Diverse delicacies to mark harvest festival

The upcoming harvest season celebrations not only come with the most delicious dishes, but also depict the diversity in our country. Ahead of Pongal, here are some culinary inspirations for your festive spread from home chefs hailing from different regions residing in Chennai.

migrator|12 Jan 2020 4:10 AM IST

Diverse delicacies to mark harvest festival

Chennai

Bengali Patishapta

Bengali households use the freshly harvested paddy and date palm jaggery in most of their Sankranti dishes. Many of the traditional sweets use rice flour, date palm jaggery, coconut and milk. Among the commonly made dishes are the much-loved pitha (coconut and jaggery stuffed sweet), patishapta (rice flour crepes) and date palm jaggery payesh (pudding). Home chef Sunita Banerji shares her recipe to create patishapta.

Ingredients:

Rice flour: ½ cup

Maida: 1 cup

Semolina: ¼ cup

Milk: a little (to make batter soft)

Date palm syrup: 2 cups

For the filling: Desiccated coconut: 2 ½ cups

Date palm jaggery: 1 cup

Cardamom powder: ½ tsp

Khoya kheer: 1/3 cup

Method:

Add maida, rice flour, semolina, date palm syrup and stir continuously to create a batter. It will slowly turn into a semi-thick batter without lumps.
Add 1 tbsp sunflower oil or milk to the batter to make it soft. Set the batter aside for an hour.
To prepare the filling, make the jaggery into tiny pieces. Take a large pan on medium flame. Add in desiccated coconut and dry roast for 2-3 minutes on medium-low flame. Add jaggery into the pan and mix with coconut flakes.
Once you notice that the jaggery isn’t sticking to the pan, add khoya and stir continuously. Once mixed completely, increase the heat and stir the mixture non-stop for a couple of minutes.
Switch off the flame and sprinkle cardamom powder and transfer immediately to a plate to cool.
To prepare the crepes, take
a flat pan and add a few drops of ghee. Pour over a ladle full of batter and cover the surface with the batter.
Cook the crepe on low flame and flip on both sides.
Once the crepe is cooked, place a patty of the prepared sweet mixture on it and roll the crepe like a frankie.
Serve the dish warm or cold.

Andhra Style Palathalikalu

These are handmade rice hoppers in a richly flavoured milk, a dish that is a well-kept delicious secret among many Telugu-speaking households. Chennai-based entrepreneur and home chef Hyma Sakhamuri shares this recipe which is commonly made during Sankranthi at her family home in Guntur. Besides that, dishes like garelu (medu vada), poornalu (jaggery and lentil stuffed traditional sweet) and palathalikalu figure in the feast, she says. The traditional sweets use freshly harvested jaggery and rice.

Ingredients:

Full cream milk: 1 litre

Rice flour: 1 cup

Jaggery syrup: 1 1/2 cup

Cardamom powder: 1/2 tsp

Sago: 1/4 cup

Water: as needed

Method:

Rice needs to be soaked overnight and drained thoroughly the next day and ground to a very fine powder.
Boil milk in a thick bottom pan. Add in sago once the milk starts to boil and cook until done. Add cardamom powder to this.
Meanwhile, also boil a cup of water along with ½ cup of jaggery syrup. To this mixture, add the rice flour and knead to a thick paste.
Once the sago is cooked and the milk still boiling, use a murukku press to press the dough into the milk.
Let the thaalikalu (thick noodles) cook in the milk for 10 minutes on a low flame. Turn off the heat once done.
Let the mixture cool for about 15 minutes. Add in the remaining jaggery syrup as per your taste.
Garnish the dish with ghee-fried cashews and other dry fruits.

Assamese Coconut Ladoo

Home cook and tattoo artist Mallika Chaudhuri recalls Bihu being her favourite time of the year as her grandmother, or ‘aita’ as she would call her, would make her famous coconut ladoos. Even though dishes like the traditional pitha, made using rice flour, are common in Assamese households during the festive season, every home has its own coconut ladoo recipe, she says.

Ingredients:

Desiccated coconut: 1 cup

Milk: 1 litre

Condensed milk: ¼ cup

Sugar: 100 gm

Semolina: ½ cup (roasted)

Sesame seeds: 2 tbsp

Almonds, pistachios, cashews: ½ cup chopped

Butter: 1 tbsp

Method:

In a deep pan, combine milk and sugar. Keep stirring the mixture over medium heat and when it starts reducing, add in the desiccated coconut.
Let the mixture reduce further till it seems semi solid. Then add the roasted semolina. Mix well and remove from heat.
In a separate pan, melt some butter and fry the chopped nuts and sesame seeds (optional step). Add them to the semi solid mixture once fried.
Grease your palms with ghee and roll out the ladoos. Roll them in extra desiccated coconut and serve.

Thanjavur Ezhu Kari Kootu

This is a dish made with at least seven types of fresh country vegetables, prepared mandatorily in many Tamil homes along with sakkarai pongal and ven pongal, which are commonly made from the new harvest of rice and jaggery. City-based home chef and retired banker Shanthi Ramachandran shares this recipe from the cookbooks of her mother-in-law. The dish, also called thaalaga kuzhambu in Tirunelveli, tastes best served with pongal and kali, she suggests.

Ingredients:

White pumpkin, yellow pumpkin, baby brinjals, flat beans, sweet potatoes, raw banana: (chopped into big pieces) ½ kg mix

Chana dal: ½ cup

Coriander seeds: 2 tsp

Red chillies: 15

Pepper corns: handful Coconut: Freshly grated from a small one

Toor dal: 2 cups

Method:

Take 1.5 cups of water and add the cut vegetables with a teaspoon of turmeric powder. Let it boil for a few minutes with added tamarind juice and rock salt and simmer till the vegetables are cooked, but not too mushy.
Roast and grind into a paste chana dal, coriander seeds, red chillies, pepper corns and coconut and set aside.
Boil 2 cups of toor dal and keep aside.
To the boiled vegetables, add the ground paste, cooked dal and prepare like arachu vitta kuzhambu.
Temper at the end with mustard, methi seeds, dry chillies, curry leaves and a
generous pinch of asafoetida.
The dish should not be like sambar, but thick like kootu. Jaggery can be added, but optional.

—Compiled by Bhavana Akella

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Chennai Chennai Festival Festival Bengali Patishapta Bengali Patishapta Andhra Style Palathalikalu Andhra Style Palathalikalu Assamese Coconut Ladoo Assamese Coconut Ladoo Thanjavur Ezhu Kari Kootu Thanjavur Ezhu Kari Kootu

Diverse delicacies to mark harvest festival

The upcoming harvest season celebrations not only come with the most delicious dishes, but also depict the diversity in our country. Ahead of Pongal, here are some culinary inspirations for your festive spread from home chefs hailing from different regions residing in Chennai.

migrator

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