Sihi Kumbalakai Sasmi

I never realised that I am food explorer until lately. It’s been quite a journey understanding food memories and how to adapt it in my everyday life. Also, getting married and living with a new family sort of mixes up memories. A bit from here, a bit from there and also the new… thus my food journey continues…

Somewhere it has been a conscious decision on not disliking any vegetable. Yes, we all have our preferences and it is tough to let go, especially when food is associated with a bad memory. Because I lived far from home for studies and work, sometimes far even from civilization, I respect hunger first and then taste. I guess, there is always a sense of gratitude when it comes to eating food and I hope it never changes. I don’t want the arrogance of taste to take away the feeling of basic necessity that hunger brings in.

Anyways, the post is not about my food philosophy but about the conscious effort I’m making to include all vegetables while cooking. One vegetable that I realised I had been avoiding for a couple of years now is the Red pumpkin. For a really short period when I lived in Assam, in a working women’s hostel, I think I had had a overdose of this particular vegetable. And later when I moved in with my parents my mom would just boil it with other vegetables and create some side dish for chappati. Basically I think, somewhere the flavor of the vegetable was ruined for me.

Here in Bangalore, no one thought of buying pumpkin and when I asked about it, it was avoided because it was sweet. I agree, even I’m not too fond of sweet things in my meal. When my first attempt to make a side dish out of it failed, I gave up.

A couple of weeks ago when I went to visit my friend’s parents unannounced, her mom had just cooked a simple meal of sambar and rice. As always she offered to mix the sambar rice for me with a spoon of ghee. There were big chunks of a vegetable and when I pressed it with my fingers it almost felt like potato. And there was a strong aroma which was not like regular sambar, this was of mustard, and that is how I discovered…. Sihi Kumbalakai Sasmi (Red pumpkin in mustard & coconut gravy).

Since I didn’t find the recipe online, or more importantly didn’t know what to type on Google to search, I got the recipe from my friend’s mom. I think this recipe needs to be typed and recorded. Especially if someone is trying to cook something different using Red pumpkin.

*Note: One can use Malabar cucumber instead of red pumpkin as well.

Serves: 3 to 4

INGREDIENTS:

Red pumpkin – 250 gms (chopped into big cubes)

Tamarind extract – 1/2 cup

Hing – 1/4 tsp

Turmeric – 1/4 tsp

Jaggery – 1/2 tsp

Salt to taste

To grind:

Grated coconut – 1 cup

Dry red chillies (local Bydagi) – 3 (more if you want spicy)

Urad dal – 3 tsp

Mustard – 1/2 tsp

Jeera – 1/4 tsp

Seasoning:

Oil – 2 tsp

Mustard – 1 tsp

Red chillies – 2

METHOD:

1. Pressure cook the Red pumpkin with very less water for 1 whistle. You can also directly cook it in the stove, since it doesn’t take much time.
2. While this is happening, you can dry roast the ingredients for grinding (except coconut). Roast each ingredient separately to avoid burning them.
3. Once the spices have cooled down, grind it into a paste with the grated coconut using little water.
4. Mix the tamarind paste with the boiled pumpkin and let it cook till the rawness of the tamarind has reduced.
5. Add the ground paste to it, with turmeric, hing and salt to taste. If the tamarind is strong, add jaggery to balance it off.
6. Season it with mustard seeds and red chillies, and your Sihi Kumbalakai sasmi is done!

My friend loves it with hot chappatis and of course, it goes really well with hot rice as well!

Hope this brings some happy food memories.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cat menace

Can anyone imagine having problems with a cat? I mean, I understand that they are solitary animals, few pet cats also are faithful and attached to their owners but I never imagined them as animals who cause problems, especially in a garden. No, it’s not about its poop but the whole process.

I am 2 year old to gardening with all the ups and downs that is the learning process. What I started with was, about 20 pots filled with parched soil in which thick bushes of Indian sorrel were growing. I didn’t know about the plant nor about the soil back then. I assumed any plant can grow in any type of soil. I have learnt my lessons now, after doing a lot of trial and error.

Recently though, I decided to get some help and the guardian angel for my terrace garden turned out to be this guy called Puttalingu. I liked him instantly, because he seemed to worry about my plants more than I did. He was the perfect gardener, who had immense knowledge of plants, knew how to plant, where to prune… it was like magic. I am guessing it is not a big deal for most people who have had a garden caretaker for a long time. I never had a garden until I moved to Bangalore and even here finding someone with pure and simple knowledge (without much of biology and technology) seemed to be difficult. And yes, it was a joy to have found Puttalingu then.

He re-potted about 30 to 40 planters and asked me to take good care of it. Water it everyday for the next 2 weeks and then alternate day watering should do, he said. I followed his advice. In a month, my plants did look happier. The rose bush which constipated to produce on bud was proliferating like it is nobody’s business. All my hibiscus plants were in blooms.

