Bombayi bonda - indulging in the sinful eats

Ok, first things first. When I was growing up in Mysore, this Western Indian metro was called 'Bombayi' not 'Bombay' and not 'Mumbai'. This bonda apparently travelled the distance and reached Mysore to become a favorite in our house by which I mean many house holds in our tiny little Southern Indian city. What I didn't know then was the fact that this delicious bonda was called vada in its home town and especially served sandwiched between 2 slices of bread or pao and enhanced with drizzles of spicy chutneys. And people - rich & poor, famous, infamous and unknown line up infront of every non descript bhaiyya to get their daily share of this drool worthy snack in the city of Bombayi. Yep, it is the vada from the renowned vada pao (pav). While Mysoreans didn't take to the entire package of vada pav, they pulled the sandwiched vada, reduced its size, modified the shape a little, added their own spices to the stuffing and called it bonda. It became Bombayi bonda to keep the legacy of its origin.

I was reading a food history book (yep, I do that for fun :-)) titled Eating India by a Harvard educated Bengali Indian - Chitrita Banerji. It is a good read with loads of interesting information, check it out if you like. She has authored other food related (mainly food, culture & history, not recipes) books and in this one takes a trip across India trying to understand how the historical events influenced our cuisine from east to west and south to north and presents her argument about authenticity, which I thought was pretty accurate. Anyways, this book has a chapter about Bombay, city by the Sea.

Here is a piece of interesting history, all of you who have visited the city or live there, leave a comment and let me know if you knew about it. I had not studied it as part of any of my history lessons. Early entrants from Portugal wrested 7 small islands from sultans of Gujarat and collectively called them Bom Bahia which meant 'Good bay'. Later these islands were given to the British by Portugese as part of dowry (!) when Catherine of Braganza married King Charles II in 1662. They were leased to the British East India company by the king in 1668 who called it Bombay and turned it into an enormous port with unimagined trading potential. Recently in 1995, the name was changed to Mumbai. Call it by any name, for us Mysoreans, this will always be Bombayi bonda :-)

Bombay was the first out of state trip I took by myself, I went there immediately after my graduation travelling in a train from Bengaluru. It was both exhilarating and stressful. My cousins were at the train station to pick me up, take me home and also make sure I reached my place of interview the next day. Coming back in the evening I was all by myself as cousin & husband were both at work. I was given the bus number, the stop where I should get off and all the details I would need. Cell phones had not yet come into the pocket of every middle class person, definitely not a fresh out of college graduate like me. I boarded the bus, took the ticket correctly, got off a stop before my destination. I can never forget the panic I felt thinking about all the things that could happen to me in that big, bad city but miraculously traced back and walked the rest of the way home and was greeted by my cousin who had just come home too. Didn't tell anyone, so nobody was any wiser. Next day was spent merrily in lot of sight seeing and shopping with family and then I came back home to Mysore. I fell in love with this vibrant city during that short trip, the people, the buses, (no tram experience for me) never seemed to rest there and I felt like they were all in a perpetual motion.

While browsing my recipe index the other day, I noticed that I hardly had any of the deep fried snacks that I am so known for in my family. These spicy snacks are my love and I go all weak in the knees and just can't stop eating them. So, to prevent myself from the binging that I obviously am not capable of controlling, I resort to making them occasionally at home. "Out of sight, out of mind" does the trick (well mostly). But then, I don't really want to deprive myself and others at home of these goodies and so they are prepared on special occasions when there are lot of other equally delicious distractions on the table and many generous friends to share them with :-). Dasara/Navaratri is definitely such a celebratory occasion and since I had friends coming over to see our gombe habba, I put this on the menu. Everyone loved it and I wish I could say it was all over but since I (as always) made double the quantity from what was needed, we were left with many of them the next day. In an attempt to keep the temptation away, I put them all into a big zip lock bag, wrote the ingredients list on top and sent it along with a few other sweets and snacks to BH's office.

Now, work places here are known for their welcoming attitude towards food. Take anything edible and put it on a table where people can see it, it will be gone promptly. I had a candy lady in my previous office who always had a candy jar filled on her table every morning and it would empty by evening. And she was always the first one to know what was happening in and around the office, yep food encourages and develops grapevine very easily :-). Anyway, BH called around lunch time and said everything was gone without a trace when he walked by that table earlier, I am happy for the anonymous enjoyment of my bondas.

