Semiya, simple and sweet

Vermicelli "halwa" that is not too heavy ...

Semiya

Vermicelli/semiya/sevainya— is cooked in milk, sweetened, garnished with nuts, and served as “payasam” or “kheer”. But in many homes in North India, they skip the milk, and make it in water, much like the “halwa”/kesari(minus the colour), and garnish it. Unlike the milk version, this is not semi-liquid,, the water is completely absorbed by the vermicelli.

It is easy to make, and very quick to. Above all, the rich roasted flavor and taste of the vermicelli/semiya/sevainya, dominate because they are not adulterated with milk, but merely enhanced by the crunch and taste of  the nuts and dry fruits in the garnish.

 My late father-in-law, a Punjabi, described the simple rava upma I made for him the first time as "namkeen halwa". Going by that this is sweet "semiya  upma".

Sevainya on Id eve. See the Jama Masjid deep in the background?

I used some of the sevainya I’ve saved up from my Id shopping at Jama Masjid in the Indian capital. But it will be no different if  I’d bought some other vermicelli, including the “Bambino” brand—plain or pre-roasted.

Total time taken: Less than 10 minutes if the vermicelli is pre-roasted, and the water is heated on another burner, simultaneously.

Ingredients,  enough to serve 4 people.

Vermicelli-1 cup

Water-1 cup

Sugar-2 tablespoons

Ghee/Clarified butter—1 tablespoon

A few blanched almonds/raisins/cashew (one or two or all of them)

Cardamom powder-of 2/ A few strands of saffron (optional)

Method

If the vermicelli is not pre-roasted, roast it for five minutes on a hot hardbottom/ non-stick pan. Set aside.

Roast the dry fruits/nuts in ghee

In the same pan, add the ghee, and dry fruits/nuts, till the nuts turn golden, and raisins plump up. Transfer to a bowl.

Meanwhile, bring the water to boil in a sauce pan, add cardamom powder and sugar. Let boil for three to five minutes.

Put the vermicelli in the pan hardbottom/nonstick pan that is now coated with ghee, stir for a couple of minutes. Add the boiled water with sugar and cardamom/saffron, stirring as you do this.

After two to five minutes, depending on the power of your gas burner, the water will have been absorbed, and the sevainya, cooked well.

Transfer this to a serving bowl, garnish with the dry fruits and nuts.

Mini Oothappams/Sunny side up rice flour mini pancake

Bite sized, crunchy and tasty...

Mini Oothappams/Sunny side up dosais

Some years ago, my mother mentioned that my aunty had served her lovely mini idlis. “They were like flowers, tiny, you could eat them without messing up your hands…and even if you were full, you could eat one or two ..unlike the regular idlis which are too big,” was the way my mother described her mini-idli experience Above all, she was smitten by how neatly they could be presented.

I hurried to the sole  stainless steel bartan store in Chandigarh that stocks utensils used for South Indian cooking , and bought one. Not having the patience that my aunty had, I gifted three of the four plates away to friends who thought mini idlis was a great idea. I don’t know whether they used theirs, but I have never used the mini-idlis plate languishing in a far away corner of my kitchen cabinet.

Recently I read about how small portions is one of the definitive features of gourmet food, and wondered if I should hunt out that mini-idli plate..but settled for mini oothappams, making them look like the “sunny side ups” that my young niece Neha had so wanted me to blog about !

The best thing about this is you need not labour, if you have some dosai or idli batter handy. Pour half a regular ladel, spread out to make pancakes of  about three inches diameter,  and flip them over. Garnish  one side with chilly powder/gun powder, such that this looks like the marigold colour of egg yolk, plate and serve.

The bite-size and the gun powder together make it a good starter. And three or more on a regular plate, with chutney and sambar on the side, it turns instantly, into a breakfast, mini-meal or high tea.

Try it….enjoy !

Chena Pada /Cheese cake from Odisha

Chena pada that is easy to make, and very delicious..

Chena pada or cottage cheese cake of Odisha

In the run up of the Lok Sabha elections in 2009, I got the opportunity to travel with the country’s seniormost politician, Mr Lal Krishan Advani, as he addressed rallies in Odisha (then it was Orissa) where his Bharatiya Janata Party’s relations with the ruling Biju Janata Dal, had turned bitter, very bitter.

But for me that tour will be one of the sweetest—not in terms of memories, but literally sweet, in terms of food, or dessert or mithai…call it what you will.

We were staying at Mayfair, a beautiful resort in Bhuvaneshwar, and Mr Advani was to address a rally at Cuttack, a little short of an hour’s drive. The rally had caused enough traffic jam on the highway, it was getting dark, and I restless because I did not want to miss a minute of it all. It was the BJP’s first foray in Odisha after the bitterness of the relationship gone sour.

