Green Chilly Thokku..add some fire to your meal

Chilli Talk... and the recipe

Chilly Tokku

Very many years ago, a very dear friend Neeru—journalist /poet/author Nirupama Dutt—who always ate a few raw green chillies with every meal, took me for lunch at some place in New Delhi. It was street food of good quality, but it was also street food that left me with fire in the belly—literally. I had all but to call the fire brigade ! And all I had eaten was chawal-karhi !The karhi had finely chopped green chillies in the garnish. Though I don’t fancy very chilly food, I did not really expect green chillies in summer to be that spicy. Some lessons in life unfold late, but naturally !

Neeru told me something about this, but that after this post on what I decided to do with a lot of green chillies that my husband had bought off .

Green chillies 

Normally, I would just let them sit in the fridge till they wilted away, and then throw them off ! The last two years in Delhi, these chillies did not come by way of good measure with other vegetables, and this year they were unusually expensive. I had already “pickled” a lot of them in vinegar, in glass jars, and used them for everything from upma to garnish to coconut-gravy for some dishes. And how many jars of pickled green chillies can one use?

A few months back, my sister Choti, passed around some “green chilli thokku” that she had made. The “thokku” wave lapped up with raving comments,  Choti became the heroine, my other sisters and I heaped praise, and one of them took home the jar. I brought with me the recipe. But in true expert style, Choti did not mention quantities, and said she did it all very approximately. I can believe her because that is what I do, unless it is to blog!!

I tweaked the recipe to make the “thokku” a little more dense, so that it acquires a shelf like. I also wanted  to be able to make it into tiny balls, and place on the table, along with some curd rice(not part of this post! )

Ingredients for Thokku

Ingredients:

Green chillies -30, some long, some medium

Tamrind—the size of a large lemon or small apple

Jaggery-  A little more than  the jiggery

Salt-to taste( 2 teaspoons heaped, rock salt)

 Sesame oil—3 big ladels full

Mustard seeds- 1 teaspoon

Dehusked, split black gram(dhuli urad)-1 teaspoon full

Curry leaves-a few

Asofeatida- a pinch

Wash and pat dry the green chillies, taking care NOT to let your hands touch your eyes even accidentally. You never know the consequences! Air these chillies so that no trace of the water remains.

In a frying pan, add a teaspoon of the oil, heat, toss in the green chillies and sauté for a couple of minutes. Switch off, let it come to room temperature.

Everything goes into a blender jar

Place the  sauted green chillies, tamrind(minus any seed in it), jiggery and salt in the blender, and grind to a smooth paste. I don’t  let the seeds of chillies bother me.

Place a makkal chetti or any heavy bottom pan on the gas. Add the sesame oil. When it smokes, add the mustard seeds.When they splutter, add the urad dal, the hing and the curry leaves. When the dal turns golden, add this green chilly paste, and quickly  start stirring.

Cook till oil leaves the sides

 Keep at this till the oil leaves the side, when you know it is ready. This takes approximately 15 to 20  minutes.

One can stir less vigorously in a makkal chetti, which somehome ensures that nothing sticks to the bottom. Also the dish in it remains in the cooking mode even for five-seven minutes after the gas has been turned off. This “over cooking” does no harm—just adds to the shelf-life in the case of  this  “thokku”.

The color of the "thokku" can vary from deep green to black, depending on whether you use jaggery or sugar, the color of the jaggery, and also the color of the tamarind, which varies from light brown to deep, deep brown, almost black.

Transfer the thokku into any convenient container/jar. Refrigerate after it cools. My guess is what I have made will stay fine even outside the fridge for ..till it finishes!

It is a delicious side to chilled curd rice or thayir saadam.  The taste of dosai gets elevated if you touch a piece to this “thokku” , and then eat it ! And if you are brave, you can simply mix it with rice, to which you have added oil, and eat it with potato chips(wafers) or papad.

PS: I am sorry I won’t share what Neeru said…for this is a food blog, and below-the-belt  jokes have to stay out of this . 