What do you need to make Bombayi bonda?
Makes 12 lemon sized bondas
For the stuffing or palya:
4 large potatoes
1 Tsp oil
1 Tsp mustard
1 Tsp chana dal
2 Tblsp chopped cilantro
2-3 green chilies
3/4 Tsp salt
1/2 Tsp turmeric powder

For the outer cover or dipping batter:
3/4 cup basin/gram flour
1 Tblsp rice flour
1/2 Tsp salt
1/2 Tsp red chili powder
1/8 Tsp asafetida
1/4 Tsp ajwain seeds
pinch of baking soda (this is just a pinch, the amount you can hold between your forefinger & thumb, I know it is not scientific but works just as well)

Other ingredients:
water to make batter
oil to deep fry (1.5-2 cups)

How do you make Bombayi bondas?
Making the stuffing or palya:

• Wash the potatoes, boil them in water until soft.
• Let cool, remove the skin and mash the potatoes so no big lumps remain.
• Slit the green chilies vertically and chop them fine.
• Heat oil in a pan, add mustard, let it pop, add chana dal and roast until it turns pink. Add chopped green chilies and roast for 30 seconds.
• Add the asafetida and turmeric powder and switch off.
• Pour the seasoning over mashed potatoes, add chopped cilantro, salt and mix them well.
• Do a taste test for salt and spices and adjust as needed.
• Take small amounts and make balls out of them, keep them on a plate until ready to use.

Making the dipping batter:

• Sieve gram flour and rice flour together to remove any lumps formed during storage.
• Crush the ajwain between your palms to release the flavor, add it to the flours.
• Add the remaining ingredients listed under batter and mix them all in.
• Add water slowly to make a batter of dripping consistency. When you roll your stuffing ball in the batter, it should stick to the potato ball uniformly (no thick lumps).

Making Bombayi bondas:

• Take a wide, heavy bottom pan and heat oil in it.
• Drop a tiny bit of the batter to test if the oil is ready, if it comes to the surface immediately, then you are ready to deep fry the bondas.
• Dip the potato ball in the batter (see notes), coat the batter all around it, drop it in hot oil.  
• Based on the size of your pan and the amount of oil (all bondas should be immersed in oil when they get dropped and there should be enough space for them to move around), you can fry multiple bondas in one batch.

• Once you drop them in hot oil, it will take a few seconds for them to come up to the surface, do not disturb them during this time.
• Once they all show up on top, gently separate any conjoined twins or triplets with the help of a spoon so that they get roasted on all sides.
• Give them a couple of minutes to become golden brown on the bottom before turning them over.

• Move them around gently so the bondas turn golden brown on all sides. Deep fry should be done on medium heat and takes about 6-8 minutes for one batch.
• Once the sizzling of the oil stops, take the bondas out with a slotted spoon onto a plate lined with paper napkin.

• Enjoy hot bondas with coconut chutney or ketchup, don't call me if you cannot stop eating them :-)

Variations:

• I skipped onions since some of the invitees wouldn't eat onion during Navaratri. You can fry onions along with the seasoning and add it for a flavor boost.
• You can add fresh/frozen green peas to the potato stuffing, give a nice green burst and some protein.
• Nammamma didn't add any masala powders (garam masala & others) as it is typical in Mysore. You can add garam masala, amchoor (dry mango powder) to enhance flavors.
• Add chopped curry leaves along with rest of the seasoning for the stuffing.

Notes:

•  If you are making large quantities, do not mix water to the flours at one time as the baking soda starts working when you mix water and the longer it sits, the bondas become softer.
• I have seen a friend double fry - take out a batch of bondas and put them back into hot oil for a second time after about 15-20 minutes of the first fry. While this makes them crispier, think about the oil consumed by it. I do not do it but it is a technique if you want to use. These bondas will anyway become softer when they cool as there is stuffing inside.
• When you dip the potato ball in the batter, make sure it is coated with the batter all around. Lift it up, scraping your fingers on the edge of the vessel, dip it into the hot oil turning over so the bottom comes up. This trick will ensure that your fingers will take away as little as possible of the batter and also reduce the tails that form as you drop them in oil.

