Akki tambittu (sweet treat with rice) - a very simple offering on Shivaratri

:-), ok even I have to flinch at my own (un)timeliness about blogging. It has been over 2 weeks since Shivaratri and I am finally waking up from my slumber to post about what I made. While debating whether to post this recipe here today or not, I told myself that it would be a wonderful recipe for next year's Shivaratri, you can all just search on the blog and make it. Also this is such an easy peasy recipe that you can make it anytime not waiting for the festival to come around next time. Unlike many Indian desserts, there is no syrup and consistency you need watch hawk eyed making this a totally beginner recipe.

Shivaratri is a festival usually in early February that almost brings with it the warm winds of summer in India. Though there is no formal distinction of Spring & Summer in India, the early months (late Feb - Apr) are mild and very spring like. The vast country it is, the seasons differ in their intensity from region to region but in my southern home town, these were always the pleasant months. Everything around you would start sprouting new leaves and the tender green mangoes would start to make a show. The anticipation of the upcoming summer holidays and the anxiety of final exam series always competed with each other.

Shivaratri unlike most Indian festivals is less about food and more about going inward in an almost meditative mode. I grew up watching nammamma and anna fasting the entire day even if it was a working day and then have a little portion of food in the evening only once that day. Even in that subdued food scene, there were definitely some Shiva favorites that were always made on the day and one of them is this tambittu. This version is made with rice and jaggery.

On a side note, when I read about the now almost craze ketogenic diets I always think of the fasting where people went without food for days and simply called it 'giving the body a rest' :-). I don't do extended fasting anytime. So I came back home in the evening and made this tambittu for the festival. Pictures are all taken on a hungry stomach and in dim WA winter lights :-). They don't do justice to the delectable dish this is. I will update pictures next time I make tambittu (and remember to take good pictures), until then..

BH & I have developed this habit of popping something sweet in the mouth after meals especially during weekends. Tambittu made a perfect post meal dessert for over 2 weeks for us. There are several variations of tambittu, some people make it entirely with the fried gram without rice flour but this is the recipe I ate when I was little. Nammamma added a small quantity of roasted gram as it helps to bind.

NOTE: Roasted gram/hurikadle is not the same as split bengal gram/chana dal. The former needs no cooking, it is used as a snack and for giving volume in chutneys. The latter needs to be cooked before consuming.

Also this weekend, bidding adieu to a wonderful artist, an actress whose comic timing was par excellence, a heroine who didn't get enough opportunities to give her acting abilities the due they deserved, a mom & wife that met an untimely end. Rest in peace Sridevi Kapoor. 

Ye lamhe ye pal hum, barson yaad karenge,
ye mausam chale gae to hum fariyad karenge

What do you need to make tambittu? 
1 cup rice (any short grain rice, I used sona masoori)
2 Tbsp roasted gram (hurikadle - used to make chutney)
3/4 cup crushed jaggery
1/4 cup water
3-4 green cardamoms
1 Tsp khus-khus (poppy seeds)
1 Tsp white sesame seeds
1 Tbsp dry coconut (kobbari) - I used grated this time, you can chop it into small pieces if you like that texture
1 Tbsp ghee (clarified butter)

How do you make tambittu? 

• Wash rice twice in running water, drain the water and spread it on a thin cloth and let it dry for a couple of hours (This is all done indoors, no drying in the sun)
• When the rice is dry, roast it until lightly pink, and plump up slightly. Switch off and let cool.  
• Once it is cool, take it to the blender jar along with cardamom, roasted gram and grind it into a fine powder. 
• I sieve the powder with a fine sieve and return any coarse powder back to the jar for further grinding and repeat the sieving process until you have a fine powder of all of the rice. 

• Soak jaggery in water for 15 mins so it softens and dissolves. 
• Heat pan, roast poppy seeds, sesame seeds separately until they both turn fragrant. It takes 1.5-2 mins for the quantity here. Take them out onto a plate.
• Roast grated coconut until it turns light pink and toasty, remove it to the plate. 
• Add ghee and roast cashew nuts until they turn light pink, remove them onto the plate. 
• Mix the ground powder with all the ingredients in the mixing bowl. 
• Return the pan to the stove and pour in the soaked jaggery and bring it to a boil on medium heat. It takes about 4-6 mins and becomes thicker. 

• Pour this on top of the dry mixture and bring everything together with a spoon. 
• Wait for a few minutes until the mixture can be handled, pinch off golf ball sized mixture (or any size you prefer), make a ball and make a dip on the top. -> This shape is how nammamma made tambittu, not necessary you should stick to this shape :-). I have seen perfectly round tambittu also. It is your preference. 

• Enjoy the sweet tambittu, stays fresh for about 2 weeks if refrigerated. 

