A pudding love story.

When I was a kid I always looked forward to visit my native place and especially one place called Chootuvelli where my aunt lived. Apart from the excitement of meeting my cousins there was another reason why I was so eager about it always... To relish the delicacies made by my favourite aunt…Daisy aunty…

If there was one person who could easily fit the tag of people who made food with love, it had to be her. Biriyani, meat rolls, chicken fry, mango milk shake from Daisy aunty’s kitchen were legendary, but what held a special place for me was the pudding she prepared.

So while I called her up yesterday I was tempted to ask the secret of her pudding. Well I know that I ll never be able to match her tonnes of experience, so I was glad when she explained to me a little innovation of her to make an ordinary pudding look exotic. I love puddings and given a choice between ice cream and pudding, I would sure yeah to pudding any day! If asked specifically why I love puddings its coz they have a mild sensuous pleasure which an ice cream doesn’t have.Its like a porsche versus Hummer, both are poles apart.

Pudding powder mix is easily available in the market and I don’t have to explain how to make a pudding. It’s easy to figure out how to make a pudding and you don’t need Mensa level intelligence for that. So how to make the pudding extra special?

*Powder a packet of ordinary biscuits (I used walnut biscuits though) to a coarse form.(Don’t make it too fine)
*Heat 3-4 teaspoon of butter in a pan and once it has melt add the biscuit powder.
*On a low flame keep blending this mix until you get a nice aroma of butter+biscuit.
*Transfer this content to the frame where you want the pudding to be served.
*Make a nice bed of this mix on it which would act as the base for the pudding.

Now go ahead and make the pudding.

*Just boil the milk and add sugar depending on the content of the pudding powder.(Sometimes sugar is part of it).
*Keep stirring it until its quite thick.(like in thick curd).
*Be careful not allow any lumps to be formed while heating and make sure an even consistency is maintained. It is preferable to use a whipper if you have one.
*Pour the mix over the biscuit base evenly and allow it to settle.
*After a few minutes when the heat is gone, keep the frame in the refrigerator for a couple of hours.
*Serve it after a heavy non-veg meal..;-P

olympic omlette

As the olympics comes to close...today we had a olympic special omlette in honour of the ocassion..

Lets hope that we offer citizenship to Michael Phelps for the next olympics..rechristian him as Michael Pillai...

And annex Jamaica.....and we would be fourth in the olympics tally at London!!

adios...

Please beer with this beef!!

If wine was French, beer was German and noodles were Chinese what could Beef fry be then!!!

Yes. It’s Kottayamese!!

Beef fry is like the national food of every achayan….While in other parts of the country security is always increased, in kottayam it’s always 'beefed up'!! And it also explains the famous achayans 'belieef' in themselves!!

While beef is a taboo word elsewhere in the country it is probably given a reverential status in this part of the state…Local authorities say the average happiness of a kottayamkaaran is linked to the beef consumption of the district….Scarcity of petrol and vegetables doesn’t affect this part of the state…but beef, Jeez it would be like the Cuban missile crisis!!

Any Christian function without beef fry is like a Sanjay Leela Bhansali movie without gold. There was this marriage where the groom did not make it. But it was not until the chef told the bride’s dad that the beef from “Paulose yeracchi kada” did not arrive was the marriage called off!! Tragedies “beefall” at the cruelest times...

History students in schools embraced Christianity since the teachers always taught this about the calendar…

Tell me children what is expansion of B.C?

“Beef for Christ!!”

Poor kids thought they were fighting for own cause…Well it did ofcoz influence people “spiritually” as it was critical to have this “thottunakkaan” with “challaas” for any self respecting kallu koodiyan…It cuts across all class barriers as even the richest estate owning achayan wouldn’t dare have a glass of chivas regal without this classic fry.

