Grains, Greens, and Grated Coconuts

Some Recipes from Grains, Greens, and Grated Coconuts:
Recipes and Remembrances of a Vegetarian Legacy
By Ammini Ramachandran

About the Recipes

Most of the recipes in this book were handed down from one generation to the next in my own extended family, and some of them are special gifts from relatives. I have purposely limited myself to a selection of family recipes here, and to the geographical, cultural, and historical context of this food, so as to present the subject in its proper perspective. With most recipes, I have given Western substitutes, following the traditional recipe.

In many cases, these everyday dishes have a very long history. As recipes tell only part of the story of this cuisine, I have included notes on the historical facts and anecdotes associated with several of them. Ancient Indian literature mentions certain recipes as far back as the fifth century ad. Several of the old recipes are associated with regional festivals, and some are traditionally prepared as offerings at famous temples.

Whenever one takes the regional dishes of a country to another part of the world, difficulties inevitably arise. Often, products are not readily available. The climate may not always cooperate. If I felt a recipe’s authenticity and quality would suffer with changes and substitutions, I left it in its original form—but there are only a few recipes of this kind.

Back home, we are taught to cultivate a sense of smell and color, and we try to accomplish perfection in cooking through exploration. Almost every ingredient is measured only by hand—a handful, a little, a pinch, and so on. Cooking is an expression of the cook’s personal tastes and preferences. The joy of it is in experimenting. The delight in cooking is not necessarily derived from the end product alone, but from the endless possibilities available for flavoring a dish. I urge you to use these recipes for ideas and suggestions. Improvise, but never let a cookbook order you around.

Aviyal: Mixed Vegetable Medley in Coconut Cumin Sauce

Aviyal is one recipe that captures the spirit of Kerala. A tangy, full-flavored dish, it is a medley of vegetables cooked with coarsely pureed fresh coconut, cumin, green chili peppers, and yogurt and seasoned with curry leaves and a liberal drizzling of coconut oil. Like most scrumptious Kerala recipes, the flavors are robust but not heavy-handed, and the ingredients mix perfectly, melding without any one flavor standing out. Traditionally, ash gourd, snake gourd, yellow cucumbers, green plantains, string beans, telinga potatoes (suran), and drumsticks (Moringa oleifera) are used in the preparation of aviyal. In the United States, green plantains are available in Latin American grocery stores and sometimes even at American supermarkets. Long string beans, ash gourd, snake gourd, yellow cucumbers, drumsticks (fresh, frozen, and canned), and telinga potatoes (suran or zimikand) are available in Indian food stores, and ash gourd (with light green skin and white flesh) is readily available at Chinese markets. Although not traditional, zucchini, carrots, butternut squash, green beans, and potatoes also may be used in this curry. The idea is to use as many vegetables as possible. This is one dish that definitely needs curry leaves. Curry leaves, fresh coconut, and coconut oil give aviyal its authentic flavor.

Ingredients:

1 green plantain
2 medium-sized carrots
1 zucchini
1 medium-sized potato
1 cup ash gourd pieces
8 pieces of drumstick*
1 cup telinga potato pieces*
Ľ pound green beans or string beans
Salt to taste
˝ teaspoon turmeric powder
1˝ cups plain yogurt
3 cups grated fresh coconut
4 to 5 fresh green chilies (serrano or Thai) (less for a milder taste)
1 teaspoon cumin seeds

For seasoning and garnish:

3 tablespoons coconut oil
12 to 15 fresh curry leaves

Peel and cut the plantains, carrots, zucchini, potato, ash gourd, drumstick, and telinga potato into pieces 2˝ to 3 inches long (approximately the size of thick french fries). Cut the green beans or string beans into pieces of about the same size. Place the vegetables in a colander, wash them under running water, and drain. Place the cut potatoes, carrots, drumsticks, telinga potato, and beans in a heavy saucepan, and add just enough water to cover. Sprinkle with salt and turmeric and cook over medium heat. When they are partly cooked, add the remaining vegetable pieces and combine. Cook for five to six minutes, until all the vegetables are cooked; add a couple of tablespoons of water if necessary. Stir the yogurt with a tablespoon and pour it over the cooked vegetables. Simmer for three to five minutes. Grind the coconut, green chilies, and cumin seeds with just enough water to make a coarse, thick puree. Remove the puree from the blender, and stir it into the cooked vegetables. Simmer gently for five minutes over low heat (to prevent the yogurt from curdling). Remove from the stove and garnish with coconut oil and fresh curry leaves. Cover and set aside for ten minutes, to allow flavors to blend. Serve with plain boiled rice.

