thecookscottage

Bananas bring prosperity to the small farmer

It is heartening to hear about the "banana brothers" now making a good living for four families from 2.2 acres.

The Good of Grain-Rawa Kela Aur Gur ki Mithai

Semolina, Banana  and Jaggery Dessert

It is a little worrying to note that the government does not seem to be paying as much attention to promoting the continued cultivation of grains. Horticulture and other, newer, agricultural initiatives are capturing the subsidies and are invariably the chosen ones in projects promoted by state and central governments.But these are not essential to a poor country. China produced more than twice the amount of food grains we did last year. Even if we take the stipulated minimum of 500 grams of grains a day per person , at present, we do not have enough to sustain our vast population for more than a day in case of any disaster. Because we do not produce enough, one reason being the inadequate management of soil, grain still remains comparatively expensive for those living below the poverty line.

Grains will always form a large part of the main meal in a poor country. It is imperative that India uses its vast land resources by bringing additional land under cultivation.Not only that but if those grains were also rich in minerals and vitamins, grains like jowar, bajra and ragi, we would not see the kind of malnutrition we see  on a large scale in Africa. GM crops have not returned the benefits of better health as was hoped.

Till at least thirty years ago wheat and rice and semolina were used in so many foods. Rawa / Suji or semolina is made by soaking wheat grain in water for several hours .It is then spread out to dry a bit before being ground and winnowed.The coarse grits produced in this manner is called rawa.

Chakki- Stone Grinder

Years ago several houses had their own chakki for grinding.
In a few places wheat is still ground in a chakki,two humungous cylindrical stones, in this case, granite,. The lower cylinder is stationary, while the top one is moved , the wheat being poured into the circle on the side to spread out between the two stone layers and ground.This one may have been used domestically , the women of the house grinding the wheat. A chakki of this size would be handled by two women. Larger chakki's were rotated with the help of cows or a camel.
In Punjab, this type of a chakki , operated with the help of animals is called a kharas. A grinder  run with the aid of a water wheel is called a gharat. The latter is more common in the far north,  in the foothills of the Himalayas.
By the beginning of the twentieth century in India, wheat grinding became more mechanised with oil engines.By the late 1940's one third of all chakkis in Punjab ( the main wheat growing belt ) were power driven. And today most people buy packaged ready ground wheat from commercial mills. Till just a few years ago we bought the whole grain, picked out stones and chaff and other extraneous material , washed and dried it in the sun, and then sent it , a few kilos at a time, to the local flour grinding mill. It meant that each family could decide how much bran to keep in the wheat flour.Chapathies tasted different in each household, with varying textures and thicknesses. In small towns and villages this is still the case.

Rawa is as much used in the South for upma and home made sweets and in the north mainly for halwa.I have a huge, old  collection of rawa recipes,  many of them sweets, which could do with a revival as it is a healthy alternative to expensive milk and refined sugar sweets which have become so popular today. Look out for more rawa recipes soon.

Rawa Kela Aur Gur Ki Mithai/ Semolina, Banana, Jaggery Dessert

Ingredients

1 1/4 cup rawa / semolina
3 bananas
3/4 cup gur / jaggery.
1 1/2 cup coconut milk made from 1/2 fresh coconut , chopped.(you can use ready packaged coconut milk as well, or plain milk with a drop of vanilla if you cannot get coconut milk)
2 tbsp. ghee or butter
A pinch of salt.

Extract the coconut milk by pureeing the pieces in a blender along with 1 and a half cups of hot water. Strain the pulp through a sieve to make thick coconut milk. Make a smooth puree of the bananas and jaggery in a blender. Heat the ghee in a kadhai and fry the semolina, stirring constantly on low heat till it turns an even, light brown.About 8 minutes. Add the banana and jaggery puree and stir a couple of times.Turn off the heat. Now add the coconut milk and mix well.

Pour mixture into steamer

Grease a heat proof shallow dish, plate or steel thali. Pour the mixture into the dish and steam covered for 25 minutes.This can be done in a steamer or a pressure cooker without the weight on. It may take less time in a cooker- probably about 10-15 minutes.The mixture absorbs all the liquid and becomes dry on the surface.

Turn out on to plate

and cut into cubes.

Serve hot or cold.
This will keep for several days if  refrigerated.

2/12/2006

Laid Back Balchao at Bob's Inn

It is not even a month since I came back from a short break in Goa and it seems like time to return. To the sun, the sand , the sea and mostly the food.