That is how you sit and enjoy the bondas :-)

• I chop the green chilies really small and season them before mixing in with potatoes, this makes the stuffing spicy but without having to bite into bits of green chilies. You can reduce or increase the amount of green chilies per taste.

Kadle Kalu Usli a.k.a black chana Sundal a.k.a sauteed black chick peas - easiest offering during Navaratri

Nimellarigu Navaratri Habbada Shubhashayagalau (Wishing everyone a Very Happy Navaratri festival)

Today is the 7th day in the Navaratri series and is typically started off with Saraswati pooje or by praying to the Goddess of knowledge. We had this discussion with kids last weekend at our Balavihar about what kind of knowledge was worth seeking, there were some really enlightening kinds of responses. Any adults up to playing along? Of the nine nights, the first 3 days are dedicated to Goddess Durga who is worshipped to kill the ego within each of us and everything that hinders a path of self realization, the second 3 days are celebrated in the worship of Goddess Lakshmi to provide us with the wealth of tools to seek knowledge and make us equipped to make the journey and the last 3 days are celebrated in the worship of Goddess Saraswati to bless us with the actual knowledge or the self realization. It is the wisdom to realize who I am (for each of you to know who you are :-)). Beautiful, yet very hard to come by. Takes years of practice and quest which we are all on - different paths, stages, speeds and means but same goal.

With that thought on the significance of Navaratri pooja, I will take you to my kitchen to share one of the most commonly prepared offerings during the festivals in the South India. It is popularly known as Sundal in Tamil Nadu while we call it Usli or Usali in Karnataka. Andhra Pradesh has a sibling of this dish called vada pappu but the legumes are uncooked and is more like the kosambari but without any garnishing or seasoning. A protein rich dish, easy to put together and is completely saatvik in the traditional form(no onion or garlic is used in these recipes).

There are uslis made from a variety of legumes and dals and you will see these when you visit homes during Navaratri. The basic principle is the same while replacing the star of the dish. Some of the popular varieties of Usli in Karnataka are - Kadle Kalu usli (Chick peas - either black/brown colored or the golden garbanzo), Hesaru kalu usli(whole moong), Alasande kalu usli (cow peas), Hurali kalu usli(horse gram), Kadle bele usli (chana dal), hesaru bele usli(moong dal). You will also find peanut usli, green peas usli, corn usli etc. You get the picture, right? Take a legume, follow a few simple steps and you will end up with a delicious snack. Yes, this can be eaten as a snack, side dish during a festive meal or any time you prefer :-)

Basically, the legume is cooked (how you cook and how much you cook entirely determines the deliciousness and the presentation of this dish), sautéed with herbs, coconut and green chilies. Lemon or lime juice is added for the tartness. That is all there is to it. Now, pick a legume of choice and make this easy usli. The ingredients I have given are the whole traditional nine yards for this dish, but don't panic if you don't have the curry leaves or if you choose to skip green chilies and use red chilies or put less or more coconut than suggested. It will still be a delicious usli. I would strongly recommend asafetida though as that is the flavor I identify a festive usli with :-), it reminds of care free childhood days, nammamma in her kitchen wearing a silk seere and scurrying about to get all the dishes and arrangements ready. Ah, the smells, sounds, taste and nostalgia, doesn't take much to transport me to Mysore.

In Mysore, when we went to visit the doll displays around the neighborhood, we would get an equivalent of current day return gift called baagina. Neatly packed in eco friendly cups made from leaves and dried to hold stuff (we call it Donne in Kannada) and sometimes put inside another small pouch, the baagina would be different for adult women and little girls which I thought was very unjust. So the moment we were out of a friend's house, I would grab nammamma's packet and compare notes. Anything interesting would shift to my packet while all uninteresting stuff would stay in hers :-). And here is a very important discovery based on facts that this is not just a childish gesture but a gene with a very definite marking and gets transferred from generation to generation. I saw DD do the same thing last weekend when we went to a friend's house as her bag didn't have the usli in it :-). Obviously, she has not seen me do it and I am usually pretty careful sharing the not-so-proud moments of my childhood with her :-). By the time we reached home, the usli packet had journeyed involuntarily into her bag and thus became rightfully hers.

