Pho for a Fee and More Fun at Smiley House, Pune

Exploring Pune on a two wheeler is always rewarding. Here an elegant old house, there a river and round every corner a new eatery to tickle the taste buds. So a couple of weekends back, we were cruising down Baner road when we found an as yet unexplored road turning to the right. Now, the road goes ever on and on, as Tolkien would say, but this one, as luck would have it, led us to an amazing culinary experience.

Almost parallel to the Mutha river, facing green kitchen gardens, sits a cute little restaurant serving Vietnamese Cuisine: Smiley House, Shop No. A-2 Sai Heritage, D.P Road.

My first experience with Vietnamese Cuisine was when I was a young girl in Pondicherry, somewhere in the Seventies. Well, it was more like French Cuisine served in a restaurant run by a Vietnamese lady. She was probably married to a Tamilian and had some very pretty daughters who were often to be seen on the elegant colonial balcony above the restaurant. They were fair and aloof. And I wonder what happened to them and how their mother came to be all the way here in Pondicherry. 

Well, while Smiley House may not offer you a taste of that French connection, the Vietnamese Black Coffee is sure to extract an Ooh la la of the froggiest.

Run by the ever smiling Hoa Be, it's a pleasant little place where you can sit back and watch the world go by while tasting exquisitely delicate fare.
The menu is reasonably priced considering how exotic the experience is.

While it seems a hot favourite with the Korean expat community, quite a few local youngsters are also to be found hanging out at this cosy eatery. The décor is cheerful and, as is usual these days, the walls are lined with handwritten testimonies and other cute things to read and smile about.

Considering how Indians are now travelling far and wide on business and for education, our tastes are getting to be more flexible. In fact, young Indians now look forwards to new cuisines with gusto.

Here's wishing Smiley House all the best and hoping to visit soon.  

Easy Mutton curry

The important part is getting good quality mutton. While I'm no expert, frozen branded meats have rarely brought satisfaction. In countries where a butcher is easily accessible it is important to form a bond with this person.

I bonded with my butcher who runs his operations in Aundh Gaon over dogs and his niece.
It was Christmas afternoon last year (2013) when I first visited his shop. Somehow we got to talking and it transpired that his niece had just been born. She is now called Pari (Angel) but her grandfather insists on calling her Mary.

We also share dog tales-various strays lie on the couple of stairs in front of the shop and it is easy to step on their tails if you do not pay attention. The butcher has a long and moving story about the dogs in his life.

He does his surgeries on a huge log. Particularly fascinating is his way of making mince by mincing the meat with his cleaver on this wooden log. We've rarely if at all been disappointed in the quality of his meat. If a complaint has to exist it is merely that he will not sell liver separately.

Of late I've begun to enjoy liver. For years this was a part of meat that I would go all out to avoid. There is a theory that our nutritional deficits dictate our food choices. And as it stands I am now anaemic, a deficiency which I never thought I would ever have!

Quick and Tasty Mutton Curry

1 kg mutton -some 250 gms worth of liver included would be nice
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1 Tbsp red chili powder
1 Tbsp coriander powder

Curry leaves

1 cup finely sliced onions

1/2 cup oil
1 black cardamom
1 small cardamom
2 cloves
1 small piece of cinnamon
1/2 tsp whole black peppercorns
1 or 2 tej pattas

1/2 cup finely chopped tomato
5-6 green chilies slit

1-2 Tbsp garlic paste

1-2 Tbsp ginger paste or juliennes 

A large handful of green coriander, washed and chopped fine

Method

Chop the liver into bite sized bits. Heat a bit of the oil (About a tablespoon or less), saute some onion slices and curry leaves. Add liver and stir fry till the liver changes colour fully.

Wash the mutton and rub in any meat masala that is lying around (I used Shaan Nihari masala). A large tablespoon should do. Add the chili and coriander and turmeric powders. Rub well and set it aside. I cooked it a few days after buying the meat and had left it in the marinade in the freezer.

