Noshtalgia: Kalchi Kodi

 

(This column first appeared in the 31st July 2022 issue of The Hindu newspaper's Sunday Magazine section on page 8
https://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/food/goan-monsoon-dish-of-kalchi-kodi-trumps-the-states-pork-fest-ofsorpotelassadoroast-andvindaloo/article65369633.ece)

Punch Drunk

 

(This column first appeared in the 19th December 2021 issue of The Hindu newspaper's Sunday Magazine section on page 8 https://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/food/khimad-that-spicy-winter-punch-that-heralds-christmas-for-mumbais-east-indian-community/article37984765.ece)

Oblations to the Palate

 

(This column first appeared in the 5th September 2021 issue of The Hindu newspaper's Sunday Magazine section on page 8 https://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/food/oblations-to-the-palate-the-ganesh-chaturthi-platter/article36267568.ece)

A Serving of History

 

This column first appeared in the 23rd May issue of The Hindu newspaper's Sunday Magazine section on page 8

https://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/food/titanic-and-the-waldorf-pudding/article34612902.ece

Mile-high feasts

Far from the unappetising, cardboard-like taste of airline food served on board today, flying in the 80s and early 90s initiated a budding gourmand into a world of delicious discoveries amidst the clouds.

By Raul Dias

I was first introduced to Oliver Twist as a 10-year-old up in the air aboard a British Airways flight in the late 1980s. The genial flight attendant (or air hostess as they were called in those politically incorrect days!) with twinkling blue eyes likened me to the Dickensian character as she gently set down a second helping of one of the evening’s main courses on to my tray. “Please ma'am, I want some more,” I had unknowingly said to her a few moments before as I polished off a rather scrumptious portion of Beef Wellington. I had never experienced anything as complexly constructed before. Succulent slabs of moist, pink meat anointed with an earthy-tasting mushroom duxelle, cloaked in a gossamer thin crêpe, then further ensconced in a buttery puff pastry and finally baked to golden perfection. Like some sort of culinary equivalent of a nesting Russian matryoshka doll.

Flights of Fancy

Hard as it may be to comprehend, but the eclectic selection of food served aboard flights in the late 80s and early 90s is what set me on my current path as a food writer. With a great premium placed on the importance of world travel by my parents, my sister and I were taken along for the ride almost everywhere they jetted off to. Be it our annual summer vacations in Europe or Mum’s impromptu business trips to South East Asia, we happily tagged along. Making serendipitous discoveries along the course.

In fact, many epoch-making firsts in the realm of my food oeuvres—like my introduction to smoked salmon aboard Singapore Airlines—took place in tightly-packed economy class cabins. But not always! I remember my first tryst with salty beluga caviar toned down with the creamy unctuousness of grated boiled egg. Served to us as an hors d'oeuvre aboard an Air France business class flight to Bangkok, followed by a divine duck à l'orange for mains. 

Mum had somehow managed to charm the check-in staff, securing us an upgrade to the coveted ‘Le Club' which was what the airline’s business class cabin was then called. All this, as we tried not to asphyxiate on noxious cigarette smoke. Yes, unfortunately we were also privy to an era when smoking on board a flight was very much de rigueur. 

This was also the time when travelling out of a major airline hub like Bombay (desk note: I retain the original name for nostalgic context) meant the opportunity to fly with and enjoy the edible delicacies aboard a mind-bogglingly large number of international airlines. This was way before the Middle East 'usurped' my home city’s position as a mid-way refuelling stop for long-haul flights between the east and the west.

Nutty Bites and Sneaky Sips!

Speaking of the eclectic selection of airlines making pit stops in Bombay, I loved flying with Al Italia. One was almost always guaranteed of chowing down on a nice pasta meal. Plump ricotta cheese-stuffed ravioli, pillow-y soft potato gnocchi and good old spaghetti were the holy trinity that got me hooked onto Italian food.

I clearly remember being coaxed into trying a spinach and egg breakfast frittata by the tiny Italian nonna (grandmother) seated next to me. This, after I had ‘ordered’ a fried egg in lieu from the amused flight attendant who explained to me that they unfortunately didn't have the right equipment on board to meet my à la minute demands. I loved the intensely savoury taste and texture of the fluffy frittata so much that I promptly came back home and tried to replicate it following a recipe in my great-aunt’s old cookbook. Till today, that frittata remains one of my most successfully cooked dishes ever.

As a teenager, on a trip to Kenya aboard the country's flag bearing Kenya Airways, I chanced upon the glorious taste of the macadamia nut. I remember it served alongside a tiny glass of the typically African marula fruit liqueur called Amarula that I sneaked in a sip of whenever mum wasn't paying attention.

Today, as I sit at my desk writing this piece, travel-bereft and rather despondent, it is the vicarious tastes of my childhood spent indulging in exotic mile-high meals, that make me once again feel like Oliver Twist. Wanting...nay, demanding some more, please!

SUNDAY RECIPE

Spinach Frittata

INGREDIENTS:

6 eggs

2 tbsp oil or butter

1/4 cup cream

1 tsp salt (divided)

2 small potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced

1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

2 cups spinach, roughly chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 tsp dried thyme 

1 cup cheese, grated

METHOD:

• Arrange a rack in the middle of the oven and pre-heat to 200°C.

• Whisk the eggs and cream together with 1/2 tsp salt in a small bowl and set aside.

