A Bowl of Pakhala

Come March, the people of Odisha have to start battling the high and dry heat of an early summer that kind of side steps over what is supposed to be “Basanta Rutu” or Spring season; a season supposed to buffer the summer and be mild, but which slyly gives the state a miss. Summer is all of a sudden upon us, before we have even packed away our winter clothes. We start feeling the departure of winter when the vegetables, fresh beet and carrots and cauliflowers and laukis and peas suddenly start looking dry and withered, then one day suddenly lose their taste. Then comes the loo, the dry wind that the river bed brings in during the mid-day, that is suffocating and all pervasive. Suddenly the swarms of mosquitoes disappear and you know that the temperature is hovering around the 40s mark. But, the real indicator, that Summer is here? The Pakhala. The dish whose images have started doing the rounds of social media in recent years, and so much so, apparently, a day has been dedicated to it! (Whoever had heard of World Pakhala Day even 5 years back!)

Yes, the Pakhala truly heralds the coming of summer to Odisha. A dish, to quench thirst, egalitarian, all-inclusive and stubbornly resistant to change. It is also perhaps the only dish that people can digest in this small rice bowl of eastern India, during the hot season.

Pakhala – The Dish

What is a Pakhala? It is simply the leftover cooked rice dunked in water and taken the next day in its slightly fermented form. The fermentation gives it a kick and sour taste.  The daily wagers, the farmers who toil in the field, the working class, always in need of a fast nutritious dish, relish this simple unpretentious dish in the heat.  The basic Pakhala really doesn’t need much of an accompaniment, just some salt, maybe green chillies and some slices of raw onion. But the dish is equally appreciated across all sections of society. One can add on to the dish and make it as simple or as complicated or traditional as one wishes.

A typical family will have some pan fried vegetables and maybe a boiled potato to go with it. Fish fry, or a side of stir fried prawns is appreciated (most Odia side dishes are stir fried, shallow fried rather than deep fried).  “Badi”, the sun dried dumpling made from lentils, is another favourite accompaniment with the Pakhala. Fried bitter gourd or pumpkin flowers dipped in rice paste and shallow fried are popular anti pastos (or perhaps ante-pakhala?) before one consumes the main bowl.

Pakhala Revival

The timeless dish has had a revival in recent times, thanks to social media and the countless emigrated Odias rediscovering their roots through nostalgia. For people who went to school in the 70s and 80s, nothing completed a day better than to come to a bowl of “Pakhala” after a hot and dusty day at school.

However this acceptance of Pakhala as a regular mainstay of Odia cuisine was not very palatable even a few years back. I remember asking a friend outside Odisha whether they had pakhala at home and the defensive response was “maybe it is taken back in the villages, we don’t have it,"  immediately consigning it to a category as a dish for the rural poor. One cannot really blame the Odia “prabashis” for this type of sentiment. We have been categorized so long as an extremely poor state, that this dish kind of slammed the nail on the coffin of  “Odisha- a poor pakhala eating state”, hence perhaps leading to a reluctance to its acceptance as a proper State cuisine. At least till a few years back.

Thankfully, perhaps with the realization that Pakhala cannot be the worst thing to happen to us, has come an assertion and acceptance of our essential Odia-ness,  and acceptance of all our inherent culture, heritage, quirks, habits, dress codes, dishes, and the ubiquitous and all-encompassing Pakhala in all its glory.

#pakhala #worldpakhaladay

- Sm R

5 Reasons Why Chelo Kebab is Not Nasi lemak

A few days back I had an amazing dinner of Chello Kebab at perhaps the World's most famous restaurant serving Chelo Kebab - Peter Cat in Park Street at Kolkata. During the course of my post prandial musings, my thoughts flew to another favorite meal with amazingly similar "apparent" ingredients but an entirely different result - the Nasi Lemak from Malaysia.

Both are complete meals with chicken, vegetable, egg on the side with rice at the centre. And thats where the similarities end between the two meals!

Nasi Lemak has flavoured rice as in Chelo Kebab. In Nasi Lemak, the flavour comes from lime leaves and lemon grass - while in Chello Kebab the flavouring is from butter and the smell of basmati rice.

Chicken is the main ingredient of Chello Kebab as the name suggests. It comes in the form of awesomely rich, grilled, minced chicken kebabs - whose ingredients and secrets go back perhaps 300 years or so. You also get barbecued chicken on skewers. The chicken in Nasi Lemak is a side dish, normally chicken rendang (a red red chicken in gravy - cooked with coconut) or simple fried chicken.

Chello Kebab may have a piece or two of cucumber on the side - but it is not accompanied by anchovies and peanuts as in Nasi Lemak. The other vegetable in chello comes barbecued with the chicken.

