Papeti Ma Ghos

Yesterday AC completed 51! I have been pampering him on his Roz nu birthday and the Gregorian one. I did everything I could to bring cheer in-spite of being terribly ill myself. Before this memory is forgotten recording it here.

So on his  Roz nu birthday I made Kadabu, he loves puran poli and dar ni pori so Kadabu would pass his liking I knew. He did enjoy it.

While he enjoys the sweets what he really loves is Non veg especially mutton. I don't like handling mutton so it does not get made so often. So on his birthday I made papeti ma ghos. Papeti are baby potatoes in Parsi tender and sweet combined with mutton in a onion tomato gravy is a very homely dish.

The husband loved it. I thanked Suman my help for getting the choicest mutton because I don't understand head or tail of it.

Here is the recipe

Ingredients

250 gms mutton cleaned n washed

150 gms baby potatoes

1 onion

1 tomato

2 green chilies

1 teaspoon ginger garlic paste

1 teaspoon coriander powder

1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder

1 teaspoon red chili powder

1 tablespoon oil

In a pressure cooker add the baby potatoes and mutton. Add all the spices and ginger garlic paste.  Top with water to just cover the potato and mutton. Pressure cook for three whistles. Let it cool. 

Grind onion and tomato and green chili to paste. Heat oil in a pan. Add the onion tomato paste and fry till dryish and browned. 

Meanwhile open the pressure cooker. Peel the boiled potatoes and add them to the onion tomato masala. Keep frying. Then add the mutton and the rest of the contents to the fried masala. Cook till you have a thickish gravy coating the mutton and baby potatoes. Mash couple of baby potatoes to give it some body. Sprinkle some fresh green chopped cilantro over it.

Serve warm with phulkas or thin rotlis.

This is a classic Parsi dish but it reminds me a lot of Bengali Alur dom but with mutton. What do you say my dear Bengalis?

Solapuri Shenga Chutney

After a long time I am sharing a recipe here.

I love Solapuri Shenga Chutney. This turned out so good and so many asked for the recipe outside the blog so here you go friends. Do try and tell me how you like it.

Portions : 1 cup

Ingredients 

1 cup peanuts/ Shengdane
2 tablespoons oil
1 teaspoon Kashmiri red chili powder
5-6 cloves of garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cumin seeds

Preparation 

Fry the peanuts in 2 tablespoons oil.

Dry roast cumin till brown and aromatic.

Peel the garlic.

Method 

In the chutney grinder jar add roasted cumin seeds, give it a whiz to powder in to fine dust. Then add the golden fried peanuts along with the oil, Kashmiri red chili powder, garlic, salt and grind to coarse consistency. Mix well. It should feel chunky to the hand and slightly oily and not dry like dust. If its too dry add oil a teaspoon at a time to get the consistency seen in the pic. 

Plating and Serving 

Serve as a condiment either in a jar or on a condiments platter. I put it in a tray along with oiled and microwaved papads to go with a khichadi and kadhi meal.

How was the taste?

Not very spicy but very satisfying as a taste changer or as in Marathi they say 'TonDi lavNa'.

Conclusion

A chutney in stock is always a game changer! You can sprinkle some on a buttered toast or a steaming hot upma. Mix with dahi to make a pachadi, add some cucumber and some more dahi and dress up that boring salad or have it as a dip with fritters.

You can also sprinkle this chutney on your simple vegetable stir fries or stuff brinjal and lady's fingers with it. There are so many possibilities. It truely brings out your creativity.

Make-up time conversations

Shashikant Mhatre, introduces himself to me as I move around at the studio in Filmistan. He is thrilled that I am going to present Koli cuisine. He tells me he is from Uran so my Alibag roots make him smile. He asks me many questions so I turn it around on him when we sit down for make up. I ask him how many years he has been making people look good on screen. He has been loyal to B. R. Chopra's for 44yrs. Being related to Pandhari Juker the legendary make up artist inspired him to give himself into this career. He has an award for the film Nikaah (1982) featuring Salma Agha, Raj Babbar and Deepak Parasher. If you think all the Pandav and Kaurav looked good then it was him doing magic in Mahabharat. He has worked with almost every star in Bollywood. I felt privileged today.

He worked on my face with his fingers, blending colours and drawing lines, then lightly rubbing the colors to tone my skin. I was watching his emotions as he signalled to look up then down and at mascara time to look straight at his hand held at eye level. Final touches almost magical with brushes. Dada you use your hands I stated my observation, I am an artist he said. My finger temperature and your skin temperature will give best results in blending tones. There is new technology in make-up but nothing beats working with the hand.