Notes: 

• Do not use sticky rice, basmati and parboiled rice in this recipe. 
• For quick version, you can make this with ready made rice flour, make sure to roast it on low heat until it is fragrant.
• You can use roasted, de-skinned peanuts in place of cashews. 
• You can add cardamom powder instead of grinding them with rice but I prefer the fresh fragrances.
• Tambittu is moist and soft when made but firms up after a rest time. 
• Remove the jaggery syrup before any thread consistency is achieved, getting to a thread consistency makes tambittu hard & chewy. 
• The syrup is enough to make a mixture that can be shaped into balls but if it is a little crumbly/dry (sometimes jaggery variety makes the difference and Indian cooking is not precise :-)), add a spoon of warm milk and bind. 

Happy New year, a blog birthday and some catch up - celebrating with delicious Kaju Katli (cashew burfi)

Happy New Year everybody!! May the year 2018 bring unprecedented peace, harmony, health, love and joy in everyone's lives. May this be a purposeful and productive year that brings each of you closer to your dreams and goals. 

New Year's eve also marks the birthday of my dear little blog that completes 6 years of existence and steps into the 7th year. I started writing this blog, sitting alone on a chilly winter afternoon as 2011 drew to a close, and never once thought I would continue the journey for 6 long years. 2011 was strange for many reasons, we had relocated yet again, I was continuing to work full time but from home which made it difficult at times as I am not a long term wfh person, DD had started high school in a brand new city, trying to make brand new friends while missing all her old friends, BH was at once excited to be working for a dream come true employer and nervous about the changes. And all three of us had left behind yet another place we called home, lot of friends that had become family and had to start growing roots again. It was a lot individually and together. There were certainly times when BH & I looked at each other overwhelmed and asked if we had done the right thing with this move.

Looking back, we are happy in our no-longer new home, have had many blessings in these 6+ years and many things to be proud of, my little blog being one of them. I blogged so many recipes that are close to heart, wrote about why they were special and the memories that were imprinted, made friends in the blogosphere, got to know some incredible people both as humans and chefs in this virtual world, got my ego nurtured by occasional, tiny, little recognition, shared my love for all things food with family, friends and strangers, tried my hands at various electronic forums to share my food pictures, talked more openly about my personal life than I have ever done anywhere in my life, went away MIA for both short and long stretches of time for various reasons. Blogging gives me a distinct pleasure of being creative that is hard to compete with. 2017 saw the lowest number of blog posts in the 6 years of the blog existence but I wrote every piece from the heart and when my heart and pen didn't feel harmonized, I just took a break.

Some of the posts were written when I felt as if I was under a boulder of pain that I would never be able to claw myself out of, while some were written when I was literally giddy with joy and contentment. But everyone of them was about a memory that I would give anything to hold on to for as long as I can. I am grateful I found this media to stretch my precious memories. A big thanks to all of you for riding on this journey with me. Many of you have been part of it since the beginning and I am grateful to all of you. There is a lot more recipes in Sattvaa kitchen and I hope to continue blogging about them. Thanks for all the comments, queries, interest in my recipes, support and gentle nudge to come back, I am starting the new year with a new recipe.

Back to blogging, I take responsibility for all the breaks I took last year. For many reasons, some beyond my control I couldn't find it in me to sit and write a blog post or share a recipe with you all. My blog absence doesn't however mean that I have not been cooking or eating :-). Been doing some experimental cooking as fancy takes me (more about that in upcoming blog posts) and then falling back to the comfort foods too. Also, trying to drill the idea of cooking in small quantities into my brain but have not been really successful with that lesson yet :-).

If you have reached up to this point on this post, I am sure you have not failed to notice the prominently displayed photo prop :-). It is the very thoughtful, love filled gift I received from my little girl. What can I say? I am a proud mommy. Along with it came a shiny new electronic gadget from BH for personal use (big part of the personal use being blogging), so I have no more excuses to mask my lazyness but to show up for the show, right? Also, I simply love these two in my life to the moon and back for everything they do.

So, what should we start 2018 with? A sweet perhaps? A sweet it is and an extremely popular one. I had (still have) a load of dry fruits including almonds, cashews and other rich nuts, courtesy of dear friends who came home over the last month, so it was an easy choice to make this Indian sweet. It has remained one of DD's top favorites for a long time. This is one of the sweets/desserts you will find distributed widely by the Indian community for all festivals and happy occasions given its long shelf life. It is also one of the common sweets to bring back from home on an India trip for colleagues and friends as it is easy to transport and passes security screening without any mess :-). Yes, I am talking about Kaju Katli or Cashew nut burfi, has just enough sweetness so it doesn't make your tongue all sticky like some of the syrupy Indian desserts, it is nutty in taste but not overwhelmingly so, with a texture of pillowy softness and is faintly chewy.

Kaju Katlis are always served with a layer of silver vork (also called silver paper or varak) on top and I skipped it in my home made version as I am not a fan of them. The thought of eating a non bio degradable metal in my dessert is not entirely appealing to me. If you like it and want to reproduce the exact look of the store bought katlis, go ahead and purchase some varak for your katlis.

