Terms of taste

Bakarwadi

As kids, we were always happy to have houseguests, known as 'pahune'. We would hang around them, observing their ways, curious about the novel or different personal effects and habits of guests, asking them umpteen questions, rushing to serve them and guide them around. And if they had kids of our age, all the more fun to play with!

In the days of postcards and inland letters, when the telephone was seen more as a status symbol rather than being an instrument of utility, these houseguests dropped in without notice. A telegram would sometimes harbinger their arrival, but often it was just a knock on the door and then the ensuing excitement or perhaps exasperation (for our elders)!

Whatever the case, we kids would only see that they were welcomed warmly and nobody thought it was disruptive of their routine to have unannounced guests- in fact it was routine to have them!

Every meal prepared at home always had the potential of being stretched comfortably to feed a few extra mouths and our mothers and their mothers before them weren’t flustered one bit, at least we didn’t hear of it. One didn’t have put them up in a ‘guest bedroom’ – they were happy to sleep wherever they could be accommodated - on futon like cotton mattresses or dhurries or satranji rugs spread in the drawing room or even on the roof top terrace. We would happily join them, so we could chat away into the wee hours. Even the houseguests were prepared to put up with whatever inconveniences they had to face.

Guests usually brought some gifts or the other. Barely patient for them to settle down, we lay in wait for their unpacking of their stuff – yes you are right- for gifts! If they came bearing none, their departure was awaited. Don’t get me wrong! We knew from experience that if they hadn’t got us any gifts in kind, they would give us cash while leaving! We always touched the feet in a namskar to seek the blessings of grown-ups. At such times, it was customary for them to dip into their pockets and press some notes or coins into us kids' hands. The earliest memories of this ritual I have is of receiving a shining coin of one rupee, known as ‘banda rupaya’. We used to love to hoard these coins and use them to supplement our very scarce pocket money! Gradually this gift was jacked up to 5, 10, 50, 100 rupees and so on… On a recent visit to India, I discovered that this cash gift has now gone up to thousands of rupees!

Back to why the houseguests of yore were exciting, we kids looked forward to the sweets and savouries they brought with them. Another nice custom guests followed was to bring gifts of homemade sweets like besan or rava laddus and barfis and savouries likes chaklis and chivda. We also looked forward to  gifts of shop-bought specialty stuff like the petha (candied ash gourd) from Agra or Bhopal, banana chips fried in coconut oil from Kerala, pedhas from Dharwad, kunda and mande from Belgaum, chikki from Lonavla, Mahim halwa from Mumbai, chocolates from visitors coming from overseas… the list is endless. But our most favourite was the mango burfi (amba wadi) and the savouries like the Lakshmi Narayan chivda and spring rolls called bakarwadi from the famous Chitale Bandhu Mitahiwale of Pune! These were absolute delights and such a treat!

Today, all major Indian snack food producers make the bakarwadi. What more, we get Chitale’s bakarwadi not only in Hyderabad but even in Melbourne! However, in keeping with the general (populist?) trend of jacking up the heat factor of all savouries (Why, oh why!!) these bakarwadis literally scald and skin your mouths! 

This Diwali, I recreated the bakarwadi of our childhood, at my terms of taste!

Bakarwadi – a savoury spring roll slice or wadi, with dry stuffing known as bakar!

For the pastry

¾ cup plain flour

¾ cup besan (garbanzo flour)

2 tbsp rice flour

1 ½ tbsp oil for shortening

Salt to taste

Water to make a stiff dough

For the filling

2 tbsp desiccated coconut 

1 tsp poppy seeds

1 tbsp sesame seeds

2 tbsp fine sev

1 tbsp finely chopped fresh coriander (optional)

½ tsp coriander powder

½ tsp cumin powder

1 tsp garam masala or Maharashtrian goda masala powder

1 tbsp red chilli powder (or more)

¼ tsp turmeric

¼ tsp hing

1 tsp fennel seed powder

1 tsp amchur (dry mango powder) (you can use an equal amount of thick tamarind paste instead and to taste)

1 tbsp brown sugar

Salt to taste

1 tsp oil to bind the mixture

Method

Mix the flour, salt and oil together and knead into a stiff and smooth dough using as little water as possible. Knead well for a few minutes and keep covered for about 30 minutes, so the dough relaxes.

In the meantime, lightly toast poppy seeds and sesame seeds in a pan. Remove in a bowl and add the rest of the ingredients for the stuffing. Adjust the taste to your liking. Add the oil and mix it thoroughly. The stuffing should hold itself together if pinched together, but still be dry enough to be sprinkled onto the dough circles.

Divide the dough into equal sized balls. Roll out a ball into a thin chapati like disc shape and sprinkle the filling evenly in a thin layer all over the chapati. Roll the chapati tight and fold the ends. Pressing it firmly but without changing the shape of the log, tightly seal the ends. Roll the log lightly to ensure uniform distribution of the stuffing between the layers. Cut the log into equal sized thick slices about 2 cms wide. Make sure each piece is rolled up securely. In this process, the slice or roundel will become slightly flattened, but that is to be expected.

Heat oil in a kadhai and fry these pieces by placing them in the oil, upright and not flat. Fry the wadis evenly until golden brown. Some of the filling may escape the rolls, but that doesn’t matter! 

Drain on kitchen paper and allow to cool and crisp. Repeat this with all the balls of dough, and fry them batch-by-batch. Serve as a snack with drinks or with a cup of tea. Or just pop one into the mouth whenever you feel like!

Store in an airtight container. 

FryDay Story!

Kadbu!

Photos by Apurva Nargundkar.