• In an oven-proof frying pan or skillet sauté the potatoes in oil or butter and sprinkle with the pepper and the remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until tender and lightly browned, 4 to 6 minutes.

• In the same pan, wilt the spinach with the garlic and thyme stirring for 30 seconds to 1 minute.

• Spread the vegetables into an even layer, flattening with a spatula. Sprinkle the cheese on top and let it just start to melt.

• Pour the egg mixture into the pan and tilt the pan to make sure the eggs settle evenly over all the vegetables. Cook for a minute or two until you see the eggs at the edges of the pan beginning to set.

• Place frying pan into the oven and bake the frittata for 8 to 10 minutes till golden and puffy.

• Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then slice into wedges and serve.

(This column first appeared in the 14th March issue of The Hindu newspaper's Sunday Magazine section on page 8 https://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/food/flights-of-fancy/article34050532.ece)

Bloody Good, I say!

While it might not be for the faint-heated, animal blood is an important ingredient in dishes across the world and one that has played a crucial role in the culinary ‘coming of age’ of a budding gourmand. 

By Raul Dias

If you were to talk to those who knew me while I was growing up, chances are that their recollections of me would be peppered with adjectives like ‘annoyingly smarmy’, ‘insufferable little know-it-all’, and other not-so-flattering sobriquets. And they would not be off the mark! More often than not, my “over smart attitude”—as my father loved to call it—would get me into a serious spot of bother. But every now and then, it also took me down a serendipitous path of delicious discoveries.

The summer of my 10th year, spent vacationing around South East Asia was one such time. Insisting on ordering a ‘sundae’ for myself at a Korean restaurant in Singapore and paying absolutely no heed to the flustered server’s suggestion that I order something else, I gluttonously waited for my frozen treat to materialise onto the table. In its stead, the now-sniggering server plonked down a plate upon which was placed a blistered, coiled link of a dark brown, almost blackish sausage that he proclaimed with a flourish as “sundae!”. That is how I was introduced to the wonders of the delicious Korean pig’s blood grilled sausage also known as sundae. 

United by Blood

Over the years, wherever I would travel, I would make it my mission to scope out dishes that—pardon the morbidity—satiated my ‘blood cravings’. And I really had extraordinarily little trouble in that quest. From imparting that unmistakable iron-y flavour to an Asian stir fry to some much-needed heft to a thin gravy or simply bestowing that rich, haemoglobic, scarlet depth of colour on to a stew, animal blood holds sway the world over. For you see, the concept of animal blood as an ingredient and dare-I-say a delicacy is firmly etched into the culinary lexicon of most countries’ food cultures for centuries.

On a college graduation gift of a safari to Kenya in the mid-2000s, I partook in the age-old Masaai tribal custom of knocking back a cocktail of bull’s blood and milk. Freshly siphoned off the beast’s jugular vein, the blood is quickly mixed with cow’s milk to avoid curdling and served warm out of a hollowed bull’s horn.

While studying for my post-graduation degree in the UK, I fell in love with the crumbly, oat-y taste of a generous slab of pig’s blood sausage called black pudding under fried eggs for my quotidien breakfast served in the cafeteria of my halls of residence. Weekend trips to next door France introduced me to their iteration of the adored pig’s blood sausage called boudin noir that is best paired with sautéed apples.

On a two-week exchange trip to Guangzhou, I saw my Chinese host family speak reverentially of what they know as congealed pig or duck’s blood tofu called xie dòufu that is the main ingredient of the hallowed, fiery stew aptly called hot pot. My blood quest would get further intensified in places like Laos and in northeast Thailand where a surprisingly fresh-tasting mountain salad called laap sees raw minced pork mixed with spices and copious amounts of pig’s blood.

On a recent, pre-pandemic work trip to Scandinavia, I gourmandised my way through the wonderfully flavoursome pig’s blood pancake called blodplättar in Sweden and veriohukainen in Finland. 

India, too?

But if you were beginning to think of the use of blood as a ‘foreign’ thing, India’s vast culinary repertoire of blood-enriched dishes will bring you back to our very own desi kitchens! As long as I live, I will never forget the mixture of emotions of seeing a freshly slaughtered pig for the first time in Goa. Rushing to collect the blood spewing forth from the animal’s jugular into a hollowed coconut shell, my aunts quickly stirred the red liquid to prevent it from coagulating, they declared. 

The blood would later be used in Portuguese-influenced, festive pork dish of sorpotel. As if the Kashmiri chilli’s crimson hue wasn’t enough, the pig’s blood is added towards the end of the dish’s cook to impart a bright red blush to this thick, unctuous stew that is made up of tiny bits of fatty pork and pig’s liver swimming in a vinegar-spiked gravy served with crusty brun pao. 

Though it uses chicken as the main protein, another blood-based, Portuguese-influenced Goan dish is cabidela de galinha. Made very differently from sorpotel, this dish is a sort of mild stew-meets-risotto thanks to the generous amount of basmati rice in its preparation. 

As my travels and work stints took me a little southeast in the Indian peninsula, I soon discovered that both the Madurai and Kongu Nadu regions of Tamil Nadu share another blood-centric dish—aattu ratha poriyal. This stir fry uses the congealed blood of a goat that is first steamed and cut into small bits. The pieces are added to spices like turmeric, ginger, garlic, chilli powder, mustard and stir fried in oil with onions and fresh coconut scrapings with plenty of curry leaves thrown in. 

