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2 RECIPES GIVEN AT END OF BLOG
Food Bloopers And Food Bliss
I remember being very sensory as a young kid and enjoying flavours and the energy of food, which helped to ground me. I would never touch sugars or butters as a child. My mom was happy that some of the sugar laden Indian sweets as well as colas were things I actively despised. I am much more connected to these flavours now. I was also traumatised by certain foods, when I was forced to have them, because someone else thought that it was good for me. So raw eggs beaten in warm milk were my nemesis. I remember being covered in hives at the mere thought of them, and my solar plexus would be churned into knotted disgust. I knew my mom's intentions were good, so I could discuss this with her much later and we both laughed about it. It adds to the many comedic episodes in our lives.
I was not a fussy eater and loved my veggies and grains. I was just a bit more sensitised than my immediate family when it came to certain food choices. I could feel the impact it had on my thinking and feeling process. There were times, as the flavours and their prana popped in my mouth and rolled on my tongue, I was in thoughtless states of bliss. An immersion into the mooladhara (root), swadhisthana (sacral) and manipura (solar plexus) chakras can provide us with this experience, when we are purified. Have you tasted sugar after going on a cleanse? You will find all the flavours are richer and pop. You will also become more sensitised to the vibration of the food.
Vattayappam And Jackfruit Curry From My Great Grandmother
This recipe is dedicated to my great grandmother. She was the mother of my paternal grandmother who we visited in the summers when I was younger, in Kottayam, Kerala. She lived to a good ninety years as she managed her cacao plantation. I still remember the lush greenery with a lake and river on the property and all the beautiful ducks that happily waddled around. She had two children: my grandmother, who was a doctor in Chennai and her son, who was a professor in South Africa. She wanted her son's kids to be raised in India, so the four of them lived with her.
When The White Cocoa Pulp Meant More Than The Brown Pods
I have fond memories of opening the ripe pods and eating the fleshy white fruit that covered the cocoa bean, not realising at that time that the seeds I threw away were the ones that were prized and harvested. I have a clear memory of being careful to avoid big red ants crawling on the plants, as I reached for the ripe pods. Everything was so fresh, vibrant and smelt of love. It was heady to be so close to the soil, in the warmth.
Cooking Outdoors Is Another Way Of Grounding
The food was cooked outdoors most of the time, wrapped in leaves and buried in the earth, smelling of clay, the leaves and all the beautiful flavours of the vegetables, tubers and spices bathed and boiled in coconut milk. The freshly squeezed coconut milk tasted infinitely better than the canned milk we get in stores. But, with all I have to do here in Vancouver, I choose canned over having to milk a coconut myself!
Everything Was Fresh Including The Chickens
One minute the chickens were there on the farm and the next minute they were gone. It made me see how much power we wielded over another's life. By sixteen I realised, as much as I loved the spices and coconut milk gravy, I was not going to have the meat. I learnt to fit in to survive, so I made it seem I was doing my brother a favour by offering him the meat from my dishes. My mom still jokes about it to this day. I also had the support of my maternal grandparents who were pure vegetarians because of their brahminic upbringing. So I ended up spending more time with them.
Food, to me, was love and I was not going to refuse it or be fussy when I visited my Syrian Christian part of the family. I would just make adjustments, as we say in India, when I was younger. Sometimes I would eat just the veggies or the gravy from the meat dish and pray for the animals that passed. Now that I live in my own space, I do not even buy milk or milk products.
Toddy Is The Secret Ingredient
Vattayappam is traditionally made from rice batter fermented using toddy. Toddy is fermented coconut sap and many villagers in India overdose on it to get high! I loved it as it lent a unique sour smell and taste to my favourite vattayappams. I loved the smell of those beautiful fermented rice cakes. And with just that light hint of sweetness they were my ultimate indulgence. My mom did not make it in Chennai, in Tamil Nadu, as toddy was not easy to come by. I was determined to recreate vattayappams in Vancouver and made my makeshift toddy here by leaving the brand, bottled coconut water outside for a month. It ferments well because it is in a glass bottle. I have used it to make appams before. Also, instead of soaking rice, I used organic brown rice flour and made some changes to honour the fact that I did not have a spate of maids, helpers and cooks at my beck and call like my great grandmother or my grandmothers did. The smell and taste were the same. However, since I also added some amaranth flour for protein, the consistency was denser than I remembered.
