(This article first appeared online on 21st June 2023 and in print on 22nd June in Mint Lounge, India https://lifestyle.livemint.com/food/discover/best-fried-breads-around-the-world-111687313794053.html)
Showing posts with label EAST INDIAN CUISINE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label EAST INDIAN CUISINE. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 21, 2023
Wednesday, April 26, 2023
Mangalorean Christian Cuisine
(This article first appeared online on 26th April 2023 in Mint Lounge, India https://lifestyle.livemint.com/food/discover/the-edible-secrets-of-mangaluru-s-christian-community-111682477016549.html)
Sunday, December 19, 2021
Punch Drunk
Sunday, May 17, 2020
May’s Missing Maushis
Summer in Mumbai just isn’t the same without the original ‘Spice Girls’—aka. groups of itinerant spice grinding ladies—whose rhythmic pounding of the many spices that go into the famous East Indian bottle masala blend are set to the tune of traditional work songs called ovis.
By Raul Dias
Ever since I can remember, synesthesia has played a particularly important role in my life. Numbers for me have genders. Days of the week have a definite hierarchy, with Sundays leading the pack. And all my months are neatly divvied up to form a rainbow of colours.
May’s colour has always been somewhere on the spectrum between a buttery yellow and an earthy burnt Sienna. No big surprise there. Think bright summer suns, freshly baked lemon chiffon cakes and yes, that indescribable hue of a ripe Alphonso mango.
But there are two more shades in the family that truly define the month and by default, summer for me. The almost-neon tangerine shade of freshly pounded East Indian bottle masala that is always stored in amber coloured beer bottles for a longer shelf-life. Thus, the name—bottle masala.
Spicy Talk
While I am not an East Indian by birth, I have always been a big fan of their culture and most pertinently, their cuisine. Having lived most of my life, here in Dadar West, Mumbai, surrounded by a close-knit, strongly matriarchal community of East Indian families led by genial aunties who made it their mission to indulge the budding foodie in me with their yummy curries and succulent roasts. Almost all jazzed up with the ubiquitous East Indian bottle masala. From the coconut milk enhanced mutton lonvas to a spicy chicken moile, the bottle masala reigns omnipotent.
Just like the 36-ingredient Moroccan ras-el-hanout spice blend or the Ethiopian berbere mix, East Indian bottle masala is made up of a bewildering number and variety of spices from the more obvious Kashmiri chillies to the ‘Google-it-now’ nagkesar. The latter—I just learnt for the purposes of this piece—is also called Indian rose chestnut or cobra saffron, by the way!
Added to this, the complex dry spice blend has as many iterations with varying measurements and ratios of spices. I would not be exaggerating if I said that every East Indian family uses a different recipe for bottle masala—some use 20 spices, some 30, while the most elaborate of the lot use up to 40. But try asking any self-respecting East Indian cook to part with their recipe and they will sooner part with their lives. Such is the almost militant level of secrecy that shrouds the hallowed recipe for the masala.
In fact, I remember an old neighbourhood aunty once telling me that East Indian mothers never teach their daughters how to make their bottle masala for the fear of them taking their prized recipe out of the family after getting married. They have no such compunctions, I was informed, for incoming daughters-in-law. I rest my case.
Thump and Grind
This also leads me to a vital link, not just to the whole bottle masala supply chain, but also to my very synesthetically-heightened month of May—the masalawaali maushis. It is the rhythmic thumping sound that these singing, itinerant spice grinding ladies make while pounding the aromatic, roasted spices for the bottle masala that I associate with summer as well. But not this year. Thanks to the pandemic and the ensuing lockdown, my backyard will not be infiltrated by the pungent fumes and lilting melodies originating from my neighbour’s garden. The maushis will not be coming.
Mainly from the local Maharashtrian Agri community, these women are generally always much in demand and need to be booked months in advance. Always armed with their wooden pounding vessel called an ukli and its cohort the mussal which is a mace-like stick with a metal base to hit the ingredients. These groups of ladies travel from house to house from early March to the end of May to grind the family’s annual supply of bottle masala according to each family’s specifications. Making sure to finish up their important task before the monsoon season sets in.
Interestingly, though they may be experts at first sifting, then roasting and finally pounding the spices, they will never fully know the final recipe for the masala. Not only will the house matriarch weigh each ingredient separately and hand it over to the maushis for pounding, but as per tradition, she will also withhold one vital ingredient that she will pound herself that will later be added to the final mix.