North by Northeast!

Interestingly, I learned that quite a few of the blood-enhanced dishes of India’s northeast are festive ones made with great pomp and ceremony, take the sacred dish of amin for instance. This one is made by the Galo tribal people of Arunachal Pradesh from the blood of a sacrificial mithun (bor frontalis) on the fourth (and last) day of the Mopin Festival of Fertility, celebrated in April ever year. 

Similarly, India’s indigenous Nepalese community who mainly live in Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Sikkim and Darjeeling, too have a ritualistic spicy goat blood dish called rakti that is had during the Hindu festival of Dashain (Dussehra) and cooked in mustard oil over a slow fire. 

Still in the northeast, the Khasis from the Cherrapunjee area of Meghalaya also known as Sohra, make a pork pulao called ja-doh that uses pig and sometimes chicken’s blood. The dish is typically eaten at breakfast during traditional Khasi festivals like Christmas and Easter. 

Once again serendipity comes to the fore as I discover, while researching this piece, a dessert of all things, made with blood. Apparently, in Italy, sanguinaccio dolce is a pudding made with pig’s blood, chocolate, sugar, pine nuts, raisins and milk. I know where I will be heading to next!

SUNDAY RECIPE

Cabidela de Galinha

INGREDIENTS:

2 chicken legs (cut in quarters)

1 cup basmati rice

1 cup chicken stock

1 cup water

1 cup fresh pig’s blood

½ cup dark Goan vinegar (sur)

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1 large onion, peeled and chopped

4 cloves garlic, peeled and minced

2 bay leaves

1 small bunch fresh coriander leaves

salt and pepper to taste

METHOD:

1. Mix the vinegar with the pig’s blood and set aside.

2. In a large pan heat oil and fry the minced onion and garlic.

3. Add the chicken pieces and let them braise for about 15 minutes or until golden brown.

4. Add the chicken broth, bay leaves, salt and pepper. Cover and let cook 30 minutes over medium heat.

5. When the broth has reduced a little, add water to the pan and then the rice. Cover and let simmer until the rice is just about done.

6. Add the blood and vinegar mixture to the pan, stir, cover again and let cook for an additional 2-5 minutes.

7. Remove from the pan and serve with a little sprinkle of coriander leaves.

(This column first appeared in the 6th December 2020 issue of The Hindu newspaper's Sunday Magazine section on page 8 https://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/food/animal-blood-is-an-important-ingredient-in-dishes-across-the-world/article33247845.ece)

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)

Sanna—The idli’s fairer cousin!

A savoury-sweet Goan and Mangalorean rice cake and idli-lookalike, the sanna is delicious duality at its best, evoking fond childhood memories of Lent. 

By Raul Dias

One of the greatest joys of being a child is that intoxicating cocktail wherein a dash of hope is blended with a healthy dose of anticipation of almost anything! Two very pertinent emotions that all of us are grappling with in these dark days of extended social distancing, self-isolation and Sunday masses that stream online.
Will all be well before Easter Sunday, exactly a week from today? Will our dining tables literally groan under the weight of all those perennial Easter goodies like always? Sadly, the answer this year has never been a more resounding “NO”. But where’s the harm in a bit of vicarious feasting, right? 
Growing up in a devoutly Catholic household, hope and anticipation of the edible kind were in ample supply for us kids, all through this ongoing 40-day period of Lent. Beginning with ‘Fat Tuesday’ where we gorged ourselves silly on white crêpe-like pancakes made of flour and eggs, their portly bellies stuffed with a lurid pink sweet coconut filling. Little did we know then that the white pancake signified the body of Christ and the pink stuffing, his blood. But morbidity aside, it was always the food, pre-, during and post-Lent that was much anticipated.
And one such Lenten delicacy always found sitting higgledy-piggledy atop each other on our dining table was the sweet-savoury steamed rice cake called sanna. With Mum not very well-versed in the art of making sannas, we’d always (and still do) rely on the skills of Rosy Aunty here at home in Mumbai for our almost quotidien Lenten supply.
Also known as ‘idli wali Aunty’ by her rather clueless Maharashtrian neighbours for whom an idli and a sanna are “same-same”, the octogenarian Rosy Britto has been making sannas for as long as she can remember. Her bifocal spectacle lenses perpetually fogged up by the plume of steam issuing forth from her faithful copper sanna steamer called a chondro in Goa and tondor in Mangalore.

Not same, just different
Often mistaken for an idli, a sanna is a Goan-Mangalorean festive delicacy made from a fermented mixture of fat-grained parboiled rice, coconut, sugar, salt and that all-important leavening agent of the sap of the coconut palm that is colloquially known as ‘toddy’ or sur in Konkani. Though many these days prefer to substitute the hard-to-procure toddy with dry yeast granules. This, much to the chagrin of any true-blue Goan or Mangalorean foodie like yours truly who craves that slightly fermented, sweet-musty taste brought on only by coconut toddy.
This use of toddy is also one of the main differences of a sanna vis-à-vis an idli, where urad dal (black gram) is used in the latter’s fermentation. Though, I do believe that there are versions of the sanna, both in Goa and Mangalore, that are known to use white urad dal. Forsaking an idli steamer for a funnel-topped chondro steamer, a sanna is always spooned into small, steel vatis (bowls) also called gindlaan in Mangalore which give it its round, cake-like shape as opposed to an idli’s convex contours.
Texturally speaking, a sanna is much spongier, with a glossy white countenance as opposed to an idli’s granular crumb. Though often the red Goan parboiled rice we call ukda tandul in Konkani imparts a few tiny red flecks onto a sanna’s surface. Its accompaniments too are very different from those of an idli. No chutneys or sambar here!

