An Exact Recipe for a "Chaotic" Dish

I am back after being AWOL for nearly a month! Sometimes, work does get in the way of blogging. Over the past weeks, I have been cooking, maybe not as frequently as usual; instead making big pots of one dish and eating it over a few days. During busy times, there are a few tried-and-tested recipes that I keep going back to. These dishes are always
a) pantry-ingredient based
b) nutritious
c) hearty and comforting, so that they just hit the spot at the end of a long weary day.

A great advantage for a home cook is to have a few easy dinner recipes down pat. Those that you can throw together almost mechanically, without having to consult a recipe or having to rummage through the kitchen for a long list of ingredients. It certainly helps if the dish gets ready in less time than it would take for a bag of greasy take-out to arrive at your door.

One such recipe is "khichdi". A blend of rice and lentils cooked together, it offers both carbs and protein in one nutritious package. Since khichdi is one of those inexact dishes where you can dump in almost anything you can think off, the word "khichdi" in Hindi also colloquially means "chaos".
Chaos is fine, but anyone attempting to make khichdi for the first time might like a recipe, so here is mine, tried and tested. The inspiration for this khichdi is the traditional Gujarati-style khichdi, made from moong beans which have their skins on:

I love the way this lentil cooks with the rice resulting in the perfect consistency. NYC has been so rainy, damp, chilly and miserable in the past few days: this khichdi got made several times, I can tell ya!

Moong Dal Khichdi

Prep. Time: 30 minutes (only 5-10 minutes active time), Serves 2-3

Ingredients:
1/2 cup moong dal (the kind shown above, available in Indian stores)
1/2 cup rice
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
2 tbsp minced onion
1 clove garlic, minced
5-6 curry leaves
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp red chilli powder
1 tsp coriander powder
salt to taste
1 tbsp oil
Method:
1. Heat oil, then temper with the cumin and mustard seeds.
2. Add onion, garlic, curry leaves and saute for a minute.
3. Add turmeric, red chilli powder, coriander powder and salt and stir for a few seconds.
4. Add the rice, dal and 3 cups water.
5. Bring to a boil, then simmer until everything cooks together as a mushy, delicious mix.

Notes:
1. This recipe is best done in a pressure cooker, but can certainly also work on the stove-top in a covered pot.
2. If you have veggies on hand, saute a cup of diced veggies (peas, zucchini, cauliflower, carrot work well) between step 2 and 3, and add another 1/2 cup of water in step 4.
3. A great variation is "gili" or wet khichdi, in which you would add another cup of water at step 4, resulting in a slurpy, soupy consistency.
4. Serve with a dollop of ghee and some pickle on the side, if desired. I served this last night with some sauteed red cabbage-and-peas.

I'll see you again in 3-4 days (promise!). Thanks for being patient!

Destination: New York City

Maki of "I was just really hungry" (I certainly identify with that feeling!) is hosting an exciting event called Food Destinations. The challenge is to answer the question: "If my favorite foodie came to town, where would I take her/him?"

Which is certainly a huge challenge for me. The problem with living in the legendary Gotham City is that everything that had to be said about it food-wise has already been said. Or has it? Well, I fall into a certain demographic: an Indian vegetarian graduate student who has been living in NYC for half a decade. This means that the places I eat out at are veggie-friendly and super super cheap. Well, for what its worth, and in no particular order, here is my NYC foodie list:



Very New York Eats ...If you visit NYC, don't leave without tasting these three foods. They have one thing in common...CARBS baby, yeah!

1. Bagels: Much much more than simply a doughnut-shaped bread, bagels are traditionally boiled before being baked. A good bagel is chewy without being stodgy. You can find many great Bagel places in the city. Choose from a huge variety of bagels (sesame, poppy seed, plain, onion, jalapeno or the "everything bagel" ) and a myriad of cream cheeses (my two favorites are walnut raisin and vegetable). The picture above shows a sesame bagel with walnut-raisin cream cheese. V once ordered a jalapeno bagel with strawberry cream cheese, and now he wonders why everyone at Bagelworks (our local bagel place, where they make 'em right on the premises) gives him scared looks.

