Cranberry Tokku - 3 perspectives + some thoughts, giving Thanks and cooking with Cranberries

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. November is my month of contemplation for many reasons besides the traditional Thanksgiving celebrated this week. So here is my rambling on the topic, feel free to skip and go to the recipe but I promise I have links to some great reads below that might interest you :-).

All this started a couple of months back when a dear friend of mine shared an article titled "Why Women still can't have it all" by Prof Anne-Marie Slaughter, professor of Politics and International affairs at Princeton University. If you follow news and trends regularly you are probably familiar with Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg's 'Lean in' concept. This article is a little taunt for 'leaning in'. I understand both points of view at some level but don't agree with either 100%. 'What does having it all" mean to you? What you need/want is never a constant, it changes through out life and is true for both men and women. Life is more complicated than it was in my mom's generation but that doesn't mean you cannot enjoy it. I am neither glorifying a working woman having a family nor do I consider a non working mom to be deficient. My mom never worked outside home though she was qualified to do so and I have plenty of friends who make it seem so effortless as they work outside home and come back and take care of things at home too. So, 'having it all' is defined by you as an individual and there is nothing more to it.

The second perspective came when a colleague of mine sent this link - it does a good take on why nobody should apologize for having a life outside work which is very true and has taken years to come to be accepted. I still remember when I first started work, it was a taboo to talk about family commitments or tell your manager you had leave to take care of your child. It was an unspoken thing that you would compromise your career if you did that. I remember the early days of DD's day care experience when both of us used to be wreaks by end of the day. In the late 90s in India, corporate world was not mature enough to consider women taking time off for maternity, child care or there were no options to work from home or work part time like there are today. It is wonderful to see things changing and work places recognizing and respecting personal lives of their employees.

Finally, I saw this movie (one of my treadmill movies :-)) called "I don't know how she does it" which has the glamorous Sarah Jessica Parker who does not look glamorous at all in the movie & Mr.Bond, Pierce Brosnan. It is an affable comedy, of a working executive who also happens to love her family and is trying to balance her 2 worlds. There is a MIL who constantly tells her how things were different (and obviously better) in her times, there are a couple of exaggerated stay at home moms from the school that find fault with everything she does, a robotic female assistant who works long hours and shuns marriage but finds herself as a single mom and there is a male colleague who stops nothing short of stealing ideas and sabotaging efforts at the last minute. It made me smile as she puts a store bought pie into an old container at home so everybody at her daughter's school thinks that she made it herself for the annual bake sale. It is very relatable as she has to bail out last minute on a family Thanksgiving dinner to attend a client meeting. All in all it is a fun watch. The movie ends with her taking a stand refusing to make a business trip on a weekend and telling her boss, "Sorry, I am unavailable, I got to go make a snowman.". Oops, spoiler, but I am sure you would guess the end as you watch the movie, so it is all fair :-)

When I think about all this, I find myself extremely fortunate to have been brought up by a father who encouraged his little girls to do anything they wanted to in life just as he cheered his boys. He was of a generation where working women were not prevalent but he just looked at us as individuals with ambitions of our own and gave us opportunities every step of the way. Wish he was here still. I married this guy when in my twenties who thinks that my dreams are as valuable as his and willingly accompanies me when I take the leap. He never thinks low of my pursuits but instead has molded part of his own journey to accommodate the co-traveler. I feel blessed to have these wonderful people in my life.

With that we celebrate our Thanksgiving with a fingerlicking cranberry thokku, I am giving a miss to my Thanksgiving traditional lunch this time as we are headed out for a much needed break this long weekend. Looking forward to signing off from work on Wednesday. Cranberries have become such an integral part of my Thanksgiving celebrations, I love these tart berries as they are very amenable to Indian cooking. I made some no grate, no grind tokku this time, it is a much less time & effort consuming Tokku compared to these here & here and has a gorgeous, inviting garnet color and delicious taste. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving season, count your blessings and share some. I will be back next week to talk to you all.

What do you need to make Cranberry Tokku?
4 cups fresh cranberries (you can use frozen ones too but not the dried cranberries)
1 Tsp methi/fenugreek seeds
1 Tblsp red chili powder (adjust to taste)
pinch of asafoetida
3 Tblsp oil
1 Tsp salt (adjust to taste)
1 Tsp mustard seeds
8-10 curry leaves

How do you make Cranberry Tokku?

• Wash Cranberries by soaking them in a vessel filled with water. You will be able to easily rinse them with hands and pick out any mushy cranberries out.
• Heat a pan and roast the methi seeds without any oil on low to medium heat constantly stirring until the seeds turn light pink. Let cool and powder it in a mortar & pestle or using your spice grinder.
• Add oil to the same pan (my economic way to reduce dish washing, you can use different pans if you have the luxury :-)), add mustard, let it pop. Add the curry leaves followed by washed cranberries.

