Week 7: Ghasshi

As I haven't used this word much since the first #ThoyStories I have to use it to describe this dish - it is a quintessential aamchi dish. And you can't get more quintessential than the sprouted green gram (mooga) ghasshi! This dish is etched deeply in my memory as my mother and grandmother would often prepare it (and it was delicious!) when performing Shradha (which is the ritual that one performs to pay homage to one's ancestors) particularly for my grandparents who are now no more. As I understand it, this is a customary dish that is prepared as it was the favourite of the departed.

The massol/gravy for the ghasshi can be adapted to any dish.

Unless I completely missed this and need a new pair of glasses (which could be the case!), I was a bit surprised not to find a mooga ghasshi recipe in the Rassachandrika. It is mentioned in the Festivals/Rituals section but there is no recipe for it that I could see. There are recipes for other ghasshis including a raw green mango one

So this one was done under the guidance of my mother-in-law who gave me a bit of a head start on this by sprouting the beans for me (I would have otherwise just bought sprouted ones!) and my amazing wife Anushree (who I have to give so much credit to for encouraging and cajoling me to do this blog in the first place and for all the camerawork, blog editing and general behind the scenes work - how she manages to find time to do this whilst being an awesome mother to our 4 month old boy is just phenomenal and admirable).

The mixer grinder is key to this recipe - I am not sure which aamchi recipe (other than Thoy) you don't need the grinder for! I was in fact discussing this very point with my mother-in-law and Anushree and saying that whilst aamchi recipes are so simple, this apparatus is just so key to most recipes! But don't let that put you off making these as you will just be missing out!

Ingredients

1 cup of green gram (either sprouted already or you would need to sprout them overnight)

2 cups hot water

1 tsp of haldi

Massol

2 tsps coriander seeds

1/2 a lemon size piece of tamarind

1 cup of coconut or desiccated coconut

2/3 dried red chillies or 1 dried chilli and 1 tsp chilli powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp coconut oil

Phanna/Tempering

1 tsp of mustard seeds

1 tsp of asofetida/heeng

5/6 curry leaves

1 tsp coconut oil

Method

1. Cook the sprouted green gram in a pressure cooker with the water for about 3-4 whistles.

2. In a separate pan, heat the coconut oil and add the coriander seeds until lightly brown. Turn the gas off and add the chillies and tamarind.

3. Put hot water on the desiccated coconut (if not using fresh coconut) to reconstitute it. Grind the coconut into a fine paste. Add the coriander seeds, chillis and tamarind (after cooling for a few minutes) and grind further until very smooth.

4. The sprouted green gram should be cooked by now. Add the massol to this and stir.

5. In the same pan you made the massol, you can make the phanna by adding coconut oil and the phanna ingredients. Roast for just a few minutes and ensure it doesn't burn.

6. Add the phanna to the pressure cooker. Mix well.

This is again perfect comfort food and goes well with rice. Put it on a banana leaf with all the other dishes that are made for the rituals, you won't get a more wholesome feast!

Week 6: Fenori (Savoury)

I struggled to find an aamchi dish with the letter F. The English version of Rasachandrika has fritters of various kinds as dishes, but in aamchi those are in all probability called something else. Plus, I wanted to try something different! So, the 'Fenori' has made an entry. Okay, technically speaking, it is spelt 'Phenori', but in Devanagiri script 'Ph' could pass as an 'F' in pronunciation (with apologies to all the language experts), and so I guess I could just about get away with calling it an "F" dish !

Fenori/Phenori is a multi-layered, flaky, crisp and crunchy pastry. It can be made savoury or sweet. The sweet version is fried (usually in ghee) and then either dipped in sugar syrup, or dusted with powdered sugar, or both! Much as I have a sweet tooth, I was more tempted by the savoury version - I'm always on the lookout for more 'anytime' snacks. The savoury version can be fried in oil, and not in ghee.

Although I do not recall the mention of fenoris as a child, on devouring those that I did make, I was taken back to my childhood in Kenya, where I spent eight years! They tasted very similar to the Gujarati 'farsi puri' - that I had plenty of whilst there.

While reading online, it seems the fenori is used interchangeably with "chiroti" in some cuisines but in the Rasachandrika "Chirote or Lakhote" is a completely separate dish. The difference seems to be the texture and number of layers.

I have to say I was quite daunted by the nine steps of making fenoris when I first read the recipe in the Rasachandrika, unlike the usual 3-5 steps for most other recipes. I also wondered how I would get the neat layers and round shape. However, now having made them, it really isn't that difficult quite fun to make. Mine turned out quite crisp and round-ish (I'm still working on that!). To start with, I halved the ingredients and so ended up with about 12 fenoris, but they disappeared within an hour, which goes to show they were a success! Some were slightly overdone, and I need to be work on my frying skills, but they were tasty nonetheless.