2. Thin-crust Pizza: There are entire blogs devoted to the noble search for good pizza in NYC, so go look for good options there.

3. Cheesecake: My personal favorite has got to be a tiny cozy bakery called "Two Little Red Hens" at 85th street and 2nd avenue. To my delight, a favorite blogger of mine loves this place too! Cheesecake is very easy to mess up (too sweet, too dense, too pasty...) but this bakery does it right.

Globe-trotting On The Subway... NYC is blessed with extraordinary diversity. For the royal sum of $2.00, you can hop on the subway and go visit the ethnic enclaves of Russia (Brighton Beach), India (Jackson Heights) or Greece (Astoria). So the next on the list:

4. Think of a country, any country that you like to visit, and then go eat in a restaurant that serves that cuisine. The internet is a wonderful resource for finding restaurants in NYC. One of my favorites: Ghenet for Ethiopian cuisine...there is something wonderful about getting together with friends and having a communal meal, Ethiopian style. Another good place for big group lunches is the self-explanatory Vegetarian Dim Sum House in Chinatown.

In the mood for Indian?...Try these (all of these next three restaurants are in the Murray Hill area of Manhattan, now informally referred to as Curry Hill):

5. Gujarati Thali: Show-casing the cuisine of the Western Indian state of Maharashtra, Vatan has some crazy decor, with the fake village scenes and all, but the food is amazing, and with the "unlimited" thali (multi-course) meal, you have to roll home at the end of the filling meal.

6. Southern Indian: Chennai Garden has impressively authentic South Indian fare (certified by V, who is Tamilian and M, who is a Kannadiga, so you don't have to take a Marathi girl's word for it). Try the "Gunpowder Masala Dosa" if you dare!

7. Indian-Chinese: You have to try this strange mingling of two very different cuisines. Every Indian I know gets regular cravings for Gobi Manchurian. And when that happens, it is Chinese Mirch to the rescue! Apart from favorites like Hakka noodles, try the crispy okra, which is not "authentic" Chinese-Indian, but addictive all the same.

Random foodie things...

8. Picnic in Central Park: Drop into any one of Manhattan's superb food stores: Zabar's, or Whole Foods, or even Gourmet Garage if you are a budget gourmet like me, and buy a baguette, a wedge of Brie, some fruit, kettle cooked potato chips and some fresh cookies, smuggle a bottle of wine into a bag, and go off and have a picnic in Central Park. Central park is the backyard of the whole city, and a great place for watching New Yorkers during their time off.

9. The Herb Garden at The Cloisters: This is an unsual one, but it is so worth trekking uptown and taking a look at The Cloisters, the medieval collection of the Met. The medieval herb garden is very cute, and the whole place is very charming. Foodie stuff apart, the unicorn tapestries are simply stunning (I was actually speechless for once in my life).

10. Hot Chocolate: To end the list on a sweet note, don't miss the hot chocolate at City Bakery (Union Square). I don't even like chocolate to be very honest, but that thick creamy hot chocolate is absolutely divine. If you happen to visit in February, it will be VERY cold and you will need hot chocolate anyway, so we are lucky that City Bakery conveniently has a Hot Chocolate Festival that whole month!

What can I say, it is a cliche, but I *heart* NY!

Click on the button for the round up of "Food Destinations" ...thanks, Maki, for hosting this event!

Warli Paintings

I can't help sharing some lovely art-work with you. For the most part, this is a non-food post, but there is a food connection, I promise!
The story is that my parents have a big old water-tank in their backyard. Left to itself, it is a bit of an eyesore, with three large cement walls exposed to the garden. So my parents creatively treat the three sides as canvases and everyone who is so inclined is invited to paint their own masterpiece on the canvas. Made with oil-based paints, these art-works last for a few months till the elements beat them down.
Last month, my parents invited my aunt, cousin and sister to be the artists (the former two are actually professional artists, the latter is a finance wiz-kid but a born artist all the same). They were inspired by some very lovely tribal folk-art of Maharashtra, Warli Paintings made by the Warli tribe. These folk artists use rice flour paste as their medium (see the food connection!) to make simple plain white line drawings that are transformed into astounding visual imagery with sheer creativity. Read more about Warli art here.

