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Recipe: Luscious Layers – Mango Twist

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Sometimes, you just don’t have the energy to do much in the kitchen at all, but that’s no reason to skimp on having a dessert that can make you feel better. Whether the heat has enervated you, or the ongoing pandemic has dragged your cheerful spirits down, the key to preparing a pick-me-up is in one aspect only: the simplicity quotient. I’ve been making this mango twist nearly every day, and you can too.

What I love about it is that ticks all the boxes: it satisfies my sweet tooth without the use of refined sugar, allows me to have well-rounded meals while I am off carbs, makes the most of the earth’s seasonal bounty, and is practically effortless to prepare.

Really, it’s so easy that anyone can make it. Which brings me to another reason that I thought this fruity dessert would be perfect to share right now. It’s that making it is just the kind of activity to keep your younger kids happy, and that’s something I can imagine many of you doing with the little ones being at home all the time now. Putting this dessert together is a simple way to get them to explore the vast world of cooking. The sense of achievement they’ll enjoy will taste almost as good as the dish itself. This is a beautiful way impart the value of a home-made treat or meal, and it shouldn’t surprise you if they graduate to wanting to try out more culinary experiments too. As I’ve said before on this blog, I consider my recipes my heirlooms. There’s no reason to wait till they are older to share an elaborate traditional method when you can instill the love of cooking in them from a very young age through simple dishes like this one.

Here’s yet another amazing tick on that check-list: this mango twist is vegan! Of late, I have noticed that cutting down on my dairy consumption really does make me feel better overall. While I am not a hardcore vegan, as much as I would like to be, I do love the coconut milk I use in this dish and enjoy consuming it in this delicious way. You can use dairy, if that’s what you have on hand. Or you can substitute the coconut milk with almond milk, which will result in a thinner dessert that you can plump up with nutritious chia seeds.

Variety is certainly one of the elements that keeps a dish like this interesting. When mango season ends, simply use any other fruit that you have on hand.

I think of this Mango Twist as one of those recipes that is so common that it hardly warrants a recipe. Surely, everyone already knows it, I pondered to myself when the idea of this post occurred to me. Then, I realised how in any hectic time, we often get so carried away that we neglect to notice what is right before our eyes. So this recipe is really more of a reminder, something that tells you to open your fridge and see for yourself – you probably already have everything you need to whip up something wonderful right away.

As a refrigerated dessert, you can also make it in advance so that it’s right there and ready for you when you desperately need something to cool off in this sweltering heat, or could use a pick-me-up. Some time in the hopefully not-far future, when we are back to entertaining guests as always, it’s also an ideal dessert to prepare earlier in the day so that you won’t have to take time putting a snack together after they arrive. Just take it out of the fridge and it’s ready to be served on a tray. It’s a visually attractive dessert, so presentation is key – what colours do you want to have pop inside the glass, and how will you layer the ingredients? You can go decadent, or you can keep it nutritious but still appealing by using fruits of different colours to create a tempting look.

Mango Twist

(Yield: 2 glasses)

1 cup coconut cream

½ cup mango pulp

Pecans or any topping of your choice

½ teaspoon maple syrup or honey (optional)

 

In each glass, add 2 teaspoons of coconut cream. I like to use small eatery glasses as they look very pretty. Layer this with the mango pulp. Freeze for sometime, then remove from the freezer. Now, top the pulp again with the coconut cream gently. Finally, add the pecans or any other toppings of your choice, and drizzle with some maple syrup or honey, as healthier sweetening substitutes. I only use these if I find the mango a little tart. Otherwise, the dessert doesn’t need it.

In lieu of coconut cream, you can also use pudding, fresh cream or other substitutes. Some other great toppings include caramelised nuts, maple syrup, honey, orange rind and seeds. Any kind of brittle, crumbled cake or re:store’s popular muesli will also add more taste and texture. Don’t forget that no matter what time of year you make this, you can use any seasonal fruit of your choice. When preparing it with your kids, indulge them with colourful jellies or cute chocolates that will make the smiles on their faces even bigger.

Given that this is a summer during which the simple pleasures are more important than ever, as we continue to collectively fight the pandemic, I intend to fully take all the joy I can get from the mango season. Do subscribe or connect over Instagram so that you’ll know as soon as my next few recipes go up – dishes that range from sweet to sour to savoury are coming, all thanks to this wonderful fruit!

As I said earlier, I think of this mango twist as a “reminder recipe” – is there anything similar that you’d like to share in the comments? I am sure we would all love to know more about each others’ summer go-to dishes and desserts!

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Recipe: Stars Of The Summer – Seasonal Sweet Potato & Mango Salad

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The summer is here, and so are the sweet potatoes – and the mangoes! I couldn’t resist slicing some of these wonderful seasonal harvests up and putting them to delicious use in my kitchen. As you may know, we eat a lot of salads at home, and I’m always on a quest to add more variety and novelty to mine. The secret is in hitting on the right balance of flavours or textures, and pairing the dish with a dressing that uplifts it. I think I have a star in this one, and it’s delightful to me that it features one of the vegetables I have always enjoyed, alongside a fruit you just can’t go wrong with during an Indian summer.

I’ve spoken about mangoes plenty of times on this blog, so let me share my love for sweet potatoes as well.

The first way in which I enjoyed sweet potatoes was in a thick kheer or payasam that I used to have as a child. When they were in season and therefore plentiful, my mother would boil them, mash them and add milk. This would make for a very healthy dessert that required no further sweetening. She was an expert at such exquisitely simple milk-based desserts, and inspired me to create some of my own.

Certain memories come up when one contemplates any kind of familiar food. For me, the other important personal and cultural association that sweet potatoes evoke is that they are one of the ingredients that are permissible during the Faraali fasting that takes place in the month of Shravan, observed by Vaishnav Gujaratis. My mother maintained these fasts while we were growing up, and during those times she ate sweet potatoes frequently, and so did we.