Ingredients

1.5 cups flour

3 tbsps coconut oil (Use ghee if not doing a vegan recipe)

1/2 cup water

1 tbsp rice flour

1 tsp turmeric powder or haldi

2 tsp red chilli powder (depends on how spicy you want it)

1 tsp cumin/jeera powder

1 tsp salt

Method

1. Make a dough with the flour, 2 tbsp coconut oil, chilli powder, turmeric/haldi powder, cumin/jeera powder, water and salt. Note: The Rasachandrika makes no mention of using water here but clearly you need water to make the dough. The trick is to first mix the salt, red chilli powder, jeera powder, and turmeric with the flour, and then rub the oil into the flour to resemble bread crumbs (such that the flour is well coated with it). Then gradually add small amounts of water to bring it all together into a dough. If you don't rub the oil into the flour, or/and too much water at once it will result in a chapati-like dough, and the fenoris will not come out crisp. Once the dough is brought together, you need some patience to knead and pound it to make it pliable. Lightly oiling your palms will help with that. Luckily, I had made some pizza dough the day before and so had plenty of practice!

2. Divide the dough into 12 equal balls. Roll these into chapati like round shapes.

3. Make a little mixture with 1 tbsp coconut oil and the rice flour. Take a chapati and smear it with a little of the oil and rice flour mixture. Place a second chapati on the first one but a little lower. Now smear the second one with the mixture, and place the third chapati, again a little lower than the second one. Arrange all the 12 chapatis like this. Press down firmly to ensure all fit tightly.

4. Starting with the last chapati, roll them all upwards into a tight roll and tuck in the edges at the two sides inwards.

5. Cut the roll into thin slices.

6. Roll each piece into a thick puri.

7. Deep fry the puris in oil on a medium fire, until crisp and golden brown.

That is it! A perfect tea time snack and needs no accompaniment!

Note: If you haven't got ready made rice flour, just grind some rice in a mixer grinder into a fine powder. But, don't be clumsy like me and drop the mixer jar. so that all of it falls on the floor! Thankfully I had taken some out to display my ingredients and was able to use that (Don't worry, I didn't use the flour from the floor!). It was a good lesson for me - not to overcrowd my kitchen worktop, and to keep the lid of the mixer jar tightly shut.

Week 5: Eriyappe

One of the particularly exciting features of this challenge is that I am getting to learn about Aamchi dishes I have previously never come across (I know, my loss!). Eriyappe is one such dish. I've neither heard of it, nor seem to remember tasting it. This alphabetical culinary search has definitely been interesting, and what makes it better is that my 87 year young grandmother in Pune has now started following my blog! I need to now up my game!

So, on to the letter 'E'. Eriyappes are part of the 'Appe' family (who would have thought?). In appearance, they look somewhat like a cross between a sweetish dumpling and a 'pollo' (look up my recipe for Doddak to revisit what this is!). In taste, they resembled a mini, puffed up 'Surnoli' (a type of Aamchi pancake), which featured recently on the second session of our Thoy Stories series on instagram. The batter needs no fermentation, which is an added bonus over Surnolis.

But, here's the limitation of Eriyappes (or any appes for that matter). You have to make them in a typical "appe kaaili" (as in 'Kylie'). In Aamchi, 'kaaili' is a half moon shaped cooking pan, also called 'kadhai' in Hindi). The appe kaaili is a dish that has multiple depressions in them for you to pour small amounts of the Appe batter. You then shallow fry the appes on both sides to a beautiful golden-brown colour, possibly imparted by the caramelising jaggery and yellow turmeric, and to a slight crispy texture. Did I just hear a worthy 'mmmmm'? I was making this vegan and so I used oat milk, but if you aren't vegan you could simply use regular milk. Also, according to Rasachandrika you can use a frying pan but I think this would take a much longer time and will be more tedious than the easy-cook appe kaili.

I was pretty pleased with how they turned out. My wife and in-laws relished them with white butter ("lonee") but they tasted really good even with pitti chutney - the savoury pitty chutney complementing nicely the sweetish appe!

The yellow dim lighting in our kitchen does not do justice to how these looked, as I only made these in the evening, but trust me, these looked and tasted great!

Ingredients (This made around 21 eriyappes)

1.5 cups of rice

1 cup jaggery (I used powedered jaggery)

1/2 cup of dessicated coconut

1/2 cups of rice flakes or poha (soaked)

1/4 cup non-dairy milk (I used oat milk)

2 tbsp coconut oil

1 tsp tumeric pwd

Salt to taste

Method

1. Wash and soak the rice for 4-5 hours in twice the amount of water.

2. Grind together the rice, soaked rice flakes, coconut (as I used desiccated coconut, this needs to be reconstituted with just a little hot water) and turmeric to a fine batter.

3. Add the jaggery, salt, and milk and beat the batter well to a fine paste like consistency.

4. Put the eriyappe kaaili/pan over low heat and grease each depression with 2-3 drops of coconut oil. Ours is a non-stick appe kaaili, and so doesn't need a lot of oil. If you do not use a non-stick pan, you will have to use more oil to prevent the appes from sticking to the pan.

5. Pour only small amounts of batter into each depression/hole to fill them up until just below the rim without the batter overflowing or spilling into the adjacent hole. While making the second lot I poured a little too much into one of the holes and then the batter overflowed - it was a little messy trying to separate and flip the conjoined appes. 6. Put a lid on the pan to shallow fry the eriyappes to a golden brown colour and crisp texture on one side. (Note: you will know the appe is cooked when the runny batter like texture begins to turn opaque from translucent, and the appes easily wiggle out of the depressions). When one side is cooked such, flip the appes to cook the other side - this time you do not need to cover the dish with a lid.

6. Definitely serve them hot - with white butter or pitti chutney!