Currying favour

Bharela Ringan Bataka

All my favourite ingredients – the usual suspects – the seed/nut triumvirate, eggplant, potatoes and besan. My latest proud possession, my Tuffware langdi pan and a traditional cooking technique that intrigues me - the panyachey zhakan or “lid filled with water”. The recipe from my favourite cuisine - Gujarati…

This dish is simply currying favour.

As it did with Suranga Date, my very wise, witty and wonderful blogger friend from Mumbai - who has this knack of capturing the soul and spirit of a recipe and story and presenting it in a fabulous fable... 

Do visit her blog Strewn Ashes to see how Suranga paints a milieu of a mass wedding ceremony of delicate vaangi ben (and other brides) and robust bataka bhai (and other grooms) at the Langadi Function Hall...

Tuffware Langdi

I have seen many variations of this dish; some make it with tomatoes, others without. This one with tomatoes is possibly a Kutchi variation. The combination of all these ingredients makes this typically Gujarati – but there is one key ingredient missing.

Can you guess what is it that gives it the Gujarati-ness?

Ingredients

6 small sizes ringan (eggplants)

6 baby bataka (potatoes)

2 tbsp thick tomato puree or two small tomatoes, finely chopped

For the stuffing

1 tbsp coarsely powdered roasted peanuts

1 tbsp toasted and roughly crushed sesame seeds 

1 tbsp toasted desiccated coconut

2-3 tbsp besan

1 tsp garam masala/goda masala/ Badshah undhiyu masala

½ tsp cumin powder

1 tsp coriander powder

1 tbsp ginger garlic paste

½ tsp turmeric powder

1 tsp red chili powder (or more)

Salt to taste

2 tbsp oil

For the tempering

4 tbsp oil

1 tsp mustard seeds

½ tsp cumin seeds

A pinch of hing

Method

Heat a pan and add 2 tbsp oil and roast the besan until light brown and fragrant.  Cool and mix all the other ingredients for the stuffing. Check to adjust the taste to your liking.

Parboil the potatoes in salted boiling water (only about 50 % done) and when cooled, cut each potato into half almost all the way down, so the two halves are not separated. There is no need to peel the potatoes if the skin is clean and unmarked.

Wash eggplants and slit into quarters, almost all the way to the calyx.

Stuff the eggplant and potatoes with the stuffing, pressing the cut veggies together to keep the stuffing in.

Heat 3-4 tbsp oil in a langadi pan (squat and wide bottomed pan) and add mustard seeds to crackle. Then add hing, turmeric, chilli powder, potatoes, and eggplants and shake gently to coat the stuffed vegetables with the tempering. Sprinkle any remaining stuffing over the eggplant and potatoes. Cook covered with a water bath- a deep dish filled with water, until you see the water in the dish steaming.

Remove the lid and gently move the vegetables around the pan. Now add tomato puree or finely chopped tomatoes. Add a little salt to taste – only for the gravy. If required, add a little water to keep the mobility in the gravy. Cover again and cook till done. Check the potatoes and eggplants for doneness and for the tomato gravy to release the oil.

Remove from the heat and let it stand for a few minutes.

Some people make this in a pressure cooker or pressure pan.

Garnish with coriander (I didn’t have any when I made this!)

Serve hot with roti, bhakri or puri.

And the missing ingredient is 1 tsp of sugar or grated jaggery... to be added to the stuffing!

No dough pizza! Pseudough pizza!

Portobello mushroom pizza

A few weeks into my first job in Australia teaching English to international students at the Monash University’s language centre, I was still not as adept at recognising accents and facial/racial features. All my Asian (read South East/North/Far East Asian) students seemed similar looking. It’s interesting how we give in to lumping things, people and what not into bundles based on broad categories that we believe they will fit into! No wonder I was astonished when on a class excursion my daughters had come with me and some of my Asian students remarked fawningly that my daughters and I looked ‘ditto’ like each other’…  after laughing uproariously at the use of the quaint use of the word along with Ditto 1 and Ditto 2,  it struck me- Is this how they saw us? Did they really not see the noses are different, the facial structure somewhat similar, but the chins and jaw lines… I took a reality check- how carefully had I tried to decipher their accents, relate their faces to their ethnicity and tried to see patterns? Didn’t I still call them ‘my Asian students’? If the strong emphasis on the use of inclusive and politically correct language had not got my buy-in and approval, I would still be using possibly discriminatory terms like….oops! I almost said it!