Undoubtedly, one of the most enduring and endearing traditions of the maushis is the singing of ovis (which literally means ‘strung together’) while they pound the spices. More specifically, they sing jatyavarchi ovi that are specialised Marathi language grinding songs that are used as poetic metre for rhythmic prose.
One such ovi by Bahinabai who was an unlettered 19th century peasant poet from the Khandesh region of Maharashtra comes to mind and seems a perfect way to sum it all up in times like these. It says:
Get up at midnight, neatly set out the grain
begin working the grinding stone
be patient, don’t talk back, hold your tongue
let the memories of your old life comfort you!
SUNDAY RECIPE
Bottle Masala
(Recipe courtesy Ann Dias)
INGREDIENTS:
1 kg dried red Kashmiri chilies
250 gm dried red Madras chilies
25 gm whole wheat grain
80 gm powdered turmeric
5 gm dagdaphool also called stone flower
200 gm cumin seeds
15 gm fenugreek seeds
500 gm coriander seeds
150 gm mustard seeds
250 gm poppy seeds
50 gm peppercorns
15 gm cloves
250 gm white sesame seeds
15 gm caraway seeds
14-15 green cardamoms
7-8 black cardamoms
10 gm cinnamon stick
10 gm asofoetida
25 gm bay leaves
1 nutmeg
5 gm tirphal also called Japanese pepper
5 gm star anise
5 gm nagkesar also called Indian rose chestnut
15 gm fennel seed
5 gm mace
50 gm whole Bengal gram
5 gm allspice
METHOD:
1. Precisely measure and dry out all the ingredients under hot sun for two days, making sure no moisture remains in them.
2. Over low heat, dry roast the Kashmiri chillies and the Madras chillies for 8-10 mins in a wide bottom pan making sure to not burn them.
3. Similarly roast the rest of ingredients for 7-8 mins on low heat or until they are aromatic.
4. Dry grind the roasted ingredients in several batches until fine, either in a large ukli or in a spice blender. You could also take the mix to a local mill to get it pounded.
5. To stick with tradition, tightly pack the bottle masala into amber- or green-tinted, sterilised beer bottles, sealing the top off with butter paper and hot wax. Otherwise, one can also store it in an airtight container or any other lidded glass container.
(This makes for an approximately 2.5 kg yield of bottle masala, so adjust according to desired quantity)
(An edited version of this article first appeared in the 17th May 2020 issue of The Hindu newspaper's Sunday Magazine section on page 8 https://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/food/mays-missing-maushis-a-mumbai-summer-without-the-itinerant-east-indian-masala-makers/article31589988.ece)
By Raul Dias
Ever since I can remember, synesthesia has played a particularly important role in my life. Numbers for me have genders. Days of the week have a definite hierarchy, with Sundays leading the pack. And all my months are neatly divvied up to form a rainbow of colours.
May’s colour has always been somewhere on the spectrum between a buttery yellow and an earthy burnt Sienna. No big surprise there. Think bright summer suns, freshly baked lemon chiffon cakes and yes, that indescribable hue of a ripe Alphonso mango.
But there are two more shades in the family that truly define the month and by default, summer for me. The almost-neon tangerine shade of freshly pounded East Indian bottle masala that is always stored in amber coloured beer bottles for a longer shelf-life. Thus, the name—bottle masala.
Spicy Talk
While I am not an East Indian by birth, I have always been a big fan of their culture and most pertinently, their cuisine. Having lived most of my life, here in Dadar West, Mumbai, surrounded by a close-knit, strongly matriarchal community of East Indian families led by genial aunties who made it their mission to indulge the budding foodie in me with their yummy curries and succulent roasts. Almost all jazzed up with the ubiquitous East Indian bottle masala. From the coconut milk enhanced mutton lonvas to a spicy chicken moile, the bottle masala reigns omnipotent.
Just like the 36-ingredient Moroccan ras-el-hanout spice blend or the Ethiopian berbere mix, East Indian bottle masala is made up of a bewildering number and variety of spices from the more obvious Kashmiri chillies to the ‘Google-it-now’ nagkesar. The latter—I just learnt for the purposes of this piece—is also called Indian rose chestnut or cobra saffron, by the way!