*Both frozen and canned drumsticks and telinga potatoes (labeled suran) are available at Indian grocery stores. If using the canned vegetables, first drain them, wash them under running water, and drain them again. After cooking the fresh vegetables, add them along with the ground coconut puree and mix.

Makes 4 to 6 servings if served with another curry, as is traditional.

Vellayappam: Rice and Coconut Milk Pancakes

Vellayappam, with lacy edges and a soft center, is made with a fermented batter of rice flour, coconut milk, and yeast. To get the proper shape, vellayappam is traditionally made in vellayappam pans. These pans are inexpensive and available at some Indian stores. A small wok or nonstick skillet makes a good substitute. The shape may not be perfect, but the taste certainly will be.

Ingredients:

1/3 cup cream of rice or farina*
2 cups rice flour or two cups long-grain rice
1 packet dry yeast**
Salt to taste
2 tablespoons sugar
1˝ cups coconut milk*** Ľ cup vegetable oil (for greasing the pan)****

Cook the cream of rice (or farina) over medium heat with enough water to make a thick porridge. Stir continuously to avoid allowing any lumps to form. Remove it from the stove, and let it cool to room temperature.

If using long-grain rice, soak the rice for four to five hours, rinse and then grind it with one fourth of a cup water into a smooth, thick batter. If using rice flour, mix it with enough water to make a thick, smooth batter. Dissolve the yeast in two tablespoons of warm water, and stir well. Keep it aside for a few minutes, until it is fully dissolved and foamy.

Combine the yeast, salt, cooked cream of rice (or farina), and rice batter. Do not add too much water. When it ferments, the batter will become thin. Cover and set aside for six to eight hours or overnight. The batter will rise and become bubbly.

Just before making the vellayappam, add the sugar and one and a quarter cups of coconut milk to the batter, and mix well. The batter should have the consistency of heavy cream. Set aside the remaining quarter-cup of coconut milk to spread over the cooked vellayappams.

Heat the vellayappam pan over medium heat. To test if the pan is ready, sprinkle a few drops of water on it, and it will start sizzling immediately. Grease the pan with a few drops of oil. Pour a ladleful of batter onto the center of the pan. Lift the pan, and give it a twist, so that the batter swirls to the edges of the pan and retreats to the base, forming a vellayappam six to seven inches in diameter. Around the edges, it should be thin and lacy. Cover and cook over low to medium heat for two minutes. These pancakes are not be turned over and cooked. Lift the lid after two minutes, and see if the center has cooked and the edges have begun to turn golden brown. If not, cover and cook for another minute. Remove it from the stove. Run a spatula around it, and slide it onto a plate. Spread a teaspoon of coconut milk over the vellayappam. Repeat with the remaining batter.

Always allow each vellayappam to cool a little before stacking, because they have a tendency to stick together. Serve with potato stew or brown stew.

*In the traditional recipe, rice is soaked, drained, and pounded to make rice flour. Before pounding it into a fine powder, one-third of a cup of coarse rice powder, similar in consistency to farina, is kept aside for making the porridge.

**Instead of yeast, the traditional recipe uses coconut toddy, or the water from a coconut, fermented overnight.

***Fresh coconut milk may be substituted with coconut milk made from coconut-milk powder, or with canned coconut milk.

****Instead of greasing the pan with oil, spray with Pam, Wesson, or Mazola oil spray.

Makes 10 to 12.

Murukku: Rice and Urad Dal Pretzel

Whenever murukku was made at home, Mom always sought the help of our neighbor Janu Ammiyaar, the undisputed expert of murukku making in our hometown. She sat on the floor under the whirling ceiling fan and mixed rice and urad flours, cumin, sesame, salt, and water in a large stainless-steel bowl. A chunk of dark-brown asafetida soaked in a small bowl of water. She gently rolled it with her index finger, and the water turned cloudy. She sprinkled the spicy liquid on the dough and kneaded some more. As she inhaled the fragrance of asafetida, she remarked, “This is real perumkaayam. I don’t like those fragrance-free powders from a box,” referring to the bottled, less flavorful asafetida.

