interesting article from the jai malhar's link on goan musicians-http://www.india-seminar.com/2004/543/543%...a%20gracias.htm

Thank you for that link G. (See, you do a good deed and two years later
some weary food traveler reaps the benefit.)

At the Hilo, Hawaii, farmers market on Saturday I ran across something called
bibingca. It's resemblance to bibinca/bebinca, the Goan confection I love,
was slight (the bibingca was ricey and wrapped in banana leaves), but the name
intrigued me. G's link suggests that Goan bibinca is derived from bibingca.

Does anybody with connections to the far east and to Goa (yes, Hibiscus, this
means you) know more about the descent of this dish? Bibinca has received
far too little attention on AS

of interest?
Cook's Cottage

Yes, of interest. (It was also linked to in one of polarmate's posts.) But, it confirmed
my conviction that this is one of those recipes that I shall encourage others to try
(and invite me to partake of the results), but never make myself. From that picnic
episode you seem like the perfect type I subcontinental (unlike your chocolate
cake type II friend): warm, nurturing, generous and kind. If you can find it
in your heart to make it this fall and bring it to Madison Square Park, I'll forgo
my frozen custard at Shake Shack and try your bebinca.

Alas, Dabbler, as wonderful as I am, I draw the line at swirling cake batter over the stove for two hours. Maybe Shake Shack will have some new exciting flavours.

And the two-hour business is a shortened version. Traditionally, bebinca is supposed to be baked in the ground with hot coals covering the lid, though above-ground ovens are probably more used now. Still seems to be an outdoor activity, though. For those really craving it, Costa's makes packaged bebinca and dodol - both good!

A relative of bebinca in south-east Asia is kueh lapis (literally, layered cake) - more cakey and not puddingy like the Goan-Portuguese bebinca.

The name bibingca certainly sounds promising - did the cake itself have any layers? I love these food connections (Singaporean murtabak = sub-continental baida roti, for example).

if it's bibingka you're wanting..

Getting rough. Who'da thunk.

We are in Goa for a few days. Bread in Bangalore is horrid and I had been craving some good pao. The first thing I ate was the delectable Goan pao, and kaakaNa. KaakaNa in Konkani literally means bangles. This is a superb crusty bread, best eaten dipped in hothot cha. These were still crackling when they were brought in from the bakery, the sound as melodious as the tinkling of glass bangles. With the rains drumming outside, life cannot get any better.

Goa has the best bread in the country; Bombay's pao (both soft and the buroon) is excellent too, but Goa has more variety and some of the crusty bread made here rivals anything found in a European bakery.

Goan Pao


KaakaNa


Veena

Yum!

Thanks Veena, you sure know the right photos to post that will hit the spot!

This is another wild green that grows like wild fire in Goa in the monsoons. They are called tera.n (rhymes with sera, but with a nasal ending). They have green stems and differ from the purple-stemmed colocasia leaves that are used for making patrode (patra in Gujarathi). They can create severe itchiness in the throat if not processed properly. The Goan solution is to soak them with kokum for a long time before cooking.



When he saw my avid interest, our driver offered to bring over the cooked dish made by his mother. It was fantastic, although it does not have much to recommend by way of appearance. Cooked with jackfruit seeds and dried white chana. He has promised to bring the recipe tomorrow.



Veena

Veena,

I'm really enjoying your vegetable reports.

Those look and sound very much like Colocasia -- of which there are many subspecies and varietals, some with dark stems, some with green stems.

Would you ask this wonderful driver if they also harvest the roots, and if so what they call them? What is the local name for the dark (maroon?) stemmed colocasia?

those leaves look exactly like those on house plants i've had in the past!

It is colocasia, I think. My mom called the dark-stemmed ones ALU or ALvA pAn (pAn = leaf). The green stemmed ones are taero (singular, used as collective noun) in Amchi Konkani too.

Great photos, Veena.

colocasia discussion continues here.

I know of ALvA pAn.
But never heard of 'taero' though but it does sound like 'taro' doesn't it...which I have learnt is the root of these plants!

Veena, did you get this recipe? i have a bunch of chinese taro that seems ideal for it.

Unfortunately, no. He has promised to bring her over the next time I am on a week-long visit.

Veena

In Goa for the weekend. The monsoon is raging in all its glory here. This is the season when gaanvThi (deshi, homegrown) vegetables are sold in the markets by a few vendors coming in from the villages. One has to go in the mornings to obtain this bounty; since they are homegrown, supply is limited and they are sold out by noon. They are far tastier than any commercially grown vegetables. Today I got plantains, okra, suraN, and breadfruit. The okra photo is in its own thread; here are the plantains.



