A bumpkin in the soup

Coriander, cumin “warm-hug” pumpkin soup

As the first spoonful of this delicious soup slid down into our guts, spreading a warm haze all over our inside and up to our souls, my first-born christened it as the warm-hug pumpkin soup.

We had saved a portion for the photo shoot, yes - all my food blogger friends and food groupies will agree that there comes a time when we have to defer to the family’s wishes and eat in haste so we can shoot at leisure.

You can see how the impromptu christening gave the daughter an idea for styling the soup for the photo.

The photo and the soup – and the name- extol the virtues of a hug, which got thinking about this phenomenon.

Growing up, we were hardly ever hugged beyond a certain age. But I don’t think we were any worse off or felt deprived of affection. There were so many ways in which we felt the warmth of our parents’ love- through their care, their ceaseless efforts for us, through the underlying warmth in their tone when they even nagged us. I'd even say there was warmth in their worrying about us and in their reprimanding harangues – okay, perhaps I go a little overboard.

We were exposed to the norms of social distance and personal distance all around us.  Our hands folded reflexively in a Namaste and we had to learn to proffer a hand to shake.  Isn't it ironic that we were acutely aware, and not just instinctively, of even an inadvertent touch or contact from the opposite sex- while we actually lived in a populous society where pushing and jostling were an everyday feature.   

It took us a bit of growing up to even get used to the word itself without childishly giggling at any unintended puns in our vernacular. Then, all of a sudden, almost in another world, we realised that even older relatives (mostly our NRI ones) preferred a hug to the traditional “touching of their feet”.

Long lost friends gave you bear hugs while you were racking your brains to remember if you had ever made any physical contact with them. Even as we were getting used to shaking hands at the first meetings without reaching out for that little bottle of hand sanitizer, hugging people during the very next meeting had come out of the seemingly insincere phalanges of the socialites and film stars and was actually expected of us.

So many times I have bumped heads and knocked noses with people in my bumpkin attempts to respond to their hugs, never quite sure if it’s going to be a one arm or a two arm hug, or how many sides I am supposed to hug, or for that matter how many cheeks to touch. The only reassuring thing about some of these norms is that one doesn’t have to – err, one isn’t supposed to let lip meet with the cheek.

So why the perfunctory hug and the equally facetious smooch?

A sincere smile, happiness at meeting someone genuinely glowing through the eyes and heartfelt words expressed generously – are preferable any day to an exuberant but empty embrace - in the same way as this simple 

un-pretentious, almost rustic warm-hug soup so innocuously thawed its way to our hearth and hearts.

Coriander, cumin “warm-hug” pumpkin soup

• 1-2 tbsp oil
• ½ kg butternut pumpkin, skin and seeds removed, cut into chunks
• 2 medium potatoes, cubed
• 1 cup assorted vegetables  – broccoli and cauliflower stalks, green beans, etc. (I used up the vegetables I had boiled to make stock a day earlier)
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2-3 large cloves garlic
• 1/2 tsp grated ginger
• 2 1/2 cups vegetable stock
• 1 tsp toasted coriander powder
• ½ tsp toasted cumin powder
• pinch of black pepper
• pinch of white pepper
• pinch of nutmeg
• salt to taste
• red chilli powder to taste (optional)
• A squirt of lime juice (lemon will do too)

Place the butternut pumpkin, potatoes and onion in a sauce pan. Add oil and sauté well. Add the garlic, ginger and the cumin and coriander powders and sauté a little more. Add the stock and the other boiled vegetables and cook on low heat till well done. This should take about 20 minutes.

Turn off the heat and allow the mixture to cool a little. Then use a food processor or stick blender to process the soup until smooth.

Adjust the consistency by adding more water. Heat the soup again and season with salt, black and white pepper, nutmeg and chilli powder. Add the lime juice. Check and adjust all other flavours.

Serve hot, garnished with some fresh chopped parsley and with some toasted sourdough bread on the side.

Coriander, Conscience and Couscous ...

Couscous Coriander Cuts

Cous Cous hota hai!    Khus Khus Hota Hai!   Cous Khushit (Crisp and Savoury in Marathi)   Kothimbir- Kous Kous- Khus Khus Kakes…

Oops! Twisted my tongue trying to be funny- and now I am tongue tied! Not funny. I still haven’t answered my question. What do I call this dish?