I have 2 ways of preparing usli - both delicious but slightly different based on who I am serving it to. If there are  a lot of younger kids and people that do not eat spicy food, I follow the easier/milder version and if I am preparing it for people that enjoy a little spice in the dish, I follow the easy/spicy version:-). So here are both ways of making a usli and you get to choose how you will make it for your loved ones.

Enjoy the usli, go out and dance some Garba or Dandiya if you can manage and don't forget to come back as I have lined up a few delicious recipes. See you all soon again.

What do you need to make Kadle kalu usli?
1 cup dry black chick peas (see notes for alternatives)
1/4 cup grated coconut
1/2 Tsp salt
2-3 green chilies
1/2 lemon/lime (equivalent of 1-1.5Tsp juice)
1 Tblsp chopped cilantro
2-3 curry leaves
1 Tsp oil
1 Tsp mustard
1/8 Tsp asafoetida (* very important flavoring agent)

How do you make Kadle kalu usli?

• Wash, pick over dry kadle kalu and soak it in 3 cups of water over night or atleast till it plumps up and doubles in size (minimum 8-10 hours)

Perspective of dry and soaked chick peas, notice the moistness and size on the right

• Rinse, wash and pressure cook for 2 whistles with salt and 1.5 cup of water.
• Let it cool before opening the pressure cooker.
• Drain the cooked kalu, reserve water to be used as a nutritious stock in soups, rasams and the like.

Easier & Milder version:

• Remove stems of the green chilies, slit vertically and cut into 2 or 3 pieces horizontally.
• Heat oil in a pan, add mustard, let it pop, add the green chilies and sauté for 30 seconds.
• Add the asafetida and curry leaves followed by cooked & drained kadle kalu, add grated coconut, chopped cilantro and mix well.
• Add the lemon/lime juice. Taste test and adjust salt or lemon juice to taste.
• Switch off, you can serve this hot, warm or cold.

Easy & spicier version:

• Take the grated coconut, half of cilantro, and the green chilies to a blender and pulse them into a coarse crumble without adding any water preferably.
• Heat oil in a pan, add mustard and let it pop, add the curry leaves and asafetida followed by cooked & drained kadle kalu.
• Add the coconut paste, mix it well. Add the lemon/lime juice and the remaining cilantro.

• Taste test and adjust salt or lemon juice to taste.
• Switch off, you can serve this hot, warm or cold.

Notes:

• You will have to control the cooking time based on the legume you choose, some need the pressure cooker to cook fast and some fall apart if you use pressure cooker. The idea is to cook them soft and juicy but not mushy. For example, I always cook whole moong in an open vessel, takes about 15-20 minutes if you have soaked and plumped the moong before cooking.

• Soaking the dry legumes not only reduces the cook time but also gives the right texture to it. So plan an evening before and soak it in plenty of water over night.
• If using canned chick peas (I haven't seen black chick peas in cans though), be careful to choose a brand that doesn't have the peas cooked too soft that they break while sautéing.
• If using frozen coconut, thaw it and bring it to room temperature.
• Sautéing green chilies in oil tones the spice down and also spice intolerant people can fish out the big pieces of the chili while eating and avoid the heat.
• If you have to use a couple of spoons of water to make the coconut paste, increase the heat once you add and let the water evaporate before finishing it up.



Dasara Navaratri - Celebrating the win of God over evil

Growing up in Mysore, Navaratri had a special charm, Mysore is the capital of the erstwhile Wodeyar kingdom and even though their is no king now, the traditional Dasara procession and the celebrations go on in full swing. The entire city lights up during the season - literally and figuratively, you can visit temples and attend poojas for spiritual pursuit, you can sit and watch a multitude of music and dance concerts in the Darbar hall, you can walk around the Dasara exhibition or the Kannambadi katte (KRS dam with the musical fountain) or just hang around anywhere in the vibrant city. The Mysore Palace darbar hall has many of the stalwarts of Carnatic & Hindustani musicians performing over the 10 day festival. We as a family enjoyed good music and dance and would attend as many concerts and recitals as we could during the season.