Added to this, the complex dry spice blend has as many iterations with varying measurements and ratios of spices. I would not be exaggerating if I said that every East Indian family uses a different recipe for bottle masala—some use 20 spices, some 30, while the most elaborate of the lot use up to 40. But try asking any self-respecting East Indian cook to part with their recipe and they will sooner part with their lives. Such is the almost militant level of secrecy that shrouds the hallowed recipe for the masala.
In fact, I remember an old neighbourhood aunty once telling me that East Indian mothers never teach their daughters how to make their bottle masala for the fear of them taking their prized recipe out of the family after getting married. They have no such compunctions, I was informed, for incoming daughters-in-law. I rest my case.
Thump and Grind
This also leads me to a vital link, not just to the whole bottle masala supply chain, but also to my very synesthetically-heightened month of May—the masalawaali maushis. It is the rhythmic thumping sound that these singing, itinerant spice grinding ladies make while pounding the aromatic, roasted spices for the bottle masala that I associate with summer as well. But not this year. Thanks to the pandemic and the ensuing lockdown, my backyard will not be infiltrated by the pungent fumes and lilting melodies originating from my neighbour’s garden. The maushis will not be coming.
Mainly from the local Maharashtrian Agri community, these women are generally always much in demand and need to be booked months in advance. Always armed with their wooden pounding vessel called an ukli and its cohort the mussal which is a mace-like stick with a metal base to hit the ingredients. These groups of ladies travel from house to house from early March to the end of May to grind the family’s annual supply of bottle masala according to each family’s specifications. Making sure to finish up their important task before the monsoon season sets in.
Interestingly, though they may be experts at first sifting, then roasting and finally pounding the spices, they will never fully know the final recipe for the masala. Not only will the house matriarch weigh each ingredient separately and hand it over to the maushis for pounding, but as per tradition, she will also withhold one vital ingredient that she will pound herself that will later be added to the final mix.
Undoubtedly, one of the most enduring and endearing traditions of the maushis is the singing of ovis (which literally means ‘strung together’) while they pound the spices. More specifically, they sing jatyavarchi ovi that are specialised Marathi language grinding songs that are used as poetic metre for rhythmic prose.
One such ovi by Bahinabai who was an unlettered 19th century peasant poet from the Khandesh region of Maharashtra comes to mind and seems a perfect way to sum it all up in times like these. It says:
Get up at midnight, neatly set out the grain
begin working the grinding stone
be patient, don’t talk back, hold your tongue
let the memories of your old life comfort you!
SUNDAY RECIPE
Bottle Masala
(Recipe courtesy Ann Dias)
INGREDIENTS:
1 kg dried red Kashmiri chilies
250 gm dried red Madras chilies
25 gm whole wheat grain
80 gm powdered turmeric
5 gm dagdaphool also called stone flower
200 gm cumin seeds
15 gm fenugreek seeds
500 gm coriander seeds
150 gm mustard seeds
250 gm poppy seeds
50 gm peppercorns
15 gm cloves
250 gm white sesame seeds
15 gm caraway seeds
14-15 green cardamoms
7-8 black cardamoms
10 gm cinnamon stick
10 gm asofoetida
25 gm bay leaves
1 nutmeg
5 gm tirphal also called Japanese pepper
5 gm star anise
5 gm nagkesar also called Indian rose chestnut
15 gm fennel seed
5 gm mace
50 gm whole Bengal gram
5 gm allspice
METHOD:
1. Precisely measure and dry out all the ingredients under hot sun for two days, making sure no moisture remains in them.
2. Over low heat, dry roast the Kashmiri chillies and the Madras chillies for 8-10 mins in a wide bottom pan making sure to not burn them.
3. Similarly roast the rest of ingredients for 7-8 mins on low heat or until they are aromatic.
4. Dry grind the roasted ingredients in several batches until fine, either in a large ukli or in a spice blender. You could also take the mix to a local mill to get it pounded.
5. To stick with tradition, tightly pack the bottle masala into amber- or green-tinted, sterilised beer bottles, sealing the top off with butter paper and hot wax. Otherwise, one can also store it in an airtight container or any other lidded glass container.
(This makes for an approximately 2.5 kg yield of bottle masala, so adjust according to desired quantity)
(An edited version of this article first appeared in the 17th May 2020 issue of The Hindu newspaper's Sunday Magazine section on page 8 https://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/food/mays-missing-maushis-a-mumbai-summer-without-the-itinerant-east-indian-masala-makers/article31589988.ece)
Sunday, September 8, 2019
Eat, Pray…Repeat
From crashing East Indian food-saturated open houses to the joy of indulging in forbidden fairground classics, childhood memories of wonton gluttony come to the fore on this first day of the annual September Bandra Feast—the crowning glory of the Queen of Mumbai’s suburbs!
