Halubai/Halbai made easier - celebrating Ugadi with a traditional sweet from Karnataka

Happy New Year!!

Wondering why I am wishing a happy new year when the calendar is turning to month 4 in a day? New Year is celebrated on different days/months in different cultures and parts of the world. Where I come from, traditionally our festivals follow what is called as Chandramana calendar (based on the lunar months) and Ugadi is the beginning of new year, it is celebrated in the month Chaitra representing the beginning of Spring. Every year has a name and it is called 'Jaya' this time meaning 'victory'. I wish you all a wonderful year filled with many great victories. It is celebrated today in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra - three southern states in India. Personally for me Ugadi stands for tender green mango leaves adorning the front doors of every house, smell of raw, green mango chitranna and bele obbattu coming from the kitchen along with a serving of bevu-bella symbolizing the two facets of life :-). My bevu-bella has morphed into Ugadi pachadi ever since I got married (more flavors) but the rest of the menu remains pretty much same every year if I can pull it off.

Our local grocery stores ran out of green mangoes last evening, I saw many disappointed faces as I stopped for a quick shopping. I just turned a little smarter getting a mango a couple days ahead of time, honestly it as not planned :-). But the surprise package was the small packet of tiny white neem leaves nestled in a few inches of the stalk along with one or two tiny, green neem leaves. I got a packet too to add it into my Ugadi pachadi. With the sole mango I had reserved for the pachadi, I couldn't make the mango rice so switched to Puliyogare (recipe to follow) and as obbattu is already featured here on the blog :-), I chose to make a different sweet to celebrate the new year.

This funny sounding dish is from Karnataka (I haven't seen anything close to it in other regions, let me know otherwise) and is made either with rice, wheat or ragi while retaining the rest of the ingredients same. Nammamma makes this almost always with rice and that is our default setting too. We all love this dish very much. Very minimalist in the number of ingredients required, this dessert however is fit for an occasion when made well. Without a fancy face to put forward, this sweet has mostly remained in the confines of private homes (or the reason being the professional chefs can never get it right unlike the home cooks :-)), so you will not find it on the menu in any restaurants. If craving hits, you make it yourself and enjoy.

I have seen nammamma soak rice, grind, grind and grind some more of the coconut to extract milk, then grind, grind and grind more of the rice to eliminate any traces of the grain when you hold it in between fingers. I know I said grind multiple times, that was my way of emphasizing the grinding involved and the effort and time it took in the days when the kitchens were not equipped with high powered electrical blenders. Imagine doing this on a large scale, amma would be spending an entire day preparing the delicious halbai. Once the coconut milk was extracted and grinding done, the next phase is to reduce it to the required consistency by constantly stirring it on heat. This not only required a fair bit of patience but also a flexible wrist and some good muscle power in the arms. So when nammamma slipped and fell and had her right wrist broken, her first reaction was 'How will I ever make Halbai again' :-), funny priorities she has in life. But her hand healed well and she made many more halbais before finally retiring from the kitchen recently. I miss that texture and taste of her halbai, nothing can ever come close to that. The only reason I can think of for her astonishingly delicious, melt in the mouth halbai is her love in what she cooked and served.

Though I crave for that halbai beyond any words, I am still a lazy person unlike my mom and look for short cuts. When I asked for the recipe a while ago, she said that it takes a lot of time, so instead I should get the quick version from my sister :-), Since it was a referral from Amma, I made my next phone hop, pestered akka to give me her quick recipe though I have not tasted it myself. Surprise, surprise, I made it and it was a very satisfying Halbai though I will say this, "not what amma made". But BH who has indeed eaten this in nammamma's kitchen said it was a very close attempt. DD who doesn't remember eating ajji's halbai said it was very delicious. That is a confidence boost and here I am with a family certified recipe for a traditional halbai. Thanks G for the recipe.

A halubai/halbai is made with fresh coconut, jaggery, a little bit of rice and a tiny bit of ghee (clarified butter). When I introduce most of Indian mithai or burfis to my non Indian friends or colleagues, I say it is similar to fudge so they can relate it. However Halbai is not as firm as the other burfis we make, there is infact a word in Kannada called 'Baluku' - if I were to translate it without doing an injustice, it probably would be called 'swaying'. So if you held a piece of halbai at one edge with your finger tips, the rest of the piece should gently sway down without breaking into two, but it is a completely non-sticky piece unlike the halwa in Indian cooking. Hope I made the consistency clear with all that banter :-). The best part of halbai making is that it doesn't have a 'take me off the stove now or I am ruined' kind of consistency of the burfis, it will stay soft even if you go over a couple of minutes. If it is underdone and sticking to the knife, put it back on the stove and continue to stir.

