G is for Gothsu - Recipe for Eggplant Gothsu

My favourite pairing with Pongal is not coconut chutney or sambar but gothsu. What is this dish with a mildly tongue twister of a name, you might wonder! Hardly a favourite in my childhood, this is one of my newer loves. The aroma of brinjal roasting on the stove top is one of the strongest smells in a vegetarian kitchen, the other may be garlic being sautéed. Sometimes I can smell this when I'm a good distance away from my kitchen. You can love or hate this smoky, intense aroma but you can definitely not ignore it.

Gothsu is a tamarind based South Indian (Tambrahm, or may be made by other communities as well) curry that is made using roasted and mashed brinjal. Apparently, this dish was first made by the priests in Chidambaram temple to be served along with rice as an offering to the resident deity, which is why it is also known as Chidambaram Gothsu. While one way of preparing the dish is by roasting the eggplant (as in this recipe), the other method is to fry the eggplant till soft and use in the same manner. That gives a more oily pickle-chutney kind of dish.

There are variations to this recipe in which the same recipe can also be made using tomatoes or onions. Like I said, this tangy, smoky curry is the best companion for a Venn Pongal, which is a savoury dish made using rice and split yellow moong dal. If you don't have pongal on the menu, it is also quite good with plain steamed rice. 

This post is a part of the A-Z Blogging Challenge. 
Hope you've enjoyed my earlier posts:A is for AvialB is for Beans Paruppu UsiliC is for Chow ChowD is for DosaE is for Ellu Saadham 
F is for Fenugreek seeds - Vendhaya Kozhambu
http://saffrontrail.blogspot.in/2014/04/venthaya-kozhambu-fenugreek-seeds.html

Recipe for Kathrikkai Gothsu (eggplant gothsu)
Serves 3

Ingredients

1 large eggplant (brinjal) ~500 grams

1 tbsp oil

½ tsp mustard seeds

1 tsp chana dal

1 tsp udad dal

1 sprig curry leaves

2-3 dried red chillies

1 pinch asafoetida

2 tsp tamarind paste or ½ cup thin tamarind puree

1.5 tsp rice flour dissolved in ¼ cup water

2 tsp sambar powder dissolved in ¼ cup water

¼ tsp turmeric powder

1 tsp salt

Directions

Smear oil on the eggplant and roast it on open flame until completely charred and soft inside. You can test this by inserting a knife or a skewer inside. 

Once cool enough to handle, peel the skin, mash the eggplant and keep aside. Discard the stalk and skin.

In a kadai, heat the oil. Temper the mustard seeds. Add the chana dal, udad dal and sauté until golden. 

Add the red chillies, curry leaves, asafoetida and give it a quick stir. 

Add the tamarind paste / puree, rice flour in water and sambar powder in water. 

Bring this to a simmer. 

Add the salt, eggplant puree, turmeric powder and bring to a simmer again.

The consistency will be of a thick gravy, due to the thickening effect of rice flour.

Serve hot with pongal or steamed rice.

F is for Fenugreek seeds | Recipe for Vendhaya Kozhambu

Fenugreek Seeds in Indian cuisine play the role of a character artist in Bollywood cinema. They'll never get as much attention as the lead role but the subtle flavours you'll remember well after your meal is over. It's amazing how the seeds taste completely different from the leaves, which have an intensely beautiful fragrance. I always feel how Methi Theplas have a way of telling the whole neighbourhood that they are being made in some kitchen. 

Fenugreek seeds are one of the ingredients used in sambar-powder. Coriander seeds, dried red chillies, fenugreek seeds, chana dal are roasted one after the other until aromatic and then ground together into a powder and stored in an airtight container. In case of these seeds, less is more. Add a little and it imparts a unique flavour to the dish, like a hint of complex flavours on your taste buds. Add too much, and it's bitter and quite unpleasant. 

This is also a secret ingredient regular soaked along with udad dal to prepare idlis. Word is that they make the idlis softer. Personally, I feel it's also a taste improver. It is also said that dosas turn a lovely golden colour when there are fenugreek seeds in the batter. 

While it's not a traditional Tambrahm thing to do with fenugreek seeds, I like to soak and sprout them and use a few of these sprouts in salads. These are incredibly rich in all vitamins and minerals. As they have a slightly bitter taste, they pair very well with dressings that have a tinge of sweetness in them. You can sow the seeds in a shallow tray and in a few days the small leaves that shoot out can also be used as microgreens for a salad - something very fancy from something very earthy.

Methi / fenugreek seeds are have excellent health benefits. Studies have shown that fenugreek seeds reduce fasting and postprandial blood glucose levels in diabetic patients. Fenugreek appears to slow absorption of sugars in the stomach and stimulate insulin production, both of which are responsible for lowering blood sugar in diabetics.  While it's surely not a substitute for oral medications or insulin, it's a useful food to add to a daily diet. It is also one of the natural galactogouges - ie. substances that increase breast milk production, which is why traditionally in some Indian communities, these are made into Methi Laddoos which the new mother has during her breast feeding days.