Here is what the three artists in the family came up with (to see the pictures up close, click on them to go to the flickr site where you can view them at a larger size):

The first side depicts daily village life. A little hut with busy inhabitants, girls skipping rope, daily chores of fetching water, whimsical depictions of flora and fauna:


The second side depicts dancers and musicians at a wedding party. Notice the string of mango leaves at the top? Those are considered very auspicious during Hindu celebrations.


The third side depicts a wedding scene...the bride and the groom riding a horse, being trailed by more revelers.


How do you like it?

Jihva For Mangoes, With a Side of Ambe Dal

Oh, it is so nice to be back and blogging again! I just got back from a whirlwind trip of India, exhausted but happy. I just want to say a huge THANK YOU to all those wonderful people who left comments full of good wishes on my last post. I read and cherished each one of them but unfortunately never got the time to reply to each one.

I was so excited to come back and read about Indira's brand-new food blogging event: Jihva for Ingredients (JFI) where each month, we will focus on an Indian ingredient. I was even more excited to read the theme for this month: Mangoes! After all, I just got back from India where it was the very peak of mango season. This is just the perfect event for a first post after my blogging hiatus!

My parents' backyard in Kolhapur is dominated by a huge, old mango tree. Every summer, this tree sags under the weight of hundreds of wonderful alphonso mangoes. At the beginning of summer, the raw mangoes are used to cook a variety of dishes, and preserved in the form of many delicious pickles to be relished throughout the year. This year, the kairis (raw mangoes) were used to make "chhunda" a sweet-and-sour mango relish (I returned from my trip bearing two bottles of this delicious sticky stuff). Last year, the tree produced a huge crop of mangoes and there were a lot left over even after they were shared with neighbors, friends and acquaintances. My ever-resourceful parents managed to find a fruit-canning factory and to persuade them to can some of these mangoes. So lucky me, I also brought back two cans of mangoes with me.
Here is a picture of the backyard mango tree, taken from the window of the upper-floor bedroom that my sister and I shared when we were kids:

Can you spot these in the picture?
1. Branches of a coconut tree (a neighbour of the mango tree)
2. Branches of a "chikoo" tree (the other neighbor of the mango tree)
3. Two ropes...these are part of a little swing that hangs from the mango tree

For the "Jihva for Mangoes" event, I chose a typical Marathi dish called Ambe Dal. In the summer months, when the sweltering heat overpowers the afternoons, people are not often in the mood for hot tea. Panha, the mango drink that I wrote about in the A-Z of Marathi food, is often served in place of tea at afternoon events during these months. The traditional snack that accompanies the panha is this ambe dal. A cool, spicy, tart relish, ambe dal provides a great counterpoint to the sweet panha. Dal-Panha events are something to look forward to!

Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of the ambe dal to show you. The reason: I left the camera with V in India (he was to return this week but is facing some visa processing delays) so until he gets back, I have no camera! I had a choice between blogging sans pictures or not blogging at all, and I thought I would go ahead and blog and insert pictures at a later time.

Edited on 5/2 to add: I do have a picture to show you!!! My wonderful parents in India actually made ambe dal and took this picture and mailed it to me so that I could share it with you :) How sweet is that! Thanks, Aai and Baba for this fantastic picture!




Ambe Dal
Serves 2-3 as a snack, Preparation Time: 15 minutes (not including soaking time)
Ingredients:
1 cup chana dal (split Bengal gram, available at Indian grocery stores)
1/2 cup raw mango, peeled and grated coarsely
2 tbsp minced cilantro
2 tbsp grated coconut
pinch of sugar
salt to taste
For tempering:
1 tbsp oil
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
4-5 curry leaves
2 red chillies, broken into pieces
Method:
1. Soak the chana dal for 4-6 hours, then rinse several times and drain.
2. Grind the chana dal into a coarse semi-dry consistency.
3. For tempering, heat oil, then add the rest of the ingredients. Add tempering into the dal and mix well.
4. Add the salt, sugar, mango, cilantro and coconut into the dal, mix well and serve.

