The Pizzazzy

Saturday morning started with Cholle Bhature. Cholle tasted really great and although the bhatures didn’t turn out soft it tasted real great. A tip to make the cholle great looking as well great tasting is to tie half a tsp of tea leaves in a muslin cloth and add it to the cholle while boiling. This will give the chole the dark colour. And another is not to add any turmeric powder. In the bhatura I added the yeast and curd but the dough turned out little hard and I think I tied the dough in the wet cloth real tight leaving no space for the dough to ferment.

Lunch was delicious prawns pulao. After all that food the dinner was simple varan bhat chappati.

Sunday morning began with another all time favourite of everyone - Poha. Even before the Poha was digested the preparation of Mutton Kheema started and the aroma coming out of the kitchen made everone hungry again. After a good fill of Mutton Kheema, Chappati and Bhaat, we all took a good two hour nap. In the evening we got up to the smell of fresh tea and now it was time for the attraction of the day Pani puri.

Earlier in the day I had made the Imli ki chutney and the green pani, had also soaked a combination of grams and pulses. This was going to be a kalkatta style gol gappa. After boiling potatoes and the grams and pulses together, I mashed them by adding some kala namak, chaat masala, chilli powder.

Now we all were set to start attacking the puris. Me and Mom-in-law started filling the puris with the masala and the cut onions and some sev and filling up everyone’s plate before we could attend to ourselves. The five of us finished around 100 pani puris. Even though our stomachs were full, we couldn’t keep our hands away from the puris and thus was spent a good food filled weekend.

Wasn’t that a lot of food and are you not wondering kya family hai?

Well in the evening when we met Nitin and Shilpa, and Anand was asked to tell three positive things about me the only thing he could manage was that I am a good cook. So, the magic worked and may be the old granny saying that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach is afterall the truth.

It was my last weekend and I had lots of shopping to do. I have been having a difficult time in deciding what to get for everyone back home. I thought may be looking around in malls I can get some nice ideas, so we set out to Plaza Singapura.

Since mum is having a good time looking at the vegetable section of spacious malls I gave her a round of Carrefour. In India the newly coming up departmental stores like pulse, reliance retail are actually quite cramped compared to huge players here.

Once inside the mall, a typical rotten smell hit us. Excuse my use of adjective for the king of fruits Durian. And I told mum this is the fruit which is banned in the MRT and buses here. Durian with it’s typical smell is a fruit that you either love or hate. A week back when my team gave me a farewell party I was forced to try this fruit. Even before registering the taste the smell was so awful that my brain outrightly rejected the taste. I simply cannot understand how anyone can stand this fruit. I asked mum if she wanted to try it. And she made such a face which read how could you even dare to suggest it.

After we crossed the durian section, I got a look at another fruit which I had lost all hopes of ever trying before I left Singapore. Mangosteen, the queen of fruits were nicely lying in heaps. My happiness was sky high at that moment and I started picking up some in a bag. My mum couldn’t comprehend what all the excitement was about so I explained her how I have read about mangosteen and wanted to try them. But because they were out of season I was very disappointed. Durian is also out of season but the good people at Carrefour could still stock both the king and the queen of fruits.

After reaching home when I cracked open the mangosteen to reveal the white mushy fruit, mum was equally excited and said “ohh this is cow” and she was transported back to her childhood. Well, cow is what it is called in Manipuri and both of us finished the great tasting fruit. The fruit is aptly called Queen of fruits although why Durian the smelly one is called the king I don’t understand.

The mangosteen is a truly tropical fruit, once opened has a white fruit inside which is plum like in texture and sweet with a faint hint of acidity. This fruit is perfect when it comes to the taste with seeds which may or may not be present. You can read all about mangosteen at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangosteen.

Now when I want to compile a list of my favourite fruits definitely mangosteen steals the second place right below Mangoes and on top of yet another personal favorite, custard apple. And if you are anywhere in world where you can grab a mangosteen, I would personally recommend you to taste this exquisite fruit. And that’s not all, this sweetheart of a fruit comes with a lot of health benefits also.

I did what I had planned to do and also managed to not do everything that I planned to do. I made besan ke laddoo as planned but due to lack of enthusiasm from hubby dear I couldn’t make nariyal ki barfi. Why I blame him? Well he simply refused to visit the wet market for grated coconut.

The wet markets in Singapore sell freshly grated coconut, infact one can chose white or black. White meaning only the white part of the coconut flesh without the brown layer. Otherwise the brown is also grated with the white. This was one of the conveniences out of so many in Singapore for me. I am really bad with grating coconut and usually end up cutting it and running the pieces in a grinder. Lotza hard work there. Here I just go to the nice lady at wet market and say 250 grams. And it takes her only a minute to grate and give it to me.

After taking a look at the laddoo, Anand was like ‘Why do you want to make Nariyal Barfi also? This is enough! Who will finish this?’ And he gave an assaulted look as if having the laddoos was an absolute torture. I also held my fort and gave him a hurt look enough to make him realize what he just said was not fair. After all I had taken around 2 hours for preparing it and at one point patiently waited for the laddoo paste to cool off and attain a consistency so that I could easily roll them into small balls. All that effort and not even a word of praise.

Even though I had used what I did last year and tried to replicate the taste, color and look with the exact quantity used last time, the paste was too soft and pulpy for some unknown reasons. The ghee proportion turned out to be more than desired. So, I had to finally keep it overnight to be able to roll them into laddoos. In the end I got the look and the taste but now I have to keep it in the fridge so that it does not melt back into the paste.

Take a look and if this is not worth taking a bite my Diwali is not happy enough. But the thing is I can only serve this to friends who will be visiting us. Yesterday when I carried the laddoos in a nice little dabba for my friends who had invited us for dinner, the tragedy struck right when in an effort to offer them sweets while I wished them a happy Diwali I opened the dabba and phew.. The perfectly round besan ke laddoos had turned into equally perfect besan ka halwa.

And with this attempt once again my foray into sweets begins. So best of luck to friends around me. Happy Diwali.