Patoli/Modak

Today is" Nag Panchmi" the day snakes are worshiped.

Mythology has many stories about this day; the most recent one that I read was that a woman was tilling her field and she accidentally killed the cobra's babies. The mother cobra cursed the woman. So you do not use sharp objects on this day.

So no chopping, no tava/ griddle is used.

But, I do believe that all these stories had a scientific background and were put forth by our ancient sages, in this form to stop people from hurting the snakes. After all snakes have an important role to play in ecology.

Also the food that you eat on this day is steamed. Good for your tummy.

Our ancients were indeed wise!

Today I made patoli. It's a Goan Delicacy that is made from coconut Goa's staple food. The only difference between steamed modak and patoli is the shape and that patoli is steamed in fresh green turmeric leaves. The end result is a fragrant and healthy low fat completely satisfying experience.

I have already said that the ingredients for both modak and patoli. Make the filling first so that it cools down for you to use your hands if necessary.

For the filling:

1 ½ cups coconut grated

1 ½ cups jaggery

5-6 cardamom/ elichi powdered

1. Mix all these together and fry till the mixture forms a uniform mixture and is almost dry.
2. Cool.

For the covering:

2 ½ cups water

1 tsp oil

A little salt

2 cups rice flour

1. Boil the water with salt and oil.
2. Lower the flame and add the rice flour mix well so that no lumps are formed.
3. Cover with a tight lid and keep aside.

To put together:

1. Clean and dry the turmeric leaves.
2. Smear the leaves with a little oil.
3. While it is still warm rub some ghee on your palms and take a small portion of the rice flour. Make a ball out of it.
4. With your fingers spread on the turmeric leaf into a thin layer. (You could also roll it with a rolling pin but it's very messy).
5. With a spoon spread the jaggery mixture along the length of the leaf on one side.
6. Close the other section of the leaf and press gently but firmly.
7. Place them in a colander.
8. Place the colander in a steamer and steam the patoli for 10 minutes.
9. Serve hot drizzled with ghee.

Variations:

This is the regular patoli to make modak replace point 4 as with your thumb shape the ball into a cup. Put two teaspoons of the filling and close the ends in a manner to get the shape of a fresh fig. only use a greased colander for steaming and don't let the modak touch one another.

If you are still interested dear reader you know that there has to be something different in my recipe, so here goes.

1 ½ cup coconut, freshly grated

¼ cup fresh coriander leaves

2 green chillies (Adjust as per taste)

½ tsp asafoetida

2 tsp red chilli powder (Adjust as per taste)

A pinch of sugar

Salt to taste

1.Grind all the ingredients except the coconut.

2. Mix with coconut.

Use this mixture in place of the sweet filling.

Khatkhate

I set out to make Khatkhate, a Goan delicacy but it was such a disaster that I have to record it, after this blog is all about my trails by the stove(& of course also by my long suffering Family).

Khatkhate is vegetable that has delicate flavours of a mixture of various vegetable like Munli in Konkani or arbi in Hindi, potatoes, raddish, white peas (soaked overnight), carrots, pumpkin, maize, , raw banana, ammado(Konkani) hog plum in English, cauliflower . The vegetable are boiled in salted water in the order as listed above and the next is added as the first is half cooked.

In the end fresh coconut (I needed 1 ½ coconut ) freshly grated , with 1 tsp odf coriander seeds, haldi, red chillies ground fine is added and simmered. Adjust salt to taste.

My recipe the disaster started with toooooooo much of water, so finally I had to use corn flour to thicken my gravy.

The end result in Girish's words, "its a cross between khatkhate and udmethi."

Better luck next time family dearest!!

Nan Katai

I am writing after a long time, my excuse again is lack of time. Anyway between office, home and playing Caesar I seem to have very little time.

The other day I had made Nan Katai only the kids were told that I am baking cookies. It was after they demolished the entire batch that I told them what the cookies are called and now I am being sweet-talked into making more of them.

This is the basic recipe.

2 cups or 150 grams Maida
¼ tsp Baking powder
¾ cup or 100 grams ghee
1 cup or 115 grams sugar
2 tsp curds
½ tsp cardamom/elichi /yallaki and nutmeg/jaiphal/jajikai powders

1. Sieve Maida with the baking powder 3 times.
2. Beat the ghee, add sugar and beat well again.
3. Add the flavourings, curds mix.
4. Add the maida and make balls.
5. Bake at 180ºC on a greased foil. Allow room as the nan katai spread.

My variation, this time is
1/3 cup of a mixture of milk powder and Bombay rava and 3 tblspn cocoa powder. I also used self raising flour instead of the maida and hence I left out the baking powder. Yes I also used vanilla essence about ¼ tsp. Since the mixture was too dry I have used approximately 1 cup milk. This I think is avoidable if you let the mixture stand for about 1 hour it becomes soft as purl dough.

Next time I am going to reduce the amount of ghee and use some milk.

I got 27 pieces, but of course, you have to take into account the fact that some of the balls were made by Akanksha.

You could also use cookie cutters to give it some nice shapes.

Macaroni Supreme

On Friday I told Apeksha, my elder daughter that she has to cook lunch for us on Sunday; she was 'Head Chef' & I the Assistant. I gave her my recipe book and let her choose. Her choice was Tarla Dalal's Macaroni Supreme from the 'Joys of Vegetarian Cooking.'

The whole thing was fraught with some anxious moments, like the recipe for white sauce, we were supposed to add flour to the butter after it had melted we did not and were worried that the sauce may become 'brown sauce' .

I was worried that the baking of the whole thing may fizzle out, it may not set, most importantly no one will like it and Apeksha will be facing a disappointment.

Happily my fears were all laid to rest, as everyone liked it.

The ingredients are

3 teacups boiled macaroni (dry weight 180g)

3 ½ teacups white sauce (we used 4 cups)

½ teacup parsley

¼ tsp nutmeg powder

½ tsp dried oregano

1 teacup cheese (grated)

1 sliced tomato

A little butter

Salt and pepper to taste.

Method

1. Add parsley, nutmeg powder, oregano salt pepper and ¾ cup of cheese to the white sauce.
2. Mix macaroni and the white sauce and spread on a greased baking tray. Put the tomato slices on top.
3. Cover with remaining cheese and dot with butter. Bake in a hot oven at 450ºF or 232ºC for about 25 minutes.
4. Serve hot.