What do you need to make Kaju Katli? 
1 cup cashews
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup +1 tsp water
1/2 Tsp melted ghee

How do you make kaju katli? 

• Take cashews in the dry jar of your mixie and make as fine a powder of it as you can without turning it into a wet mass. Nuts ooze oil when ground and cashews are no exception, take care to run the grinder in pulse mode first to break down the nuts. 

• Sieve the powdered cashews to get a finer textured powder, any remaining big particles can be returned for a second grind and the sieving process repeated until you get a cup measure of the powder. 

• Add sugar & water into a heavy bottom pan and on low-medium heat start stirring to make a syrup of one thread consistency. 
• Once the syrup reaches single thread consistency, add the cashew powder and stir it quickly into a lump. 
• Keep the heat on low, add ghee to the pan and mix it all in a couple of times. 

• The cashew lump will start to leave the sides of the pan. Try rolling a small piece of the lump between your fingers, if it forms a smooth ball without sticking to your fingers you are ready to move to the next step. 
• For the quantities given here, it takes 2-3 minutes from the time you add the cashew powder to getting them off the stove. 
• Put the cooked cashew lump into a wide plate and spread it a little, wait for a few minutes for it to cool down enough to the touch. 
• Once you can handle the dough, start to knead it. You will notice that the dough is grainy when you take it out but starts to become softer and smoother as you knead. 
• Knead for 3-4 mins, make it into a ball and place it between two sheets of wax paper and roll into a thin chapati from the top of the sheet with the help of a rolling pin. 
• The thickness depends on your individual preference, I rolled it pretty thin as we like it that way. 

• Take the top sheet off, using a knife cut into pieces of desired size and shape. 
• I normally cut out narrow strips from the edges and remove those for scrap eating before cutting the rest of it into beautiful, uniform pieces :-)

• Store in airtight containers and enjoy, refrigeration extends the shelf life. It will stay good for a week outside and longer if refrigerated.

Notes: 

• I always store my nuts in the freezer compartment to extend its shelf life, if you do the same make sure you take them out for thawing for atleast 6-8 hours. I left mine on the counter top the previous night. NEVER grind frozen cashews unless you are looking to make a paste of it :-)
• Any remaining broken/thick particle cashews can be stored and used in multiple Indian gravies for a richer & creamier taste. 
• Keeping the heat on low to medium is essential during the syrup making process as otherwise sugar tends to become candy. 
• Use good quality cashews for best taste. 
• Add a pinch of cardamom powder to the syrup if you like the flavor.

Boondi - tiny little sweet and savory pearls, a perfect Deepavali treat

When I started blogging, I had this dream of making different themed sets of recipes for every Indian festival, international holidays etc so my readers could easily click on a page and find all relevant recipes for any particular occasion. I have seen many of my blogger friends do it and keep enhancing the lists every time they add a post. As for me, that dream is still far away, I know I have special dishes blogged in the space and tagged but maintaining that ever ready list and more importantly having it accessible before a major festival has remained a distant goal :-). Well, that gives me something to work for, doesn't it? Everything has a silver lining. Some day, you will come to my blog and search for Deepavali recipes (before the festival ofcourse :-)) and I will be able to present a list of recipes, but for now as I work on making that happen, the blog has plenty to offer albeit a little after the fact :-)

So, here is me wishing a very happy Deepavali to all of you. May the festival of lights stay in spirit with all of us long after the days of festivities end and help us spread the light of love around us.

I was out on a work related trip last week and came back towards the end of the week when the festivities were already in full blown mode and people were wishing everyone a happy Diwali even before I had a chance to clean my kitchen and get ready. Truth be told that I am not in the habit of preparing dishes in advance for the festival. I am more of the 'make & eat on the same day' kind of person but I still had to exercise those grey cells to come up with a late in the game plan for celebrating DeepavaLi.

Our DeepavaLi celebrations are a little different from the more public aware celebrations of the festival. DeepavaLi is still a 5 day affair in the south of India but has different names from its counterparts in north of India. The first day is called 'neeru tumbo habba' literally translates to filling the water tanks (old world equivalents of today's geysers) with fresh water. Hande water used to be heated with wood logs. This starts with a major cleaning initiative that reaches every dark nook & cranny in the house including the bath room, the 'hande' or water tanks are given a thorough wash and made to shine. There is fresh rangoli (mandala designs) on the hande and infront of it before lighting the fire to the logs and start heating the water. For us kids that is when the festival started and the school holidays began as well so we were free to roam around the neighborhood.

2nd day of the festivities is called Naraka Chaturdashi in honor of Lord Krishna killing the demon Narakasura and saving the 16000 princesses from captivity.  Other than eating a lot of good food, there wasn't much else to do on this day as we were told to save the fire crackers for the day after and not light them yet :-). Oh yes, there were new clothes to wear and go around flaunting them.

