Musings on Food and My Own Life

I want to share with you my favourite, lighter and warm memories of food - which may surprise most of you - at college. I did my under-graduation and post grad at Govt. Stanley Medical College, Royapuram, Chennai. This means, I spent 10 years in the hostel and it was one rollicking decade which is etched in soul forever because college is where I met and wooed my wife. This pas de deux may sound corny and cheesy, but hey everyone loves a good romantic tale, right?

We met on the 9th of August 1994. I was in my final year MBBS and she in her first year. She was the room mate of my room mate's sister. You get the route, don't you? So one evening when I was piss drunk my chum asks me to accompany him to meet his sis in the LH. We Stanleans are very fortunate in that the MH and LH shared a single 6 foot wall. (Suitably inebriated gentlemen scaled these walls at night and brought back a lot of goodies in the form of wet wash out clothes). I resisted going with him to the LH but lady luck dragged me there and then the rest is, well, history and chemistry.

Male visitors were allowed inside the LH premises but limited to the visitors hall and the open park space which had concrete benches and for some strange reason were called 'stone benches' and the visiting time was 4-8pm on all days except on Sundays which was 9am to 8pm. We had a stone bench to ourselves. No one dared to encroach our space. Looking back we should've scratched our names onto the concrete as is the wont with most lovers.

There was a small shack of a canteen inside the LH which served tea, coffee, snacks and for the innocent babies, Horlicks. The guys who ran the place Maari and Karuppasamy (he was the Park Town Vijay Fan Club Secretary then) had a special affinity for me and I went in whenever I felt like snacking, conveniently writing it in my girl's 'account'. The MH food was fantastic. It was a student's mess and we had the best butter/chilli chicken in town. The LH mess was a contractor's mess and the food was just about palatable. Every Wednesday and Saturday nights we had ghee rice, veg gravy, chicken, potato chips, egg, juice and ice cream. I took tiffin boxes full of chicken every Wednesday and Saturday - it helped that my room mate was the mess secretary - to give my wife who shared it with her friends. On Sundays, we had chicken and biryani from her mess sitting on the stone bench yakking yadda yadda. Sometimes I would go: "You say something" and she'd go: "You say something" and then we'd have been sitting there speaking nothing for a whole damn 10 minutes. You'll have to note here that I have not missed a single day of LH duty of 4-8 and Sunday 9-8 unless she went to her home town for a whole 5 yrs. She wrote to me, mostly sending me cards when she was away.

We weren't like the regular lovers of the day doing the cinema-park-beach routine. The stone bench was our fiefdom, our play, our emotions, tiffs, make ups and love. It was all that I wanted in life. The first ever time we went out was with a mutual male friend and the sacred trip was to 'Shansi' a Chinese resto at Purasawalkam. We ragged her into a treat because she had, yes, scored very high marks in her exams! Of course we ended up ordering a lot of food and wasting a lot of it too because of the 'embarrassment' to share. (After those exams, she, a brilliant student who has a couple of State ranks to her credit has just managed to pass the exams thanks to me and my shindigs. She cried before her final exams blaming me for not allowing her to study)

Another time, very early in our 'friendship' days we went to the 'Beach Station' to reserve our tickets. (We went by the Kovai Express. I got down at Salem to proceed to Yercaud and she went to Erode, her place.) There I bought a couple of Aavin flavoured milk packs. I poked in the straw and began drinking. She pokes in the straw and sucks and sucks, nothing comes out. Red faced, she handed the pack to me. Hesitantly I took a sip from the already-sipped-straw. Folks, I tell you, nothing came out of it because the whole thing had solidified, but, for a non-co-ed no girl siblings/cousins guy like me, it was pure fucking electricity through my bones!

Sipping on a single straw especially when you have a 'thingy' for the girl is always a surreal experience. Phantasmagoria. After that and a couple of years later, I popped the question and she said a vehement: Yes. On special occasions we went to the Ambassador Pallava in Egmore to treat ourselves, when we were low on cash - end of the month - we bought food from the nearby hotels. Mostly some 'side dishes'. Especially the crab curry at Excellent Hotel on Broadway and the turkey biryani at Pandiyan Hotel in Royapuram. One evening we decided to break the monotony of the stone bench and feeling particularly rich on that day, we dropped in at the coffee shop at Hotel Breeze on Poonamalee High Road. We shared a Black Forest Cake. Manna from Heaven. It was a lesson on how togetherness and hunger is the best sauce for food.

