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. 

Kuttida avalakki - a home made mix to make a delicious gojjavalakki in minutes

Long, long ago, there were two friends. As kids they grew up together, went to school together. One was called Sudhama and the other was named Krishna. They stayed in a boarding school (Gurukula) with their teacher and his family along with other students. The two of them bonded very well over the course 7 years of schooling. They were inseparable and could be spotted together in all activities in the school. Years pass, schooling comes to an end, they graduate and are both very excited to go out in to the world and start their adult lives. As it happens at every graduation, both Krishna & Sudhama are sad to be going separate ways, hug each other and promise that they will keep in touch always. And as it happens in most cases, they both become busy in their lives and the friendship, staying in touch takes a backseat.

Krishna goes back home and becomes very successful at what he does while Sudhama faces hard times and struggles to even feed his large family. Krishna's fame extends all over the kingdom and one day reaches Sudhama's little town on the other side. Sudhama's wife is worldly wise, a mother bent on making ends meet and taking care of her family. She talks to her husband and asks him if he would visit his rich friend and get something to help them get over their difficulties in life. Sudhama who is very proud tells her that he would never go begging from his friend. The wife doesn't give up easily and keeps telling the husband about how things could change if only he would do as she said and finally Sudhama relents and sets out on his journey to meet Krishna.

It is a long journey, Sudhama's wife comes up with a couple of handfuls of humble avalakki (poha) so the husband doesn't starve on his long journey. She puts it into an old cloth piece, ties up a knot and gives it to her husband. With no mode of transport to carry him quickly to his destination, Sudhama walks all the way, for many days and finally reaches Krishna's home town. It is a much bigger city, one he has never been to and is dazzlingly beautiful. Krishna being who he is, everyone knows exactly where he lives, so after finding out the address, Sudhama makes his way hesitantly towards the palace. The guard stops this dirty looking, travel weary person at the door and questions his intention. Not believing his story of knowing Krishna from childhood, the guard is suspicious though he goes in to report a visitor.

Krishna is relaxing in the afternoon sun with his wife Rukmini after a heavy lunch and orders the guard to bring the stranger in. Sudhama by this time is already scared and is thinking of the shame that awaits him as the guard pushes him into the inner chambers where Krishna is sitting. As soon as Sudhama enters, Krishna jumps out of his seat, runs towards him and embraces him in a bear hug. At that moment, there is no line between the poor & rich, successful and not-so-successful, they are both two good friends who had shared many, many memories together.

Krishna playing the host, washes the feet of his guest, makes him comfortable, gives him food to eat and when they sit down after food to catch up where they had left off years ago, Krishna asks Sudhama what he had brought for his friend as he was visiting him after many years. Sudhama is very ashamed and tries to avoid the question as he has nothing to offer. Krishna is insistent and playful and says that even if Sudhama had forgotten his friend, his wife would never send him empty handed and snatches the old thaili (cloth bag) that Sudhama is carrying. Inside it, he finds another small cloth tied into a knot. Krishna eagerly opens it up and squeals with joy when he sees the remaining couple of morsels of dried up avalakki (which was Sudhama's journey food) and greedily pops some into the mouth. His eyes close contentedly as he remarks, "Well dear friend, are you so selfish that you wanted to hide this delicious avalakki from me and eat it all by yourself"?. As he puts his hand for another morsel, Rukmini gently tells him, "hasn't there been enough already, my Lord?". Krishna, smiles and puts the thaili away and goes back to chatting with his old friend.

Sudhama has a great time with Krishna, as if they had never been away, enjoys the hospitality but never feels up to asking Krishna for help. After a couple days of stay, he bids farewell and heads back home. His heart is full having seen his old friend and he doesn't remember the poverty back home or the reason for his visit. As he approaches his home, he is shocked to see a palatial home in the place where his shack stood and even more surprised when his wife and children run towards him, well dressed and looking well fed and happy. He realizes Krishna's magic and is thankful for the friendship.

I don't know how many times I have listened to this story from nammamma and anna growing up. It was a story that had all the emotions in right proportions, there was friendship, there was surprise, there was happiness and joy. The charm never fades away and depending on your age and stage in life, you can interpret it at different levels. I am sure many of you would recognize this very popular story from the great epic. I have listened in rapture to these stories when little, read many versions of them myself as I grew up, questioned a number of times, and have gone back to re-tell them to my daughter when she was a kid. It is an endearing story of two friends and how nothing can come between a true friendship. For me, it also is a story that establishes the power of humble avalakki, eating a handful of which made Krishna shower all the riches on his poor friend. Ok, I am a little totally biased here :-).

