Vatha Kuzhambu (வத்தகுழம்பு) - Do it youself Video

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.

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Wheat Chips (Cheese Nips) - கோதுமை சிப்ஸ் - Do it yourself Video

My mom used to make delicious sweet or spicy wheat chips when we were kids. It was a treat, especially when we were confined to be indoors during the rainy season!

One of my successful grad student experimental variations was to put small blocks of Amul cheese inside these chips.

The videos explain it all..

You use wheat flour, salt, hing (asafoedita)and chili powder for the spicy version.

Just wheat flour and sugar for the sweet version.

Wait for 40 minutes to an hour for the dough to stabilize before making flats out of them, slicing and frying.

Warning : If you are a newbie at deep frying, make sure the cheese is completely encapsulated by dough and all the air is pressed out.

Think of this as the Indian equivalent of Tortilla chips..

Hope you have fun making Wheat chips (கோதுமை சிப்ஸ்) after watching this video. Guaranteed hit with little kids who love crunchy stuff.

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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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Bread Bhajji (பிரெட் பஜ்ஜி) Do it Yourself

Ever wonder what to do with the few slices of bread that always seem to be left over in small batches?

You can take them and make bread bhajji (and Bread Upma with the crumbs, but that will be another video for another day).

Very simple.

Batter : 1 cup Besan, a little bit of hing (asafoedita), 1/2 spoon salt, 1/2 spoon chili powder, pinch of turmeric powder, just enough water to get it thick (real thick)

Slice bread after removing edges, soak in batter, fry!

Hope you have fun making Bread Bhajji.

The last bit where I show how to make bhoondi is the pre-requisite for making Laddoos! So if you got that part right, you can make Laddoos at home. (have successfully made Laddoos at home, if you can believe it).

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Trying to impress grandmas and getting carried away..

Jr. and the little one both get a "ragam quiz" every night at bedtime. They can guess ~20 ragams from either a song I hum, the aarohanam-avarohanam or phrases or swarams I hum or sing.

Sometimes just play from iPhone for the quiz(usually GNB, MS, MLV, TN Seshagopalan, Ariyakudi from the music collection or the latest Sudha Raghunathan, Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Priya Sisters, Ranjani-Gayathri straight from Youtube favorites).

They guess reasonably well, considering they have been at this for two three months already.

Every now and then, they pick a favorite and listen to the whole song till they memorize it and imitate it. While San thinks this is border line blasphemy, I encourage it. After all every kid is not going to be a super singer and the whole idea is to imitate and learn and this is my way of spending some quality time with them and having some fun.

The most important thing in learning, is learning how to learn! (if that has not been copyrighted, I am doing it right now)

So, here are the little Narayanan girls, doing their version of Vinayaka. They thought this was a rehearsal and did not know that the camcorder was on.

Don't know if the paati's will be pleased, what with the little one's novel concept of "variable thAlam" where she suddenly goes into a vigorous hand slapping to give herself some more energy to sing and Jr.'s attempts to sustain notes to try and get some semblance of a steady timing.

If they do improve over the years with lots of practice and training, they might look back at this and go "god, we have come a long way".. and if their interest in music dies out after some time, they might still look at this and go "we did try, didn't we"..

Getting these two to sit next to each other and sing in unison was in itself a workout for Daddy Narayanan. If they happen to sing this in tune and tempo eventually, will post that video as well...

For now the girls are a "work in progress"!

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