Faraali is a relatively lenient type of fasting: it is not that consumption is not allowed, but that certain types of harvest are not permissible. Grains are taboo during this time, whereas tubers like sweet potatoes and yams form the bulk of the fasting menu.

Years later, through my Macrobiotics studies and my constant inquisitiveness about culinary science, I am able to understand and admire the beautiful logic of all fasting traditions, from Lent to Ramadan to Paryushan. I realise that Faraali must originally have been all about honouring the cycles of nature, avoiding certain types of harvest so as to allow the soil and the plants to replenish themselves during the rainy month of Shravan. It would also be the right time for the human body to purify itself with vegetables and fruits, as the weather would mean that people stepped out less and would also not be able to work in the fields. Fewer carbohydrates would be required, as less energy was required, so grains need not to be a part of the diet during that time. This is my perspective on the reasons behind this religious practice, and I often feel that when we think deeply about rituals, many of them will have a practical function behind them. Our ancestors were far more in sync with nature than we are, and had the wisdom to develop daily and seasonal routines that respected and kept this balance.

So for us today, as modern human beings with eclectic palates, one way to stay in sync is to accept that heavy lunches in the summer time make us more lethargic, and can diminish our productivity over the rest of the day. Salads cut out the heavy carb load of rice and grains, while also being filling, delicious, nourishing – and visually vibrant, which improves the mood and whets the appetite. If you’re a fan of this food category, be sure to explore my archives, where I’ve shared many of the tried-and-true salads that are super hits at home: this one where the passion fruit dressing is the star, another season-suitable mango salad, a nutritious millet salad, and a few dishes you may not have thought of as salads but really are, like peach salsa, sundal and green moong bhel. Another health-boosting eating habit is to regard a salad not as an appetiser or an accompaniment, but as a meal-in-a-bowl. It’s really just about portions.

Coming specifically to this summery sweet potato and mango salad, I am often a bit suspicious of the unusual sweetness of the sweet potato chips that many restaurants serve, and I prefer making them myself. The technique is very easy, as you’ll see below. You can substitute the sweet potatoes for yams, and use the same thin-sliced technique to fry them. These crispy sweet potatoes are what I use in this salad. If you prefer not to fry them at all, you can have them steamed and sliced. It all depends on the textures you’re building the salad with, and any health or taste preferences that you may have.

 

Seasonal Sweet Potato And Mango Salad

(Yield: 1 bowl)

 

½ cup sliced sweet potato

½ cup sliced ripe sweet mango

2 cups lettuce

½ onion

2 tablespoons coriander leaves

1 teaspoon olive oil

1 tablespoon sunflower seeds

 

Dressing:

Salt to taste

1 tablespoon honey

2 tablespoons lemon juice

4 tablespoons pomegranate juice

A pinch of black pepper

1 tablespoon olive oil

 

In a bowl, add all the dressing ingredients together. Store this in the fridge.

Heat a pan and add the oil. Once the oil has heated, add the sliced sweet potato. Make sure the sweet potato is sliced thin so that it can cook faster. Cover with a lid and allow to cook for a few minutes on a low flame.

Then, remove the lid and increase the flame to medium. Allow the slices to turn crisp. Flip them to ensure that both sides are well done. Once they are fried, set them aside.

Prepare the salad by putting the sliced onion and torn lettuce into a bowl. Add the fried sweet potato crisps and the fresh mango slices on top. Add the dressing, garnish with coriander leaves, and mix gently. Allow to cool for some time, and serve.

I hope you’ll enjoy the mix of crispiness and sweetness in this simple yet satisfying sweet potato and mango salad. It’s just perfect for this hot weather, and keeps you light on your feet after the meal. Speaking of the summer, since we are in mango season here in South India, you can expect next weekend’s post to celebrate the fruit. In the meanwhile, maybe you’ll want to check out the many ways the mango has starred in my recipes over the years?

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Recipe: A Side Of Scrumptious Sourness – Kadhi

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I dropped references to kadhi not once but twice on this blog recently, during the grains-based Gujarati recipe series I was sharing. I’m delighted to feature the recipe for this wonderful accompaniment today, and I hope it gives a superb flavouring to all your khichdis, khichdos and much more.

Kadhi was traditionally made from soured buttermilk. Here in South India, even today, many households make our dairy products at home. I still prepare my daily yoghurt and let it set overnight. While I was growing up, my mother and most of our neighbours also made butter, cream and ghee regularly. As long as milk and a fridge were available, these resourceful homemakers ensured that their families had a steady, homemade supply of these essential ingredients.

So my mother would often collect cream in a pot, store it in the fridge, and then make white butter from it. We absolutely loved this as kids, and ate it with everything, including rotis. There would always be quite a lot of white butter prepared, and from it she would also make ghee. The residue of that white butter would be soured buttermilk, and from this she would make kadhi. It’s truly amazing how far she could stretch a vessel of milk!

So on the days when she made butter, we would almost invariably have kadhi, because she would never let that soured buttermilk go to waste. My father loved this kadhi, and never ate that great Gujarati mainstay, dal (the rest of my family are ardent dal enthusiasts, and you can check out my recipes for horse gram dal, mixed dal and classic Gujarati dal). I prefer lentils and legumes myself, but always prepare some kadhi for my father when he visits.

As I’ve said before in the posts in the Second Helpings series, culinary innovations are truly the forte of ordinary people over so many generations, who would dream up ways and means to make every bit of food go an extra mile. I too have learned that another good way to make kadhi, rather than to prepare butter and use its residue, is with yoghurt that’s been in the fridge for a few days.

If you’ve never tried a kadhi before, I would describe it as being an equivalent to the South Indian mor-kulambu. A kadhi is thinner in consistency, but it has a similarly spicy, slightly sour flavour. There are also mango kadhis, in which chunks of the fruit are added to the mixture when they are in season. These may be similar to the Tamil manga pulissery. Dumpling kadhis are another interesting variant. The recipe I will be sharing with you today is the base on which these variations are built.

