Owen: "Where's the spaghetti?"

Better my photo of the Manvar blacksmith than my photo of the meatball curry.

Gosh. I thought I was sparing everyone by not writing travel logs from India and now I feel like I've fallen down on the job. Maybe there's a way to work my "twisted little takes on things" into forthcoming posts on The Suriani Kitchen.

Last night we jumped in. Why not? It's been a while since I tackled an out-there ethnic cookbook and I'm pretty excited by the prospect of steamed riceball cakes and ripe mango curry. My excitement was somewhat checked by glitches in the first recipes I tried, and I just now read one that says to braise short ribs for 20 minutes. If you've ever braised a short rib, you know this is a mistake. But if The Suriani Kitchen doesn't pan out over the next few meals, I'll just move on to Sri Lankan cuisine.

for atmosphere

Some facts:

-Syrian Christians are called "Suriani" in Kerala.
-Suriani have lived in Kerala, a state in southwest India, since approximately AD 52 when Saint Thomas the Apostle arrived.
-Unlike their Hindu brethren, Syrian Christians eat beef. Unlike their Muslim brethren, they eat pork. But mostly they eat fish.
-In northern India, wheat is the staple which is why Owen and I ate so much naan when we were there. In Kerala, the staple is rice and they make bread, fritters, porridges, cookies, and cakes from rice flour.
-The author of The Suriani Kitchen, Lathika George, is a professional landscape designer, but even she has struggled to grow a curry tree outside of Kerala. I feel better about my failures on that front. Should I try again?
-Writes George: "My mother, Thangamma, like most mothers around the world, believed that the strongest bonds between children and their culture are forged through food and the preparation of meals."

We are in deep trouble in my household if Thangamma is correct.

The meal I prepared last night, unobserved by either of my children:

meatball curry
string bean saute
basmati rice
Ozark pie

problems and thoughts:

meatball curry

-Mixed as directed, the meat mixture (I used lamb) was too slimy and wet to form into balls. I fixed that by adding 1/4 cup of breadcrumbs.
-George is omits important details, like whether to seed the chilies or not. I took them out. If I was cooking only for myself, I would leave them in.
-She calls for ginger paste and garlic paste, but doesn't explain what these are or how to make them, so I just put ginger and garlic up in the spice grinder and what I scooped out a minute later sure looked like paste.
-She calls for 6 cups of water in the gravy. I knew that was too much but added it anyway and then had to cook the bejesus out of the sauce to give it a little body.
-She calls for too little salt.

After I solved these small but annoying technical problems, the meatball curry (kofta karri) was outstanding. Tender meatballs in a rich curry that had a lovely sourness to it from yogurt and lime juice. I set a high bar for posting meatball recipes. A meatball has to be better than Nancy Silverton's Mozza meatballs to warrant the effort of typing the instructions. These weren't better than the Mozza meatballs, but they were excellent and so completely different I'm going to type out the instructions anyway.

string bean saute

George calls for cooking the fresh beans in water until the water evaporates. Problem: they were getting soggy long before the water evaporated. I drained them and proceeded to stir fry.  Everyone liked them, but they weren't special and I was bothered by the sogginess. Do Indians ever cook vegetables al dente? Maybe the recipe is correct. I just really don't like soggy green beans.

Ozark pie

As you perhaps guessed, this recipe didn't come from The Suriani Kitchen. It came from Ken Haedrich's Pie. I was really plagued with recipe glitches last night, because he calls for 1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder when I knew in my bones he meant 1 1/2 teaspoons. I used 1 1/2 teaspoons and the crustless pie worked beautifully. It's very similar to this amazing Huguenot torte, but not quite as amazing. Make the Huguenot torte.

You can see the pie on the right side of the butcher block table.

That is some awesome food styling.

This was our first home cooked family dinner in a long time and the food was superb. No one complained; I think we're finally past that. I wish I could say it was a joyful evening of sharing and family harmony, but some of us are having a rough transition back to school and there's been a lot of anguish around the house. It will pass. This was a magical summer. We miss it.