When in Goa I tend to stick to what they do best...sea food. I ate every variation of prawn and fish dishes that they had to serve.I haven't had time to post all the wonderful things we ate there so here I continue.....

One day was spent in the North near Candolim where we had a pleasant meal at Bob's Inn.

A bit more expensive than the seaside shacks,it has a maze of small tents and huts attached to each other to make up the restaurant.There are several cosy areas, where one can have a private lunch and spend several hours in the welcoming shade, while quaffing Kingfisher beer. Which ,by the way, goes very well with the Prawn Balchao we had there.

Goan Prawn Balchao
Ingredients for a generous 4 helpings:

Make a paste of the following:

1 pod of garlic, peeled.
3 "fresh ginger, cleaned and grated
15 whole dried red chillies
4" dalchini / cinnamon
15 green elaichi/ cardomom
15 lavang / cloves
1 tsp whole black peppercorns
1 tsp jeera/ cumin seeds
1/2 cup malt vinegar.

1 kg prawns, shell, devein and wash well.
Vegetable Oil
1 cup onions, chopped
1 cup tomatoes chopped
1 sprig of fresh curry leaves (or a tbsp dried leaves)
2 tsp sugar
Salt

Heat oil and deep fry the prawns for a few minutes...not more than 3 -4 minutes, till they change colour. Take out and set aside.
Remove some of the oil and leaving about three tbsps fry the onions until well browned.
Now add the chopped tomatoes and stir well till softened. Add the paste and saute till the oil seperates from the paste.It gets a light shine.
Return the prawns to the kadhai,/pan add curry leaves and sugar, stirring well. Now add salt to taste.
Serve with steamed rice . This tastes delicious with chapathi or any crusty bread as well.

What's cooking in India today?

Many of us look wistfully at other food blogs , or magazines,or papers, with picures of food we cannot possibly taste, for the simple reason that the ingredients are unavailable or the style of cooking unnattainable. Indian Chinese , which admittedly has become a cuisine belonging to a tradition of its own, quite seperate from 'real ' chinese food, was the best we could hope to taste.

But all that has changed and in some cities at least our choices have increased. I thought it would be nice to give some taste of what is available to those who'd like a change.

Spanish: A plateful of paella.

Mediterranian: Moshe

                      Hypnos

Far Eastern: Shiok

Italian: Roma Aroma

          The Italian Connection

'European' :Ofen

                Indigo

Thai, Indonesian, Japanese:  Tian

There are many more to add and I will be updating this soon.

All herbivorous animals are peaceful by nature- Lin Yutang

I don't know about this . I mean there are times I could kill for a kebab. Right now though I must go with Lin-ji and veggie as a means of a. Losing weight and b. Losing weight.

September will be a lean month.

Ingredients

In an effort to add some spice to our daily bread, I have been scouring the vegetable market for variety. Not a good time to do so, Maharashtra having had over 100 centimetres of of rain this season ; it has been the heaviest monsoon in a hundred years.

The good thing about this is that the water table will have risen and farmers who use traditional methods of water harvesting are looking forward to a better year.

The bad thing about this are the awful tomatoes, soggy onions and generally pathetic looking vegetables on the market currently. During these kind of spells I go back to good old sprouts. And in answer to several requests here is a recipe for the very traditional Maharashtrian Matki Ki Usal.This is made in typical Nagpur style.

Matki Ki Usal/ Sprouted Moth Beans

250 gms sprouted moth beans / matki 1 tsp oil 1 tsp oil
1" piece of ginger
3 cloves of garlic
2 green chillies chopped fine
1/4 tsp of haldi /turmeric
1/2 tsp red chilli powder
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp gur/jaggery
A few kari patta kari leaves
1 tbsp grated fresh coconut.
A tbsp of hara dhania / fresh coriander
Salt to taste

Add sprouted matki to a pan of boiling water and cook for 5 minutes. Drain.

Heat oil and fry green chillies , ginger and garlic.Turn heat to medium Add the matki and powdered spices and saute for a couple of minutes.

Add the gur and salt and stir well. Add two cups of water and cook for 5 minutes.

Temper with kari leaves fried in a 1/2 tsp of oil.

Garnish with grated coconut and chopped coriander. Wonderful with hot chapathis, fine with bread.

P.S.You can't see any coconut in the picture because it was eaten up  when my back was turned.