Gujarati kadhi is sweetened with sugar, as with many of our dishes. This is a culinary twist that’s a signature of the cuisine, and you may prefer to make yours without it. We also do not add turmeric, and prefer to keep the kadhi white in colour. It is always tempered with ghee and just a few spices, so that just a subtle hint of their flavours are infused.

There’s one way in which my kadhi differs from my mother’s, and that is in my addition of curry leaves, which she never used. I have a sense that curry leaves as an ingredient are a South Indian element, which is why they seem to be absent in Gujarati cuisine. I’ve never come across any dish that uses curry leaves in any form in Gujarat, whereas here in Tamil Nadu we prolifically use powders, chutneys and the fresh leaves too. I’ve noticed in my travels there, especially to agricultural areas, that curry leaf trees aren’t abundant either. But like I said, this is just a sense of things. I would absolutely love to hear any insights you may have into curry leaves and their role or lack thereof in Gujarati culture or cuisine. Please do shed some light if there’s anything you may know about this topic.

I’d love to hear those insights over a tummy-filling thaali, but in these socially-distanced times, here’s the next best thing: my recipe, and a request to share what you know in return!

Kadhi

(Serves: 2 people)

½ cup yoghurt

1¼ cups water

1 tablespoon chickpea flour

½ teaspoon green chilli/ginger paste

Salt to taste

1 teaspoon sugar (optional)

1 tablespoon ghee

½ teaspoon cumin seeds

¼ teaspoon methi seeds (fenugreek)

A pinch of asafoetida

2 dry red chillis

2 cloves

1 stick cinnamon

1 cardamom

1 sprig curry leaves

In a pot, add the yoghurt, water, chickpea flour, ginger and chili pastes as well as the salt. Beat well until the mixture is fully incorporated.

Allow this to cook for approximately 7-8 minutes on a medium flame. Stir constantly so as to prevent the yoghurt from splitting.

Add the fenugreek seeds. Boil some more. Once this has cooked, set aside.

Prepare the tempering. For this, use a small pan. Add ghee and then add the cumin seeds, cardamom, cloves and dry red chillis. Once the cumin seeds splutter, add the curry leaves and the asafoetida, and immediately pour the tempering into the kadhi.

Garnish with coriander leaves, stir then serve hot. As mentioned earlier, kadhi goes beautifully with several kinds of khichdis (or you could have it with white rice, in which case it becomes the meal known as “kadhi-bhat”). It’s wonderful as part of a simple, traditional meal. I’d love to know what you think of it!

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Recipe: Second Helpings – Khichdi Thepla

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When the grain-based series concluded last weekend (you can catch up here, here and here, I promised a recipe that would make use of leftover khichdi in a unique way that transforms it into an entirely new dish. Years ago, I had mentioned in this post on rotis that khichdi is sometimes used to make theplas. That’s exactly what we’re going to do today.

Theplas are really a category, not a dish. They are a flatbread staple in Gujarati cuisine, and the diverse range includes methi thepla (made with fenugreek leaves), dudhi thepla (made with bottlegourd), bajra ke thepla (made with pearl millet) and more. The main ingredients change, but the seasonings and masalas tend to remain the same. The simplest form of theplas are the plain ones, made without any vegetables or other ingredients that spoil quickly. They are often made especially for travel, as they store well. I believe I’ve mentioned in previous posts how theplas were a part of all our train journeys, to Bombay and to other places. As kids, we ate every two hours, and so our mother would pack a large quantity of plain theplas, which would keep us well-fed for the two or three days that it took us to arrive at our destination. They were healthy, clean and home-made, and we would enjoy them with mango pickles as our train criss-crossed the country.

Mango pickles, specifically chhundo, which I’ve shared the recipe for before, are the chief accompaniment to most theplas. A dollop of yoghurt is also enjoyed alongside, and a dry vegetable like roasted potatoes can round out the meal. Theplas can be a light meal of just the flatbread and a pinch of pickle, or a full meal with the works. They are often a taken-for-granted dish too – “chalo (‘come/okay’), let’s have thepla” is a standard refrain when planning dinner in many a Gujarati household.

This style of thepla, which incorporates leftover khichdi into the dough and which is deliciously flavoured with ginger and green chilli (you may add garlic too, if you wish), is a perfect dinner dish to prepare with the unused portion of a simple khichdi made for lunch. Every family that uses this resourceful technique will have their version of what goes into the recipe.

Growing up, I was always impressed by the way my mother had a knack for turning over leftovers. It is a skill I’ve observed time and again in so many intelligent homemakers, who innovate ways to make a large meal go further, while appeasing picky children who demand fresh and interesting food. So this is especially for those of you who have fussy mouths to feed. Unless they are right there in the kitchen with you as you transform old khichdi into new theplas, they’ll never guess your little magic trick!

Khichdi Thepla

(Yield: 10 theplas)

½ cup khichdi

¾ cup + 2 tablespoons wheat flour

½ cup wheat flour (for rolling the theplas)

Salt to taste

¼ teaspoon turmeric

½ teaspoon dhania-jeera (coriander-cumin) powder

1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon oil

¼ teaspoon ajwain (carom seeds)

1 teaspoon green chilli and ginger paste

1 teaspoon oil + 3 tablespoons to cook

 

Keep aside the oil.

Assemble all the remaining ingredients in a wide bowl. Make a dough by mixing them together with your hands, until the mixture is smooth. Towards the end, once it begins to turn sticky, add 1 teaspoon of oil and spread it around the bowl. Knead the dough completely.

I have used a soft and wet khichdi, and thus did not need to add any water. If your khichdi is dry, then you may need to add water too.

