Lest we forget

ANZAC Biscuits

The full implication of our adventure hit us at the airport in Hong Kong, when we first exchanged our money for the colourful currency notes of our destination country, Australia.  Yes, never before had we seen such “frivolous and fanciful” yellow, green, blue, red and purple plastic notes like the Australian currency, except in Monopoly.

Apprehensive and exhausted from the day’s tour of Hong Kong, my husband and I looked at each other seeking reassurance. A month-long holiday in India, honeymooning with family and friends had planted the seeds of doubt. Were we embarking on a quixotic escapade, flying off halfway across the world, to a country we had never been to, with two young girls in tow…

A battery of questions assailed us-

Are we doing the right thing?

Did we have to do this?

Are we chasing a mirage?

Is this self-banishment? Self-exile?

Couldn’t we have eked out a living in the land of our forefathers?

Our grandparents had been freedom fighters, and we…!

It didn’t help that on the day we first landed in Melbourne, it rained like it did on the night they killed Duncan. I was so inadequately dressed – in sandals and a cotton jumper- try as I might, I couldn’t find off-season woolens in the desert land that had been our home for more than a decade. Well, I did attempt to keep warm with a pair of socks inside the sandals – after all  according to the girls, we were fresh off the boat!

We made our way to the shops during a lull in the rain, to buy groceries and essentials, mindful for the first time in years of a budget, still trying to get our heads around converting dollars to Omani rials!

We had no jobs, no credit cards, no mobile phones and no car.

Could we be more lost?

Shopping to stock our temporary pantry all over was like starting a home from the scratch –we bought salt, oil, mustard seeds and were surprised to find rice, red lentils and masalas and “poppadums” on the aisles.

Already, I had begun to feel better.

When we emerged from the store, it had already turned dark with the torrential rain and sleet. We had to literally plead a ride from a surprised (and scared) fellow shopper. The two of us stuffed our grocery bags in our unenthusiastic benefactor’s car- sullen and vulnerable - conscious that after so many years of climbing ladders we had slid down the snake, back to square one.

Back in the apartment, the cold and the wet chilling us to the bone, we were drawn to the fireplace like moths. Only when our brains had thawed a little, we warmed to the fact that this was the first time we were enjoying the much- romanticised sitting by the fire.

What really warmed us was the sweet surprise from inside the complimentary biscuit packs from the hotel that we had opened so unsuspectingly to have with a cup of hot tea. 

The ANZAC biscuits – as we learnt they were called- had a lovely familiar flavour of coconut, brown sugar that tasted like jaggery and butter that reminded us of the roasted aroma of homemade ghee!

We would find out that ANZAC biscuits are tough, hardy and nutritious biscuits that the wives and mothers of soldiers in the ANZAC corps baked to send to their sons and husbands. These biscuits had a long shelf life and gave the much-required sustenance to troops in the tough Turkish battlefront. The biscuits also fed the brave men serving their nations in an inclement land with sweet memories of home and hearth.

“These biscuits taste like your “policha laadu” Mum,” said the girls, as we opened pack after two-biscuit handy pack and discarded the buttery choc chip ones for this delightfully brittle bikkie.

“Yes, the “policha laadu” that Aaji used to make for my tiffin dabba!”, said I,  remembering the delicious, nutritious and convenient sweet laddus made with fresh or stale chapatis, home made ghee, gur, poppy seeds, cardamom and coconut.

Brave soldier-settlers on their first day in this new world, we clutched to this relic of the past we had left behind, and instantly felt at home.    

I made these biscuits to commemorate ANZAC Day this year- in memory of all those who laid their lives for the country and continue to do so.

And to relive and remember all the battles we fought and lost and won in making a place for ourselves in this country- our home.

The recipe is classic ANZAC, except for the almond meal, cardamom, nutmeg and poppy seeds!

ANZAC Biscuits

Ingredients

2 cups plain flour

2 cups rolled oats

1½ cups brown sugar

½ cup caster sugar

½ cup desiccated coconut (or more)

½ cup almond meal

1 tbsp white poppy seeds

1 tsp crushed cardamom

½ tsp powdered nutmeg

1 tsp salt

250 gms unsalted butter

4 tbsp golden syrup

4 tbsp boiling water

1 ½ tsp and a pinch baking soda

Method

Sift flour into a bowl and stir in oats, coconut and sugar. Melt butter and golden syrup in a deep saucepan. Mix the boiling water and baking soda in a cup and add  to the melted butter and golden syrup mixture while it is still hot. The minute you add this, the butter mixture will froth up. Mix through the froth gently with a spoon. Pour this wet mixture into the flour mixture and when slightly cool, mix it with hand.