• Add salt, stir it all in so the cranberries get a coat of oil and let it cook on medium heat.
• Within a couple of minutes, you will hear the cranberries popping, stir once or twice to move the berries around so they get a contact with the hot pan and pop open.
• The idea is to have all the berries open up and become a mushy goop. This will take about 7-9 minutes. The berries do not leave a lot of water but it is important to cook on low heat so the rawness goes off completely.

• Add the red chili powder, mix it in and do a taste test for salt or red chili powder and adjust.
• Let this cook for another 8-10 minutes until oil starts to ooze out from the sides, do not expect a lot of oil to come out of the sides since we have used a small quantity to begin with.
• Add the powdered fenugreek seeds, mix and switch off.
• Once completely cooled, store it in dry, air tight containers. This will stay fresh for a month if you use dry spoons to serve. Makes a great spread on toasted breads, rotis, chapatis etc.

Notes:

• Roast the fenugreek seeds slowly on a low-medium heat, burnt seeds spoil the taste entirely.
• Make sure all berries pop open, give them a little assistance if needed by crushing them with the back of your spatula. This helps them absorb the flavors better.  
• One of the ways Nammamma used many of the thokkus made at home was to convert it into a quick and delicious one pot rice item. Here is how - Cook rice until soft but grains are fluffy and separate. Add desired amount of the thokku and mix it in. Make a seasoning of mustard, chana dal, urad dal, curry leaves and peanuts in oil and add it to the rice. You will have a quick and yummy rice to fill your lunch box with. Enjoy.

 

Tomato Tokku - when it rained tomatoes in the Northwest :-)

I haven't done a garden update here on the blog in quite some time, while we got a squash a day harvest for a while, the surprise of the season has been Tomatoes. Yes, these are big, juicy and incredibly tasty tomatoes and have made me turn my back permanently on the waxy, store bought excuses. I am worried about the soon to be here winter months when my garden will hibernate:-(. But until then, I am cooking up all sorts of Tomato deliciousness in my kitchen. 

It all started with 4 small saplings we planted in the middle of Spring, sun shine was abundant this summer (not sure where the gray, cloudy weather rumor spreads its wings:-)) and my tomato plants grew big and tall like the bean stalk in (well, what else but..) Jack and the bean stalk. I saw the plants bending and flexing on the ground with its own weight before BH & I could scurry around to build a support structure for them. We lifted them gently, placed them inside the support structures when we noticed small, yellow blooms which heralded the possibility of tomatoes some time in the future. So, we waited patiently and then forgot about them for a while with the Arangetram excitement and when we did remember to go back to the back yard and look, the plants were lugging huge tomatoes, some turning red but mostly green :-). I did and still have been making a whole lot of green tomato recipes (believe me they are all yummy and will be showcased here on the blog soon) and then started picking the red ones. I am not exaggerating when I say it really is raining tomatoes in my back yard and all of them looking so deliciously juicy and flavorful. 

We are a family of 'saaru' lovers, saaru is a staple in my home and is comparable to 'Rasam', it is either sipped as a appetizer or mixed with rice and enjoyed. There are many different kinds of saaru but then, this post is not about the 'saaru', right? It will suffice to say, I made many, many saaru with the freshly harvested ripe tomatoes before my saaru crazy family was deploring me to put the ripe tomatoes in another recipe :-). So, best way to use pounds of ripe tomatoes? Make this wonderful tasting tokku that has multiple uses. It will make you 'tomato happy' for life :-).

Tokku is a common word used to describe a pachadi or chutney in Kannada, the difference being Tokkus almost always stay fresh for long while regular chutneys are for quick consumption. This makes Tokkus preferred accompaniments during travel. In addition to topping the usual suspects such as bread, roti, idli, dosa or crackers with Tokku, Nammamma also mixed spoon fulls of tokku (usually mango tokku) with cooked rice, seasoned it with asafoetida, mustard, chana dal and peanuts to make a quick, ready to eat or lunch box friendly rice variety. Try it and you will be hooked. 

Tokku does not call for many or even exotic ingredients, one thing that helps is to make sure the star ingredient is fresh and tasty. Whether you are making mango tokku or tomato tokku, make sure you have good mangoes or tomatoes. The rest of the procedure is very simple but needs time and patience. After tokku is done, handling it is very similar to that of pickles - make sure you store it in a dry, airtight container, use only dry spoons to serve for the longevity of the tokku. 

What do you need to make Tomato Tokku? 

1 lb fresh, juicy tomatoes

2-2.5 Tblsp red chili powder (adjust based on spice tolerance)

1 Tblsp salt (adjust to taste)

1.5 Tsp fenugreek seeds

1/4 Tsp Asafoetida powder

1/2 cup oil

1 Tsp mustard

10-12 curry leaves

1-2 dry red chilies (optional)

1/2 Tsp crushed jaggery

How do you make Tomato Tokku? 