After several minutes of pounding and kneading, a silky-smooth ball of dough emerged. She pinched a tiny piece of dough and made it into a small pyramid, and placed it at one end of the cotton cloth spread on the floor. She closed her eyes and murmured a prayer in Tamil, her mother tongue; that was how she paid homage to Lord Ganapathi, destroyer of all evils. Now she was confident that her murukku was going to turn out perfect. She oiled her palm with coconut oil and took a lemon-sized piece of dough, and twisted it into wavy murukku curls on the white cotton cloth. Watching her effortlessly turn out thin, multi-layered circles of curly spirals, with just her index finger and thumb, was fascinating and dissuading at the same time.

Balan, our cook, put a couple of tamarind logs into the belly of the aduppu (wood-burning stove) and blew through a hollow iron rod. Then he placed a large bronze uruli on the stove top and poured coconut oil into it. The logs flickered as they burned under the uruli. When she finished twisting the murukku, Janu Ammiyaar called out, “Baalaa, enna moothaacha?” (“Balan, is the oil hot enough?”) She transferred the murukku to a large plate and took it into the kitchen. She gently dropped the circlets into the oil in batches. As they turned golden brown and floated up, she removed them from the oil and spread them on a large plate covered with an old newspaper. Deep-fried to crunchy perfection, her murukku literally melted in the mouth.

Making this snack by hand is rather tricky and time-consuming, but using a metal snack press is an easy alternative. It is a great snack with a cold glass of beer.

Ingredients:

3 cups rice flour
1 cup urad flour
Salt to taste
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
2 teaspoons sesame seeds (preferably brown or black)
Ľ teaspoon asafetida powder
6 to 8 cups vegetable oil (for deep-frying)

Combine rice flour, urad flour, salt, cumin seeds, sesame seeds, and asafetida, and mix thoroughly. Using just enough water, make a soft dough. Knead well. Heat the oil to 365°F in a heavy saucepan or a wok. Fit the metal snack press with a five-holed disk, and fill with dough. Press the dough directly into the oil. As the dough falls, move the press around in a circular motion so that it is distributed evenly in the oil. Deep-fry until the murukku is golden and crispy. Remove it from the oil, and drain. Repeat with the remaining dough. Let it cool to room temperature.

Store murukku in airtight containers.

This recipe makes enough to fill a four-quart bowl.

Discuss these recipes and more.


