Cooking, Gingerly

Recipes Of The Kitchen: And Other Places

Onam is round the corner. It is ten days away, but the pickles and chutneys, which take longer to make, and stay fresh longer, can be created now. The ginger pickle which has several procedures is what needs to be made first. Before one begins, first, and always, a silent prayer from the heart.

Use the bigger pieces of ginger root.

Scrape away the skin of raw, dry ginger. Peeling them might result in a lot of waste. Clean and wash, then pat dry to remove every drop of moisture. Next, cut carefully into blade-thin, diagonal slices. Each piece should have the sharp tang of fresh, dry ginger. Any piece that doesn’t, should be discarded.

If this is done right, each slice will be transparent. Spread out on a large dish, in sunlight for an hour. Then fry a handful at a time, in fresh coconut oil. Keep your eyes and nostrils alert. The resultant brown should be just right. Too little, and the pickle will turn rancid. Too much, and the whole dish will taste burnt. Spread out these fragments, once the frying is done.

Now, I invite the man I live with, into the kitchen. He sighs an exaggerated sigh, but comes along.

We have a smaller house in Melbourne. This means that most things are stowed away after use. This includes the large and mysterious ‘mixie’ my son has presented us with. It has so many permutations and combinations that I was struck all of a heap when I saw it first. The man smiled. He loves technology, and machines and things which go in and out. He understands AC and DC and other strange things. He also understands the rudiments of plumbing, electrical works and carpentry. And he LOVES instruction manuals. He adores them.

“Don’t worry,” he told me, smiling indulgently, when I looked confused and nervous, “I’ll help you.”

I am good at looking confused and nervous.

So he sits down and reads the entire instruction manual, and then potters around fitting the containers and various blades and components of the contraption together. He hums happily and tunelessly to himself.

I look confused and nervous.

His grin grows.

“I got it,” he announces exultantly. I smile, like a proud, confused and nervous mother. Yippee yaaay, I think to myself, but don’t voice the thought. That was 18 months ago. But since I am still lost, the grinding, the pounding, the mixing is done by him.

Now here is what he had thought. He will do all the heavy work, like the fixing and the mixing. But all the light work like the taking apart, the washing each piece separately, the wiping down, and the keeping away each in their respective containers would be done by the good woman of the house.

I would love to assist, indeed I would. You know me. But I don’t know how it is: every time the grinding and the pounding are over, I urgently need to go to the washroom. It must be age catching up on me.

By the time I return, in some time, all the things are kept away. “It is very easy, if you know what to do,” he tells me, watching my face narrowly for tell-tale signs of that cardinal sin, shirking work. I look back at him worshipfully. He takes that as his due and turns away. I turn away, too, so he can’t hear the giggle building up in me.

So now I call him. The mixie calls.

After a coarse grind, the ginger is ready for its next transformation. In the same wok the ginger was fried in, there is sure to be a little oil left over. Heat the oil, and drop in a spoonful of mustard seeds. Cut up a handful of spicy, dark green chillies into thick roundels. Wash and dry a handful of curry leaves. Break three dry dark red chillies into two pieces each. Once the mustard seeds are done spluttering and scolding, turn the gas down and pour in the red and green chillies and the curry leaves.

Mix a tablespoon of tamarind essence in a cup of water. Pour this into the wok, once the curry leaves begin to lose their greenness. Once this mixture begins to boil, gently slide in a small piece of palm or sugarcane jaggery. Allow this to melt and boil. Now gently , a little at a time, add the ginger the man you live with has kept ready for you.

Add the requisite amount of salt, and chilly powder necessary. Turn off the gas.

Wait for this spicy nectar to cool completely. Then store in transparent glass bottles, previously washed and wiped clean of every drop of moisture.

Have it, the next day, with a dish full of rice and thick, home made yoghurt.

Now isn’t that worth a prayer of gratitude?

ⓒ 2023 Suma Narayan. All Rights Reserved.

Courage comes in many forms: and one of them is the ‘never-say-die’ attitude of one of my favourite writers here, on Medium, Margie Willis. Read this, to understand, how she laughs through pain, and creates her raunchy, inimitable, one-of-a-kind limericks, in spite of it.

Shoutout to Monoreena Acharjee Majumdar for this exquisite piece about the companionship of solitude, and how to make space for creativity even within limits and boundaries of life and space:

Priyanka Srivastava writes the kind of poetry that tugs at the heart. They have the lingering fragrance of the soil, sky and stories of India. Here is a poem that is hauntingly beautiful: