Myriad Musings

It is the 2nd week of April already, the Sun is beating down so hard I fear widespread spontaneous combustion. In May if not right away.  The worst is yet to come. But the one thing that makes this weather acceptable has not deigned to make an appearance yet, at least, not in an acceptable, enjoyable fashion. I am talking about mangoes of course.  I see Senthuram in the market place, occasional bounty of Alphonso more expensive than Gold at the moment and indifferent Banganapalli.  No Malgoa, no Organic varieties, nothing.  Our local mango mandi continues to sell handicrafts pretending it is still March. The Senthuram quality lurches wildly.  The first two were awesome, the third sour, the fourth was spat out my mangophile son. I decided to minimize the risk with the fifth, sixth and seventh. When life throws poor mangoes at you, make mango muffins!  Or if you have run out of cupcake linings and you are too lazy to butter the individual tins, make...

Once every couple of months I try to clean up all the lentils and beans stocked in my Pantry before I restock.  I always replace Toor Daal (Staple south Indian sambhar), Urad Daal (Idli dosa ingredient) and Moong Daal (easy to digest) as soon as they get used up. The rest - Chana, Rajma, Back Masoor, Yellow Masoor, Green Whole Mung, Black Chana, Black-eyed peas, Red Karamani, Yellow Peas, procured Lima Beans, butter beans, Thatta Payiru get cycled.  I make it a point to buy low quantities of all these except  Chana and Masoor. Chana and Masoor are versatile and work very well in many dishes. This again is rescue cooking - Pantry rescue.   I love to cook in earthenware pots, looks pretty and supposedly very healthy according to all the siddha medicine doctors. Daal cooked in such pots is supposed to be very tasty, but, my palette is not sensitive enough to identify such gastronomic differences as steel/earthen pots. I made a quick daal with Chana and le...

My mother would make Moar Kuzhambu (spiced buttermilk soup if you must) when she had yogurt that had gone too sour for eating.  I make paneer (Indian Soft Cheese).  Boil milk, after 5 minutes, stir in the yogurt and a tsp of lemon juice or vinegar.  Turn the heat on to a low and stir milk occasionally until the whey looks fairly clear and all the solids separate.  Drain onto a cheesecloth and use.  You can save the whey also to mix chapathi dough, cook daal or even rice.  I use this paneer in Paneer Butter Masala or veg burgers. I had Burger Buns, Barely sprouted Moong beans, Potatoes, Cucumber and the usual fixings for a veggie burger.  I had to make my son his fortnightly  Burger Lunch. Mung beans tend to be a tad soggy despite using little water for cooking.  Adding Pottukadalai powder helped dry up the patty.  A much healthier options than using bread crumbs for this purpose. I made the first batch of patties at 6.30 am and the ...