Meatball Curry adapted from The Suriani Kitchen:

meatballs:

1 pound ground lamb
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 teaspoons minced green chili (I used serrano, removed the seeds)
1 1/2 teaspoons minced cilantro leaves
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 cup dry breadcrumbs

cashew paste:
1/2 cup raw cashews
1/4 cup cilantro
1 tablespoon fresh mint leaves
3 green chilies (serrano, seeds removed)

1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
2 tomatoes, chopped (she calls for quartering them, but: too bulky)
1 tablespoon ginger paste (put ginger in spice grinder or mash in mortar)
2 tablespoons garlic paste (put garlic in spice grinder or mash in mortar)
1 cup plain yogurt
2 tablespoons ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
3 cups water (she says 6, but I would go with half that)
1 tablespoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
1 tablespoon lime juice (don't skip this)

1. In a bowl, mix all the meatball ingredients and shape into 1-inch balls. Set aside for 1 hour.

2. In a food processor or with a mortar and pestle, grind the ingredients for the cashew paste into cashew paste.

3. Heat the oil in a skillet and fry the meatballs for a few minutes until browned on all sides. Remove to a plate.

4. Fry the onion in the same oil until soft. Add the tomatoes, ginger paste, and garlic paste and fry for 2 more minutes. Add the yogurt and cashew paste and stir-fry "until the oil rises to the top." (Ok, this was  mysterious to me and I never saw the oil rise to the top. I just let it cook until it looked thick and well amalgamated.)

5. Add the spices and continue frying for 1 minute. Add the water and salt. Bring to a boil.

6. Put the meatballs in the curry sauce and simmer over low heat for 10 minutes or until the meatballs are cooked through. Add the lime juice. Serves 4 generously.

One day I'll go back to coffee, but meanwhile

Hotel chai looks boring, just like coffee.

India is how I imagine much of the world was until a century ago: unregulated, fecund, profuse, haphazard, earthy, dirty, vital. It's like a giant compost heap, and I mean that in the nicest way. Driving through San Francisco on our way home from the airport I thought, where are all the people? Where are all the carts? The animals? Where is all the life?

Back to cookbooks, with preamble.

The highlight of the trip to India, for me, came on the last day when our bags were packed and I was counting the hours until takeoff. We were staying in New Delhi, which is (relatively!) clean and orderly. We decided to visit Old Delhi, which is not. We found ourselves in a byzantine warren of alleys and streets that I imagine looks little different than it did in 1912. It seemed to stretch forever in all directions, both temporal and spatial, and was teeming with people, spice shops, silk shops, kitchenware shops, ribbon shops and at least one man with a cobra in a box. I saw things I have never seen, like sticky, wet cakes of asafoetida. I saw people selling khoya and paneer and milk pails and stands that have been producing deep-fried snacks since the 1870s. Vendors were squeezing green oranges into juice, which was almost irresistible given the heat, as were the open bottles of fresh lime soda. I saw pots of chai boiling on little burners right there on the street and served in tiny cups on overturned crates. There was also a lassi stall where they served the yogurt in disposable terra cotta cups. Walking around here was my favorite hour of the entire trip.

Unfortunately, I did not feel it was prudent to eat those snacks or drink anything at all, but in another life, on another vacation, traveling without an 11-year-old boy, married to a doctor who could hook me up to a Cipro drip? I would.

Twelve hours later at the airport bookstore I bought:

-Camellia Panjabi's 50 Great Curries of India. This is a beautifully illustrated and thoughtfully written cookbook. Panjabi begins by explaining that what most Westerners know of Indian cooking is actually Punjabi cooking, from one small corner of India, and that there is much, much more. Which is true. Then she explains that she sifted through the mountain of regional Indian recipes and pulled out the very best, most classic recipes. I planned to start cooking from this book the second I got home. Alas, once I did, perusal of negative amazon reviews made me doubt the merits of the book. What do I do? Should I try a few recipes just to see? I'm undecided. I hate false starts.

-Delhicious by David Elias. Bright softcover with lots of gorgeous photos of people, cows, and street food accompanied by recipes for things I wanted to try, but couldn't, like limeade with black Himalayan salt. (You have to be an incredibly thirsty Westerner walking around Delhi to understand how alluring such beverages can become. Trust me on this.)

-The Suriani Kitchen: Recipes and Recollections from the Syrian Christians of Kerala by Lathika George. How could I not? Just the title alone. I am especially intrigued by the crab curry and banana jelly. Amazon reviews are glowing, though no one seems to have cooked from the book. Do I plunge into this one?

Thirty hours later, we got home and I fell into a fathomless pit of sleep.

The next morning I pulled out Delhicious to try the recipe for chai. You all know about chai, right? It's a hot, milky, spice-infused black tea that is served in India everywhere, at all times of day. It is supposedly healthy because of the salubrious spices. I don't know about that, but I see no reason you couldn't make it with green tea, which would definitely be healthy.

The ingredients in the Delhicious recipe -- whole cardamom cloves, cinnamon stick, tea -- were listed out of order. That was a bad sign. I proceeded, although the quantity of tea leaves seemed scant and the tea was not steeped. It was no surprise that the chai was weak and pale. Big demerit for Delhicious. I'll keep it for the photos, but will probably not cook from it.

The next morning I made chai according to this Kitchn recipe and it is superb.

