Lounge
A rich bounty of family, food and conversations
Summary
Food made at home coalesces nicely with conversations, sparking ideas that stew in your mind and deliver rich, new menus for your table
When I was married a quarter century ago, my spouse was startled with what she believed was my family’s obsession with food. As we scarfed down our lunch, she noted, we discussed what was for dinner and the next day’s breakfast.
Nothing has changed—except she now does the same thing, planning the day’s meals, discussing the next day’s, refusing to acknowledge that food now occupies her mind as much as mine. She does not cook very much but is always generous with unsolicited comments.
If I say Moroccan, she says desi. If I say chicken, she says lamb. If I say chicken curry, she says grilled is better for the teenager. If I say egg-white omelette, she snorts.
Oh, she’s vegetarian—with strong opinions on meats and everything else.
I don’t mind, of course. This country needs strongly opinionated women, who, as we know, have changed the course of history. But let’s stick to my kitchen for this column.
I particularly like December because that is when we get to see a lot of her family and mine, and conversations from both sides strongly revolve around what’s for dinner—and lunch, and breakfast, and snacks. It is a time of laughter, love and fraternity, the general mood always fuelled by food.
Also read: Zero proof drinks for Dry January
This December, it struck me how internationalist and inward-looking—simultaneously—our collective culinary outlook was.
For my aunt’s 80th birthday in Mumbai, her daughter organised a spread of her favourite, native cuisine. So, there was spicy fish curry, kolambi bhaath (prawn pulao), mutton curry with vade (like spicy puris), thalipeeth (Maharashtrian flatbread) with loni (white butter), among a whole lot else.
In Matheran, where the wife’s family reunites every year from across the world, Sindhi curry and aloo tuk competed with stuffed turkey. The conversations around food, encompassing Italian, Canadian, Filipino, American and Indian families, were diverse, from tiramisu to chicken adobo to baking.
In my experience, food made at home directly correlates with conversations around it. Conversations lead to ideas that stew in your brain, blend with what you may read or eat, and lead you towards new frontiers. Indeed, that was what happened.
Back in Bengaluru, there were visible changes in the routine monthly reunion of my college mates. Refreshed by Christmas and New Year, we strayed substantially from our usual south Indian spread. One of us cooked Trinidadian chicken curry, and I made couscous with winter vegetables in a ratatouille, grilled eggplant in a simple yogurt sauce, and fish from the Maghreb, in a chermoula stew and garnished with mint and parsley (below).
My cousin, visiting from New York, then arrived with more recipes and bounties of spices and ideas. One chilly Bengaluru evening, she made us hearty corn soup. The original recipe is from the Blue Corn café in Santa Fe, New Mexico, but her dramatically healthier version below replaces heavy cream with milk and water.
I do not deny that my family’s obsession with food may be of limited interest to many. But instead of discussing fraught topics of politics and money, discussing corn and chermoula may be more entertaining and free of conflict.
FISH IN CHERMOULA SAUCE
Serves 5
Ingredients
800g fish fillets (I used betki)
1 onion, sliced
5 tomatoes, chopped or 1 400 gm can of tomatoes
1 carrot, chopped
2 tbsp garlic, chopped
500ml fish stock or water (to make fish stock, boil fish head and bones in water for 15-20 minutes, remove scum if any)
10-15 Kalamata or black olives
3 tbsp fresh mint, chopped
2 tbsp fresh parsley or coriander, chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp black pepper
Salt to taste
Method
For the chermoula: Coarsely grind a bunch of fresh coriander, 3-4 garlic cloves, 2-3 tsp cumin seeds, 1 red or green chilli, 4 tbsp olive oil, juice of a quarter lemon or 1 lime, a few strands of saffron and 1 tsp salt
Rub the fish with salt and pepper, some olive oil and 3 tbsp of chermoula. Fry on a pan or grill until firm and done. Set aside
Heat olive oil in a pan. Add garlic, carrot, and onion and sauté until softened. Add half the chermoula, the tomatoes, and fish stock. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer for 25 minutes. Stir in the olives and the remaining chermoula.
Arrange fish fillets in a wide, shallow dish, spoon over the sauce, garnish with mint and parsley or coriander.
ADITI’S FRIED CORN AND CHIPOTLE SOUP
Serves 6
Ingredients
750g frozen corn
1 large onion, diced
1 tsp chipotle powder (substitute with paprika or Kashmiri red chilli powder)
2 cups water
4 cups milk
Dash of white pepper
Dash of ground cumin
Olive oil as required
Method
Grill the corn on a grill pan with oil and white pepper and salt until it chars or pops. Divide corn in half, then divide one of these halves in half, to use for the garnish.
Combine half the corn with the onions, cumin, and about half the water in a blender or food processor. Pulse briefly to a coarse paste. Add some water if you need, but try to leave in chunks of corn.
In a large pan or pot, saute onions till soft. Add chipotle powder and saute for a minute. Add about two-thirds of the milk, combine with the blended ingredients, and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer for 10 minutes. Allow it to thicken to gain flavour and texture. Add water if needed. Add rest of the corn as garnish before serving.
Our Daily Bread is a column on easy, inventive cooking. Samar Halarnkar is the author of The Married Man’s Guide To Creative Cooking—And Other Dubious Adventures. He posts @samar11 on Twitter.
