The little one has been learning how to cook things from Grandma recently.
She retices recipes for all tiffin items in step by step sequence, with a cute Tamil accent! Have to capture a secret video of that soon.
The other day she tells grandpa "how did you like it? I made it for you". Was kind of confused hearing that.
Then saw it in action last night and took a video of it. She seems to be okay with the way she sits on the countertop and so is grandma but it was not the safest and did scare me. So going to purchase a high stool for the little one so she can sit on that and stir, add ingredients etc.
Brought me back so many memories of sitting next to my grandma and her aunt (Ambulu) next to a clay made oven of sorts on the ground and helping them make "therattu paal".
Now I have a craving to eat that at 9:30 PM. Sigh!
If you are a graduate student and you have stocked up on some grandma (or mom) made Sambar Powder before embarking on your trip to a non-sambar country (or even managed to purchase some Sambar powder from the stores), you are in luck.
You can make a quick Vatha Kuzhambu using some of this powder, salt, asafoedita(hing) - which is optional, tamarind paste (or tamarind soaked in water). You will also need a pinch of cumin seeds, mustard seeds, some Channa and Toor dal, curry leaves (optional), Appalam (or papad) which is again optional.
The whole thing gets done in under 6 minutes.
NOTE : See how I usually taste the stuff we cook at the end of the video and here we didn't do that? Don't taste this thing as is. Just a touch and lick is fine. Remember, you are creating a concentrate that can be mixed with rice.
One glass of water in this case ends up becoming 1/2 glass (or cup) worth Vatha Kuzhambu. This is enough to mix with 5 cups of cooked rice!!! i.e., it can feed a family of one (aka graduate student) for upto 4 meals!.. Goes great with Potato chips or roasted (microwaved) appalam/papad.
As an option you can also add some frozen shredded coconut to the fried lentils(the Channa and Toor Daal) before you add the liquid in. The upside is it gives you an amazing smell and flavor, but the downside is that it will spoil sooner if you do not refrigerate.
Have fun making வத்தகுழம்பு!
ps. If you know your Appalam is slightly on the salty side, add less salt.. 3/4th spoon of salt for one spoon sambar powder and it will be perfect.
Spent a good 4 hours in the kitchen today to make some Laddu and Mixture..
The video footage has too many improper comments deliberately uttered by Jr. and the little one to irritate me while making the video..
Don't know why they have this new found fascination with the "weenie" word. They say it just to see if I will get irritated or will scold them.. It is either that or Kusu (Fart). First I ignored them for a few minutes, then realized it was going to be very difficult to make a videoblog with the kids saying these two words three times/ sentence. So started using a remote control to turn the recording on and off.
They did not know I was still recording and finally they figured out that one as well and it all went downhill from there.
Tomorrow will be spent at home quietly savoring what was made today... and of course, editing the video with the kids watching..
Yes, the boondhi is going to soak in the sugar syrup overnight and will be made into laddu's in the morning!
When we see comments like "you have way too much time on your hands" after watching the mysore pak or vadam videos, cannot help but smile.
The whole idea behind doing the videos was to show folks that
a. you do not need a lot of time to make it b. it is not that difficult to make these things
That is why the time was mentioned in the videos. The mysore pak was done in 1 hour and 4 mins (and if the ghee was premade it could be done in 50 mins.) The time it takes for you to drive around to an Indian Restaurant and find mysore pak(you can find Soan Papdi and Haldiram stuff here in stores but not MysorePak), stay in line, pay, come back home is almost an hour plus.
It will also cost you 1$ per piece + gas for that while it costs you 10 cents to make it at home!
The vadam making started at 12:42 and we were done by 1:08, in under 30 minutes! We got 72 pieces for ~$1.5 total! Your other options are to wait for closest friend or relative to get you some from India or buy 20 pieces for $3.99 from the local Indian store.
It would have taken the same time to make 4 times that quantity of the gel and another 10 minutes to spread it out!
Was telling Sangeetha earlier today "Has cooking ones own specialty items become that unfashionable that only people with time to waste or too much time on their hands can do it?"
Is this a phenomena with the younger generation? Eating fast food or buying your food is somehow supposed to be a "time saver" and therefore a cheaper option?
Just think about it!
We cook every night and we take our lunch with us to work. (San always packs my lunch.. also everyday I do call her at lunchtime to have a chat, if not about the food, at least we have a chat). We cook for the kids anyways, so it is a no brainer to spend the 10 minutes to pack lunch. One can always argue that if you get paid enough, the cost of that 10 minutes is more at an hourly rate and therefore buying food is cheaper.
So many recipes are going to be lost. It has been ages since I even smelled some of those divine smells that would come from the kumuti aduppus (charcoal stoves) when my grandma and her aunt would team up to make sweets for the family on a whim!
Just wish I could replay those smells like we replay youtube videos! It doesn't have to be lost. We don't have to rely on MSG and complicated carbonates and coloring agents to add pep to the food we eat.
On a similar note, when we pulled potatoes grown in our backyard and made a simple curry, the smell and taste were orders of magnitude better. It was like being transported to my 10 year old phase, and I was sitting on the floor and my mom was sliding more curry on to my plate from the "ilupa chatti"!
The potatoes looked ugly and gnarled, but the taste was out of this world. The picture perfect potatoes from the local grocery store are practically bland compared to this. We as a consumer would rather have our food look good than taste good.
A lot of the younger generation prefers to buy food than make food and the convenient excuse becomes "you have way too much time on your hands if you are cooking!"
By the way, bloging and videoblogs are easy, especially if you can type 70+ words a minute and you have been doing this a lot.
We all have 168 hours a week. If you spend 42 hours sleeping, 14 hours driving to and from work and running errands over weekend, that leaves you with 112 hours.
If you work 11 hours a day, 5 days a week and another 10 hours over the weekend that takes out 65 hours and you have 47 hours. You spend ~2.5 hours a weekday with your kids and 12 hours with them over the weekend and that is another 17 hours and you still have 30 hours left for eating breakfast, dinner, watching movies, doing dishes, grocery shopping, making that once a week cooking video,etc. no?
Jr., after watching the "Making of Vadaam" video, decided to make a cooking video earlier today (aka irritating your mother video). I did not know about this till San told me. It was hilarious to hear her commentary and the videography.
She adapts, refines, starts this one at the beginning of the Dosai making cycle..Watching this brings happy tears! My little girl is already an expert videographer and cooking aficionado!
You see how a 7 year old can do this by observation (between watching food network and her dad). Next thing you know she will be collecting advertisement money.
Kids today!
ps. You have to have the audio on high to really hear her comments.
If you have guests for dinner and you are still cooking, one thing you can do is to get some papads, or Javarisi vadam's (made from Sago or Sabudhana), pop them in the microwave and give them as an appetizer of sorts.
This is a videoblog of how to make Javarisi VadAm from scratch.
Ingredients (or proportions)
For 1 1/2 cup Sago, 7 cups water, 2 medium size Indian (or Thai) short Chili's, 1 spoon salt, 1/4 spoon of Asafoedita (aka Hing), one small lemon
Also required : Saran wrap or plastic sheets, some oil to smear on the sheet if you are not using Saran wrap.
You can have fun giving the kids squirrel/Crow watching duty while the Vadam's dry in the sun.
Sunday, September 16, 2012 at 9:27PM 
