A taste of Mumbai

At least I have started typing Mumbai instead of Bombay after all these years.. that is a sign of accepting the changing times. 

Our day 2 in Mumbai was mostly spent shopping. There was a plan for me to go meet my college buddies that did not come through. Also I was going through some emotional pain.

There is a back story that starts on day 0 of the trip. I was on an Air Asia to get to Chennai via Malaysia. Given I booked it on Cheapo Air, it came as a surprise to me that the ticket included NO check in bags at all. I assumed that the one suitcase 23kg default is there. Apparently the base ticket they sell online has no baggage allowance and if you need that one suitcase, you have to pay 60 USD. We did pay that 60 USD last minute to reserve that weight. Usually I have a backpack and a single carry on. This time I was lugging a camera bag and a larger bag that was going to be checked in. 

The lady at the Air Asia counter was so adamant in breaking each bag to 7 kg that she insisted that my camera bag go into the big suitcase. I was explaining to her that my total allowed weight was still under what I paid for and it is all going into the same plane. What difference does it make if it is on the overhead bin or check in. She said "I am okay but if any supervisor catches you, I will lose my job". So in front of an audience of 100 or so folks in line, I had to open my suitcase, check in bag and distribute the contents of my camera bag to meet the weight standards for check in vs. carry on. She said she would put a "Fragile sticker" on the bag given the 2000 $ lens and with a heavy heart I agreed. 

On my one day in Chennai, the camera bag never came out. The first time I opened it was to take pictures of San's cousins baby. While looking at the photos, I noticed that there was light streaks on most of the pictures. Turns out the lens cap had come off on the 24-105 and it was scratched badly!  Luckily they had a long living room and the 70-200 worked.  This also meant that I had to go shop for a UV filter in Mumbai. The actual Air Asia flight was pleasant and nice. Just that they messed up my lens. Where were we? Emotional pain.. yes.

We went to a few shops in the CHembur area and they all had new cameras, but none of them carried filters. They all said we had to go to Dadar area to get accessories. 

Spent most of day 2 just shopping in the local area, visiting Siddhi Vinayak and having some yummy sweets and savories at the local Jhama store. It is now becoming a new tradition for the family to visit Jhama while in Mumbai and it is an experience that does not disappoint!

One funny thing that happened was that at Siddhi Vinayak, all the flower sellers were calling me "sethji", because I was wearing a fancy shirt with gold buttons and embroidery.

So the wife and kids kept making fun of me and called me Sethji for the rest of the day and in return I called Jr. "sethji ki beti". 

At night we tried a few more shops for the filter and found out that the only bet was JJ Mehta and sons in Dadar West and that was where the next afternoon was spent.. 

More later. . .

Cashew Burfi (sweet) - A do it yourself Video

Made Cashew burfi for Deepavali sweet this year and it came out great!

Have been refining this recipe over the years with different results but we are locked into this final recipe.

Turns out the 4:3:2:1 ratio for select burfi's that my Lalli chitti taught me 20 years ago works for Cashew burfi as well!

We got a 100 pieces or so. 

Some notes before the video:

1. What you don't see in the video is that I doubled all quantities. (you see 200 grams of cashew or 2 cups of broken cashew being ground.. there was another identical batch added to the mix before heating)

2. This process is very very labor intensive. There is a lot of stirring almost 40 minutes of stirring on low heat and the last 10 minutes is extremely challenging. The thing is so thick that stirring it is difficult, but stir you must or it will start browning. 

3. It is more art than science when it comes to realizing "pour time". If you pour too early, it will be like a Halwa and will be a little gummy to eat. If you pour too late, the whole thing is hard and tastes like brittle candy or it has pieces of brittle hard stuff embedded in a matrix of the gummy stuff. That will taste good but kind of like having the almond noughats in chocholate texture.. The minute you start seeing the entire thing stick to your ladle and come off the pan as one blob, pour it! That is the secret.

The thing has to be just the right mix of crystallite stuff in an amorphous matrix..if you are a fab guy like me, think 550 C amorphous silicon! 

Here is a video explaining how to make this delicious treat! 