Dal Makhni, the most famous of Punjabi lentils dish

Utterly, butterly, dark and delicious, is this famous dal

Dal Makhni, meaning butterly lentils

A festive occasion—like Karva Chauth—or guests for lunch or dinner in a Punjabi household, means a menu that simply  must have “Maah di dal”, which  has a formal name too—Dal Makhni. The only difference is the huge chunk of butter that converts the plain maah di dal into  Dal Makhni. Preferably home –made white butter, is  added before  the  smooth, dark and viscos dish is garnished and placed on the dining table.

Often times, a handful of  kidney beans , soaked overnight, are added to the sabut urad dal, as the simple cooking process begins.

Sabut Urad or Black gram

It can easily be made the one pot—sorry, pressure cooker-- way.

Ingredients:

Sabut /Whole /Unhusked Urad -1 cup

Kidney beans(optional)-One heaped tablespoon

Oil-two teaspoons

Onions chopped-2(I used onion powder instead)

Ginger- a one inch piece,grated

Garlic—five or six pods, chopped fine

Tomatoes, ginger, garlic

Clove-a few

Cinnamon stick-one inch

Cardamom-two or three

Bay leaves- two

Tomatoes chopped—one large one

Salt to taste.

Chilli powder-one teaspoon

Dhaniya-Jeera powder—one teaspoon

Kasoori Methi powder-1 teaspoon

Butter- 50 gms

Spices

Soak the kidney beans alone overnight.(I did not use kidney beans)  Wash the whole urad,  and set aside.

Place  a large pressure cooker on the gas, and add the oil. When it becomes hot, add the cloves, cinnamon, bay leaves, and cardamom. Stir, and add the chopped garlic, and stir once more. Now add the onions, (or onion powder) and stir well for a couple of minutes, by when the onions should be somewhat limp and transluscent. Now add the  ginger and stir. Next add the chopped tomatoes, and stir. 

Add a touch of salt—not the full amount to your taste—at this stage. This will help the tomatoes and onions release their juices, in which all the things in the pressure cooker will blend. 

All ingredients will simmer away

If it looks as if the paste inside is sticking to the pressure cooker, add two tablespoons of water, and stir well. Three minutes later, add the washed dals and kidneybeans, and about four cups of water, stir well. Place the lid on the pressure cooker, and put the weight on.

About five to ten minutes later—depending on the pores of your gas burner/its efficiency, the water , the altitude etc--  the pressure cooker will release steam—some call this “whistling” by the cooker!

Almost cooked..but needs more water, crushing

When your pressure cooker begins to whistle, reduce the flame to the minimum, and let it hiss on gently for about 15 minutes. Switch off, and let the pressure come down naturally, something that could take about  10 minutes.

Open the pressure cooker lid carefully if you are new to this kind of cooking.

 If it seems as if all the water has been absorbed by the lentils, add a cup of water, and using a heavy ladle, press some of the dals along the wall of the pressure cooker, and stir well to ensure that the lentils don’t settle down at the bottom, while the water is floating on top. 

The idea is that the dal and water should have become a nice , soft, well-blended, thick  fluid.—it should not be too watery, or too thick.

Add water, mash and simmer for a while more

 Now switch on the gas again, and place the pressure cooker  with the dal on it, add the salt, chilli powder, coriander powder, jeera powder, and kasoori methi powder. Stir well for two minutes, switch off.

Transfer to  the serving bowl, add the dollop of butter and garnish with chopped green coriander.

A dollop of butter and black dal  becomes dal makhni

PS:

The dhabhas in Punjab , instead of using a pressure cooker,  put all the ingredients into one huge “balti” ( a steel bucket), and leave it inside the  tandoor after the last  “roti”  for the night has been made. It is slow cooking at its best .The burning coal and cinders  cook the dal slowly, resulting in a heavenly tasting “maah di dal”.

This style found its way into fine dining restaurants after Col Harsharan Singh, who started the much loved, small Pankaj Hotel with a restaurant called Noor, in Chandigarh, way back. He threw in a fauji touch, called it “Balti Dal”, and they served it in tiny copper and steel buckets that have become popular with people and places serving Moghlai food.

But this “Dal Makhni” is totally Punjabi !