Avalakki (also called poha or beaten rice or flattened rice) is such a versatile ingredient and makes many delicious dishes. It is also considered as something that can be consumed while you are fasting unlike regular rice. Avalakki also happens to be one of the most preferred travel companion in many south indian homes, as it stays good and is non messy to carry while on the road. One of my doddamma (mom's elder sister) always had this mix in her bag when she traveled as she had many self imposed restrictions on what she would/could eat and always fell back on her trusted avalakki mixture. I loved it so much even in its dry mix state that I would beg her to give me a couple spoons. Once the spicy, tangy, sweetish mix popped into the mouth, I would be the happiest girl in town :-).

Last week I was traveling on work and was away from home for the entire week. While I have become good at spotting vegetarian choices during lunches & dinners and have learnt to successfully stay cheerful on an overload of salads, bread and potatoes, I love to start my day off with something that reminds me of home as the delicious taste, the familiar smell helps me live off of it for the rest of the day. Today's recipe is something we as a family always carry while travelling on longer trips.


As usual, I made the mixture last weekend before heading out, packed a small ziplock bag and left some at home for BH. While I was perfectly fine eating the bf at the hotel for the first 2 days, I was craving for something other than cereals and fruits by day#3 :-). I mixed a few spoons of the avalakki mixture in a cup in the room when I got up and by the time I got ready 30mins or so later, fluffy, aromatic avalakki was ready for me to dig into. Just for fun, I took a picture of my bf on a whim and posted it on my personal fb the other day. I was thrilled to see so many friends writing in to say how this is their travel companion too. And there were many recipe requests that made me make another batch today and post it on the blog. We are not traveling this week but the mix will be eaten up more than happily for bf in the coming days :-), I have a big fan following for this recipe at home.

So what is special about this recipe? It is a dry mix that can be carried easily and made into a yummy treat just by soaking it in water for a short while. Kuttavalakki or kuttida avalakki refers to the process of pounding the avalakki and the rest of the ingredients together to make the mix. I don't use the old world gadgets anymore and nor do I hand pound the mix, rather it goes into my blender. So may be I should rename this as 'mixavalakki' or 'blendavalakki', what do you think :-)?. Whatever the name maybe, this is one delicious dish for sure, so go ahead and give it a try and take it with you on the go. Instead of soaked oats, you can enjoy soaked avalakki for a change. I list curry leaves below but I didn't have them today so you will not see them in my pictures.

What do you need to make kuttavalakki? 
Makes about 5 cups of mix
3 cups medium thick avalakki/poha/beaten rice
3/4 cup lightly packed grated dry coconut/kobbari (can be replaced with desiccated unsweetened coconut)
2 Tbsp crushed jaggery (can be replaced with brown sugar)
1 Tbsp salt (adjust to taste)
1/8 Tsp asafoetida/hing

To roast: 
2.5 Tbsp chana dal/kadle bele/split bengal gram
2 Tbsp sesame seeds (use either polished or unpolished white sesame and not black)
1 Tbsp urad dal/uddina bele/split black lentils
1 Tbsp coriander seeds
1/2 Tbsp black pepper
1 Tsp cumin
1/2 Tsp fenugreek seeds
1.5 Tbsp (or a key lime size) tamarind
3-4 dry red chilies (I use a mix of mild Byadagi and spicy guntur varieties for a balance of color and heat)

Seasoning: 
1/4 cup oil
1 Tsp mustard
1 Tbsp chana dal
1 Tbsp urad dal
2 Tbsp peanuts (more or less as you like)
1/4 Tsp turmeric powder
1-2 dry red chilies (optional and can be omitted)
8-10 curry leaves chopped small

How do you make kuttavalakki? 

• Pick avalakki for any dirt and keep aside
• Pick seeds, pith and strings from tamarind and make small flat pieces. 
• Heat a heavy bottom pan and add chana dal from the 'To roast' list. Give it a minute head start on medium-low heat and add urad dal. 
• Roast the dals, stirring frequently until they turn light golden in color. 
• Add all the remaining ingredients listed under 'to roast' and stirring frequently roast them until you get a nice fragrance of the spices. Take care not to burn any of them. 
• Add hing and grated coconut (reserve a Tsp for later) into the pan, stir it once and switch off. 