Veena

When you say Goa, do you mean in Panajim or somewhere in the countryside? I went to Goa so many years ago, I don't even remember how much difference there is between the two, hence the question.

LL, I bought those vegetables in Panjim, which is where we live in Goa. However, they are available all over Goa.

There is distinct difference between Panjim and its surrounds, and the countryside in interior Goa. You must visit the latter before that is also destroyed..oops, I mean, developed.

Veena

Now that mango season is only a memory, I am relishing this Goan mango specialty - halwa made from musharad mango. My husband's aunt makes it every year and gives us a big batch. It's eaten with chapatis and a little goes a long way. It differs from other familiar halwas in that no rava (semolina) or ghee is used. Just mango, sugar, and saffron (there might be small amounts of cardamom but I need to verify) cooked for several hours.



Veena

Looks so good ... the ingredients and process sound closer to a jam. Does it last for a fairly long time like jam?

You could call it a jam I suppose, but it is more concentrated, drier, and thicker than regular jams. I think it is also cooked much longer than jam. It lasts for over a year in the refrigerator.

Veena

Veena, I think that mango halwa is what amchis call 'morambo'.
Is the mango semi ripe when used?

Egg Xacuti made by Smt. Naik, our driver's mother in Goa. He also referred to it as "egg mutton". I lugged it all the way back to Bangalore along with some ooNey (Goan crusty rolls). Well worth all the trouble!



Gingerly, I got the recipe for colocasia leaves from her, but it was given in the usual Indian style. I can post it here as is or a more precise version after making it myself (but I don't know how soon I will be able to do it). Are the leaves still available over there?

Veena

Veena, may I petition for the recipe for this worth lugging to B'lore Egg Xacuti too?

i haven’t seen them in the past couple of weeks, but regular taro is always around. i ended up cooking those to a nepali recipe( from the indra majupuria* book) and adding chickpeas for good measure. turned out delicious, but the leaves were kind of characterless and not tart at all.
please post when you're done reworking the recipe.


*' joys of nepalese cooking'- great book and very good with providing botanical names of various greens and vegetables used.

Sure. I asked her and this is what I got:

Fry onions.
Fry coconut separately.
Add garam masala.
Add tomatoes or tamarind or kokum.
Break eggs in the gravy.

I plan to fill in the blanks on my next visit, by watching her make it.

Veena

HIbi, here is a photo of the maNgaNay I had made during Ganesh Chaturthi in Goa. I followed a recipe from a tiny book on Goan food written by a man! I forgot the book in Goa and cannot recall the title and author right now. The recipe used only chana daal, sabudana, first coconut milk extract, jaggery, and elaichi powder. Turned out simply great, and from family members' reactions, the recipe seems exactly what my mother-in-law used to make.

I can imagine how adding fragrant rice flour might also give a tasty, but somewhat different maNgaNay.



Veena

Just saw this. Thank you Veena. All these egg curries people are talking about are making me think I should try one. In general I have a horror of overcooked boiled eggs, so I've never been able to get behind the idea of taking a boiled egg and then simmering it some more. This one OTOH, I could just turn off the heat once the eggs hit the gravy and they would still pick up the flavor.
Who knows I might even change my mind about the hard boiled egg curries.

Mmm, how I wish I was there! Thanks for posting that, Veena.

It's the first time I'm hearing of sabudana in mangane, btw.

I saw the egg xacuti pic just now... droolsome, specially with the UnDey! I'm going to be in Goa in the latter part of next week, for a few days. Looking forward most of all to the bread.

a lot of recipes call for the gravy to be just poured over the eggs (usually sliced in half). even otherwise, i don't think you are meant to simmer them for long.

note: talking about the generic anda curry, not the xacuti version

Ni-Sa-Ga, I like my hard boiled eggs barely set and longing to be on the soft boiled side of the fence. So the thought of even a few more minutes of simmering/having them hang out in hot liquid makes me queasy.

Things like chinese five-spice eggs and the eggs in oden are gumbletely out of koschen.

But yeh naya zamana hai, who knows I might grow to like them too.

**: Do we have an egg thread? Perhaps these egg issue posts should go there.

I looked up the recipe in Usgaonkar and Sardesai's Traditional Taste of Goa. They use sabudana, but note that it is optional. They also do not use rice flour.



The last thing I ate on my previous trip was hot-off-the-kadhai mirchi (Goan lingo for green chilli pakoda/bajji) nestling between a warm ooNo (crusty, sourdough Goan bread). And it cost all of four rupees. Try it.

Veena

I'll have garam chA to go with that. As you might guess, I'm drooling!

