These are a few of my new favourite things….

Most of us get addicted to reading blogs before we get one of our own. I wandered into the food blog world one fine day looking for some variety in my daily cooking. Nothing fancy, just everyday cooking that would show new ways with the same old ingredients.

Here are a few that have been added to our list of family favourites, and have been cooked more than once in my kitchen. Tried and tested…

1. Get your morning off to a good start with these scrumptious Pumpkin Cheddar Muffins from Manisha - (Indian Food Rocks)
2. Pel’s (Elaichi et Cetera) scintillating Thai soup Kaeng Thom Yam, and Nam Prik Pao, the secret paste behind it.
3. Bee and Jai’s (Jugalbandi) Kootu podi (spice mix for vegetables cooked with dal) from Southern India.
4. Bhinda ni Kadhi - Gujarati okra kadhi (Spice Cafe).
5. Bisi bele hulianna, a rice dish that was the essence of Karnataka cuisine to me (still is!) from Saakshi (Healthy Home Cooking), a serving of which can give you upwards of 20 varieties of food in one dish (including spices, of course)!

Check them out, if you haven’t already! Happy eating, and repeating!

The Mangoes are Sour

A big chunk of my readers live outside India. And all of them will appreciate how I have tried not to rub salt on their mangoes wounds this year. There has been no talk of mangoes, whatsoever, on this blog so far this year; no debate on which mango is the King, or that mango is King.

But ’tis the season and you all have access to reasonably good unripe sour mangoes. Sour mangoes are loved all over Asia, cooked with dal, with vegetables (it is the perfect foil for bittergourd), or enjoyed as a relish such as Pel’s nam prik wan kap mamuang khiew. And when you don’t want to fuss, just slice them up, dip in salt, and taste nirvana. Not as much fun today when my teeth sour much too quick, but a favourite summer activity when we were kids.

When Everything is Yellow

I was gushing about the April Fool’s Blog Swap to my schoolfriend. She was not very impressed and instead she drove the conversation in another direction:

So you meet these people on the Internet and they become your friends?
Um, yeah. Well, some of them even become very good friends…
How do you know if the woman isn’t really a neurotic man or a psychotic killer? And when you do meet him, he stabs you in the back!

Gulp! I sent a very sharp knife to Anita recently and was angling to be adopted. What was I thinking?

So my post began when I started writing it almost two weeks ago…

Life has served a few surprises since then and I have been at a total loss - numbed into inaction and unable to digest the news. It’s the big C. One of my closest friends has been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor and unfortunately the prognosis is rather bleak. While she snapped into action, writing list after list of things that needed to done; I switched off and slept. As did this post - until we met to celebrate her and her life. We laughed, we hugged, we cried and we laughed some more – each of us hoping for a miracle. The mood switched from very sombre to reflective and appreciative of what we do have at this very moment - and fortunately for all of us, that is the mood that persists.

So, pour yourself a cup of tea as I dedicate this post to my friend Francie and do my best to hand this blog back to its soul. Tea is an important ingredient for a party on this mad blog, right?

Out with the Old, In with the New

I mean really. Aren’t you tired of brown? And pictures of desks? It’s time for a makeover. It’s time for fun. It’s high time for the real Mad Tea Party to begin. I asked Anita to please take a walk so that I can set things right around here. Once I get done with this post, I am going to change the template to something far more cheery than brown. Let’s bring in the color!

And we will also free ourselves of this persistent British anarchy over the English language and lose the ‘u’ between ‘o’ and ‘r’. Forever. We will do the needful, and at the same time we will also arrest the overt usage of the present continuous tense so that American English can continue to prevail as the language of Indian food blogs.

We will have pictures! Lots and lots of pictures. Fields do get boring after a while. But it is spring, after all; time for a new lease on life…for this blog.

So let’s do it!

Um, get it? Let’s Rock & Roll?

A Mad Tea Party is where I will be blogging from now on. If you’re looking for her, she’s over there now. This is the last time I will clarify and re-clarify things. You really are going to need to be sharp from here on. And with that…

Let the Party Begin.

Punjabi Chhole (Chickpeas)

Chhole bhature is an absolutely decadent treat that is a must-try if you visit Delhi. It is one of Delhi’s many Punjabi specialties. It is also something I cook less often. Only because of a personal preference for rajma (red kidney beans). I have been working on that for the last six months though.