• Let the roasted ingredients cool completely. 
• In a mixer jar, take all the roasted ingredients and grind into a fine powder. 
• Add salt, grated jaggery and give it another run of the blender. 
• Take this into a wide mixing bowl or plate. 

• Add avalakki/poha to the blender (in batches if you need to) and make a coarse powder. 
• Add this to the same mixing bowl/plate. 

• Heat oil in a seasoning pan, add all the ingredients listed under 'seasoning' and roast on low heat (lower the heat and longer the the roasting time, the dals and peanuts retain their crunch better) until mustard starts to pop and the dals turn golden pink. Add reserved coconut gratings. 
• Switch off and pour it over the ground mixture. 

• Let it all cool completely before mixing in (use your fingers and hand) to make a homogeneous mixture. 
• Once cool, you can either make it into gojjavalakki (see below) or store it for later use in a dry ziplock bag or container. 

How do you turn the mix into gojjavalakki?

• Take 2-3 Tbsp of the dry mixture into a bowl (or a cup or glass depending on where you are). 
• Add quarter cup of water, thumb rule is to add enough water to form a thin layer on the top surface of the mix and every grain of the mix is soaked. 

• Do not mix and touch it for about 15mins (thicker the avalakki variety, takes longer to soak but no longer than 30mins). 
• After the soak time, using a fork, fluff it up all around and enjoy. 
• If you have access to some home made yogurt, add a dollop on the side or mix it up right in and enjoy. 

Notes: 

• Tamarind I get here is usually very dehydrated and does not contain moisture, warming it up in the hot pan makes it softer and easier to grind. If you have wet tamarind, ensure you spread it out to make it a little dry. 
• While grinding the spice mix, take care to not run the blender for long, pulse it if you need to and get a dry powder. Running the blender continuously makes sesame seeds give out their oil and turns the mixture wet. 
• Amount of jaggery, salt, and tamarind is mainly to taste here. Experiment and find your balance. Remember that the dry mixture taste gets diluted once you add water, so accommodate your quantities for that. 
• Color of your gojjavalakki depends on the chilies and turmeric used, you can see the difference in colors between my two batches in the pics above. Not a big deal unless you are very particular about the aesthetics :-)
• The dry mixture stays well for a couple of weeks and longer if you refrigerate it. 
• Make sure the mixer/blender jar is dry and devoid of any moisture before you make the powders. 
• Do not use the thin variety of avalakki for this recipe, it just makes it all lumpy and mushy. 
• Nammamma used to spread avalakki in the sun to freshen it up but since I don't make her 'huge' quantities, I use it directly from the packet.
• I am very liberal with dry coconut as it enhances the taste :-), reduce the quantity if you wish to.

Kuttavalakki wisdom: 

• Thicker variety of avalakki absorbs more water and takes a few minutes longer to fluff up.
• If you make a very fine powder of poha, the final product turns soft and mushy instead of fluffy.
• After the soak time is up, make sure you fluff it up with a fork completely (from the bottom up) so it is homogeneous. 

Hurgaalu/Hurigaalu - a healthy, protein rich, spicy trail mix I will give my life for :-)

Happy Deepavali to all of you celebrating the festival of lights! Wishing you all hope, love and joy forever.   

This weekend being Deepavali, I am carried back to my Mysuru Deepavali memories where every year nammamma and anna would place tiny home made lamps all around the compound wall and in the portico and go around lighting one by one. Neither of them cared for the fire crackers but the lamps and lights was an integral part of Deepavali celebration at home as was the traditional oil bath and the yummy food. We did the lamp lighting here this year as well though food part was mostly kept very simple.

I started this week long series of home made dishes from Nammamma's kitchen last Sunday as my humble way of sharing my love for my mom. When I wrote my blog post after a couple months of gap, I was looking at it mostly as an outlet to say things that I haven't been able to say verbally and also to remember my mom through some of her best loved dishes. What I didn't expect though was the flood of personal emails and notes from so many of you, sharing your experience of loss of a loved one and supporting me to deal with my pain with the help of your kind words. All I can say is a heart felt thank you to every one of you, beyond any words can possibly express.