Before you attempt making halbai, here is something really, really, really important (I am not trying to fill my page by repeating words though it may look like that, it is my feeble attempt at trying to drive home a point :-)). Use fresh coconut in this recipe, no canned coconut milk or reconstituted dry/desiccated coconut please. The short cut will just not cut here. Sometimes, jaggery tends to have impurities, if you do not get good quality jaggery, melt it on heat in a couple of spoons of water, strain it through a fine sieve and reserve the clean, melted jaggery for use in the recipe.

What do you need to make Halbai? 
Makes about 15-18 1 inch pieces
2 cups grated fresh coconut (fill the cup loosely)
4 Tbsp rice flour
1 cup grated jaggery/palm sugar
1.5 cups water
1/2 Tsp ghee
1/4 Tsp freshly ground cardamom powder

How do you make Halbai? 

• Grind coconut with water into a very fine paste. Texture of your halbai is determined by how smooth this paste is. 
• If you have the time and inclination, pass the ground mixture through a cheese cloth or a fine sieve and extract the milk from it. This is recommended.
• Take the coconut milk in a pan (do not switch on the stove yet), add the rice flour and mix well to remove any lumps. The mixture will resemble a dosa batter at this stage. 

• If you have good quality jaggery, you can pound them in a mortar & pestle and add it directly to the mixture at this time. Else, melt the jaggery in 2 Tbsp of water, sieve it to remove any impurities and add the sieved jaggery to the mixture. 
• Prepare a plate (I use my steel plate, anything that can stand the heat and provides a flat surface to the halbai will work) by smearing a couple of drops of ghee on the surface. 
• I like to add cardamom powder on top of the ghee so that my pieces get coated with the powder on their smooth surface (looks better in pictures :-)), you can sprinkle cardamom powder on top if you choose. 
• Set the plate aside, add 1/2 Tsp ghee to the pan, switch on the stove and start stirring on low to medium heat. 

• The quantities given here took me 30 minutes from start to finish once I switched on the stove. Side note: that mine is an electrical stove that takes a couple of minutes to heat up. 
• The mixture starts to thicken and also change color gradually, do not rush the process, it needs to be done on low heat. 

• After about 20 minutes, it becomes a blob and starts to leave the sides of the pan. 
• At 25 minutes, you will see the minuscule half Tsp of ghee doing its magic and giving a shiny coat to the underneath of the blob. 
• Watch the mixture at this stage, take a small blob, drop it on the plate and flatten it, if it doesn't stick to your fingers when you smoothen it, you are ready to switch off the stove. Else, continue for a few more minutes. 
• Once done, pour the mixture into the prepared plate and flatten it to the desired thickness. Dip your hand lightly in water and smooth the top surface. 
• Make markings to cut the piece with a sharp knife, let it cool down for about 10-15 minutes before cutting and separating the pieces. 
• Enjoy the delicious, melt in the mouth Halbai. 

Notes: 

• You will notice that there are no flavor agents other than cardamom here, that is to let coconut milk take center stage and play out. Do not add nutmeg, cloves etc that will overpower the halbai taste. 
• I do not decorate or garnish the halbai with the usual dry fruits either, while it is not illegal to do it :-), it is just against the principle of Halbai. 

Mango Rice or Mavinakayi Chitranna for Ugadi

We are into the week after Ugadi but I am still posting about my Ugadi menu :-). That is the spirit right? stretching the joys of life as long as you can. But this will be my last of the posts for 2012 Ugadi.

In Karnataka, mango rice or mavinakayi chitranna is made a few different ways, the one I have today is my favorite, it is called hasi saasive (raw mustard) mango rice. The marriage of raw mustard and sour green mangoes in this rice dish is heavenly.

Growing up I had seen nammamma choose different varieties of green mango for different purposes, she would want the really sour ones for pickling and chitranna while the tender, sweeter ones would be cut up and smeared with spices and eaten just like that :-). I don't have so much choice here so I pick the green mangoes of any size and shape and hope it does the trick. I had got some really nice green mangoes this time around Ugadi and gladly used it in Ugadi pachadi, Mango Dal and Mango Chitranna.

