Koal Sukka (Clams in semi-dry coconut gravy)

This one is for you Manju, thank you for sharing the Dry Pasta and Sidhi Kadi recipe !

I am basically from the coastal village of Someshwar which is just outside Mangalore,Karnataka and five minutes from the Kerala border. So I am a Malyalee from Karnataka and as usually happens with the border people our cusine is a mix of the best of Mangalorean and Keralite cusine. I have some really great memories of my summer and winter vacations at Mangalore and it is still something that I look forward to. Koal Sukka is my all time favourite Mangalorean dish and I love the way it is made at home. The aromas that waft from the kitchen when it is being prepared are quite capable of rousing Kumbhakarna from his sleep. Wake up and smell the Koal Sukka I say!!!

So without much ado, I proudly present the recipe to the delectable manna from heaven!

P.S.: I will put up a picture soon!!

Ingredients

50-60 clams (small sized, black in colour and with thin shell,my mum says that big thick shelled clams have very little flesh in them, the smaller ones are better and much tastier)

For the White Masala
1/2 (half) a Coconut, grated
4-5 garlic cloves
1/2 (half) an onion
1/2 (half) tsp cumin seeds

For the Red Masala
3 Bedgi Chillies (for colour)
2 Madras Chillies
10-12 fenugreek seeds
6-7 black pepper corns
2 tsp corriander seeds
Tamrind (about the size of a small lemon)
1/2 (half) tsp Turmeric powder

Method:

1) Clean the clams throughly to dislodge any impurties sticking to the shells.
2) Add a little water to a pan and steam the clams for about 2-3 mins. Do not cover the pan while steaming. Once steamed the clams will open up. Retain the water left over from the steaming. (Tip: Do not drown the clams in water, just use a little water, enough to cover an inch off the bottom of the pan).
3) Dry roast all the ingredients for the red masala, except the tamrind and turmeric powder. Put the tamrind in lukewarm water and let it sit. (Tip: My mum dry roasts the spices as soon as she buys them, the same ingredients are used for other curries, so it saves time while actually making the dish)
4) Put the roasted spices in a mixer with a little water and make a fine paste. When the paste is just about done add the turmeric powder and tamrind (along with the water in which it was soaked) and blitz for about 30 seconds.(Tip: Ensure that the paste is is not too watery)
5) Grind the grated coconut in the mixer, we are not looking for a fine paste, a coarse mixture is just fine. Just before removing the mixture, add the cumin seeds, garlic cloves and onion. Blitz for about a minute. (Tip: Do not add water).
5) Mix the red masala with the water retained from the steaming of the clams and bring to a boil.
6) Add clams and simmer for 5-6 mins.
7) Add the white masala and cook till the coconut is nicely done.
8) Garnish with chopped coriader leaves.

My interesting Life - Friday the 13th!!!

Anyone who says, Friday the 13th is unlucky can go take a walk, I had the most interesting, fun-filled day yesterday!!! We had Independence week at work, with activities like quizzes, crosswords, contests etc, culminating with a traditional day on Friday.

The day began at seven and voila, the throbbing pain & swelling that I had in my foot all week thanks to a pair of ill-fitting sandals had vanished. I sent a quick thank you to the gods who look after peoples feet (I figure we got 33 crore gods in hindu mythology, there must be a segregation of duties) and promptly went out to the closet to pull out my muted gold three inch heels that is a must with any  saree. Not only does it make me look taller, it also makes me look thinner and what woman does not like instant weight loss!!!...So Friday the 13th was looking up alright!!!

After a quick breakfast, I draped the saree in 10 minutes flat, which is quite a accomplishment, given in the past my mum, sister and I would be on verge of world war three after one such session. Sometimes I would be such a nervous wreck after the saree refused to behave that I cancelled out of attending weddings and social events at the last minute. My mum still blesses the day I learnt to drape the saree on my own...Friday the 13th was still galloping the wrong way like a horse on steroids!!!