3rd day is the amavasye or new moon. There was no real festivities on this day unless you owned a business. If you were a business owner, there used to be a grand Lakshmi pooje and they would start their annual accounts afresh. Growing up in a very diverse community, we always used to get invited to the pooje by the merchant families in the neighborhood which meant more sweets to collect.

4th day is Bali Padyami, house would be decorated in preparation for the lighting of the lamps in the evening. Lots of flowers and huge rangolis in front of the house made the day so much brighter. I remember DeepavaLi always brought with it a slow & steady rain, not really big but just enough to create anxiety about the survival of the lamps and the firecrackers in the shower and wind. But somehow, every year the lamps survived and the firecrackers made huge sounds to everyone's glee.

5th day is celebrated as sodara bidige (similar to Bhai dooj in the north) but by this time we would lose interest as schools would have restarted and mechanically did what was told and headed off to school with a heavy heart :-). Oh, the drama of DeepavaLi.

Now, how do I condense all of the 5 day festivities into one quick evening? I pick the things & rituals that make the most sense to me and have a celebration. I don't even have a geyser, hot water comes automagically from the tap and I don't need to clean it. I don't do firecrackers (have not done it for years now) as I don't personally like the noise & air pollution they cause. Best part of DeepavaLi for me is the lighting of the lamps and we do that whole heartedly. This is how part of our home looked like on Friday..

When I returned and turned on my laptop to peek into the blogosphere, my fellow bloggers had not left a single stone unturned. The offerings spanned from traditional to modern, from handed down recipes to creative bests, from sweets to savories and everything one ever relates to DeepavaLi. Honestly, I felt a little left out not contributing to the rush of preparing for the festivities. I decided to make some quick treats for DeepavaLi and landed on boondi. If you do not know what these are, here is a quick catch up description. A batter of gram flour is passed through a ladle with holes to get small, round pearls. If you are making savory, the batter is dressed up with salt, chili powder, if you are making the sweet version, batter is plain and deep fried pearls are later soaked in a sugar syrup. Both are yummy, they can be eaten as snacks and the savory one also makes a perfect raita accompaniment for pulavs or paranthas when soaked in yogurt. We used some of the khara boondi to top our next day BBB and it tasted delicious :-)

Though it looks like a lot of work, boondi is one of the easiest recipes and the result is very impressive. You just want to follow a few tricks to get the best boondi. Read on for the process and the tips and bookmark it for next DeepavaLi :-). a little bit of these special treats, a plate of homely food and lots of lamps together made the DeepavaLi a memorable celebration. 

Now that the festival fever has come down, I have a question that has been bothering me for over a week. Is it possible to be literally fatigued just looking at the vast collection of delicious Deepavali sweets & savories in the blogosphere? I think it is possible, I am actually tired and need a break from all ghee laden, sugar coated Deepavali treats for a while and need to get back to simple living and comfort eating :-), so don't be surprised if I went directly back to blogging about every day food in my next post, until then have a great time, enjoy the left overs.

What do you need to make sweet & savory boondi? 
For khara boondi: 
1 cup besan/gram flour/kadle hittu
1/4 cup rice flour
1 and 1/4 cup water
1 Tsp salt
1 Tsp red chili powder
1/4 Tsp turmeric powder
1/8 Tsp asafoetida
1/4 cup peanuts
1/4 cup fried gram/hurigadle
2 Tbsp grated kobbari/dry coconut (optional, may skip if unavailable)
10-12 curry leaves

For Sweet boondi: 
1 cup besan/gram flour/kadle hittu
1/4 cup rice flour
1 and 1/4 cup water
pinch of salt
For sweet boondi syrup: 
1 cup water
2 cups sugar
1/4 Tsp pacha karpoora/edible camphor
4-5 saffron strands
2 Tbsp raisins
2-4 cloves

3-4 cups of Oil to deep fry both varieties of boondi (I normally use peanut oil)

Utensils: 
Heavy bottom, wide kadai or pan to fry boondi in
1 ladle with small holes (I use a steel one for draining oil when deep frying)
1 ladle to lift fried boondi from oil

How do you make sweet boondi? 

• In a sauce pan, take water & sugar and let it come to a boil. 
• Keep stirring until the syrup gets to a single thread consistency. 
• Let the syrup thicken further for another 10mins on medium heat. 
• Add cloves, edible camphor and saffron to the syrup. 

• Add raisins to the syrup (I don't fry them but letting them soak in the hot syrup plumps them up), switch off keep it warm.
• Make a batter of sieved besan, rice flour and water. Whisk the batter with a hand whisk to make it light.
• Heat oil in a pan and drop a small amount of batter to check if the oil is hot enough, if the batter comes to the surface immediately, you are ready to start frying. 

• Hold the ladle with the holes in your left hand directly above the oil(I am a right hander, switch the sides if you are a left hander), using a spoon put the batter on the ladle and let the batter drop into water. 

