Friday Khichdi

In my other blog, LifeStrings, I just put up a post called "Butter from a drawer." It's about something that reminded me of Nani, my late grandmother. On this blog too, I'm going to share something about her, i.e. one of her gifts to the culinary world, and in particular to those unfraid of braving a few calories (OK... make that quite a few calories)!

Nani was a consummate cook... a true master of the dazzling range of vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes that make up Oriya and Bengali cuisine, not to mention her stock of continental recipes. She knew her food well, making her a hard-to-please customer in any restaurant and an uncompromising teacher whenever someone came to learn a recipe from her. My early childhood was spent in her home and that's where my love for good food had it's beginnings (alongside the chubbiness that one is still working on).

While I could (and will) tell you about many of Nani's recipes, here's one that is particularly close to my heart - Nani's Friday Khichdi. This is a dish that (to the best of my knowledge) Nani created specially for Fridays, when she offered special prayers to the goddess Santoshi. If you're familiar with the prayers, you'll know that the rituals impose several restrictions on the kind of food you can eat during the day, including strict abstinence from anything sour (so tomatoes, lemon, curd and citrus fruits are out of the question). Nani came up with this khichdi to make sure that she and everyone in the house would enjoy a sumptuous meal even with all the restrictions in place.

The first thing about this khichdi, is the generous use of desi ghee (clarified butter). For the BEST results you need the amazingly fragrant "Jharna Ghee" which is only to be found in Calcutta, as far as I know. I take about 1.5 tablespoons of it per cup of rice. So assuming that I'm cooking 1.5 cups of rice, I put in 2 tablespoons of beautiful golden ghee (and I usually prefer the ghee which is liquid at room temperature). When the ghee is hot and it's aroma has filled the kitchen, in goes a teaspoon of jeera (cummin seeds). The seeds splutter just a bit and rapidly turn a deep red. That's when a teaspoon of crushed ginger and two fat green chillies (whole) join the cummin and subject you to about 2 minutes of fireworks as the ghee and the ginger really beat each other into submission.

Once the spluttering dies away, you quickly stir the contents of the pressure cooker to make sure that nothing's stuck to the bottom. Then you add 4 potatoes, washed but unpeeled and sliced in half, followed by eight potols (pointed gourd) scraped and also sliced in half. You stir all this nicely so that the ghee, ginger and cummin coat the potatoes and potol. All this is cooked until you see the potol changing color slightly (don't wait for it to get completely discolored). As soon as the potol is ready, in goes the rice (previously washed and drained) and your stir away so that all the ingredients are mixed well. To this you add 4 cups of water and a generous handful of green peas. Finally, some salt (to taste) and finely chopped dhania patta (corriander) act as the finishing touches.

Once you've done all of the above, cover the pressure cooker and cook the khichdi for 4 seetees (whistles). When the pressure cooker has cooled down, take the lid of and pause for a moment to soak in the whiff of heaven that rises to greet you. Serve the khichdi piping hot, with a little side-dish of some other vegetable (only if you really want it; the khichdi is a complete meal in itself). In the above picture, I've kept a bit of gobi (cauliflower), stirfried quickly with turmeric and a few spices, sort of in memory of my later grandfather, "Nanu". If I'd really prepared it the way he liked it, the cauliflower would have been deep-fried with a dash of turmeric and chilli powder (but there was enough ghee in the deal already, so I decided to keep that for another time)!

Nani used to enjoy this khichdi, sitting cross legged on the floor with the khichdi served on a banana leaf that was placed in front of her. She would always have a little salt placed on the top right corner of the leaf because she liked a bit more salt than most others! A teaspoon more of ghee would be added to the rice just before she started eating (she was very particular that ghee was added only before anyone touched the rice with their hands; it was NEVER added for second helpings). If any of us kids were around, she'd feed us first, expertly rolling the khichdi into balls that she'd deposit nimbly into our mouths, satisfaction written all over her face.

If you ever decide to make this for yourself, be sure to try eating it off a banana leaf (believe me, it makes a huge difference!). And remember to make sure that you make it keeping somone you love in mind. In an odd way, I find that love makes any food better... and it's probably why Nani was easily one of the best cooks that her family and acquaintances ever came across.

Bon Appetit! :)

When Poaching is Actually Good

Cooking eggs is probably one of the easiest things (or at least I think so) when starting out on the path gastronomical. I worked my way up from the simple hard boiled egg to fried eggs, scrambled eggs and then the omelette. I followed instructions, tried modifications to known recipes, made some up on the spot and frankly, I think cooking eggs is the best way for a novice to start cooking. The recipes are usually simple and the results delicious (well, usually!). 