You can marinate it for a lesser amount of time-anything upwards of an hour. But if you are keeping it raw for longer than an hour, it is better to store it in the fridge.

Heat the oil and fry the sliced onions for some 5 minutes on a high fire (try not to burn them!). Lower the fire and continue until the onions get a bit brown. Keep stirring. Add the cardamoms, cloves, cinnamon, pepper and tej patta.

Add the tomato and green chili and fry well for some 5 minutes. Add the ginger-garlic pastes and continue stirring and frying until it forms an unholy gook. Add the meat and fry some more till the meat is well coated.

Add a cup or so or more of water. Depends on how you like it-I love a thin curry.

Pressure cook.

Garnish with green coriander before serving.

Pineapple Rasam and Paatholi

I've read that pineapple is good for me. It's touted as a remedy for both osteoarthritis and amoebiasis. So I went and bought one.

Nothing usually goes to waste with me and I used the pineapple peel to make wine.

We ate a part of the ripe pineapple as fruit but a few pieces remained and I could not fob those off on my suspicious family (I share with my late Mother in Law a tendency to pursue family members around the house persuading them to finish off over ripe fruit and other leftovers).

The remaining handful or so of pineapple chunks were used to make Pineapple Rasam.

I did not follow this recipe. Here's what I did:

Pineapple rasam 

Take the amount or part of the amount required to make instant rasam. Boil the pineapple chunks in that water or pressure cook them till they're soft. If you feel so inclined you can add some finely chopped onion too at this stage.Make the instant rasam with the above water and fruit and/or onion. I used a 2 Minutes Rasam paste from indirafoods but cannot find a link to it online.When the concoction comes to a boil add some tomato if you so desire but I did not as it might have become too sour.In the case of some instant rasam mixes you might need to add tamarind. However, this can always be substituted y adding some lime juice to taste when serving.Similarly, I added chopped garlic just before serving as I'm trying to take at least 6 cloves of raw garlic to tackle my tummy problems. Raw garlic is also said to be good for both the osteoarthritis as well as for the amoebiasis. And it tastes incredibly good when added raw, crushed, to a hot clear soup.
Garnish with a little chopped fresh coriander or cilantro leaves.BTW you can grow dhania (cilantro) from the seeds. Just crush them well between your palms before tossing into the mud. My Bai says one has to trample them underfoot.

And then there was some ground Channa dal with which I had intended to make parippu vadas. Since I was not too obedient to any recipe I must have done something wrong (Possibly I let the mixture sit for too long in the fridge after grinding) and the vadas kept breaking up in the hot oil. So I used the miserable mess of failed vadas and the remaining ground Channa dal to make

Paatholi

1 cup Channa dal, soaked overnight or for a few hours and coarsely ground so that there are many large pieces1 or 2 large onions roughly slicedA couple of green chilies or less depending on your tolerance1 t finely sliced fresh ginger1 T or less or omit, cloves of garlic -leave them whole or roughly chop1 t mustard seeds1 t cumin seedsa pinch of hing1 or 2 dried red chilies broken into bits-use according to tolerance1 or 2 T oil (groundnut is what I used)Use at least that much oil if not more-the onion slices should have enough oil to saute in.

Method

Heat the oil. Splutter the mustard, add the red chili and zeera. Do not let anything burn. Add a few curry leaves at this point if you have some fresh ones.Add the sliced onions and the rest of the stuff except the dal and saute till the onions are glazed and translucent.Add the dal and stir vigorously over a moderately hot fire.Add some salt to taste and garnish with chopped coriander.Serve both the dishes with hot sticky rice (make it sticky by using new rice and cooking it in a little extra water and for longer than your normal rice cooking time), and hot ghee.A good pickle served alongside will only enhance the decadence.

Oh Fudge!