• Using the other ladle, give a swish to the boondi in the oil so it gets cooked uniformly on all sides. 
• Remove them with a slotted spoon when it the bubbles int he oil slow down. Sweet boondi doesn't have to become very crisp unlike the savory version. Place them in a plate lined with a tissue or paper napkin. 
• Clean the ladle with the holes completely before reusing. 
• Repeat the process until all the batter is used up.
• Once the frying is complete, put all the fried boondi into the hot syrup and mix well. 

• Take them onto a wide plate and spread. 
• Let it cool and as it cools it becomes dry absorbing any extra syrup in the process. 

• Store in a dry, clean container. 

How do you make Khara boondi? 

• Sieve besan to remove any lumps, add rice flour, salt, red chili powder, asafoetida & turmeric powder. Mix well. 
• Add water slowly to make a lump free batter of dropping consistency. See notes below to adjust consistency. 
• Taste a tiny drop of the batter and adjust salt or spices as needed. Whisk the batter with a hand whisk to make it light.

• Heat oil in a pan and drop a small amount of batter to check if the oil is hot enough, if the batter comes to the surface immediately, you are ready to start frying
• Hold the ladle with the holes in your left hand directly above the oil(I am a right hander, switch the sides if you are a left hander), using a spoon put the batter on the ladle and let the batter drop into water. 
• Using the other ladle, give a swish to the boondi in the oil so it gets cooked uniformly on all sides. 
• Remove them with a slotted spoon when it has attained a golden color all over and the bubbling stops in the oil. Place them in a plate lined with a tissue or paper napkin. 
• Clean the ladle with the holes completely before reusing. 

• Repeat the process until all the batter is used up. 
• Add peanuts to the oil and fry until they are crisp
• Add fried gram to the oil for 30secs to crisp them up and remove
• Add curry leaves and fry them until crisp. 
• Mix boondi with peanuts, fried gram, grated kobbari and curry leaves. when cool, store it in a air tight container.

Notes:

• Adding rice flour makes boondi crisp, you can reduce the amount to a Tbsp for the sweet boondi version to get juicier boondi. 
• You can leave khara boondi without any peanuts or other embellishments if you like but adding them enhances the taste. 
• I recommend you try the batter out with a small spoonful to check the consistency, your oil temperature etc. 
• Consistency of the batter is critical for getting perfectly round boondi. If your droplets have a small tail attached to them, thin the batter with a few drops of water, if the boondis look flat when they fall in the oil, add a little bit of besan to thicken the batter. Trial & error helps you get the look & feel. 
• Make sure you hold the ladle with the holes at about 6 inches from the surface of oil. This distance helps the batter form perfect round boondi as it falls into the oil. 

Halbai or Halubayi - Mother's day, parenting and more

A very happy Mother's day to all you lovely mammas and motherly ladies out there, hope you all had a wonderful day in the company of your loved ones and enjoyed your special day!! 

My wishes are probably reaching most of you after the mother's day. I was debating whether or not to publish a post this time for Mother's day at all. I waited till the day was almost over writing, erasing, rewriting the post as I tried to make it acceptable to myself, hopefully I am able to make it not all personal. The silver line definitely is the wonderful recipe today, do try it sometime. I sincerely wish you all had a wonderful day and hope you were lucky enough to have had a chance to wish your own moms and mom-equivalents in person, over phone, via email etc. For many years now, ever since I realized there was a special day for mothers, I have wished my mom atleast by phone if I wasn't physically with her either in India or here. The first mother's day without my mom, without even a chance of being able to call her up and talk to her has been tough to say the least. A day of celebration that brings a lot of pride and happiness as a mom is also a day where the heart aches for the one special person I can never again celebrate this day with. As some of you may have noticed, I break my 'no personal pics on the blog' policy only for the mother's day posts, here is an old pic of my mom with me in her arms, needless to say one of my favorites :-)

I miss her asking me if I had lunch/dinner no matter what time of the day I called, I miss her asking how I was doing first before asking how BH and DD were doing making me feel just a tiny bit more special, I miss our conversations mostly about the grand child, less about me and the SIL, I miss the tenderness in her voice if I ever complained of a minor head ache during our calls, I miss the uncanny 'mom instinct' that caught any hint of cold/cough/uneasiness without me ever opening my mouth, I miss her contagious laugh as it trickled through the wire of the wireless communication across the continents, I miss her nostalgic memories of days past, I miss her dreams of the future for her children and grand children. Most of all I miss the love that laced every spoken and unspoken syllable in those conversations. It is especially hard as with her exit I lose the comfort of parents, the go-to source for all of life's bruises - minor and major alike. On the bright side, I recognize the legacy she has left behind with countless people - cousins, relatives, friends and others fondly remembering her and sending a kind word, showing a kind gesture which has made the last 9 months easier than it would have been otherwise.