With or without? 
Like a few others I know, I have always liked to eat a sanna by itself, sans any savoury or sweet accompaniment. But I must admit to several rather unsuccessful pairing attempts over the years with everything from Nutella to BBQ sauce. As a child, I’ve even once convinced our cook to deep fry a few bits of stale sannas to disastrous results, with the porous rice cake retaining oil like the Hoover Dam does water!
But for most, the duo of sanna ani dukramaas (pork meat) is what is considered the ultimate way to relish this rice cake. While a rich, fiery red pork stew called sorpotel is the de facto plate fellow in Goa, in Mangalore the preferred accompaniment is a robustly spiced pork bafat, with the curry’s spiciness often tempered down with the addition of a little roce (thin coconut milk).
For sweet lovers like me, there is even a dedicated sweet iteration of the sanna called godachi sanna that is made with jaggery and best enjoyed at tea time. Interestingly, just like the steamed rice and milk dish called kiri-bhat in Sri Lanka and Kerala’s bamboo-steamed coconut and rice cake puttu, sannas crushed with a little milk, sugar and ghee are often fed to infants as their first solid meal.
As I put my finishing touches to this piece, a little ray of hope beams its way down to me in the form of a reply to a panic-tinged text message I had sent out to someone important a few hours ago. “Yes, you’ll get your dozen sannas this year, too!” Rosy Aunty reassures me, as I smile to myself in relief, hope and anticipation of that one constant. 
       

SUNDAY RECIPE
Sanna 

INGREDIENTS:
Parboiled Goan red rice (ukda tandul) 1 cup
Fresh coconut (scraped) ½ cup
Coconut toddy 1.5 cups
Granulated sugar 4 tbsp
Salt 1 tsp

METHOD:
1. Soak the rice in water overnight
2. The next day, after draining the rice, grind it along with half a cup of toddy for a few seconds. Add another half cup of toddy along with sugar and salt and grind till the mixture resembles a coarse slurry.
3. Now add in the grated coconut and the remaining half cup of toddy. Grind for a few seconds more. Adjust sugar and salt, if needed.
4. Transfer to a non-metallic container and cover with a damp muslin cloth. Allow to stand in a cool, dark place for a few hours till the batter doubles up in volume.
5. Spoon the batter into 12-14 lightly oiled small steel vatis (bowls), making sure to not fill to the top as the batter will rise again while steaming.
6. Place the vatis in a steamer. Cover and steam for around 20 minutes or until a skewer poked in the center of the vati comes out clean.
7. Unmould the sannas immediately and place them in a serving dish lined with a damp muslin cloth or oiled banana leaves.
8. Serve sannas piping hot, either on their own or with curry.

(An edited version of this article first appeared in the 5th April 2020 issue of The Hindu newspaper's Sunday Magazine section on page 8 https://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/food/sanna-idlis-festive-cousin/article31247135.ece)

Some Like it Hot…Me, Cold!

Sometimes all it takes is a comforting bowl of porridge to help kickstart one’s journey down memory lane   

By Raul Dias

It was a particularly ferocious winter morning exactly 54 years ago, when the nuns of St. Angela Sophia boarding school, Jaipur had finally reached their wits end. The object of their collective exasperation—a preternaturally rebellious 12-year-old girl—was at it again. This time it was her vehement refusal to touch her morning breakfast bowl of salted oatmeal porridge that had landed her in trouble. Again.
Muttering under her breath that it smelled like old socks, the girl was ‘banished’ to the kindergarten section of the school. Her punishment; to hold the bowl of porridge high above her head with both hands while kneeling down in front of a phalanx of giggling toddlers. She was to continue doing so till she had made up her mind to give the porridge a go. She never did. And she hasn’t to this very day. That defiant little terror was my mother.

Goldilocks, anyone?
Despite the rather Dickensian tales of Mum’s boarding school days and more pertinently, her utter revulsion towards porridge of any kind, I simply love the gooey, unctuous stuff. And I have our dear old Mangalorean cook Mary to thank for that.
Having formerly been cooking for an expatriate British family for years before she came into our family’s employ, Mary had amassed an astounding cache of porridge recipes—both Indian and International—that were by now a firm fixture on our quotidien breakfast menu.
One of her greatest hits was the delicious-tasting Goan vonn that’s very similar to the divine Tamil sakkarai pongal. Also known as soji in South Goa, this rather complex porridge is made with a host of ingredients, chief of which is chana dal (split Bengal gram), bits of which are cleverly left whole in the preparation for texture. The porridge is further enhanced by the addition of thick coconut milk and palm jaggery. The latter lending to the dish an earthy, warm flavour that almost tastes like what petrichor would, perhaps. 
Now, long before the story of fussy Goldilocks and her trio of porridge-loving bears became a favourite of ours, my older sister and I played out our own version almost daily. Some days we were particularly partial towards Mary’s iteration of a simple milk-enriched, warm rava porridge, where toothsome grains of semolina competed with slivers of toasted almonds.
On others, which were more often than not, we relished the gloopy consistency of her steel-cut oatmeal porridge sliding down our throats. One that she’d top up with cold milk and a splodge of treacle to sweeten the deal. It would be decades later, on a work trip to Belfast, when I would discover the Irish way of truly ‘enjoying’ a bowl of oatmeal porridge…with a splash of peaty Irish whiskey added to it for a smoky finish!