While my mother was alive, I was an absolute brat. I gave her incessant grief about many things-the prerogative of the pampered. I cribbed about her cooking. And now that she is no more, I find that she was an amazing chef! With very little at hand and in the hardest of circumstances she could turn out the most mouth watering dishes.
Like many women of the time (I'm sure this is true even now), a lot of her interactions with friends involved cooking and other household tips. It was from one such session with a very sweet lady that Amma got a recipe for what she called Fudge. 
At that time, we were using a coal stove as backup. We had gas but we had to make it last for ages-it was a luxury, We had a kerosene stove which was also rationed fuel for us in those days and now we had a chullah.  It was on this, with its slow fire, that Amma made the most yummy ever fudge.
Whenever I asked her for the recipe she just said:
1 cup sooji (semolina)
1 cup sugar
1 cup ghee
1 cup khoa
1 glass milk.
And I tried and I tried but I think the secret lies in the slow fire. However, even if I find that slow a flame, it's not as if I will acquire my mother's patience to sit over a hot stove and stir and stir and stir. I'd go stir crazy!
Anyway, I tend to add cocoa to the mixture towards the end and a lot of ghee oozes out but my family seems to love that which emerges.
This is the only sweet I made this Holi and I made do with some leftover rabri instead of khoa. I am now going to use up the ghee that oozed out to make another batch.

Kerala Fast Food, Aundh, Pune

One of the greatest blessings of my life has been that good friends materialise wherever I go, be it in faraway Malaysia or right here in Pune where I moved from Gurgaon some time back. I offer special thanks to my Pune Angel who speedily introduced me to those parts of Pune where I have consistently ever since had the most joy. 
Of these, Aundh Gaon remains the most frequented as it is nearest. I go there to soak in the atmosphere of another world, another time. It is a place worthy of the name gaon for its winding lanes house very rural lifestyles  and behaviours. One goes there to shop and to get things repaired: there are little shops where you can get bags and zips and other luggage related items repaired. We also use the Aundh Gaon butcher who provides quite decent mutton.
Just yesterday, in fact, we were there. My husband has a bit of a cold and sore throat and I decided that dinner would be pasta with mince and my version of a French onion soup. So we asked for 100 g of mutton mince and a soup bone. We had to wait a bit as the boy of about 14 who was lounging  around in the butcher shop was just there to babysit it. He called up the butcher who took some time to appear. as a matter of fact he came on the scene just as we were about to leave. 
He very kindly adjusted our requirements so that for Rs. 100 we could get a bit of mince and a soup bone. I was absolutely charmed that he made the mince there and then with his huge butcher's knife on the huge tree trunk which acted as table. And as his hands danced over the fresh soft meat he informed me that he had just received news that his sister-in-law had delivered a girl. 
Anyone could see his utter happiness! It was, no doubt, delightful to have someone born on Christmas but what was so engaging was that in this country where we are constantly told (those of us who can and do merrily lap up all manner of written word) that Indians hate daughters, etc, we were witness to the pure and simple joy of a man into whose family a girl had just been born.
So Aundh Gaon is, in a sense, where you will find the real India. And it is also there that we found some quite authentic and tasty Malayalee food.
We had seen Kerala Fast Food often enough and even gone there once although just to ask directions to a Kerala goods shop.It is really unprepossessing and not very inviting so far as looks go but given the fairly rave reviews on the Net, I decided to take my husband there for a birthday breakfast.
It turned out to be a most enchanting meal as when we went there the little space that constitutes this eatery was occupied by a merry group. They promptly suggested we pull up a table rather than sit alone facing the wall and went on to order for us!
And so we all feasted on appams and kadala curry. However, when the puttu came around I dug in my heels. Nothing on earth can force me to force puttu down my throat, thank you very much! Instead, we worked up the courage to order some meat curry to go with another round of appams and it was not bad at all. This feast was washed down with some nice black tea.
Now let me clarify why I had to be brave to order meat: our co-diners had already professed to be majorly vegetarian. And let me further surprise you by revealing that they were (at least the host couple) Christians!
So this was yet another face of India that Aundh Gaon exposed: vegetarian Christians, strangers sharing a meal...
Kerala Fast Food wins my vote but I need to explore their other dishes-perhaps this weekend? 