Well why I say all this is coz, I recently had a knowledge transfer from mom on how real beef fry is made…

Ingredients

1) 800gms beef sliced in cubes+200 grams liver (this supposedly compensates for loss of liver content in human body for you know whom )
2) 4 Big onions thinly sliced
3) 1 inch piece of crushed ginger
4) 1 teaspoon garlic paste
5) Beef masala powder 4-5 teaspoons(I got it from home(a brand called sevana))
6) ½ teaspoon chilli powder
7) ¾ teaspoon pepper powder
8) Curry leaves
9) A few bay leaves
10) Sliced bits of coconut
11) Garam masala (home made the better)

After heating oil on the pan crack mustard seeds add ingredients 2) ,3), 4), 8), 9) and 10)
Sauté it in low flame until the onions are transparent and the raw smell goes.
Now take the pan away from the flame and add ingredients 5) 6) and 7). Be careful that the masala doesn’t get burnt and keep stirring till the raw smell goes.
Now add the meat along with sufficient salt and a little oil over it.
Mix the whole stuff in the pan until the masala is coated evenly over the meat.
Now add a pinch of garam masala and mix the whole thing again.
Transfer the whole thing to a pressure cooker along with half a cup water and cook it for 3-4 whistles.(The number of whistle depends on texture of meat)

Allow the beef to dry in the pressure cooker by further heating if any water is still left.

This is the real beef fry and taste best with sliced onion dipped in vinegar.


Oh wait I have to attend a "Beefthoven memorial symphony"... cya later!! ;-P

Savolaa..giri..giri..Biryani..!!

Biryani…The name conjures up when it comes to having a heavy lunch .Or I would rather put it is as the non veg version of sadhya…I often do have biryani at several Indian restaurants out here, but most of em don’t do justice to it and end up like chicken curry mixed in rice…And I was getting bored of the ready made masala mix which simply doesn’t taste like the original...My version of Biryani could be called a semi-quick version…Unlike Hyderabadi biryani which you get in the famous “Paradise” the preparation of which might have started even the day before, mine is a 2 hour fix!.

Back in Trivandrum we would often have it from the restaurants near college after we skipped the morning classes. It was followed by skipping the post lunch classes for allowing the complete digestion of the just consumed Biriyani…The local term is CB for chicken biryani…”So it was always...chetta….oru CB…or chetta oru BB”...It was only until I started working in a software firm the BB became a Bulletin Board.


And the recipe I would say was handed over to my mom from her sister who as far as I know makes the best Biriyani of all my relatives…And I wanted the authentic homemade biriyani taste which is actually a bit different from the ones you get in restaurants.. So I make a call home yesterday from office…

Me: “Amma..nammal veetil ondakkunnu chicken biriyaniyude method paranju thaa”(Mom..Explain how do we make biryani back home)

Amma: ”oh..ok..korachu karayambu….korachu ingi….korachu ellakka...korachu karuvapetta..”(A little bit. X..A little bit Y..A little bit Z..)

Me :”OMG!!..WAIT….for godsake in ml’s and grams”

Amma..”ok...ekedesham oru kaal finger ingi..oru 3 cups rice..rando..moonoo..naalo veluthulli..uppu taste anserichu”

My dad who was on the other end of the line could understand my frustration…We were tailor made to comprehend only actual figures and he gave me the translation of approximate quantities in laboratory terms.

Me:”Oh..thanks…Amma good that you don’t teach maths..oru korachu addition..oru korachu subtraction…korachu fraction…hahaha..”

After a 10 minutes call where I frequently interjected the conversation with terms like configuration of the kozhi…and delivery time for the masala’s…bugs in the kashuvandi just for the comfort sake of people in office who had absolutely no clue what I was really talking about..

Anyways what matters is how we make it…

Chicken
Cut 1 kilo of chicken into smaller piece and marinate them with lemon juice.
Meanwhile create a masala paste of 2.5 teaspoon chilli powder, 2.5 teaspoon coriander powder, half teaspoon pepper powder, half teaspoon turmeric, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon garam masala.
Mix the masala paste, marinated chicken and 3 tablespoon curd and keep it aside.

Rice
Keep ready 3 cups (probably 200 ml each) of rice washed and drained.
Fry in ghee cashew nuts and dry grapes and keep em aside.
Add more ghee if required and fry thin sliced onion (about one big onion) and keep aside.
The above two are sprinklers.

In the remaining ghee fry (6 cardamoms, 5 pieces of 1 inch each Cinnamon sticks broken into smaller pieces, 5-6 cloves, 2-3 bay leaves ) for a minute.
Add the rice to this mix and keep stirring until the ghee is evenly coated and the rice is pretty much dry. Be careful that the rice doesn’t stick to the bottom.

