who raised us up in an East Indian home
as the whiff of bottle-masala fills the house
emanating from the kitchen fires
and spreading through the house
nurturing our bodies and souls
with memories to cherish lifelong.
emanating from the kitchen fires
and spreading through the house
nurturing our bodies and souls
with memories to cherish lifelong.
This staple bottle-zest (as I like
to call it) is found in every typical East Indian home, tightly packed to the
brim with nostril-tingling sensations too strong for the weak-hearted. In times gone by, the ladies of the village gathered
together with freshly procured stock of dry red chilies and other numerous
spices – enough to sustain the whole village – and pounded happily away in the
heat of the sun. They pounded in rhythm,
crushing the spices until it was beaten to a soft red powdered blend. Then packed the concoction into glass bottles
and stored them off in a cool dark place, to suffice the whole year; until it
was time again for another season of pounding and smashing.
If this has got you wanting to
know more about this zest blend, read on for a full list of ingredients that
make up the atypical "bottle-zest" – err... bottle-masala. There are many recipes for the E.I. Bottle Masala depending on the lady of each household. My mom's rendition of this zesty stuff goes something like this..
All the spices are first dried in the sun. Then roasted each spice separately on a very slow fire in earthenware and then pounded them all starting with the chillies. Mix well and fill dry empty bottles. Store in cool dry place.
3 kgs dry red chillies mild (kashmiri )
10 gms cloves
10gms cardamomoms
1/4 kg turmeric
50 gms cinnamon
10 gms tirphal
1/4 kg raw chana (chickpeas)
10 gms maipatri
125 gms pepper corns
3/4 kg coriander seeds
10 gms bardian (anise star)
10 gms shahjeera (black cumin seeds)
1/4 kg mustard seed
10 gms zaipatri
125 gms jeera (cumin seeds)
1/4 kg teel (white sesame seeds)
1/4 g khus khus (poppy seeds)
10 gms naikaiser
1/4 g wheat
1 nutmeg
10 gms kababchuni (all spice)
Some memories from my Mum's Kitchen...
A regular Sunday lunch fare. This spice mix can be used to make chicken or mutton or any game meat gravy dish. I can still smell the roasted onions and chillies stirring up everyone's insides making you cough and hoping it will soon be over. Can hear the grinding stone crushing that roasted stuff with some freshly grated coconut to make a smooth zesty paste only to be sauteed in oil with the bottle masala until its fragrant and ready to receive the chicken or mutton pieces. A little later, splash goes in the water and left to simmer until ready to eat.
Just like I've written - sar-pa-tel, not the Goan 'sorpotel' that is more common. This is more like pickled meat in zesty bottle masala and freshly chopped ginger, garlic and chilies in just the right amount of vinegar. Any more of less vinegar can ruin the dish. The exact quantity cannot be measured, you have got to prepare this dish a couple of times and try adjusting to your liking till you get the hang of it. Note there are no onions and no water. This lasts through the wet monsoons soon to follow summer, without the need to refrigerate or getting spoilt if cooked right and stored right. It is cooked on slow fire in vinegar only, and store in sterilised air-tight glass jars - just like you would preserve a relish or fruit conserve. My mom likes the liver and pork meat and its fat to be cut in equal tiny cubes and so with the ginger and garlic and long slit chillies. Tastes best when left to mature for a few days. You are then ready to relish small portions as a side to any dish. This is a festive dish and is a must-have dish on the menu for weddings, Christmas, Easter and most major feasts.
Thinking of Weddings, there is no menu complete with its Vindhial - not forgetting Sarpatel, Fugias, Orias, and pickles. This is a celebratory dish. This is more East Indian (Bombay Portuguese) than its Goan (Goa Portuguesa) counterpart - the Vindaloo. In fact, it is no where close. Vindhial, by the way, doesn't use any bottle masala - it has its own distint spice mix called Vindhial masala made up to turmeric, cumin and garlic. Pork, typically, is smothered in this thick marinade and marinated overnight. Then, slow cooked in earthern pots with vinegar till tender and juicy. This pickled meat is usually sliced at the table like a roast. It is again stored to age a few days until you need to use as a side - or even better as a good accompaniment to your 'chowni' - small shot glasses of home made 'Kimad', a traditional Bombay East Indian hot alcoholic brew with sweet spices ofcourse.
These round dumplings are another trademark of this cuisine. My Grandma and Aunt's are more adepth at making this balls with so much expertise, they are always called on to come over and make heaps of fugias for the wedding guests and enough to last you for new couple of days! It is an event in itself. All the aunt's getting busy planning, cutting, chopping, cleaning, mixing the ingredients, while we kids ran around happily sensing the excitement in the air, and glad to be around all the country cousins in one huge party. Lots of stories going around, lots of updates, music flowing, drinks flowing to quench the summer (winter is the same) thirst, lots of singing happening - oh yes ofcourse, very traditional for the aunt's to break into song while cooking. There are some old songs of lore (sorry I don't remember the songs themselves) that are always sung at this time, creating an atmosphere so surreal I can still hear it in my head and wish I could share them with you. Surprisingly, its not a rejoicing type of tune, but more sombre and err.. boring, but it is filled with tradition that you cannot wipe out. Very typical, very unforgettable! Large dishes of fugia dough are left overnight for the dough to rise, and next morning there's great satisfaction on the faces to see the dough is now ready - yeah a sigh of contentment, like a little success achieved. Then a large round pot of oil is heated up on a stove set on the floor in the open outside ofcourse - safety first - while all the aunts sit around on small stools ready to squeeze the batter into the palms of their hands, and lift up the balls formed above the encircled thumb, and dip them carefully into the hot oil. Another aunt carefully flips them around and picks them up at the right moment - they have to be the right golden colour - after all their prestige and reputation in the villages counts on it! Little golden dumplings a perfect accompaniment to all gravy dish or simply with tea afterwards !