Most of the girls in the LH had their own 'hot plates' on which they toasted their own breads and made noodles and such things. There was a regular patient who came to the OP and I learnt she was a fish monger close to our hostel. That was music to my ears. We bought fish from her regularly and my lady made full use of her hot plate and fried fish for me! For someone who salivated in fountains even as the platform dwelling folks did their 'tadka', this was the gastronomic pinnacle. Once my brother, who was studying in Coimbatore, came to visit us and between the two of us we wolfed down 25 pieces of fish that she had painstakingly fried. Only after we polished it off did we realize there was none left for her! Beer and fish. That match made in Heaven!

The men's hostel food was good. But alas, do we ever realize what we are getting? Here, I'll have to quote GK Chesterton here: "The way to love anything is to realise that it might be lost...The moral of the thing is wholly exhilarating. This world and all our powers in it are far more awful and beautiful than even we know until some accident reminds us. If you wish to perceive that limitless felicity, limit yourself if only for a moment. If you wish to realise how fearfully and wonderfully God's image is made, stand on one leg. If you want to realise the splendid vision of all visible things-- wink the other eye."

Mess food was good, but we had to have egg with everything. Egg dosa is fine, but egg chappathis, egg rice and even egg idlis! The cooks were known as 'masters' and they were taken to task quite harshly if the food wasn't up to the mark. Working in the Stanley MH mess was the worst nightmare for anyone. Ragging the first years in the mess was a common thing. We had what was known as the 'Stanley Rasam' where a senior would mix sambhar, rasam, curd or whatever PLUS a ton of salt in a tumbler and handed out the cocktail to drink. Of course everyone barfed on the first sip. There was this terror guy who ragged me in the mess. He was having his curd rice. Licked his fingers well with due vulgarity and then fed me a mouthful from his plate. Though I was shitting bricks, I refused to take it. He gave me a tight one on the cheeks and said: "Food is fucking God dude, you'll have it whoever gives it to you and however they give it you!" I loathed the bugger then. Later we became good friends.

Thursdays were the days we had idlis for dinner. You'd hardly see a motley bunch then. People like my room mate and I, who had a demanding tongue and a ravenous appetite begged borrowed or stole money to buy some gravy for those bullet like idlis instead of the bland sambhar and chutney. When we went totally dry and bereft of any dough (which was most of the time) and hungry for the DDs from home our fav technique of tricking the guys because we were notorious for not returning the money so not many took the risk of loaning us any, was: "Machan, got two fifties for a hundred? We need some change!" The poor unsuspecting soul would go: "No, man, I have only hundreds." "Ok, then give one of those hundreds!" Whack! Whack! Whack!

One such Thursday we loaded a plate full of idlis. 25 in number and sat in the middle of the huge hostel play ground which overlooked the ladies hostel sipping beer, enjoying the cool breeze, yakking some crap about the dames, dipping hard idlis into the hotel bought gravy and wolfed down 12 apiece. My roomie's favourite mongrel, strangely named 'Kammanaatti' was sitting beside him waiting in anticipation. The last idli he put it down for him. Kammanaatti took a sniff of it and went away. My pal was so irritated, "Here we are swallowing 12 of the mess idlis and you insult us?" and gave him a kick. Not a big aficionado of dogs, but the first time I saw it in an animal's eyes: "Et tu Brutus". It was in the year 97 or 98 when it poured cats and dogs (also rain) continuously for 4 days. The whole of Chennai came to a stand still. Food supply was hit and we were served only gruel and upma. Only then did most of us realize what it meant to have decent grub.

I was a big hit with the staff nurses, ward boys and ayahs in my hospital ward. The first question I always asked them was: "Have you had your food!" or "What's for lunch!" and I insisted on seeing their 'tiffin' boxes and also took a bite of whatever they had. They had a lot of respect for me. A 'doctor' taking their food. But food is the greatest leveller, that is, if you are game for it. When I went on my evening rounds after my LH duty, (without even my steth) I asked the same of patients too. Either they'd be having their dinner at that time (brought by their relatives) or about to have. Some with a lot of restraint have asked me to join them and I've never refused at all. You know the joy of those poor folks admitted in squalid Govt. hospitals was boundless. There was a cirrhotic patient who was admitted for quite a long time and one evening he told me: "Sir, if you don't mind, I'll tell you this...you are like a Hindi actor, clean shaved, chewing a gum, breezing into the ward saying hi and hello to the patients and having food with us while all your colleagues are mostly sour puss faced individuals who come in and treat us like objects mostly asking us questions for their benefit and not ours. It is your smile that heals us!" Folks, that is the biggest compliment that I've received so far. All my degrees be damned!

