Walking down memory lane…

If you take a good look, you will find that the majority of the posts on this blog are around memories. Mostly memories about food. Yet, from the moment Manisha announced her IFR: Memories I seem to have been at a loss for words! Her deadline, extended, is looming and I can feel the pressure as she churns out post after daily post on IFR.

Many of my vivid memories are around food, which must be true for a lot of you. Despite nostalgia rendering most things pink, resurrecting food of our memories usually turns out well. Unless you are attempting to recreate your mother’s cooking. That one is hard to get spot on. Few can rival a mother’s prowess. Hopefully, our children will look at our cooking the same way, and we will have our spot in the limelight.

Just like this summer, before leaving for college, the son finally awarded me a 10-on-10 for my rogan josh. He also added that not only had I cooked a swell rogan josh, I now had my own secret ingredient for it! Which was true – I had tweaked my mother’s recipe a tad – I added a teeny weeny bit of ground mace. What was I to do – after trying in vain to match her rogan josh for ten years, I rebelled and made it better . Well, not really. By that time I had likely put in my time – the minimum requisite to get certification – behind cooking rogan josh to have finally got the art down. Yes, recipes evolve…in an effort to better your mom’s cooking when you can’t make it just like her. I bet my son’s food memories are starting to stack up.

Caronde he Caronde

Please don’t mention Caronda* for some time…it is in every jar I had spare!  There is no room for any more pickles or preserves…As I mentioned last time, I made some caronda chutney a week ago, to use up part of my Dad’d harvest from a bush I planted about ten years ago in the front yard of their house.  I used the idea of a sweet-tangy Indian chutney such as saunth (sweet and sour tamarind chutney) or a mango chutney made with unripe mangoes.  The effort was much appreciated. Since it was a trial batch I got just enough to fill two tiny jars that I sent off to my mum and sister.  The next batch was a repeat of the recipe and this time the effort yielded a big jar – plenty, I thought.

There were still some carondas left which then went into a pickle, pits and all, along with some unripe mango, lotus root, and green chillies. I keep that stoneware jar in the sun, what little there is of it at this time, bring it in every evening, and give it a good stir.  It is looking good.

So far so good.  My mum liked the relish a lot.  She doesn’t eat too much pickle because of the high salt content.  I told her that pitting the fruit was a pain in the rear.  She pitted about a kilo with the help of her maid and presented it to me.  I had thought more like: ok, here’s a recipe you might like to try… But I came home and made my third batch of caronda chutney.  This batch had fewer ingredients – I had already used up my dates; no gur – I couldn’t be bothered; less sugar – I had used up a lot of sugar in the past couple of weeks between the caronda relish and the mango jam, and was making statements with big exclamatory marks regarding the sugar content of the chutney.  The fruit for this batch had ripened further on the plant, was a deeper pink, and there was a subtle change in texture too.  What a pretty pink it turned in the pan!  And the texture – why, it reminded me of sour cherries in syrup!  The slight crispness as you bite into one was so similar!  That made me Google for recipes using sour cherries and I found a bunch that hold promise for next year!  I make no promises…but there might even be Caronda Liqueur on these pages one day!

Express Wholegrain Pancakes

I think I have hibernated long enough.  And it is not even the season.  ‘Tis the season to be out and enjoy the rains – which, after it having rained most of May and all of June, have disappeared since we officially entered the monsoon season.  That’s the weather update for you.

A couple of weeks ago I was again confronted with two over-ripe bananas in the fridge – stored in the fridge so as to extend their pulpy lives further – and their demise looked nigh.  There were some other things in the pantry that needed to be used up before they turned bad.  Such as cornmeal from winter.  It will turn bitter unless I use it up soon. And we know how the Indian middle-class hates to throw out anything, especially food.

Sunny Salubri-tea

The spirit was willing…but the flesh very weak. But here I am after a not-too-long hiatus from blogging. I guess, we all need a break now and then, to get the juices flowing again.

JFI:Rice came. And went. Nothing from the Kashmir stables after having admitted “there is much Kashmiris do with rice.” That too when I have, at the least, nine varieties of rice in my pantry! And I had so planned to cook ver, the Kashmiri rice gruel/konji/risotto named after the spice mix that goes into it, that is cooked to kick off all auspicious functions. It will have to wait for some time, though I do have just the rice for it.

Meanwhile, let me serve you something cool and refreshing, while there is still some heat in the sun and warmth in the weather. Just in time for Meeta’s Monthly Mingle: Liquid Dreams.

Mango Jam

Nothing compares to the taste of organically grown fresh produce from your own garden. It is seasonal, it has ripened naturally, and made it to your table with the smallest ecological footprint possible.

But if the bounty is large you may be left with a lot even after you have shared it with friends, family, neighbours, and house help. That is when you fall back on the age old methods for preserving fresh produce. Sun-drying, and freezing are the easiest.

When Life Gives You Limes…

When life gives you lemons…well, actually I got limes, Persian limes, to be precise…make limeade.  I have finally established that what we use in India are not lemons! The most common yellow nimboo (from Persian – limoo) that we use day in and day out, goes by the name Key Lime in the US. What my Dad has in his garden are two Persian Lime trees.

The crop is in – I have 90 kilos of Amrapali mangoes, and 20 kilos of the most beautiful limes to deal with! Usually, I have to tackle just about a third of this, but with my parents away for the summer I have to consume/process the major part of this lot. A third has already been sent to my sister who lives in the neighbouring city of Gurgaon. She is going to have to make her own pickles and jams this year – I have too much on my hands.