I remember once, soaking and grinding these seeds to a paste after reading that they make an excellent hair conditioner. The paste was extremely slimy but I was adventurous enough to apply it on my hair anyway. I had to spend over an hour to wash off all the husk and slime from my hair and that's the only thing I remember, which is why I never repeated this exercise in vanity again and decided it is best to use in the kitchen!

Coming to Vendhaya Kozhambu, Kozhambu is typically a saucy South Indian curry, flavoured with tamarind extract, had with plain steamed rice. Vetthakozhambu is probably the most popular kozhambu varieties - and served in some restaurants as well. Here the key ingredient is sun-dried berries or sun-dried vegetables (vetthal) that are deep fried and added to the sauce. In Venthaya kozhambu, the main ingredient is fenugreek seeds. The kozhambu stays well for a couple of days in the fridge (especially if you don't add any vegetables to it) and the fenugreek seeds soak up the liquids and take on a sweet-sour flavour. Since the flavours of a kozhambu are quite strong, it is not used in as much quantity as a sambar. Also, it is a perfect rice accompaniment to make when you are short of time or too lazy to cook dal. Do try this uniquely South Indian curry and let me know how you liked it!

This post is a part of the A-Z Blogging Challenge. 
Hope you've enjoyed my earlier posts:A is for AvialB is for Beans Paruppu UsiliC is for Chow ChowD is for DosaE is for Ellu Saadham 

Recipe for Venthaya Kozhambu | Fenugreek seeds in a tamarind sauce
Serves 2-3

1/8th cup tightly packed tamarind
1 cup hot water
2 tbsp gingelly oil
sprig of curry leaves
1 tsp fenugreek seeds
4 dried red chillies
1 tbsp tur dal
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
Pinch of asafoetida
1/2 cup sliced carrots or diced yellow pumpkin
2 tsp sambar powder
1 tsp rice flour
1 tsp jaggery
1 tsp salt

Directions
Soak the tamarind in 1 cup hot water for 10 minutes. Squeeze out all the extract well-discard the tamarind parts and reserve the extracted liquid. You can use 1/2 tbsp tamarind paste instead of this, if you are short of time.
In a heavy bottomed pan, heat the oil. Gingelly oil gives the best flavour to kozhambu but in case you don't have it, use any neutral flavoured cooking oil.
Add the curry leaves, dried red chillies, mustard seeds, tur dal, asafoetida to the oil. When the seeds splutter and tur dal turns golden brown, add the fenugreek seeds. Saute for 30 seconds or so, until they turn aromatic and then add the vegetable. Don't allow the fenugreek seeds to become brown as it will make the dish very bitter.
 Saute the vegetable being used for 1 minute or so. To this add the tamarind extract (or the paste dissolved in 3/4 cup of water), bring to a boil. 
Once it comes to a boil, reduce flame, cover and simmer until vegetables are soft- around 5-7 minutes.
Make a slurry of rice flour and sambar powder in water. Add this to the kozhambu along with salt and jaggery. Let this come to a simmer. The consistency will be a slightly thick sauce that you can pour easily. Check for seasonings, remove from flame. Let it rest for a couple of hours for the flavours to develop fully. Serve with steaming hot rice. Slurp.

Lunch menu:
Venthaya kozhambu + steamed rice + a little gingelly oil
Cabbage curry or carrot curry
Roasted papad

C is for Chow Chow

Source: Wikimedia commons

Chow chow doesn't mean eating twice. It is the name of a squash.

Tambrahms and their obsession with all vegetables of the gourd family is legendary. Such a gourd-loving community we are. Give us a gourd and we'll make a koottu, a curry or a thogayal out of it and call it a meal. As a child, I'd rummage through the shopping bags brought in from the market, and I'd see this vegetable- chow-chow and I'd dread the next few meal times, knowing fully well that it would be unleashed on me pretty soon. While I didn't full-blown hate it, I almost borderline hated it. 

In my family, they fondly call it Bangalore-Kathrikkai (Kathrikkai being the Tamil word for brinjal) - and I know for certain that my grandmother loves it to bits. I have no clue how someone can love this vegetable with no personality whatsoever. If you go through the Wiki-page dedicated to Chow Chow, also called Chayote Squash, you'll realise that it has caught the fancy of not just Tambrahms, but communities around the world. Being from the squash family, it grows easily and it's cheap and I suppose, being a cheap food helps gain popularity especially in times of economic depression.

