Sindhi Cooking

Last weekend, “A”’s mom, Bina Auntie taught (or directed and translated for her cook to teach) me a few yummy Sindhi dishes. Occasionally, “A”’s grandma would advice as well. I’d like to tell you more about the Sindhi people and how they originated from Sindh province, which is now in Pakistan and the migration of Hindu Sindhs to India but you could read all about it here.


Masala - used in most if not every one of the dishes.

ELICHI CHAWAL (Cardamom Rice)

Ingredients
1 cup basmati rice
¼ cup half mung dahl
9 cardamom
2 tbsp oil
1 ½ tsp salt (or to taste)
1 ½ cup of water

Method
* Soak rice and dahl for an hour
* Fry cardamom in oil in a deep pot until fragrant
* Add rice and dahl to pot and fry at high heat and until most moisture is gone
* Add salt
* Add water and bring to a boil
* Lower heat, cover pot with lid and cook for about 20 minutes or till rice is soft. If you’d like rice to be al dente, leave pot slightly uncovered.
* Serve with the other Sindhi dishes. Yummm.

METHI MACCHI (Fenugreek Fish)

Ingredients
5 seer fish fillet (I haven’t tried but I think you could also use Mackeral)
2 handful of methi (fenugreek leaves only), rinsed 4 times and chopped
3 med. onions, chopped
4 med tomato, chopped
1 tbsp blend of ginger, garlic and green chili paste (equal amount of ginger and garlic and one green chili)
Juice of ½ lime
¾ cup of water
6 tsp oil
2 tsp salt
1 tsp garam masala
½ tsp haldi (tumeric)
¾ tsp dhania powder (cilantro)
½ tsp jeera powder (cumin)


Methi (or fenugreek leaves)

Method
* Fry onion in oil
* Add ginger garlic chili paste and fry until brown
* Add tomatoes and fry until soft
* Add masala into and continue frying
* Add methi, fry
* Squeeze ½ lime into dish and continue cooking
* Add a little water and bring to boil
* Add fish fillets
* Add salt to taste and gently stir. Try not to turn fish. Fish fillets should submerge in gravy.
* Cook for 8-10 minutes and serve with Cardomom Rice.

PEAS ALOO (Peas and Potatoes)

Ingredients
3 clove garlic, chopped
4 small tomatoes, chopped
2 small potatoes, cubed
3 handfuls of peas (can be frozen)
½ green chili, chopped (optional)
1 tsp garam masala
½ tsp jeera powder (cumin)
½ tsp dhania powder (cilantro)
¼ tsp haldi (tumeric)
¼ tsp chili powder

Method
* Fry garlic until fragrant
* Add tomatoes (and chopped green chili, if you like) and cook for 15 minutes or until stewy in medium heat.
* Add salt to taste. Remove pan from stove and let cool.
* On a separate pot, boil chopped potatoes in salted water.
* Blend stewed tomato until smooth
* Pour blended tomatoes into pan again, add some water and bring to boil
* Add all the masala (garam masala, jeera, etc..) and cook for 5 minutes. Gravy should not be too thick.
* Add peas and boiled potatoes into tomatoes. Cook for a bit and dish is ready to be served. Oh, oh and add some chopped coriander as garnish.

ALOO TIKKI (Potato cutlet)

Ingredients
6-8 med potatoes boil whole with skin
Handful of dhania (coriander)
2 slices of toasted bread make into breadcrumbs (about 1 cup)
1 tsp dhania powder (coriander)
1 tsp jeera powder (cumin)
½ tsp chili powder
¾ tsp salt

Method
* Mash and mix potatoes with all the masalas (dhania, jeera, chili powders) until smooth
* Add and mix in bread crumbs
* Taste, add salt if needed
* Oil hands; take enough potato mixture to make a golf ball. Flatten slightly and set aside.
* Fry potato cutlet into very hot oil (if you like, you can test oil temperature with a tiny ball of potato mixture. If potato becomes bubbly in oil, you’re all set. Fry away!)
* Serve aloo tikki with green chutney. Recipe of green chutney TBA.

Thank you for sharing and thank you for your very warm and generous hospitality, Bina Auntie, Viyay Uncle and Dadi!

Munnar

I was planning to go to Dharamshala last week but people flaked. I can’t help but think "A" felt sorry for me and gave in to my whine to go on a “short” road trip to Munnar, a mountainous area with tea estate in the state of Kerala. It turned out Munnar is no where close to “short”.

Thinking the whole drive will take about 8 hours, we started off from Bangalore at 1pm. The first 3.5 hours of the drive wasn’t bad since the highway was fairly flat and properly tarred. We stopped at a small town call Salem for some tasteless, stale sandwiches and I called the hotel in Munnar only to find out that it would take another 7 hours to reach. Not paying too much attention to that statement, we drove on but took a wrong turn, went too far ahead to turn back and ended up at a town call Madurai.