I have to end this on a solemn note. My dear father was diagnosed with cancer of the throat and his voice box had to be removed completely which meant that he couldn't speak. During the post-operative period he was convalescing in the 'special ward' which shared the same floor albeit a different wing with the lady house surgeons' quarters. My wife was then doing her house surgeoncy and though my Mom knew I had a girl pal she didn't know initially that she was going to be her DIL. My dad had a Ryle's tube inserted (via the nose into the stomach) to feed him and it was my wife who made 'kanji', soups and other health fluids that could be poured through the tube and also attending the wards. For this, I'm indebted to her for more than a few lifetimes. One day, though my father couldn't eat, he'd walked down to one of the umpteen 'snack kiosks' in the hospital campus and bought us vadais and because he couldn't speak motioned with his hand: "I bought it for you all. You don't have to restrict yourself just because I can't eat." I cried myself a river that night. And then he got discharged, went off into a depression, got into alcohol, liver failure...death bed...and circumstances were such that we tied the knot at the Eashwaran Temple, Erode on the 12th of Nov 99 and then another nuptial knot on the 28th Nov 99 at Thiruchendur Temple, a reception at Erode on the 1st of December and then my greatest hero, my guiding beacon of light passed away on the 6th of December 99.

PS: Thank you for reading this. I haven't done a proof reading, so bear with me on this...brought forth a flood of emotions in me. I'm thankful to CFG and all you kind folks for having me relive the past which I rarely do. Because sometimes it haunts me like a ghost. It was nice to ventilate about food and my life. I'm curious to know about your fav food moments with your loved ones. Sharing is what gives life it's deepest meaning. Thanks once again!

Posted with Blogsy

Soft Idlis and Vada Kari

There are few other pleasures than wolfing down fluffly idlis along with vada kari and a piping hot cup of coffee at 9 in the morning! Ah! The after-taste in the mouth lingers on and on and on.

The meek and docile idli teams up with a number of accompaniments/side dishes to serve up a great tiffin. Though it doesnt have any distinguishing taste by itself, the humble idli lends itself to the great many side dishes of India. One of them is vada kari which is a famous recipe in the Thiruvannamalai and Chennai areas of Tamilnadu, India.


Vada kari

Ingredients:

chana dal 1 cup
coconut milk 1 cup
onions 2
tomatoes 2
chilli powder 1 tsp
coriander powder 1 tsp
turmeric powder 1/2 tsp
oil as required

To grind to a tight paste:
ginger 1 small piece
garlic 8 flakes
saunf 1 tsp
chillies 3
cinnamon and cardamom and cloves : 1 each

Method:
Soak the chana dal for 1 hr and then grind to a coarse paste. Slice the onions and tomatoes. Take one tsp of the ground masala paste and mix with the chana dal paste and add salt.Fry this in oil as a vada shape and keep aside. Next heat some oil and add the rest of the ground masala and once it is well fried add the tomatoes and ground paste and chilli powder and turmeric and coriander and saute well. Add coconut milk along wiht this and bring to a boil once. Now, divide the vada balls into a haphazard manner and add some water and once it boils remove from the fire.

Ambrosia...sweet Ambrosia...

Tender Coconut Water. Ah, who doesnt love it? As pure as Mother's Milk-Mother Nature's Milk. Summer is the time when one sees loads of tender coconuts on the road side in Chennai and thirsty folks mobbing the vendor for a taste of ambrosia!

The water of tender coconut, technically the liquid endosperm, is the most nutritious wholesome beverage that the nature has provided for the people of the tropics to fight the sultry heat. It has caloric value of 17.4 per 100gm.

"It is unctuous, sweet, increasing semen, promoting digestion and clearing the urinary path," says Ayurveda on tender coconut water (TWC).