Savouring the Savoury
However, it is not just the sweetened varieties of porridge that have managed to rouse me out of bed every day over the years. I am equally fond of the savoury porridge. To be more specific, I love the wholesome goodness of porridges like ragi ambali. Though mostly consumed as a thick drink in Karnataka, I like to enjoy the light pink-hued concoction as a porridge. This is achieved by adding a little more than usual amount of sprouted ragi (finger millet) flour to the water-buttermilk slurry to which a bit of salt has been added. But it is the final tempering with curry leaves, mustard seeds and chilli that makes the scrumptious ragi ambali a must-have for me.
On the absolute opposite end of the spice spectrum of savoury porridges is another Goan porridge called pez. Simply put, pez is just another name for a bland gruel made with rice and water and one that is known multifariously as kanjee or kunji in regions south of the Vindhyas. We Goans like to have our pez either with a bit of dried, salted mackerel pickle called parra or served with a side of tora shiro mango water pickle.

The Travelling Bowl
Whenever I find myself travelling to East Asia, I am quite surprised when I’m offered a breakfast porridge of the Chinese iteration of good old kanjee that they call, funnily enough, congee. Only here, one is presented with a virtual smorgasbord of condiments and toppings like fried shallots and garlic, cubes of sweet lap cheong pork sausage, chopped spring onions, salted duck eggs and the ubiquitous soy sauce to enhance the flavour of the simple rice gruel.
It really is testament to the prowess of porridge that we now have several porridge-only cafés and restaurants scattered across the world from places as diverse as Edinburg and Copenhagen severing the breakfast dish in the most interesting and dare-I-say, often contrived combinations. A recent trip to New York City saw me tuck into a bowl of cold oat and almond meal porridge topped with rice milk and a sprinkling of raw Colombian cocoa nibs and bee pollen at the world’s first all-oatmeal café simply called OatMeals.
At London’s 26 Grains porridge café, I tried a warm quinoa porridge accentuated with a tart burst of the antioxidant-rich acai berry purée that I was told was foraged from the Brazilian Amazon forests. Every spoonful of the exotic bowl was like discovering the joys of porridge all over again.
Now, if I could only convince Mum to do so too!
   
SUNDAY RECIPE
Vonn 

INGREDIENTS:
Chana dal ¼ cup
Water 3 cups
Salt ½ tsp
Rice flour ¼ cup
Palm jaggery (chopped into bits) ¾ cup
Coconut milk 1 ½ cup
Cardamom powder 1 tsp
Chopped cashew nuts ¼ cup

METHOD:
1. Pre-soak the chana dal in water for at least two hours before using.
2. Boil the pre-soaked chana dal with the 3 cups of water and salt for around 15 minutes on a medium-high flame till the dal is cooked, but not mushy.
3. Make a thick paste of the rice flour by adding a little water to it.
4. Add the chopped palm jaggery to the chana dal mixture and stir till fully melted and incorporated.
5. Add the coconut milk and bring to a slow boil, making sure that the milk does not split.
6. Lower the flame to its lowest level and add in the rice flour paste, stirring to ensure that no lumps are formed.
7. Once thickened, sprinkle in the cardamom powder and chopped bits of cashew nuts.
8. Serve either warm, room temperature or chilled! 


(An edited version of this article first appeared in the 15th December 2019 issue of The Hindu newspaper's Sunday Magazine section on page 12 https://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/food/some-like-it-hot-some-like-it-with-bee-pollen/article30297570.ece)

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)

When ‘Bad Word Curry’ Was Good!

One of India’s unique hybrid cuisines, Anglo-Indian food is the fascinating sum of its mish-mash of flavours and textures—with a few unusually named savoury dishes thrown in for dramatic effect.

By Raul Dias

I kid you not, but “Gladys Myrtle Harbour—last of the great Anglos”, was how my late maternal grandmother introduced herself to those she’d meet for the first time. Always insisting on including her maiden surname, her self-appointed title as a ‘propah’, card-carrying member of a dying breed and shunning her official name of “Mrs. Lobo” all in one fell swoop. None of us minded it, least of all my ever-giggling Goan grandfather who indulged his proudly Anglo-Indian wife to the hilt.
Nan—as we called her—was full of odd little quirks and peculiarities that would embarrass most. But not us eight grandkids who were always amused by her antics. Three of her most abiding memories that have stayed with me almost two decades since her passing are her signature Chanel No. 5 fragrance, her mother-of-pearl tipped cigarette holder and her predilection for profanity. The last, amply reflected in one of my favourite Anglo-Indian dishes that she was spectacularly good at conjuring up every Saturday for lunch at her home in Jaipur.

