1/2 cup chopped

Garlic – 2 pods chopped

Peanut oil – 2 T spoon

How to make it ?

This keerai has lots of thorns in the stem as well as in the back of the leaves. Use a pair of scissors and cut the thorns from each leaf. As they were just 1 inch max size you don’t need to chop the leaves.

In a thick bottomed skillet heat the oil and when it is hot add the garlic and saute till they turn golden. Now add the shallots and saute till they turn pink. Now goes leaves. Simmer the stove. Saute them till they wilt and get cooked in its own. Do not cover the vessel while the keerai is cooking. Cook in low flame till the keerai is cooked. Serve hot mixed with rice.

They taste really good in hot rice and a very good remedy for cold and cough. Can be fed to children too.

Simple delights – Sarkarai valli kizhangu (Sweet potatoes)

Back to our child hood days when coming back from school amma will be having small balls of this simple delight. I don’t know how the sweet potatoes taste that is available outside India but what we get almost resembles the normal potato with a mild sweet taste. They have very thin skin and some root like strings inside.

We can steam them but the classic one I had was when my grand mother cooked it for us in the “Venneer adupu”. This stove is used to boil hot water in large vessels using wood as fuel. After the water boiling is done the stove will be hot with red hot coal into which these sweet potatoes would be burried. After few minutes it would trun fork tender and the taste was 200% more than steam cooked sweet potatoes.

But again last week I bought a kilo gram of this. My father whenever we get this used to talk about his mother’s preparation with these. He had said that his mother would steam cook it and mash it and mix it with grated coconut, ghee and little sugar and make round balls out of it. He He had lost his mother before his marriage and thus often used to talk about her culinary skills. As he do not have any sisters there is no way for us to inherit my dear grandma’s skills

Yesterday I made the same and when gave him these balls I he was so happy and galloped them ad again we got to talk about our dear grandma as after effect for an hour.

 

Here is the simple recipe:

Ingredients:

Sweet potatoes – 1/4 KG

Sugar – 2 T spoon

Cardomom powder – 1/4 tea spoon

Ghee – 2 T spoon

 Grated fresh coconut – 2 T spoon

How to make it ?

Steam cook the sweet potatoes until fork tender. Peel off the skin and mash it thoroughly. Add all other ingredients. Melt the ghee before mixing. Mix thoroughly and make it into small balls of 2 inch diameter. I bet it would taste divine !