By Raul Dias
As you read this, I’m probably dying. Yes, dying in anticipation for an annual Sunday lunch feast of epic proportions that I’m about to indulge in at the home of our dear friends, the Gonsalves family, as I have been doing so since I was a toddler. Their quaint wooden cottage is nestled in the meandering alleyways of the Chuim Gaonthan. The latter, one of the last old East Indian Villages of its kind in the Queen of Mumbai’s suburbs, Bandra. A rare one that hasn’t fallen prey to unscrupulous ‘land sharks’ waiting to raze it to the ground, only to replace it with ugly high-rise apartment blocks.
Bedecked in a thousand twinkling fairy lights, and festooned with colourful banners and streamers, the entire little village will soon erupt into a free-for-all feeding frenzy. For it is on today’s 8th of September Feast of the Nativity of Mary aka. Bandra Feast, when the gaonthan’s generous denizens open up their doors and hearts to all those desirous of some true-blue East Indian nosh.
Some of the most potent food memories of my growing up years have been fertilised by the treats—some approved and most forbidden—that I’d indulge in while attending the Bandra Feast and its fun-filled spin-off, the Bandra Fair. But more on those a little later.
The Back Story
The real saga behind the Bandra Feast begins a few hundred meters away from the Chuim Gaonthan at the Basilica of Our Lady of The Mount overlooking the famous, Bollywood star home-infested neighbourhood of Bandstand. Simply known as Mount Mary’s, this grand, Gothic edifice also plays the greatest role in this “noshtalgic narrative”. It is believed that the church was established in the mid-1700s, soon after an idol of the Virgin Mary was found floating in the waters of the Arabian Sea off the Bandra coast.
Interestingly, this was a few years after a fisherman from the local Koli (as Mumbai’s indigenous East Indian community was called then) had prophesised the finding of said idol. Many subsequent iterations of the church later, the basilica as we know it today was built in 1904. It is since then that the Bandra Feast has been actively celebrated come September every year with copious amounts of food as its lynchpin.
Think Christmas celebrations combined with those of Easter, then multiplied tenfold. That’s how important this feast is to the Catholic East Indians of Bandra. One that goes on for seven whole days, beginning on the Sunday following the 8th of September.
Worms and Beedis
Till I was around 12 or so, I’d never miss an opportunity of going to the Bandra Fair. Mum and Dad would make sure we’d first pay obeisance at the basilica, lighting a candle for whatever we wanted along with making other supplications. Then, we’d descend down the hundred or so stone steps at the eastern side of the church to get to what I believed to be then the best part of the feast—the fair.
The wide stairway would be dotted on either side by vendors selling all sorts of assorted kitschy tat, from fake rubber lizards to soapy bubble dispensers. But my eyes would always be fixed on forbidden sweets like the tapioca flour- and jaggery-based, gnarly, twig-shaped keedio beedios (literally worms and beedis), the sugar-coated peanuts and the luridly coloured slabs of translucent Bombay halwa. Strangely, the only two things that we were ever allowed to indulge in were the pink guava cheese sweets made and sold by a tiny, snow-white haired Goan lady and the jaw-busting sesame chikki from the stall of a well-known store in Lonavala that my father approved of.
Meat Feast
Sweet binge done, we’d exit the steps and make our way down the assorted fair games- and Ferris wheel-flanked Chapel Road towards the dead end of the fair which was always the September Gardens food court held in the grounds of the Mount Carmel Church. Here, we’d eat a few savoury snacks like beef mince-filled potato chops and mutton pan rolls bought off a gaggle of indulgent old aunties manning their tiny food stalls. Then it would be off chez Gonsalves for the legendary lunch feast made up of dishes that reflect the unique hybrid Portuguese-meets-Marathi, East Indian cuisine.
