Irio, a Kenyan food

Like N, I have been accused of being far too active on Facebook. I have been unfriended because my contacts only see me on their feeds.
It's all you, you, you and you. So annoying.
Well, of course, it's all about me, me and me. That's why it's called my Wall.
How much do you write?
I write a lot. A lot. A heck of a lot. Facebook doesn't even make a dent in the lot that I write.
Where do you find the time?
Do you talk to people during the day? You know, like in the next cubicle or desk or at the water cooler? Where do you find the time to do that and, also, update your Facebook Wall or comment on mine? Facebook is my watercooler. Your friends have to listen to you talk whereas you can Hide me and never hear from me again, unless you seek me out.

Thanks to Facebook, I've reconnected with a whole bunch of my schoolfriends from Kenya as well as college friends from India. And, very recently, one of my favorite friends from Bombay. She disappeared without a trace a few years ago, as did I for her. Facebook to the rescue!

Mso chicks!

It was during one of those infinite updates that one of my school friends asked me if I knew how to make bhajias, the kind we gorged on in Kenya. And if the pictures that these gals had posted had not taken me down memory lane, this question sent me hurtling down its path. I rued that I was a pathetically under-nourished kid who was not interested in food when we lived in Nairobi. I remember names of dishes and there are memories wound around most of them; but the flavors? For the most part, I have no recollection whatsoever.

I do, however, remember some things: like the time I ate ugali for the first time and didn't need to eat again for the next two days! It was like a giant idli that sat like a rock in my stomach forever. Whee! The freedom it gave me!

I had my first taste of rhubarb at one of my first hot lunches at school. I felt like I had licked someone's sweaty underarms and both, the smell and the image, made me extremely nauseous. If you had told me then that I would grow to love rhubarb, especially in a crumble, I would have given outlaughed all the hyenas on the Kenyan savannah.

Indian cuisine has had a fair amount of influence on Kenyan cooking; for example, chapatis and samosas are now as Kenyan as they are Indian. Spices and aromatics find their way into everyday Kenyan fare. A friend who is currently vacationing in Kenya reports that the "food is really good here!" And I believe her!

As my subconscious continued to be bombarded, I awoke one morning with the word irio ringing in my ears. Now, that was a stark change from the strange dreams that play vividly in my mind's eye otherwise! I remember it being described simply as food. Some sort of a nutritious mash that I am pretty sure I did not care for.

It had been served to us at a friend's home in rural Kenya, when he took us on a tour of his farm. His family had been fascinated by my mother. They couldn't stop touching her sari and asking about the bindi she wore on her forehead. All I wanted to do was run around outside after having been caged inside a car for over three hours. Who cared about the food when there were new kids to play with! Especially kids with an endless yard to romp around in.

But I am a different person now - the same friend who asked about bhajias wrote something about Sammy Sosa on her Wall and all I could see was samosa. I had to look up irio and while I was very tempted to make this spiced up version, I chose to stay closer to the home recipe and used Congo Cookbook's recipe instead. A simple mixture of mashed potatoes, dried peas and maize with a healthy dose of greens.

Irio

• 1 cup dried split green peas
• 6 medium red potatoes
• 6 ears of fresh corn
• 1/2 lb baby spinach, washed
• green and yellow beans, a good handful
• freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• salt to taste

1. Soak dried green peas overnight or give them a quick hot soak. Cook in a pressure cooker or boil in a saucepan until done.
2. Peel and dice potatoes into large pieces.
3. Scrape the kernels off the cobs.
4. Mix peas, potatoes, corn kernels and baby spinach and cover with just enough water to cook the veggies.
5. Mash the cooked mixture to a thick consistency.
6. Serve hot.

This is a great alternative for mashed potatoes and a lot healthier, too. Traditionally, irio is served with grilled meat, usually steak. I served it with broiled lamb chops. No special recipe: I marinated the chops with ginger-garlic paste, red chilli powder, turmeric powder and salt.

Leftovers can be rolled into small patties and shallow fried. Or used as stuffing for a toasted sandwich.

This was supposed to be my second entry for my own event, IFR: Memories. Remember that? I have been a terrible host but this particular post was a mental block. The pictures were awful, the words wouldn't flow and it came at a time when I haven't been able to sit at my desk for several hours at a stretch. Whatever time I do get is focused on work and at my watercooler. I have been very self-absorbed lately, for which I apologize profusely.

Does this post mean the round-up is coming up? Like you, I sure hope so, too!

Disclaimer: I'm really sorry but I do not add friends to my Facebook page unless I know them personally or have had a reasonably long online association with them.

Rice Matters: Brown Dhansaak Rice

The official line is that I was giving you guys a break from my almost daily postings in October; but, in reality, I was perfecting The Art of Whining. I whined mainly about too much work that led to too much pain. I am still in pain and have already started complaining about how I will miss the start of the ski season, even though I don't ski. See how good I am at it now?

Because of this constant pain, my culinary escapades have suffered more than a little bit. Rice has become my go-to for most meals. Steamed rice, phodnicha bhath, jeera rice; whichever way I could make it, I did. That brought me face-to-face with the brown rice that is made with the famous Parsi dish, dhansaak. I considered winging it but then decided to turn to 101 Parsi Recipes, by the queen of Parsi cuisine herself, Jeroo Mehta. And she did not disappoint.

The definitive Parsi cookbook

Brown Dhansaak Rice

• 1/3 cup oil
• 1 medium onion, sliced thin
• 1 stick cinnamon
• 6 cloves
• 3 cups basmati rice
• 4 tsp sugar
• 6 cups water
• salt to taste

Don't you want to dig in?