Lamb with a Plummy accent /Mutton Aru Bokhara

Having lived in Srinagar for several years , crossing the bund in a shikara ( a type of gondola) to school every day, eating cherries sitting in a cherry tree in the garden, making giant snowmen from ankle high snow in the winter, I have several fond memories of the place, people and cuisine.

Decades later we had the chance to relive many happy moments when we returned to stay in Brene Village ,which is across the Dal Lake, in a quiet corner of the road that leads into Srinagar.

Here Moiuddin , a cheerful man with a wonderful smile , who was the cook for our stay, would produce some great meals, all accompanied by a yogurt, made from goats milk, set in an earthenware pot. One of his best productions, besides the 'mouldy apple' dish he made, was this...mutton curry with dried plums.

Mutton is the leanest meat to eat here. Not an ounce of fat can be seen. In any case most Indian recipes for meat or chicken call for the fat, skin and and muscle to be trimmed. Chicken for Indian recipes is best when it weighs about 650 gm to 900 gms a bird.
Few people eat meat floating in the saturated fat that you see in Indian restaurant curry, in India or abroad.

The major flavour of plummy Lamb is one of cinnamon, as it calls for a fair amount, but it tastes very different with the combination of garlic and tamarind. Many of the constituents of this recipe are soaked in water, so that the the tastes are subtle and the gravy is left without traces of the original ingredient.

• 1 full hind leg of mutton approximately 1 and1/2 kg.( 3 lbs) cut into fairly large pieces. i.e. 1 1/2 " cubes.
• 1/2 cup dried plums.
• 2 tsps salt.

Spices:

• 12 elaichi / cardomoms
• 6 lavang / cloves
• 8" of dalchini /cinnamon in 1"-2" bits
• 1 tsp haldi /turmeric

Soak:

• 1/3 cup tamarind in 2 cups of hot water. Boil for ten minutes till all tamarind is soft. Let stand.Then strain through a fine mesh sieve.
• 1/3 cup garlic minced in a blender with 1/2 cup water till frothy. Let stand.Then strain through a fine mesh sieve.
• 2 large teaspoons of kashmiri chilli powder in 1/4 cup water.( Kashmiri chilli is a bit like paprika, it gives the dish a good colour without being too hot.)

Boil 2 kettles of water, pour into a big pan and dunk all the mutton into it. Bring to the boil again over stove , and cook for a couple of minutes. Pour off the hot water and any scum that may have  collected on top and wash the mutton again in cold water.

In a heavy bottomed pan put 2 tablespoons ghee or vegetable oil. Add the elaichi, lavang and dalchini, /cardamom, cloves and cinnamon, / as well as the chilli water, garlic water and salt. Cook for 12 minutes on high heat stirring all the time till water dries up.

Add 750 ml water to the meat and let it come to the boil. Lower heat and cook covered on medium for 1 hour. About a cupful of gravy should be be left in the curry.

Now add the tamarind water, the haldi /turmeric and cook for another 20 minutes. Add the plums and cook for 7 mintes till the plums are soft and just a bit of curry remains.

By the way the monsoon is in full force now and it has been raining non stop for over 15 hours. Being so grey and dreary, this curry was perfect to warm us up a bit. I would imagine it is perfect for winter days (of which we have few here) instead of the same old stew.

Cooking this dish, with its lingering scent of cinnamon, reminded me of brilliant days spent in Kashmir, . Looking out the window I could almost see the majestic and swaying chinars.

Simply Sprouts

Matki ki Usal is one of Maharashtra's most famous snacks.Matki is a tiny kidney bean also known as Moth, Mat or Mother Bean, (Phaseolus aconitifolius). It is indigenous to India and the tender pods are used as a vegetable while the dry beans are used as a dal.

What is so great about indigenous plants are their ability to survive in particularly harsh conditions which are sometimes so common to India. Matki resists drought and protects the soil because it is a low growing, matted plant which works well against erosion.

Since any number of recipes are available for matki dal and usal I'd rather share another simple vegetable recipe made from the sprouted lentil.You could sprout the lentil  yourself quite easily by soaking it overnight and then keeping it in a damp muslin cloth for a day.

I can't be bothered with all that and one of my favourite spots in the market is where  Ujjwala and her mother sell an array of sprouted lentils which they make at home.They live in a small hut in Kawdewadi and sell their sprouts every day, next to the vegetable market in Suyojana Society.
250 gms (1/4 lb) of matki cost Rs 7 today ( approximately 15 cents)and since all the vegetables had not yet arrived from the wholesale market for the day, I picked some up and cooked it for lunch.