home about contact policies submissions feature archives audio visual writing reviews forums art film & television food literature music society & culture elsewhere desilit parabaas sasialit sawnet upper stall	Some Recipes from Grains, Greens, and Grated Coconuts: Recipes and Remembrances of a Vegetarian Legacy By Ammini Ramachandran About the Recipes Most of the recipes in this book were handed down from one generation to the next in my own extended family, and some of them are special gifts from relatives. I have purposely limited myself to a selection of family recipes here, and to the geographical, cultural, and historical context of this food, so as to present the subject in its proper perspective. With most recipes, I have given Western substitutes, following the traditional recipe. In many cases, these everyday dishes have a very long history. As recipes tell only part of the story of this cuisine, I have included notes on the historical facts and anecdotes associated with several of them. Ancient Indian literature mentions certain recipes as far back as the fifth century ad. Several of the old recipes are associated with regional festivals, and some are traditionally prepared as offerings at famous temples. Whenever one takes the regional dishes of a country to another part of the world, difficulties inevitably arise. Often, products are not readily available. The climate may not always cooperate. If I felt a recipe’s authenticity and quality would suffer with changes and substitutions, I left it in its original form—but there are only a few recipes of this kind. Back home, we are taught to cultivate a sense of smell and color, and we try to accomplish perfection in cooking through exploration. Almost every ingredient is measured only by hand—a handful, a little, a pinch, and so on. Cooking is an expression of the cook’s personal tastes and preferences. The joy of it is in experimenting. The delight in cooking is not necessarily derived from the end product alone, but from the endless possibilities available for flavoring a dish. I urge you to use these recipes for ideas and suggestions. Improvise, but never let a cookbook order you around. Aviyal: Mixed Vegetable Medley in Coconut Cumin Sauce Aviyal is one recipe that captures the spirit of Kerala. A tangy, full-flavored dish, it is a medley of vegetables cooked with coarsely pureed fresh coconut, cumin, green chili peppers, and yogurt and seasoned with curry leaves and a liberal drizzling of coconut oil. Like most scrumptious Kerala recipes, the flavors are robust but not heavy-handed, and the ingredients mix perfectly, melding without any one flavor standing out. Traditionally, ash gourd, snake gourd, yellow cucumbers, green plantains, string beans, telinga potatoes (suran), and drumsticks (Moringa oleifera) are used in the preparation of aviyal. In the United States, green plantains are available in Latin American grocery stores and sometimes even at American supermarkets. Long string beans, ash gourd, snake gourd, yellow cucumbers, drumsticks (fresh, frozen, and canned), and telinga potatoes (suran or zimikand) are available in Indian food stores, and ash gourd (with light green skin and white flesh) is readily available at Chinese markets. Although not traditional, zucchini, carrots, butternut squash, green beans, and potatoes also may be used in this curry. The idea is to use as many vegetables as possible. This is one dish that definitely needs curry leaves. Curry leaves, fresh coconut, and coconut oil give aviyal its authentic flavor. Ingredients: 1 green plantain 2 medium-sized carrots 1 zucchini 1 medium-sized potato 1 cup ash gourd pieces 8 pieces of drumstick* 1 cup telinga potato pieces* Ľ pound green beans or string beans Salt to taste ˝ teaspoon turmeric powder 1˝ cups plain yogurt 3 cups grated fresh coconut 4 to 5 fresh green chilies (serrano or Thai) (less for a milder taste) 1 teaspoon cumin seeds For seasoning and garnish: 3 tablespoons coconut oil 12 to 15 fresh curry leaves Peel and cut the plantains, carrots, zucchini, potato, ash gourd, drumstick, and telinga potato into pieces 2˝ to 3 inches long (approximately the size of thick french fries). Cut the green beans or string beans into pieces of about the same size. Place the vegetables in a colander, wash them under running water, and drain. Place the cut potatoes, carrots, drumsticks, telinga potato, and beans in a heavy saucepan, and add just enough water to cover. Sprinkle with salt and turmeric and cook over medium heat. When they are partly cooked, add the remaining vegetable pieces and combine. Cook for five to six minutes, until all the vegetables are cooked; add a couple of tablespoons of water if necessary. Stir the yogurt with a tablespoon and pour it over the cooked vegetables. Simmer for three to five minutes. Grind the coconut, green chilies, and cumin seeds with just enough water to make a coarse, thick puree. Remove the puree from the blender, and stir it into the cooked vegetables. Simmer gently for five minutes over low heat (to prevent the yogurt from curdling). Remove from the stove and garnish with coconut oil and fresh curry leaves. Cover and set aside for ten minutes, to allow flavors to blend. Serve with plain boiled rice. Both frozen and canned drumsticks and telinga potatoes (labeled suran) are available at Indian grocery stores. If using the canned vegetables, first drain them, wash them under running water, and drain them again. After cooking the fresh vegetables, add them along with the ground coconut puree and mix. Makes 4 to 6 servings if served with another curry, as is traditional. Vellayappam: Rice and Coconut Milk Pancakes* Vellayappam, with lacy edges and a soft center, is made with a fermented batter of rice flour, coconut milk, and yeast. To get the proper shape, vellayappam is traditionally made in vellayappam pans. These pans are inexpensive and available at some Indian stores. A small wok or nonstick skillet makes a good substitute. The shape may not be perfect, but the taste certainly will be. Ingredients: 1/3 cup cream of rice or farina* 2 cups rice