Now, the axis around which most savoury East Indian dishes pivot is the all-important bottle masala. Made from an insanely wide range of spices—with cumin, coriander and chili powders headlining—this mainstay is packed tightly into amber-hued beer bottles and hence its rather intriguing name. And it is this masala, that, along with sautéed onions and slit fresh green chilies, makes the East Indian version of the rich Indo-Portuguese pork stew sorpotel different from its Goan counterpart. The sorpotel—along with two other Bandra Feast staples of the coconut milk-based mutton lonvas and chicken khuddi curry—is best mopped up with crispy, hot fugia balls.
Made from a slurry of flour, yeast, coconut milk and eggs (and named after the Marathi word for balloon—fugga) fugias are the de facto East Indian fried bread no celebration is ever complete without. As a child, I’d waltz right into Aunty Edna Gonsalves’s kitchen to see her create the mini balloons by squeezing the stretchy batter in the web of her hand between the thumb and forefinger and plopping the raw fugias into hot oil to fry till golden perfection was achieved.
But the two most important table toppers at any Bandra Feast have got to be my all-time favourite of the stuffed whole roast suckling pig. And a dish that I hated as a child but have now come to love over the years—the supremely spicy duck moile curry. Both once again made using the ubiquitous bottle masala.
And both, just like all the other East Indian goodies, reflecting that generously divine Bandra Feast vibe!
SUNDAY RECIPE
Mutton Lonvas
INGREDIENTS:
Mutton (cubed, bone in pieces) 500 gms
White pumpkin (peeled and cut into cubes) 500 gms
Garlic (crushed) 8 flakes
Coconut milk 150 ml
Bottle masala 2 tbsp
Tamarind pulp 2 tbsp
Ghee 2 tbsp
Salt ½ tsp
Water 2 cups
METHOD:
1. Par boil the mutton with water and salt and set aside.
2. In a medium sized saucepan heat the ghee on a medium flame and fry the crushed garlic, making sure to not brown it too much.
3. Add the bottle masala to the garlic and fry for a few minutes till fragrant.
4. Add the cubed pumpkin and mutton along with its residual stock and cook for another five to seven minutes, still on medium flame.
5. When the pumpkin is cooked, add the coconut milk and the tamarind pulp. Adjust the salt (if needed) and simmer for a few minutes.
6. Serve hot with fugias or bread rolls.
The Mumbai-based writer and restaurant reviewer is passionate about food, travel and luxury, not necessarily in that order.
(An edited version of this article first appeared in the 8th September 2019 issue of The Hindu newspaper's Sunday Magazine section on page 12 https://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/food/eat-pray-repeat/article29360830.ece)
By Raul Dias
As you read this, I’m probably dying. Yes, dying in anticipation for an annual Sunday lunch feast of epic proportions that I’m about to indulge in at the home of our dear friends, the Gonsalves family, as I have been doing so since I was a toddler. Their quaint wooden cottage is nestled in the meandering alleyways of the Chuim Gaonthan. The latter, one of the last old East Indian Villages of its kind in the Queen of Mumbai’s suburbs, Bandra. A rare one that hasn’t fallen prey to unscrupulous ‘land sharks’ waiting to raze it to the ground, only to replace it with ugly high-rise apartment blocks.
Bedecked in a thousand twinkling fairy lights, and festooned with colourful banners and streamers, the entire little village will soon erupt into a free-for-all feeding frenzy. For it is on today’s 8th of September Feast of the Nativity of Mary aka. Bandra Feast, when the gaonthan’s generous denizens open up their doors and hearts to all those desirous of some true-blue East Indian nosh.
Some of the most potent food memories of my growing up years have been fertilised by the treats—some approved and most forbidden—that I’d indulge in while attending the Bandra Feast and its fun-filled spin-off, the Bandra Fair. But more on those a little later.
The Back Story
The real saga behind the Bandra Feast begins a few hundred meters away from the Chuim Gaonthan at the Basilica of Our Lady of The Mount overlooking the famous, Bollywood star home-infested neighbourhood of Bandstand. Simply known as Mount Mary’s, this grand, Gothic edifice also plays the greatest role in this “noshtalgic narrative”. It is believed that the church was established in the mid-1700s, soon after an idol of the Virgin Mary was found floating in the waters of the Arabian Sea off the Bandra coast.
Interestingly, this was a few years after a fisherman from the local Koli (as Mumbai’s indigenous East Indian community was called then) had prophesised the finding of said idol. Many subsequent iterations of the church later, the basilica as we know it today was built in 1904. It is since then that the Bandra Feast has been actively celebrated come September every year with copious amounts of food as its lynchpin.