At one particular stretch, the traffic seemed much more than what one would estimate between two small towns, never mind the rally factor. The Mahila BJP member who accompanied, rather escorted, me to Cuttack stopped the car, and insisted I get off. What did I see? On both sides of the roads, under thatched roof, huge log-wood fires, with something very sugary cooking ! And as I got near one of those shops, I saw huge thaals/paraats/plates, of rosagullas and gulab jamuns, and massive cubes of what seed to be caramel custard. I was wrong. It was chena poda… a cheese cake that is Odisha’s very own. The village was Pahala, and my hostess insisted it was world famous, and I could not go back without sampling the fare. I was so, so full that evening, I went to bed without  dinner, and at the rally I did not want even a glass of water.

But from the very next day, I had this craving for the sweet. I figured it was called chena pada, and made of paneer/cottage cheese. And imagine my delight when I found the Odisha stall at Dilli Hat, making and serving it on a regular basis !

Here goes my version of the recipe that the attendant at that stall shared with me. And it turned out remarkably well, though it did it not have that wonderfully smoked, and very malty taste of what I had eaten –overeaten—at Pahala.

It was easy to make, great to look at, and left us all wanting more.

Ingredients:

Full cream milk-1 litre

Semolina/sooji/rawa-1 tablespoon

Sugar-2 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon

Seeds of 3 cardamoms, crushed, powdered

Almonds- 10 or 12, blanched and slivered

Saffron strands—a few, soaked in a teaspoon of cold milk

Ghee- Less than a teaspoon, to grease the mould

Process:

    Boil and split the milk to make fresh cottage cheese. I used yoghurt to do this, because I find the cottage cheese made this way soft, gentle, compared to using lime juice, citric acid etc.

    Pour the split milk through a muslin cloth, to separate the cottage cheese from the whey

     

S Squeeze the cloth tight to ensure  the whey has drained away completely, and cool for a few minutes in a large  bowl.

    Add the semolina, 2 tablespoons sugar, cardamom powder, saffron with the milk, and knead till smooth yet crumbly. Now add the almond slivers and knead again.

    

      

    Grease the mould with ghee, sprinkle  the teaspoon of sugar, and hold it over the gas flame to gently caramalise till a beautiful amber color.

     Fill the mould with the cottage cheese-semolina-sugar “dough”, and bake in the centre of an oven preheated at 180 degrees, for 15 minutes, then lower the temperature to 160 degrees and bake for another 10 to 15 minutes.

   

     Ensure that the crust has turned somewhat golden, and test with a knife/tooth pick that should come out clean

     After it rests in the oven for a few minutes, invert on a plate, and serve warm or cold.

    

 I 

 I 

I        

                 It  will keep well in an airtight container in the fridge for a week, I was told. 

                 But we finished it in a day !

Kuih Koci, a Malaysian desert.

Food knows no borders...land , mountain or sea

Kuih Koci, photo borrowed from Poh's Kitchen

The  jiggery and coconut stuffed “kozhakkattai”  is something that I have always loved.

I was pleasantly surprised to eat a cigarette-shaped(and sized) version of it at a Chinese restaurant – do not recall if it was Mainland China in Chennai, a favourite place with all of us sisters—or at the Chinese on the sixth floor of Shivalik View in Chandigarh.

Shape and size apart, what it did not have that kozhakkattais have, was the scent of elaichi powder(cardamom), but as if to make up, or perhaps to dress up, there was a drizzle of floral scented honey on top.

Imagine my pleasant surprise, when I discovered last night, yet another version of Ganesha’s favourite “modak”, with a name that comes pretty close to kozhakkattai. Kuih Koci, a Malaysian desert.

Malaysia, Indonesia, Phillipines  and neighbouring Oriental countries have a good sprinkling of Indians, and even  had geographical connections in the past. It is also reasonable to suspect that coastal areas will have similar or marginally different but basically similar food. But so close to a kozhakkattai in Malaysia…I still find it difficult to believe.

I “saw” this dish being made by Poh in the show called “Poh’s Kitchen” on Fox Traveller show. Apparently it is not a very new episode.

Yet it is worth taking a look. I plan to try this Kuih Koci  after a couple of weeks, after I’ve fully recovered from a huge overdose of Kozhakkattais.

You please, check it out, and try to it too. And share your experience with me.

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/pohskitchen/stories/s2975899.htm

And when I mined the net for this, I saw yet another shape and size of the same dish !

See this...

As I said, this picture is from a blog. It looks like a stuffed rosagulla!