Breakfast Business

Pesarattu

Photos - Amruta Nargundkar 

Ever noticed the phrase ‘breaking bread’ is so intrinsically a social activity that it really needs no further qualification such as ‘together’ or ‘with’? That eating is a social and familial experience is universally recognised. Don’t we seek to eat with company – family, friends and colleagues?  Even fellow travellers in a train share their toshas, towering tiffin carriers and dabbas with a generosity that is  surpassed only by the bounteous sharing of in-law gossip. Sharing with strangers is with abandon, without the fear of repercussions.

Eating alone is not a very happy thing for most. When left home alone, one often resorts to TV dinners. I can’t imagine setting a place for just myself at the table, like Mr. Bean in an episode. So sad!  Eating alone in a restaurant can’t be much fun either. And if you are a woman in the India of my time and space, probably not very common, too.

I hadn’t travelled alone much before I got involved in the business, and one of the first concerns about the role was the travelling to strange places alone, staying in hotels and eating alone, seeing sights alone and navigating my way through the trip all by myself. In fact, an elderly aunt had once expressed shock that my husband hadn’t accompanied me on the tour. The first time I ate alone while travelling on business was in a restaurant was in India.  As soon as I was shown to a table, I became aware of people staring at me. A little girl and a boy came running and giggling down the aisle and stopped short of my table, staring at me and when I teasingly raised my eyebrows, ran away in a fright! The waiter prolonged my discomfiture by not giving me the menu as he thought I was waiting for someone. I had to beckon and ask to be served and did so boldly and tucked into my thali meal even more defiantly.

But did I enjoy the meal? Probably not. For I began to seek refuge in the in-dining service when I was not dining in company, at times even at breakfast. Then on a trip to Vizag, I was filling out my breakfast order to place on the doorknob, when the words pesarattu jumped up at me. I simply had to have this! Vizag was famous for this, and it had to be eaten off the tava!

No regrets going down for breakfast the following morning, for I had the best, crispiest and most savoury pesarattus ever from the live station and tucked into the various chutneys, including the allum pacchadi (ginger chutney).

I must have drawn quite a few stares that day. But more for the obvious enjoyment with which I was hogging the pesarattus, keenly watching the chef expertly pour them out and chatting with him about the recipes, than for the fact that I was the only woman in the coffee shop full of freshly showered and shaved men in stiff business shirts - talking incessantly on their mobile phones, furiously typing on their laptops or reading the Economic Times or the Financial Review like kids cramming for an exam - while I was having fun!

Pesarattu (whole moong dosa)

Pesarattu is a very popular breakfast dish or a snack from Andhra Pradesh. Made with whole green moong beans, it’s very nutritious, full of protein and fibre and is very tasty.

It is usually served with a coconut chutney and yes, the allum pacchadi (ginger chutney).

In some restaurants in Hyderabad, pesarattu is served with upma rolled inside. This is called the MLA pesarattu, which was devised to proved the Andhra Pradesh MLAs with a filling breakfast before the assembly sessions! Many add a fried onion mixture on a it and serve it folded. Another way is to sprinkle chopped raw onions and chillies on the top after pouring the peasarattu and allow the onions to cook with it.

Some people like to ferment this batter, but I prefer to make the pesarattus straight away. They taste better that way – and moreover, who has the patience to wait?

Pesarattu

Ingredients

3 cups soaked whole moong (mung beans) or moong dal (green gram) with skin, (you can use sprouted moong too)

1 cup raw rice soaked for 2 hours

You can vary this ratio slightly, using less rice if you like very soft pesarattus. 

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

1 medium onion chopped

A pinch of hing

1 tablespoon chopped garlic

1 tablespoon chopped ginger

2 green chillies (or more)

Salt to taste

Oil to make the pesarattu

Method

Grind all the ingredients into a smooth batter and add salt to taste. Adjust all the flavours to your satisfaction.