Place rounded teaspoons of the mixture 5cm apart on greased baking trays lined with baking sheets. Alternately, roll a ball of the crumbly dough between two baking sheets till you get a sheet 1 cm thick.  Cut out heart shaped or star shaped cookies and place them on the paper-lined tray.  

Bake the biscuits at 150°C for about 20 minutes or until the biscuits feel almost firm. Remove from trays with spatula and leave to cool on wire racks.

Store in an airtight container.

Stirring up sweet somethings

Phirni

I wrote the other day about the nomenclature of kheers by family kids, so here is more about kheers.

I made some phirni recently for my Mama and Mami who were visiting. Well, actually, I am not sure if it can be called kheer without offending some of my North Indian friends. Years ago, when I had served some vermicelli kheer at a do, I was corrected snootily by a mighty matron, “This, my dear, is seviayn, not kheer. Kheer is made with whole rice and milk.” My heart froze and the kheer, sorry - seviyan,  must have set into a kulfi .

My heart has since thawed, and I no longer smart from the telling-off, but hang on, in Marathi - my mother tongue, anything with milk and sugar and semi-solid or semi-liquid in consistency is kheer.

And why not? The word kheer comes from the Sanskrit word (quite obvious) Kshir meaning milk. Payas/payesh/payasam- words for kheer in various Indian languages also evolve from the Sanskrit word for milk.

Payasam or kheer is often made during religious ceremonies. That reminds me, I once proposed making phirni for a festive dinner to family elders. I had to explain what it was, and when told what it was – a rice kheer – they were mildly apoplectic! How could I forget that rice kheer is made only for the shraddh lunch of a dead forefather or family member! 

Well, to grant it, the exotic sounding phirni is a far cry from the frumpy rice kheer that is made for shraddh  -which one is not allowed to appreciate and relish, nor have second helpings on those sad occasions, by the way!

And why is a phirni called a phirni? My friend Google doesn’t seem to have an answer, so I must ask my other friend Encyclopaedia.

Till then, I will hazard a guess. A phirni is called a phirni because it has to be stirred all the time. 

To stir is ‘to phirana’ in Hindi. So....

Phirni

1 ½ litre full cream milk
5 tbsps basmati rice
6-7 tbsp sugar/Splenda (or more)
½ tsp cardamom powder

½ tsp kewra water

½ tsp rose water
7-8 threads of good quality saffron
4 tbsp almond meal

100 ml cream

Pistachios, chopped

Wash and soak rice in water for 1 hour in a cup of water. Using the same water in which the rice has been soaked, grind the rice into a grainy paste. Keep aside.

In a heavy bottomed pan, heat the milk on low heat and bring it to a rolling boil. Keep stirring continuously using a perforated ladle to break the malai skin. Also take care to scrape the bottom of the pan/pot all the time.

In another saucepan, heat the cream gently till it starts bubbling. Keep on stirring and add a cup of the hot milk. Let the mixture boil well. This is to remove the raw taste of cream. It also ensures that the milk will not curdle – sometimes when you add milk of different fat content, temperatures and even from different bottles, it can curdle – leaving you very disheartened and your plans awry!

Add the boiling cream and milk mixture to the larger pan of boiling milk and add the almond meal and keep stirring for a few minutes. Then slowly pour the grainy rice paste in a thin stream into the boiling milk, continuously stirring. The milk will thicken immediately. Keep stirring till the mixture cooks and looks translucent.

Then add the sugar/ sweetener, cardamom powder, kewra and rose water and saffron. Yes, all of these together -they make a very fragrant combination!

Allow the phirni to cool and then chill for a few hours before serving with a garnish of pistachios. You can garnish with rose petals as well.

Traditionally, phirni is set in clay pots - but I didn't have any. 

Roses 

My Melbourne friends - roses are in season and I am sure your gardens must be in full bloom!

And with the sun is baking everything golden, it's perfect time to make your Gulkand or rose-petal jam! Yes, you can make gulkand even with the non-desi gulabs.

Just select the best petals once the rose starts to shed, wipe each one clean and in a wide necked jar layer the petals alternately with sugar and keep the jar covered in the sun for as many days as you can. Keep stirring the gulkand from time to time.  In a few days, you will see a sticky jam forming.

Once formed, keep the jar in a cool and dry place or in the fridge. Gulkand keeps forever!

I am still using the one mum made with the glorious roses from my brother’s house- two years ago!

  

The dog, the cardamom and the gulab jamuns!