My office is actually a 40 minute drive, but thanks to the traffic which is further aggravated by potholes and stretches of useable road being cordoned off for the Metro project, of late it takes me two hours at times to get there. Needless to say, I arrive in office already looking forward to call it a day. However yesterday I managed that distance in 50 minutes flat, a miracle no less!!!...Then my team decided to treat ourselves to a buffet lunch at Saffron Spice, the food divine, the conversation sparkling, all in all, it was time well spent!!!...way to go Friday the 13th!!!

In the evening I got a call from an unknown number, surprise, surprise, my cousin who got married last year and went off to Dubai with hubby dearest had arrived in town that afternoon and wanted to catch up!!! We met up for dinner chattering ninteen to a dozen, btw dinner was at Aromas of China, after Mainland China this place has the most amazing food, try the Snow White Crispy Squid, Chilli Butter Noodles and Seafood Fried rice. Yes, we went seafood mad...Friday the 13th, unlucky, sez who???

Matheran Adventures!!!

As doctor Watson would say, the time has come when it is quite safe to speak about events that took place in the past, I can place the facts before the discerning public. About a month ago I had been to Matheran with a couple of my college friends. Just the three of us, a total girly road trip. Names have been withheld in this blog post as my friends are still under a witness protection programme, my friend drove all the way and if any of our parents found out they would have a coronary and we would become orphans, because the road up to Dasturi (the point upto which you can take vehicles) is quite treacherous, what with it winding this way and that. But B, bless her, is the most amazing driver...when B drives, she can change gears, text message, change the music station and talk... all at once...and the way she handles the car is great, she is in total control, no jerky movements whatsoever. I am in absolute awe of her. Back to the story, A, called me on Monday to ask if I was OK with a day trip to Matheran...I was more that happy as the past few weeks had been crazy busy at work and I could use a break. A also dangled the added carrot that I could stay over at her place on Saturday so we could travel together in the morning to B's house. This was but ofcourse an excuse to spend the entire night gossiping and giggling.

Accordingly I arrived on Saturday at A's place around eight, we had an early dinner and retired to her room, to google up the route. A, had been to Matheran with her family in the past and took it on herself to be the guide, I being hopeless with directions decided to be the photographer, all the pictures you see in the blog post have been captured by your truly on her trusty blackberry. Photos which contain the three of us have been withheld for reasons disclosed above. We wrote down the directions and then settled down for some serious gossiping.

We had not met up for quite a while and had some serious catching up to do. By the time we were done it was one in the morning as we decided to call it a day, else we would not be able to wake up the following day.We set the alarm for six as we had agreed to meet B at seven in the morning, prayed that it be a perfect day for a trip and hoped the rain gods would not play spoilsport and went off to sleep. We woke up on time thanks to the chirping of the multitude of birds who live in the trees opposite A's house. A little background, A's house is situated in a delightfully shady street and the view from her bedroom balcony is to die for. You open your eyes to a green canopy, where a multitude of birds are chirping praises to nature in all her glory. You simply cannot have a bad day when you wake up to all this beauty. To make it all the more beautiful, it was a pleasant day with no rain clouds in sight!!!

Putting that down a good omen, we got dressed and arrived at B's house a little after seven. After a quick stop at the petrol pump we were off on our trip!!! The trip to Mahape was uneventful and we made good time, things got a bit mixed up after that, we kept asking people the way to Neral which is at the foothills and they kept pointing us to Nerul, which is a place near Vashi. One rickshaw fellow confidently pointed us in one direction and after travelling on it for a while B declared that if I take one more right turn on this road we will be back in Mumbai!!! Finally we chanced on a traffic police check post and the constable there helped direct us to the right road. Much to our chagrin we realised that we were on the right track before asking for directions and would have reached this place an hour ago if the locals had not misguided us. All of us decided never to ask for directons going forward!!! We arrived at Dasturi a little after eleven and after finding a place to park the car (the whole of Mumbai seemed to have decended here) we started trekking up to Matheran.