Last night, when I was in the mood to try something new and whip up a meal quickly, I decided to start my conquest of an egg recipe I had yet to pursue - the poached egg. Basically, this is a cracked egg dunked with its yolk and white intact, into a pan of simmering water (NOT boiling), in which salt, pepper and some plain vinegar have been added previously. The vinegar makes the white coagulate quickly so it doesn't go all over the place. One thing which I learnt a little late, is that before dropping in the eggs you should stir the simmering water vigorously with a spoon so as to create a "whirlpool" in the pan (I didn't do this right, so the whites weren't shaped perfectly in the end, but they were still delicious!). Dunk the egg into the center of this whirlpool for best results. The white sort of folds over the yolk and envelopes it beautifully. The ideal poached egg has a firm white and a slightly runny, golden yellow yolk (with a texture like cheese sauce). It takes about 4-5 minutes per egg. 


As wonderful as the eggs are even by themselves, it's much more fun trying to be a little creative when you can. So, I rummaged about the kitchen trying to see what would be nice to serve with the eggs. A packet of fresh, button mushrooms caught my eye and, before long, they were rinsed and cut into neat slices (cross sctions that included the head and stalk both). Out came a non-stick frying pan in which I heated half a tablespoon of olive oil and quickly browned thin slices of red onion. If you try this, remember that onions brown quickly if they're sliced thin and they'll burn soon after they've been browned if you don't lower the flame or add other ingredients that absorb the heat. 


When the onions were ready, the mushrooms went in, with some salt and fresh ground pepper added soon after. Spreading the mushrooms out evenly over the surface of the pan, made them brown beautifully. The best thing about mushrooms is the amount of water they release when cooked. It's flavoured and helps cook the mushroom as it evaporates. I knew the mushrooms were done when the water was gone and the color was an even brown, with some slices slightly crisp around the edges. This takes about 15 minutes (i.e. total cooking time for the mushrooms, starting from heating the olive oil). 


I started  poaching the eggs when the mushrooms had released their water (which I knew would prevent them from burning while I was attending to the eggs), and while the eggs were poaching, I put a couple of slices of wholewheat bread in the toaster.That way, the mushrooms, poached eggs and toast all got done pretty much around the same time. Remember, multitasking is an asset to good cooking, but not always necessary if you have all the time in the world. It usually helps to go over the logistics of the preparation while one is arranging for the ingredients.If you're not a multi-tasker just prioritize your tasks based on what works best for you - cooking should NEVER be stressful... it spoils the food somehow, even if you've done everything right.


When all was ready, the mushrooms were placed first, going around the circumference of the plate in a fragrant ring. Finely chopped celery added a dash of colour as it was added over the mushrooms. In the center of the plate two pieces of hot brown toast served as platforms for the poached eggs that were then garnished with sliced cheese and tabasco sauce, with a few shreds of celery thrown in for more color. Just for fun, tabasco was sprinkled here and there over the mushrooms, to surprise the "gourmand" with a littke zing every now and then.

So, in a total cooking time of about 25 minutes, I had my poached egg dinner ready, just before the 9 pm screening of Kung Fu Panda on HBO. There's something cool about eating dinner while you watch Po the Panda's journey from noodle-soup to Kung Fu's Dragon Warrior - the act of cutting around the yolk so you don't beak it and making the perfect mouthful of egg, toast, cheese, mushrooms and celery becomes a little game that rapidly transforms into a personal challenge - working up to the point when you pop the intact yolk into your mouth, close your eyes and let the magic work on your taste-buds... that's got to be like a Zen moment...

Welcome to my table!

I've been cooking since I was about 17 (and that time more than a decade away now). I can't remember how it started, but I know it was because my family spent a fair amount of time in the kitchen, mostly in the evenings when my mother cooked dinner and the rest (my father, sister and I) of us bundled into the kitchen keeping her company as she turned out dish after delicious dish for us all. While we exchanged news about how the day had been for each of us, my mother sometimes asked me to help with small tasks that were part of the recipes she was working out or thinking up on the spot. My love for cooking was founded in those early experiences and has only grown stronger since then. Today, when I can cook a full meal for my family and friends, with or without help from another person, I feel grateful for those days, when I learnt that cooking is a skill that ANYONE can and should learn, for survival surely, but just as importantly for enjoyment and self-expression. 

Not surprisingly, while almost everyone I know is fond of good food, very few of the men actually cook. Some are interested in how food is made, but don't know enough about it to actually hazard making a start, others have not even given it a thought and the rest are downright afraid of cooking, being quite content to leave it in the hands of women (or male chefs). 

This blog is not my way of trying to convert every man into a pan-wielding culinarian. It's my attempt to tell my fellow men that they have the option! :) good cooking is not something inborn but acquired and we can all acquire it (maybe in different degrees, but acquire it nevertheless). So this is where I'll keep sharing the results of my experiments with food and hopefully, they'll inspire some of the chaps out there to cast fear before the wind and plunge into the world of veggies, savouries, desserts and more! 

Thanks for reading this so far. Stay tuned! :)