flour or two cups long-grain rice 1 packet dry yeast Salt to taste 2 tablespoons sugar 1˝ cups coconut milk* Ľ cup vegetable oil (for greasing the pan)**** Cook the cream of rice (or farina) over medium heat with enough water to make a thick porridge. Stir continuously to avoid allowing any lumps to form. Remove it from the stove, and let it cool to room temperature. If using long-grain rice, soak the rice for four to five hours, rinse and then grind it with one fourth of a cup water into a smooth, thick batter. If using rice flour, mix it with enough water to make a thick, smooth batter. Dissolve the yeast in two tablespoons of warm water, and stir well. Keep it aside for a few minutes, until it is fully dissolved and foamy. Combine the yeast, salt, cooked cream of rice (or farina), and rice batter. Do not add too much water. When it ferments, the batter will become thin. Cover and set aside for six to eight hours or overnight. The batter will rise and become bubbly. Just before making the vellayappam, add the sugar and one and a quarter cups of coconut milk to the batter, and mix well. The batter should have the consistency of heavy cream. Set aside the remaining quarter-cup of coconut milk to spread over the cooked vellayappams. Heat the vellayappam pan over medium heat. To test if the pan is ready, sprinkle a few drops of water on it, and it will start sizzling immediately. Grease the pan with a few drops of oil. Pour a ladleful of batter onto the center of the pan. Lift the pan, and give it a twist, so that the batter swirls to the edges of the pan and retreats to the base, forming a vellayappam six to seven inches in diameter. Around the edges, it should be thin and lacy. Cover and cook over low to medium heat for two minutes. These pancakes are not be turned over and cooked. Lift the lid after two minutes, and see if the center has cooked and the edges have begun to turn golden brown. If not, cover and cook for another minute. Remove it from the stove. Run a spatula around it, and slide it onto a plate. Spread a teaspoon of coconut milk over the vellayappam. Repeat with the remaining batter. Always allow each vellayappam to cool a little before stacking, because they have a tendency to stick together. Serve with potato stew or brown stew. In the traditional recipe, rice is soaked, drained, and pounded to make rice flour. Before pounding it into a fine powder, one-third of a cup of coarse rice powder, similar in consistency to farina, is kept aside for making the porridge. Instead of yeast, the traditional recipe uses coconut toddy, or the water from a coconut, fermented overnight. Fresh coconut milk may be substituted with coconut milk made from coconut-milk powder, or with canned coconut milk. Instead of greasing the pan with oil, spray with Pam, Wesson, or Mazola oil spray. Makes 10 to 12. Murukku: Rice and Urad Dal Pretzel** Whenever murukku was made at home, Mom always sought the help of our neighbor Janu Ammiyaar, the undisputed expert of murukku making in our hometown. She sat on the floor under the whirling ceiling fan and mixed rice and urad flours, cumin, sesame, salt, and water in a large stainless-steel bowl. A chunk of dark-brown asafetida soaked in a small bowl of water. She gently rolled it with her index finger, and the water turned cloudy. She sprinkled the spicy liquid on the dough and kneaded some more. As she inhaled the fragrance of asafetida, she remarked, “This is real perumkaayam. I don’t like those fragrance-free powders from a box,” referring to the bottled, less flavorful asafetida. After several minutes of pounding and kneading, a silky-smooth ball of dough emerged. She pinched a tiny piece of dough and made it into a small pyramid, and placed it at one end of the cotton cloth spread on the floor. She closed her eyes and murmured a prayer in Tamil, her mother tongue; that was how she paid homage to Lord Ganapathi, destroyer of all evils. Now she was confident that her murukku was going to turn out perfect. She oiled her palm with coconut oil and took a lemon-sized piece of dough, and twisted it into wavy murukku curls on the white cotton cloth. Watching her effortlessly turn out thin, multi-layered circles of curly spirals, with just her index finger and thumb, was fascinating and dissuading at the same time. Balan, our cook, put a couple of tamarind logs into the belly of the aduppu (wood-burning stove) and blew through a hollow iron rod. Then he placed a large bronze uruli on the stove top and poured coconut oil into it. The logs flickered as they burned under the uruli. When she finished twisting the murukku, Janu Ammiyaar called out, “Baalaa, enna moothaacha?” (“Balan, is the oil hot enough?”) She transferred the murukku to a large plate and took it into the kitchen. She gently dropped the circlets into the oil in batches. As they turned golden brown and floated up, she removed them from the oil and spread them on a large plate covered with an old newspaper. Deep-fried to crunchy perfection, her murukku literally melted in the mouth. Making this snack by hand is rather tricky and time-consuming, but using a metal snack press is an easy alternative. It is a great snack with a cold glass of beer. Ingredients: 3 cups rice flour 1 cup urad flour Salt to taste 1 tablespoon cumin seeds 2 teaspoons sesame seeds (preferably brown or black) Ľ teaspoon asafetida powder 6 to 8 cups vegetable oil (for deep-frying) Combine rice flour, urad flour, salt, cumin seeds, sesame seeds, and asafetida, and mix thoroughly. Using just enough water, make a soft dough. Knead well. Heat the oil to 365°F in a heavy saucepan or a wok. Fit the metal snack press with a five-holed disk, and fill with dough. Press the dough directly into the oil. As the dough falls, move the press around in a circular motion so that it is distributed evenly in the oil. Deep-fry until the murukku is golden and crispy. Remove it from the oil, and drain. Repeat with the remaining dough. Let it cool to room temperature. Store murukku in airtight containers. This recipe makes enough to fill a four-quart bowl. Discuss these recipes and more.