What do you need to make Mango rice? 
2 cups of cooked rice - use sona masoori or similar varieties
1 medium sized green mango - washed, peeled and grated about 2 cups of gratings
1 Tblsp mustard seeds
4-5 dry red chilies
3 Tblsp of grated coconut (fresh or frozen)
1 Tblsp salt (adjust to taste)
1 Tsp cooking oil

For vagagrane/seasoning: 

1 Tblsp cooking oil

1 Tsp mustard seeds/saasive
1 Tblsp chana dal
2 Tblsp raw peanuts
1 sprig of curry leaves (5-6 leaves)
1/2 Tsp turmeric powder

How do you make Mango rice? 

• Take red chilies and mustard seeds into a blender and pulse it a few times to break the mustard seeds. 
• Add grated mango reserving 1 Tblsp of it for garnish, coconut, salt and a Tblsp of water and grind it into a chutney like consistency. 

• Heat a pan on medium heat, add a Tsp of oil and pour the ground chutney into it. 
• Stir frequently on medium heat until water evaporates and raw mustard smell goes away. 
• Cook rice so the grains are separate. 
• Spread the rice to cool down in a large bowl. Pour the chutney on top of the rice and let it cool down completely. 

• Prepare vaggarane - Heat oil in a pan, add mustard, chana dal and peanuts and fry till mustard and peanuts pop. 
• Switch off and add turmeric powder and curry leaves. 
• Pour the sizzling vaggarane on top of the rice and gently work the chutney and vaggarane into the rice taking care not to mush up the rice. 
• Garnish with the reserved mango gratings at the end.
• Let the mango rice sit for about 30 minutes before serving. 

Tips:

• Add a couple of drops of oil while cooking rice to get fluffy, grain-separated rice. 
• The chutney when you grind it should be strong in spices as it mellows down on mixing with rice. Adjust red chilies, salt or mango to suit your taste. 
• Use additional red chili powder if you want it spicier but note that mustard gives a strong flavor to the rice and you do not want to over power it with the chilies.
• The sourness comes from the mango, choose firm, green mangoes that are tart in taste. 

Here is another look at my Ugadi platter

Ugadi obbattu

In Karnataka, Ugadi & bele (Dal) obbattu have an unspoken camaraderie. Though we love obbattus any day of the year, Ugadi becomes an excuse to make this slightly labor intensive but extremely delicious traditional sweet.

There are 2 very popular kinds of obbattus - one is the bele/dal/lentils obbattu and the other kaayi/coconut obbattu. It is essentially a sweet stuffing inside an outer cover and roasted on tava. The bele obbattu is made with a mixture of chanadal and toor dal in some homes but we always liked nammamma's recipe which had only chana dal and that is what I make too.

A good obbattu is measured in three dimensions - first is by the way the layers are formed when cooked, second by the thinness (notice, I don't say thickness, the thinner you are able to spread the obbattu out, the better it is) and the softness of the obbattu (Anna always said, 'this obbattu is like the Mysore silk seere' when eating nammamma's obbattu which meant the obbattus were as soft and silky as the famous Mysore silk sarees :-)). I kept thinking about my dad looking at the way my obbattus were puffing up on the tava, missing him all the time.., food and cooking is all about memories.. don't you agree?

Because of the work it takes, obbattu is typically considered as big league cooking reserved for experienced cooks. For a long time, I had put off making it in my kitchen as I always thought it was a skill I didn't have and one day it all changed when we went to a festival dinner at one of our friends house. The lovely couple V & S are both experts at cooking and have been very popular for their delicious mysore paks and bondas in the friend's circle but for the first time that day, I saw someone closer to my age group make a 100 obbattus in addition to all the other wonderful dishes she had made. So it dawned on me that I wasn't too young to make obbattus :-) and if I wanted, I just had to jump in and try it myself. I have missed a perfect obbattu in the past but this Ugadi turned out fabulously with the obbattus and here I am confidently sharing what I did.

What do you need to make bele obbattu? 
NOTE: The below proportion made 18 good size obbattus
For Hoorana or the stuffing:
3 cups chana dal/kadle bele
3 cups of crushed or grated jaggery
4 green cardamon - peeled and powdered or use a Tsp of cardamom powder
1/2 nutmeg broken into 2 or 1/2 Tsp of nutmeg powder
1 inch piece of cinnamon stick
2 cups of water to cook

For Kanaka or outer covering:
2 cups wheat flour
1 cup maida
1 cup chiroti rava (also called bombay rava or sooji)
1/2 Tsp salt
1/2 cup cooking oil

How do you make bele obbattu? 
Hoorana making: 

• Wash and soak chana dal in water for about 4 hours. 