I can't wait to see all the amazing mango recipes that everyone comes up with. Thanks, Indira, for hosting (and being the brainchild behind) this wonderful event!

A to Z of Marathi Food: Round-Up

We have finished our alphabetical Marathi journey, and it was so much fun! For those who joined me late, there is a section called "A to Z of Marathi Food" conveniently placed in the drop-down "Recipe Index" in the right margin of the blog, so that any letter can be looked up easily.

Vital Stats:
1. Time it took to cover the alphabet: 6 months (11th September 2005 to 11th March 2006).
2. Most popular recipe: Egg Rassa
3. Number of dishes made: 33

Why did I do this series? I have a deep love for regional food. The kind of food that you cannot buy in a generic restaurant. The kind which requires an invitation into someone's home, where it is made by loving hands and served with pride. I always wanted to represent Marathi food on One Hot Stove and while thinking about this on a long subway ride (the "6" train downtown if you must know), two quintissentially Marathi dishes that came to my mind were "amti" and "zunka". Hey, wait, that's an A and a Z! How fun would it be to make a dish from every letter of the alphabet? I pulled out a used envelope and a pencil from my purse and scratched out all the letters and started jotting down possible recipes to make. To my surprise, it was very easy to fill up most of the alphabets (save I, J, O, X, Y...you know I had to "cheat" on these). But would anyone be interested? I tentatively wrote the "A" post and was startled by the interest shown by many readers...and the rest just followed on its own.


Why did I choose the recipes that I did? I am a home cook, with the task of making everyday meals. By this criterion, I chose recipes that were easy, tasty and nutritious. Which means that I did not make many sweets (like ladoos and pedhas), fried foods (of which there are dozens) and elaborate preparations (like bakarwadi and puran-poli), choosing instead to make simpler preparations that are ideal for everyday meals. Some of these dishes are unique to Marathi cuisine while others are popular in different parts of India in one version or another. It was amazing to discover this "unity in diversity"!

Is this the end of Marathi food on "One Hot Stove"? Absolutely not! I am not going to do another series on Marathi food (not just yet, anyway), but will continue to try many new Marathi recipes and share them with you.

The Complete Marathi Menu

Dals and Curries
1. Amti (Marathi-style Dal)
2. Chavli Amti (Black-eyed Peas)
3. Egg Rassa (Egg Curry)
4. Moogambat (Sprouted Mung Bean Curry)
5. Pithale (Chickpea Flour Curry)
6. Solkadi
7. Usal

Rice
1. Dalimbay Bhaat (Sprouted Beans Pilaf)
2. Vaangi Bhaat (Eggplant Pilaf)
3. Waran-Bhaat
4. Dahi Bhaat (Yogurt Rice)

Vegetables
1. Bhendi Fry (Fried Okra)
2. Bharli Vaangi (Stuffed Baby Eggplants)
3. Fanas Bhaji (Green Jackfruit Stir-fry)
4. Ratala Kees (Grated Sweet Potato)
5. Cabbage Zunka
6. Eggplant Kaap (Eggplant Slices)
7. Kothimbir Vadi (Savory Cilantro Cake)

Condiments
1. Hiravi Chutney (Green Chutney)
2. Lasun Chutney (Garlic Chutney)
3. Koshimbir (Vegetable-Yogurt Salad)

Snacks
1. Chivda (Flattened Rice)
2. Farazbi Patties (Green Bean Patties)
3. Jaali Chips (Potato Chips)
4. Onion bhajjis (Onion Fritters)
5. Bhadang (Puffed Rice)

One-dish meals
1. Misal
2. Thalipeeth (Multi-Grain Pancake)

Sweets
1. Gharge (Fried Pumpkin Bread)
2. Imperial Cocktail (Ice-cream Sundae)
3. Naaral Wadi (Coconut Fudge)
4. Sheera (Semolina Pudding)

Beverages
1. Panha (Mango Drink)

Popular Marathi dishes made outside of this series:
1. Sabudana (Sago) Khichdi
2. Batata Vada (Stuffed Potato Fritters)
3. Dodka Bhaji (Ridge Gourd Curry)
4. Shevaya Kheer (Semolina Pudding)
5. Bharli Mirchi (Stuffed Peppers)
6. Vaalache Bhirde (Hyacinth Bean Curry)
7. Paratlele Batate (Pan-fried Potatoes)
8. Kolhapuri Bakarwadi
9. Microwave Sabudana Khichdi