A little history lesson on Matheran, courtesy wikipedia, Matheran (Marathi: Marathi: माथेरान is a city and a Hill Station municipal council in Raigad district in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is also the smallest hill station in India. It is located on the Western Ghats range at an elevation of around 800 m (2,625 feet) above sea level. It is located around 90 km from Mumbai, and 120 km from Pune. Matheran's proximity to the metros makes it a popular weekend getaway for urban residents. The name Matheran means either "forest on top" or "mother forest".Matheran is an eco-sensitive region, declared by the Ministry of Environment and Forest, Government of India. It is one of the few places in the world where vehicles are not allowed, which makes the place different from others.

Matheran takes you over a hundred years back in time when there were no vehicles.Because of vehicles being banned in Matheran, the place is quite peaceful despite the thousands of visitors coming to visit throughout the year. There are lots of lookout points that provide spectacular views of the surrounding hills and valleys. Matheran has a reasonably dense forest cover. There are around 38 designated look-out points in Matheran, including the Panorma Point that provides a 360 degree view of the surrounding area and also the Neral town. From this point, the view of sunset and sunrise is breathtaking. The Louisa Point offers crystal clear view of the Prabal Fort. The other points are the One Tree Hill Point, Hart Point, Monkey Point, Porcupine Point, Rambgh Point, and more.

Back to the present when we arrived at Dasturi there was a slight drizzle and a dense fog, we felt like we were walking through coulds!!! After a thirty minute trek we arrived at the quaint town of Matheran, you really feel like you are in an old black and white movie, the shops in this place still play old songs, everyone is on foot and you can see horses trotting grandly down the main streets. After a while you half expect to see an officer from the British era riding a buggy with his lady sitting pretty beside him. I can see the snicker on your face, yes, I admit it, I am a sucker for the victorian era "Angrez chale gaye, mujhe chod gaye". Its like time stood still here!!!

On arriving at the main market square we decided to tuck in some lunch before we started visiting the various points and accordingly went to Kumar Plaza. The red tiled roof of the kitchen looked so pretty against the backdrop of the fog and the shillouttes of the trees made for some interesting photography subjects. Post lunch we visited Sunrise Point (on the map it is down as "Sunrice Point, refer picture), Lord Point (the sign said "its Onely 1 Mint" away, refer picture), Charlotte Lake (it looked like a giant lake filled with tea) and Echo Point (I chickened out of this one as the approach road was too slippery and I could not afford to take any days off work!!!).

By the time it was four in the evening we were craving for some tea. A small road side hotel provided us with steaming mugfuls of tea, refreshed we hit the stalls for a spot of shopping. We purchased some chikkis, fudges, chappals (you get the most amazing footwear at throw away prices here). With our bags over flowing with all these goodies we desended to Dasturi, this time we walked along the railway track. 

A small toy train is operated here, however it is quite to safe to walk along this route during the monsoons as the train is not operated during this period. We arrived at Dasturi physically tired but mentally refreshed. I quite loved this trip as we could be ourselves, no pretence, no rush, enjoying the simple pleasure which nature offers in the company of the people who matter. I look forward to more such trips in the future!!!

A Few pics!!!

,

 

Movie Review : I hate luv storys

I understand a little background is required as to how yours truly who is not an avid movie buff ended up watching this dud on the FIRST DAY of its release. V a temp staff allotted to us whilst one of our permanent staff was off on maternity leave, moves to another team on Monday. At a little over twenty-three she is the baccha of our team and as a token of our appreciation we took her out for a movie. Another reason to go for a movie on work night being - the guys in the team were going to watch a football match (Brazil v Netherlands) at some posh place which boasted of a large screen and complimentary food and drinks, so we girls decided to go out as well!! Mid-way through the movie I was wishing I had accepted the guys invite to go watch the match, at least I could have supported my team Brazil and ensured they went through to the semis. Brazil seem to have found out that I have deserted camp for a lack-lustre dud and the team lost hope and crashed out of the World Cup!!! I digress, but to be honest you are not missing much on the movie story front...as surprise, surprise...there is no story. OK, I will try to reign in my sarcasm, let the movie review begin...