Once the dough is prepared, either make the theplas right away or refrigerate the dough as it will release water and turn soft again. Remember that as you are already working with leftover khichdi, it is best to make and consume these theplas on the same day. If you’ve kept the dough in the fridge for a while, do not wait for it to thaw. You can roll out your theplas right away.

Heat a roti pan. Make small discs of the dough, and dip them in the wheat flour. Roll out each thepla into a thin disc.

Place each thepla on the pan. Allow it to cook on one side, then flip over after 5 seconds. Once it has slightly cooked on the second side, add a few drops of oil and spread them. Flip the thepla and repeat until large dark spots appear on both sides. This indicates that it has been cooked well.

Set aside. Fry all the discs the same way. I usually intermittently lower the flame so that they are cooked evenly, but also do not end up dry and crisp.

Here are a few more tips that will help ensure that your theplas are soft, which is their ideal texture:

  • The dough needs to be pliable and smooth.
  • When adding the oil as you cook each thepla, make sure that the edges are oiled. They tend to dry up otherwise.
  • Once done, take each thepla off the pan immediately and pile it on top of the other ones. Somehow, this results in them all staying soft without becoming moist.

If you’ve enjoyed this, I hope you’ll take a look back at my original Second Helpings series, which featured Gujarati masala curd rice, dal dhokli and rotli na ladoo for a sweet finish. Do let me know in the comments about how you innovate new dishes using your leftovers too! As always, I love to learn more about recipes and the stories behind them.

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Recipe: Brass Tacks Comfort – Simple Khichdi

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Rounding off this series of grain-based, khichdi-like dishes is the simplest, most quotidian version of all: a frequent-use Gujarati-style khichdi. If you’d like to catch up first, we began the series with the work-intensive and tummy-filling seven-grain khichdo and then went on to the versatile breakfast/dinner meal of bajra ghensh). Today, we come to an extremely basic dish, one that is sheer comfort food. What I’ve come to see over the years is that meals that one takes for granted in one’s own home are sometimes novelties in another’s. This is why I often share unassumingly familiar recipes alongside original and unusual ones. This classic khichdi is one among the former category.

Like many staples that are good for our health, khichdi is the kind of dish that kids turn their noses up at. At least, my siblings and I just hated it were growing up. So our mother would negotiate a lot of deals to work around our aversion. In those days, all our food was homemade, so this would take some extra effort on her part. If there was going to be khichdi for dinner, she’d serve something exotic that she learnt at her Continental cuisine or baking classes for lunch. We also cottoned on to the strategy: if there was a special snack in the evening without it being an occasion or a holiday, we knew she was going to put a bowl of khichdi on the table for dinner!

As adults though, it’s a different story. Our palates change and we begin to enjoy food that is good for us, feeling the difference in our bodies when we consume it. In fact, this subcontinental staple (which is eaten in similar forms like pongal in South India) is so relished that it even caught the fancy of the British during the colonial era. They enjoyed a version with fish, a dish they called “kedgeree”, and popularised it in England for a time. It was an import similar to mulligatawny soup, which came from the Tamil dish called molaga-thanni. Some form of khichdi is believed to have been eaten in this part of the world since ancient times, but the recipe reached its pinnacle in the kitchens of the Mughal empire, where its richly spiced and garnished versions are recorded as having been among the favourites dishes of various rulers.

For us at home though, khichdi is neither fancy nor fishy. Every single Gujarati household consumes this khichdi as a comfort food, as well as a frequent meal. During festive seasons or after important occasions like weddings, when the feasting is in full flow, someone or the other will finally say, “Bas (‘enough’), make khichdi today.” That is shorthand for being done with heavy meals, and wanting something that will make the gut smile.

In fact, when I say it is comfort food, I mean that quite literally. It’s the dish that is most commonly made in a home that has just undergone a bereavement, when the family just needs something basic to meet their nutritional needs as they tend to the necessary rituals. Most likely because of its association with grieving, khichdi is never served during celebrations. After them, certainly, as I mentioned above. But never as part of a special event. Neither is it served while entertaining guests. It is very much something that is all about family and simplicity. As we rarely get to encounter another family’s khichdi, I can only guess that the variations between recipes must be innumerable.

So no, khichdi is not special. That’s the best thing about it. It’s a brass tacks dish that gives the body the basics, and uses ingredients that are likely to be in the kitchen at all times. It is comprised mostly of moong dal and rice, with a bit of salt, turmeric and ghee. If it is served with accompaniments, crispy pappads and a bit of kadhi are usually enough. Some potato curry or other vegetable may round out the meal more, if desired. I’ve mentioned kadhi, a type of gravy, a couple of times recently. I’ll be sure to share the recipe for that soon.

Another recipe I will share soon will be for theplas that use leftover khichdi. As I’ve said before: cuisines across all communities in India are innovative when it comes to leftovers. We see poverty everywhere in our country and respect food, acknowledging it as a blessing from God. This in turn becomes a part of our religions too, which discourage food wastage.

Simple Khichdi

(Yield: 2 persons)

 

75 grams rice

25 grams split mung beans

3 cups water to soak

2 cups water to cook

Salt to taste

¼ teaspoon turmeric

½ teaspoon cumin seeds

2 tablespoons ghee

 

Wash and soak the rice and dal together for approximately ½ an hour to an hour. I have used split mung beans, but you can try this with other variants including pigeon pea/toor dal. Doing so will change the khichdi somewhat. Toor dal grains will separate like rice does, whereas split mung beans will create a thicker concoction.

Once soaked, discard the soaking water. Place the rice and dal in a pressure cooker along with the cooking water. Use a medium flame. Allow to cook for approximately 20 minutes or 3 whistles, or until the grains are tender and soft to touch.

Allow the pressure to decrease, then open the cooker.

In a small pan, add ghee. Once it is hot, add the cumin seeds. Let them fry until they change colour. Add this cumin-filled ghee to the khichdi. Stir gently and serve hot.

