Tag: food

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Grandmas and green chickpeas

There is something about fresh seasonal produce that I find quite irresistible. Ruby red tomatoes, creamy cauliflowers, shiny purple brinjals, crunchy white radish and the greens – spinach, fenugreek, dil and coriander – all alluringly beautiful.

Hence vegetable shopping these days is an exercise in self control. The husband has his own theory of course. He insists it’s my all-encompassing shopping bug that does not even spare vegetables. 

Just LOOK at those colours. I clicked this one at Mahabaleswar but you do get the idea, right?

But really, they’re so fresh and healthy that they’re a complete delight to behold. I buy them and get them home and then don’t quite know what to do with them. A case in point being chana or green chickpeas that make an appearance in the winter. It was Rachna who reminded me of them.


During winter months our grandmoms would sit in the warm afternoon sun in the angan, talking till the sun went down. Yet, they were never really idle. Even as they chatted, their hands would be busy knitting, cleaning rice or daal, making sewains (the handmade ones) or of course shelling peas or chana.

We’d be drowsing by, a book in hand. The clink of chanas dropping into the steel bowl took on a hypnotic quality. Through half open eyes we’d watch the bowl filling up steadily, while the branches with empty pods still on them, piled up on the other side. We’d chip in sometimes, eating more than we shelled, only to be shooed away.
They would then be ground by hand on a stone sil-batta to get a bright green paste, which was then cooked with the most redolent of
spices – cinnamom and bay leaf, cloves and cardamoms black and green and many many others.
Finally it would turn into a thick shiny emerald green flavourful gravy. With a blob of home-made butter, it sat on a mound of equally aromatic basmati rice and made our winter lunches memorable. It was called the nimoma.
My grandmom would also make green boondi laddoos. She would grind chana, make tiny boondis (just like the ones made from gram flour) then add sugar syrup and bind them into delectable laddoos. 

The laddoos remained beyond me but the nimona I did try a few times. However, I never could get it right. It may have to do with
the fact that I don’t quite have a master’s touch when it comes to cooking. Or maybe I just don’t have the meticulous way with ingredients that turns them into works of delicious art.

Mostly, I suspect, it’s because, it is a mindboggling amount of work.
I cannot but marvel at how much dilegence and precision that generation put into cooking. That too without weights and measures and teaspoons and tablespoons. I’d watch in fascination as my grandmom would measure out the salt that went into our daily daal on the palm of her hand – and I’m talking rock salt crystals not the powdered salt we use today. She’d get it right each time, every time.
Here I am, not even able to make tea without precisely measuring out
the water cup by cup and woe-betide anyone who changes the spoon in my teabox. I never could get the ‘andaaz‘ thing right. 
So I stick with the simple and uncomplicated – like this salad. The recipe is here at Rachana’s blog. I added flax seeds for extra crunch. Try it, it comes out great, I might add.

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Sunday Breakfast

Sunday morning I woke up craving Upma – a savoury dish made from semolina with peanuts and loads of veggies. I set out chopping carrots and defreezing peas. 

As I started roasting the semolina in walked N. 
‘What are you making mama?’ she asked, ‘Halwa?’ 
Halwa is a sweet preparation also made from roasted Semolina, a huge favourite with both the kids. H followed soon, sniffing, ‘Ummm I haven’t even smelt halwa for soooo long.’ He’s such a sniffer, this one. He goes around smelling flour and dough and sugar and raw vegetables. 

The halwa used to be a breakfast staple till The Husband turned diabetic. I, in any case, am a perpetual weight watcher. Besides, I’ve been in consultation with a dietitian for the past few months and am allowed a ‘what-I-want’ breakfast only on Sundays.

Anyway, even as the kids hung around the kitchen, before I knew it, just like that, I was pouring ghee (clarified butter) in the pan, then the roasted semolina and the sugar and making halwa.


Instead of this..

Doesn’t the upma look great with all those colourful vegetables?
Photo courtesy: Dreamstime.com

I ended up with this.

That’s halwa – Sweet and nutty and delicious.
Photo courtesy: Dreamstime.com

That’s what kids do – saunter into your lives without as much as a ‘May-I’ and change your plans completely. What’s stranger, you don’t realise it for a long long time and when you do, you don’t really mind it. They do bring along lots of sweetness, right? 
That kind of makes it all worth it.
However, what they do not do, is stave off Upma cravings. And so after I was done, up went another pan and I set out roasting a fresh batch of semolina and made the Upma too. No point stifling your cravings.
The Sunday breakfast table was one happy place yesterday.