Since we use a microwave oven to cook rice, transfer the content to the bowl and add 6 cups of water to it.
Now here comes the innovation from my family. Instead of adding the expensive saffron for the color we add a pinch of turmeric to fake it…I think that was a good trick there..
Set it to 20 minutes or till the rice is cooked.


Meanwhile in a Mixie/blender make a fine paste of the following

4 big onions, 3 tomatoes, 7 green chillies(add more to make it super spicy), 5-6 karuvepella, few pudina leaves, 1 inch ginger piece, 4-5 garlic pieces, 3 teaspoon grated coconut.

Heat oil in a pan and add this paste. Keep stirring until the raw smell goes from the mix.
Now add the marinated chicken and mix the entire content with sufficient salt.
Don’t add water and allow it to cook. Keep stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile in a big vessel coat the inside with ghee..

Once the chicken is ready, Place the big vessel mentioned above on top of a chapatti pan which is being heated mildly.
Layer a bed of rice inside it followed by chicken mix. Do it intermittently until the last layer of rice is placed.
Sprinkle on top with fried onion/cashews/dry grapes.

Cover the vessel and allow the aroma to spread for 15 -20 minutes in the low heat.

Make a quick salad and enjoy the swaadishthu chicken biryani!!

P.S We had some appetizer bordeaux wine before the dinner, So it wasnt hard for 3 people to finish this biriyani in one go!!! ;-D

Quali-fried Snack!

As a school kid evening snack was as important as lunch, breakfast or dinner. Rather they were of higher importance coz most of the time we never knew the snack for the day. And there is nothing like a great snack and tea at evening after a tiring day in school. Most of the time it would be carry over from breakfast like left over puttu resteamed with additional coconut grated …Else it would be second show running of the dosa or idli’s…Anyway we were not a big fan of those as we had more fascination for bakery items. Some times it would be the butter bun or the bakery bread that we called as Bormo bread…Till date I have no clue where we got that name from. Maybe it is just the name of a bakery or some silly names we created ourselves.

Talking of bread, reminds me another incident which happen in the early 90’s...It was my first trip to Bangalore or infact our first trip outside Kerala barring the Velankanni trips...A incident which my cousins untiringly make fun of me even today.

My dad’s wallet got stolen during a bus ride and we realized it when we got down somewhere near Utility Towers…We had planned the great Indian family shopping trip that night. I heard Dad telling Mom that he lost around 1000 bucks... Considering that those times I was not used to hearing that kind of princely figure and I was more familiar with 20 or 50 paisas or at the most 10 rupees, I assumed that the 1000 bucks was all that dad had. I mean the entire wealth/savings/investments/capital etc.etc. Dad had. I was flabbergasted and stunned and sad that night, that on the way back to our place a very emotionally choked me declared to Appa and Amma…

’Nammakku inniyum vela kurunjaa roti medichu jeevikaam’.

Remember I was dead serious when I told this and I don’t remember how they reacted to it...But this incident reached all my relatives and cousins…and once in a while when they see me or talk over phone they joke....’Hello Chekku…evide nammal vella kurunjaa roti medichaa jeevikunnei’. It has been probably 20 years since it happened and still!! ;-(

Coming back to evening snacks, the crowning glory would be the puffs, which would be eaten with such immaculate care. I used to finish the cover layers first leaving the last but one layer and the crunchy meat inside. Making sure that I elaborately showed and moved it around in my brother’s line of sight before enjoying it. And on special days or if Amma was not tired after work, we would have banana fry or sugians.I can keep telling about my fav evening snacks.

Well coming to the point the other day I was reminded of all these memories and suddenly it stuck me that it has been ages since I had a tea time snack desi style. For about a year and half it was just tea and maybe some chocolate buns / cakes or croissants. . I was getting real bored of them.

Last Saturday I thought of re-living a tea time snack moment...freshly cooked and Indian.
I opened the fridge and saw this huge cauliflower. It was just a week before we had a great laugh at home when my roomie bought cabbage thinking it was cauliflower. I asked him where are the florets…

He said in remarkable confidence...’those are inside…’

So I peeled one layer of cabbage leaves and asked him.

‘Now where??’

That’s when he got suspicious but still quite sure…

‘You gotta take one more layer out…it might be there somewhere inside’

After the second layer I couldn’t bear not to laugh and had a good timing making fun of him abt that.