One of my earliest memories of frantically searching for something to read is from one of the many times when we stayed with amma our paternal grandmother, when our parents had to go away for some reason.  Having recently learnt to read complex words and sentences, I was a precocious bilingual reader. A locust for reading anything from labels, brochures, manuals to articles, stories and comics, I would read on and on whether or not I understood it all.

Finding nothing interesting, I resorted to browsing through the almanac called “Datey panchang”. Flipping through the landscape style, impeccably fine printed book and feeling very important, I picked up bits and pieces, sunrise and sunset, dates of festivals and some zodiac forecasts- much before Linda Goodman came on my scene!

Then my eyes fell on ammas’s religious books and discovered a whole treasure trove of stories there! There were stories from the puranas, the story of Sadhu the merchant, the story of the Sun god Aditya  and his wife Ranubai, Seetala Saptami, Sola Somvar and the Shukravar Katha.

Tucked away in the well-thumbed pages of the Shukravar Katha Sangraha, with its thick print and large font text on yellowing pages smelling of the incense from the altar, was a picture of Goddess Jara Jeevantika. It was a pen and ink sketch of a female figure clad in traditional nine yard saree, surrounded by little girls in ikat skirts and blouses, called ‘parkar polka’ and little boys in Victorian style Eaton suits and embroidered silk caps. It was such a heart-warming and comforting sight to my little self who had already begun to miss my mother!

The Jara Jeevantika vrat was a festival of children observed for their well being and safety during every Friday during the Hindu month of Shravan.  Mother would fast during the day and break it only in the evening after a pooja  and naivedya offering to the Goddess and after celebrating us children with an aarti. She would prepare the most delicious fare, savouries and sweets like sheera, puran poli, kheer and kadbu! Going home from school on a Friday would be most exciting! Our hunger pangs would be intensified with the anticipation of the feast that lay ahead of us. And did we enjoy being the centre of attention on Friday evenings when mother fussed over us and pampered us with goodies.

As I grew up, I understood the significance of this feast, Mother’s way. The month of Shravan saw heavy rains which brought with them illnesses such as dysentery and other waterborne diseases, malaria, coughs and colds, influenza and children were easy prey in the days of high infant mortality. The rains also brought out snakes, scorpions and other insects that could kill people, especially young children with their venomous bites. Jara Jeevantika was considered the mother goddess, the epitome of mother hood. Praying to her was a mother’s way of protecting her kids.

She was not one bit superstitious, but Mother observed this Friday feast very religiously long after these dangers had ceased! She explained she wanted to wish us well and celebrate us as well as pray for our well being.  And I believe the strong, positive vibes she sent us reached their mark! Conveying one’s feelings is just as important as having them! ‘Show and tell’ is an absolute must when it comes to expressing our love...

Mother inspired us to follow suit- whether we make puran poli and kadbu or not, we do make it a point to meet and celebrate our kids and even pets with a pooja, aarati and a feast!  Cat, Sharad, Ginger, Rajah and Shadow, our family pets, have enjoyed this blessedness along with all family kids!

And I am sure a foodie dog like Rajah actually knew just like the kids that Shravan Shukravar was a veritable FryDay!

Kadbu

This is a dish popular in Maharashtra and Karnataka. It’s like a gujiya, made with whole wheat flour pastry and a chana dal  and jaggery/sugar puran. Although fried, it is still served with dollops of ghee!

For the puran stuffing

2 cups chana dal

2 cups soft Kolhapur jaggery

½ cup white sugar

1 cup fresh grated coconut

¾ cup milk powder or khoya

1 ½ tbsp poppy seeds, dry roasted and coarsely ground

1 tsp cardamom powder

¾ tsp ground or grated nutmeg

For the pastry

2 ½  cups wheat flour

1 cup plain flour

1 tsp poppy seeds

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

¼ cup oil/ghee

Water to knead

Preparation

Pick, wash and cook the chana dal in a pressure cooker. When done, drain in a colander. Do not discard the water, it can be used in dals, soups or in a clear soup we make called ‘katachi amti’.

Grate the jiggery and grind the chana dal and jiggery in a kitchen food processor or what is called the ‘puran machine’ till all the grain is mashed and the dal and jiggery get mixed. Remove the mixture in a thick bottomed pan. Heat the mixture and add the coconut, sugar, milk powder/ khoya, cardamom and nutmeg powders, and coarsely ground poppy seeds. Mix well and when the sugar melts, remove from heat and cool. It should turn into a soft doughy matter that can hold its shape.

Make smooth and stiff but pliable dough using the wheat and plain flours, salt, sugar, poppy seeds and the shortening (oil/ghee). Keep covered for at least half an hour.

Shaping and frying the kadbu

Divide the dough into equal balls the size of large marble or a gooseberry. Roll them into discs with thicker centres than the sides. Fill a tablespoon full of the puran mixture and fold the disc into half. Now you will have a crescent shape.  Press the edges of the disc together and starting from one end, press a portion and fold it over, repeating this till the end, resulting in a decorative edge as seen in the photos.

Make a few and slow fry them in oil till golden brown. Continue to make more while these are getting fried. Keep the folded kadbus covered with a damp cloth till it is time to fry them.

Serve warm or cold with dollops of ghee!

I have just discovered a whole new world of fellow bloggers who have fun sending their entries to various events graciously hosted by some of their ilk!inking this The month of Shravan" on Sangeeta's Spicytreats -Celebrate the month of Shravan! and Jagruti's Shravan event !

 I am also entering this in the "Walking down the memory lane" event graciously hosted by Archana Archana's Walking down the memory lane  and Gayatri's page!