Linking to # Microblog Mondays hosted by Mel at Stirrup Queens.

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The food convert

Kebabs to Vada Paos
Biryanis to Bhakris
Dal Paranthas to Puran Polis
Tunde to Bedekar
Lucknow to Pune. It was quite a gastronomic shocker. And a confession ..I found the grandest Maharashtrian food too plebeian, compared to even everyday Lucknowi cuisine. 

First there’s the pao factor
Everything has to be eaten with the quintessntial pao (bread) – vada pao, pao bhaji, misal pao, keema pao and if you’ve got nothing better there’s maska pao.

Then there are the names
The nomenclature did me in. I mean why would you call a simple chhole tikki – ragda pattice (Yes Pattice NOT Patties)? And there was the weird sounding kacchi dabeli, which had nothing to do with Kutch. What a complicated name for a pao (again!) with some filling! and Jhunka Bhakar.. oh it was absolute gibberish.

And then …
…very slowly, like most things simple and unpretentious, Puneri food wove it’s magic. Before I knew it I was standing at a raodside stall watching the vendor deftly throw in ruby red pomegranate seeds and crunchy peanuts into my kacchi dabeli. When it rained I craved the vada pao. The December nip in the air drove me to the city seeking out famous misal joints. I’d sit there sweat pouring from my face despite the cold, nose running as I dipped into the devilishly hot misal served straight from a boiling cauldron… and then I would be done for the day.

The most famous Bedekar Misal is served with bread. and you can add that gravy to make it spicier. Whew!

Finally there’s the thali.
What stole my heart completely, was the Maharashtrian thali. To begin with I love the concept of food without frills. At the thali joints food is served in a very Puneri, very no nonsense manner, none of the Awadhi formality here. By the time a Lakhnawi would get over with his ‘tashreef rakhiyes‘ and ‘naush farmaiyes‘, the thali joints would have welcomed, served and sent off a a bunch of customers and very happy customers at that. 

A typical thali joint would look like this. The plates are already laid out so food comes on as soon as you’re seated. You don’t place a order since the fare is standardised. This picture is taken at Durvankur.

Of course there’s the issue of finding a place to sit. It’s like you’re the enemy till you’re seated and then you transform into a cherished guest. Your plate fills up miraculously and you’re plied with food in a typically Indian ‘ you-must-eat-till-you-can’t-move’ manner. The ambience is nothing to write home about but the food is right up there at the top.

Sample this…

The accompaniments.. Meethi chutney, teekhi chutney, nariyal chutney, shengdana chutney…. take your pick
The basic stuff

What you cannot see is the many kinds of chapatis.. Bhakri, missi roti, puri, along with the wheat rotis, and there’s rice.. masala rice, khichdi, plain rice topped off with dollops of ghee.. no skimping here. You cannot even sample them all let alone have your fill of each. 

So if you ever come to Pune my advice would be skip the biggies, go for the traditional fare to feel like a true blue Punekar.

I am taking part in The Write Tribe Festival of Words 8th – 14th December 2013. Today’s prompt is ‘food’. For some scrumptious entries click here..

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Blog-a-prompt 5 – Spicy

Whew!!! Last minute entry for today’s prompt.
 
There really is nothing as spicy as street food. Whether it’s the vada pao, misal or bhajiyas from my current hometown – Pune or it’s Lucknow’s chaat, sprout bhel, khasta, chana jor garam or baati chokha – it just has to be hot hot hot.
 
Take a look… 
 
Chillies occupy pride of place amidst the chana and the masala is to die for.

Spicy Tea.. anyone?

Some Magi to go along with that tea.. or will it be a bread pakora
or boiled eggs or aaloo vadas?



Pack some baati chokha off the streets. Baatis (Litti in Bihar) are crisp
dough balls with a filling of spicy ‘sattu’ that go perfectly with the chokha
which is a baigan-aaloo bharta with a liberal sprinkling of green chillies
that bring on the hicupps and make your nose run.



… and finally the khasta teams up perfectly with potato sabzi which also
has a liberal sprinkling of green chillies.

Oh and the jalebis are here for two reasons.. One, I figured you might want some
meetha after all that spice and two, khasta-jalebi is a combination that has always
been a combination here in Lucknow. There’s never one without the other.

 
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