It’s Guava!

And the answer is Amrood or Guava! This is the beautiful flower of the common guava tree (Psidium guajava) that most of us know very well! Guava is a small evergreen tropical tree. The tree has a very attractive copper coloured bark that flakes off on mature branches to reveal a grey-green-silver layer underneath, giving the bark a beautiful mottled appearance.

Manisha, Nabeela, Sra and Sandhya, all got it right!

And the winner is, none other than Manisha, The Truly Learned One . She posted her answer within minutes of the publishing of the post. And for the next few minute, I had no answer! I went into a tizzy – had to do something to keep the quiz alive ! Into moderation went her comment and then all – for an appearance of fairplay.

She has asked for a little bit of the most expensive spice in the world, as her prize I made no promises, but it is only fair So, Manisha, you can collect it whenever you are passing! Or, you will get it in the mail, in the not too distant future.

Soon after, Nabeela, followed by Sra, and Sandhya had the right answers too. To all of you – well done!

I am especially impressed because I lived for two years in this house (my parents’ house) with the guava tree, enjoyed the juicy guavas, made them into chutney, into jelly, and then distributed the fruit to everyone who would have it , and didn’t know what the flowers looked like! When it fruits, we get 30-35 small-medium guavas from this tree, everyday, for about 4 weeks! Too much of a good thing…even the house help, and the gardener refuse eventually!

It was last year, when I looked at the tree from above (from the terrace), that I saw these most beautiful large white blooms! They do tend to hide in the leaves, and are not that obvious when looking up the tree. But the fruit we make sure we see!

Guava has many medicinal uses as well. For one, it will keep you regular . The fruit is believed to be beneficial for controlling diabetes. In Cuba, its leaves find culinary use in barbecues. It is also a food plant for certain species of butterflies.

Thank you all for participating. I really enjoyed this, especially since many of you got it right! Till the next quiz!

PS: I would give you the recipe for the chutney which was much loved by a friend’s daughter, but it received a very lukewarm welcome in this house And the jelly – it is just too much work- all that straining is just not worth it! Not for guava jelly anyway; though it did look stunning. The fruit is best had fresh, or at the most sprinkled with some chat masala (Indian spiced salt) and a squeeze of lemon.

Roasted Banana Ice Cream

There are hazaar recipes that we bookmark to make later. Some of them we, thankfully, do get around to trying before they get lost in the oblivion of the must-do lists. This particular list is now threatening to become an avtar of Hanuman’s ever elongating tail.

Melissa showcased a recipe from David Lebovitz’ Perfect Scoop on A Traveler’s Lunchbox a few weeks ago that caught my eye. I am always looking for what to do with over-ripe bananas. If I buy bananas in excess of one , there is always one that cannot be saved. And with inflation at 6%, they are not as inexpensive as they used to be. Besides, I hate to throw food. Barely over-ripe bananas are brimming with goodness and full of flavour. The other thing is that while my son won’t eat bananas, he’ll eat things with bananas in them, banana nut muffins being his favourite banana treat.

I have served baked bananas as dessert many times. Slit bananas sprinkled with brown sugar, lemon juice, and cinnamon, baked till soft, served with or without ice cream. That sugary lemony sauce looks and tastes divine, full of the ripeness of bananas. But banana in ice cream sounded intriguing. And there they were, three ripe bananas, calling out.

Lime Marmalade

I was trying to think of a good house warming gift for a client who has everything and more. And I had been wanting to make my Lemon Lime Marmalade again. So I said, “I must make my marmalade!” But as used to happen with a lot of my experimental cooking, I would never note it down and next time around, still need to search. Now I have this blog.

Search I did but no recipe came close to what I had tried the last time (there were no blogs then!). So I did what I always do: look at a number of recipes, make up my mind about the substitutions and eliminations, and then go ahead.

I remembered using sliced lemons limes last time. But all the recipes I found this time (there weren’t too many, I’m afraid–bloggers don’t make Lime jams it seems) wanted me to follow tedious pulp removals or squeeze the juice. I checked the fruit to sugar ratio (and promptly reduced it!) and went from there…

Banana Nut Muffins

Teens are strange animals. Ani has stayed away from bananas for the last couple of years, but his favourite muffin is still the Banana Nut. So, while I coax and cajole him to pay more attention to his studies, I also bribe him with his favourite eats and snacks.

This morning we had them muffins for breakfast. This is unusual, since sugar at breakfast is very rare, perhaps all over the country. Doodh-jalebi (hot milk and jalebis) being one such breakfast, popular in parts of UP, that comes to mind.

On the other hand, sugar is big at breakfast-time (and other times) in the West. All the donuts, muffins, and cookies, not to mention the ’sugar bombs’ that Calvin (of the Calvin and Hobbes fame) starts off his day with. Americans consume a mind-boggling 170lbs per capita! Impresssive for a people who were introduced to sugar only in the 15th C! Sugar cane, the only source of Indian sugar, was growing here as far back as 325 BC. Today India is the second largest producer of sugar, after Brazil, but thankfully, despite the long tradition, our per capita consumption is amongst the lowest at 14kg (30lbs approx.). In my own house it is half of that! Part of that may be because I am from Kashmir which does not have much of a tradition of things sweet (compared to just about any other state of the country!).

Of course, white sugar is not the only form of sugar consumed in the country. More than a third of the sugar cane produce is diverted towards the making of gur (jaggery) and other less refined sugars which are an integral part of many regional cuisines. The Bengalis also use the sap from the date palm to derive the delicious, subtly flavoured, patali gur (palm sugar).