This grain series concludes with this simple and flavoursome recipe. I hope you’ve enjoyed trying out the gamut, from the work-intensive, “holiday special” seven-grain khichdo to the nourishing breakfast that is bajra ghensh, to this basic khichdi that is the ultimate go-to dish. Traditional Gujarati cuisine is something I’ve delved into many times on this blog, and I hope you’ll have a delicious time exploring a wide range of meals, snacks and desserts that I’ve shared here over the years.

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Recipe: A Good Breakfast – Bajra Ghensh

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After making the nutritious (and labourious) seven-grain khichdo to share with you last week, I felt inspired to do a short series of similar dishes. This series will showcase the versatility of the staple grains we consume, and the many ways they help make up the traditional Gujarati menu. So here is part two of this series: bajra ghensh, which uses the goodness of broken pearl millet. Pearl millet has been cultivated in India for thousands of years, and is a vital part of both the authentic Gujarati and authentic Tamil cuisines that I grew up surrounded by. As you may know, I truly believe in the revival of higher quantities of millet usage in our diets, especially as a preferred alternative to white rice, and have written many times about their value to us.

I’ve been spending more time with my sister recently, and as always this means exploring her cooking style and picking up new techniques to include in my own. As she sometimes does, she said to me the other day, “Come, I’ll teach you a new recipe.” Working alongside her in her kitchen, I was very surprised to discover that it wasn’t a new recipe to me at all, but only a different interpretation of one I knew well, and made for a different meal of the day. My sister prepares bajra ghensh as dinner, whereas for over three decades my mother-in-law and I have been eating it for breakfast.

What did I tell you about the versatility of millets? In this highly adaptable bajra ghensh, we see an example of how dishes themselves become versatile too depending on the choices of the cook and the habits of the one consuming the same. The method of preparing it, as either breakfast or dinner, is still less the same, but storage and serving determine the type of meal it becomes. It’s a very simple dish with three base ingredients and a generous helping of dry fruits and nuts.

Bajra ghensh wasn’t something we ate while we were growing up, and just as my sister was introduced to it after getting married, I too first encountered it thanks to my mother-in-law. I remember how when I first moved in, my mother-in-law would make it as a porridge or cereal to be had in the mornings, and I loved it from the start. Soon, I was frequently whipping up a big pot of it for both her and I and we would share it for breakfast. We both enjoyed it so much that we would have the same dish for two or three mornings in a row, without needing variety. This was the only way I’d ever eaten it, until my sister served it for dinner the other day.

As delicious as that was, to my mind this is still a breakfast dish, and so my recipe and my photographs here reflect this perspective. It’s a very healthy post-workout meal, and it’s an ideal replacement for supermarket cereals, which make tall claims about nutrition values but are usually full of processed ingredients and sugar. On the other hand, this is comparable only to the simplicity and goodness of whole oats. It is also gluten-free, for those who are making a dietary switch, but it is not dairy-free.

Traditionally, just like the seven-grain khichdo, bajra ghensh was also a winter dish. Pearl millet is warming and high in iron, and the Macrobiotic principle of darker grains being considered winter-friendly applies here. They are harder to digest, whereas in summer lighter grains like jowar and amaranth that are light on the stomach and easiest to digest are better, as per the time-honoured logic of seasonal culinary usages. As I said earlier, since I usually have bajra ghensh in the mornings, I’ve noticed that on days when I have done so, I tend to not become hungry again till at least lunch time or even later. A dish like this cancels out your snack cravings, which automatically increases its already high healthiness quotient.

Finding out that this works well both as a filling breakfast and as a heavy dinner, as well as making the connections with Indian seasonal logic and Macrobiotics, also made me ponder how my mother-in-law and I prepare this at night and store it in the fridge. Since this is a traditional recipe, this meant that in earlier times it could only have been made in winters, when the climate as well as the type of vessels used would allow it to be stored overnight. Only certain probiotic foods would be kept to be on eaten the following day (including homemade yoghurt). There could be no such thing as leftovers, and if there were there were resourceful ways to ensure that these were consumed quickly too. Particularly for Jains, wastage goes against religious philosophy and practice, so quantities are an important part of cooking methods. In the absence of refrigeration, and often with access issues or resource concerns to consider as well, creating perfect portions that satisfy the entire family without any excess is a special skill, and one that cooks across the centuries had to cultivate. It is only in our modern age that we can rely on certain conveniences.

So what happens is this: because of its thick consistency, this bajra ghensh sets when you keep it in the fridge. In the morning, take a chunk, add a bit of milk and have it as a cereal. Or else, prepare it in the evening and eat it hot, right off the stove and with no milk added for breakfast, just like a khichdo.

Bajra Ghensh

(Yield: 2 persons)

 

½ cup broken bajra (pearl millet)

1½ – 2 cups water

½ cup thick yoghurt

Salt to taste

20 grams kharek (dried dates)

10 grams dried coconut slices

10 grams cashew nuts

 

Clean, rinse and soak the broken bajra for 2-3 hours.

Once soaked, cook the bajra along with the 1½ cups of water in a pressure cooker until the grain is soft and tender. Open the pressure cooker lid when ready.

Place a kadai on a medium flame and pour the bajra into it. Now, add the yoghurt and stir continuously. Next, add the salt. Finally, add the dried nuts, dates and coconut and mix well.

This is the point at which you have a choice: today’s main meal, or tomorrow’s breakfast?

Let’s say you decide to have it for breakfast. Just pour the concoction into a container and set it aside for some time. As the bajra ghensh cools, it will solidify. Once it is at room temperature, refrigerate.

You don’t have to do anything the next morning but scoop out a portion into a bowl, add a little milk or buttermilk (which I prefer for the tang) and enjoy!