I started the 7 day marathon blogging with Puri Unde - Nammamma's signature sweet dish and a very traditional sweet from Karnataka and I want to end this week long blogging with another one of her signature recipes, a savory one this time, called Hurgaalu/Hurigaalu. I haven't blogged at this frequency even when I started the blog 4+ years back :-). It was draining to keep doing it every day, tiring to sit down for another few hours of blogging after a long day of work, but at the end of it I enjoyed chronicling some of nammamma's yummy dishes and I am glad I did it. I don't claim that I have documented all of the recipes she used to make, there are still many more to come and I will definitely tag them as I bring them onto the blog here, I chose some really simple ones and every day dishes this past week just because of the memories connected with those dishes.

Plumped up kadle kaalu after overnight soaking

My earliest memory of Hurgaalu is when nammamma made these on a very large scale welcoming her first grand child. I was in grade school when akka was expecting her baby and nammamma was almost delirious with happiness to have a grand child at home, she would prepare special food every single day and feed akka for the 2 months she was in Mysuru. It was like a 'foodie dream come true' for me and the younger brother without even taking the effort to dream :-) since we would be given every one of those delicious delicacies. Thinking about it, I am sure that the two of us ate most of what was prepared and akka mostly just sampled them, she never over eats anything :-). Out of all the goodies prepared, this one is by far my most favorite.

Plumped up Alasande kaalu after overnight soaking

It is not surprising given the fact that I love spicy food, I adore crispy, crunchy snacks and I can eat them almost any time of the day. It is labor intensive and not something Nammamma either had the time to prepare often nor had the inclination if I had left her alone. But eating the delicious hurgaalu at akka's baby shower got me totally hooked on it, so I used to beg her every so often to make these at home. In that innocent childhood, I had even told her that I would have atleast a dozen kids just to be able to eat her hurgaalu every time :-). Well, that didn't happen, I mean the dozen kids part but I am sure that she made it more than a dozen times just to please the demanding kid I was.

Plumped up matki after overnight soaking

It wasn't just me craving for her hurgaalu, almost every one that has eaten her home made hurgaalu swears by it. She had this custom of making yummy dishes for any pregnant woman in the colony. I have seen her frequently make something special for an expectant mom whether it was a friend's daughter, daughter in law or a new neighbor. They all knew that my mother was a sucker when it came to pregnant women and their 'cravings' :-). Many of them openly asked amma for a specific dish or two while a few newly acquainted ones dropped hints about how she loved to eat a certain something nammamma made. Either case the person was sure to receive whatever they had wished to eat from nammamma's kitchen, she would prepare it with all the love and care and carry it over to them :-). Yes, it is part of the perks of living in a tight knit, small community where every one knows each other. None of us minded since we all got our share of it as well. She was like the surrogate mom for many young mothers in our neighborhood. That is who she was, generous with everything she had, making people around her feel cared for, loved by always. Even when things were hard she made it a point to share what she had.

Hurgaalu is like a trail mix, a mixture of roasted beans of different varieties and jazzed up with the right amount of red chili powder and salt. Nammamma had her touch of using the lemon juice to make the spice paste which I believe is sheer brilliance as it enhances the taste of the final product by many folds. She also had perfected the proportions of the different varieties of beans to make the mix taste just right. A few years back, I stopped troubling amma to make this at home knowing that she would willingly start soaking the beans the moment I opened my mouth and asked for it. I didn't have the heart to put her through all the effort and started looking for alternate sources of getting hurgaalu. I have tried many stores in both Mysuru and Bengaluru, some are more delicious than the other but not one of them came close to what nammamma used to make. I hesitated making hurgaalu at home because of the nagging feeling in my head that it will fall short of my own expectations but made it recently when there was a finality that I would never taste nammamma's hurgaalu again. The family received it with genuine compliments and I feel confident that it is as close to nammamma's hurgaalu as it gets.

Plumped up hurli kaalu after overnight soaking

The process is really simple if you pay attention to a few key tricks (see the notes below), a little goes a long way as the beans get mixed together. So start small, get the hang of the roasting and you can make this delicious, healthy snack at home any time. If I were to break down hurgaalu making for a novice, here is how it would look like - Take dehydrated kaalu -> hydrate them in water over night -> dehydrate them back on slow heat -> add spice paste -> go get your favorite book -> take the hurgaalu in a big bowl -> find a quiet spot -> get lost from the world :-)

Nammamma had the advantage of 'bhatti' in Mysuru, these are small shops with professional grade roasting equipment. There used to be a street in old Mysuru that had a couple of these bhattis, you would take your ingredients there and the shop owner would roast them for you. They had huge, wide, thick kadais called bandle in Kannada, half filled with clean sand (for even distribution of heat), they would put the beans one group after another in to the hot kadai and roast them on wood fires. It would take less time than if you were to do it at home but nammamma stood there the entire hour or so, chatting with the bhatti owner and making sure he roasted them just to the point she wanted. The inside of the stores would be hot, humid and not at all comfortable, so if we accompanied her, we would be asked to sit outside and wait.