• Clean the dal in 2-3 changes of water, pressure cook it until very soft with the nutmeg and cinnamon pieces. 

• Once the cooker cools, open the lid and strain the water out. NOTE: the amount of water I have mentioned above didn't leave a lot of extra water and so I didn't have to strain it. 
• Mash the dal once with a potato masher or a thick spoon. 

• Take the dal and grated/crushed jaggery in a heavy bottom pan and heat it on medium heat. 
• Jaggery dissolves and leaves some water, keep stirring frequently until the water dissolves and you see a single blob of dal in the pan leaving the sides. This took about 15 minutes for the amount specified. 

• Switch off and let it cool, fish out the cinnamon & nutmeg pieces at this stage and discard them.
• I have tried using the blender/mixer and my stone grinder for grinding the hoorana but since both these methods require some water to make them work, it is tricky. Nammamma put this into the traditional manual stone grinder (Varalu kallu) but here is a very easy way to do it.

• Take handfuls of the cooled & slightly dry mixture and grate it in your grater and you will get smooth noodle like output which is completely soft without a trace of dal in it. 
• Make the hoorana into lime sized balls, I got 18 balls for the above mentioned quantity. 

Kanaka making: 

• Put all three dry flours into a wide bowl, add salt and a Tsp of oil and mix it well. 
• Add water slowly and make a soft dough, similar to the paratha dough. 
• Cover it with a wet dish cloth or paper towel and leave it aside for an hour. 
• Take the dough out and knead it for atleast 15 minutes adding a Tsp of oil every 5 minutes. 
• Your dough will turn completely soft and pliable at this point. 
• Cover it with a wet cloth and let it rest for another hour. 
• Make lime sized balls by pinching portions of the dough and shape them into a smooth ball. 

Stuffing the hoorana: 

• This is similar to paratha stuffing, smear your palm with a drop of oil, put a ball of kanaka and pat in into a small disc.
• Place the hoorana ball in the center of the disc, close the ball with the kanaka covering by gently working the kanaka upwards and over the hoorana ball. 
• Smoothen the stuffed ball. 

Obbattu making: 

• In Kannada it is called 'Obbattu tattodu' which means pat the obbattu and not actually roll it like a chapathi. 
• Take an aluminium foil sheet, put a drop of oil and spread it on the sheet with your hand. 
• Place the stuffed obbattu ball in the center of the sheet and start patting it into a round disc of even thickness. 

• The trick is to move the sheet and your hand in unison so the obbattu expands in all directions uniformly. 
• Take it all the way without tearing the obbattu. 

• Heat a flat pan (preferably cast iron) on medium heat and put a couple of drops of oil and prepare the pan. 
• Put the aluminium foil with the obbattu side facing down and let it sit for a minute. 
• Now gently remove the aluminium foil by lifting a corner, use a flat spatula to coax the sheet off the tava if you need to. 

• Once you see bubbles appearing on the top surface of obbattu, gently turn it over to the other side and let it roast till it turns golden brown with a few spots.

• Serve hot obbattus with ghee, we love soaking obbattu in warm milk, try that combination for a great sleep inducing meal.

Tips: 

• Soaking chana dal helps cook it soft. 
• Do not heat the mixture of dal & jaggery too much, else it will turn into a burfi consistency and cannot be stuffed or rolled out into obbattu.
• I prepared the hoorana the previous evening and made the rest on Ugadi day. 
• During the obbattu patting process, the trick is to make sure the hoorana inside is moving uniformly as you move the obbattu all the way to the edge to avoid the edges from becoming hard after roasting. 
• When you mix the dal and jaggery, taste to see if the sweetness is right for you, sometimes the sweetness of jaggery changes the proportion.
• Every time, before patting the obbattu on the sheet, put a couple of drops of oil and spread it over the sheet. I used 2 sheets alternately. 
• I used kanaka balls slightly smaller than hoorana balls which worked very well in the final product.
• If you feel comfortable using a chapathi roller, go ahead and use it to make the obbattu but do use it delicately so the hoorana doesn't spill out. 

Ugadi Pachadi - Life is a mixture of varied experiences

Ugadi/Yugadi is celebrated as the beginning of New Year. The festival celebrates the onset of Spring when everything in nature wakes up from the winter hibernation and starts a new life. I am definitely seeing changes around me that whispers Spring, warmer weather, exploding colors.. This is an unexpected beauty from my front yard and I am thankful for the previous owners of the house. A week back we noticed the blooms and all of a sudden there was this tender, beautiful pink bloom and they are all over the plant now.