Pour a round ladle full of the batter on a medium hot well-tempered dosa tava and start spreading the mixture from the centre outwards in increasing concentric circles to get a round shape. Drizzle a few drops of oil on the pesarattu and cover for a few minutes and reduce heat when you hear the sizzling of the condensed water drops from the lid falling on the hot tava. Cook on low heat till golden brown and crisp. Remove the cover check if the top is cooked. If it doesn’t look raw there is no need to flip the pesarattu.

Fold and serve hot with allum pacchadi (ginger chutney) and coconut chutney.

Dark horse chutney

Allum Pachadi (fresh ginger chutney)

In the ‘70s our eating out scene started and ended with the udupi restaurants and the idli/dosa/vada outings. As kids would, we loved the potato masala and wondered why the adults lusted after the hot coconut chutney, happily agreeing to taking our little chutney katoris for themselves. When a little older, we timorously ventured to lick some of the chutney and understood why, after taking away the kids’ little chutney katoris, the adults still ordered some ‘extra chutney’.

The coconut chutney grew on us and eventually became so much larger than life that we had no mental space to look at other lesser chutneys with idlis and dosas.

With age came the spirit of exploring and developing other tastes and we realised there were so many other flavours and textures to a chutney. Anyone of them could go with idli/dosa. There was the hot hell’s fire dry chutney lining the mysore masala dosa, the tough and hardy gunpowder or malaga podi, even our Marathi pood chutney and danyachi (peanut) chutney were an able companion to the fermented fraternity.  If nothing else, the unending supply of the mousy looking javas chutney (flaxseed) and karal chutney (niger seeds) with a spoonful of oil made a mean accompaniment.

But still, the merit of an idli/dosa restaurant was measured by the coconut chutney they served.

Until on a trip to Vishakhapatnam, I made a rediscovery of the allum pachadi.

At the breakfast buffet in the hotel where I was staying, I politely brushed away the waiter who was very helpfully and hospitably telling me they also served bacon and eggs and headed for the pesarattu live station. The pesarattu was excellent, the coconut chutney was good (it had the passed the test of - not rancid, more coconut, less roasted chana… etc) but the allum pacchadi that I very adventurously helped myself to, turned out to be the dark horse!

Delicious! A perfect blend of tart, sweet and salty tastes with an under note of bitter. A bit of umami (onion?) and plenty of heat from the chillies and a gingery zing!  And what a lovely colour and texture!

Now that triggered a recall of Vedula aunty’s allum pacchadi, which was one the permanent fixtures in the little bowls on her dining table, rubbing shoulders with other chutneys, avakais and podis. 

So this is for Shrimati Vedula Satyavati!

Aunty, I hope this is how you made your allum pacchadi.

Allum Pacchadi (Ginger Chutney)

Ingredients

2 inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and sliced

1 tbsp onion, chopped

1 tbsp urad dal 

2 tbsp chana dal

4-5 whole red chillies , soaked in a little water (or more)

7-8 curry leaves

1 tsp cumin seeds

2 tsps coriander seeds

½ tsp fenugreek seeds

1 tbsp grated jaggery (or more)

1 tsp thick tamarind paste (or more)

Salt to taste

A large pinch of hing

1 tsp oil

For the tempering

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 tbsp oil

Method

Heat a teaspoon of oil in a pan over low flame. Add the urad dal, chana dal and sauté until dals turn light brown. Add the curry leaves, soaked red chillies, fenugreek, coriander and cumin seeds, chopped onion and chopped ginger. Sauté until onion becomes translucent. Add a pinch of hing. Remove from heat and allow mixture to cool.

Add the sautéed and cooled chutney ingredients in a mixer/grinder jar. Add the  jaggery and tamarind paste and a little water and grind it into a smooth paste. Remove the chutney in a serving bowl.

Heat a tablespoon of oil in a same pan. Add mustard seeds. Remove from heat when the seeds begin to crackle and pour over the chutney.

Serve with pesarattu, dosa, idli or even in a sandwich or on toast.

Stays fresh in the fridge for a few days.