My child didn't come with a manual, neither did my mom's. Infact the 5 children she raised are all such different individuals that they would have had to come with custom manuals every time they popped out if she had relied on written words, with no possibility of cross reference. Instead she drew her wisdom from elsewhere, while guiding and shaping us constantly but also knew well to let us be ourselves, fall and get up on our own. Considering the limited resources they had, I continue to be amazed at the wonderful job my parents did with all of us especially at how we all turned out (for most part and for most of the time atleast :-)). I got literally chewed up by some of my college classmates the other day on a related topic of letting kids be kids and not try to fill every moment of every waking day with an activity in preparation of the the unknown evil/extremely competitive world :-). It is almost like you want to hold the pencil in your child's hands every time they do the homework so you can turn the pencil the right way and not have them stumble. I know parenting is a very 'individualistic' approach and what works for me and my kid may not even be suitable in your situation, so I let it go without making the argument unnecessarily longer. But I am secretly glad my parents didn't have access to such articles or highly opinionated peer parents so they could use 'benign neglect' as they parented us :-). For that and everything else, all I can say is an honest, "I Love you" to both of them.

I keep going back to my mom's condition and how severely and quickly she deteriorated since the official diagnosis 3 years ago. In my own totally non medical way, I have read/watched every material (fiction, non-fiction, scientific, unscientific, personal and non personal) about Alzheimer and dementia ever since it hit so close home in an attempt to make sense of what I was experiencing with my mom. While I am still no smarter on what she would have thought/remembered in her most lucid moments, something that cast a line of hope was this gem by Lisa Genova, neuroscientist and author of 'Still Alice". She concludes one of her TED talks on how to prevent Alzheimer with, "You don't lose emotions, you only lose memories with Alzheimer and you are more than your memories". Knowing that my mom was in touch with her emotions even as dementia stripped her bare of her memories and other senses makes it a teeny bit easier. We all have our ways of dealing with life, and this is mine. I didn't mean to make this post blue and gray with personal grief, I hope this helps someone in a similar situation.

Here is my mother's day recipe for today, it couldn't have been anything outside nammamma's kitchen, right? This is a special dish she had totally mastered and dished out just perfect every single time she made it. Once while washing clothes in the backyard in Mysore, she fell down on the slippery floor and fractured her right arm. Her primary concern was whether she would ever be able to make halbayi and mysore pak again (as they need constant stirring), talk about priorities :-). I like to think that this is a Kannadiga dish because I haven't seen anything similar in other cuisines. I had posted a quick (cheat) version of it a while ago here but nothing beats the real deal as you can imagine. Let me know if any of you are familiar with a similar dessert, I would love to learn the details.

Halubayi or halbai (as it is called in colloquial Kannada) is a coveted sweet dish made with humble ingredients. It is a labor of love as there is no way you can hurry it up but have to just let it take its natural course and end up on that deliciousness. For the minimalistic ingredients used, there is just one cardinal rule while making this recipe, do not use dessicated coconut, if you don't have access to fresh or atleast frozen coconut, please put off making this recipe until you can get some :-). There is really not much to the actual process except to let the liquid content evaporate and get to that non sticky mass consistency. I give the details of the consistency in the steps below as well as in the cheat version, this is soft, malleable and unlike the more solidified, harder fudgy burfis from India and that is the specialty of this dish too. We called it 'emme naalige (~translated as buffalo's tongue)' but I have no idea why since I have never touched a buffalo's tongue to see how it feels, it must have been one of those childhood idiosyncrasies is all I can say :-)

I made this twice in the last month, once when a cousin visited home and the second time when we went to visit DD. I can confidently say that the recipe works perfectly and whether you have previously been a Halbai fan or not, it will satisfy your sweet tooth and give you that very homely feeling. I have a feeling my mom would have approved this one herself.

Go ahead and try this recipe and let me know how it turned out. Love to hear from you all as always.

What do you need for making Halbai? 
1/4 cup rice (I use sona masoori)
1 tightly packed cup grated coconut (fresh is best, if using frozen thaw it before using)
1 loosely filled cup grated jaggery (See notes below)
3-4 green cardamoms
6 cups water
1 Tsp ghee (clarified butter)

Utensils:
Thick bottom wide pan
a sturdy flat mouthed spoon for stirring
A fine mesh/sieve for straining melted jaggery
A steel plate or a baking sheet to spread halbai

How do you make Halbai? 

• Wash rice twice and soak it in 1/2 cup of water for 6 hours (soak it overnight if you have time)
• Take soaked rice along with coconut and cardamoms (I put whole cardamoms as they get ground fine) into a blender jar and grind into a very fine paste. 
• Add water from the 6cup reserve as needed for grinding.
• The paste should feel smooth when you run it between fingers with no trace of rice, cardamom pods or the coconut gratings. 
• Mix all the reserved water to the ground paste and keep it ready.

• Optional:  
• Take grated jaggery into the pan, add 1/4 cup water and let it melt. 

• Switch off the stove, sieve the melted jaggery through a fine mesh and discard any dirt that is found in some store bought jaggery. 
• Smear the plate/sheet with a little bit ghee all over the surface including the side edges if any. 
• Clean the pan and return it to the stove. 
• Add the ground mixture, cleaned jaggery into the pan and bring it to boil on medium high flame taking care to stir frequently. 