Cast: Sonam Kapoor, Imran Khan
Duration: An eternity...
Music : Uninspiring
Background Music: Seemed to be conspicuously missing at most places...
Story: MIA (for the uninitiated -Missing in Action)
Dialogues: Apparently too many dialogues for Imran to handle and too few for Sonam

OK so we have Jay (pronounced as J) (Imran Khan) who doesn't believe in love. At this point I would like to say J's character is that of a thoroughly messed up brat. Here we have a guy, who has run away from home for reasons unknown, hates love stories and to top it all is working as Assistant to a Director who only makes love stories!!! The man is on a mission to punish himself for whatever wrong he has done in his past 25-26 years of existence on this planet. He hates love stories, treats women like dirt, drinks like a fish, is tardy at his job(for he hates it, point noted) but, Veer, his boss (Sameer Soni) does not seem to have the heart to fire him. to be honest I would have fired him in a heartbeat. After all this in the later half of the film he also says something about wanting to go to film school. I am like why ???, what makes you want to go to film school when for the past two hours all you have done at the film set is roll your eyes at the scenes being enacted and pretend to throw up when anything closely related to love is in your vicinity. If you so hated what you did, why work in a place where you are obviously learning nothing, move on...work for a Director who makes the kind of films you would like to make yourself. This is like a wannabe goldsmith working for a blacksmith using the logic "I am learning the tricks of the trade, both use hammers!!!"

Enter Simran (Sonam Kapoor) who loves everything about Love stories, come on the woman seems to reads Erich Seagal's love story every night. How she manages to get any sleep on a bed cluttered with chocolates, flowers, books and the like is a mystery to me...but she does and wakes up every morning looking radiant, heavenly and peaceful as ever, I would be puffy faced, with dark circles and irritable as hell!!! Her life is perfect, she is engaged to the love of her life, loves her job as the Art Director who makes sets for love story films!!! This woman sure made the right choices in heaven before embarking on her journey to earth. Though the lovey-dovey romance with Raj (Sameer Dattani) is a little OTT, what with him sending her flowers everyday and dressing up in the same colors!!

However, opposites attract and we have Simran falling in love with bad boy J, at the cost of wrecking her perfect paradise. The movie is a parade of scenes from bollywood hit movies like DDLJ, K3G etc, all woven together and thrown at us with a "we are making a film within this film, remember" and we were going "Eeww", "How stupid", "Man, what was the director, thinking??", "Will you please say yes, so that all of us can go home" etc, etc,

Even when J professes his love the first time, the dialogue delivery is so flat, it seemed like J is mocking Simran. No wonder she dumped him!!! If you are looking for good clean fun film to watch with your family, this is not the movie for you as it has too many adult jokes which may leave you squirming in you seat. After what seemed like an eternity the movie finally ended and all four of us swore never to watch a movie on its first day, we would wait for the reviews to come in, not the ones published in the tabloids silly, the ones given by other unfortunates who paid their khoon-passine ki kamai for the tickets!!!

My dream cast for this film would have been Konkona Sen and Rahul Bose who would have set the screen on fire...if wishes were horses...

Note: The season of duds continue...if you hate someone from the bottom of your heart, gush about how good this movie is and once they are safely inside the theatre you can rest assured that your bad deed of the day is taken care of as you would have successfully wasted at least two hours of their life.

Girls Day Out!!!

My friend P is true blue gujju and loves her street food. We ( El and I ) visited her place yesterday she took us to the famous Khau Galli in Ghatkopar to eat some as she puts it "time-pass kachra". Narrating an incident from the middle is no fun so as Frauline Maria would say " Lets start from the very beginning ...

