Banana Dippers for you and Dad

So much for posting once a week! But, remember that I said we hit the ground running in June? We did.

Fathers with their children

Happy Father's Day!

Read on...

What kind of a guest are you?

I was a busy hostess in 2006. I had visitors for at least a week almost every month, some even back-to-back. It was a wonderful year because so many friends, clients and colleagues visited us! It was also a year that I remember washing, cleaning, and cooking the most. I vowed to make 2007 the year of Manisha the Guest! I was kidding, of course, but it made me think long and hard about being a guest in someone else's home.

Apart from not sitting on my butt and helping out while I am there, there are some things that I like to do before we leave.

• If I have enough time between waking up and leaving, and I have access to a washer and dryer, I pull all the sheets off the bed, run them through the wash and put them back on the bed.
• If we borrowed towels from our hosts, I wash those, too.
• I clean the bathroom as much as possible.With my unending supply of Lysol wipes, I wipe down all the surfaces, including the washbasin, toilet, bath and floors.
• If I have access to a vacuum cleaner, I clean the carpeted floors of the room we occupied. Or swiffer wooden floors clean.

There are times when I cannot do any of these because we may have to leave at an ungodly hour or the washer may be in a shared laundry. Most of my hosts appreciate my efforts, especially if they work through the week. There are some who would rather you did not get into their cleaning and left them to do it. So I always ask first.

My last few guests were fabulous! Gabi washed all my dishes as I struggled with my errant printer to get her boarding passes printed. Before Thanksgiving, a family of five stayed with us and, despite having a sick child, they cleared up the guest bedroom and the family room so much that it was probably cleaner than when they first arrived!

I take pride in being a good guest. But, unfortunately, that went for a toss when we showed up at Anita's in Delhi with our suitcases of unwashed laundry.

Read on...

Sweet!

How many of you watched the inauguration without a tear in their eye or hope in their heart? It was a fabulous moment in history when Barack Obama was sworn in as President of the United States. Our local schools turned on their classroom TVs to let the children build their own memories. Medha tells me that after the crowd started shouting "No More Bush", her class had their own chant:
No more Bush,
Only Trees

What a great day, yes?!

There were more highlights to the day. The Daily Tiffin was nominated as one of the best group blogs on food! Voting is open until Saturday, January 24th at 8 pm EST. So hurry on over and cast your vote if you think since you know we are doing a good job at The Daily Tiffin.

Vote for The Daily Tiffin

Also, Jen's Use Real Butter has been nominated as one of the Best Food Blogs - Overall. How cool is that?! Jen's photography is mind blowing and her recipes are fantastic. She has a wicked sense of humor and is a real sweetheart. Plus she gives warm genuine hugs. So while you're over at Well Fed feeding their polls, please take a moment to stop by the Best Food Blog category and vote for Jen!

Vote for Use Real Butter

I thought that would be all I would need to make you wonderful readers do but there's one more clickety-click that I found about just now! Aimee of the hilarious and well-written Greeble Monkey holds a monthly Greeblepix competition where she gives away $250 in photo rentals from a local Denver photo shop. This is the first month that one of my pictures is in the top 10 finalists. Voting ends Thursday, January 22nd, 2009 at midnight Mountain time so please go take a look and vote for the best picture from those 10 inspiring images.

I want to be free

And when you're done voting, please come back here to celebrate with my version of Saffron Hut's Coconut Burfi. This has been a hit every time I have made, once I mastered the art of making it, that is. My version is richer and creamier as that was the only solution to get the burfi to 'set'.

Coconut Burfi

Picture courtesy Jen of Use Real Butter

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup frozen unsweetened grated coconut, thawed
• 2 cups heavy whipping cream (1 pint)
  
• 1 tsp ground cardamom
• 2 tbsp sliced almonds
  

1. Combine sugar, cream and coconut and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring frequently.
   
2. Reduce heat to simmer.
3. Cook until the coconut mixture comes together and is very thick. This takes about an hour for me at this altitude.
   