Numerous medicinal properties of tender coconut water reported are:-

1. Good for feeding infants suffering from intestinal disturbances.
2. Oral rehydration medium
3. Contains organic compounds possessing growth promoting properties
4. Keeps the body cool
5. Application on the body prevents prickly heat and summer boils and subsides the rashes caused by small pox, chicken pox, measles, etc.
6. Kills intestinal worms
7. Presence of saline and albumen makes it a good drink in cholera cases
8. Checks urinary infections.
9. Excellent tonic for the old and sick
10. Cures malnourishment.
11. Diuretic
12. Effective in the treatment of kidney and urethral stones
13. Can be injected intravenously in emergency case.
14. Found as blood plasma substitute because it is sterile, does not produce heat, does not destroy red blood cells and is readily accepted by the body.
15. Aids the quick absorption of the drugs and makes their peak concentration in the blood easier by its electrolytic effect.
16. Urinary antiseptic and eliminates poisons in case of mineral poisoning.

It’s a natural isotonic beverage with the same level of electrolytic balance as we have in our blood. It’s the fluid of life, so to speak.

Source:Coconut Development Board

Kirni Pazham....Rohinton Mistry...

Come summer and the Chennai market is flooded with water melon and musk melon (kirni pazham, molaam pazham). Cantaloupes are a musk type melon with the characteristic netting on the skin. Cantaloupes and melons are fragrant fruits, related to cucumbers and squashes. Fresh Cantaloupe should be well developed with a full slip at the stem end, well delineated netting, light gold to light gray green background color and a bright orange colored flesh. Cantaloupe is eaten in its natural state wither at the beginning of a meal or at the end as a dessert. It is often pureed and served frozen in desserts such as sorbet.

Cantaloupe Smoothie:

Tasty, refreshing, and fat-free! Try this delicious cantaloupe smoothie recipe!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 ripe cantaloupe, peeled, seeded, and cut into chunks
• 1 cup skim milk
• 1 cup vanilla fat-free yogurt
• 1 cup crushed ice
• 2 tablespoons sugar, or to taste

PREPARATION:
Combine all ingredients in a blender and process until smooth. Makes about 4 cups.


As you can see in the pic, I am currently reading a book: A fine Balance.

I recently 'discovered' Rohinton Mistry...dunno how, but I did come across his name somewhere and then searched him up on the net....and I cant believe how I could miss out on such a wonderful writer for this long. Well, I bought his book--A Fine Balance--and have started devouring it eagerly. Crystal clear crisp writings that compel the reader to almost visualise the happenings as if it were happening right under their nose. Most reviews say that his works reminds one of Charles Dickens for its compassionate realism and narrative sweep.

A Fine Balance, is set in the turbulent 70's in an unnamed city by the sea and captures all the cruelty and corruption, dignity and heroism of India. In the story, four strangers come together--a widow, a student and two tailors who have fled the violence in their native village. Hope this book satiates my thirst for reading a 'good novel' by an Indian writer after a long time.

Vegetable Pulao

VEGETABLE PULAO

Ingredients:

1 1/2 tab oil
4 cloves
4 sticks of cinnamon
3 cardamoms
onions 200gm sliced
vegetables cut according your choice- like carrots, potatoes, cauliflower
curd 1 tab
chillies4
ginger garlic paste
salt to taste
rice-basmati or ordinary

Method:
Heat oil and add the cloves, cardamom and cinnamon and when it is fried add the sliced onions and saute the onions till 3/4th done then add the vegetables and add the GG paste and curd and chillies, all this in low heat. Then add the rice and for every one part rice add two parts water for ordinary and for basmati rice add 1 1/2 parts water. and allow to cook covered (dum) for 10 min covered and on high heat.

Serve with raitha or any side dish you deem fit. I like to have potato chips or chicken along with veg pulao, yummilicious :D

Nethili Fry

Nethili in Tamil and Commersons Anchovy in English, is a great tasting small fish. Who hasnt heard of the legendary 'nethili meen kulambu'? Alternately, you could even fry them for a different kind of tingle on your taste buds

Nethili Fry
Ingredients:
nethili meen-500 gms

mix with a little water and make a paste of:
ginger garlic paste-1tsp
red chilli powder 1tsp
coriander powder-2tsp
turmeric powder-1/4tsp
kala namak-1tsp
red colour powder-optional
pepper powder-1tsp
vinegar or lime juice-a few drops

Mix the nethili and the paste well so that the masala paste coats the fish well. Deep fry in hot oil and garnish with coriander and mint leaves and serve.