Typical Maharashtrian dishes tried and loved (from fellow bloggers):
1. Masale Bhaat from Ashwini

2. Microwave Besan Ladoo from Tee

3. Microwave Besan Ladoo from Nandita


More Maharashtrian Recipes from the Bloggers: Regional Cuisine event
Part I
Part II
Part III

Suggestions for Marathi Menus:

1. Humble Fare
Cabbage Zunka
Garlic Chutney
Plain steamed rice
Yogurt
Sliced onion

2. Luxurious Sunday Lunch
Farazbi patties
Egg rassa
Jeera rice
Koshimbir
Sheera

3. Tea Party
Masala chai
Onion bhajji
Bhadang
Naaral wadi

4. Home-style Weekday Dinner
Amti
Plain steamed rice
Bhendi fry
Koshimbir

5. Marathi-style Chaat Party
Misal
Chivda (garnished with raw onion, cilantro and lemon juice)
Panha

6. Light Dinner
Thalipeeth
Hiravi Chutney
Plain yogurt

7. Home-Alone Meal
Pithale
Plain steamed rice
Mango pickle


What next?
A few weeks ago, I was invited to my friend SR's home for dinner. SR lovingly prepared a complete vegetarian Bengali feast...Clockwise from bottom right, you can see (a) Cauliflower curry (b) Cholaar dal (chana dal) (c) posto'r bora (poppy seed-potato patties) (d) Tomato chutney (e) Dhokaar daalnaa (chana dal squares in tomato gravy) (f) steamed rice. All the flavors were so wonderful and exotic, I was left licking my fingers and relishing every morsel.

This dinner really brought it home to me...I love regional Indian food and want to study it more closely. SR and I are from one country, but we find each other's cuisines so novel. After exploring my own regional cuisine, I am ready to spread my wings and explore the whole country. So my next series is going to be a journey through all of India, stopping in every region and talking about its food and culture, learning some new recipes and tasting some new flavors. I want to make a little map where we can track our journey as we go along, down the west coast and up the east, then into the interior. Would you like to come along on this all-India foodie trek?

Finally, the announcement...
(Raise your hand if you skipped everything above and scrolled down to this bit) :) :)
Life in the next several weeks is going to get busy for me...I am about to take a ride on the matrimony pony. Yes, V and I are getting married on the 12th of April in India. We are both also reaching career milestones: V will defend his doctoral thesis and earn his PhD in two weeks, and I am in the final months of my own doctoral research.
In light of this whirlwind of events, One Hot Stove will be quiet for several weeks. I am going on a blogging hiatus till the end of April or so. I will be back with lots of foodie pictures from my India trip. If I get time, I'll stop by with some short posts for sure! Ciao!

Z is for ZUNKA

This article is part of a special series called "The A-Z of Marathi food". India is the land of diversity. Each of the 28 states in India has a unique cuisine but the Indian food served in restaurants represents only a tiny fraction of our culinary heritage. I come from the western Indian state of Maharashtra. Capital: Bombay (Mumbai). Population: 96 million (only 11 countries in the world have a population higher than Maharashtra). Language: Marathi. Traditional Marathi food is earthy and humble, diverse and very tasty. It also remains relatively unknown to non-marathis. Its time to change that. I invite you to join me on an alphabetical culinary tour of my state. We will go through the letters A to Z and make a dish with each letter to show-case Marathi cuisine.

Z is for Zunka.

In this final (sob!) letter of this series, we come to the final letter of the alphabet, the letter "Z". This can mean only one thing as far as Marathi food is concerned: a humble and simple dish called zunka. Zunka is a close cousin of "pithale", the dish that we made for the "P" of Marathi food. It is simply a thicker form of pithale, and is also made with just a handful of simple ingredients. The traditional partner of zunka is bhakri, a thick flatbread made with whole grains such as jowar and bajra (these grains are not part of the Western diet, which is a pity, since they are very nutritious). Zunka and Bhakri form the backbone of the rural Marathi diet. It is (a) hearty (b) balanced in terms of "good" carbs and proteins and (c) efficient and portable; the thick zunka can be tucked within a bhakri very conveniently.

