South Indian

Most times you ask someone from North India what cuisine they enjoy eating out, and you'll get an instant reply, "South Indian". Of course, it's another matter that for most North Indians, South Indian means idli dosa. I was mighty pained when my husband's uncle, meeting me for the first time after we had gotten married, promptly said in a would-be-south-Indian accent, "tum Idli-vada khaata?" ( You eat idli-vada?). Any kind of stereotyping gets my goat. Not that I don't enjoy idlis and dosas as much as anyone originating south of the Vindhyas, of course.

The trouble with having dosas at a restaurant up north where I live is that the accompaniments are completely tasteless. The chutney is a bland travesty of the authentic chutney, made only of ground coconut with a tempering. The sambar or huli as we call it in Karnataka is a weird, too-sour concoction with tomatoes and a strange assortment of vegetables as diverse as okra, onions and beans floating in a pale soup. We South Indians have very specific vegetable combinations that can be used in huli. The only thing that's up to par is the actual dosa itself.

Some time ago, I had a major craving for dosa with its traditional accompaniments and since mom was out of action with a hurt leg, decided that I would make it from scratch. I went to great efforts to ensure authenticity, from buying the special paper-dosa type frying pan to making the chutney and gunpowder. The only cheat – I bought MTR's instant dosa mix J. On the other hand, MTR is a revered Bangalore trademark for the best of South Indian cuisine so I guess I didn't stray too far.

The whole ritual of eating dosais for breakfast is an experience. The dosas are made one at a time and served hot, fresh off the pan, with dollops of salty and sour flavourful chutney, spicy sambar and gunpowder. It's a lovely mix of flavours and textures - the crisp dosais, the yielding, liquidey chutney, the spicy huli amd the crunchy gunpowder. It's almost a competition to see who can eat more dosas until everyone is stuffed to bursting point. And then the finale - hot South Indian filter coffee, served in stainless steel glasses, tumblers, as we call them, with a thin layer of froth on top. Dosa is usually described by 5-star hotels as a 'crisp lentil pancake, served with coconut relish and a spicy lentil broth'. On second thought, that's a pretty good description, so here I leave you with a smiley picture of my traditional South Indian breakfast…

PS. The recipe for gunpowder

Gunpowder is also known as molaha pudi, which roughly translated means pepper powder. It's a spicy mix of lentils and dried red chillies, guaranteed to blow the roof of your mouth off. Unless, of course, you know the trade secret: to your portion of gunpowder, add about 1/2 - 1 tbsp sesame seed oil or, failing that, home made ghee, and mix it well together until you get a chutney-like texture. The oil or ghee adds a wonderful aroma that's part of the experience

Ingredients:

1 cup chana dal

1 cup urad dal

10-15 dried red chillies

Handful sesame seeds

Roast all the ingredients using 1-2 drops of oil, one by one. When cool, grind to a fine powder and mix, with salt to taste.

This is my entry for MLLA – 9, hosted by Laurie.

My Legume Love Affair - Pateele Wale Chhole

This is my entry for My Legume Love Affair, hosted by Susan, who began it all...

Delhi is famous for its incredible variety of street food, from chaat - which literally means finger-licking good - to sweets to seasonal specialities. One of my favourites, and yet a recent discovery, is Pateele wale chhole. Pateela means deep vessel, and chhole is a Delhi shorthand for legumes. In this case, the chhole refers to dried white peas, and the pateela refers to brass pots - wide mouthed and wide based, in which the chhole is cooked. This is served with kulcha, one of the few leavened breads of India. Kulche, plural of kulcha, are white, spongy, flat and oblong in shape and apart from a slightly sour tang from the leavening process, practically tasteless. They do have the advantage, however, of being fat free and a perfect accompaniment to anything that's tangy.

My mom in law loves this dish and used to frequently buy it from one of the streetside vendors for lunch. The vendors somehow always get the taste just right, and as they wheel their carts into place, your mouth starts watering from the remembered deliciousness of the dish. I recently had this after a long time at an office lunch party and my tastebuds thrilled to the taste and told me I had to figure out how to make this at home.

Turns out, it wasn't that hard. Of course, it takes a little patience - for one thing you have to soak the peas overnight. But otherwise they're a breeze to make. And easy to customise as to level of heat, since each portion is dished up and garnished individually. And they are delicious with rotis, bread, toast or just by themselves as a healthy snack. Tart and tangy, a little spicy and salty, they are addictively chatpata ( which means tart and tangy, a little spicy and salty!). Somehow they bring out the meaning of the word chaat even while being healthy - the best kind of food!

Ingredients:

1 cup dried white peas, soaked for 8 hours and then boiled/ pressure-cooked in salted water until soft, almost pulpy

1 tbsp cumin powder

1 tbsp coriander seed ( dhania) powder

Salt to taste

1 tsp vegetable oil

1 onion, finely chopped

Handful of coriander leaves, chopped

1 lemon, cut into wedges

2-3 green chillies, finely chopped

Heat the oil in a wok. Once hot, turn the heat down and add the coriander and cumin powder. Stir and continue to cook for 1 minute, till they start turning a darker shade of brown. Drain and add the peas, reserving about a cupful of the water they were cooked in. Add salt and the reserved water and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the spices and salt are well-blended with the peas.

To serve, dish up in a bowl, top with some of the chopped onions, then garnish with the coriander leaves and as much of the chillies as each person cares for, and add a squeeze of lime.

Tip: To make them less gassy, add a tsp of baking soda while boiling the peas. You can also add julienned ginger to the garnisg for the same purpose.