Jackfruit Curry To Pair With The Vattayappam
Kerala has mastered the art of using the jackfruit tree to the maximum. Right from payasam - a kind of kheer or liquidish pudding - to myriads of desserts made out of coconut milk and ripe jackfruit, to curries made out of raw jackfruit, to sambar made from the jackfruit seed, it is a well utilised fruit. I still have fond memories of a jackfruit dessert steamed in the edana leaf into cones or kumbils. Some called the leaf itself the kumbil leaf as it was so identified with the dessert. I will recreate that in Vancouver as best as I can and let you know how that goes.
I got an organic, canned version of raw jackfruit for the curry to go with the vattayappam, as getting the whole fruit and skinning it is quite the laborious process. I pretty much get most of my ingredients fresh and organic from the farmers markets, so I decided a little bit of a compromise on these was ok.
Recipe For Vattayappam
Prep time: 5 mins
Fermentation time: overnight
Cooking time: 15 to 20 mins
3/4 cup organic brown rice flour
1/4 cup amaranth flour (optional and can use white rice flour instead if you want it less dense)
1/2 cup (approx.) of the fermented coconut water. I do not measure and add enough until it is a dosa batter like consistency - thick yet liquid enough to be able to ladle easily and spread in a pan
1 tsp brown sugar
1/4 tsp salt
Method
1) Mix all ingredients in a large bowl and leave covered overnight in a warm place.
2) The next day lightly mix batter and spoon into a metal bowl that can be used for steaming the steaming bowl should fit fully inside the pot. For steaming, add 2 cups of water to a pot and bring to a boil. Place the lid over the pot to seal in the steam. Steam this for 20 minutes.
3) Once it cools cut into 8 or 6 pieces like pizza slices.
This is a great accompaniment for curries like rice and idlis. You can also make a sweet version of this by increasing the sugar and adding cardamom powder.
If you wish to make it from scratch then soak 1 cup of uncooked rice for 2 hours. Blend it with water to make a thick batter and leave it overnight to ferment
Recipe For Jackfruit Curry
1/4 tsp Fenugreek seeds - these are bitter and lend a unique flavour, so use to taste
1 shallot finely chopped - this is the star flavour
2 tsp coconut oil
1/4 can coconut cream
1 can organic raw jackfruit - Both Cha's and Indigo Foods brands make this it and the latter is more cost effective
1 tsp Ginger turmeric paste
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp garam masala powder
1/2 tsp salt or to taste
The ginger turmeric paste is my ayurvedic hack. I blend up a bunch of ginger with 1/4 the amount of turmeric and refrigerate it. Many Indian recipes call for ginger garlic paste. However I substitute this to keep it more sattvic. This means that garlic had on a daily basis may be too activating for the nervous system and dulling for the mind. It is recommended to fight off infections but not to be consumed regularly.
Method
There are two ways of cooking the raw jackfruit. If you want to get rid of the smell of citric acid or lemon that preserves it in the can then you can boil it in lots of water, adding a spoon of salt and turmeric. Remember to drain the water in the can and wash before. Boil for 20 minutes before adding to the curry. Or you can add to the curry directly and most of the new curry flavours should be absorbed into the jackfruit.
1) Boil jackfruit in a pot, with water to submerge, adding turmeric and salt
2) In a pan, add a couple of teaspoons of coconut oil. Add fenugreek seeds to heated oil
3) In a minute or two add the cut shallots and saute till lightly browned
4) Add ginger turmeric paste and saute for 3 to 4 minutes
5) Then add coconut milk, cumin powder and salt to taste
6) Add the boiled cut jackfruit pieces and a little water
7) Cover and simmer for 5 minutes
8) Add garam masala and simmer for another 5 to 10 minutes till gravy thickens into paste