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With all this happening there was also something strange I was noticing each morning. The soil from the pot was being dug up, sometimes so deep that it scraped off the roots of the plants. I thought it was the handy work of a rat. I wasn’t sure how to stop it. I tried some pest control solution, which didn’t work. Few days later I tried Neem oil. Though it did work for a bit, it soon lost it’s effect. In the course of finding the solution for this problem I lost a couple of plants. While the plants were still healthy and happy, they were merely being uprooted each night. It was quite frustrating.

If that wasn’t enough, I found a cat with it’s kitten up in the terrace behind one of my giant planters. The kittens were weak and the mother was clueless, I thought I will just let them be. But every morning I noticed the soil from the planters being thrown off and my plants were being attacked. It was only after a lot of online research that I found out the culprit was a cat! The more I read about it’s behavior and the experiences other gardeners with lawns had, the more it made sense.

The solution varied of course, depending if the cat happened to be a pet versus a feral one. The one we had on our terrace of course was a feral one, which had made it its night haunt by now. After much searching and trying out, this is what worked:

Note: Cats dislike strong fragrance. I used Lemongrass which worked like magic.

In a litre of water, add pepper powder (1 tsp), cinnamon powder (1 tsp), one clove of garlic and few drops of lemon grass oil. Keep it overnight. Filter it and spray around your planter and soil and it works like magic!

I also grow lemongrass and would simply crush a few fresh leaves and use it instead of oil.

I did this for over a week and slowly the cat visits stopped.

I am sure it would be tempted again, but at least I know how to protect my plants now.

 

Memoria of the pond

 

Palakkad in Kerala boasts about the number of ponds it once upon a time had. Slowly with less people to take care of these water bodies and due to the cost of cleaning it, it has been vanishing. The village pond I went to as a child and later as an adult used it as my contemplation spot is covered with hyacinth now. The children who took the pond for granted back then, where they learnt to swim and enjoyed their summer holidays, have no place to take their children now.

These photos are from a private pond which was open for a short period during our village festival. There has been a major debate on whether to clean the village pond or not, but no progress as of yet. But for now, this…

I watched my cousin being thrilled at the prospect of going to the pond. She kept encouraging and coaxing everyone to accompany her. And when we did go she was scared and excited at the same time.

If only all children had the opportunity for a childhood like this.

Carefree, playful and happy for most bits…

 

Kalchatti trails

 

Recently, Nithya, one of my friends called me and told me her misadventure with the stone tava she got from Bellur. She stayed in a homestay there and saw her host using the stone tava to make Neer dosa. Excitedly she added one of this tava to her loot and took it to Mumbai. At home she promptly switched on the stove and kept the tava, only to see it crumbling in few seconds with a loud bang!

I was telling her how the same thing happened to me when I tried using a terracotta tava which I got from Rajasthan a long time back and somewhere in my head I thought of this kalchatti (stoneware vessel) my mom used to keep talking about. I remember her being very careful about it. It was the spoilt child of the family so much that mom wouldn’t even let anyone touch it! Even the maid wasn’t allowed to wash it.

I was never really curious about it till I managed to get one myself. I have had this endless fascination towards villages, traditions, culture and of course cooking. Travelling also gave me the opportunity to explore and collect few things here and there. That is how my parents, my husband and I ended up roaming around the crowded streets of Kalpathy in Palakkad searching for the famous kalchatti.

To quickly give the story, Kalpathy is one of the largest settlements of migrated Brahmins from Tanjore in Tamilnadu. It is also preserved as a heritage village by the Kerala Goverment. What is interesting is that in this fairly large village there is a street named kalchatti theruvu (literally translated to stone-vessel street). It can only be imagined that once upon a time there were artisans selling these stoneware vessels on the streets of Kalpathy.

Fast forwarding to now, Kalpathy happens to be a slow sleepy town with a few shops selling typical Palakkad style goodies and fairly good number of home run mess which supplies food for the elderly Tam-brahms. The annual excitement in this village happens to be the Kalpathy Ratholsavam . People from the near by towns, states and a few from aboard flock here to witness the sight of the giant sized chariot pulled by people and pushed by an elephant. Like any village fair it also attracts a lot of vendors who want to make most of the crowd. Now, that’s what I was interested in! After a quick check of the chariot and a salute to the idol inside, we waded past the crowd to the shops that were inside the temple premises.

We walked past the stalls displaying plastic vessels, imitation jewellery and other attention seeking things and in a corner that can be easily overlooked in that crowd was this one guy selling stone ware vessels, pan and mortar pestle. Of course, mom took over from there; the checking, the asking questions and the bargaining was all done. The end result was that I became a proud owner of two kalchattis. 

