LIVE TO COOK

There are few recipes that can be certified as a pure Thanjorean Recipe. Milagai Thokku (a Condiment made with Green chili), Arappuli Kuzhambhu (Tamarind sauce), Asoga (a Dessert), Kathrikkai Gothsu (Eggplant sauce) are some of those signature recipes. If you don’t hear Arappuli Kuzhambhu to be the sauce of the day in your neighborhood at least 5-10 times a month, then you can safely consider that you are not in Thanjavur. Our neighbor, “Bhuvana Maami” was a specialist of this sauce. I got to know the ins and outs of this recipe from her. Sambar vadaam (Karamaithvada) is an ingredient in this sauce. My dad’s disliking for these fritters excluded this sauce preperations from our meals.

Bhuvana maami’s husband was a business man and he left for work early than other neighbors. So maami’s household chores started very early than others. With all the orthodoxy and religious beliefs she had, maami’s daily routine was a never ending deed. Once in a while Maami visited the neighbors for a small chat. Whenever she came to our house for a chat, she would start it with an enquiry about that day’s meal. When we reciprocated the same for courtesy, most of the time her reply would be “Arappuli Kuzhambhu”. Her reply left me wonder whether she liked the recipe so much or she knew to cook only this tamarind sauce. After a while, if I saw her coming to our house for a chat, I would whisper to my Mom and sisters, “It is the efficacy of Arappuli Kuzhambhu” (”Arappuli Kuzhambhu Mahathmium”). .

After being a daughter-in-law in a perfect Thanjavur family, I got my hand on this recipe. Only after that, I understood why this sauce was frequented in maami’s household. We lived in the outskirts of Thanjavur and depended mostly on the street vendors for produce. Only those who work near the downtown had the access to the evening market. Maami is a stay-at-home mom and frequent travel to the downtown for the produce alone was impossible for her. By the time her husband headed back home from business, the evening market would have been closed. So, whenever maami ran out of veggies or the street vendors brought the same produce that she had in hand, maami made this sauce to go with rice and accompanied a simple stir fry of available veggies, for lunch.

Now-a-days, Arappuli Kuzhambhu is one among those recipes that I prepare whenever I didn’t feel like cooking elaborate recipes or if it was a fridge cleaning day. Arappuli Kuzhambhu is almost similar to “Vaththal Kuzhambhu”. But the method of preperation gives it a different flavor. Since the cooking time and the amount of spice mixes and tamarind used is halved than other similar sauces, it might have gotten the name, Arappuli kuzhambhu. “Arai” in Tamil has a meaning of “Half”.

Note: If you couldn’t make the Sambar vadam, you can skip that or use other fritters. Or, you can make the mixture for sambar vadam and deep fry the mixture as dumplings and add to the sauce.

(Recipe Adapted from Meenakshi Ammal’s “Samaiththu paar” (Cook and see) Book)

Ingredients:

Tamarind - Lime sized ball
Yam (Diced) - 1/2 cup (While in Thanjavur, we used a yam variety called “Karunai Kizhangu”. It is not available in US. So, I use the sweet yam. We can also use the Indian yam, “Suran”. We can find “Suran” in Indian groceries. Most of them has it as Frozen produce)
Sambar Vadaam - 5-6 pieces
Papad (broken into pieces) - 1
Dried red chilli - 2 or 3
Curry leaves - 4 or 5
Slivered Coconut - 1 Tbsp (Fresh or Dried)
Oil - 8 tsp
Sambar powder - 2 tsp
Chana dhal - 2 tsp
Rice flour - 1 tsp
Urad dhal - 3/4 tsp
Black mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Asafetida - 1 pinch
Salt - 1 1/2 tsp

Method:

1. Soak the Tamarind in 2 1/2 Cups water. When it turns soft, mash the pulp with hands and extract the tamarind juice. Discard the pulpy residue.
2. Boil the yam, Drain and set aside.
3. Heat 4 tsp oil in a sauce pan and add the sambar vadaam and papad pieces. Fry till the fritters turn dark brown. Set aside.
4. In a large sauce pan, heat remaining 4 tsp oil. Add mustard seeds and dhals. When the mustard seeds splutter, add asafetida and curry leaves.
5. When the curry leaves turn color, add the coconut pieces and fry until slightly browned.
6. Add the sambar powder and fry for a minute.
7. Add the tamarind water, salt and boiled yam.
8. Boil for 10 minutes. Mix the rice flour with 2 tsp water and add to the sauce to thicken.
9. Mix in the fried papad and fritters.
10. Serve with cooked Rice.

Coconut and Cholesterol.

I haven’t thought much about the relationship between these two until I came to US. When I read about the fat facts, sometimes I even worried that we are used to too much of coconut. But, when I look at the fact that my grandma lived a very healthy life until her 86 years and had raised her kids healthy, I see the conscious cooking style she followed.

If we look into the way she used coconuts in her recipes, we can find that she never used coconuts in its dried form as we do in US. Dried coconuts were sent to the oil mill for extracting coconut oil. She always used freshly shredded coconut and made sure to process the coconut as little as possible. Coconut in its most processed form has the highest content of saturated fat and cholesterol. She taught me the tact for ensuring minimum processing of coconut. It was to add coconut only at the end while preparing a recipe. Following her footsteps, I like recipes that use coconuts in its least processed form and no wonder I liked Nupur’s recipe for “Solkadi”.

There are three reasons for that.

• I can use fresh coconut milk
• No cooking involved
• Requires very few ingredients

When I served this soup with rice to my kid, he exclaimed the dinner was yummy and made my day by making a happy bowl without much efforts on my part. So there is yet another reason for my love for this recipe.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup Kokum
1 1/2 cups Fresh Coconut milk
4 tbsp chopped cilantro, divided
3-4 green chillies, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp Black pepper corns, coarsely pounded
Salt to taste

*** I added the following two ingredients as I was introducing new tastes to my kid’s diet. It is a practice of my Mom to add digestive aids in food while introducing new taste to kids.

1/4 inch piece of ginger, crushed
1/4 tsp cumin

Method:

1. Soak the Kokum in hot water for an hour. Crush with hands and drain the liquid in a mixing bowl. Discard the pulp.
2. In a glass jar with lid, add the kokum water, coconut milk and other ingredients.
3. Cover with the lid and shake well until the kokum water and coconut milk mix well and the mixture turns pale.
4. Leave covered in refrigerator overnight. (Refrigeration helps in bringing out the flavors)
5. Before serving, drain and garnish with Cilantro.

I used empty planters peanut jar for this. I served solkadi with rice and “Paruppu usili” (A dhal preparation) as side dish.

This is my entry for Zlamushka’s Tried and tested Event, featuring Nupur’s recipes. I am presenting this to AFAM event hosted by the “1-in-3 queen”, Suganya. This is the first one among the three and we will see the other two in following posts. But, I am wondering whether the queen will accept 3 entries from 1 blog… Do you Suganya?