Fishy Tales
Fish is such a staple on every coast you can find. Its more than a staple; more a de-lite - a light fare for everyday meal. Its local and fresh and has all the right ticks - heart tick, brain tick, omega3 tick, protein tick, calcium tick, taste tick, easy cook tick. Such a humble food, but finds a place at the king's banquet too!
As a child, I've grown up on mackerels (bangdas), pomfret (sarga), shark, baby Ray fish (pakhat), King fish (ghol), bombay-duck (bombil), baby goldfish (mandli), crabs (chimoree), baby prawns(curdhee), Shrimp (kolbi), raavas, Tuna (kupa), Clams (shimpi), calamari; and over the years I've discovered mussels, dory, basa, haddock, salmon, scallops and oye New Zealand oysters!
Mackerels (Bangda) are avaialble all year around, but memories of bangda fry and lime roasted mackerels in the monsoons is 'mint'! This is a great side any day and can liven up a simple dal-rice combo with pickles or an onion salad to accompany. The whole fish or steaks are smothered with a simple marinade of ginger-garlic and red chilli-tumeric paste and fried till it's skin is crisp and insides moist and well done. When travelling to neighboring Goa, you shouldn't miss eating the whole fish deep fried crisp at any of the small-time local restaurants at lunch time. Goes down well with a tall glass of local beer - very coastal.
Try smearing the whole mackerel with ghee (clarified butter) and lime juice and keep aside for a while. Place it on a dry hot fry pan and let the butter melt and the juices sizzle while the white flesh gets firm and opaque and its skin burnt black. Serve on a warm plate with more lime juice squeezed and garnish with thin lemon slices. My picky-eater of a sister especially loved this version.
Another regular fish is the Bombay-duck (Bomblo/Bombil) that is found only on the west coast of Maharashtra. Its'a transparent white fleshy tubular fish that doesn't look like any other fish you have seen. It has a soft bone in the centre with fine hair like white bones that spread through the fish. If you can manage to ignore the fine white threads in your mouth, this fish is unique. The fish can be rolled in semolina and shallow fried, or can be sun dried and curried with some green spring onions. That's right - my mom used to remove the guts and clean it and string them on a long thread or wire and hang it outside in the back yard to dry them up in the hot afternoon sun. By sun-down these bomblos would have shrunk a bit but still moist inside. These were then cooked with spring onions and bottle masala of course and served with steamed rice.
Curdhee Chili fry
Curdhee is the tiny baby version of prawns, these babies are such a delicious treat. They are inexpensive and fast to cook. Every time my mom returned from the market with bags of these fresh beauties, she summoned us to come over and help clean them. We were given small bowls of water to wet our fingers to help us pinch the heads and tails and leave the rest in a clean dish. She would then carefully wash them under running water and add them to her famous curdhee chili fry. If its summer and there are raw mangoes in the market, you will definitely find them in the dish. Some summer sare just made of this!
Mandli are baby golden fishes, another inexpensive local fish you will relish if you had the chance to eat at my mum's place. Crisp fried with nothing more than plain salt, these are just wonderful savoury bites to accompany any lunch time meal.
Crabs may be a global favorite, not so much mine though. These sweet fleshed crustacean crawling things are known for their scrumptious flavour. I would rather prefer eating the crab meat available these days in cans and tossing it into a green salad. My mom, however, pain-stakingly walked every day to the market to get some fresh produce, and if there were some fresh blue crabs for sale, there would surely be some serious bargaining that day, unrelenting until the fisher-monger gave up. My mom would return home with her prized crabs so fresh, they would be waiting to crawl out of the bazaar bag. She then took the pain to clip their fangs and break them so they could do no more harm. Then chopping them halfway to expose their sweet white flesh and sometimes the golden roe would make any face smile. She would then go about grating the coconut, grinding the ingredients and transforming them into a nutty gravy for the crab curry. Best eaten with white rice of course. Don't mind getting your hands dirty at the table as the juices run down your fingers and hands.
Prawn Chilli-fry
Everything stir fried on a shallow pan is called a chilli-fry I've learnt so far. This is simply "the best" side-dish so far for me. The flavour of the prawns blends so well with the bottle masala and the chopped onions and tomatoes and garnished with chopped corriander. During summer, my mom chops up some raw mango bits and throws them into the pan - yum - and as the season progresses, you get the half ripened mangoes, which taste so much better in this dish.
Thinking of prawns, this is another "must-have". Roughly ground prawns/shrimp (better than chopped any day) mixed together with finely chopped sauteed onion, garlic, bottle masala and shaped into small balls, these are then shallow fried it tastes like a bit of heaven!
This is a hot sauce for shrimps. Such a simple, quick recipe with so much punch. Cleaned and good-shrized shrimp with heads and tails on (you can chop the heads optional, but it is more juicy left on) is mixed with some spices and oil and cooked slowly till it transforms into a saucy sensation. Goes well with 'Apas' (traditional rice flour flat-bread) or with freshly baked bread 'pao' like pull-aparts. Keep a napkin handy to wipe up the spills if you are too embarrassed to lick the juice dripping from your fingers !
As the local oldies raise their glasses and voices to raise a toast to good food and good health..
Bom Apetite!
A special note to my readers
"I would be so glad to hear your comments and encourage you to share your stories from childhood, native far away lands, or anything that makes you cherish the memory."
<3 xox
S
