Sapodilla Lemon Juice

If I could travel to any point in time, I would not go to the future. I would go back, to the ancient past. To the age when humans made the truest discoveries- of their own sentience, their place in life, on earth. When everything was NEW, and everything had to be discovered.

What was it like, back then? How did they experiment to survive? It boggles the mind, and excites me no end just thinking about it. Especially the fact that humans were so few in number that they could live with the earth.....and isn't it amazing that after all these centuries, after the rise and fall of countless civilizations, we still carry with us some of the knowledge of the early days? Not all, not even most, but some.

How does my uneducated grandma know which leaves heal bones faster? Which bark yields healing smoke. Which flower can cool the body, or coagulate blood....coming to the subject of this post, how does my mom know that the sapodilla fruit is good for the tummy, that it can placate an upset stomach? We talk about folklore and old wives tales and things that have been passed down for generations, but really, it is almost magical to me, this knowledge. It is not a thing of science, but of experience. It is....heavy and deep, the years and minds that it has seen and survived.....and it is to be cherished.

I did not know that sapodilla and lemon would taste so good together, but they do. After my watermelon-muskmelon combo, this is a good home-made juice combination.

Sapodilla* Lemon Juice

1.2 cups loosely packed fresh sapodilla flesh- peeled, deseeded
1 cup water
4 to 6 tsp sugar
1 small lemon or 1/2 big lemon- juice
2 tbsp yoghurt

Blend all the ingredients together. If its too thick, add a bit more water. Serve in glasses rimmed with cinnamon sugar.

*Sapodilla is chikku in North India, and sapota in Tamil. To remove flesh, wash the fruit well, split it in half, take out the seeds and gently scoop out the flesh using a teaspoon.

Lusikkaleivät- Finnish Teaspoon Cookies

These cookies introduced to me 'brown butter' which, though close, isn't quite ghee. I found the recipe here. I don't think the writer is blogging at present but check out her instructions for brown butter.

You can, of course, use any jam or marmalade, but please, please use blackcurrant jam on at least one! Its heavenly!!






Lusikkaleivät- Finnish Teaspoon Cookies
Makes 20 cookies

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup flour
Jam/Marmalade
Fine sugar, for dusting

Brown the butter. Cool and it add the sugar and vanilla essence. Mix well. Sift in flour and baking soda. Mix to form the dough, which resembles wet sand. (I added a tbsp of melted butter at this stage coz my dough was too dry to hold shape)
Press the dough into a teaspoon. Use a spoon with a fairly deep indentation. The dough is quite crumbly so, handle gently. Use a knife to shave of the excess and make it flat. Gently press one end for the cookie to slip out of the spoon. Place it flat side down on the baking tray. Continue with the rest of the dough. Bake for 15 mins at 175C.

Apply jam on the flat side of one cookie and press another cookie onto it. Sandwich all the cookies in this fashion and dust with sugar.

Note: Requires patience! The dough is quite crumbly so you'll need to handle it gently when slipping it out of the spoon and placing it on the tray :)

Sogan Dolma

Stuffed Onions. The moment I imagined how this would taste and smell, my mouth started watering. I love using onions in any dish- its part of the Indian holy trinity of cooking, of course. Isn't it simply ingenious, using the layers of an onion as casings?

I admit- I get confused when searching for recipes online. I don't know if its because I'm a perfectionist or because I've got some form of OCD..... there are so many variations of the same recipe and I want the most authentic one! Just when I zero in on one recipe, I'll find something else equally jaw dropping. Then I'll try to combine the two, or three, or ten thousand. Slowly, a fog descends around my head... and my mind starts questioning it all- should I add this? Or that? What if I don't? Will it still be this if I add that? What is life? Am I me?.......

But for this recipe, I found very few listed in English, .....anyways, the whole key to making this juicy dish is the meat, which I don't eat. So to make it as tasty as possible, I went ahead and Indianized the dish- slathering it with a mix of varied spices and coconut. Its amazing!

Sogan Dolma

Place a pan of water on the stove and add a tbsp of vingear to it. Cut of a small bit of the bottom end of the onion and a larger bit off the top. Peel, wash and place the onions in the pan. There should be enough water to immerse the onions completely. Cook until tender- for me, this took 15 minutes on medium heat.