Once the roasting was done, the entire content of the kadai would be passed through a fine sieve that was just the right size to hold the beans but let the sand pass through. He would put the roasted beans back into their individual container they originally came in and hand it over. Nammamma brought it back home, mix it with the spice paste before the second roast in multiple batches. After adding peanuts, kadle and coconut, the mixture would be ready to start munching on. Hope you try this at home and enjoy it as much as I do :-)

Happy Halloween everyone, Have a safe and spooky tricking and treating!!

What do you need to make Hurgalu? 
1 cup whole moong/mung bean/hesaru kaalu
3/4 cup whole black chickpeas (this is not garbanzo, see the picture)/kadle kaalu
1/2 cup black eyed peas/alasande kaalu
1/3 cup moth beans/matki
1/2 cup horse gram/hurli kaalu
1/2 cup raw peanuts
1/2 cup roasted gram/kadle
1 cup chopped dry coconut/kobbari

For the spice paste: 
1 Tbsp red chili powder (adjust to your taste buds)
1/2 Tsp asafoetida
1 Tsp salt
1/8 Tsp turmeric powder
1.5 Tbsp lemon/lime juice

Needed kitchen gadget: A heavy gauge, thick bottom kadai/skillet. A damp kitchen towel or paper napkin. 

How do you make Hurgalu? 
Preparation (previous evening):

• Take each of the beans (1-5 in the list above)in a separate bowl. 
• Pick any dirt/small stones from the beans.
• Wash the beans in 2 changes of water, soak overnight in double the quantity of water.

Making of Hurgalu:

• Next morning, drain water from each bowl using a sieve.
• Spread a thin, clean cotton cloth in your kitchen or any other area of the house indoors that is dry and shaded. 
• Spread the washed bean on the cloth, still keeping each variety of bean separate from the other. 

• Let it dry and lose the dampness (about 4.5-5hrs), but not dry completely. 
• Heat a really thick bottom kadai/skillet on medium heat, reduce the heat to low and add raw peanuts. 
• Roast them until they get brown spots on the skin and give out a nice roasted aroma. Take them onto a plate, let cool and remove the outer skin. Keep aside until ready to use. 
• In the same kadai, warm the roasted gram for a minute and take it out to a plate. 
• Next, warm the chopped dry coconut pieces for a couple of minutes until it turns a very light brown, keep aside.

• Add horse gram, stirring frequently, roast until the kaalu shrinks back to almost the original dehydrated size and starts to pop. 
• Taste test a couple to make sure they are crispy and light. Take it off the kadai and pour into a wide mixing bowl. 
• Repeat the process for the remaining 4 types of beans and as they get done, add them to the same mixing bowl.  

• Here is a cheat sheet for the roasting times for the quantity mentioned above and on low heat. It may vary slightly depending the heat and the kadai gauge. 
• Hurlikaalu - 15 mins
• Kadle kaalu - 25 mins
• Alasande kaalu - 25 mins
• Matki - 10 mins
• Hesaru kaalu - 15 mins
• In a small bowl, add all the ingredients for the spice paste and mix well, the paste needs to have a dropping consistency. Add a spoon of water if needed to get the consistency. 

• Once the roasted kaalus cool down slighly (give about 15mins wait time from the last batch of kaalu), add the spice paste to the bowl and using your hands toss them well to coat the spice onto all the beans. Use gloves if you want to avoid the heat of the red chili powder. 