• Once it starts to bubble gently, reduce the flame to low and keep stirring the mixture until it thickens. 
• It took me 70mins to get the thick mass in the pan with the quantity I started. 

• When you see a glob in the pan, add ghee to it and continue stirring until it stops the bubbles completely (an indication that all the water content is gone) and gets a nice shiny top coating.
• Wet your fingers and hold a small amount of the mixture between them, if it is not sticking to the fingers, you are ready to pour it in the plate. 
• At this stage, transfer the contents to the prepared plate/sheet and immediately flatten it to the desired thickness. 

• Take a butter knife and draw marking lines to your desired shape/size and let it cool. 

• Cut the pieces with a knife and enjoy. 

Notes: 

• Do not hurry this dish, it needs to be done with patience
• I use Indian jaggery and have not made it with brown sugar, so cannot vouch for its replacement confidence.
• Adjust jaggery to required sweetness by tasting the mixture after adding the ground paste together. 
• Soft, light colored jaggery is best but any good quality jaggery works too.
• Color and quality of the jaggery determines the ultimate color of the finished halbai, it is generally between light golden and dark golden. 

Besan laddoo - a special treat picked up on a journey down the memory lane

The excitement would start building from the moment nammamma announced sometime during dinner time in her gentle voice, "this time kelasa is on so&so day".  The message was for my father more than anyone else but we all had our ears tuned to the adult discussion :-). When we were kids, in addition to the festivals and celebrations, there used to be one or more 'special days (called Thithi or shraadha')' reserved to remember an elderly soul in the family who had passed on. Like in many traditions around the world this day is dedicated to remember and celebrate the life of a beloved grandmom or a grand dad. We had 2 special days celebrated every year. These days don't go by the Gregorian calendar but rather by the ancient Indian calendar and anna would mark them at the beginning of every year on the Bangalore press calendar as soon as he got it home and the calendar would hang conspicuously in the living room. We used to wait for these days as eagerly as any festivals since the food on the day would be an ultimate feast for foodies and non foodies alike. Distinct in taste, different menu than the festival days yet balanced in all nutrients, the lunch was something to look forward to. At that age we turned this naturally somber and reflective day into a day of fun and food as we not only got to eat delicious food but also got to meet cousins and aunts and uncles.

The only part of the day I didn't like much was that the kids were literally banished from the main part of the house where the rituals were performed. Our standard breakfast before school that day was uppittu (A big vessel full of hot uppittu would come to the room along with some pickles and a container of yogurt) before we headed off to school. No wonder uppittu is fondly referred to as 'cement' by many people as it solidifies once inside and stays put for a long time :-). My uncles would feed us kids after bath and then go back into the kitchen to help nammamma, a lot of food preparation and they divided up the chores. If we were home, we had to be quiet as mice and show up in the pooja room only when called. After what seemed like an eternity of waiting, chikkappa (dad's younger brother) would call in his school master voice, "come in and take blessings", which was the sound we would be hoping for since morning :-).

What followed a quick 'blessings' session was the 'prasada' session and then the full on lunch :-). Prasada session had chikkappa standing with a big plate with different varieties of dishes prepared on that day, he would nicely break them into tiny pieces and drop into the little hands. We wouldn't get more than a sampler of any variety as he told us that we shouldn't be filling up before lunch (oh yeah, we had stern upbringing!!). I actually hoped that these special days came on school days since atleast we would be in school and not salivating the whole time at the fragrance and aroma from the kitchen. Everything would be done by the time school ended and as soon as we reached home, we would attack the food. If it was on a school holiday, the wait was all pure torture :-). A late lunch on that day only meant we got to stuff up for the delay as well and we took complete advantage of it. I can't imagine how nammamma cooked for so many people on an empty stomach and yet everything turned out just delicious.

Nammamma had a cousin brother and family living in Mysuru as well and they would invite us when they had special days at their home.  'special' days came to their home. So in addition to 2 days in our own home, we had access to 2 more at this cousin's place. But my parents never allowed us to bunk school for our own 'special' days and taking a day off for going to the cousin's house was not even imaginable :-). Most years nammamma would go there by herself after the rest of the family left for work, school/college. Though we missed the elaborate lunch, the cousins always sent amma home with prasada/food. They would send exactly one each for each of us of the different varieties of sweets and savory items :-). Which is why we perked up whenever nammamma made that announcement at dinner time :-).

Although I devoured on the vade (Urad dal deep fried dumplings) from the prasada bag, I mostly looked forward to these sweet, melt in the mouth beauties that was a signature dish of nammamma's cousin. These were the tiny marble sized balls, bright in color, sweet on the tongue with a fine sand-like texture. The besan unde or besan laddoo had to be there every time. It was also precious because nammamma never made them at home. Nammamma was a specialist in making the coveted Mysore pak and for her besan unde was a step down, so she never cared to make it. For us kids, it is always the forbidden fruit that is the juiciest and hence we would wait for the besan unde from outside. Not only were those undes the best besan laddoos I ever eaten, they were one of the tiniest as well, just about the size of a marble, fit for one gulp in a little kid's mouth.