Do you have a recipe in your own repertoire that you’ve been making and having a certain way for ages, which you later found in an alternate rendition somewhere else? It’s always fascinating to me how the very same dish is prepared or consumed in different ways, depending not even on the community but just on the family or the person who does the cooking. I hope you’ll enjoy this bajra ghensh, and be sure to let me know which meal you had it for!

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Recipe: A Feast Of Its Own – Seven-Grain Khichdo

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For centuries, Gujaratis observed the harvest season of Sankranti (which takes place in January) with a special dish, a seven-grain khichdo which celebrated the bounty of the earth. It was originally made with fresh, still green grains, and cooked for many hours in a large brass pot on coal. It would be prepared right before the harvest itself, when the grains would be ripe and tender. What constituted the seven key ingredients of the recipe depended on what was being grown, and some ingredients that we may think of as being legumes or lentils also qualified. It was also sometimes made with fewer. It was called “saat dhaan” – “seven grain” – when made with all the staples, and “paanch dhaan” – “five grain” – when a couple were eliminated for reasons of convenience, availability or taste. Pearl millet (bajra), wheat, rice, split pigeon peas (toor dal), sorghum (jowar) and green gram (moong dal) were among the traditional staples used. Over time, changes in agriculture and culinary life have allowed us to enjoy this wonderful dish whenever we please.

Even still, it’s a dish with a long preparation and cooking time, so I think of it as a Sunday dish – the kind that you begin working on as soon as you wake, and which is hot and ready just in time for lunch with the whole family. This was exactly how I used to see it being prepared in my sister’s home when I would visit her when she first got married. Her mother-in-law made an amazing seven-grain khichdo, and I would observe as she soaked each ingredient separately early in the morning, then as she literally pulled out the big old brass pot and coal in order to cook it in the time-honoured way. I had the good fortune of experiencing this whole process, just as I used to watch my own mother make Navaratri handvo authentically. Biting into the piping hot khichdo when she served it at lunch after having worked on it since the crack of dawn was unimaginably beautiful. My sister and I now make this khichdo in our own ways, with our modern appliances, but of course it’s her mother-in-law’s recipe that inspired us to keep this time-consuming (but so rewarding) dish in our own repertoires.

Another significant change that has come with urbanisation is that while certain ingredients began to become available year-round, access to fresh ingredients became limited. Thus, a contemporary saat dhaan khichdo will be more likely to use dried ingredients. Here, too, availability determines what you can use. For instance, in Gujarat and Maharashtra you can get readymade chaffed wheat, with the skin removed. I haven’t been able to procure the same in Chennai, so I have to pound the grain gently, to remove the outer covering.

Hand-pounding each grain individually is an important part of the process when using dried ingredients. Each one needs a different type of pressure. Bajra and jowar can be pounded very coarsely, for example, whereas wheat breaks when you do so. Of course, if you happen to have the tender green grains, there’s no pounding required.

Then there’s the individual soaking too, with each grain requiring a different duration. Wheat, bajra and jowar take the longest, whereas rice can be soaked a few hours after the overall preparation has started. As you will likely be making this khichdo with a mix of readymade, hand-pounded or fresh grains that you have available, do use your familiarity with the ingredients to determine the preparation time you need. In addition to the grains mentioned earlier, some I have used or heard of being used in this khichdo include black-eyed peas and green chickpeas too. It just comes down to availability, but the trick is to strike a balance between heavy grains and the lighter variants.

That is because this seven-grain khichdo is itself a very filling dish. While it was a part of Sankranti traditions that honoured the harvest, there is also a science as to why it was made this way. Mid-January would still be winter in Gujarat, and a heavy dish like this made of up whole grains would take a long time to digest. It would increase the metabolism and keep the body warm through the day. It is meant to be enjoyed at lunch, served hot and without need for accompaniments, except some pickled green chilli and kadhi (which is similar to more kolumbu) if you have it.

In terms of spices, the authentic version of this dish required no sautéing and very minimal spices. Everything just went into the large brass pot and cooked away for hours. The flavours of the grains would be allowed to dominate, with just a bit of ajwain (which aids digestion), and the two quintessentials of turmeric and salt being added. That and ghee – a couple of dollops of glorious ghee are an important part of this khichdo.

My sister’s mother-in-law would include a bit of dhaniya-jeera (coriander-cumin) powder, while my sister chooses to add curry leaves and garam masala. I don’t use any of these, but I do use tomato. Play around as you wish to as well, until you hit on the seasonings you most enjoy.

Seven-Grain Khichdo

(Yield: 2-3 persons)

25 grams whole wheat (chaffed)

15 grams broken bajra

50 grams rice

15 grams green whole mung

15 grams yellow split mung dal

¼ cup green peas

¼ cup fresh green pigeon peas

Water to cook

2 tablespoons ghee

½ teaspoon ajwain (carom seeds)

¼ teaspoon asafoetida

1 crushed tomato

¼ teaspoon turmeric

Salt to taste

1 – 2 cups hot water

Soak the grains individually until they are tender to touch, in water about an inch higher than the level of the grains.

When cooking, add 2½ times water to the quantity of grain.

You may pressure cook the bajra and wheat together as it takes a longer time to cook these grains. Set aside.

Next, pressure cook the rice and green whole mung and yellow split mung dal together. Set aside.

In a kadai, add ghee and once it becomes hot, add the ajwain first and then the asafoetida. Next, add the crushed tomato and then all the spices.

Now, add all the grains together to the hot, spiced ghee in the kadai. Stir on a medium to low flame.

Keep stirring. Add some hot water if required, especially if you like the khichdo to be soft as I do.

Once cooked, serve hot along with a garnish of green chili and coriander leaves.

The long preparation and cooking processes that go into a good seven-grain, or even five-grain, khichdo mean that it’s really meant to be a feast, just as it originally was during Sankranti. I recall how whenever my sister’s mother-in-law prepared it, she would distribute it to their neighbours as well. It is a meal in itself, meant to be shared, and meant to be consumed immediately after the many hours that the cook would have spent putting it together.