Points for Food Bloggers

Not a day goes by that I do not surf the Net for recipes. For almost any dish I can think of there are pages and pages on line.

Almost every second person I know, myself included, has a food blog.

However, in this jungle of availability, there are all kinds of recipe websites. Some like, like certain trees, hog all resources but are not really that rewarding in themselves. For a long time now any dish I sought on Google would vomit Yummly pages galore. Clicking on them just led to a Yummly page where you could search for your recipe! Time consuming and, more often than not, a futile quest. This is no longer so and I might have had something to do with it as I took a survey sent by YUmmly where I managed to voice this complaint.

Why would such a thing happen?

It is possible that some wise guy working for the website begins to use a specific tool: a Keyword generating tool... I'm glad that Yummly, at least, has, at least for me, stopped this hogging of search resources.

While a good blog can get swallowed up in this ocean of plenty, it is, always, in the long run, better to use common sense strategies. 

When you blog about a recipe, take shots of the commercial products used and, perhaps, provide links to local supermarkets where one can obtain them. Creating a link with brands is a good step. But that does not mean you can claim anything from them. Some more work is required so that the companies realise that you are, in fact, "reviewing" their products, perhaps even endorsing them.

Much subtlety is required for, even in cooking, it is rarely a good idea to use dollops of anything.

Another reason why one is more attracted to some food blogs rather than to others is the blog background, especially the background colour. Novice bloggers leap at the choices offered by blogspace providers and you get pages of every hue of the rainbow. A simple white page with black lettering wins hands down-a basic matter of readability. 

Keep it simple for content is, unquestionably, the criteria.
A overly fancy looking cake or ice cream or any dish renders us quite suspicious about the taste. Elegance is, most often, a question of simplicity.

Lastly, all too many food bloggers assume that all there is to sharing the making of a dish is to type, typos included, the basic steps. It's a problem with all those who seek to teach, impart, anything at all-the inability to see from the point of view of the other. All the person thinks is needed is to basically tell others" Yipee! I can do it!" A mere boast, in other words.
And I do not blame them for it's what recipe books, which are sold in large numbers, do-although, flip through any recipe book and you will find that if you follow the instructions blindly you're more than likely to land up with an unpalatable mess. So, Food Blogger, do you want to boast or do you want to share with us the secret to making such and such dish?

Thus, one finds oneself drawn more frequently to blogs where a recipe is explained in steps, where the blogger even confesses to messing things up, analyses what went wrong, etc.

Finally, space! Provide lots of space for the eye to relax and you will make reading so much the easier.

A word to the wise: many photos can slow down blog page loading by which time your reader has run off to a blog which loads faster: so use photos sparingly. Let a photo have a purpose. One can always provide a link to another blog page where you keep an album of recipe pictures. Perhaps each dish can have it's album and on the page where you provide instructions, keep photos to a minimum.

Take the time to provide links to books or items which have something to do with the recipe.

Menu planning, recipes tried and wine making

FROM CHAOS TO ORDER
In an attempt to organise the chaos that is my life I chanced upon the Flylady. This fine website takes you step by step through your house and life, setting things in order. What's for dinner is a major trauma to many home-makers.

Inspired by Flylady's Saving Dinner, I found myself a good menu planner and hope to eventually make meal preparation hassle free fun. 

WHAT'S COOKING, GOODLOOKING?
Some of the tasty things I've cooked this week are taken off the Internet:

1. Amla rice 

It's sour like lemon rice and I would think of adding finely chopped cabbage along with the grated Amla for a more complete one dish meal

2. Amla rasam 

I morphed it to my convenience, grinding the chopped amla, a bit of onion and garlic in a mixie with some water and boiling this water with a finely chopped onion. I added rasam powder in the final boil.