So when Ditto 2 wanted to eat pizza tonight but was too hungry to wait for the dough to rise; and as we had only portobello mushrooms, which I was unwilling to butcher  to top the pizza;… too complicated- I took an executive decision to make the best use of all available resources and under all constraints (I am currently writing courseware for a transport and logistics course) and decided to settle for a trade-off!

I put together a no dough pizza.

Wordplay! A wordster that I am, this is something to dig my nails into…Hey, how about pseudo-pizza? Or better still no-dough, pseudo pizza! But my fanciful thoughts got caught on this word ‘pseudo’ like a silk scarf renting on a thorn. Why do we have this fascination with this word? Is it because we get attracted by appearances rather than reality, or is it because the ‘make believe’ allows us to indulge in thoughts and actions we normally wouldn’t entertain for a minute? Or is it because we can get away without any real price to pay, real trouble or real guilt?

Talking of guilt, somehow, I wonder how meat eating can be completely disassociated with guilt. But then, I also could never understand why people love to eat fake meat. After several  awkward dinners (or rain checks thereof) with business associates in countries like Vietnam, Korea and China who feel obliged - and privileged at the same time- to take to you to these Buddhist veggie eateries serving soy products, I quickly settled down on the stock excuse that I did not wish to eat as I had an upset stomach. Not happy to offend people who supported our business, I preferred the rather indelicate and possibly unladylike ruse to stay back in my hotel room and dine on crackers and cuppa soup.   And to this day I struggle to understand how, if you don’t eat meat because you don’t like the idea in principle and have a stand on this issue of eating meat, can you eat something that looks, tastes and smells like meat? Even if you don’t eat meat for religious reasons isn’t it perhaps an aberration to lust after it and enjoy sinking your teeth in the flesh?

Hmmm… very complex ideas and I am not a social scientist nor competent enough to make some very profound observations about why we have this fascination with the word ‘pseudo’. So I must return to my recipe of the no dough pseudo pizza. However, I can’t resist the temptation of admitting an indulgence in passing. I do like the idea of fake turf. Imagine having the luxury of an ever green patch of lawn that requires no mowing and no weeding! You can forever keep up with the Joneses, you know. And you are willing to spend a bit, you can cover the nature strip as well. In a few years the outlay cost will be evened out by the savings you have on council fines for an unkempt nature strip. What more, you are actually doing the environment and ourselves a favour by saving water!

I’d better get back to the no dough- pseudo pizza. Very tasty and carb-free, this dish can be served as an entre or as a snack. Suitable for people on low carb or gluten free diets.

Ingredients

4 large portobello mushrooms- stalks removed, caps wiped clean and gills cleaned thoroughly

2 tbsp EVOO

Salt

1 cup pizza sauce - I made it by sautéing ½ onion, garlic, ¾ can of chopped tomato, oregano, salt, sugar and pepper in the same pan in which the aubergine and zucchini were roasted- adds to the flavour of the sauce!

4 slices aubergine, slices of half a zucchini – pan roasted lightly in EVOO

4 slices of baby red capsicum (got these beautiful babies in the market)

4 tbsp grated mozzarella cheese

Oregano

Chilli flakes

Flat leaf parsley to garnish

Method

Place the mushrooms gills up and oil them generously. Sprinkle salt and place them in a hot oven and bake for about 10 minutes until quite soft. Remove from the oven, spread the sauce and arrange the slices of aubergine and zucchini. Sprinkle grated mozzarella cheese, chilli flakes and oregano. Top with slices of baby red capsicums. Grill for about 10 minutes until the cheese melts.

Serve hot garnished with parsley.

I am posting this as my contribution to healthy eating -in Spotlight healthy snacks!

A slice of spice

Eggplant Slice - Vangyaachey Kaap!

It’s bitter cold and raining in Melbourne but we have been warmed by a meal of our favourite ‘vaangyachey kaap’. I sit down to write the recipe. This is a dish from Maharashtra. Vangi means eggplant and kaap is slice.  What do I call it in English? Egg plant chops? No, sounds too porky.  Eggplant chips? No, these aren’t deep fried. Eggplant fritters? No, they aren’t really battered like fritters.

Eggplant slice? Yes!!

‘Slice’ is such a mouth watering word. Perhaps not when it is a mundane slice of bread one handles in the morning rush. But it certainly is mouth watering when you remember slicing a loaf of the still warm, moist and slightly sour, soft bread from John’s bakery and generously spreading it with Amul butter or white butter. Dunking this slice into a glass of thick hot sweet boiled chai gives you a brekkie fit for a king.  (Aside- have you ever wondered why tea tastes different when sipped out of a glass, a stainless steel tumbler, a porcelain mug, a bone china cup or a kullad?). This brings to mind another childhood memory. In one of his books, James Herriot the famous vet/writer has recounted his hard struggle one bitter cold night to help a birthing cow. The grumpy farmer is of no help, but afterwards the farmer’s wife makes up for all the trouble by plying Herriot with thick slices of homemade bread slathered in home churned butter and topped with golden home harvested honey. I remember reading the book, as was my wont, into the wee hours of the morning when hunger pangs struck and I had no better choice than to vicariously share Herriot’s gut warming pleasure.