As with all tasty things that are best shared, I hope you’ll whip up a nice big batch the next time that you have half a day to linger over putting a meal together. Then, I hope you’ll gather your favourite people around the table, and enjoy this traditional Gujarati khichdo, with all the joy that the farmers of yore would have felt as they feasted with their loved ones right before the big harvest.

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Recipe: A Mother’s Valentine – Red Velvet Cupcakes

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I don’t believe in Valentine’s Day. That’s the reason why you’ve never seen the occasion observed on this blog with a special recipe, even though you know that love is the key ingredient in every dish I create! This year is different, however. The COVID-19 pandemic had brought all my children back home for the first time in ages. Despite all else, it gave us the rare opportunity of being able to have almost a year of each other’s constant company, that too with everyone working from home. Then, right on the cusp of Valentine’s Day, all three of them flew off again, returning to the respective cities in which they are based. I am experiencing all the emotions of having an empty nest, and I need to express them through the way I know best. So here I am in my kitchen, feeling wistful as I lay the ingredients out for some very special cupcakes. This post is a valentine in red velvet, a symbol of a mother’s love.

Through the many months that my kids were back home, they would ask for “a special cake” every other day. Red velvet was one of their favourites in this category, but it was rarely baked at home during the pandemic. I am extremely particular about the ingredients I use, and not being able to source the particular brand of red colouring I prefer meant that this was off the repertoire. As you must have noticed too, accessibility to goods had finally returned to a normal standard here in Chennai, and a beautiful bottle of red colouring now sits on my shelf, ready to bring vibrance to these Valentine’s Day cupcakes.

This one is for my youngest, my daughter, whose hands modelled for my photoshoots through the year. If she wasn’t up for it, I would threaten to withhold a slice of the day’s cake from her, which always did the trick. I often joke with her that my recipes are my prized heirlooms, but it is no joke at all that one of the reasons I compile them this way has always been for my children. My daughter is an excellent baker, and was in fact the one who inspired me to become one too, but she is also a busy young woman and rarely bakes these days. I hope she reaches for this recipe, the next time that she does.

This one is for my second son, my unofficial marketing man, who is so proud of my work and never fails to put a good word in for his mother’s cakes no matter where he goes. He doesn’t cook, unfortunately, but I hope he will pick up this wonderful activity some day. If that day comes, there is an archive right here for anything his heart or his tummy desire.

This one is for my elder son, my partner in the business and a valuable critic whose opinion matters to me very much. He loves cooking, and has just as much of culinary inquisitiveness as I do, and I hope that this recipe becomes a keeper for him.

This one is also for you. I know that many other parents who had their grown kids return and stay unexpectedly last year have felt or are feeling the same pangs that I am. I hope that baking these scrumptious cupcakes will offer you some comfort too. For me, what I noticed is that in the past – when they were away for their education or their work – these pangs were not as intense. They were adults with their own routines, just as I had mine, and I was used to seeing them at only certain occasions. But having this one year that felt like it was just dedicated to family, to catching up with each other on a deeper level, to reinforcing the values we instilled in them and live by… It was a very different experience. Perhaps you can relate to this too.

One day, hopefully sooner than later, when the world fully opens up again, I look forward to jetting off to see my three valentines just as often as always. If ever you bump into me at an airport, carrying big boxes in my hand luggage, you will know what’s in them. My precious baked goods are making their way with me to my children and their friends. Until then, and for long after, this recipe will always be here for them, whenever they want to recreate for themselves the taste of my love.

Red Velvet Cupcake

(Yield: 12 cupcakes)

For the cupcakes:

1 ¼ cups maida

3 tablespoons corn flour

2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

1 cup sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon baking soda

¼ cup oil

¼ cup unsalted butter

1 tablespoon red food colouring

¾ cup whole milk (room temperature)

1 tablespoon (+ ½ teaspoon) vinegar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the cream cheese frosting:

1 cup cream cheese (room temperature)

¼ cup butter

2 cups icing sugar

¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

To prepare the red velvet cake cupcakes, preheat the oven to 170°C. Prepare 12 cupcake liners in the pans. You may want to check out this comprehensive introduction to baking, if you need to.

In a bowl, mix and sift together all the dry ingredients – flours, salt, baking soda and cocoa powder. Set aside.

In another bowl, add the milk and 1 tablespoon of vinegar and set aside. This becomes buttermilk.

In a large mixing bowl, use an electric mixer to cream together the butter and sugar on medium speed for 4-5 minutes, until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the egg, and beat it in well. Next, add the oil, red food colouring, vanilla extract and the remaining ½ teaspoon of vinegar.

Add in the blended dry ingredients from the first bowl a little at a time, alternating them with the prepared buttermilk. Do not over-mix, and be very gentle.

Distribute the cake batter into the lined pans evenly. Bake for 15-18 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Remove the pans from the oven and cool on a wire rack.

To make the cream cheese frosting, use an electric mixer to beat the cream cheese until it is smooth. Add the butter and mix until the two are well-combined and smooth. Then, add the powdered sugar and vanilla extract, making sure the sugar doesn’t fly around. Beat until fluffy. There may be quantity variants based on the brand of sugar used, so add more or less to suit your requirement or until the icing is stiff enough.

Top the cooled cupcakes with a swirl of cream cheese frosting, and garnish with sprinkles for a celebratory touch.

This recipe has a generous yield quantity and is meant to be shared. I hope that you will enjoy these sweet delights with those who are most precious to you, during some cherished moments together. I’ve given the recipe away simply as a gesture of joy and camaraderie, but it is also on the re:store menu. If you’d prefer to order some red velvet cake or cupcakes from me, or perhaps any other delectable item from my array of goodies, please drop me a note. The pantry is fully stocked, the kitchen is thriving with scents and flavours, the house is quiet now – and I would simply love to bake for you!

