Nalla kaaram – నల్ల కారం

My mother-in-law makes the best andhra spice powders. Karivepaaku kaaram, kobbari kaaram, senaga pappu kaaram, nalla kaaram and the list goes on. I had made some futile attempts in the past to get nalla kaaram like hers but could never get close. Yes, even with the recipe. A few days ago, DH’s Indian <Gujarati> colleague was expecting his first child and had invited us for his wife’s baby shower. His parents were visiting and during my conversation with them, his father expressed his immense liking for these andhra kaarappodis. Next day, I sent about 10gms of Nalla kaaram (one I got in 2003, from India – sorry, that was all I could spare!) with DH to this elderly man. The next day, DH came home asking me what I had asked him to pass on, who made it, how much else we have left and if we could spare some more, where else we could buy the same exact one etc., etc., My answers were a series of ‘no’s. No other powder comes close to the one that my mother-in-law makes. For this elderly man’s sake I decided to try one last time. Determined to break down the formula, I took a little of this nalla kaaram in the center of my palm and examined each and every grain of it, tasting one by one. I kind of got the ingredients; now the ratios with trial and error. By the end of next hour, I felt that mine was pretty close to the original one. I am jotting it down here so that I will never loose it. Here it is -

2 big fists Coriander seeds
1 big fist whole dry red chillies, unbroken
1 big fist washed and dried curry leaves
3 heaped tablespoons urad dal
Key lime sized tamarind ball
one big fist garlic cloves
2 tsps cumin seeds
1/2 cup oil
salt to taste (may be like 1/2 cup)

Mind you, my cup measures here are rice cooker cups and not 8oz measuring cup.

Roast coriander seeds, red chillies, urad dal and curry leaves separately, in very little oil over low-medium flame. Seeds have to turn slightly brown. Keep stirring every few seconds not to burn any of these. Curry leaves have to be crispy dry. Using the dry grind jar of your blender, grind the roasted items to a coarse powder. Add tamarind and pulse till it is torn into tiny pieces. Add garlic, cumin and salt. Pulse till garlic seemed to have coarsely crushed.  Now take all of it into a mixing bowl and add the rest of the oil and adjust salt if needed. It might seem a little wet on the first day, but by the next day, it dries out considerably.

Tastes best in steaming hot rice with a blob of ghee.

Ultimate banana cake

These are notes for me so that I will never, never loose this wonderful recipe. I ran into this “UBC cake” which stands for Ultimate Banana & Chocolate cake. I tried this last month in my tin pans, in my toaster oven. They came out unbelievably good! That was the best banana bread I ever had. DS and DD absolutely loved them. This week, when I was at Macy’s, I saw Martha Stewart’s brand new bundt pan and I could not resist buying it. I wanted a bundt pan for years now but never bought it – simply did not want to accumulate things which lead to clutter later, because I don’t use them very often. This banana bread made me buy this bundt pan. I am making some adjustments to the original recipe to suit our taste so that I will never make the same mistakes I made this evening baking the bundt.

3 really ripe bananas, mashed
2 large eggs
1 1/2 c flour
3/4 c sugar     (can even try 1/2 c)  1 cup sugar
1 t baking soda
1 t vanilla
1 T cinnamon
1 c chocolate chips

1. Mix bananas with eggs and stir well. Add flour, sugar, soda, vanilla, and cinnamon and mix well. It should be easy dropping (almost flowing) consistency.

2. Add chocolate chips into the batter.

3. Pour batter into bundt or tube pan.

4. For tin square pan, bake at 375 for 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into cake comes out clean. But, if using nonstick, bake at 350 for 35 minutes.

Tastes best when frozen.

Tamarind pulp

This is one special handy-dandy item I always gotto have in my freezer. In our household, pulusulu/vegetable stews are cooked pretty often. When growing up, I thought that my mother made pulusu every other day; she really did not – my dislike for those dishes probably made me feel that way. Well, she might have made them once or twice a week. After I got married and my in-laws came to visit and my mother-in-law took over the chef hat, she beat my mother at serving pulusulu. I began wondering if I got married into “Pulusuvari” family .  When you eat something so often, sooner or later you would begin to like it. It happened to me – I started to develop a liking for pulusulu. Mildly sweet and widely sour, loaded with vegetables and the best part is, just a spoonful of oil to temper a potful of stew. Their visit ended but the pulusu tradition continues in our house. And the main ingredient in there, T A M A R I N D!

For some reason, I always hated squeezing juice out of tamarind. Also, good tamarind is hard to find at the local Indian grocery. I always bring it from India during our visits. So, it is very precious to me. Over the years I learnt to minimize the wastage and eliminate the squeezing part as much as I could. Here is the formula – soak, pick, grind, freeze.

Once in six months or so, I soak a big pack of tamarind in a big stainless steel vessel over night. I pick out seeds and strands out of the soaked mush. Then I blend it in a food processor in batches. Might require addition of water when grinding. After a while it grinds into a silky smooth paste. We do not mind an occasional (which is very, very rare) skin in our sambar or pulusu. I freeze in small containers if possible. If it is not possible or would not work in my freezer space at times, no worries. I freeze in one big container. As and when needed, I put it out in the refrigerator for a few hours to soften. Later, I scoop out just as much I would need and put the big one back in the freezer. I usually take enough, in a clean bottle, to last me a week.