What’s driving on an Indian highway like? Imagine you’re going 120km/hr (speed limit according to the road signs is 50km/hr) and vehicles of all sizes (i.e. motorcycles, enormous lorries and bullock carts) haphazardly coming from the opposite direction, when there is a divider that clearly separates traffic for each directions. Now imagine this scenario post-sunset with no street lights. Hence, to pamper ourselves, we decided to spend a night at Madurai at a super sweet hotel call Taj Garden Retreat.

Madurai
Taj Garden Retreat (or now known as Gateway Hotel) is peacefully located on a 64 acre hilltop on beautifully landscaped grounds with white colonial bungalows converted to hotel rooms. Facilities include swimming pool with a stunning view of town, tennis court, and a tour around the estate. The standard rooms were taken, so we splurged a little and went with the executive room priced at about Rs9000/night.

Apparently, there are about 80 or so tame peacocks running lose in this estate.

Sri Meenakshi Temple – open 7am-7pm but close for visitors from 12noon-4pm. Since we got here at 2:30pm, we were not allowed into the temple but the exterior of the temple was equally gorgeous.

Just like any functioning Indian temple, you will have to cover your shoulders and knees. If you find yourself in shorts, you can buy a dhoti for Rs100 in the temple complex.

Negotiating with temple guards to enter.

The drive from Madurai to Munnar supposedly takes about 5 hours, but we didn’t get to Munnar till about 9 hours later because it would be too easy if we did. When we reached the foothills of Munnar, we were told the road is closed during the day for the whole month because the roads needed tarring.

Munnar




It was worth the wait. Munar is like a never ending rolling mountain with beautifully manicured tea plantation. We stayed at Tall Tree Resort, which was a bit difficult to find in the dark but offers a pretty good deal with its cottage rooms that includes all meals and activities.


Tall Tree resort

One of the two very hard treks we did brought us all the way up the mountain top. At some point of the trek, I thought I was going to slip on a pebble and die. The last time I worked so hard on a trek was the 7-hour hike on the French Alps in Grenoble with Monsieur Granger (Helena’s father-in-law). After about climbing about 2 hours, we reached here.

It was sad to leave Munnar after only staying for only 2 days but "A" thought we should head out early since it will take us about 2 days to drive back but of course we both know he was super thrilled about go-karting in Coimbatore’s Kari Motor Speedway race track. In uneventful Coimbatore, we spent a night at the nicest hotel in town call The Residency at Rs6000/night. The following morning, we were somehow given the wrong directions and got lost and never made it to the race track. I could tell "A" was upset but he got over it quickly because we were heading back to Bangalore in time to catch the Mouse on Mars concert, which turned out to be awesome and I don’t even like electronic music.

More Madurai road trip pictures

Andaman Islands

Let me start off by saying that 5 days is NOT enough.


Havelock Island sunset

Flight - You can catch direct flights to Port Blair from Calcutta and Chennai. We left Bangalore at 5am and reached Havelock Island at 5pm (Flight Bangalore-Chennai 2 hrs, Chennai-Port Blair 1.5 hrs, ferry ride Port Blair-Havelock 2.5 hrs and many hours to kill in between). Flight costs about US$350, which is pretty much the cost for a Bangalore – Port Blair all throughout the year. Geographically, Andaman is closer to Thailand but Andaman follows the Indian time zone, hence sunrise at 5 a.m. and subsets at 5 p.m. We were told by a local auto-rickshaw driver that a boat ride from Thailand takes about 30 minutes.

Hotel - My first choice was Pristine Resort, which offers huts the size of a single bed with shared bathrooms at Rs100 (US$2) or a double story hut at Rs1000 but because my roommate is inclined to stay at luxurious hotels, we instead stayed at Wild Orchid that costs about Rs5000/night (US$100).


Havelock is a tiny island. We rented a motorbike for 2 days and rode around the north side of the island. On the ride to the east coast to Beach #7, we passed the very tranquil and simple lives of the local villagers.


Beach #7, Havelock Island


Beach #7, Havelock Island


Elephant ride on the beach.

There’s really not much to do on the Andaman Islands unless you scuba dive or snorkel. We took a Scuba Divers course (2 chapters short to be fully certified with Open Water Diving) at Barefoot on Havelock Island. Preparing to dive is as complicated as preparing to go to space. My first dive was scary as hell but once I was 12 meters underwater, surrounded by colorful corals and circled by what seems to be a thousand blue yellow fishes, I was in a state of bliss. I had some problems equalizing the pressure in my ears on every dive and some saltwater got into my right ear and blocked it for a few days, but regardless, I find it easier to learn how to dive than to learn how to surf.


Dive boats on Havelock Island


Port Blair laundry. According to our auto-rickshaw driver, the island's laundry used to be done on the beach but had caused some polution, so they were moved to this little pond and now is free for all to use.


Port Blair Cellular Jail, aka "Kala Pani" or "Black Water" known to house many Indian freedom fighters back in the early 1900s.

More Andaman Pics