4. Grease an 8x8 inch tray with melted butter.
5. Transfer the coconut mixture to this tray and sprinkle with cardamom powder and sliced almonds.
   
6. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for at least 8 hours.
   
7. Cut into 1 inch diamonds or squares and serve as dessert with vanilla ice-cream or by itself.

Notes:

• The original recipe calls for 1 cup of milk which I have substituted with heavy cream. No matter what I did, the burfi just would not set when I used milk. Also, I was usually left staring at half a carton of heavy whipping cream, wondering what to do with it especially since I do not make butter chicken as often as I make this burfi. Remember that 1 pint is about 2 cups so that little pint carton of heavy whipping cream is the right size to buy.
• Sometimes I cook the coconut mixture a few minutes too long. That results in a very firmly set burfi. In this case, warm it gently in a microwave for 20-30 seconds or leave it out on the counter for 15-20 minutes before serving it.
• This coconut burfi is different from the traditional Indian coconut burfi as it is more fudge-like in its texture and very moist.
  

I hope you enjoy my version of this Coconut Burfi as much as we do!

I went out for a bike ride yesterday - yes! On January 20, 2009! In winter! We had glorious weather - just as we do today with temps almost touching 70F. So I had to make another Obamicon to commemorate just what a great day it was yesterday.



I will leave you on that Obama-high and hope that the new President is able to help fix all that has been undone in the past eight years.

Very Berry Shrikhand

It's well known that I don't have much of a sweet tooth. Chocolate does not send me into ecstasy. I don't care much for Indian sweets or desserts, especially the ghee that oozes from them. An Indian sweet that I do relish, besides a delectable paal paayasam, is the rasgulla. And not just any rasgulla. The only one that will do is the one made by Banarasi Sweets, Khar (W), right next to the Western Railway Train Station. It was the only dessert offered at the small dinner party we had for family and friends to celebrate my wedding. There may be other halwais who make a better rasgulla but the one from Banarasi Sweets was the best I have ever had.

Shrikhand was never my favorite either. Till I had the adulterated version: the one with fruit in it. I became an instant convert! And that's what I made the other day. To rejoice in the fresh flavors that spring brings to the land. The 5+ feet of snow, several spring snow storms and a rainy May have turned everything a lush green. Last spring was dry and brown in comparison. We had to look for patches of green and rejoice in the small mercies sent our way. None of that this year!

Mama goose has had four goslings she is very protective about. The finches laid eggs, their babies hatched, grew wings and flew away. If it weren't for the allergies, spring would be my favorite season!

And, there are berries [from Mexico] everywhere...

Blackberry Shrikhand

• 4 cups yogurt
• 3/8 cup sugar or more
• pinch cardamom powder ^**optional
• 9 blackberries, sliced in half
• blackberries for garnish^**optional

1. Tie the yogurt in a muslin cloth and hang for at least 6 hours to drain away the whey. You are left with thick hung yogurt that is known as chakka. Four cups of fat-free homemade yogurt gave me 1 cup of chakka.
   
   
2. Combine the hung yogurt with sugar in a bowl and beat it until it is light, fluffy and smooth. You can use the hand-blender with the whisk attachment to do this or you could convert this into yet another opportunity to introspect, relax and rejuvenate - yes! Do it by hand. That's what I did! I started off with 1/4 cup of sugar and slowly increased it to 3/8 cup to suit our tastes. Traditionally, shrikhand is much sweeter. But remember that you don't want this berry shrikhand to be overly sweet such that the flavor of the berries is masked.
   
   
3. Add the cardamom powder, if you are using it. I chose not to use it.
4. Add the chopped berries and fold the berries into the fluffy shrikhand. Every once in a while, press down lightly so that some of the blackberry juice is mixed into the shrikhand.
   
   


5. Chill for at least a couple of hours, garnish with whole blackberries and serve as a dessert.

Medha loved this berry shrikhand. Not so much my husband who found the berries 'overwhelming.' He likes his shrikhand made the traditional Gujarati way. Me? I love fruit shrikhand of all kinds!