1. Wash the basmati rice in several changes of water and set aside.
2. Heat oil in a large pot or saucepan; add cinnamon and cloves when the oil is hot.
3. Add sliced onions and cook till they have softened.
4. While the onions are cooking, heat the sugar in a small saucepan till it melts and caramelizes, taking care that it does not burn. A nice dark brown color is desireable.
5. Add 1/3 cup warm water to the melted sugar a little bit at a time, taking care not to burn yourself as it will sizzle and foam as you do.
6. Drain the rice and add it to the pot with the onions. Stir the rice and fry it with the onions for a few minutes.
7. Add the sugar solution to the rice and stir well.
8. Add the remaining water (5 and 2/3 cups) and salt.
9. Bring to a rolling boil, cover tightly and lower the heat to medium low. Cook at this heat until all the water is absorbed and the rice has cooked, usually between 15-20 minutes or so.
10. Fluff the rice and serve right away with any spicy dish with a sauce.

Look, Jen, I prettied with some cilantro!

Notes:

• Jeroo Mehta's original recipe calls for 2 cups of rice. I find this a little too sweet for my tastebuds, so I upped the rice to 3 cups. Perfect for us!
  
• Taste the water after adding salt. If it's not salty, then you need more salt. As the rice cooks, the salt will be absorbed by the grains and it will be just right. Adding salt after the rice is cooked is an option but it doesn't taste the same.
• I have served this with what I call the-rest-of-the-world chhole, a spin on Anita's Punjabi chhole recipe, and it was appreciated. The next time, I served it with rajma and that worked, too. I will probably be making this again for Thanksgiving, but not with dhansaak - the pain, remember?

Yup, I scored!

As soon as I can wiggle my toes a litle bit more, I am planning to make Jeroo Mehta's Lamb chops with green masala. For both those things, I can't wait!

And what of IFR: Memories, you ask? You do ask, don't you? The round up is coming next week, I promise, with all of the four valid entries I received. What can I say? Congeniality was never one of my virtues.

Hallowe'en with a Bite, a Sequel

Last Hallowe'en, a goth cheerleader showed up on my doorstep. I had no choice but to take her in. She's been with me ever since, learning quietly how to be a tween and she seemed to have assimilated back into the human clan rather well.

But, as the moon burgeoned, I began to notice some changes. Some rather frightening changes. They say unconditional love and acceptance heals all; so that is precisely what I did. To no avail.

Soon, it was Hallowe'en and we screamed in terror when we saw what had become of our quiet child from another world.

As the time for the neighborhood party drew near, she grabbed my husband's hand and...

I tried to put the camera down but I was transfixed by this creature that was willing me to continue taking pictures instead of helping my husband keep his fingers intact.

It was a horrific sight. But at least there was finger food at the neighborhood party.

Mwa ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Happy Hallowe'en!

 

Is that Anne Frank?

It is!



And you guessed right. I have nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero. I am exhausted and overworked, cruising on less than 3-4 hours of sleep for the past couple of weeks. But it's all good because it's great to be busy in this economy, right? At least that's what I keep telling myself. Maybe I will have a proper post coming up soon. For now, I am going to crawl into my bed and pass out.

 

Snow, snow and more snow

Rain turned into snow at about 7:30pm last night.

By 1 a.m, we knew this was not going to be one of those storms that just miss us resulting in barely an inch or two, even a dusting. Nope.

My dogwood was already bending over under the weight of the wet snow. Since neither of us was in the mood to bundle up and step out to shake the trees, we threw several things at the tree: a basketball, a sled, a stick, anything that was within reach in the garage.

We heard several branches come down during the night; one was so close that I thought it had come through the roof. A rough night and an overly snoozed alarm saw us scrambling at 8 a.m. to get Medha to school until I saw the high-schooler next door shoveling his driveway. I wondered if it was a Snow Day but dismissed the thought rather grudgingly, since our school district hardly ever closes for snow. Then I realized that the high school has a late start on Wednesdays. We returned to scrambling: brush your teeth, have hot lunch, money, give her money, wake up, the driveway needs to be shoveled, I need socks. There was about 8-9 inches of snow on the ground then.

Something sent me to my computer and I checked the web site for our school district - it was indeed a Snow Day. But the phone hadn't rung, not once and not on any landline, VoIP or cell phone. None of my Inboxes were overflowing with email message saying Snow Day. I'm not sure where the communications broke down or if this is the new way of doing things - where we have to be proactive, which is fine by me. We whooped in delight, each of us looking longingly at our warm beds but our joy was shortlived when we remembered that we had trees to take of.

One of my dogwood had lost 3 branches and my aspen had lost its tallest branch. 2 more branches snapped and fell later during the day as the snow was relentless. It was a good thing that the snow changed from wet and heavy to light and fluffy.

By 5 p.m. we had a total accumulation of 18 inches but very little wind and no white-out conditions like those of the blizzard of Dec 2006. Just relentless snow.

We now have 20 inches on the ground and more coming through the night. Tomorrow is also a Snow Day, making the kids a little anxious about their Hallowe'en parades in school on Friday. We expect to warm up to the 50s on Saturday and we're hoping that will mean clean sidewalks for trick-or-treating. But there is still tonight to go through and tomorrow.

I am exhausted from the thrill of the snow, beating of trees with large sticks, biting my nails as my husband climbed up to the roof and a lot of pain at all the fallen branches. But, we still have the Internet and power. Fingers crossed that this night does not bring more surprises.