Fish out the onions and drop them immediately in a bowl of cold water. Allow it to cool.


Press your thumb into the bottom end of the onion and slowly but firmly coax out shell after shell. There might be a little tear, that's ok.

Prepare the filling-
1/2 cup rice
1/2 cup crumbled firm cottage cheese/ cooked minced meat for non-veggies
1 tsp chopped ginger
2 tbsp boiled peas, carrots (optional)
chopped coriander leaves, chilli powder, oregano, coriander powder and salt to taste.
Mix all of these together.

Gently stuff these into the onion shells and place on a plate.

Prepare the spicy rich base-

4 cloves
1 inch cinnamon stick
1 cardamom pod
1 bay leaf
1/2 a star anise
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 chopped onion

5 tomatoes
2 tbsp grated coconut
oil

In a pan, add a dash of oil. Add all the spices listed up to the cumin seeds.When it begins to splutter, add the onions and cook till they start turning brown. Remove and cool. Blend these ingredients to a coarse paste and keep it aside. Blend the tomatoes and coconut together with a cup of water. Keep aside. In a vessel, add both the pastes. Add salt and chilli powder to taste. Place the filled onion shells in the base, cover and cook on low for 30 to 35 minutes.

Serve on a bed of yogurt or curd rice.

Back....from the farm

There's nothing like a day trip to our village farm to help a person relax. I'm back :)

There's plenty of love in nature,....

beauty,

...and magic.

We have lots of good stuff...
Grapefruit

Sapodilla

and stuff the villagers have never seen before out here...




Dragonfruit,
Dates













and plenty of four-legged friends...

Clockwise from top left- Johnny, the irrepressible, New Calf-1, Ramu- the singing sensation, Lucky- abandoned by someone and adopted by us, newborn calf-2 with beautiful forehead mark, Yin Yang kitties- resident mice killers.

The fairies abandoned ship when they saw humans approaching.

The village markets...they sell everything!






























Beautiful.

'Later...

These are my beautiful rain lilies, finally blooming after one whole year of anticipation......things need time to bloom, don't they, even perfect flowers.....
....I'm tired, and everything seems so difficult. Feels like it'll never end sometimes, this feeling. I'm going to do some things for myself for awhile. Just rest. Maybe a week or two. I think I won't cook/bake, just rest.
'Later.

The Kiss

There's nothing quite like music to move the soul, is there? I listen to so many songs but at any one time, I'll have just one song in my head leading the pack, that I go back to again and again. This week its "This Kiss" by Faith Hill. It makes me grin like an utter fool.....it's one of those songs that gives a hopeless romantic hope. (nice play of words, eh ;)

I don't usually cook something inspired by a song but I spent my free time a few days ago wondering what delicacy would match the feeling that wells up when I listen to this song. But my mind is too polluted with easy commonplace food-emotion equations-> romance= strawberries, passion= chocolate and so forth...

Moving past all that, let's see. For me. It must have lemon, for that burst of pleasure. It must have pineapple, for that beautiful tingly sweetness. It must have a crust, for the play of textures. An element of cold, to shock the senses. A bit of chocolate, for dark smoothness. A hint of herb, for that elusive something. A hint of spice as well, for that subtle undercurrent. A presence of flowers, for the admiring eye. A simple coming together of these elements, to be natural.

Is this it? A mouthful of kiss? Hmmm, who can say for sure. Maybe yes, maybe no. Maybe, down the line, I'll find something that matches the idea better for me......heck, maybe I just need more of the right kind of inspiration :p ;D

The Kiss

Cardamom Crust
Pineapple Filling
Lemon Ice Cream
Garnish- Chocolate Kiss, Sugar coated flowers, mint leaves, toasted coconut

Cardamom Crust
(for 1 deep shell, this is a very soft dough and crust, handle with care)
3/4 cup flour
1/4 cup powdered biscuits
1 tbsp sugar
30 g butter
1 pinch cardamom powder
2 tbsp cold water

Combine all the ingredients and crumble with your fingers till it resembles coarse meal. Gather into a dough ball, cover and refrigerate for at least an hour. Roll out the dough so that its large enough to line the shell. Press down gently, and bake at 180º C for 10 minutes.