Another childhood memory clamouring for a slice this word space is that of waiting impatiently one summer for the two volumes of fairy tales Mother had ordered from Readers’ Digest and finally when they arrived in the mail, reading each one in one sitting ! Somewhere in there was this story of an ogre devouring slices of watermelon. “Slurp! Slurp”, they would go. This was my first realisation, years before commencing literary studies and learning about onomatopoeia, that the sound of some words echoed their sense!

As a young girl I went through the rites of passage reading Mills and Boon publications and Barbara Cartland’s novels. Tacky as they seem today, I firmly believe these books increased my vocabulary. ‘The tension in the room was so thick it could be cut into a slice’ or ‘He shook her by the shoulder and his harsh words sliced through the heady...something… something… ‘ . Embarrassing, but this was a real slice of my life!

The ‘manga cundy’, which is how a Belgaum ice cream parlour spelt ‘mango candy’ in Marathi on its menu card and A-board, was our favourite treat as a newly wedded couple with limited means. This was a great VFM - real home churned Alphonso mango ice cream served in triangular slices crusted with a biscuit wafer, all for just Rs. 2.50. To this day we associate this lovely slice served with bits of chopped mango with our first efforts as a couple to manage finances within our budget!

   

Somewhere down the track I learnt to add refreshing slices of lemon in the pitcher of cool water. The idea was so exotic and felt posh! And did I tell you I get teased for my antics, verbal and non-verbal, trying to explain to waiters in Indian restaurants even in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Seoul, Makati City or Tokyo, how I like the juicy and crunchy slices of onions.  I have to devise ways to explain that I would like ‘just a few thin slices of a small red onion (don’t waste a whole onion and don’t charge me for a whole salad) no chaat masala and no green chillies’. I may be the only patron in the annals of restaurant history to ask for a doggie bag of an almost plateful of perfectly fine onion slices- such a pity they would be trashed by the restaurant, but more insidiously, what if they aren’t !!

For years now, a breakfast of a slice of madeira or fruit cake with tea is my fond indulgence especially during Christmas holidays. However, not all slices meet the expectation I have of this word. Some slices are remembered only because of their imminent forgettableness. The vanilla slice in the old English style tea rooms, Miss Marple’s Tea Room or the Pig and the Whistle on Mount Dandy sounds and looks nicer than it tastes. I fell only the first time for the vegetable slice, drying and curling on the corners from hours of neglect in the hot bain marie and served with a flourish on knowing I am a vegetarian.

Back to ‘vangyaachey kaap’ – how shall I describe this dish? The word 'kaap' means cut (verb) as well as slice (noun) in Marathi. Therefore, I think a verbing noun like ‘slice’ is most apt. A unique slice of eggplant dredged in spice! So eggplant slice it shall be!

Eggplant Slice or Vaangyachey Kaap

Ingredients

1 large Italian eggplant cut into thin round slices

1 cup besan (gram flour) – ¾ cup

¼ cup rice flour

2 tablespoons bread crumbs (optional- you could also use semolina)

1 tsp red chilli powder (or more)

¼ tsp turmeric powder

1 tsp coriander powder

1 tsp cumin powder

1 tsp garam masala powder

A pinch of ajwain powder (or dried oregano)

A pinch of hing 

Salt to taste

Oil for shallow frying.

Method

Keep the slices of eggplant immersed in water. In a shallow bowl or a deep plate mix the flours, bread crumbs, spices and salt.

This mixture has to be kept dry. Drain the eggplant slices on kitchen paper and dredge each slice in the dry spiced flour mixture. Press the slice firmly into the mixture on each side to ensure the flour coats both the sides of the slice. Heat a pan and pour a little oil. Place a dredged slice on the pan.

Repeat this with each slice until the surface of the pan is filled. Shallow fry the slices on one side. You may want to press the slices with a flat spatula to let out the moisture so that the slices take up less oil to cook. Flip the slices over and pour a little more oil. Make sure each slice gets its fair share of oil to turn a uniform golden brown. Remove on kitchen paper and repeat with the remaining slices.

Serve hot as a side with a meal or as a snack with hot tea!