Shrikhand recipes from other bloggers:
Gini's Shrikhand with Honey
Shrikhand from Becks and Posh
Lulu loves...Shrikhand

It's still May 9th here and I'm hoping to make it for Meeta's Monthly Mingle where Spring Is In The Air!

Shrikhand, Indian dessert, blackberries, Maharashtra, Gujarat

Relax with Ammini's Paal Paayasam

It's not a mistake that all four - yes, only four - ingredients in Ammini's Paal Paayasam are white.

White is the color of meditation

How does this fit in with food and the satiation of discerning taste buds, one might wonder! Well, I have a theory that there there are certain foods in Indian cuisine that are deliberately slow-cooked, and it is not just for the enhanced flavor. These foods require a fair amount of interaction from the cook, unlike foods cooked in the slow-cooker. Think back to the days when families were not nuclear, when the stoves in the kitchen were lit well before dawn, in preparation for the first meal of the day. There may have been a cook, or there may have been several women who cooked together. Grandmother, mother, daughter-in-law, unmarried daughter, niece, sister-in-law and so on. Every woman needed a periodic break, pun intended, and that is how the isolation during the monthly menses can be explained away. But what about the rest of the month? I think that in order to give the women a break from the fast and exhausting pace of cooking and serving meals for a large family, they were sometimes given a chance to sit by and stir the same pot and perhaps get a chance to reflect on their own needs. Maybe find some inspiration in the continuous swirls and bubbles in the pot they sat by.

I could be totally wrong, of course. Maybe I need to call it a hypothesis, and not a theory! But I found this little piece of nirvana when I made Ammini's Paal Paayasam. I let go of time. I stirred and stirred. I enjoyed the constant motion in the food and my chosen immobility. The smell of milk as it neared boiling point has never seemed so divine. Add to it the incredible aroma of rice as it cooks. The sloshing white liquid had me enthralled. At the end of it all, I was incredibly relaxed, very rejuvenated and I also had a creamy silken delight to serve with dinner.

Of course, another reason for the all-white ingredients could a symbolic toast to purity since it is a dish offered to the Gods at the temple.

Paal paayasam is believed to be the favorite dessert of Lord Krishna. On Janmashtami, Lord Krishna's birthday, paal paayasam is offered at all Krishna temples across the country.

Perhaps this was not the right dish to make at a cook together and it would have been preferable if I had cooked it in advance, with the desserts. It took up one whole burner for the entire duration of the cook together. So I was very lucky that Lee brought her induction burner and its special pot and we were able to include it anyway. My friend Charlotte stirred away and did not complain even once. Given how active the kitchen was and how involved she was with the rest of the dishes, I don't think she quite got a piece of the meditation I was talking about earlier. But the circumstances were different so my hypothesis still holds. According to me, anyway!

Ammini's Paal Paayasam

From Ammini Ramachandran's Grains, Greens and Grated Coconuts.

Much is made of rice in Kerala, and in its best incarnation, it becomes amazingly delicate and creamy, nestled in a pool of slowly simmered, condensed, and sweetened milk. Traditionally, paayasam is cooked over a slow-burning wood fire for several hours, so that the milk cooks down and thickens. Once the sugar is added, the rice stops cooking, and the long, slow simmer will not make it into a soggy lump. Instead, the milk will condense and develop a reddish hue.

Ammini's recipe is a simpler and quicker version of the traditional slow-cooked version.

• 1/2 cup long-grain rice
• 1/2 gallon whole milk
• 2 and 1/4 cups sugar
• 2 cups heavy cream

1. Wash and rinse the rice in several changes of water until the water runs clear. Do not drain the water completely just yet.
2. Heat the milk in a large pot or saucepan over medium heat. Do not leave it unattended as it can get scorched. I lowered the heat to medium-low and stirred every so often.
   