Pineapple filling

3/4 cup cubed fresh pineapple
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp flour

Mix all three together and spoon into the cardamom crust. Bake for 15 to 20 mins at 160º C.

Lemon Ice Cream (by hand, very intense- reduce lemon juice for a more subtle taste)

3/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 tbsp lemon zest
1.25 cups sugar
1 cup milk
1.5 cups cream
2 eggs
4 egg yolks

Add the zest to the sugar and grind to a powder. Place this in a bowl and add the lemon juice, eggs and egg yolks. Whisk well. Pour this into a saucepan and heat through on low heat till it begins to thicken. In a bowl, mix the milk and cream. Add the contents of the saucepan to the bowl. Whisk to incorporate completely and return the mixture to the saucepan. Heat on low for a few minutes but do not allow it to boil. Remove and strain the mixture through a sieve into a flat bottomed vessel and allow to cool to room temperature. Place it the refrigerator overnight.

In the morning, place the vessel in the freezer. Every half hour, for four hours, remove and whisk vigorously. Allow to harden for a couple of more hours.

Scoop out and top over pineapple.

Sugar Coated Flowers

Butterfly pea and Rose petals (use only edible flowers!)
Cold water
Egg white
Superfine Sugar

Wash the petals gently so that they are clean and dip them briefly in cold water. Remove to paper towels and allow to dry completely. Using a paint brush, coat the petals with the egg white thoroughly and sprinkle the sugar onto them. Place on a paper dusted with sugar and allow to dry for 2 to 4 hours.

Toasted Coconut

In a dry pan, stir some fresh grated or finely chopped coconut for a few minutes till it just starts turning color.

Enjoy!

This Kiss
Faith Hill

I don't want another heartbreak
I don't need another turn to cry
I don't want to learn the hard way
Baby, hello, oh no, goodbye
But you got me like a rocket
Shooting straight across the sky

It's the way you love me
It's a feeling like this
It's centrifugal motion
It's perpetual bliss

It's that pivotal moment
It's ah, impossible
This kiss, this kiss, Unstoppable
This kiss, this kiss

Cinderella said to Snow White
How does love get so off course
All I wanted was a white knight
With a good heart, soft touch, fast horse

Ride me off into the sunset
Baby, I'm forever yours

It's the way you love me
It's a feeling like this
It's centrifugal motion
It's perpetual bliss

It's that pivotal moment
It's ah, unthinkable
This kiss, this kiss, Unsinkable
This kiss, this kiss

You can kiss me in the moonlight
On the rooftop under the sky
You can kiss me with the windows open
While the rain comes pouring inside
Kiss me in sweet slow motion
Let's let every thing slide
You got me floating, you got me flying

It's the way you love me
It's a feeling like this
It's centrifugal motion
It's perpetual bliss

It's that pivotal moment
It's ah, subliminal
This kiss, this kiss, It's Criminal
This kiss, this kiss
Its the way you love me baby Its the way you love me darlin, yeah

Easy Garbanzo/Channa Curry

This is a pretty easy and quite delicious curry. Wonderful with rice or any flatbread.

Channa Curry/ Garbanzo Curry

2 medium onions, chopped
10 tomatoes, chopped
4 to 6 cloves of garlic
2 green chillies, cut in half
vegetable oil

Heat some oil in a pan. Add the onions and stir till they become translucent. Add the tomatoes, garlic cloves and green chillies and cook for 5 minutes. Cool and blend to a very smooth paste.

1 small onions
1 cup garbanzo beans, soaked overnight
1 inch piece of ginger, finely chopped
1 dried red chilly
1 tsp cumin seeds
salt, to taste
1 tbsp coriander powder
1 pinch turmeric powder
1 tsp methi leaves/dried fenugreek leaves
2 cups water
curry leaves vegetable oil

Cook the garbanzo beans in a pressure cooker or boiling water till they're just cooked. In a pan, heat some oil, add the cumin seeds, ginger and red chilly. Once it starts turning brown, add the onions and fry lightly. Add the paste, the garbanzo beans, coriander powder, turmeric powder, methi, salt and water. Cook for about 10 minutes. Garnish with curry leaves.