For me these besan laddoos have always been associated with that cousin's family and though it has been many years since I visited them or had the laddoos at their home, the taste is etched in memory. I am not the Mysorepak expert that nammamma was so this is an easy go-to dish for me as my family loves it. I have also found a lot of fans of this laddoo as everytime I have made it and taken it on social events, they just vanish like magic. Other than patiently roasting the gramflour, there is no expert skill required to make this dish at all. It stays well and is travel friendly. I made a batch last week and packed them off to DD, they still seem to be on their way as either fedex or her mailroom goofed up and she didn't receive the package before the weekend which makes me a little bummed. Hoping that she gets it when the services open back on Monday. Update today: Yay!! the package reached my little girl and am happy!!

The south Indian besan laddoos are not coarse in texture rather very fine sandy textured. I prefer this over the north indian version made with coarse besan (called laddoo besan), it is just a personal preference. I have seen and been part of besan laddoo making in temples where we have sat roasting the besan in gallons of ghee in huge kadais to make hundreds of laddoos at one go. The aroma of fresh ghee is so overwhelming, I just wouldn't be able to bring myself to even look at ghee for a month after that :-). The texture and consistency of the laddoo is such that it breaks easily but doesn't crumble down entirely, feels like very fine sand in the mouth and melts away. The laddoos glisten with the ghee when freshly shaped but lose the moisture after a little while.

This is a very simple recipe but you definitely want to pay attention to a few things. It is not technique heavy as the mysore pak where you need to watch for the 'done-ness', but you do need to watch the gram flour so it is neither under nor over roasted. I start dry roasting the besan before adding the ghee to make it easier. There are microwave versions of this dish which are quicker, easier to make without needing as much baby sitting as this stove top version but somehow I like the traditional way making it.

I don't add cardamom as I love the flavor and aroma of the roasted besan as DH doesn't really care for cardamom so much and I am hoping that changes someday :-). I love adding finely chopped almonds into this as they not only add to the texture but also makes the unde more nutritious. You can experiment with unsalted cashew nuts and pistachios as well to see which tastes better for you. Sometimes I toast the nuts, powder them and mix into the gramflour for a richer flavor too.

Unde (pronounced as 'vun de') is a reference to a circular ball in kannada and most laddoos go by this name with an qualifier attached such as rave-unde(laddoos made from semolina), Besan-unde (laddoos made from gram flour) etc.

What do you need to make besan unde?
2 cups fine besan/gram flour/chickpea flour
1+3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 cup ghee (melted)
1/4 cup almonds

Utensils/gadgets: 
A heavy gauge wide non stick pan.
A wooden spatula

How do you make besan unde? 

• Melt the ghee if it has solidified, I like to make fresh ghee from butter for this recipe as fresh tastes better :-).

• Dry roast (you can toast them in the oven at 350F for 10 minutes) almonds, let cool and chop into tiny bits.
• Sieve the besan/gram flour to get rid of any lumps and measure 2 cups of sieved flour into the pan. 

• Keep the pan on the stove on the lowest heat/flame and start to roast, keep stirring frequently. 
• After about 5-6 mins, add the ghee into the pan and mix everything together. 

• Continue roasting on low flame for the next 30-35mins until the gramflour turns a golden pink and starts to emanate a wonderful nutty aroma. The 2 cups I used took me a total of 45mins from start to finish. 

• I add the chopped almonds a couple of minutes before switching off and let them roast along with the flour. 
• Once done, switch off the stove, take the pan off heat (especially if you are using an electric stove that retains heat long after it is switched off) and continue stirring and mixing for another 5mins so as to not let the mix get burnt. 

• Keep the roasted flour to cool down for about 20-25mins, add the powdered sugar and mix it up completely.

• Pinch off desired amount of the mixture and shape into a ball. 

• Lay the shaped laddoos on a plate and let them cool down before storing in a dry container. Ah, I forgot the part about eating, didn't I? start eating anytime once you add sugar :-), it is equally delicious in crumbles as it is in a firmly held ball.
• The unde/laddoo firms up as it cools and dries for a while after shaping.

Notes: 

• This dessert is all about the roasting of the gram flour, I cannot stress that enough. Low heat, constant stirring and oodles of patience are the primary ingredients for this dish to turn out best. 
• Use a pan just wide enough for the amount of flour you take. If the pan is too big, besan has more chances of getting burnt while roasting.
• Watch for the nutty aroma of the roasted gram flour and the light golden hue before switching off. 
• Wait for the roasted gramflour to cool down before adding sugar or it will turn into a sorta syrup. 
• You can add other nuts like unsalted cashews, pistachios or a mix of all of them as well. 
• When you measure ghee, make sure you have melted it so the quantity is accurate.