Having a ball
Yes, none of that wishy-washy “bad word curry” or worse “meat kofta curry” business for the Anglo-Indian staple of beef ball curry that would make most others blush before referring to it by its original name. Nan, in fact, had an even more ribald moniker for said curry. She’d occasionally call it “spinster’s delight curry”. I rest my case!  
Replete with chunks of potato—that I’d shamelessly bogart—nan’s version of ball curry always had coconut milk in it, perhaps as a tribute to her Goan husband. And it was never had sans its trusted cohorts of the turmeric-enhanced yellow rice and devil chutney. The latter a scary looking, but innocuous tasting condiment made from mild red chillies, tomatoes, sugar and vinegar.
Speaking of deceptive-looking dishes, another Anglo dish that I daresay my mum makes better than Nan ever did is the oddly named chicken country captain. The story behind this thick, angry red hued dish’s genesis is a rather interesting one. Apparently, in the early days of the East India Company, British trade ships sailing the waters in India were referred to as ‘country ships’ and thus their captains—‘country captains’. The hybrid dish of chicken country captain that had elements borrowed from the popular Italian preparation of chicken cacciatore and jazzed up with spices like chillies and coriander was a popular dish at said captains’ tables and hence its name.

Comfort food
Now, unlike the Goan side of my family where falling ill meant being force-fed boring ‘convalesce specials’ like the watery pez (rice gruel) and tizann, a glue-like warm porridge made with nachni (finger millet), the Anglos seemed to celebrate sickness to the hilt. Whenever one of us was a bit under the weather, Nan would get her trusted cook Kesari to conjure up wonderful concoctions like pish-pash and kedgeree. So much so that we’d almost hope to get sick to enjoy the two!
Though both are relatively similar in taste and texture, and both one-pot wonders, the former was always my clear favourite. Essentially a dish made with soft rice and some form of protein (mostly chicken) the term pish-pash was first recorded by English writer Augustus Prinsep in the mid-19th century where he called it “a slop of rice-soup with small pieces of meat in it, much used in the Anglo-Indian nursery.” Its name, in fact, is borrowed from the Persian term to break down something or pashidan.
On the contrary, the etymology of kedgeree is pretty lucid and prima facie obvious. The Anglo-Indian take on India’s greatest comfort food of khichdi is one that is made up of cooked, flaked fish (either haddock, tuna or salmon), boiled rice, parsley, hard-boiled eggs, curry powder, butter or cream, and occasionally sultanas.  

East meets South
Just like Saturday’s lunch had its ball curry-yellow rice, Sunday’s lunch at Nan’s was devoted to her favourite duo of mutton jalfrezi-pepper water. Now, the super-spicy jalfrezi is one scrumptious curry that gets the Anglos all divided up in two factions as to its origins. While my mum and her sisters claim that it was named in honour of an old British Army officer named Colonel Frazer, my grandaunt Audrey Rose has another theory. According to her, the name of the dish is derived from the colloquial Bengali word jhal porhezi, where jhal (not to be confused with jhol or water!) means hot, while porhezi comes from the Persian word, parhezi means suitable for a diet.
And if you ask me, its ‘plate-fellow’ of pepper water is nothing but an Anglo riff on the much-loved, tamarind pulp-based rasam or saaru of south India. Right down to the tempering of mustard seeds and curry leaves that are added at the end for that dramatic, sizzling finish.

         

SUNDAY RECIPE
Chicken Country Captain
(Recipe courtesy, Ann Dias)

INGREDIENTS:
Chicken pieces (drumsticks and thighs) 500 gms
Vegetable oil 5 tbsp
Onions (sliced) 4
Water 1 cup
Salt ½ tsp
Coriander powder 1 tbsp
Cumin powder 1 tsp
Turmeric powder ½ tsp
Dried Kashmiri chillies 6
Fresh green chillies (slit lengthwise) 3
Fresh coriander leaves (chopped) ½ cup
Ginger (finely chopped) 2-inch piece
White vinegar 2 tbsp
Sugar 1 tbsp
Potatoes (cubed and deep fried) 5

METHOD:
1. Heat oil in a medium sized pan and sauté sliced onions till golden brown.
2. Add the chicken pieces and fry for 10 minutes. Add the water and salt and allow to cook till tender. Remove chicken and set aside.
3. In a spice blender, make a smooth paste of the coriander, cumin and turmeric powders along with the Kashmiri chillies and a splash of water.
4. To the residual liquid of the chicken and onions in the pan, add the spice paste, green chillies, fresh coriander leaves, ginger, vinegar and sugar. Simmer till the gravy is thick.
4. Add the chicken pieces and fried potato cubes and cook for another 5-7 minutes.
5. Serve hot with either herbed rice or garlic bread.

(An edited version of this article first appeared in the 25th August 2019 issue of The Hindu newspaper's Sunday Magazine section on pages 26-27 https://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/food/spinsters-delight-pish-pash-and-kedgeree-a-few-favourite-things-from-my-anglo-indian-family-kitchen/article29231232.ece)

All ‘Thai’d Up!

The humble Thai street food staple of phad Thai—a dish that evokes childhood memories of quotidian vacation gluttony—is actually neither humble or even entirely Thai for that matter.

 

By Raul Dias

Like most of our mothers, mine loves to embarrass me with her highly dramatised versions of stories from my growing years. But then there is also one that is told in its purest, unexaggerated form. That’s the one where she would leave a 10-year-old me at a Bangkok street food market (with a couple of hundred Thai baht tucked into the pocket of my shorts) to eat my way through the better part of an hour or so. Alone.
All this, while she shopped at the next-door kitchen supplies market for her food and confectionary business back home in Bombay. And mum recounts this particular one without an iota of shame or fear that she might very well be judged as a grossly negligent parent in retrospect by those who lend their ears to her “amusing tale of desertion”.
But for one perpetually-hungry, overweight boy, those bi-annual supply runs to Bangkok meant just one thing: a feeding frenzy like no other. Temporary abandonment be damned! One, where the humble stir-fried noodle dish of phad Thai took top billing, above all the other cuttlefish skewers, spicy fish cakes, crunchy papaya salads and other yummies that make up the smorgasbord of Bangkok’s famed street food.