Curry powder named ‘Sambaru kaaram’ (కూర కారం, సాంబారు కారం)

In Krishna, Guntur and parts of West Godavari districts of Andhra Pradesh, a special curry powder is used in most dishes instead of the plain red hot chilli powder. This is a special blend of super hot, dried red chillies, roasted lentils, methi seeds, aromatic curry leaves and tons of garlic pounded with cumin. Plain chilli powder adds the needed heat to the dish and a mild zap to the palate. But, this curry powder lifts up the flavors in the curry. Sometimes one would even take an extra helping to savour the flavor of this spice blend, more than for the vegetable in the curry itself.  ‘Sambar kaaram’ is really a mis-nomer, because this is not used in sambar. Sambar has it’s own powder in which, garlic is definitely out. This curry powder also serves as idli-kaarappodi in many house holds. When recovering from any illness, when nothing seems appetizing and nothing tastes good, steaming rice with a spoonful of this podi and ghee wakes up all the dormant senses.

The authentic method of preparation is pretty elaborate. Sambaru Kaaram is prepared in summer, when the new crop of chillies is out. Each household makes enough to last for the whole year. Chillies are spread out in the sun, lentils, coriander & fenugreek seeds are roasted, branches of curry leaves (yes, practically branches) are washed and layed to dry on cot made of ropes called nulaka mancham(నులక మంచం), heads of garlic are peeled non-stop in bamboo trays called chETa (చేట). All of them are finally pounded in a certain order, in big stone mortar half buried in the ground. Yes, that’s a whole day’s work of all the women of that household. My parents left country side even before I was born, in search of livelihood. My in-laws’ side of the family is pretty big and their siblings still live out there. They have mostly been our kind and loving suppliers of goodies like pickles and podis. Once in a while I do run out and try to make my own with the closest possible substitutes. Here is my tried and tested recipe. Also quick! Quantity would last for 10 months, for two people.

Recipe:
200gm Lakshmi brand red chilli powder
2cups (rice cooker cups) coriander seeds
1/2 cup urad dal
1/2 cup channa dal
1/4 cup fenugreek/methi seeds
3 big pods of garlic
1/3 cup cumin seeds
2/3 cup vegetable oil (can you believe that in good old days they used castor oil!)
Salt to taste (may be 3/4 cup)

Dry roast coriander seeds, methi seeds, urad dal, channa dal and a few curry leaves. Grind them separately and mix them together in a big bowl. Peel and crush all the garlic-could use low setting in your mixie or just use the pulser switch. When you are half way done crushing garlic, add cumin to it. So by the time garlic is done, cumin would be somewhat beaten up but not ground. Mix this paste with the above powdered batch, chilli powder, salt and oil. Don’t worry if it looks a little wet on the first day. It takes a while for the moisture in garlic + oil to be absorbed by other ingredients.

Stays red for a year or even longer, if refrigerated.

Alu Broccoli Pacchadi – my entry for Jihva for Potato

I am a new blogger and came across this event in the food blogs this past weekend. Started and moderated by Indira of Mahanandi. This month’s event is being hosted by Vaishali Kamath of Happy Burp. February being a short month, March 1st arrived faster than I expected. I am working on a patch that should go out for taking care of the new Daylight Savings dates for our application. I looked at the calendar this morning to see how much time I had left, and awww.. today is first already. And then I remembered that it is also the posting day for Jihva. We are not that big of a potato lovers – actually, steer clear of the vegetable except on our Puri-Saturdays; which comes once in three months or so. Too starchy for our palates, I guess.

I came home, bathed and fed DD and DS. Still could not take this event out of my head. I marched into the kitchen and lucky for me, found a small potato in my onion basket. The only thing that came to my mind is pickle. My grandmother (అమ్మమ్మ) makes pickles out of practically any vegetable. She was the one who introduced this pickle to me 22 years ago. I usually make this for parties and it goes pretty fast. Sour, salty and fiery with spice kick of red chilli powder. You would not believe that it is the same starchy vegetable that kicks up your metabolism now. Because, I haven’t seen anybody stop with just a couple of pieces of this pacchadi.

I sometimes add carrot or cauliflower to this pacchadi. Tonight, I have neither. But, I found a super small crown of broccoli left in the fridge, from making quesadillas last week. Hurray!

Recipe:
1 small potato
1 small crown of broccoli
2 garlic cloves
1/2 tsp powder of roasted fenugreek seeds/మెంతి పిండి
1 table sp chilli powder or to taste
1 tea spoon salt
1/8 tsp turmeric powder
Juice of half a lime
Urad dal, channa dal, mustard seeds, cumin, curry leaves and a table spoon oil for tempering.

Pick potato(es) that are fresh and firm and without bruises. Wash both the vegetables. Peel, if using russet potato, else leave the skin on. That ensures that alu pieces retain the crunch even after a couple of days. Cut alu into small pieces and broccoli into small florets. Crush the garlic cloves with fenugreek/methi powder/మెంతి పిండి.  The aroma of garlic and the other spices took me back to the summer months in India when I used to help my mother make mango pickle. That made me even more hungry. Add rest of the ingredients, mix well and set aside for a few hours. Over night is usually good. Pickled vegetables soak up the lime juice, salt and other spices by the next day. Tempering is always the last step in the case of pickles, dals or pulusulu/vegetables stews. Just before serving, heat oil in a sauce pan, add dals, mustard and cumin seeds. When they start to crackle, add curry leaves, cover the sauce pan and turn off the stove. Covering ensure less mess around the stove and less greasy hood filters.  I usually use a small sauce pan for seasoning (పోపు గిన్నె) rather than the cute seasoning pans we get in India because, sauce pan is much deeper and more vertical. Less splatters and my grates stay cleaner longer. Also,  it doesn’t wobble like the cutie one. After it cools down a bit, add to the pickle and enjoy with steaming rice. I like this best with curd rice. Smack!

I personally think that Alu-cauliflower pacchadi tastes better than Alu-broccoli; cannot beat that combination. Broccoli florets seem to turn limp after 24 hours. Not so with cauliflower. They stay crisp longer and really pickle good. So does carrot.