In most Marathi homes, rural or not, zunka has an important place as a meal that can be put together from a very lean pantry. If vegetables are on hand, they can be used in the zunka too. In fact, this is a characteristic of Marathi cooking: vegetables are sauteed in some simple spices, then some chickpea flour is stirred into the dish to give it more body, more flavor and add a lot of nutrition (chickpea flour is rich in protein). A small amount of veggies can be used to make enough zunka to feed a family. The cabbage zunka recipe below illustrates this, and also this Marathi Mirchi Bhaji posted by Kay. [Edited to add: Different terminology is used for these preparations: if the dish contains more chickpea flour in proportion to the vegetables then it would be called "zunka", if there are more vegetables, and only a couple of tablespoons of flour, then it would be called "pith-perlele bhaji" which literally translates as "vegetable with flour sowed into it"...thanks to Garam Masala for reminding me to add this note.]
I never have tried making bhakri (shame on me!) but deccanheffalump presents a beautiful Jowar Bhakri recipe
for those who would like to try making it.


Cabbage Zunka

(Serves 3-4, Prep time: 20 minutes)

Ingredients:
1 cup cabbage, shredded
1 small onion, chopped
2 spring onions, cut into fine slices
1 cup chickpea flour (besan)
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp red chilli powder
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1/2 tsp coriander powder
1/2 tsp sugar
salt to taste
Method:
1. Heat oil, then temper with mustard seeds and cumin seeds.
2. Saute the onions, then add turmeric, chilli powder, cumin and coriander powder, salt and sugar and stir for a few seconds.
3. Stir in the cabbage and half of the spring onions.
4. Cover the vegetables and cook for 5-7 minutes till cabbage is tender.
5. Stir in the chickpea flour and saute gently on medium heat. The flour will absorb the veggie juices and cook. Do not add any extra water!
6. Cover and cook on low heat for 4-5 minutes.
7. Garnish with the remaining spring onions.

Zunka is very versatile; it tastes great with rotis or any flatbread, or with rice and yogurt. The spring onions add a wonderful fresh flavor to the dish.

We are not done with this series just yet! I'll be back on Saturday with a special looonnnggg post containing:
a) some parting words about this series; maybe some speculation on what recipe garnered the most interest...
b) a round-up of all the Marathi recipes that we have made...
c) what series I am planning to do next...
d) and an announcement.
Stay tuned!

Y is for YOGURT-RICE

This article is part of a special series called "The A-Z of Marathi food". India is the land of diversity. Each of the 28 states in India has a unique cuisine but the Indian food served in restaurants represents only a tiny fraction of our culinary heritage. I come from the western Indian state of Maharashtra. Capital: Bombay (Mumbai). Population: 96 million (only 11 countries in the world have a population higher than Maharashtra). Language: Marathi. Traditional Marathi food is earthy and humble, diverse and very tasty. It also remains relatively unknown to non-marathis. Its time to change that. I invite you to join me on an alphabetical culinary tour of my state. We will go through the letters A to Z and make a dish with each letter to show-case Marathi cuisine.

Y is for Yogurt Rice.

Moving rapidly to the end of our series, we come to another letter that is quite challenging: the letter "Y". The most important (and, ahem, only) Y food I can think of is Yogurt (called Dahi in Marathi). India loves its dairy foods. From plain old milk and yogurt to rich ghee (clarified butter), dairy products find use in most Indian recipes. Yogurt is especially popular...the lower lactose content of yogurt makes it easier to digest than milk. Almost every household in India will have a little bowl devoted to making home-made yogurt, you just mix some warm milk with starter culture and set it overnight. Those little lactobacilli work their metabolic magic, and in several hours, you have thick, tangy yogurt all ready to be eaten.