Eggs too come differently. While Nasi Lemak has a boiled egg served on the side, Chello Kebab has a poached egg placed delicately at the centre of the rice - with a dollop of butter near it.

And perhaps the most critical non-similarity! Chello Kebab is a princely meal, however meaningless the royal terminology may be in today's egalitarian world, loved and revered by people who have partaken of it at Peter Cat. Nasi Lemak is street food at its best, served in wrapped pandan leaves at street corners, for breakfast, lunch and dinner at most local restaurants and everywhere else in Malaysia - similarly loved and revered!

So enjoy both!!!

Fried Chicken Curry (Dry) - Easy to Cook Recipe

Dry Chicken (South Indian Style)

This is an easy to cook chicken recipe that I tried today. It turned out really well, much to my surprise. This dried chicken recipe has a tangy peppery taste and should be good to eat with chapatti. We had it with steamed rice though for Sunday lunch.

Ingredients and Preparation

Chicken (500 gm)
Ginger garlic paste (2 tsp)
Chilli powder
Turmeric powder
Curry Powder (Any good one like Gemini, Everest, Ruchi, MTR, etc)) - 2 tbsp
Curry Leaves
Green Chillies - To taste
Mustard paste (ready made or home made) - 1 tsp
Vinegar - 2-3 tbsp
Ground Pepper - 2 tbsp
Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
Onion - 2 big
Oil - 2 tbsp
Salt to taste

Marinate Chicken (500 g) with ginger garlic paste (2 tsp), turmeric powder, chilli powder, vinegar, green chilli (1-2), half tsp mustard paste (I used the Heinz mustard paste that I keep for hotdogs), freshly ground pepper and 2 tsp curry powder (I used Ruchi's Curry Powder). Try to marinate for at least 30 minutes or so, so that the flavours soak in. It is however ideal to marinate for 3 hours.

Slice 2 big onions and keep aside.

Heat oil in a deep wok (Kadhai). Add the mustard seeds. Add the onions and fry. Add the curry leaves and marinated chicken. Add a sliced green chilli. Add salt to tase. Fry on high heat till the water evaporates. Add a little water. Cover it leave it to simmer on low heat. Stir in between to see that the chicken doesn't stick to the pan.

Cooking time - Approx 20-30 Min depending on the quality of poultry.

How To Make Pasta

I guess how I made Pasta would be a more appropriate title for this post! Anyways, here it goes...

I was having a small get-together, a kind of mini kitty party a few days back and I decided to make pasta (with sauce and all of course). For some unknown reason (after all I had never tried to make pasta before), I decided it was the easiest thing to prepare. So, I went about shopping the evening before.

Ingredients

I picked up the best-looking packet of macaroni, a can of baked beans, a tinned mushroom, a tin of tomato puree. Then I looked at the cheese available and found just the right thing, a packet of grated cheese. See, I had done my research on the net. I had found a dozen recipe of pasta. Its another matter that none of them advised putting all these stuff together. I also picked up bottles of garlic salt and white pepper.

Just as I was leaving, I was suddenly assailed by doubts (a rare thing, but there…) I got a packet of noodles and some perfectly cut frozen vegetables as well as a bottle of soya sauce – to make noodles if worse came to worst!

I started my pasta at midnight after bundling off the kids to bed, the party being scheduled for the morning.

Cooking The Perfect Pasta

As per instructions on the net, I would need 5 liters of water to boil 500g of Pasta. I found my biggest pan could hold just 3 litres. I made do. The water had to boil first. That went fine. Then sidle in the macaroni into the boiling water. Yes, please don’t throw it in, the water’s boiling, the pan’s full, just coax in the pasta, unless you have a preference for getting scalded! Keep mixing it, so that the pasta doesn’t stick to the bottom. One really has to be careful. The best instruction I found online said that, take a bite and remove the pasta just when you feel the softness is as you would like to eat it. There is some philosophy somewhere here. So many things in life are that simple!

I removed and drained the the macaroni onto a colander. I kept aside some of the liquid to use in the sauce. You will find there is very little liquid left when 500gms pasta is boiled in 3 ltrs of water!