• Once all the beans are well coated, return them to the kadai on low heat, stirring frequently roast for another 12-15 mins until the moisture from the spice paste is lost. Add peanuts, kadle and coconut pieces prepared earlier, mix well with the beans and roast for another 2 minutes. 
• Switch off, transfer to a wide bowl, let it cool down completely before storing in dry, air tight containers. 
• Hurgaalu stays good for a couple months (use good quality coconut) and can be enjoyed as a high protein trail mix any time. The perfect company for this snack is a good book :-)

Notes: 

• There is no hard and fast rule for the amounts of the different beans in this recipe. Nammamma struck a perfect balance of bigger Vs smaller beans in the mix and I follow the same proportions. You can up or down any variety (even add a favorite bean or skip) based on your preference. 
• Soaking the kaalu overnight is one of the crucial steps to get a really crispy hurgalu. 
• The mung beans are notorious for what are called 'kallagaalu' or really small sized beans that refuse soften even after an overnight soak in water. Pick the ones that are at the top of water and leave the hard ones at the bottom, do not use them in the hurgaalu unless you want to spoil the experience with rock hard beans popping in the middle of a blissful munch. You can leave these hard ones soaked in water for another day till they soften and use it in cooking or eat them raw as salads. 

• Drain all the water from the soaked kaalu and let it dry in a cool, shaded place indoors. At the end of the 4.5-5hr period, kaalu should feel moist but not wet. 
• As soon as you add the kaalu to the kadai/skillet, keep stirring it as they will stick to the bottom because of the moisture. If you are not paying attention at this stage, the kaalus will get cooked and not roasted :-)
• Each set of kaalu is to be fried until it reverts back to its original pre-hydrated size. 
• After every batch, remember to wipe the kadai with a damp cloth or paper towel to remove any remnants from the previous batch sticking to the surface of the kadai. 
• When you return the beans for the second roast after mixing with the spice paste, make sure to open the kitchen windows and switch on the exhaust, because when the spice paste hits the hot kadai, it can start off a coughing fit. 
• 
  
• How to remove roasted peanut skin - roast peanuts on a slow and low heat for best results. Once cool, put them in between 2 layers of a kitchen towel and rub the top layer gently to peel off the skin. pick the skinned peanuts and use them in the recipe. You can also put the peanuts in a ziplock bag and do the same thing. 

Saagu - home made version of vegetable medley from the heart of Mysore region

Anyone that likes Indian food is familiar with the deep fried pooris that are popular all over the sub continent, right? Growing up, I was completely unaware of the fact that the entire universe outside of my little world was making pooris from wheat flour. Because nammamma made them with rave/sooji/semolina always :-). She rolled them small and a little thick so they puffed up completely and were crispy, flaky and delicious when hot. But she always reserved a few to roll into very thin pooris and deep fry them at the end, these would be flat and kurkure like papads and anna loved to eat them dipped in warm milk & powdered sugar :-), yumm, this was a short cut to Karnataka's much loved delicacy called "chiroti"!!  North East India (especially West Bengal) makes pooris with maida or All purpose flour and they are called Luchis. I don't know how many of you have eaten rave poori or even know poori made with rave, but this is how nammamma made them.

It is a little bit more work to make the rave pooris compared to the ones from wheat flour as rave doesn't have the same gluten advantage as wheat flour. It needs a lot more kneading to get it to a smooth dough consistency. In the old world kitchens, one of the gadgets was a long wooden pole called 'Vanake/Onke' and we had one in Mysuru kitchen. This wooden pole is smooth and used to pound the dough for poori, obbattu, etc.. Nammamma would mix the semolina with a little water into a crumbly mixture that would not resemble a dough by any comparison, put it into the stone grinder dip and start to pound it with the vonake, sprinkling water as she went to make a smooth and tight dough.

Depending on the quantity, this would take anywhere between 30-45mins and done in batches. The dough needs to rest before making the pooris. I don't have the gadgets she used in my kitchen, though I could have used the mortar and pestle, I chose to use my upper arm power and knead it with all my might for about 8 mins. So if you want to taste these delicious rave pooris, start with the fine semolina (called chiroti rave) and add water slowly as you work the dough. Remember to give it a rest of atleast an hour before proceeding to roll and deep fry them in oil. These taste delicious and you should try it atleast once.

I don't remember nammamma making pooris frequently, it almost always remained a 'special' day dish meant to treat someone on their birthday or when folks were visiting. The infrequent appearances made it all the more appealing and we would wait eagerly for the 'poori day'. Paired with the vegetable saagu, it was always something we looked forward to and it would always be a lip-smacking foodie experience. My little family loves pooris, though I make them mostly with wheat flour just avoiding the extra work involved. I pair it with chole or potato saagu/palya to go with it sometimes, we all love this saagu combination the most.