Besides being great for your health....you know, fibre, phytoestrogens, very high in protein content etc etc I love their nutty flavour and often just dunk them in boiling water for 30 seconds and eat it with a bit of salt , pepper and a squeeze of lime. This is a great snack, or to add to a salad.

Another recipe is simple matki sabzi (vegetable) :

1 tsp vegetable oil
1-2 slit green chillies
1 tablespoon chopped coriander mixed with 2-3 sliced  garlic
1 tsp grated fresh ginger
250 gms sprouted matki/moth beans
1/2 tsp haldi /turmeric
Salt to taste

Heat the oil and when hot fry the green chilli, garlic and coriander mix and ginger. As the garlic browns and the ginger sticks to the pan add the washed matki. Add the turmeric immediately and  saute for a few minutes. Add salt , cover and cook for 5 minutes. Serve with a sprinkling of fresh coriander.

Can't get  simpler than that can it ?

Goan Prawn Curry

April is the last  month before the monsoon arrives when we cook sea food.There is an old adage in this area ."Do not eat fish in any month in which there is no 'R'". So May, June, July and August are out. This is because the monsoon  generally breaks in the first week of May along the west coast of India and this means the fishermen often do not go out to sea as  is gets too rough to fish in.Because of the irregularity in fishing you cannot always vouch for the freshness of the seafood  in the market and in the heat fish can spoil very quickly.To be safe rather than sorry people eat river fish or go without.

Things have changed of course, because you do get frozen fish in supermarkets but that is at a price and not within the reach of  many people.It also has  very little taste compared to fresh seafood. Shellfish are a definite no no inless you can get hold of prawns  from a prawn farm. Since these are generally "Made for Export"  we rarely see them on the market.
So April is the time to make prawns while the suns shines.

Goans are such a cheerful lot I'm sure because they are  blessedwith freshwater prawns and fish throughout the year.

One of my favourite recipes  for prawn curry is from Tessa Menezes'  "The Essential Goa Cookbook ". She now lives in Pune and we had a long chat about how she came to write the book.She welcomed me with bebinca,and plied me with plates of sorpotel in pastry shells as she told me something about the Goan way of life.

Her family home was in the lovely island of Divar, close to Panjim across the river Mandovi in Goa. The bamboo sluices from the inlets were manned by a 'manshekar' who had to bid for the job.This was because he would get to keep the shrimp and fish that were caught in them . Most families had an arrangement with the 'manshekar' to deliver a few prawns and some fish every day. "Ho Garanth "( Hey people of the house) he would yell as he passed with his catch.

The prawns were cleaned , kept in a container next to the cooker and a handful was added to whatever dish was being prepared.

In our village the river water was used to flood the khazan, saline lands, in May and June and poims ,natural pools or ponds, were formed at the end of the khazan into which  prawns and other fish larvae came in.They worked well to rid the fields of all the weevils.No fishing in the fields was allowed before harvest time. Around October the Gaunkars-(villagers from the communidade) would gather the king  prawns and sweet water fish.On the embankment , hay from the harvested rice was laid and lit. My mother used to sprinkle the unshelled prawns  with sea salt and put them  on the embers  of the fire for a couple of minutes. They were devoured on the spot and they were delicious!

My mouth waters at the thought of those barbecued prawns.Tonight I'm going to make prawn curry and hopefully you shall see a picture of it soon.

Tessa has kindly given permission for me to share her recipe for simple prawn curry- this is one of the easiest recipes ever!

                        Caril de Camarao
                                 Prawn Curry

1 cup shelled prawns, cleaned deveined and slightly salted
2 1/2 cups milk extracted from 1 grated coconut, or half a coconut   ground to a paste
1 tsp coriander powder
2 tsps Kashmiri chilli powder
6 cloves garlic, ground
1 medium onion, finely sliced.2 green chillies, slit and deseeded
Salt to taste
Tamarind the size of a walnut, soaked in 1/2 cup of water.

• Put all ingredients except prawns and tamarind water into a pan with 2 cups water. Mix well.
• Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer till onions turn soft. Stir occasionally.
• Squeeze tamarind and strain into pan. Stir in prawns. Adjust seasoning.
• Remove from heat as soon as prawns curl up.

Note: In season, sliced raw mango or bimblee are added instead of tamarind for an extra tart curry.
Copyright:Tessa Menezes. Penguin Books.