Cauliflower was a favorite vegetable of mine back home. It was not exactly coz of the taste. But coz it was rarely bought at home…I thought it was good because it was scarce.

So that Saturday afternoon I was inspired to make cauliflower pakodas to over come the years of fascination for that vegetable. And since I love the taste of fried onion, I thought lets make it a bilateral pakodas…So here it goes.

Cut the cauliflower into smaller florets and clean it.
Cook the florets in water along with a pinch of salt until they are like 70% cooked.
Drain out the water and keep the cauliflower aside.
Slice like 4-5 large onions, a dozen green chillies and add it to the cooked cauliflower.
Add two tea spoons of ginger garlic paste, 2 teaspoon red chilli powder, 1 teaspoon garam masala, sufficient salt and a bunch of curry leaves to it.
Mix the entire stuff allowing the masala to be coated evenly over the veggies.
After sometime add 1-2 cups of gram flour and a pinch of turmeric to it and mix everything with hand.
There is probably enough moisture from the cooked cauliflower to get a thick batter of the entire mix. Otherwise add more water but make sure the consistency is even and the masala’s evenly spread out. Add salt again if required..
Meanwhile pour oil in a frying vessel and allow it to heat up.
Take a small lump of the batter and drop it in the frying pan. Turn it around and fry evenly until it is golden brown.
Taste this sample vedikattu and add more spice if necessary to the remaining batter.
Now you can fry the rest of the mix pretty fast in set of 6-7 pakodas depending on the size of your pan.

This snack goes very well with the 4 o clock tea on a lazy Saturday evening and goes very well with a beer too…

And the chef had a hearty snack that weekend!! :-)

There is always something ‘fishy’ before marriage.

In ancient times amongst suriyani Christian families in kottayam, homes with girls of marriageable age would look for certain prized catches…Well talking of prized grooms, it would be guys who could successfully devour that hardest and most intricate piece of fish during the pennu kaanal* lunch …The ladies at the bride’s home would cook it the day before in richest and spiciest of all spices…On the doomsday. I mean the D-day…the most complex piece of the fish head would be served exclusively for the groom’s plate…it marks the beginning of an epic battle.

The air is tense on that day…even the cats don’t meoooow…forget that they have competition here.

All eyes are trained on the boy and the fish...The fiery fish curry and the quest. Both unbearably HOT!

The bell rings in the nearby parish church...The ammachis at home are reciting the kontha (rosary) in murmurs.... Appachan is talking in hushed manner with the other karnavars…
The bride’s cousins are already gossiping in the other room…

‘WILL HE MAKE IT?’

The guy would be thinking of the years of practice and training he had gone through…karimpumkala shaap**…. He graduated from the best Ivy League F-school (its not what you think.)…The long sessions over a school of fish and kallu…

Yes … the real battle is what matters…The girl’s appachan is an old fox…He got the best possible piece in town…

It is simply too nauseating for the groom’s mother too…In hushed tones she asks her husband.
‘Achaayo…nammalude mon pass aavo…’ (Will our son clear the test?)
Achayan doesn’t like last minute jitters and in a harsh tone...’hmmph…THRESIAAKUTTY!!’

And then…

They all sit down at the dining table. Children are told to leave. It is all going to be adult material in there.

Like the man who loved to revel in big stage, the groom dissects the meen thala*** with Lecterisque ease…The gory cries...
ssspppsssppssssshhaahhaa……pspspssssppspppsssss…ssshhahaa…
The fish brain ease out of the skull due to the huge vacuum created by the skilled fighter’s labial suction.

Meanwhile the umpire Perappans and Appachens are mentally noting the points…they will sit down and tally em in the end…

They examine the kill ...Antonychen’s Power 10 glasses don’t lie after all...They seem to be talking in professional lingo....’ eemballu...meeninte andharkadaakam….’

Was he too fast…Is there any puli (tamarind) sediments still left?
Does the cranium now look like the dinosaur head we saw in Jurassic park?
Did the boy drink a glass of water after that? *Well he is sissy if he did that*

Many question…It was the battle de mother of the pennu kaanal chadangu…Much much harder than Arjuna did with that reflection on pool archery trick…

The girl is simply wondering… Does that guy deserve me?
Last time Johnychayan from kozhencherry was thrown out of home because he had hidden sugar cubes in his mouth…Or Kunjoose who tried to bring his own fish skeleton super cleaned with some ‘safedi ka chamkaar powder’…but that unfortunately got stuck in his trouser pocket…14 stitches is what it took.