Noodle Quest         
Essentially a quick fix road-side snack made with opaque rice noodles, tofu, bean sprouts, peanuts, and egg, among other things, a good phad Thai, I learnt early on, will always have a taste that bears hints of that typically smoky, slightly caramelised flavour that is dubbed the “breath of the wok” or wok hei. All this is doused in the indispensable phad Thai sauce, where the tart tamarind pulp trumps its supporting acts of fish sauce (soy sauce for vegetarians) and palm sugar.
Everywhere we’d go in Thailand, I made sure to sample their version of phad Thai. Discovering that the fresh herb-centric north of the country threw in a hand full of the fragrant kaphrao or sweet basil. Or that banana blossoms were a particularly favourite ingredient in the phad Thai of Phuket along Thailand’s Andaman Sea coast.  
Some of my best friends in Bangkok’s Sukhumvit neighbourhood where we’d stay were the phad Thai vendors who’d make sure to lovingly toss a couple of extra prawns onto my plate. I’d remember the area’s side streets—or soi as they are called in Thai—not by their numbers, but by the phad Thai carts that inhabited them. Such was my obsession with the dish.       

Austere Beginnings?
But despite its prima facie simplicity, phad Thai has a complex back story with a bifurcated culinary history to match. To begin with, there is nothing traditionally Thai about the dish. One school of thought believes that somewhere in the mid-19^th century phad Thai evolved organically out of the Chinese immigrant stir-fried noodle dish of kway teow. Only here, Thai ingredients like tamarind, palm sugar, and bird-eye chilies substituted oyster sauce and Sichuan pepper.
Another, more widely believed theory is that post World War II, the then prime minister of Thailand Plaek Phibunsongkhram laid out an elaborate, well-crafted plan to create a dish that epitomised the new Thai identity. He also wanted to wean the population away from an exclusive diet of the expensive-to-grow rice, making them consume rice noodles instead that needed just 50% rice to be produced. And thus, phad Thai came to the fore, successfully becoming the de facto dish that defines Thai cuisine today.    

   

Iterations Aplenty
Over the years that have seen me travel to Bangkok at an alarming rate for both work and pleasure, it has been this one dish that has consistently won me over with its wholesome appeal and not to mention, startling ubiquity. There’s probably ne’er a street corner in downtown Bangkok that doesn’t have at least one food cart vendor hawking an iteration of phad Thai. From ones with seafood, to others that revel in their porcine umami-ness, there’s a phad Thai to suit all tastes. 
On a recent trip to the Thai capital, I found myself chowing down on a bowl of phad Thai made with the latest international ‘noodle’ sensation, that isn’t even a noodle! Yes, the ‘paleo phad Thai’ is all the rage these days in Bangkok, where the traditional rice noodle find itself replaced by the ‘zoodle’ which is the hipster-chic name for the spirals made from zucchinis. Back home in Mumbai, a rather brutal phad Thai-related salvo was fired at me the other day when I sat down to review a health food café that had on its menu a phad Thai made with tender coconut strips.
I wonder what would my 10-year-old self make of that?   

SUNDAY RECIPE
Veg Phad Thai

INGREDIENTS:
Medium-sized rice noodles 100 gms
Vegetable oil 3 tbsp
Chopped shallots 1 tsp
Chili flakes 1 tsp
Firm tofu (soy bean curd) cubes 10 gms
Egg 1
Spring onion (cut in 1-inch batons) 50 gms
Bean sprouts ¼ cup
Crushed roasted peanuts 2 tbsp
Lime wedge 1

(for phad Thai sauce, mix together)
Dark soy sauce 1 tbsp
Palm sugar or yellow jaggery 1 tbsp
Tamarind pulp 1 tbsp

METHOD:
1. Soak the rice noodles in cold water for 3-5 minutes until soft, then drain and set aside.
2.  Heat the oil in a wok over medium heat and stir fry the shallots and a pinch of the chili flakes until fragrant and a little brown.
3. Add the tofu, mix well and set to one side of the wok (add a few prawns for a seafood version).
4. Add the rice noodles and phad Thai sauce and toss well with the tofu-shallot mixture.
5. Break in the egg, stir well until done and mix with the noodles. Then throw in the spring onion batons and bean sprouts.
6. Cook for a minute and then transfer to a serving dish, garnishing the phad Thai with the roasted, crushed peanuts, the remaining chili flakes and a wedge of lime on the side.      

(An edited version of this article first appeared in the 9th June 2019 issue of The Hindu newspaper's Sunday Magazine section on pages 26-27 https://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/food/thai-streetfood-the-breath-of-the-wok/article27618910.ece?fbclid=IwAR3g04yvUI1oNBzCTY_g0XqTn7DG44h4hd6c1Yj-0IppETmuDHDt3nSGd20)

Goan ‘tar’ for Easter’s kuswar!