Mom later gave me some stoneware cooking tip. I think she is also a bit too careful by nature and one doesn’t have to be so obsessed over a vessel. Yet I liked the way she gave a very dramatic personality to the kalchatti, telling me that I am supposed to coax it to cook. Beginning with pouring just plain water, then hot water, then slow boil the water in the stoneware vessel, in a span of few days, I am supposed to build a relationship with the vessel. To be true it sounded quite fascinating to my romantic head and I did exactly like I was told.

The day my in-laws arrived jet lagged after their US trip, I decided to inaugurate the kalchatti by making some rasam; the comfort food of any Tambrahm. I added the tamarind water, dal and tomato pieces in the kalchatti and let it slow boil while sprinkling all the necessary masala to give the rasam its flavour. Once done, I switched off the gas but found that the rasam was still bubbling, all thanks to the hot stoneware it was in. What was fascinating was that even though we had our lunch two hours after I had made the rasam, it was still hot.

While most of us are cutting it close with time and want ‘instant’ food, there are handful of others who cherish the old and find it rather hard to let go. I guess I am one of them. Of course being brought up in Mumbai my patience does run out when it comes to anything slow, yet I like to indulge in it once in a while, for nostalgia sake.

 

Avarekalu saaru made in kalchatti 

Quicks tips on buying a kalchatti

• The smallest size would cost around 150 to 200 if you buy it from a small town. Its double in exhibitions.
• See to it that you fill something in the stoneware vessel before placing it on the flame. Heating an empty stoneware vessel would cause cracks.
• The flame must always be low. Since it is stone the heating is equal and balanced even if it is a bit slow. It also stay hot for a longer period of time.
• Any type of dal, sambar, gravy based curries and kootu can be made in the stoneware vessel. Best known South Indian dish to be cooked in kalchatti is of course mor kozhambu and vetta kozhambu.. (Drool happening!)

 

 

Do you have a plant story?

I think everyone should have a plant story. Like you eat a fruit, save the seed, sow it and then eagerly look at it every morning to see if there is any life peeking out of the soil.

As a kid I never had one. Oh wait, the school project doesn’t really count because we all mostly use a pulse that sprouts faster and once the teacher has checked the project no one really knows what to do with all those tiny seedlings.

But my dad had one and my grandma had many plant stories.

Dad told me that when he was young and living in Palakkad, someone got him a mango. Not just any mango but the very famous Malgova mango.  But dad got just one. He simply loved it and wanted to hold on to it. So what did he do? Like any other kid he sowed the seed in his backyard and took care of it. He watered it every day and watched it grow. It grew taller and taller just like him and soon started to bear fruit. In the intervening years, the house has changed many owners but the mango tree still stands there as a loving childhood memory of my dad. And when he saw the tree years later, it was almost like meeting an old friend for him. As if he had to greet the tree, my dad took a stone and aimed for a fruit.

Do we have any plant stories to tell the future generation?

I remember when I moved to Bangalore and how the first thing I got introduced to was a Brahmakamal plant climbing all over the house. Oh! there were so many stories about it. Right from who gifted the plant, to how many people have taken a leaf from it, to how many flowers bloomed last year. There was 15 years worth of memories. It was like a member of the family. So much that even the slightest mention of pruning the plant was met with a defensive remark on how it is not disturbing anyone.

And then on the other side we see people just thoughtlessly cutting a whole tree to create an extra room in their house or to widen the roads. I wonder if we have stopped connecting to the stationary life around us? Can the youngsters relate to trees with a little bit of emotion or will it just be textbook information of ‘save trees’ and ‘global warming’? Even more heartbreaking is my grandmother leasing out her mango tree because she can’t find anyone to climb the tree and pluck mangoes anymore. The simple joy of plucking a fruit, sometimes seasoning it with salt and eating it even if it’s raw and sour with such excitement has almost lost its charm.

When I moved to Bangalore, it had already changed too much for the liking of true Bangaloreans. The weather was not the same, the traffic was bad, too many apartments, … but what I found unchanged or may be less changed was the openness to gardening; not just the love for plants but the eagerness to grow it too. Go to Siddapura and point at a plant and the guy will come up with its botanical name! Local political parties and the BBMP give away free dustbins for segregation, hold local composting workshops all of which create awareness. There are these Organic Terrace Gardening (OTG) groups in almost all parts of the city where a bunch of enthusiastic home gardeners meet and exchange seeds, plants and information. So many of them include their children in gardening even if it is teaching them how to pull out weeds.

There is hope then that all is not lost. There is hope that we will learn to appreciate the little things in life even if our goals are big. There is a hope that when the future generations realise that Pokemon is not real and the world doesn’t begin and end on their phone screens, they will have something real to connect to; something that builds memories and creates stories.