Think Christmas celebrations combined with those of Easter, then multiplied tenfold. That’s how important this feast is to the Catholic East Indians of Bandra. One that goes on for seven whole days, beginning on the Sunday following the 8th of September.
Worms and Beedis
Till I was around 12 or so, I’d never miss an opportunity of going to the Bandra Fair. Mum and Dad would make sure we’d first pay obeisance at the basilica, lighting a candle for whatever we wanted along with making other supplications. Then, we’d descend down the hundred or so stone steps at the eastern side of the church to get to what I believed to be then the best part of the feast—the fair.
The wide stairway would be dotted on either side by vendors selling all sorts of assorted kitschy tat, from fake rubber lizards to soapy bubble dispensers. But my eyes would always be fixed on forbidden sweets like the tapioca flour- and jaggery-based, gnarly, twig-shaped keedio beedios (literally worms and beedis), the sugar-coated peanuts and the luridly coloured slabs of translucent Bombay halwa. Strangely, the only two things that we were ever allowed to indulge in were the pink guava cheese sweets made and sold by a tiny, snow-white haired Goan lady and the jaw-busting sesame chikki from the stall of a well-known store in Lonavala that my father approved of.
Meat Feast
Sweet binge done, we’d exit the steps and make our way down the assorted fair games- and Ferris wheel-flanked Chapel Road towards the dead end of the fair which was always the September Gardens food court held in the grounds of the Mount Carmel Church. Here, we’d eat a few savoury snacks like beef mince-filled potato chops and mutton pan rolls bought off a gaggle of indulgent old aunties manning their tiny food stalls. Then it would be off chez Gonsalves for the legendary lunch feast made up of dishes that reflect the unique hybrid Portuguese-meets-Marathi, East Indian cuisine.
Now, the axis around which most savoury East Indian dishes pivot is the all-important bottle masala. Made from an insanely wide range of spices—with cumin, coriander and chili powders headlining—this mainstay is packed tightly into amber-hued beer bottles and hence its rather intriguing name. And it is this masala, that, along with sautéed onions and slit fresh green chilies, makes the East Indian version of the rich Indo-Portuguese pork stew sorpotel different from its Goan counterpart. The sorpotel—along with two other Bandra Feast staples of the coconut milk-based mutton lonvas and chicken khuddi curry—is best mopped up with crispy, hot fugia balls.
Made from a slurry of flour, yeast, coconut milk and eggs (and named after the Marathi word for balloon—fugga) fugias are the de facto East Indian fried bread no celebration is ever complete without. As a child, I’d waltz right into Aunty Edna Gonsalves’s kitchen to see her create the mini balloons by squeezing the stretchy batter in the web of her hand between the thumb and forefinger and plopping the raw fugias into hot oil to fry till golden perfection was achieved.
But the two most important table toppers at any Bandra Feast have got to be my all-time favourite of the stuffed whole roast suckling pig. And a dish that I hated as a child but have now come to love over the years—the supremely spicy duck moile curry. Both once again made using the ubiquitous bottle masala.
And both, just like all the other East Indian goodies, reflecting that generously divine Bandra Feast vibe!
SUNDAY RECIPE
Mutton Lonvas
INGREDIENTS:
Mutton (cubed, bone in pieces) 500 gms
White pumpkin (peeled and cut into cubes) 500 gms
Garlic (crushed) 8 flakes
Coconut milk 150 ml
Bottle masala 2 tbsp
Tamarind pulp 2 tbsp
Ghee 2 tbsp
Salt ½ tsp
Water 2 cups
METHOD:
1. Par boil the mutton with water and salt and set aside.
2. In a medium sized saucepan heat the ghee on a medium flame and fry the crushed garlic, making sure to not brown it too much.
3. Add the bottle masala to the garlic and fry for a few minutes till fragrant.
4. Add the cubed pumpkin and mutton along with its residual stock and cook for another five to seven minutes, still on medium flame.
5. When the pumpkin is cooked, add the coconut milk and the tamarind pulp. Adjust the salt (if needed) and simmer for a few minutes.
6. Serve hot with fugias or bread rolls.
The Mumbai-based writer and restaurant reviewer is passionate about food, travel and luxury, not necessarily in that order.
(An edited version of this article first appeared in the 8th September 2019 issue of The Hindu newspaper's Sunday Magazine section on page 12 https://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/food/eat-pray-repeat/article29360830.ece)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)