Whole Awala In Brine

 Lets begin this series with the easiest of the pickles, Whole Awala In Brine.

Ingredients

1 kg Awala

1/2 cup salt

2 pinches of lime / chuna

1/4 cup julienned ginger

handful of whole green chilies

Wash and pat dry the whole Awala / Amla / Gooseberries.

Then prick the Awala from all sides with a fork to make salt absorption and adsorption possible. 

In a large bowl mix the pricked Awala, ginger, whole green chillies, salt and lime. Toss with a salad tong. The lime is added to avoid oxidation and precipitation. Else the brine becomes milky. The 2 pinches of lime keeps the brine clear.

Once mixed well, pack into a glass jar. Keep out for sunning for atleast a week till all the salt melts to give a brine.

Store in a cool dry place and shake well to mix once every fortnight to avoid fungus formation.

Uses:

As medicine for nausea or as souring agent in your curries and chutneys. Awala has that special flavor that lifts a mundane curry or chutney to a different level.

Wish you good health with this vitamin C packed pickle.

Awala Supari

In Blr. We get Awala or gooseberry almost all the year round. Yet the Awala in winter is the best. I bought some to make Nellikayi Chitranna and there were at least 5 more left. I had never made Awala supari ever but had seen my aunt make it. It is as simple as chop in to bits, sprinkle salt and dry it in the sun. This fruit does not release much water even after salting so you can just mix the salt into the bite sized pieces in a plate and keep it out in the sun. To get completely dried Awala supari you will have to leave it out for at least 3 days under the strong sun.

Store the dried Awala supari in a clean dry airtight box.

It is tart and salty when eaten as is but drink water after it and you sense the sweetness on the tongue. For people who do not know what is supari, it is mouth fresher. Like you all know that Awala is a power source of vitamin C but in this form it acts as a digestive too.

Go ahead make your own.

Nellikayi Chitranna

Nellikayi Chitranna a wellness shot for the season

Amlaki/ Amla/ Avala/ Nellikayi/ Indian Gooseberry  is that potent fruit that is revered in Ayurved, that can be used for general wellness and also to cure many health problems. Incase you already know go ahead and try this recipe. If you don't loose your ignorance here.

source: http://www.tropicalfruitandveg.co.uk

I hate to go to the doctors and for small ailments I never do take treatment. Allopathy for me is a need only for acute illnesses and overnight cures. For chronic ailments my choice is Homeopathy and for wellness it is our own Ayurved and all allied sciences and therapies. I owe no loyalty to any single pathy. I choose the one most needed depending on the ailment, symptom and timeline I want it cured.

I am fortunate that I know my body pretty well and have been fortunate that my response to my body is careful and quick and have not gone to a doctor in years for treatment except for a recent full body check up. Also I do not trust doctors easily. In Blr I don't have a doctor at all, I have been here long enough and have been able to maintain my health purely on my observation of the reactions of my body and curing the  symptoms myself with a little knowledge of homeopathy that I have. 

Nellikayi Chitranna is a recipe for wellness especially for the winters. My way of making this special rice with Amla is using it raw. Raw is always better though Amla retains its goodness on cooking and preservations too. In Mumbai we either ate raw Amla or as supari or sometimes as a sherbet. Its only after coming to Blr I learnt you could include it in your cooking. So instead of popping pills for fever, cold and stuff that accompanies the cold season I have started making it a habit to make Nellikayi Chitranna once a week at our home. 

Ingredients

0.5 cup grated Amla

1 teaspoon urad dal

0.5 teaspoon mustard seeds

few curry leaves

1 teaspoon mashed ginger

2 green chilies or more

handful of cilantro

1 table spoon oil

1 cup raw rice

0.25 teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon ghee

salt to taste

First in a pressure cooker put the rice and wash it well. Now add the turmeric powder, salt and ghee, top up with 2.5 cups water . Close the lid and cook for 2 whistles. Let is cool. Pour out the rice into a big bowl and fluff it up with a fork. 

Then prepare the ogarane/ phodni/ tadka. In a tadka bowl heat the oil, fry the urad dal till golden, splutter the mustard seeds, add the curry leaves, green chili and ginger, finally add the grated gooseberry. Stir once and immediately pour this over the rice. Garnish with chopped cilantro. Mix well with a fork.

Serve it immediately or enjoy it later. It still tastes amazing. This raw grated Amla imparts it flavor, slightly bitter  at the tip of the tongue but a delayed sweet flavor in the back of your mouth is what the rice is all about. Enjoy and stay healthy with Nellikayi Chitranna or Gooseberry Fluffy rice if translated!

Slurp~~

Any Mumbaikar is a diehard fan of gola the ubiquitous crushed-ice candy. It was banned by most parents to eat from the Golawala pushing his cart on the street as it was unheigenic but do kids care. We loved to watch the golawala crush the ice on his green pressing machine. My cuz loved to do it himself. Then shaping the Gola in the hand and then sticking the slit bamboo piece to make a candy. The last bit was enchanting when the Bhaiya splashed the deep red sweet syrup onto the crushed ice candy with a deft hand. We called that deep red syrup Lali simply because it colored our mouths red like lipstick. That was the treacherous clue that parents looked for if they wanted to police on their gola eating brats. We would stand at the cart and suck the juice on the candy and then take more lali from Bhaiya and he never did mind we could ask for more till the ice got over.

My Mom made this recipe thinking she could stop us from eating Gola outside our home. She made it with almost any fruit syrup viz kala khatta, lime juice, moramba, moravala, kokum syrup etc.

Ingredients

4-5 ice cubes

2-3 tablespoons any fruity syrup

chat masala

In the wet grinder jar add the ice cubes and the syrup run till crushed. Scoop out into a tall glass and decorate with mint leaves and chat masala. Eat the flavored crushed ice with a spoon as the street gola in now in cultured company. So at home the exciting Gola turned into SLURP~~.

Update: 24 April 2011

The pictures are of slurp made from Kairi Panha