Tikli? He asked me. Yes I will wear it. He got me a big bindi. This will look nice on your broad forehead. With that he smiled to himself as if approving his finishing touches and sent me off to the sets.

This pic is of Shashikant Mhatre doing make up for Salma Agha on the sets of Nikaah that won him the award.

ArchaeoBroma, 5-6 May 2018

The first ever Conference on the Archaeology, Sociology, History and Ethnography of Food in India is slated for the 5th and 6th of May 2018 at the University of Mumbai (Kalina) thanks to the Instucen Trust and the Centre for Extra Mural Studies, University of Mumbai

A huge line up of some really great people and papers has been scheduled to bring out the history and culture within food.

Write in to archaeomaha@gmail.com for details

____________________________________________________________________

Can you feel my pulse? Yes, I am all excited to present at #ArchaeoBroma. Who would think that a passion for food and my heritage as a Koli would have brought me here?

I will be returning to my alma mater to speak on FOOD! This after studying Environmental Pollution Control Technology at the Mumbai University at the Kalina Campus. Funny that my scientific paper on 'Preliminary studies on the adsorptions behaviour of Chromium on fly ash' which was published in the prestigious Chemical Engineering World XXXII, ; 1: 81-82 did not get me such an opportunity.

When in school, I aspired to have a degree in Home Science but my Dad discouraged me saying it was meant for rich girls marrying into Business families. We were middle class and a girl of the future so I had to study Science, Medicine or Technology. So I did. 

Life comes full circle though. FOOD, CULTURE and TECHNOLOGY dominates my life as an entrepreneur. 

Mirchi & Mime

Finally the day arrived to check out what the hype was all about?

Veena told me to pick a place to meet somewhere on her route to the western highway from the eastern highway, Powai suits best in such a case and Mirchi & Mime is right next to JVLR. Though if you take the main entrance of Hiranandani it is difficult to find the place.

Veena and Shantavi were already there when I reached and exactly at 12.30pm they opened shop. We had booked a table so we got a choice and as food bloggers do we chose the one with good day light.

The manager came to tell give us instructions on how to order as this was a restaraunt run by special people so the name Mirchi & Mime. We were welcomed by a server by miming as the manager quickly instructed on how we should order from the menu and that we could call him if we found difficulty. The menu is specially designed and limited to keep it operation friendly for the staff. 

After scanning thru the menu we were thrilled to see some originality in the dishes and we decided to try out everything that stood out as unique. We were tired of the regular stuff. So we decided to just settle into our chairs and relish the experience. We chose or drinks first so we could leisure over the selection of the mains. Masala lemonade was really nice with a generous black salt and jal jeera masala. The berry pomegranate granita was lovely leaving a desirable astringent taste on the tongue. Peach and pink peppercorn tasted lovely but I could taste pink guava juice in it instead of peach. We agreed that the natural colored drinks appealed to us instead of the neon colored ones that are paraded in so called cool restaurants.

Before this meet up Veena had come to my home for a Koli yet veg cooking class however I was meeting her sister Shantavi for the first time. As we talked we found out our sensibilities were very similar not just in food but our outlook to life too. We talked about how we weighed honesty above everything. We are women very sure about ourselves and decisions we make. We have the capacity to stand up and face life and look in the eye of all that it throws at us.

The three of us were hungry so we chose Suran sarson pasanda a delicate tava fried tikki that is melt in the mouth. The second starter was Shakarkand ki chaat, nice chat masala spiced smoked sweet potatoes ladled with sweet dahi, green and mithi chutney and shreds of fried sweet potato, charchteristically stringy yet beautifully crunchy. 

Moving on to the mains excited by the promise of Paneer methi kofta in a roasted tomato kurma gravy was promptly ordered besides the Nilgiri green curry of makhana cooked with fresh veggies like matar, babycorn and carrot in a cilantro based gravy. Both were outstanding the roasted tomato gravy was smooth and sun-kissed. The paneer koftas just crumbled into the gravy with just a prod.

The curries were wiped off with hot tandoori rotis and Paratha choori which is bits of crisp paratha with generous amounts of black pepper and dash of chat masala. We munched on it.

After such beautiful food the grand finale with the desserts just made us sing! What we devoured, Srilankan jaggery pudding what is popular in its native land as Watalappan. Unanimously voted the best dish! 