The ratios are 4 cups broken cashew : 3 cups sugar : ~2 cups milk (do 1 1/2 or even 1 and it will work) : ~ 1 cup Ghee which is added while heating and mixing

Think 4-3-2-1 and go easy on the milk and ghee.

Also made some thenkuzhal (did it with the right flour mix this time!) and San made some delicious Gulab Jamuns. 

The litlte one doesn't like "nuts" except when converted to burfi's or Halwa's. 

Next year we will do a Badam Halwa. 

Hope you have fun making this sweet. 

Laddu and Mixture (பூந்தி லட்டு , மிச்சர்)- Do it yourself Videos

Here are the videos for making Boondhi Laddu and Mixture (see previous post).

Instructions:

Laddu : Make almost caramelized sugar syrup by starting with 2 cups sugar in 2 cups water and stirring in low medium heat. Put roasted cashews and cardamom in the syrup.
Make Boondhi and add it directly into the syrup after you are done frying.

To Make boondhi: Take 1 1/2 cups Besan, 1/2 cup rice flour, pinch of salt, scoop of unsalted butter, 1 cup water.. see video (part 2).

For the Mixture : Basic ingredients are Kaara Boondhi, ribbon pakoda, thenkuzhal, fine thenkuzhal, fried pottu kadalai (dalia), roasted cashews, roasted poha (aval pori), curry leaves, salt, some corn flakes if you desire, some groundnuts if you desire, grainy salt.

the first 4 are all made with 3 parts to 1 Besan to rice flour, 1/2 spoon of salt, 1/2 spoon chili powder, some hing (asafoedita), 3/4 to a cup of water depending on which one you are making. See video part 4.

The whole thing takes a good 2 hours (if you have at least one helper and are not trying to videotape the whole thing). Approximately 3 1/2 hours if you are doing it on your own.

You will need an extruder to make the various mixture ingredients. When I say you get it for 100 or 200 bucks, I meant Indian bucks.. ~ 4-5 USD. The local Indian stores sell it for $14.99 with the appropriate markup of course.

Hope you enjoy making Laddu (Ladoo) and Mixture.

ps. apologies for the typo in the title's ..typed it so fast that I did not notice the dot.. it should be லட்டு in the title and not ல்ட்டு...

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Sweets and Savouries to celebrate love..

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!

Happy Valentines day everyone!

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Theratti Paal (Milk Sweet) - தெரட்டி பால் Do it Yourself

Theratti paal, is very popular as a Deepavali milk sweet and is usually made on a large open vessel (Kadai style) where large quantities of milk are slowly stirred and condensed while simultenously adding sugar and ghee (clarified butter) to make a very small volume of this delicacy!

The recipe shown in this videoblog is a quick cheat way that my pittsburg Manni (SIL) taught me some 15 years ago. If I remember right, the original recipe she refined was from Mallika Badrinath who in my opinion should be given an honorary doctorate or Chef title by graduate students trying to satisfy the longing of their taste buds.

Very simple:

- get sweetened condensed milk (Nestle preferred over local brand names) one 14 oz can

- put in large glass bowl (get pyrex or corning lead free microwaveable glass). Do not do this in plastic. Have seen reports of high fat containing substances microwaved in plastic containers forming carcinogenic dioxins.

- soak some saffron in little water

- add 15-20 drops of lemon juice into condensed milk, stir thoroughly and microwave for 5 minutes under constant supervision. If the whole thing overflows, stir and put back in microwave

- then add 3-4 spoons of Ghee, add saffron, a few sprinkles of powdered cardamom for flavoring, stir vigorously , put back in microwave for 2-3 minutes and make sure you don't burn it.

Hope you enjoy making this sweet.

ps. The microwave time will be ~6-7 minutes total if you use only one can. For two cans it might be 11-12 minutes total.

pps. you have to try this a few times to figure out the final total time for a given microwave power and volume of condensed milk. The condensed milk is $2.19 a can. So you can do a few tries with single cans before graduating to volume production!

Just found that they spell it "thirattu paal" (we call it theratti paal!! go figure..)
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