But I digress, poori is not the focus of this blog post, it is actually what accompanies the poori aka the decadent, flavorful vegetable saagu. Saagu is served all over in restuarants and darshinis in Karnataka. Set dosa-saagu is a delicious combination though it can be eaten with any dose/dosa. It makes a perfect accompaniment with rotis, phulkas and ofcourse pooris.

But there is a marked difference between the hotel served saagu and this home made version. This is a more saatvik version, there is no onion/tomato sauteed in oil, infact there is no oil at all in this recipe. How cool is that? It might as well be because it is generally savored with the oil overloaded pooris :-). The hotel versions also add saunf (fennel seeds), a spice that nammamma hardly ever used. While I like a well made hotel saagu, I prefer this home made version better. The taste is different but delicious none the less.

Pooris are always made and served right out of the oil and they are relished hot and fresh. Pooris are quick to make especially if you have a person to roll them out and one incharge of the frying. Very soon fluffy, golden, puffed up beauties would be lifted off the hot oil and placed into a serving platter. On poori days, plates would be set and everyone would sit on the floor. Atleast one big platter full of pooris had to be ready so everyone got a couple of pooris in their plate to start off. But when the family is large and full of "poori hungry" people, a time would soon come when the rate of consumption far outbeat the rate of production :-) and that is when the saagu was a life saver. While we waited for the poori to drop into the plate, we would be eating saagu without wasting time and licking the plate (I know, absolutely no table manners!) clean so every time a new poori came to the plate, another serving of saagu had to be done as well :-)

The most common vegetables are green beans, carrots, peas, potato, cauliflower and chayote squash. The criteria is two fold - the vegetables should hold their shape on cooking and should not impart any unnecessary flavor/smells in the dish. That means, those smelly stinky radish, cabbage, kohlrabi are out as are the slimy okra and eggplants :-). The amount of veggies is a personal preference, while some like more veggies and just enough gravy to connect them all, some prefer a few veggies floating in the flavorsome gravy. I like a balance, with both gravy and the bites. Nammamma never added cauliflower because it was not a vegetable she preferred to use :-). I have grown to like it and my family loves all things cauliflower, it goes well with the rest of the vegetable choices in this saagu. It doesn't change the saagu in anyway, so feel free to skip it if you don't have it handy. I didn't have it when I made it this time.

This gravy does not have the usual herbs(curry leaves & cilantro) used in the south indian cooking and there is no seasoning/tadka either. The flavoring agents are cinnamon, cloves and poppy seeds. Go ahead and try this super flavorful, creamy saagu for you next poorisession.

What do you need to make saagu?
2 cups of mixed vegetables (green beans, carrots, chayote squash, potatoes, green peas) - I used about 1/2 cup of each
1 Tsp chopped cilantro (optional for garnish)
1 Tsp salt (adjust to taste)
pinch of turmeric (optional, just to bring a little hue to the gravy)

To grind: 
1/2 cup coconut
1 inch piece of ginger
2 -1inch piece of cinnamon
4 cloves
1 Tbsp chopped onion
1 Tbsp gasagase/poppy seeds
1 Tbsp roasted gram/kadle
6 almonds (soaked in hot water and de-skinned) - This is my addition
4-5 green chilies (adjust to taste)

How do you make saagu? 

• Clean and chop vegetables keeping the size and shape similar on all of them. 

• Cook the vegetables in 1.5 cups of water until they are about half done but still crunchy (about 6-8 mins on med heat). 
• Grind all ingredients listed under to grind with 1/4 cup of water to a smooth paste. 

• Add the ground paste to the cooked vegetables along with salt and cook for about 10mins on low heat until well blended and starts to boil. 
• Switch off the stove and add cilantro on top. Cover and let it rest.

Notes: 

• Common saagu problem & correction: A good saagu has a creamy consistency and homogeneous texture. If the water is separating from the vegetables when you boil, the amount of thickening agents(coconut, roasted gram or almonds) is to be adjusted. You can grind another Tsp of roasted gram with a spoon of water and add to the gravy to thicken it. 

• Vegetables need to have an opportunity to boil in the ground masala paste, cook them only half done before adding the paste and then continue cooking on low heat. 
• Almonds do impart a rich taste to saagu, however take care not to over do the nuts as it tends to make the gravy texture very different from the Mysore saagu. Stick to the quantities given above for 4 servings of delicious saagu. 
• There is no seasoning in this dish and it tastes awesome without it.