Milk Puris

Milk puris for 12

Ingredients:
Maida 3 cups
wheat 3 cups
salt 1 tsp
oil 3 tab
enough milk to mix
cumin seeds 2 tsp

Sieve the maida and wheat flour and rub in the oil into the mixture and add salt and cumin seeds and mix with enough cold milk to make a firm dough. Keep aside covered for 30 mins and then make medium sized balls and roll out in uniform circle and deep fry in hot oil till golden color and serve with side dish. The side dish shown here is a variant of the channa masala.

Puli Molaga (Chillies in Tamarind Sauce)

Description: Its a kind of chilli sauce with the whole chilli in it.

Ingredients:
1) 100 gms Indian green chillies (the country variety)
2) Lemon sized tamarind pulp
3) 1tsp each of mustard and cumin seeds
4) small onions (sambhar onions) a handful
5) 2 green chillies

Method:
Grind to a paste nos 2-5 and keep aside.
Slit the 100 gms of green chillies
In a saucepan take about a litre of water and add the ground paste, salt as per taste and one tsp of turmeric powder and the slit green chillies and cook on simmer mode.

The chillies will go soft on boiling and the water content will reduce to about 200ml. Bring down from the fire and cool and store in a bottle (could be refrigerated too)
This serves as an excellent sauce or even a side dish (for the brave).

At my hamlet down in South Tamilnadu folks did not have money to afford a vegetable side dish and hence they prepared this and used a little at a time for almost a month. My maternal grandmom made these and I learnt it from her.

The proper method to savour it:
Take out a chilli or two along with some of the sauce and put on a small plate beside the huge one you use to gorge your food on;)))

After pushing a morsel of rice into your mouth, chew on the rice/sambhar mixture and when your mouth is half full, take a chilli and suck on it, the pungent/sour sauce will now enter your gob;)))

Try to mix that along with the rice/sambhar mixture in your mouth and deglutate after chewing well.

The pungency should make your eyes red and your nose water like as if the Hoover Dam's suddenly sprung a leak;))))

The next step is entirely for the brave(which automatically means it isnt for the femmes....dang! the MCP that I am;))))

If sucking on the sauce/chilli wasnt enough go ahead and take a bite on the chilli and this time like fine wine roll it in your mouth for a few seconds and then swallow.

If you are ok with this step, the next time you visit a Mexican restaurant, the dishes there might seem like sweetmeats to you...however if you have a sensitive digestive system, the next morning might pose a wee bit of a problem....you might want to install an airconditioning system under the potty before you hit the bogs;))))

Cheers and folks let me know if you tried this recipe. (You neednt write about your escapades in the loo...no such obscentiy is allowed in my blog and that too a Food blog;))))))

Uff! I am incorrigible :)))

Vazhakkai poriyal, paruppu keerai, kovakkai poriyal!

Lunch today: Raw banana poriyal (Plantain poriyal), Greens with dal, gherkin fry, pepper rasam, potato chips, ginger pickle, salt and water;))))))) Will post the recipes. We make them with minimal ingredients but with maximal taste;))))) Ok excuse me now pals, I am burping after a heavy meal :-p

Recipe Update:-
Vazhakkai Seeraka(jeera) kari:
Microwave chopped plantain (raw banana) for 3-5 mins. Heat oil, splutter the mustard and then add curry leaves, and pounded garlic cloves (3-5), some chopped onion, the plantain pieces, salt, turmeric, red chilli powder 1tsp, cumin powder 1tsp and fry till it is done.

Paruppu Keerai (greens with dhal):
Pressure cook 1/2 cup tuvar dhal, 1 chopped onion, 1 chopped tomato, 2 slit green chillies, 1 tsp jeera and 1/4 tsp turmeric powder. To this add cleaned greens (keerai) along with 1tsp sambhar(sambar) powder, 1 tsp red chilli powder and cook till done. Temper with mustard and curry leaves.

Gherkin (kovakkai) semi fry:
Heat oil, splutter the mustard seeds and then add curry leaves, then the thinly sliced gherkins(kovakkai), salt, turmeric powder and cover and cook in the simmer mode till done. Next add 1 tsp of red chilli powder and fry. A semi fry should do to keep the vital nutrients intact.