Gulab Jamuns

I believe coincidences are nature’s way of striving to achieve harmony, synergy and symmetry all the time and in every possible way. No wonder then that I came across these ‘I love cardamom dogs T-shirt designs’ on the internet, just when I had made some gulab jamuns and was unfailingly remembering our best friends and son and brother respectively, Rajah and Sharad.

Seldom have I been able to peel a green cardamom without remembering Rajah. Right from the time he was a gangly and uncouth little pup, Rajah belied his Aussie ancestry by drawing a complete blank when spoken to in English, intensely disliking tradies of the dominant race and taking to the language spoken at home as if he were a Marathi mutt. And this love of everything Indian extended to all food I cooked, from sprout usals, besan pithala and all vegetables to hot idlis and chapattis that he caught mid-air like frisbees. But his special love was for sweets, especially the Indian sweets, the mithais. Rajah’s tail would start wagging as if it were a living thing in its own rights and was furiously trying to detach itself from his rear end. The impetus for this activity was the very simple act of opening the little jar of cardamom, selecting a handful of cardamoms, peeling and crushing the seeds in the little mortar and pestle.

So, what is this post about? Gulab Jamun? Cardamom? Dogs?  I will tick on ‘All of the above’, while sheepishly remembering how we used to love the MCQs that had a fifth choice of a response at E! It used to be the next safest bet after C!  

Yes, I know,  I haven’t forgotten  to tell you about the cardamoms…

These days we hear that sugary foods and sweets are bad for people and for dogs, in no particular order. Most vets, dog lovers and ‘holier than thou’ disciplinarian dog owners obsessed with showing the poor pooch who is the boss, will fanatically keep their dogs sugar free.  But there is something so innocent and appealing about a dog’s love for sweets that one can’t palate the linkage of gloomy predictions of organ failure with a pure and joyous activity like eating sweets.

One whiff of cardamoms and the doggone mutt starts an intense eye balling of every action of the person making the sweets. It’s very hard to shoo this kind of a entranced dog out of the kitchen. Traditionally, sweets made at home or even shop bought are first offered to God as naivedya.  It’s impossible to do it this with a desperado sniffing the kitchen floor for every bit of visible and invisible crumbs that one may have dropped inadvertently while making the sweets. By now the impatient pooch is drooling puddles and emitting soft high pitched whimpers and is about to drive the person preparing sweets mad. So the first sweet is offered to the dog served in the chow bowl or casually tossed and perfectly caught by the ever watchful one. Occasionally, the dog might decide to help itself when you are not looking and spare you the trouble! Laddus, pedhas, pumpkin poris, shakkarparas et al are hogged with unashamed abandon. The dog stays totally spooked and hounds the lives of the keeper of the kitchen for more till the last of the sweets is finished.

Sharad, our ‘free to a good home’ black mongrel who surprisingly looked like his pure bred black lab father, loved sweets unconditionally, too. Why was he named Sharad? Thereby hangs a tale for another day! He had come into our lives when we had become most conscious and keen to cut out sugar and ghee from our diets. Seeing his strong interest in sweets and his willingness to be a dumpster or a vacuum cleaner to dispose of any and all human food and of course, knowing no better, we pampered his sweet tooth.

It all started when one day when he was sick and wouldn’t eat his milk and roti- hmmm, no Purina in India back then- and mother sprinkled some sugar over his food. The sick puppy polished off the plate, pausing from time to time for more sugar. Soon his obsessive love for sweets became a charming indulgence. An aunt would get justifiably offended that her homemade, pure ghee (for some reason many people often used Dalda in those days!) besan laddus were lobbed at the family pooch! He was known to take sneaky licks of lollies and laddus and chocolates and karanjis from the family kids’ hands. He even stole sweets from neighbours houses, but respectfully nibbled them with disinterest as if to show mother that he liked her sweets the best and that he was just humouring the neighbours. 

Oh yes, that reminds me- all dogs have this very clear classification in their minds as to what constitutes ‘tuck’, treats or ‘khau’ (in Marathi) . Treats are not to be wolfed down. They are to be relished on a patch of lawn or grass, or on a mat. They are meant to be looked at and licked at leisurely. Sometimes they are to be buried in the umpteen potholes in the garden patches or even in the folds of the sofa to be dug up in the future.

Only when sweets can’t be carted off, they should be deposited in canine stomachs. I remember Sharad polishing off at least a few kilos of gajjar halwa during my brother’s wedding celebrations over a few days. And not to mention that by then a lot of the house guests gathered for the wedding had heard about his phenomenal love for sweets and caught on to  ‘feed the dog ’ game. Some had even heard of how we ingrates (mother, brother and I) passed on the sweets they lovingly sent/brought for us to the dog. Some well meaning relatives (overtly and covertly) showed their utter disapproval at Sharad’s upbringing! Undaunted by all these controversies, Sharad optimised this opportunity to eat sweets and be the centre of attention in a house full of wedding guests.