• Wash, wipe and cut tomatoes in half. 
• Remove the stalk end part and chop into small pieces. 
• Heat oil in a heavy bottom, big pan (big enough to hold all tomatoes and let you stir them around easily).
• Add mustard seeds and dry red chilies, let mustard pop. Add asafoetida and curry leaves, toast for 15 seconds before adding chopped tomatoes in. 

• Mix it in, add salt and red chili powder. Let the tomatoes cook on medium flame stirring occasionally so it doesn't get burnt at the bottom. 
• In the mean time, dry roast fenugreek seeds on low to medium heat stirring frequently (about 5-7 minutes) until they turn a deep brown without burning the seeds, let cool and powder in a spice grinder. 
• Tomatoes first break up and then turn mushy and most of the juice evaporates eventually, keep an eye on them and let them cook until oil starts to ooze from the sides of the vessel - takes about 2-2.5 hours depending on how juicy your tomatoes were to start with and the volume reduces by a third. 

• Add the powdered fenugreek and jaggery, reduce heat and continue to cook for another 15-20 minutes. 
• Switch off, let it cool completely before storing in dry, air tight containers. This tokku stays fresh for months if you make sure you keep it in a cool, dry place and also do not use any wet spoons or hands to serve. 

Notes: 

• The tiny bot of jaggery helps bring out the tastes well, my recommendation is not to skip this ingredient. 
• There is no baby sitting involved to make this tokku, though it takes time, you can set the timer to 15-20 minutes between stirrings and continue doing whatever else you need to be doing. 
• Chopping tomatoes small will speed up the process. 

• I do not peel the tomatoes for tokku as we like the texture it imparts, if you like grind and sieve tomatoes before you drop them in the seasoned oil. 
• Tokku tastes best after some settling time as the tastes get time to mingle, let it cool down and stay put for half a day before you start to liberally use it as a spread or dip. 

Mango Tokku or Mango relish

Now that we are officially into Spring, I get green mangoes every week from my local Indian grocery store and we have been having a parade of dishes featuring these beauties. The green mangoes we get are not as tart as the ones I have seen in India but they are much bigger.

Tokku is a close relative of the more popular pickle. Though mango pickles of all forms of shape hit the market in their pretty bottles many years ago, tokku took time before it was bottlized (is that even a word :-)) but we grew up licking tokku on the side with curd rice.  The taste comes from the right(what you like) combination of tart mango, red chili powder, salt and the flavor from fenugreek and mustard. Tokku typically has very few ingredients, end product is a concentrate meant to be used conservatively.

I made this a week back and as I am writing this post, BH is looking over my shoulder and saying 'When did you make tokku?', he is the one who licked that bowl clean and I know it is a masked request for 'make it again' :-)

What do you need to make Mango Tokku? 
1 big firm green mango (see note below)
1 Tblsp red chili powder
2 Tblsp cooking oil
1 Tblsp salt (adjust to taste)
1 Tsp methi/fenugreek seeds
1/4 Tsp mustard seeds
1/2 Tsp asafoetida powder
1/2 Tsp turmeric powder

Seasoning/vaggarane: 
1 Tsp cooking oil
1 Tsp mustard seeds
3-4 curry leaves

How do you make Mango Tokku?

• Wash, peel and grate the mango.
• Heat a heavy bottom pan, dry roast the fenugreek seeds and mustard seeds on medium heat until they start to pop.

• Take them aside, let it cool, powder it in a coffee grinder or mortar & pestle.
• Heat oil in the pan, add the mango gratings, turmeric powder, salt and cook it covered for 5 minutes. 
• When the mango softens up, add red chili powder, asafoetida and continue to cook uncovered.

• The ingredients in the pan come together getting a pulpy consistency, leaving oil on the sides, takes about 20-25 minutes. Keep mixing frequently and take care not to burn it from bottom.
• When oil starts to ooze from the sides, add the fenugreek powder, mix well and switch off. 

• Make vaggarane by heating oil, adding mustard and curry leaves. Once mustard crackles, switch off, pour it over the thokku, mix well. 
• Let the tokku cool completely before storing in a dry jar. 
• It will stay fresh for upto a week in the refrigerator and about 3 days outside.
• This tokku will brighten up your chapathis, bread toasts, idli or dosa any time of the day.

Notes: 

• When I say big mango, I am thinking the ones we get here in US which is about the same size as the omelet mango you get back in India. The gratings should be 2 tightly packed cups. 
• Adding vaggarane/seasoning is completely optional but enhances the flavor.
• I add asafoetida while cooking the mango as it incorporates well in the tokku. 
• Keep the mustard in the powder about half or less that of fenugreek seeds.