3. Aval vadas 

This is an excellent use as such recipe and provides a fancy snack or breakfast food with some good chutney

4. Ragi dosas 
One can also add a bit of ragi flour to left over dosa batter to have healthier dosas.

A TOAST TO THE WORLD WIDE WEB!
I've been making wine at home since the late Eighties. My first wine was probably a Rose Wine: a beautiful beverage but a recipe which I have been unable to repeat as rose petals are expensive. :( I did once find the recipe on line but cannot locate it now :(

I then discovered more wine recipes in a cookery book by Thangam Philips I bought in Guruvayur and which I cannot locate on line now-it had recipes for beetroot, pineapple and amla wine, if I recall right.

A further treasure trove in those days was a gem of a book written by a Manglorean father for his about-to-be-wed daughter: it contained everything from recipes to poultry farming! I used many of its wine recipes but, alas, in those days I mainly used plastic jars and I do think that affects the taste.

I've resumed my wine making of late (the last couple of years) with great success. My range has increased and so has my fascination with wine making.

Here are some of the recipes I use:
Beetroot 
This is quick and most delightful!

Pineapple skin 
With some good dried ginger, it's heavenly!

Pineapple 

Amla I add yeast!

Pumpkin 

Fruit 

Banana 

Golden Wine 

Guava 

Ginger

Orange 

Come mango season, I shall try making Mango Wine.

My challenge now is to find wine yeast and, in the meantime, I might try culturing the yeast from a good bottle of bought wine-but I need to figure out a more easily available culture medium than agar.

Hotel Rajwada, Baner Road, Pune

We've been eating out quite a lot since moving to Pune. And Pune is a city where folks seem to eat out a lot-much like Kuala Lumpur. And last night we dined at Hotel Rajwada

Last night I planned to make Kachoris at home for dinner because there was cooked white Urad Dal leftover from the night before and a friend who'd dropped in for pot luck'd brought over some roasted aloo topped with cheese and a packet of Everest Panni Puri Masala and a bag of Gol Guppas. 

Confused?

Don't be. It's very simple! I cook something and Mr. X drops in with an agenda of his own. Mr. X loves good food and loves eating out. Mr. X is not given to complimenting people to their faces. Thus, he drops in for dinner with food of his own :D. Perhaps I should buy one of those Hotel signboards which say: No Outside Eatables Allowed! But then I do love when he brings tubs of ice cream and such. Life is never simple. I cook Makki ki Rotis and White Urad Dal and he brings things that just don't go with the aforementioned and don't you tell me that Makki ki Rotis do not belong with Urad Dal 'cause there aint no Sarson ka Saag to be found this time of year in this here part of the world.

Still confused?

Ok. Let's keep it simple: The morning after I awoke to find left over Urad Dal and Paani Puri Masala and Gol Guppas staring me in the face accusingly. I struggled with guilt all day, atoned somewhat by making patties with another leftover dal: A small cup of yellow Moong Dal. Why guilt? Because I had no green chilies, no ginger and no Amchur with which to make White Urad Dal Kachoris to go with the Paani Puris. Clear as ditchwater, right? 

Still confused? Go see a shrink or go back to school. 

Anyway, to cut a long story short, Mr. X phoned us last night to tell us about Hotel Mahabaleshwar and my Hairy Half who was getting quite fed up of my attempts to explain my dinner plans to him, leaped with joy at this escape route and that is how we had dinner at Hotel Rajwada finally.

More confused?

Well, it's like this: we were driving down the road to Hotel Mahabaleshwar and Rajwada was in our way. So, rather than run it over, we decided to try it out.

Truth is, Hairy Half and I have been eyeing it for a while now as we cruise down the tree lined (Half the road is tree lined) avenue that leads to Sanjay Sports Academy where we plan to take up dancing classes: Bollywood Masti or Zumba. So far we've only cruised past and we're probably going to join some time next year. 

But we did get round to visiting Rajwada and so we deserve a pat on the back!

Haveli-like, Rajwada has an inviting look to it. Park your Vahan without breaking into a sweat. Descend and ascend a small regal flight of steps to an imposing old world Darwaza. Step through and step into a dream of ancient splendour. 