Pasta Sauce

Next step was to prepare the pasta sauce. I put two tbs of butter into a pan, then scraped some garlic cloves into the pan. Then I sprinked garlic salt and white pepper. I added the mushrooms from the can (drained), then emptied a 200 gm tin of tomato puree. The paste seemed to be very very thick. So I added the reserve water I had kept aside and let the mixture simmer. It was a real pungent taste. I realized too late that the tomato puree was really thick and just 3-4 spoons would have sufficed. So I had to keep on adding water to get the right consistency! So I had a huge pan full of pasta sauce. I made some white sauce next. I am not going to describe the process. Oh, well. I boiled some milk (200 ml), added some butter and mixed in 2 tsp of white flour. Is that white sauce? Well, I always prepare it that way…

Final Dressing

Now for the finale. I mashed 3 medium sized potoes which I had previously boiled. I brought out my largest casserole (I was not really prepared for the huge quantity). Then I poured in the macaroni. Added the mashed potatoes, the baked beans (with the juice), the white sauce. The pasta was still dry. I added the sauce I had prepared. I realized I needed just one-fifth of the prepared quantity! But I strained out all the mushroom from the sauce to add to the pasta. I mixed in all the contents, cooled it and stored it away. I entire process lasted one and half hours, including preparation time.

Just before serving the next day, I took out the amount needed onto another much smaller carsserole, sprinkled the grated parmesan cheese on top and heat it in the microwave till the cheese melted.

So there, I had my pasta ready (so what if we all had to eat pasta for 3 days!) and it really, surprisingly tasted good!

Try it, and tell me the results! Just remember 500 gm pasta would maybe feed around 15 persons as a snack, and my party was just for 5 people.

And now the family has started on the noodles (remember the packet I got as back-up)!!! But that recipe is another story.

Weight Loss Through Wuyi Tea - A Magic Diet!

Is Wuyi tea truly a magic diet weight loss formula? Looking for slimming plans (as I usually do at least once a month :-) I came across what is being claimed as a magic weight loss plan, the Wu Yi diet tea. The plan is simple. Just two cups of Wuyi tea a day, 30 minutes of walking, normal balanced diet.

What exactly is Wuyi tea? It’s the tea grown in the volcanic Wuyi mountain region. Wuyi Mountain is located in Southeast China. It is a Unesco heritage site and the cradle of neoconfucianism. The setting of Wuyi mountains, the nutrient rich trapped soil, the high humidity and provide the perfect environment for tea from that region. Tea from the Wuyi Mountains is being exported for centuries. The Chinese take their tea seriously. Drinking tea is almost a spiritual act. The tea is savoured and taken in small clay thimbles with both hands in the traditional Chinese way. The ancient Chinese believed this tea to be a cure for many ailments.

The most famous Wuyi Tea, Da Hong Pao is grown in only three bushes which accounts for its exhorbitant price (if its available!) Xing Hong Pao is grown from the branches of the smaller red robe trees which are descents of the original three red robe trees.

So why is the Wuyi tea believed to be a diet tea? Possibly because the caffeine in the tea raises the body’s metabolic rate? The tea in itself contains very little calories and should be taken in lukewarm water. Wuyi tea, in addition contains higher levels of polyphenols and thus has high antioxidant properties which are attributed to protect from a variety of diseases (the ancient Chinese medics prescribed them often). It also is supposed to be responsible for increasing body metabolism, which may account for the weight loss properties.

There are many resources on Wuyi tea on the Net. Here is one.

Weight Loss Through Wuyi Tea - A Magic Diet!

Is Wuyi tea truly a magic diet weight loss formula? Looking for slimming plans (as I usually do at least once a month :-) I came across what is being claimed as a magic weight loss plan, the Wu Yi diet tea. The plan is simple. Just two cups of Wuyi tea a day, 30 minutes of walking, normal balanced diet.

What exactly is Wuyi tea? It’s the tea grown in the volcanic Wuyi mountain region. Wuyi Mountain is located in Southeast China. It is a Unesco heritage site and the cradle of neoconfucianism. The setting of Wuyi mountains, the nutrient rich trapped soil, the high humidity and provide the perfect environment for tea from that region. Tea from the Wuyi Mountains is being exported for centuries. The Chinese take their tea seriously. Drinking tea is almost a spiritual act. The tea is savoured and taken in small clay thimbles with both hands in the traditional Chinese way. The ancient Chinese believed this tea to be a cure for many ailments.

The most famous Wuyi Tea, Da Hong Pao is grown in only three bushes which accounts for its exhorbitant price (if its available!) Xing Hong Pao is grown from the branches of the smaller red robe trees which are descents of the original three red robe trees.

So why is the Wuyi tea believed to be a diet tea? Possibly because the caffeine in the tea raises the body’s metabolic rate? The tea in itself contains very little calories and should be taken in lukewarm water. Wuyi tea, in addition contains higher levels of polyphenols and thus has high antioxidant properties which are attributed to protect from a variety of diseases (the ancient Chinese medics prescribed them often). It also is supposed to be responsible for increasing body metabolism, which may account for the weight loss properties.

There are many resources on Wuyi tea on the Net. Here is one.