WILL MATHAIKUTTY MAKE IT…??

The question that Thavalakuzhi and Mutathupadi family awaits.

After a few minutes the warrior was escorted to the living room…
Mathaikutty is tense...and tired…He is given a glass of brandy for mild relief…

The judges huddled in another room for brainstorming…Gossips run around the kitchens…
Mathaikutty was too loud !!…Mathaikutty was too brusque !!…. Mathaikutty was sweating !!


His friend from Calicut Meenchantha rings his mobile.

’edaa…did you make it’

‘Yes...barely.’

‘Wow…I can’t believe you …’

‘Pray for me...’


The doors creak…The jury is coming out…Crowds gather around chief judge 96 year old Annamma chedathi

‘Hello everyone…calm down ...please calm down’

‘I the chief matriarch of Thavalakuzhi family declare Mathaikutty has cleared the practical for eating our fish curry with CMM level 5 standards’

‘Vakkacha...Kariacha…Thankacha…Mercy...Susy...Gracy…everyone...We have found the right groom for Meency…Now that the major chadangu is over…LETS FIX THE DATES!!’


*Ceremony of visiting the girl’s house before marriage
**The best fish and toddy shop back home
*** Fish head

I was planning to write the recipe for this curry..Hey but c'mon we have professionals here..Do check out this and this. Ultimate fish curries..you wont be disappointed after this.

Just another wedding tale..

When I get bored of the regular dishes it so happens that I attempt something, which I see in food blogs or other foodie websites. But often I face the lingua problem where I would know some stuff in English…. others in Malayalam...and others, which I don’t know in either language. Infact it was quite recently that I came to know that ‘Karugapatta’ is not an obscenity which I thought sounds like so.. or Thymol is not Animol’s sister and Fenugreek is not anywhere from Greece. But then lessons learnt however are lessons learnt isn’t? . I remember the blunder done while I was talking to a German aunty who was offended coz after she told me her name, which was ‘Maggie’ by the way, I couldn’t help but say ‘hahaha…we eat Maggi in India’. Why it happens that we don’t have a blunder warning system installed in our brain to avoid such embarrassing comments.

Neways last week while cleaning up the fridge I was taking out the vegetables in it. There were carrots, capsicums, bhindi’s and several other stuff in there. I cleaned up the refrigerator after a Herculean struggle. Not to mention the small fight I had with roomie for stocking table tennis balls inside the fridge, which I later realized, were mushrooms. It was just a week ago I had caught him for keeping the ‘ice-age DVD’ in the freezer…He says he want to imbibe the soul of the movie. Never mind we always have some serious conflicts at home regarding the content of the fridge.

But the whole point is that a glance on the kitchen table and I saw love in its purest form. It was overwhelmingly emotional and I consider myself lucky to see that. Believe me folks I saw the carrot in love with the bhindi!! Braving the bully Potato and rugged terrains of a cauliflower heap, Carrot overcame the last challenge from onion. Bhindi asked for a slayed onion as a token of appreciation and after a landmark battle, it did finally happen. In a scene reminiscent of dilwale dulhaniya le jayenga on the auspicious day of 2nd of March 2008, Carrot proposed Bhindi..

Being the moral priest I decided to solemnize the wedding between carrot (sole heir of Magnoliophyta family) and Bhindi (beautiful daughter of Abelmoschus esculentus). In what was a very passionate scene the carrot and bhindi embraced at the sanctum sanctorum of my non-stick cooking pan. The mustards cracked in joy to celebrate the momentous occasion. As the carrot applied the chilli sindhoor on bhindi’s forehead, the bride gleamed in happiness. The onion who was opposed to the wedding took it with a pinch of salt and arrived at the ceremony for namesake. The best man Pepper Khan made sure things went well without glitches. And so for ever after or err precisely for 20 minutes the carrot and Bhindi lived happily. Around 1 pm in a tragic fun ride down my GI tract it burned to death after falling on a pool of gastric acids in my stomach. As a mark of respect my shradhanjali for this humble dish.