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Recipe: The Perfect Alternative – Vegan Millet “Thayirsadam”

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Thayirsadam is a typically Tamil dish, and translates literally to “curd rice”. It is exquisitely simple and accessible food, which is why it is eaten here on practically a daily basis at households of every background. Even though we are Gujaratis, as lifelong Chennaiites, it is also a go-to in our home. It’s among the comfort foods we reach for whenever we feel down, or when we come back tired from a long trip. It’s also ideal for the day after late night parties, when not much has been prepped for the day’s meals, other than the homemade yoghurt that we ensure is made nightly without fail.

I’ve spoken many times of my deep love for yoghurt ever since childhood, and of how I used to consume it even by mixing it into upma and in other unconventional combinations. My love for it is something I brought into my new home when I got married, and I made it a staple in this household too. It truly is the ingredient that I find most difficult to give up even as we as a family make further inroads into a vegan lifestyle. For a variety of reasons, ranging from wanting to eating healthier to having doubts about the quality and purity of store-bought milk to being moved by the plight of mistreated dairy cows, we have all been veering towards the vegan way. My struggle to at least consume less yoghurt, even if I can’t quite give it up, has made me explore healthy and conscious alternatives. It’s such an integral part of Indian cuisine that it’s not a matter of finding a simple substitute for one or two recipes. I have to match each replacement to the dish, and see how it fares in that unique combination.

I have also been trying to make vegan yoghurt at home. Many of my experiments have failed, but a few attempts have brought me some degree of success. However, as I have yet to perfect a recipe that I feel I can confidently share with you, I won’t do so for now. My fingers are crossed that a vegan homemade yoghurt recipe will one day be featured on this blog.

So for now, we will stick to store-bought vegan yoghurt. Coconut yoghurt is my preferred one for this dish. I love the flavour: simple, versatile and a little sweet. Coconut also takes on the flavour of whatever you add it to, while retaining its own standalone taste. I add a dash of lemon to it so as to evoke the slight sourness of dairy yoghurt.

In addition to trying to eat vegan more often, I am also going through a phase where I am cutting down carbs, which means white rice is something I avoid. This leads me back to a food category that I’m passionate about: millets. Millets have made many appearances on this blog due to my belief in their importance in terms of good health and eco-sustainability. If you haven’t already enjoyed the following recipes, I hope you’ll check out: my vegan chilli bowl starring kodo millet, Indian vegetable salad starring foxtail millet or some authentic local dishes that showcase how millets have always been eaten in this region, such as chakkara pongal and ragi kanji.

In this dish, I have used kodo millet, also known as “varugu” in Tamil. Millets are fibre-rich, which makes them more filling, as well as good for your digestive system. Kodo millet is a gluten-free alternative to rice that I enjoy as much for its taste as for its benefits in regulating blood sugar and cholesterol levels, and the boost in antioxidants that it gives too. For me, veganism is about healthy eating, and that remains the impetus behind many of my food choices.

I’ve always seen food as a vital component of living in alignment with nature. Many of you know that I also maintain a home garden with various daily ingredients, from lemongrass to coconuts to tomatoes. Green chillies are among them, and as I stepped out of my kitchen to pluck a fresh one for this vegan millet “thayirsadam”, some pretty white flowers on the plant caught my eye. I paused to admire them, and I loved being able to include them in the styling for my photoshoot. How special and gratifying it was, to have my abiding love for all things culinary, my intensifying passion for photography, and my reverent love for nature come together…

Vegan Millet “Thayirsadam”

(Yield: 3-5 cups)

50 grams kodo millet

160 grams coconut yoghurt

¼ cup water

2-3 tablespoons raw mango

1 tablespoon coriander leaves

1 tablespoon chopped cucumber

Salt to taste

A dash of lemon

 

Tempering:

1 tablespoon oil

¼ teaspoon mustard seeds

¼ teaspoon cumin seeds

1 green chilli finely chopped (optional)

A few curry leaves

Rinse and cook the kodo millet in 3-4 cups of water. This will take about 15 minutes. Allow to cool.

Once cooled, transfer the millet into a bowl. Add the coconut yoghurt, salt and water. Mix thoroughly. Next, add the cucumber, raw mango and coriander leaves. You may include your choice of crunchy ingredients to add more texture and taste to the dish. Sometimes I use pomegranates or grated carrots, either as a substitute for cucumber or along with it.

Now, add the dash of lemon.  Set aside.

For the tempering, heat the oil and then add the mustard and cumin seeds. Once they splutter, add the green chilli and curry leaves and immediately pour over the millet-yoghurt that was set aside.

Stir gently and refrigerate. Serve once slightly cooled again.

And there you have it: thayirsadam with neither thayir (curd) nor sadam (rice)! This vegan curd millet dish truly becomes a filling meal-in-a-bowl once you scoop in a spoonful of pickle on the side, and add a handful of some delicious, crispy banana chips to add more variety to your meal.

By the way, if you are a fan of curd rice in general, may I suggest that you also try my recipe for Gujarati masala curd rice? And if you’re a vegan who is looking for dairy-like but dairy-free desserts, my take on another Gujarati speciality, in the form of this vegan passion fruit shrikand, may be right up your alley!

 

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“Garden of Eden” by Apparao Galleries

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I am delighted to share that a selection of my photographs will be showcased at Apparao Galleries’ latest exhibition, entitled Garden of Eden. These photographs are from my still life series of dark and moody compositions that celebrate Indian brassware. If you are in Chennai, please visit Asvah 24 at 4/24, Beach Road, Sri Kapaleeswarar Nagar, Neelankarai between February 1st and February 3rd 2021 to enjoy the exhibition.

This is my second public exhibition, following the inclusion of my work at Apparao Galleries’ showcase at the IDINDIA2020 design fair in Okhla, Delhi. I couldn’t be happier with how Nandi Shah Photography is growing, and I am deeply grateful for your encouragement and support.

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