Shrikhand, from "The Chakh le India Cookbook" by Aditya Bal

Rich Hung Curd Dessert

There are many who admit to being hooked to food channels and food shows on tv. And there are almost as many who say they have no patience for them. 

In between there are those who watch, but like to say they don’t—it is kind of considered infra dig, a reflection on having a lot of time on hand, when it is better to be heard saying they are busy. 

There are people like my mother-- who have spent a life time in the kitchen, who can beat the best of master chefs when it comes to traditional home cooked food that is part of their culture—who with excitement say that between 4 and 4.30 pm daily, Podigai channel has a food show…and recommend that I try to watch an episode, when I call up to ask her how she makes a particular dish.

I love watching food shows, no less than I enjoy a few serials I follow. How seriously I follow the recipes, what I learn from each one, and how much I have enjoyed a particular episode, is something I have never cared to quantify. But often enough, I’ve recalled some little thing that A chef or B chef had done, and tried to incorporate them in my daily cooking.

And I am sure that must be the case with most of us.

 Food /cookery channels and shows , though pretty new on Indian television, have acquired a niche slot, just as they have weaned away ladies from the melodramatic family dramas. And they have acquired prime space in our lives. And people like Sanjeev Kapoor or Rakesh Sethi a household name, and Vicky Ratnani an envy of many.Even models and celebs are trying to make their entry into the food tv world.

NDTV Good Times is not one of my favorites for food programs. And even in this, I used to lose my patience with Aditya Bal’s Chakh le Academy, where he taught a few young boys and girls to make some dishes.  It seemed very childlike to say the least.But in retrospect,  I enjoyed the seriousness and passion with which he did it.

His other show, in which he hops all over the country on his motorbike, and gets people to make their local food, and then re-does that for us, was more fun. It not only showed how people cook their meal, but also how Aditya Bal has assimilated that, and transformed it for the modern urban kitchen. Like most of us learn from here and there.

When I flipped through the pages of his book based on the tv show, I was pleasantly surprised to learn what I had suspected all along: that Aditya was not a trained chef, but like many of us, passionate about it. The book shows that, and is great for those who like to admit that training can follow passion, but will never replace it.

Simple and great recipes that are part of our daily meals is what the book has. Simply written. Aditya will go a long way..given this passion and modesty. Good luck to him

**

Here goes the recipe for that delicious Shrikhand that is staple in Gujarat and Maharashtra, from the Aditya Bal book:

Shrikhand-picture from the book

“This creamy sweet-sour,gelato-like sweet, filled with the goodness of hung curd, is one of the best known desserts from Maharashtra. It has to be one of the simplest and quickest Indian sweets to make. It’s light and fluffy and a delight to eat when served chilled” says the author.

Page 148 from the book

 Amul, the  baby delivered by  the late Dr  V Kurien--the father of White Revolution in India-- many years ago, sells Shrikhand in a few flavours.

The First Foodie of the Universe, & his Favorite Food

For Ganesha, the God of Gods

Vella kozhakkattai and Ammini Kozhakkattai for Ganesha

Ganesha  is almost the God of Gods. 

All poojas, rituals,celebrations and the like, begin with an invocation to him.

He is one of the smartest Gods in the Hindu pantheon, for the way he circled his parents to complete a trip around the universe, even as bro Kartikeya actually set out on the marathon journey!

But in this post, I pay tribute to the first foodie in the universe. We’ve never heard of what other members of the panetheon like, the way we know it is modakams that Ganesha likes. There is that cute belly, to provide evidence for those who doubt if he was a foodie!

For the artists, he is Super God. Amost every day there is a new pose he is striking, in their canvas, or in their sculpture.

He has played around with everything, including possibly the new IPhone5.

Collectors have tens of thousands of Ganeshas in display, and are still counting. 

There is no target number--He has been made with five money plant or paan(betel) leaves, for he is the Green God as well!

The clever thing, asks his starving devotees to exercise, perhaps to steal the effort to his own benefit. "Sit down, stand ups"-- uthak baithaks-- or topikkaranam, is what they have to do before him, whether at temples or at home!

Go ahead, and offer him his favorite Modakams on Ganesh Chaturthi. And eat some too !