The essence of yogurt is its versatility...in addition to being eaten plain, yogurt is used to make an astonishing variety of popular foods. Here is what a theoretical all-yogurt lunch could consist of:
a) Drink: Mattha that I mentioned before, a cool-yet-flavorful drink that is the perfect aperitif.
b) Main course: Dahi Bhaat (Yogurt Rice), which we shall make today.
c) Snack: Dahi Vada, here is my recipe. A delicious chaat perfect for hot summer afternoons.
d) Salad: Koshimbir which we made already for the "K" of Marathi food. Yogurt is the perfect no-fuss dressing for a simple salad.
e) Dessert: Shrikhand, a delicious dessert consisting of flavored thickened yogurt.
f) Candy: Shrikhand Goli...you can buy these tiny candies for a fraction of a rupee in corner stores, I loved them as a kid.
Other states of India have many famous yogurt dishes in their repertoire: such as the sweet yogurt or mishti doi of West Bengal, the okra-in-yogurt-sauce or dahi bhindi of North India and the Gujarati kadhi or sweet yogurt-based curry. I am sure you could all add to this list!

In the US, yogurt seems to be more of a sweet food. Flavored sweetened yogurts are very popular, as are yogurt smoothies, and in Indian restaurants, the ubiquitous mango lassi. In this context, an entree of rice mixed with spiced yogurt would seem downright bizarre. But yogurt-rice is very popular in all of Southern India, including Maharashtra. Plain steamed rice is cooled and then mixed with beaten yogurt tempered with some spices. It is a dish that is eaten cold, perfect during the dog days of summer. It is also a dish that is popular as a packed lunch for picnics and journeys, although I personally happen to think that prepared yogurt-rice tends to dry out and not taste as good as the freshly-made kind. As with any traditional dish, the recipe for yogurt-rice has dozens of variations and this is my own favorite recipe.

One special "spice" that goes into my version of yogurt-rice is fried stuffed chillies. These can be made at home (under the blazing summer sun) or store-bought. A mixture of wonderful spices and yogurt (again!) is stuffed into chillies which have been marked with a slit or holes to allow the spice mixture to seep through. The chillies are dried to a crisp under the sun and stored away. These chillies can be fried at any time to serve as a little side-dish or can be used to flavor yogurt-rice. Here are some of these little beauties...the ones on the right I found in a local store, sold as "Swad Dahi Chillies" and the fat one on the left was bought in India.


Dahi Bhaat (Yogurt Rice)


Ingredients:
2 cups cooked cooled rice
1 and 1/2 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup milk
For tempering:
2 tsp oil
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
5-6 curry leaves
1 tsp urad dal
1 tsp chana dal
1 tsp minced fresh ginger
salt to taste
For garnish
3-4 stuffed chillies (dahi chillies)
oil for frying chillies
2 tbsp minced cilantro for garnish
Method:
1. Heat some oil and deep-fry the chillies (a few seconds in hot oil is enough to do this). Drain them and set aside.
2. Remove most of the oil from the pan, leaving only 2 tsp behind. Heat this oil and add all the tempering ingredients. Saute briefly till they are aromatic and set aside.
3. In a large bowl, whip together the milk and yogurt to form a smooth paste. Stir in the tempering and crushed fried chillies.
4. Stir in the rice gently. Garnish with cilantro and serve right away.

Notes:
1. I like serving this rice with some Indian-style stir-fried vegetable for a complete meal.
2. If the yogurt you have on hand is too tangy, add a teaspoon of sugar to balance out the flavor.


We shall meet in two days for the letter "Z". I have known for months what I will be making for this letter...would you like to hazard a guess?

X is for Xtra-Refreshing PANHA

This article is part of a special series called "The A-Z of Marathi food". India is the land of diversity. Each of the 28 states in India has a unique cuisine but the Indian food served in restaurants represents only a tiny fraction of our culinary heritage. I come from the western Indian state of Maharashtra. Capital: Bombay (Mumbai). Population: 96 million (only 11 countries in the world have a population higher than Maharashtra). Language: Marathi. Traditional Marathi food is earthy and humble, diverse and very tasty. It also remains relatively unknown to non-marathis. Its time to change that. I invite you to join me on an alphabetical culinary tour of my state. We will go through the letters A to Z and make a dish with each letter to show-case Marathi cuisine.