It took inspiration from the very traditional Kothimbir Vadi which means Coriander Cakes, but all this confusion has been caused and compounded by the couscous. Why couscous? Well, I had this bunch of coriander that was losing its will to live. And I was trying to take a philosophical approach to its impending demise. Moreover, lessons learnt as an entrepreneur in a labour starved economy urged me to cut my losses and let it go, not worth spending half an hour of my time, cost of ingredients and the price to pay for calories, outgoings like gas, water, prime real estate occupancy rate in downtown Melbourne… too impelling a non-business case!

But then I remembered the lessons learnt from my mother and grandmother, who developed and spread the awareness of ‘waste not, want not’ in their local communities and in the family in Pre and Post-World War II tough times. I remembered my mother telling me about how her mother used to grow coriander and store it in a clay pot lined with wet gunny sacking. She used to dry the excess coriander harvest for use in the summer months when it was scarce, an exercise that involved careful picking, drying in the sun, remembering to put it away for the night and take it out to spread for another day. Protecting it from fungus, rot, pests, storage logistics, all this effort only to make the best use of resources for her family! She educated the local women about home economics, nutrition and taught them to be self-reliant. Back to the coriander, my mother also diligently sorted and picked coriander and stored it in separated bundles, the leaves with the tender stems on the one side and the flavoursome tougher stems on another to be used in chutneys or curry pastes.

These ladies had been so ahead of their times and were so ingeinus and resourceful! And how 'cool' of them to promote such awareness in the days of yore…that even the tough stems are the most nutritious and tastiest part of this wonderful herb is a fact now endorsed by umpteen cook books, blogs, internet recipes, videos and TV cookery shows! The humble coriander has been romanticised!

Conscience poked self admonishment! We have such a mixed attitude towards things that selflessly add flavour to our lives! What was scarce once is now available in plenty, but we still moan about the expense. It pains to pay $2 or more for small bunch, when you could have higgle- haggled with the vegetable vendor to throw it in as a freebie after buying all the vegetables for the day, back in the days of my childhood. But we are too finicky and don’t like dried coriander and coriander pastes, only fresh will do.  And I am ready, if somewhat grudgingly, to pay a bit more for a bunch of coriander grown in Queensland (with soil still on the roots) than to buy the local produce. And to think of it, this unassuming, incidental herb not only gets the grind for its flavour, but also sits atop a plated dish as its crowning glory.

This fickleness and these hard to please, quick -to- dismiss, taking- for -granted behaviours cause us great strife – I am not talking only about global strife, but also about my internal struggle about deciding the fate of that bunch of coriander sitting in the crisper!

Guilt kicked out all the logical consideration and feasibility and risk and loss mitigation reasoning, and I made this instant decision to immortalise the coriander into this dish. A half pack of couscous caught my attention as I stepped into the pantry…it had to be a signal! I had read this recipe of couscous by my friend Anjali in the morning. So in went the couscous, sharing limelight with the ‘never fail’ besan (gram flour), coriander and spices and making my plans of making the simple kothimbir vadi go awry!

But off-beat, off-track of-ten turns out interesting! So did these cuts or chips or whatever you may call it. The couscous gave a great grainy texture to the vadi and was an excellent or even better alternative to the traditional mix of flours such as wheat, rice and millet. All other ingredients were traditional.

Ingredients

1 cup (or more) chopped coriander

½ cup couscous

1 cup besan (gram flour)

1 (or more) teaspoons green chilly paste or green chilli powder

½ teaspoon cumin powder

½ teaspoon coriander powder

¼ teaspoon hing

¼ teaspoon turmeric

½ teaspoon Eno Fruit Salt (baking soda will do)

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Salt to taste

For the topping

1 teaspoon khuskhus (white poppy seeds)

1 teaspoon white sesame seeds

Oil to shallow fry

In a heatproof bowl, pour ¾ cup boiling water over the couscous, cover and set aside for 10 minutes. Fluff it with a fork to separate the couscous and add the rest of the ingredients except the oil. Mix thoroughly and add a bit of water to make a pliable dough.

Oil a cake tin or plate/ thali and tightly pat and pack the dough in a thin layer. Depending on the size of the pan, you may need to make one or two batches, as it can’t be too thick. Smooth the top and sprinkle the sesame seeds and poppy seeds. Steam the plate or cake tin in a pressure cooker without the weight, or in a steamer, for about 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick or skewer comes out clean. Allow it to cool.

When fully cool, slide a knife around the edges and take out the cake. Cut it into  diamond shapes or let your imagination run amuck. You can make these ahead and store them in the fridge. Just before serving, shallow fry the pieces/cuts in oil, bottom first and top (seeded) side last.

Serve hot with mint chutney and/or tomato sauce- makes a great starter. It can go in as a base for a canapé with different toppings, too!