P invited El and I to spend a day at her place. Her husband V had to work so we would have the whole place to ourselves, she also offered to take us to Khau Galli in the evening. We agreed as it seemed like a good way to spend a lazy saturday afternoon and an absolutely topping way to spend an evening making our way through the delicacies offered by the street food stalls.

El and I met up a little early at R City Mall and did a bit of Ten Pin bowling (just for the record your truly won) and from there we hit the stores for some window shopping at the expensive boutiques and tried on some dresses at a chain store. I was in the pits as none of the dresses would fit and El had a mini battle on her hands as she tried to lift my spirits. It was only after I ploughed my way through a lovely Irish Caramel Frappe (courtesy EL) and a load of pep talk (again from El) the gist of which was something on the lines of, "the dresses at these stores are actually made for stick insects and not for real women" did I start feeling better.

We had just finished our respective drinks when P called with the all important message"All Clear, you guys can come over". We took a rickshaw and landed at her place around 3 p.m. Since this is an honest account of all that transpired yesterday I have to record that we had to make a few frantic calls to P after we got hopelessly lost (both El and I have absolutely no sense of direction) and P had to come and collect us. But as they say " Alls well that ends well" we finally arrived at her place. We spent a couple of hours chatting (read gossiping), eating pizza(with a wheat bread base, P is very health conscious), playing cards and watched a movie on TV. Time passes really quickly when you are having fun and before you could say "Khau Galli" it was time to go there.

We hit Khau galli at about six-thirty in the evening. The place was positively teeming with people and it seemed like the whole of Mumbai had turned up there for a snack. The aromas from the various stores mingled with each other and gave the place a character of its own. There were stalls selling pav-bhaji, chaat, dosa (some boasting of 40 different styles of dosas), sandwiches, golas, ice-cream etc. Since we had a late pizza lunch (big mistake) none of us were in a mood for anything heavy so we decided against having dosas or sandwiches. At this point I would also like to record that even though the MET department claims that the monsoons have arrived in Mumbai, I beg to differ, apart for a few scattered showers here and there which have done nothing to cool the city, the monsoons have yet to arrive so as a result it is still sweltering hot. This was another reason which really put us off having anything hot. So to cool of a little we started off with pani puri. It felt absolutely divine as we ate the cold-sweet-sour water filled puris. As far as a I could taste the only other ingredient in this manna-for-heaven like dish was boiled whole moong (I dont know what it is called in English and at this point I am feeling too bored to google it). From there we moved on to a small quaint store that P claims has been around since her grandfather's time. Here we had a very unique concoction " Masala Soda" and " Masala Thumbs Up". It may not sound like much but it taste absolutely great. To round things off El and P ate sandwich ice-cream which is a slab of vanilla ice-cream sandwiched between two biscuits, very interesting concept and tasted just about nice.

We did a spot of window shopping (EL and P) and shopping (me) after which I received a sermon from El, when-you-window-shop-you-only-look-you-no-buy which had me meekly nodding my head. As all good things must come to an end it was time to go home, but not before we made plans for a similar outing only change being that we fast the whole day before we hit Khau Galli so as to do justice to the food on offer !!!

Penne in tomato cream sauce

Serves 2

Ingredients:

1 cup penne
1/2 cup tomato ketchup
1 large capsisum (julienne)
1 small carrot (julienne)
1 small tomato (chop finely)
3 -4 cloves of garlic (crushed)
1 tbsp of whipped cream
2 tbsp of olive oil
Chilli flakes
Pepper powder

Method:

1) Cook the penne and keep aside.

2) In a large pan, heat olive oil and add the carrots and capsicum. Let it cook for a couple of minutes, stir frequently.

3) Add the garlic and sauté till the raw smell of garlic disappears.

4) Add the tomato and cook till it softens, now add the tomato ketchup and about a quarter of a cup of water and bring to a boil.

5) Add the whipped cream and let it simmer for a while.

6) Add the cooked penne, chilli flakes and pepper powder and mix well. Cook for about a minute.

7) Serve hot.