X is for Xtra refreshing PANHA.

After a bit of a break, we arrive at another wild-card letter: the mysterious "X". These wild card letters give me a chance to come back to some beloved foods that I somehow missed out on during our journey. This time, while wondering what food to make for "X", I thought about all the foods I made from A to W. We have tried many rice dishes, vegetables and dals, even a condiment or two. One category that is conspicuous by its absence is beverages. We cannot do a whole series on Marathi food without touching on this important class of "not-quite-food foods"!

Most of India has three seasons: hot, hotter and hottest; a constant intake of water and beverages is required to keep your cool in this kind of weather. At the height of summer, the mercury is off the charts, vapor rises off the boiling streets and people are overcome with fatigue and lethargy. A cool drink at this time is just the thing one needs. The most popular beverage is, somewhat counter-intuitively, drunk piping hot: chaha or chai, strong black tea with milk and sugar. Among the cold beverages, the most popular are syrups of various fruits, collectively called sarbat. The easiest one to make is limbu sarbat, by mixing some sugar and salt into lemon juice and diluting it with ice-cold water. Yes, unlike in the US, Indian lemonade always contains a hefty pinch of salt, I think this is to replace the electrolytes that the body loses due to constant sweating. Other popular "sarbats" are made with the kokum fruit and mango pulp. Generally, store-bought bottles of the syrup are stocked in the home, so that a drink can be mixed up at a moment's notice.

Milk-based drinks are also very popular, including simple milk-shakes made by blending fruit pulp with some milk and sugar (mango and chikoo are my personal favorites), and cold coffee made with instant coffee. A wonderful savory drink is called mattha, made by blending yogurt with ginger, salt, coriander powder and cumin seeds. Another favorite milk-based drink is called masala dudh or masala milk, made by adding a mixture of ground nuts and spices into milk, and this can be enjoyed hot or cold.

If you happen to be outside, a delicious drink that is often available for a few rupees is oosacha ras or fresh sugarcane juice. Much of Maharashtra is coastal, which means that coconuts are available a-plenty...street corners and beaches are homes to vendors selling naaral pani or tender coconut water.

For today's letter, I chose my favorite Marathi beverage: panha, a drink made with raw mangoes. As the seasons inch towards the height of summer, around early April, the mango starts making its appearance in the bhaji mandai or vegetable market. If one is lucky, there will be a tree in your backyard so you never have to buy these. Raw mangoes are prized for many seasonal delights, both sweet and savory. Panha is made by cooking chopped raw mangoes with some jaggery (sugar can also be used). The cooked pulp is mashed, seasoned with some salt and cardamom powder and mixed with ice-cold water to make a delicious and refreshing drink. Traditionally, panha is served at many afternoon events during the summer months, the heat during that time makes the thought of hot tea pretty much unbearable! On these occasions, panha is paired with a savory snack called vatali dal, made by grinding together soaked chana dal and grated raw mangoes with some chillies and salt. This dal-panha combo is just a fantastic treat and somehow makes even the harsh summer months worth looking forward to!

PANHA

(makes 2-3 glasses)

Ingredients:
1 raw mango, peeled and chopped (discard seed)
1/4 cup jaggery (unrefined cane sugar)
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cardamom powder
Method:
1. In a saucepan, combine chopped raw mango, jaggery, salt and 1/2 cup water. It does not matter if the jaggery is a large chunk, it will dissolve on boiling. Boil the mixture and simmer for 20-25 minutes or until the mango is soft and falling apart and the jaggery has fully dissolved.
2. Using a blender or food processor, grind the mango mixture to a fine pulp.
3. Strain the pulp to remove any fibers and chunky pieces. Stir in the cardamom powder.
4. Dilute the pulp with chilled water to make the panha. Enjoy!

This quantity of jaggery makes a fairly tart panha (which is how I like it). Do taste the pulp to adjust the sweetness to your taste. It may also vary depending on the tartness of the mango. If you own a pressure cooker, mangoes can be cooked whole in the pressure cooker, then peeled and pulped and mixed with melted jaggery.

We shall meet very soon for the "Y" of Marathi food. Any ideas for this one?