The next morning, I was colossally tired and made coffee, thinking it would perk me up. I fell asleep mid-morning.

Yesterday, I made chai according to a recipe from this blog, started by a couple who went on a chai pilgrimage. It was excellent, but I didn't like waiting for the water and ginger to boil for 10 to 15 minutes.

This morning, I combined the same couple's house chai recipe with the Kitchn's, and it is the best chai I've made. This is what I did:

3 cups water
a few slices fresh ginger
1 small piece cinnamon stick
10 green cardamom pods, crushed in a grinder or mortar
1 clove
5 allspice berries
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
a big pinch saffron
1 heaping tablespoon black tea
1 cup whole milk
sugar to taste (optional and delicious, though I don't use it because I consume enough already)

1. Start heating the water while you slice the ginger. Add the ginger to the water along with the cinnamon stick. Let this come to a boil while you gather your other ingredients at a leisurely pace.

2. Add your other other ingredients. Bring the tea back to a boil. Turn off heat. Steep for 2 minutes. Strain into a teapot or very large mug and drink immediately. Serves 2.

On another subject, I just read T.C. Boyle's new novel, San Miguel. In closing I will share the Depression era dinner menu cooked by one of his characters:

"In addition to two legs of lamb, mashed potatoes, chili beans and the traditional hot sauce, she was planning a pudding of canned pineapple, odds and ends of bread, cornmeal, sugar and leftover bananas that had gone black and densely sweet since the last delivery, the whole to be tied up in a muslin sack and steamed in her big pot. To start, there'd be clam fritters wrapped in bacon, and a half dozen loaves of sourdough bread. . . "

It sounds repulsive, that pudding, but I can't get it out of my head.

I need my ruby slippers!

Jaipur, the pink city, was a bit damp.

We're back in Delhi waiting for our flight home. . . in 28 hours. I would start walking right now, barefoot, if it would speed our return. Tomorrow we're going to see more of Delhi, but I really just want to eat some butter chicken at Karim's and get on that midnight plane. I'm going to buckle the seatbelt, open a tiny bottle of Delta's finest red, toast the accomplishment of a lifelong goal, put on the headphones, and fall into a stupor watching Prometheus.

Do I make it sound like we haven't had fun in India? We've had lots of fun. But I didn't expect to relax and haven't. I feel braced for disaster even when sleeping. I'm a hyper-vigilant Western princess! Between terrifying road conditions (camels, tractors, speeding trucks, overturned buses, sleeping cows, naked toddlers), ignoring sad beggar children, avoiding belligerent cows, avoiding noisome bathrooms, remembering to take the malaria pills, scrutinizing every morsel that goes in Owen's mouth, wondering if a cap-sleeve dress is modest enough for rural Rajasthan . . .

It's a lot harder than pricing peaches at Whole Foods.

Tourist miscellany:

From a buffalo? Cow? Goat? Definitely unchilled.

-In Jaipur, we saw farmers pedaling around with giant cans of milk that they deliver from the countryside every morning. According to our Jaipur guide, most Indians prefer their milk "fresh and raw." (They heat it upon delivery, so it is not technically raw when consumed.) He added that much local milk these days is watered down and then doctored with additives to give it a thicker mouthfeel. I blame bad milk in hot chocolate for Owen's upset stomach, which has come and gone and come and gone the entire trip and was last seen at noon today. Tomorrow, he is not allowed to drink hot chocolate. And I may rethink the butter chicken. (I have been fine. Probably gained weight. NOT COMPLAINING.)

-People make the yogurt, buy the paneer. Or so said our Jaipur guide. If I ever come back to India, I need better culinary sources.

-Diet is tightly linked to caste. Very low caste Hindus eat the pigs that you see rooting around in the garbage. Brahmins aren't supposed to eat meat at all. When you order "mutton" at a restaurant you are probably eating goat. We ate "mutton" on one occasion and it was delicious. I am truly sorry, Natalie.

-After I swore off shopping in India altogether, we ended up in one last textile shop. Walking toward the front door, I steeled myself for the onslaught of the salesmen. I told Kumar, no thanks, I absolutely didn't want to try on a sari.

And it was the ugliest sari there.

But suddenly I was wearing a sari. I also said no to the block-print tablecloth, but somehow it is now in our suitcase.

  I still like that kid.

-Gunpowder chutney. I mixed it with ghee and drizzled it on masala dosa this morning and am definitely making this fabulous condiment when I get home. Ditto lemon pickle.

-The Taj Mahal. So perfect, I almost cried.

I wrote a report on this in 4th grade.

No, this trip has been fantastic. 

Like a horse heading back to the barn

I think this is a bhakri (buck).