Veena that Egg Xacuti looks delicious!
Reminds me of the egg curry my auntie used to make with fried eggs.
I think she used amchi style 'amtey pitti' in it (made by somebody at Talmakiwadi - where else?)

Can't wait for you to work on the recipe till you get it just right and then post on AS!

Veena: Beautiful picture. Sounds almost like chana dal paayasam thickened with sabudana. Is sabudsana added to work as a thickening agent?

Ammini, it is quite likely that sabudana is added to thicken the maNgaNay. And it is indeed very similar to chana daal paayasam. However, this does not require frying the daal. All I did was to soak it for a while, boil it until done with as little water as possible, then added jagggery, sabudana, coconut milk and gently simmered it for a while. Added cardamom powder last.

Veena

Made Madganey - something I never cared for much in the past - but I've had an urge to make & taste some after all the discussion about it on AS!

I feel a bit ambivalent about the taste of the batch I made - I'm fairly certain my recipe could be improved upon!
I did not have cashews, and I used tinned coconut milk.
The chana dal was cooked but not mushy - is this the right consistency for it?
I might need to add more jaggery.
Not sure if I'm meant to cook it for a long time after adding the rice flour - or only long enough to thicken it.

Veena, are the eggs added to the curry after boiling or are they added raw and they cook in the gravy? Like in this recipe.

PM, the eggs are added raw into the hot gravy.

Ashwini's recipe has been sitting on my to-do list for several months now. I just cannot keep with all the great recipes on some of these blogs. Wish all of them would take a break for a couple of years so that I can get caught up!

Veena

That's twice now that I have come across eggs cooked in the sauce. Ashwini's recipe is on my list, too. But most of the times, it's just easier to break the eggs directly onto the griddle!

Mattie, I think it should be cooked just enough to thicken it. The chana dal should be cooked but not mushy, that is correct. Many urban folks in India also use tinned coconut milk now, so don't feel bad about that! But it is true that the taste of fresh coconut milk can't be beat! And I think cashewnuts are a kind of a must... Am trying to imagine madganey without them and it doesn't feel the same.


Meanwhile I am in Goa for a few days, doing some (sigh) paperwork again but not as much as earlier this year. Meals I have had - mostly mix-bhAji-pAo-and-chA at Cafe Tato, fish-curry-rice plate meal at Anandashram (Rs 25 only, a fantastic deal). These two places are my regular pilgrimage spots. Anandashram always had the old pAtrAo (proprietor) at the counter but he wasn't there this time - he's around but doesn't sit at the counter these days, said one of the waiters.

I also had a very good mushroom xacuti with UnDe at a restaurant called Viva Panjim set in an old house in the old quarter of Fontainhas (aka MaLA) in Panaji. The mushrooms were generic large-ish "button" but the gravy was very good - I can just imagine how it would be with the first-rain mushrooms (ALAmbey/aLmi). Also had some gobro (no idea of the English name for gobro - maybe rock fish...?) rawa fried.

The madganey tasted much better the day after (I ate it cold), although it was a stretch calling it that.
The colour was very, very light (perhaps due to a very light coloured guL), and it was so thick that it wouldn't fall off the spoon!!!(that could be because I didn't add as much water as they said to). The texture was of an extremely thick custard, it had thickened in the fridge overnight.
I have a bit left that I might add more guL to & eat warm. Its growing on me!

My last dinner in Goa was at a friend's place - Goan red rice, baked spicy pomfret, and a superb curry made with dogfish (the fish was also fried as an appetiser), known in Konkani as "poder" (baker). No one knows why it is called poder, but it is similar to shark in appearance, except with a flatter head, a face like a dog, and it is tastier than shark. And cheap.

The curry contained - hope I've not forgotten any ingredients - "a little coconut, a lot of red chilli, a lot of garlic, some peppercorns, some kadipatta, all ground together, and tadka of onion and more kadipatta". I'll try to recreate what I had from these instructions! It was reddish, not yellow like the fish curry I usually make.

That curry sounds really good, Hibi. Were the ingredients fried before grinding? Do post here if you are able to recreate it; it might do well with potatoes too.

Veena

Phov (poha in Konkani) from Goan red rice being sold by one of the village ladies in the Panjim market. One measure for 20 rupees. They taste lovely - more robust than white poha, and yet as capable of absorbing other flavours and cooks just as quickly.

Phov occupies the pride of place in Goan Hindu homes during Deepavali.



Veena

Note to mods: please do not move this to the upma/poha thread.

Veena

This phov looks wonderful! Do you just substitute it in dishes where poha is used or do you have any particular dishes to share?

Your post makes me yearn for kanda pohe. Do you have particular recipes?