Fish/shrimp Pickle (kerala Style) And A Song

During my Engineering college days at Belgaum, we had a few senior students who were ultimate singers. Even though I don’t call myself as a music lover, I particularly liked the songs of one person. Some of us called him Junior S.P.Balasubramanium (a famous playback singer). After college, I heard from few common friends that he is taking his singing very seriously and working towards a career in it along with his job of software engineer. Since I didn’t know this person personally nor I had any kind of contact with him, I didn’t hear about him for couple of years.

Then one fine day, my husband V told me that he met Sunil Koshy in social networking site orkut. Apparently they knew each other well in college. They had met after a long time. I think V told him about my site and he sent me an email saying he liked it a lot. I can’t say how happy I was to get his feedback. We exchanged a few emails/chats. Well..the irony of whole situation is, I didn’t know he was from Kerala all this time. In the college, the most popular song he sung was “ Karunada taayi sada chinmayee “(this is a Kannada song) and I never realized he didn’t know to speak Kannada.

Finally, after his all friends pushed him enough, he has started a music blog. I feel very honored to know such an amazing singer. If you are a music lover, watch out his blog . There are just couple of songs as of now, but he will update it soon.

Here is one song that I absolutely love. We wish him a very bright future. Please leave your feedback here or at his blog, let him know how you like the song. Thanks.

Here is the picture of fish version

Ingredients: 1 lb cleaned shrimp or 1 lb fish cut into small pieces 2 tea spns chili powder 1/4 tea spn turmeric powder 2 tea spns + 1/2 tea spn mustard seeds 1/2 tea spn methi (fenugreek) seeds 1/8 tea spn asafoetida powder 2-3 green chilies 1 tbl spn ginger finely chopped 20-25 curry leaves Oil 1 tbl spn vinegar Salt

Method: Apply chili powder, salt and turmeric to the fish/shrimps and keep it aside for about 15-30mins.

Then heat a little oil and fry till they are done. Keep them aside.

Heat a little oil and fry mustard seeds (2 tea spns) and methi seeds. Just before taking out of heat, add asafoetida. Grind them to make a powder. Heat a little oil and add remaining mustard seeds. When they start popping, add chopped chilies, ginger and curry leaves. Fry for about a minute. ( Sunil had mentioned adding chili powder again at this stage, which I ignored because I had already added a lot for marination ). Add the ground powder, vinegar and if required, some salt (be careful while adding salt since the shrimp/fish has it already). Mix and then add shrimp/fish and close the lid ( I closed the lid to seal in all the flavors of curry leaves and ginger ). After about a 1-2mins, take out the lid, mix well and take off heat. Cool to room temperature and store in air tight container. It can be consumed immediately. I have refrigerated it upto 2 weeks and the taste went on increasing day by day (I think this remains good for a long time).

Preparation time : 30mins

PS: Make sure all the vessels that are used for making/storing this pickle and the mixer are completely dry. Any moisture spoils the pickle.

Wish you all a very happy Sankranti.

This year I wanted to make something special for Sankranti . While growing up, this was one of my favorite festivals. For me, the most important part of this festival is Tilgul – Til (sesame seeds) and gud (jaggery). We give spoonful of tilgul to others and say – “ tilgul ghya goaD goaD bola “(take tilgul and talk sweet), which finally evolved into “Take sweet, talk sweet and be sweet” in schools. We kids used to have a competition to see who collects more tilgul . It was so much fun.

Before these fancy white colored tilguls (which have become just sugar drops these days) dominated the market, either sesame laddoos or sesame seeds covered with thin layer of sugar were very popular among Konkanis. People started getting fancy with these and sesame, peanuts, cashews, saunf(badishepi) etc covered with sugar started getting popular. Making these at home is very difficult and known to only few people. They need correct consistency of sugar syrup to get perfect tilguls . At my place, even though we share these white tilguls , some people still have kept the tradition of giving the sesame laddoos along with them.

I wanted to try making tilgul at home this year. But I am very bad at making sugar syrup. Aayi correctly said I can’t make it – “neither you have patience nor have you ever seen the process. So do not attempt it”. She never says that to me, so when she stressed so much, I thought its better not to try. She promised me that she will teach me when I visit her. So I thought comparatively easier sweet – tila laddu . After burning my hands in the process and loosing patience more than once, I got these beautiful laddoos . They tasted great. Aayi always makes them in huge batches and all of them in same size and shape. Looks like I need a lot more practice. I think molasses is little more easier to handle than the normal jaggery, so if you find it, use it.

Ingredients: 1 cup sesame seeds (white) 2 tbl spn roasted, peeled and halved peanuts (ground nuts) 1/2 cup jaggery 1/2 tea spn cardamom powder Ghee

Method: Wash the sesame seeds in water. Drain the water and spread the seeds on a clean kitchen towel for about 15-20mins(they need not dry completely). Roast them on a medium flame till they start popping and nice aroma comes out of them. Take them off heat.

Heat jaggery with 2 tbl spn water. Traditionally it is made with molasses (the black colored liquid jaggery, do not add water if you are using molasses). I tried here with the normal solid one. Keep the heat on medium, because jaggery gets burnt very easily.

Take little water in a plate and add a drop of the jaggery in it. The jaggery should sit like a drop without getting diluted. That shows it has reached the required consistency. Now add the sesame seeds and peanuts. Mix well. Take off the heat, add the cardamom powder. Mix again.

Take a big spoonful of the mixture on a clean plate (this is to help in easy cooling) & keep the remaining tightly closed(this mixture gets hard very soon, so need to keep it covered all the time). Apply some ghee to your palms and make small balls of the mixture from the plate.

PS: Once the mixture is cooled, you cannot make the laddoos , so you need to work fast when it is still hot. Be careful not to burn your hands (the mixture at this stage is really really hot). Taking small portions on a plate helps to manage small portions at a time. If the mixture cools off fast, then, heat it again for sometime till it melts and repeat the procedure. If you cannot manage to make the laddoos , due to lack of time or patience, just spread the mixture on a plate greased with ghee , then cut them into desired shapes.