Friends, I have never been more puzzled and exhausted and overwhelmed and overheated and overexcited than I have been on this India vacation and what blog posts I mentally compose during the day are lost because there is rarely internet in our hotel rooms. I'm currently sitting outside in the soupy 8:45 a.m. heat to bring you this, whatever this is.

Other than "thank-you," I have learned three Hindi words on this trip. Bhakra, which means goat. Gai, which means cow. And bhens, which means water buffalo. Don't laugh if you know how to spell in Hindi. I'm just trying to get my dairy animals straight so I can figure out what kind of milk they are using in the chai. This morning it was gai milk. The other day: bhens. Sometimes it is made with bhakra milk, which one waiter told me is excellent, although the waiter this morning told me bhakra milk it is far too salty. People are funny about milk. The chai made with bhens milk was extremely rich and fattening -- check out the calories. Whoa. I think some of the really amazing and velvety paneer we've eaten has been made with bhens milk. Does anyone raise bhens in the United States? Someone should. All you need is a big muddy pond where they can wallow.

I'm not going to lie, I'm ready to go home. I woke up this morning and thought, only four more mornings in India! It is wearisome, navigating in this crazy heat, ignoring the relentless salesmen, and making Owen wash his hands every five minutes. Did you see Best Exotic Marigold Hotel? Mostly I feel like Tom Wilkinson, but I regret to say that I can identify with Maggie Smith.

Would my husband be upset if I brought one home?

I will never, ever admit to a Penelope Wilton moment.

Everything I can write in 20 minutes

unavoidable camel ride

Amusing fact: The term shampoo is derived from an old Indian word, and yet in hotels that cater to Westerners today the little bottle in the shower is labeled hair cleanser.

Tedious: analyzing every single item we eat for potential contamination with droplets of tap water. Very insulting to certain waiters when you won't touch the complimentary fruit plate. I can see why, but I'm still not going to eat those pears.

Exhausting: oh, the hateful sales pitches. I've realized at great expense that the only way I'm going to come home financially solvent is to not walk into another Indian store. At the textiles co-op yesterday Owen kept whispering to me, "Please stop Mom. Dad is going to be so mad."

unavoidable shopping

He is right.

Strangely comforting: watching The Walking Dead with Owen at night makes me homesick!

Interesting: You never see an Indian woman's shoulders, but it is considered perfectly ok for women of advanced years to reveal their bellies. And they are clearly not doing a lot of crunches.

Jaisalmer street scene

 I think they look beautiful. Time's up.

If it's Tuesday, this must be Jaisalmer

It's true about the cows in India.

I was going to post earlier about our trip, but before we left I was too busy buying mosquito repellent with DEET and trying to figure out what to pack that was both extremely modest and extremely lightweight (failed! wearing jeans and long-sleeved shirts day after day in mighty heat), and once we got to India my head started spinning and hasn't stopped. This is our sixth day and I am even less certain of what to write than I was on the first when I had a few "clever" observations that now seem completely fatuous.

one of our hotels

A short list of what we have seen: dead cows, live cows, New Delhi, Hindu temples, crumbling mosques, torrential rains, desert sands, magical palaces, sandstone forts, muddy towns, goats, an active outdoor crematorium complete with bone shards, carts pulled by camels, flies, dogs, lovely saris, flooding, donkeys, pilgrims walking barefoot along the highway, bats, peacocks, and bread baking in a tandoor oven.

How hard to build one? 

Of course, that made us think of our cob oven-in-progress back home, as did an old cob house.

The house had a mortar dug right into the floor for grinding spices.

While touring this house, we were photographed by a tour bus group from rural India, all men, who treated us like Brad and Angelina, a surreal experience that I will not allow to be repeated. People stare at us wherever we go. Despite my long sleeves, jeans, and chubby middle age, they stare mostly at me, which feels the opposite of flattering.

The food is amazing except when it is warmed over and mediocre in a steam tray at a hotel buffet. We are eating strictly vegetarian because someone told me it was easier to avoid getting sick that way. I don't miss meat. I have drunk no alcohol or coffee since I got here and, to my surprise, don't miss them either. I drink chai in the mornings. Owen drank some chai, but then felt sick for 36 hours and says he is done with chai forever. Every other conversation starts, "Mom, you know in that game Marvel Avengers Alliance. . . ?" Or, "Who's your favorite superhero?"

Other than that, I couldn't hope for a better, sweeter, more spirited companion.

I miss Mark and Isabel, though. They didn't want to come. I get that and I get that even more now that we are here. India is a challenging place to visit and you really need to be up for it. That said, this trip is a strange, beautiful adventure I wish we were sharing with them.