Kodi Vedupu and Capsicum sambhar

Yesterday we (Deepa and me) made 'kodi vedupu' and Capsicum sambhar. Yummilicious dishes! I even told Sailu yesterday and I can guess that her mouth began watering instantaneously;)))) She told me to post the recipes and this post is for her (no, please dont thank me for it Sailu;)

Kodi Vepudu

Ingredients

* Chicken 1 kg, boneless, cut into 1-inch cubes.
* Onion 500 gms, diced
* Tomato 200 gms, chopped
* Ginger garlic paste 3 teaspoon
* Peppercorns 1 teaspoon, crushed
* Curry leaves 2 sprigs
* Turmeric powder ½ teaspoon
* Chilli powder ½ teaspoon
* Coriander powder 3 teaspoon
* Cinnamon 2-inch piece
* Cardamoms 5
* Cloves 4
* Oil 3 tablespoons
* Cashews 25 gms
* Salt to taste



Method

* Heat the oil and add the cinnamon,cardamom, cloves and the onions and fry till they turn brown.
* Add the ginger, garlic paste, tomatoes, turmeric powder, coriander powder and chilli powder and cook for three minutes.
* Add the chicken cubes and add water enough for cooking.
* Cook till the chicken is tender and the water has dried.
* Add curry leaves, cashews and pepper powder and cook for two minutes and then serve hot.

Capsicum Sambar

Capsicum 1/4 kg.

Heat 2 teaspoons of oil and add 1 tsp mustard seeds.When the mustard splatters

add 1/2 fenugreek seeds and 1/4 tsp asafoetida. Add the capsicum pieces and fry lightly.Add 2 cups of water and allow it to boil.Add 1 teaspoon salt, 1 1/2 teaspoon sambar powder and tamarind juice(amount vary to taste). Heat until the raw smell of tamarind is gone.Then add 1 cup boiled toor dal(paste) and heat until it mixes uniformly.Add a teaspoon of curry masala powder.

Onions, radish, potato, green peas,drumstick, pearl onions, okra, eggplant, pumpkin, chowchow...any of these veggies could be used

Gooseberry (Amla) Rasam

While out on one of my house visits, I saw a cart full of fresh gooseberries (Amla) on the roadsie. Very tempting I should say, so I stopped my vehicle and enquired the vendor how much was a kilo. "30 bucks", he said. Not bad, for a heavy monsoon season. I got myself half a kg and wanted to make pickle out of it. But, heck, everyone makes gooseberry pickles, so I wanted to do something different. The next logical step is to Google for gooseberry (Amla) recipes. Viva la Google! I came across a site which spoke of gooseberry rasam and gooseberry jam. Ok it shall be gooseberry rasam I said to myself and set about preparing it.

Here is the recipe for it:
Gooseberry Rasam

Ingredients: Gooseberries 100 grams, moong dal 2 tablespoons, ginger and green Chilli paste 2 teaspoons, medium sized tomatoes 2, turmeric ½ teaspoon, mustard ½ teaspoon, cooking oil ½ teaspoon, asafoetida 1 pinch, curry leaves, salt 1 teaspoon.

Method: Add half litre of water to a vessel along with the turmeric, ginger and chilli paste, salt and the cut tomatoes and bring the mixture to a boil. Pressure cook the gooseberries and the moong dal in 2 cups water.

Mash the gooseberries and dal, de-seed the gooseberries and add the mash to the simmering rasam. Once the mixture comes to a boil, season with mustard and curry leaves.

Gosh, the rasam tasted superb and my mom and aunt loved the thing (coz my mom says amla is good for the health) but the colour....dang and double dang, jeez, the colour of the rasam was so dark that it was unappetising. I made this for lunch and by night the rasam had turned a deep dark colour. Is there a way to change the colour to something more appealing? Suggestions please!

The making of a great Parantha

Paranthas

Ingredients:
maida 1/2 kg
milk 100 ml
salt to taste
vanaspathi 2tsp
egg 1 no.
sugar 1/2 tsp

First mix all the ingredients except the maida in a bowl and then add the maida to the mixture little by little and knead into a dough using no water( use very little if you must ). keep aside the dough for 1/2 hr for it to get soft.after that flip the dough on a smooth surface using oil. the flipping helps the dough gets spread out instead of rolling them with a pin. After flipping gather the ends of teh dough and fold it like the frills of a curtain and then shape into a roll and keep aside for 15 mins and then shape with the hands into a pancake shape and heat it on the tava.Then beat with the palms when cooked.

