Whenever you go over to someone's house for a meal, there's often a delicious dish served that you instantly take a fancy to.
If you are a crazy gourmand (read glutton) like me, you might be dying to have its recipe, so you can recreate it again at home.
When you ask the host or hostess, the response you receive is always so varied and very indicative of the kind of person they are.
In one home, the lady of the house kept inland postcards (when they existed) in her desk and would take down your address on it and later mail the recipe to you.
In other drawing rooms, one encounters another stereotype -- the secretive cook who won't part with a recipe. They will just say 'It's so simple!' and rattle off, at the speed of a bullet train, a few ingredients and the process so quickly that you don't have a hope in hell of learning how to make it. And they actually never finally share the real recipe.
I am partly/occasionally guilty of the same, especially when I am not sure I like the person asking me for a recipe or the reason they are doing so. I had a colleague who took the details of a special preparation of mine and passed it off as his own, right the very next day, with great fanfare and flourish on Instagram.
At times like these, I often fall back on a trick I learned from an aunt, who was not so keen to give out recipes either -- she would give you the recipe but with a whole swathe of ingredients missing :).
At restaurants, when I really like something I ordered I try a whole different tack. I never ask the chef or a senior staff member. The best details about the ingredients comes from lower staff and servers, because they have probably seen the dish being made day in and day out.
It helps that I have a killer tongue and I can pick out the spices and other components and quiz the server if the dish truly contains a certain masala or not. And I go on analysing and tasting, like how a raccoon inspects and washes its food, until I have nailed it.
I will confess that have mounted the strangest and most chaloo strategies to retrieve a special or long-lost recipe. I once created a special email ID and took on the identity of a lost relative to purloin a recipe out of another relative.
The Malayali mother of my husband's childhood friend, was a delight to ask a recipe from. She kept a very good table and ran an impeccable kitchen, from where the most wonderful Kerala cuisine would emerge.
The long table in their sea-facing home always groaned with excellent food -- Sambar, Pulliserry, Kuttu, Avial, Thoran, Mezhukupuratti, Olan and seafood curries, served with Kerala rice and Appalam.
A graceful woman, perpetually attired in starchy cotton saris, possessing a manner as crisp as her saris, she was completely organised. When you requested a recipe, Sheila would carefully write it out, very precisely, in her elegant long hand and send it over in a stiff white envelope.
I have a couple of her recipes, but this one below is my favourite. Similar to Olan, it is a raita and is made with Kerala cucumber (also called Madras cucumber and Mangalore cucumber), a vegetable I had not heard of till I met her.
Sheila's Kerala Cucumber Raita
Serves: 3-4
- 300 gm Kerala cucumber, peeled cubed
- Pinch jeera or cumin powder
- Pinch roasted methi or fenugreek powder
- 300 gm thick yoghurt
- 10-12 curry pattas
- 1 tsp rai or mustard seeds
- ½ tsp methi or fenugreek seeds
- ½ tsp hing or asafoetida
- 1½ tbsp oil, preferably coconut oil
- Water
- Salt to taste, about 1 tsp
Method
- In a saucepan, add the cubed Kerala cucumbers and add enough water to just cover it and bring it to a boil over medium heat.
Cook it for another 6-8 minutes and take off heat.
Allow it to cool completely but don’t drain the water.
Keep aside. - In a bowl, whisk the yoghurt, add the salt, jeera powder, methi powder.
Keep aside. - Heat the oil over medium heat, in a small frying pan or a tempering pan.
Add in the methi and fry a few seconds.
Add the rai, hing and allow it to crackle and then add the curry pattas and fry for a few seconds more.
Take off heat and pour into the whisked yoghurt and mix.
Now add in the boiled cucumber and its water to the yoghurt and lightly mix. - Refrigerate till ready to serve.
Zelda's Note: Some like to add a paste made from 3 tbsp grated coconut and 1 green chilly to the raita.