Rajah was also of mixed heritage - Kelpie, German shepherd (and we suspect a little bit of Dingo, the Australian wild dog with roots in India). This Aussie pup completely floored us when he started wagging his tail madly and sniffing in the air with half-closed, dazed eyes, an unmistakable grin of an equally unmistakably silly nature on his face. This was the second time I had peeled cardamoms in the kitchen since he arrived from the RSPCA one day. He remembered the fragrance from the first time he got some sheera (sooji halwa or semolina pudding) and loved it.

Pavlov should feel totally validated!

Never did Rajah fail to wag his tail on smelling cardamoms. A favourite family game emerged. We would hold some cardamom under a sleeping Rajah’s nose. His tail would start wagging in his sleep. Deep, pleasurable sighs would emanate from him and his facial muscles would relax into a lazy grin. His paws would twitch as if he were romping in the leash free park- we were convinced he was dreaming of chasing sweet gulab jamuns,  kaju katlis and balushahis with cardamom.

Rajah loved to eat whatever we ate, even fruit. One summer he got hooked on to catching grapes we threw at him with the ease of a Roman senator plucking grapes from a dangling bunch with his lips. Then the kulfi was taken out and he got a small piece to lick. He went crazy with the sensations! Someone wickedly threw a grape at him which he caught in a reflex action. To our utter amazement and amusement, the instant he realised it was not a piece of kulfi, he spat out the grape with such a forceful ‘thooo!’ the grape ricocheted off the timber floor a few meters away!! We were wiping our tears and ROFLing!

Memories of Rajah’s antics bring tears to our eyes, but smiles to our lips. And we celebrate the time we spent with him with sweets, of course, with cardamom. J

Gulab Jamun

Ingredients

1 cup skim milk powder (purists, don’t look down upon the lack of khoya- these gulab jamuns come out well- ask Rajah and Sharad!)

¼ cup plain flour (you can use self raising flour as well and dispense with the baking soda)

1 tbsp semolina

3 tablespoons ghee

A few tablespoons milk at room temperature

Pinch of baking soda

2 cups sugar

1 1/2 cup water

½ tsp grounded cardamom seeds

A few strands of saffron (optional)

1 tsp rose water (great if you can get gulkand or fresh rose petals)

Oil for deep-frying

Method

For the syrup

In a large pan, add water and sugar and bring it to a boil. Add the cardamom seeds and saffron and let the syrup boil for a minute. Remove from heat and add the rose water. Keep the syrup warm. The syrup should be of one- string consistency.

For the Gulab Jamuns

In a bowl, mix milk powder, flour, semolina and baking soda. If you use self-raising flour, don’t add the soda. Rub the ghee into the mixture until it resembles bread crumbs. Add a little milk to make a stiff dough. Roll the dough into one big ball. Dunk this ball of dough into a bowl of chilled water and let it ‘soak’ for an hour or so. The soaking will not dissolve the ball of dough, although the water will turn milky. I was shown this trick by my friend Charu Khandekar, whose culinary skills I hold in great esteem! I think the soaking allows the dough to rise beautifully, fluffs up the semolina and gives the gulab jamuns a grainy khoya like texture. Some solace for us NRIs who can’t access khoya!

After about an hour, remove the ball from the water and crumble it. Although the outside becomes a bit slimy, you will see how the dough has fluffed up- not risen but just become textured.  Knead the crumbled dough with a very light hand so as not to flatten the grain. Divide the dough into small smooth balls, bearing in mind that the dough will grow in size during frying and also when soaked in the syrup. All the while work with a firm but light hand.

Heat the oil in a suitable frying pan on medium heat. The oil should be about four fingers (sideways) deep. Gently place a batch of balls in the oil and shake the pan a bit to move them around so that they fry very slowly and evenly. Make sure the balls have enough space to expand in the oil. The balls will rise and start rolling in the oil as if they have come alive! Lower the heat and continue to fry them till they are very rich dark golden brown. If you fry them too quickly, the balls will burn from the outside and remain uncooked from the inside. Remove the balls from the oil onto kitchen paper and let them cool a bit. Soak the balls into very warm syrup for about cool down for a few minutes before placing in the hot syrup. Allow the gulab jamuns to soak in the syrup for 15-20 minutes.

Pluheeese DO NOT sprinkle desiccated coconut on the gulab jamuns! Sacrilege!