Paniyaaram (kuzhi paniyaaram) and chutney, Dosa and fish curry

Paniyaaram, usually it is called (kuzhi paniyaaram) and chutney for breakfast is nothing short of manna from Heaven!
The recipe is given below if you are interested.

Ingredients
Boiled rice 3 cups, urad dal 1 cup, fenugreek 1 tsp, grated coconut 3 tbsp, coriander finely chopped 3 tbsp, curry leaves finely chopped 1 tbsp, chilies 1 tsp onion finely chopped 1, oil 1/4 cup sesame seeds salt to taste.

Method:
add 1/2 tsp of fenugreek to rice and dal and soak rice and dal separately for 10 to 12 hrs.grind rice and dal separately and mix together keep aside for 7-8 hrs in a warm place.take one and a half cup of this mixture and add the coconut coriander chillies curry leaves and onion.Heat the "paniyaara kal" (paniyaaram mould) a on a low flame for a few mins and add a few drops of oil in each of the pit and add half a pinch of sesame seeds to the oil. Pour in the mixture and keep the fire low all the time and when the sides start browning turn the appe upside down and fry the other side.

You could also add egg for a variation.



Similarly Dosas and fish curry are a great combo, especially dosas and left over fish curry!

Idiyappam, coconut milk and tomato salsa

Breakfast this morning was Idiyappam, coconut milk and tomato salsa. Though there was the additional chickpea powder(to be sprinkled on the idiyappam), I preferred to forego it. There is an 'idiyappam vendor' in our area and one piece costs a buck. Pretty cheap and hygienic(ok, I saw the fella wearing disposable plastic gloves!). Delectable stuff. The recipes are given below.

Idiyappam

* Ingredients:
* Rice flour 2 cups
* Ghee 1 tablespoon
* Salt to taste
* Grated coconut (frozen or fresh) 4 tablespoon
* Mould - to press and shape the dough to Idiyappam.
* A steamer- like the one for Idlies.


Method:
Boil about 3 cups of water and set aside.(You may not need 3 cups of water to make the dough). In a heavy bottomed saucepan, place the rice flour and add salt (1/8 teaspoon or little less) and ghee. Mix well. Add boiled water, a little at a time, to the flour and mix it with a spoon. Check and adjust the salt. Continue until you get a soft dough. Make sure that it is not watery.
Cover the dough with a slightly wet paper towel, and let it rest for 20 minutes.
Now boil water in a steamer, like the one we use for making Idlies. Grease the Idli stands with ghee or non stick spray like Pam. Also grease the Mould to press the dough to form Idiyappam. Spoon the dough into the mould and press it onto the Idli stand with a circular motion to form the Idiyappams. Sprinkle grated coconut on top of each appams. Place the stands in the steamer and cook the Idiyappams for about 10 minutes. Open the lid carefully and make sure that they are cooked well, before taking the stands out.
With a fork, remove the Idiyappams onto a serving tray.
Serve the Idiyappams, with Potato stew, Coconut chutney or with thick coconut milk and sugar.

Tomato Salsa
Ingredients:

* 3 medium tomatoes (about 1 pound), peeled and finely chopped
* 2 hot chiles, peeled, seeded and finely chopped (or to taste)
* 1/2 cup finely chopped onion
* 2 large garlic cloves, minced
* 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
* 1 teaspoon lime juice
* Salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients. Let stand several hours or refrigerate overnight. Best served at room temperature.

Home Made Coconut Milk:
Place 2-1/2 ounces (75 grams) grated creamed coconut or the grated flesh of 1 fresh coconut, in a bowl. Add about 1-3/4 cups (300 ml) hot water. Stir the mixture to blend and allow to cool. Pour the liquid through the cheesecloth and squeeze to extract as much juice as possible. Store in refrigerator.

Add a little of cow's milk, a little sugar and drop in a pod or two of cardamom and serve along with Idiyappam for an exotic taste.

Salivating?

Khaja Puri(?)

This is a speciality seen at small time eateries in Chennai. Usually the shop-owners hail from the Trichy/Ramanathapuram area in TamilNadu. I don't know if it is unique to those regions, however a google search didn't reveal any information. It is also known as the 'suthu poori' in Tamil. Dough is first rolled in layers, deep fried and then soaked in sugar syrup. Apparently this has a shelf life of about a week(just my guess).