Edging out cutesy chocolate bunnies and marzipan eggs from our Goan Easter table is always dodol—the true kuswar star

By Raul Dias

Growing up in a bi-cultural Goan-Anglo Indian home in the early 90s, almost everything, culturally speaking, was neatly divvied up between the two vastly different Christian communities. While Christmas was always spent in frosty Jaipur with my mum’s family, tucking into Nan’s brandy-spiked plum pudding and gossamer-light, deep-fried rose cookies, Easter in Goa was a whole other affair.
The night before Maundy Thursday, my father would pile us all into his trusted old Amby, as mum would neatly pack chicken sandwiches, a mighty quiche Lorraine and a giant thermos flask of iced nimbu paani in the picnic hamper. All this as sustenance for the then 14-hour-long, overnight tryst with the Western Ghats, en route to four days of Easter feasting in our tiny village of Cavelossim that hugs the River Sal in South Goa’s Salcette region.

Loving Indulgence
While our large family home did have a fully functioning ‘western-style’ kitchen, it was the coconut husk-fired outdoor stove that my late grand aunt Flory and matriarch of the house, preferred cooking over. Here, she would toil for hours on end over the cinder-spewing flame, churning out one edible masterpiece after the other. Never once complaining about the soot as it coated her spectacle’s bifocal lenses with a thin layer of grey soot. Nor did she mind my grubby little hands reaching into a thali of cooling ‘tar’ for a cheeky taste test.         
Now, among the vast pantheon of Goa’s hallowed Easter kuswar (sweets) platter, ‘tar’ was always my favourite, thanks to its gooey, messy texture and earthy taste. Not to mention its oil-slick, jet black hue. It was also Tia Flory’s most demanded treat to us all. Never a fan of those luridly coloured marzipan Easter eggs with thick splodges of royal icing covering them or those waxy-tasting chocolate renditions of bunnies, my preferences were more local Goan sweets. Much to Tia Flory’s delight. And so indulge me, she did!

Onomatopoeia on a Thali
Even though it has a perfectly onomatopoeic name, the kind that rolls off one’s tongue just as smoothly as its silken texture does, dodol has always been ‘tar’ for me. It is also known to be referred to as black halwa by my posse of pals who seem to magically apparate into my dining room whenever mum sends over a thali of dodol, after carefully replicating Tia Flory’s original (and much guarded!) recipe.
Brought over to Goa from West Java by the Portuguese, it’s not surprising that I’ve encountered several iterations of dodol on my travels around South East Asia. But particularly in Indonesia. Commonly served during Eid, it is called jenang in the Javanese language, with even a local durian dodol available that is popular in the city of Medan. Closer home in Sri Lanka, it can be found in two versions: kalu dodol that’s made with kithul palm (caryota urens) jaggery and kiri dodol made with milk and cinnamon.

Bubble, Bubble Toil and Trouble!
But my earliest memories of dodol will always lie in those humid pre-Easter, March-April days in the Goa of my childhood. Carefully scraping a coconut on the kantonem to ensure that its milky white flesh bore no flecks of brown, Tia Flory would then introduce the scrapings to a fistful of soaked rice. Both soon to be ground to a thick pulp on the typically Goan rough granite mortar and pestle called a fator, which literally means stone.
The secret to its inky black colour, I’d soon learn, was thanks to the black jaggery. The kind that’s sold in the shape of tiny pyramids in Goa’s food markets. Made from the sap of the coconut palm, this madachem god jaggery was the de facto sweetener-cum-colourant of dodol, though Tia Flory did throw in a wad of the regular yellow jaggery for a bit of additional heft.
But the real action always began with the onset of the laborious hour-long stirring process. It was only when the lubricating ghee was added to the mixture that the real alchemy unfolded. Akin to a smouldering volcano, the by-now deep brown viscous liquid would bubble up. Every now and then its surface erupting with blisters of molten yumminess.
However, only when it had cooled down hours later, did it take on a shiny black colouring. Loathe to ruin its appearance with a garnish of any kind—despite protestations from other aunts who demanded cashew nut garnishes and other frivolities—Tia Flory would leave it as it was. Letting it revel in its firm, yet jellified countenance and sensual taste that bore hints of a molasse-y depth, coupled with top notes of toffee-like sweetness and that all-important additive—love!  

           

SUNDAY RECIPE
Goa Dodol
(Recipe courtesy, Ann Dias)

INGREDIENTS:
Coconut (scraped)1
Black Goa jaggery 250 gms
Regular yellow jaggery 50 gms
Ghee 2 tbsp
Rice (soaked) 4 tbsp
Chopped cashew nuts 10 gms (optional)

METHOD:
1. In a mixer, grind the scraped coconut and soaked rice together with a splash of water.
2. Reserve both the thick and thin extracts of the coconut-rice mixture and set aside separately.
3. In a heavy bottom kadhai, combine the thin extract and the two kinds of jaggery and cook on a medium to high flame, stirring continuously.
4. Once the mixture solidifies a bit, add the thick extract and the ghee. Keep stirring till the mixture turns a dark brown, almost black shade and till it leaves the sides of the kadhai.
5. Pour the mixture onto a greased thali and top with chopped cashew nuts, if desired.
6. Once cooled to room temperature, cut into squares or diamond shapes with a greased knife.    

(An edited version of this article first appeared in the 14th April 2019 issue of The Hindu newspaper's Sunday Magazine section on pages 26-27 https://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/food/make-some-goan-tar-for-easter/article26817493.ece?fbclid=IwAR31OIkUuvuaIJ31ybyRcNc2tdzDU2fA5ClmtqN3hsD8BoYCGfuIxb4-khY)