Over the years I have tried many recipes for chhole, including one for the famous fat-free chhole served with Amritsari kulchas, crispy potato stuffed tandoori bread (not like a naan or roti). Now I have my very own recipe, and it is another family pleaser. And, I have to again admit, I don’t rely on the packaged chana masala, good though they are. And there is a reason for that.

A couple of years ago, we ate a delicious dish of chhole at a friend’s place and I, naturally, asked for the recipe. It was a simple recipe, one using all the usual suspects – ginger, onions, and tomatoes – but all cooked together (with chhole) instead of being bhuno-ed (frying in oil ‘till-the-oil-separates’ stage). She had used MDH chana masala. It was delicious, and I remember we all agreed emphatically as we went over the menu on our drive home. I wasn’t going to let a simple easier method pass me by. I got my pack of chana masala and proceeded to cook a few weeks later.

The verdict?

My Continuing Discovery of Indian Cuisines

I mentioned earlier the likelihood of my having been a South Indian in previous life. I believe there are people who are offended by this title – South Indian. I know not why. I do understand though, the umbrage at everyone from Southern India being (once) called ‘Madrasi’ by self-centered North Indians. May I add that for my grandma’s generation all non-Kashmiris were Punjabi – likely the only other state they had heard of from their insular position. “So, you married a Punjabi,” she would say.

Southern India is not a homogeneous region; neither is Northern India nor, for that matter, the Eastern or the Western parts of our country. And, just as the cuisine and customs of the Northern plains have a lot in common, the people of Southern Peninsular India also share a long cultural heritage.

While I have established (some might say - followed my tummy to) the general region of my previous birth as Dravidian India, I have not yet been able to point to the exact spot. In my early teens I already knew that Andhra and Tamil food gave me as much comfort as did my mum’s cooking. I relished the everyday-kind dal-based vegetable preparations (which I may not know by their names) served with thick short grain rice; idli smeared with fiery milagai podi was as much ambrosia as was tayir saadam. I discovered Kerala cuisine a little later – in my twenties - though it was confined to the odd fish curry, thorans and pachadis, and the exotic (to me) appams with either avial or ishtu.

If you are in southern India be sure to wear some flowers in your hair…strung flowers sold by arm-lengths!

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.

What a Party!

Out they poured…tiny ones, giant ones, white ones, brown ones, thin ones, thick ones, flat ones, puffed ones, plain ones, flamboyant ones, stuffed ones, speckled ones, “…they ran all over …in and out of kitchens, squeaking in their hundreds so that people could not hear themselves speak. They killed all the cats and fought the dogs quite boldly. They were too cunning to be caught in traps. What could be done?” (from The Pied Piper, an old Tale).

Not quite the belan-wielding avtar that was giving Bee and Jai nightmares, but I sure felt a little like the Pied Piper! It is hard to believe this post led to this party!

The sweet music from my magic pipe led us all to this Party table, which is now groaning under the weight of poories. And what a party it is - there are friends and family, neighbours and roomies, little ones and older ones, guys and gals, singles and couples, married-with-children, extended families, those with blogs, and those without, old faithfuls, and new faces too.

To celebrate 60 years of Indian Independence we covered quite some ground. The South was fully represented by Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh; Maharashtra held up the west; from the east we had Orissa and West Bengal; and North was represented by Delhi, and Punjab. And we also had participation from the Western World - USA! And everyone dressed up too! Yay!

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.

A Piece of Cake…

Chiffon: a breezy fabric perfect for the Indian summer; lemons: refreshing, and in plenty from my parents’ trees; a birthday in the family. The perfect situation for a Lemon Chiffon Cake, just not the perfect weather to be in the kitchen. Far from it. Delhi has been an oven this past week with temperatures in the mid-40s. But already there are signs of some relief with cooler easterlies blowing our way.

But that was not the case when I was baking this cake. I made the cake a day earlier so that it would be ready for the frosting on the day of the big dinner. I wanted to incorporate some of the lemon bounty and decided to make this cake which is halfway between a true sponge cake and the heavier, more buttery, regular cakes. Using a little fat, and a lot of air from well beaten egg whites you get a sponge that is light but not dry.