Srilankan jaggery pudding Watalappan

A subtle sugarfree Sitaphal panacotta

 and a Bakewell coconut tart without the crust served with a scoop of icecream 

The food is outstanding. Ambience bright with lots of daylight and a happy busy vibe . Yet there is a silence in the service that makes eating there a pleasure. The server uses placards to explain the dish. Effeciently the dishes are served and cleared with every course. Attentive yet non interfering. By the time we are ready to leave we have got a hang of the Mime and though we did try hard to use signs language while ordering saying Thank you was easy!

We would like to rate the food outstanding and service smooth as it should be. You don't feel the hype of Mime in the service and that makes it a dignified restaurant that is run by special people with hearing and speech challenges. It is not a show of their disabilities at all and it should never be. Go there to eat because though a limited menu we loved every dish that we ate and I am sure you will too.

Update: While we enjoyed all the vegetarian food the Non veg food on the table next to ours looked stunning. They were having some kind of a tandoori chicken and a purdah biryani. My husband requested that I mention this, as he is keen to try the Non veg there after I described this to him.

This review is for Veena who pampered me and Shantavi on this day. Thank you for your generosity!

All pics clicked d by Veena

Powai

Koli cuisine: Adding tadka at fisher folk weddings

Splashed ! across publications. Where I talk to Press Trust of India (PTI) about the Koli weddings and traditions.  Where food especially fish is a big deal.

PTI is the the largest news agency in India. Here is the original link.

http://www.ptinews.com/news/9439986_Koli-cuisine--Adding--tadka--at-fisher-folk-weddings.html

You can also read on Outlook India, India Today, Medium, Business Standard etc.

Further Reading

Ghari

The Yellow Glow Of The Turmeric and my Halad Menu

My wedding posts: A Koli Weds A Parsi

The most important ritual for the Kolis is the Halad and so the meal following it.

Discovery: Marayoor Jaggery

This write up was first published on FB. It got appreciation from a lot of food lovers so bringing it here under a new label "Discovery"

Marayoor jaggery has always fascinated me. In South Indian temple paysams I wondered how they achieved the rich dark color? Why was it more sweeter than our Maharashtra's golden jaggery? Answers to all these I found out only last night on google. I bought a 1kg of these stone like balls only because a shop in Munnar mentioned on its front that they were selling Marayoor jaggery. My intuition told me that it must be special. All the research has me smitten. This jaggery has 97% sugar content. The sugarcane is grown in the Marayoor rainforest region. I think we drove thru this region  on our recent road trip through Kerala. The pH of the soil makes the wonderful molasses and ofcourse it is unbleached and may be organic. 

Last night I had pressure cooked Chana dal with the aim of making Parsi chana ni daar. So divided the dal into two portions and made the savory chana ni daar to go with our rotlis and made an impromptu payasam too. With Parsi dairy ghee drizzled on it. The meal was so satiating even though simple. The finicky bawa loved it too.

Besides the jaggery I was floored by the history of Marayoor which dates back to stone age and relics of the past. Hope to visit this region again.

The First Sankrant

The sugar bead jewelry made by Kavita Dhuri Kadu

Sankrant 2016 came fast. It was the first festival after my marriage in Dec 2015. My family brought me gifts of a black saree for Sankrant and the sugar bead jewelry as is the tradition in most communities in Maharashtra. This is not a Koli tradition but we accepted it in our family as my SIL Mangala Vahini wanted to do it for me as is her Maratha family's tradition. It was done for my Nephew and his wife Dipti too. Haldi kunku is traditionally for women but we included the men too. The sugar bead jewelry for both me and Dipti was made by our dear friend Kavita Dhuri Kadu. 

The tradition of a black saree is practiced in Maharashtra as on the day of Sankrant the sun starts its movement to the Northern hemisphere and marks the end of Winter solstice. It is the coldest day of winter.  It is believed that wearing black on the Sankrant ensures that the rest of the year is a bright one while it keeps the body warm. 

I had ordered this Bengali kantha work saree from 'Suryabartta' owned by Sayantani's  Mother but I was unable to wear it on the day as I had left it in Dad's place and funnily brought just the blouse to my sasural. So my bro Vijay had to rush to Dadar market to get another black saree for me which you see in the first pic.

That's Dipti my nephew's beautiful wife in all her Sankrant finery. 

 

Dipti & Sujal

The Parsi vegetarian dinner I had cooked up for the family on that day that year.

Such a memorable day it was!