   
   
   
3. When it comes to a boil - about an hour or so - drain the water from the rice and add only the rice to the pot. Lower the heat further, and cook stirring continually to prevent scorching. It will take between 15 to 20 minutes for the rice to cook. To test if the rice is ready, try to mash some rice grains with a spoon after taking them out into a katori. It is done if it is very soft to touch and gives way easily. Cook for another five to ten minutes, if necessary. Remember that the rice will stop cooking once you add sugar!
   
   
   (And, yes, I used the flash in the previous picture to capture the motion of the milk. Something I generally do not use when photographing food. Which is why the whites in this picture look so different!)
4. Stir in the sugar, and cook for another ten to twelve minutes.
5. Pour in the heavy cream, and bring it to a boil.
6. Reduce the heat, and simmer for twenty-five to thirty minutes, stirring occasionally.
7. Remove the pan from the stove, and keep it covered to prevent the milk from forming a skin.
8. Served either warm or cold but preferably along with the meal and not after the meal.

Some tips:

• Unless you are sure you like paal paayasam very sweet, add 1 cup of sugar, stir till it is dissolved and do a taste test. Add more sugar, 1/4 cup at a time until you are sure it is at the level of sweetness you like. For us, 1 cup of sugar was not quite enough and 1 and 1/2 cups were too sweet.
• A pint of heavy cream is a little over 2 cups, so you can just go ahead and add the entire pint.
• Why were we stirring so much? The pots we were cooking in seemed likely to scorch the milk if it was not stirred. Unless you have cooked down milk before and are sure that it will not get scorched, keep stirring the milk as you bring it to a boil.
• Resist the urge to add cardamom powder or to sprinkle cinnamom powder. Also resist the urge to add raisins or cashew nuts. Trust me, this paal paayasam simply does not need anything besides the four pure white ingredients.
• Paal paayasam, made the traditional way, has a gorgeous pinkish hue. The sugars caramelize as it cooks slowly for a longer period of time. As Priya of Akshayapaatram mentioned in her comments to this post, paal paayasam can be made using condensed milk instead of heavy cream and sugar. And, you can get that coveted pinkish color within a much shorter cooking time! Ammini suggests that you first cook the rice in the whole milk, then pour a can of condensed milk in a thin stream as you stir continuously. Keep stirring until the condensed milk is properly incorporated. Simmer for another fifteen minutes, and add more sugar if you like it sweeter.

I am reluctant to call this rice pudding because it is in a class of its own. No rice pudding can touch this! And that is from someone who does not care much for Indian sweets, especially our Maharashtrian version of Paal Paayasam, also called kheer. It is certainly not ye olde rice pudding, the western version for which multiple recipes abound.

The quality of ingredients always makes a great difference in the end product; the rice used for paayasam is no different. Back home, hand-pounded unakkalari, the aristocrat of rice varieties, is used for making paayasam. But like all true aristocrats, it is scarce, and I believe it is never exported abroad. It has a delicate flavor and a consistency that has just the right cling, and it cooks into a perfect paayasam. The clinging consistency of the paayasam depends on the starchiness of the rice. The rice should possess just enough starch to cling in cooking, but not too much to become gummy.

The authentic pot for cooking paayasam is the uruli, a heavy and shallow bell-metal pan with a curved interior. A heavy pot that transmits consistent, even heat is a perfect substitute. Do not use parboiled rice for paayasam; those grains always stay separate. In the absence of the real stuff, medium-grain or long-grain white rice is the preferred substitute.

We may not have wood fires in our kitchens but I would urge you to take time off from your daily chores and sit awhile by a pot of milk and stir. Put the phone off the hook, turn off your cellphone, take off that headset, turn off that computer, let the light stream into your kitchen and let go!

From Ammini Ramachandran's Grains, Greens and Grated Coconuts

Tags: Paal Paayasam, paayasam, Indian dessert, rice pudding, Ammini Ramachandran, Kerala Cuisine, Grains, Greens and Grated Coconuts, cookbook