In Karnataka, we eat a mixture of bevu-bella (Neem-jaggery) on this day symbolizing the two sides of the coin that is life, bevu/neem represents the 'not so good or bitter' experiences in life while bella is for all that is sweet and prosperous in life. I vividly remember the early morning baths on Ugadi day, the green mango leaves torana (decoration on the front door) and the bevu-bella eating. There was a huge neem tree in the back yard of one of our immediate neighbors and the previous day, they would cut branches with fresh leaves and blooms and distribute it to all. Nammamma picked the fresh new neem flowers and mixed them with ghee and grated jaggery and we ate the bitter-sweet mixture. Though you are supposed to welcome both sweet and bitter experiences equally, nammamma's mixture always had lots more of the sweet and a little bit of the bitter wishing her family a Happy New Year :-). Lunch spread on Ugadi almost always had mango chitranna and bele obbattu and get extended to many other delicacies if there were guests.

I learnt making the Andhra Ugadi Pachadi from amma after my wedding, the first time I had it was a 'love at first bite'. The pachadi is a burst of perfectly blended flavors, my daughter wants to eat it on any day of the year if only her mom would make it :-). This pachadi is a mixture of neem flowers, jaggery, tamarind, pieces of green mango, banana and salt. One of my Telugu friends also adds a pinch of red chili powder to bring the taste into the pachadi. As you can see the Ugadi pachadi is a conglomeration of bitter, sweet, tart and salty tastes. We have had nothing but bowls of Ugadi pachadi in the mornings filling us well until lunch is ready.

My experience of getting neem flowers in the local Indian grocery store has been very varied, some years I have been completely out of luck with it and have used powdered fenugreek seeds in my Ugadi pachadi, some years it has been great with my grocery store owner getting fresh neem leaves and flowers. So I have learnt to make the best of what is doled out to me on the day prior to Ugadi, I usually go shopping without setting the bars too high :-).

So yesterday evening was a new experience, the store was crowded as expected as it was not only the eve of Ugadi but also the day of the week the local store gets fresh vegetables. I didn't spot any neem in the aisles and was telling myself that it would be a fenugreek pachadi when one of the ladies that works in the store came around. I asked her if they carried neem flowers and she said 'Yes, ask for it when you check out, they have it at the front'. Yay, I was so happy and came to the checkout, I asked the lady for neem flowers and she handed me a small packet which had some very dark brown pieces inside, I repeated myself that I wanted neem flowers, she took the packet back and handed me another identical in size packet which had light brown thingies inside :-). That is when I realized they were selling dried neem flowers and for a premium, well I bought one of those and carried the treasure home like a grinning monkey though my dreams of fresh green leaves and flowers were squashed right there. In the spirit of Ugadi, accepting what I got I made a great Ugadi pachadi with the precious neem flowers and we had bowlfuls of it the whole day.

What do you need to make Ugadi Pachadi? 
2 ripe bananas - peeled and cut into small pieces
1 medium sized green mango - washed, peeled and chopped into small pieces
1 cup of crushed jaggery
1 Tblsp of neem flowers - crush them a little between your fingers
1/2 Tsp salt
1 Tsp of tamarind juice - soak a small piece of tamarind in water for 20 minutes and extract the juice

How do you make Ugadi Pachadi?
Mix all the ingredients in a bowl, set aside for 10 minutes for the juices to socialize with each other before spooning into the mouth. Enjoy a very healthy, tasty Ugadi pachadi.

And here is a quick peek at what we had for our Ugadi habba today, recipes will follow

Mango chitranna, carrot kosambari, chikkudukaya-potato palya, ugadi pachadi, mango pappu, obbattu hoorana (yes obbattu is coming) and anna in the center served with papads

Wishing everyone a Very Happy Ugadi!

Yuga Yugadi kaledaru

Yugadi marali barutide

Hosa varushake hosa harushava

Hosatu Hosatu tarutide

This is a very famous poem by one of my favorite Kannada poets & Jnanapeeth awardee Dr. D.R Bendre.

Yugadi/Ugadi is the beginning of New Year in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharastra, tomorrow's celebration is called Chandramana Ugadi as it is based on the lunar calendar. Indian calender has names for every year and the year beginning tomorrow is called 'Nandana'

Very rough translation:  
A New Year returns once again and brings new joy to a new beginning.

I wish all my readers a Very Happy, Prosperous Nandana Naama Samvatsara(Year)

I will be back with Ugadi specials from Sattvaa kitchen after tomorrow. See you all then.