Vijayadashami day sees the world famous Mysore Dasara procession, people sit and wait at vantage points since early morning for the procession to start. All our cousins used to descend on us in Mysore as it is typically school holidays and while all of them went to see the Dasara procession, strangely I have never seen one personally. It was always 'I live here, I can do it next year' attitude and something else took precedence and also the fact that we had so much fun at home that sitting and waiting for the procession seemed like a waste of time for a fluttering kid.

One of my school friend's father was a forest ranger and the elephants that came to lead the procession and carry the Goddess Chamundeshwari's idol always were brought to his house which was 4 houses down the street. The majestic Drona who faithfully carried the Goddess's idol for many years was a treat to see upclose. We used to run to their house with plates full of bananas, rice, jaggery and coconut pieces to get a chance to feed those elephants and pet them for a few minutes. Elephants eating whole coconuts, elephants making bunches of bananas disappear in one go,  elephants drinking buckets of water,  elephants dropping big loads of hot poop on the road - we didn't need much to entertain us when we were kids :-).

We have a custom of arranging and displaying dolls in the house during Navaratri and hence it is also called as 'Gombe/Bombe habba' (Doll festival), Creativity is the only ingredient needed here and those days no one had collection of dolls from all the countries they had visited :-), the display was mainly composed of small Channapatna wooden pieces and if you were lucky, you would have a few more expensive dolls (No touching those - ha). One of my sister's friends had a big train that ran on a winding track and was operated by a mechanical key. We used to sit and wait in their living room until all the invitees filed in and the room was full and they would operate the key to make the train go around their gombe arrangement complete with all lights & choo choo sounds :-)

The best part of Navaratri was the evening Gombe aarthi and the gombe baagina, this is when all kids would go to different houses (mostly on invitation but there were gate crashers too) and come back with a goodie bag full of 'goodies' to munch on. Nammamma had invitees come over every evening starting from Sapthami (Saraswathi pooja day) - I follow the same tradition. There would be sweets & savories every day to share and evenings made colorful with everyone dressed in festive attire. All little girls would be made to sing a song or bhajan in front of the doll displays. Great opportunity at public singing for new students of the art :-) with very good intentioned, well meaning moms prodding, glaring and making sure their kids opened up.

Gombe aarthi is more about little kids unlike other festivals where married ladies take center stage. Amma had the same conversation every morning with me,  'How many friends are you inviting?' and I would say '10-15' but when evening came the number would somehow magically go into 40-50 range :-). Here is what happened, I would go to call a friend and see a few more friends of that friend hanging around and invite them too but fail to let amma know about it. I have  put her in trouble with her calculations of the gombe baagina very frequently and derailed her best laid plans. Thinking back, I really don't know how she graciously managed to serve and feed all those kids that came in, she probably had some kind of 'Akshaya Patre' (the mythological 'never empty' pot) in her kitchen. And I did get an earful after everyone left but then the story would repeat itself all over again next day or next year :-)

Navaratri also is special for me personally because BH & I met each other on the first day of Navaratri many years ago. He came to meet my parents in Mysore for the first time during the busy Dasara time. I realized his fear of heights when I first took him to the Mysore exhibition and tried the Giant Ferris wheel. I have had the pleasure of visiting that exhibition with little baby girl, tired with excitement but completely wide eyed at the lights and sounds around her. I have some awesome black & white pictures of my cherub taken at a nondescript stall.  When we set up the dolls every year, as we unpack them from their boxes we talk about where we got them from, who gave it to us and think about family & friends near and far.

We had a great time last evening with friends visiting and there was a lot of singing too by little girls and mommies and a grandmother who sang beautifully. As I have been scrambling with the arrangements and cooking, I completely forgot all about my food blog (!!!!) and so I have no pictures to share which means I will post the recipes some time later when I make them again and take proper pictures. Here is what was on the menu though - Puliyogare, Vegetable upma, moong dal pakoda, carrot payasa, kabuli chana usili, chutneys along with fruits for dinner and kodubale, 7 cups burfi, sajjappa and mucchore for the baagina.

Enjoy the remaining days of Navaratri and have fun.