When I was getting to know my husband better, I once quizzed him on his favourite foods. He told me that he was a very non-fussy eater and anything outside the gourd family was okay with him. Now that pretty much excludes a LOT of dishes from our Tambrahm cuisine! I did manage to go by the gourd rule for a few months into the marriage, but being the true-self respecting Tambrahm, pumpkins started making an appearance in sambar and bottle-gourd paired with chana dal in a curry and so on. I didn't hear any complaints, except for a small mumble, whenever I announced that there was Pudavalangai (snake gourd) curry or Pumpkin sambar for lunch. Years passed. We were once seated at one of the darshinis in Bangalore, waiting to order breakfast. Those days, I was a Bombay girl, just visiting Bangalore for a function for a couple of days. The waiter came to our table. The husband order chow chow baath. Imagine my shock! I was wondering what made him order this vile (even to me) chayote squash in rice!! Before I could express my horror, the waiter came back with the dish (speedy service indeed). The plate had a scoop of upma and a scoop of kesari. Sigh of relief. It was then I realised that Chow Chow baath was a popular breakfast item here, and it had nothing to do with the vegetable chow chow. Instead, it was a serving each of kaara baath (upma) and kesari baath (rava kesari), the perfect savoury-sweet combination.

I read this story about how this vegetable, called Choko, in Australia, was rumoured to be used in their McDonald's apple pies, instead of apples, as they were cheap, maintained their shape and Australia's tropical & sub-tropical regions actually didn't produce apples. This does give me an idea of trying it in a dessert some day - crazy, whacky, but worth a try. May be on the 1st of April.

In my home, the much loved Bangalore-Kathrikai makes its appearance two ways. The peels and the flesh are used to make a (delicious!!) thogayal, which is a word for chutneys. It is also written as thuvaiyal. Before I started loving gingelly oil, asafoetida and all other things very typically Tambrahm, even this thogayal was on my no-no list. But as I grew older and genetic love for our traditional foods took over, I can now imagine a plate of steaming hot rice, a big dollop of this thogayal and a generous spoon of gingelly oil all mixed together and eaten with some fried vadams- oh goodness, a mini heaven. The same thogayal is made with Peerkangai (Ridge gourd) using the peels, the fibres, everything. I cannot say my tastebuds detect much of a difference in the taste, for most gourds taste quite similar. Bland.

The second way to prepare this is make a Koottu. For the uninitiated, koottu is any vegetable+mashed dal+fresh coconut-spice masala with the ubiquitous tadka. The fresh koottu masala can make anything boring taste good - red chillies, black pepper, udad dal, coconut - these guys can rescue the most boring of vegetables and they do a fairly successful job with the chow chow. When cooked, it doesn't become all melt in mouth like the bottle gourd, or transparent like the white pumpkin. It kind of stubbornly hangs on to to its shape and its (slightly) weird taste, no matter what you do with it (expect mash the hell out of it in a thogayal, in which it does a surrender).

Lunch Idea: Chow Chow (or any other) Thogayal, Rice, Raw Banana Curry

Recipe for Chow Chow Thogayal (Chayote Squash Chutney)
Makes 1 generous cup

Ingredients

2 medium sized chow chow / chayote squash

1/4 cup scraped fresh or frozen coconut

a tiny piece of tamarind soaked in 2-3 tsp of water

2.5 tsp gingelly oil or any other cooking oil

2 tbsp + 1 tsp udad dal

4 medium dried red chillies

1/2-3/4 tsp salt

2 sprigs curry leaves

Fat pinch asafoetida

1/2 tsp mustard seeds

Directions

1. Vertically halve the squash. Cut out the seed. Don't peel but scrape any spikes that may be there on the skin and dice or slice it.
2. Heat 1/2 tsp oil in a pan. Add 2 tbsp udad dal and red chillies and saute on medium heat until the udad dal is golden brown. Remove onto a plate and cool for few minutes.
3. Heat the remaining 1 tsp oil in same pan. On high heat, saute the chow chow for 30 seconds.
4. Reduce the flame, add 1/4 cup water, pinch of salt, cover and cook till chow chow is tender and fully cooked.
5. In small mixer-grind the fried udad dal-red chillies, soaked tamarind and coconut to coarse paste. To this add the cooled cooked chow chow, salt and scrape the sides of the mixer and grind to a paste. Remove this into a bowl.
6. Heat 1-2 tsp oil in a tempering ladle or small kadai. Add pinch of asafoetida, mustard seeds, once they splutter, add curry leaves and udad dal. Wait for dal to turn golden and transfer the tempering over the thogayal.

Notes

Traditionally a lot more coconut is used, so you could use up to 1/2 cup. Remember to increase the quantity of chilis used if more coconut is used.

This post is a part of the A-Z Blogging Challenge of April 2014.

Earlier Posts
A is for Avial
B is for Beans Paruppu Usili