Tables are laid out in the huge garden and diners enjoy night skies on the one hand and the golden glow of the hotel on the other. 

I had read a review that spoke of slow service which left me quite unprepared for the fast as lightning service. There were moments where it was almost:  "Pudding-Alice; Alice-Pudding. Remove the pudding!"

A last glug of beer was, for example,hastily snatched off the table and the waiters made haste to dump the last bits of dal and sabzi on our plates. Not the most comfortable of hospitality, to my eyes!

Nor was it very hospitable of one of the waiters to tell Mr. X "Wait!" when asked for some green chilies.

And the food? Passable-not bad. Small helpings add to the general lack of hospitality.

Superb ambience thoroughly ruined by most offhand service.

And don't have a paan from the little cigarette shop outside (BTW the Hotel does not permit smoking): the Mitha Paan was like a stale burfi.

Water Melon Rind Chutney

It's water melon season and we buy almost one melon per week.

Photo by Prathyush Thomas,

My mother-in-law, who was a Malayalee, once told me that the white part of melon rind could be used as a substitute for Kumbalanga or winter melon. This white fleshed pumpkin is a frequent ingredient in Kerala cuisine. I have often made a simple dish which I learned from her using this substitute: a mulakushyam . The recipe in the link is almost similar to how I learned it:

Mulakushyam

Ingredients:
1 cup tuvar dal
1 cup chopped kumbalanga
1 or 2 green chillies
A pinch of turmeric powder
Salt to taste
A few curry leaves
A few drops of coconut oil

Method

Wash the dal and cook it with about 2 cups of water. When it is nearly soft, add the cubed vegetable and salt and turmeric and continue to cook till the vegetable is soft. 

Add the green chillies (slit if you like the heat or un-slit if not or not all if you can't take the heat). 

Take the vessel off the fire and add fresh curry leaves and a drizzle of coconut oil.

Since this gourd is hard to find in North India, I delight in using melon rind in summer.

I've had to become more adventurous as the quantity of melon rind is more than I can cope with using only the one recipe.

I've made a chutney over the weekend which tastes quite like coconut chutney.

We morphed the recipe a lot - merely roasted the dals and some red chillies and the rind and ground them coarsely and tempered with mustard seeds, curry leaves, a red chilli and some channa and split white urad dal.

I'm still in the throes of trying to make a melon rind candy. There seem to be a lot of things one can do with melons!

News From My Kitchen - Glen Cook Tops are a Big No No

We returned to India after 5 years in Malaysia somewhere around July 2010. A stove was a priority and we went to Big Bazaar in a Mall in Gurgaon. Maybe the one in Sahara Mall. I fell for the following deal
Buy Glen 3 Burner Glass Top Gas Stove & Get Glen Mixer Grinder, Sandwich Toaster, Electric Kettle and Iron worth Rs.6660/- FREE


Silly me! The stove has almost never worked well: the burners rarely burn well, mostly burning very low. The Mixer Grinder started falling to pieces with every use and the Sandwich Toaster works slowly and to a very unsatisfactory effect-crispness is rarely achieved. 


It was stupid of me to buy a stove of non-Indian make. Firstly, the gas cook top is not such a commonly used kitchen item, I'm pretty sure, in the Brand's own country. Secondly, Indian Brands benefit from our consumer power-we complain freely. Lastly, our country still remains a dumping ground for third rate goods from so called First World Countries. 


As I do not have much spare time I did not find the time to complain right away. When I did use the contact format on the Glen website,  a service man came and did something and I had to pay. It worked fine for a while after but soon relapsed to its stubbornly inefficient mode. 


This March I approached them again and they were willing to send a service man to set right the issues for payment!


I've had about enough. I've learned my lesson: Be Indian, Buy Indian is a sane, wise way to live as an Indian in India. Outside of India too, it might be wiser for NRIs to stick to Indian Brands.