Sweet Surrender

 

Despite the probability of being labelled a food philistine, when it comes to desserts  I have no hesitation in saying its the simple caramel custard for me all the way. That aroma and taste of burnt sugar, the delicacy of the custard; there is something humble, homely and wholesomeness about it.  Eggs, milk/cream, sugar and some natural flavour- that's all it takes and yet the result is yummy all the way. It could be because like bread and butter pudding, caramel custard is something generally rooted to childhood. In the hills ice cream (at least then) was rare, mostly home made and what was available in the markets was usually coloured ice on sticks which one snuck behind the parent's back!

Apart from the jalebis from Delhi Mistan ( by the time you carted it home and it became cold, what one had was basically deep fried flour batter crusted with sugar - its another story of course that we all thought it was the best jalebi in the world!) and some hard sandesh, there were not much options in the market either. And when it came to pastries - be it those from R B Store or Eee Cee, the less said the better. Yes, of course  then we thought they were awesome treats - age, time, exposure surely changes one's taste whatever the early conditioning. Thus, inevitably, the sweet course at every dinner invitation would swing between bread and butter pudding and caramel custard.

Caramel custard is a sweet baggage  I am sure I would like to lug around forever. With some slight deviations! Like addition of coconut milk and jaggery (gurh).  While channel hopping the other day I caught the fag end of a cookery programme on TV which left me salivating over the jaggery-coconut milk custard. Naturally one turned to god google for assistance and it turned out to be a Sri Lankan delicacy that put together jaggery-water, coconut milk, cream, pinch of mace, nutmeg and eggs (whole, jot just the yolks). I tweaked the combination a tad - left out the cream, the nutmeg and instead added a pinch of crushed allspice. The jaggery of course was everybody's all time favourite one - nolen gurh (date jaggery). As winter is fading away- sob- the nolen gur too will disappear till the next winter. So nolen gurh it had to be.

 

Putting it together is simple - I stirred in a small cup of nolen gurh into warm water (a little more than lukewarm but not boiling hot) and what resulted was a beautiful burnt amber liquid. Leave it to come to room temperature. Meanwhile warm the oven at 160degree C

 

Nolen gurh liquid

 

Next, add in 200 ml of coconut milk. Just cut open a tetra pack one and mix with the jaggery liquid. Preserve a little of the jaggery liquid to ladle over the custard later. What results in a caramel-ly looking mixture.

Jaggery-coconut milk mixture

 The little flecks/specks floating around are crushed bits of mace and allspice. I left out the cream - after all there is such a thing called guilty conscience too! The next step was equally easy - breaking four eggs into a glass bowl, lightly stirring it (lightly means lightly please and no vigorous stirring either) and gently stirring into the jaggery-coconut milk mix. Pour the mix into ramekin bowls, small glass bowls or old fashioned muffin bowls like I did. Place them in a baking tray that can hold water. 

                                                                   

Ready to go into the oven

   

                                                                           

 Pout hot water into the tray, making sure that it comes up halfway and doesn't spill over while steaming. (If in the course of steaming , you fill that the water is drying up, slightly open the oven door and top up the water). It takes about 25- 35 minutes or so. Let it cool a little in the oven, take it out, dribble the preserved jaggery water and chill in the freeze. The taste of jaggery, the hint of coconut, the peek-a-boo spice flavours all come together in a divine union. 

                                                                         

 

    

The Hot Factor

How hot can you take it? Hello otherwise thinkers, exit here please! We are talking the chili quotient. There are several of us for whom a meal is not complete without that dash of chili factor - green chili as they are, pickles, chutneys and much more.What happens if you been accustomed to spicing up every meal with the chili element and the other one runs (rather sweats, palpitates)away from the innocuous looking item. Culinary disaster till you manage to work out a compromise. Like the times the other one is away and the exhaust fans in the kitchen have to work overtime to drive off the pungent aroma that makes everyone sneeze, wheeze, cough - but with a smile, drooling saliva glands and a big sense of expectation. 

The arguments- for and against- fly back and forth. How can you not like chili, it perks up every meal. No, it kills every other taste, flavour. It goes on and on.... Love or dislike for chili is also something that children in all probability inherit from the parents. Fortunately, in our household the scale tilts towards my side, yahoo! In fact there is an almost sacrosanct ritual in our kitchen, when he is travelling, the first thing that is cooked is chili hot egg curry. It is  by now a comfort food  and an assurance too, both to myself and the chilies!  Then there was that time in Lankawi. We walked into a restaurant, the chef turned out to be a Sri Lankan of Tamil origin. He was more than happy to work out  a menu of our favourites. How spicy and chili hot did we like it, he asked. Very much, the two of us chirped back delightfully. Somewhere in translation, we failed to tell the chef that the chili quotient had to be minimal. It wasn't, we gorged, someone literally wept tears of indignation, gulping chilled waters by the gallons and in between trying to tame his tear glands that seemed to have run amok, blasting us.We of course loved it - the food, not the blasting.

However, when it comes to chili, I have learnt to tread cautiously. That's a Bhutanese lesson well learnt. After a few years in my career, I was given a Bhutan assignment. Checking into the hotel at Thimphu, I asked for a Bhutanese meal, particularly the chili-cheese dish, Ema Datshi. Are you sure you want to have it, its very chili hot they told me. Bah! I went, you don't know what you are saying, I am a chili freak, make it as hot you can and bring it on. They brought, I nearly went through the roof. Looking back I suspect, someone had a wicked sense of humour or simply  doubled the amount of chili by mistake (Sure!).  For the remaining couple of days, I stuck to the safe, simple and bland path.

But of course you can't detox from chili.  Especially not when a drop of bhut jolokia (Naga Raja Mirch) infused oil on your plate can send you into paroxysms of unadulterated happiness. Just a drop enhances the flavour like nothing else especially of some dishes like chili chicken, noodles, fried rice, momos and I plead guilty of occasionally perking up or as some say besmirching risotto too. Someone once had the table in splits when she related her Tabasco  sauce story - every time she travels abroad, particularly to Europe on work, she carries her own bottle (Tabasco, not the spirit)  And so there she was at a very fashionable sit down dinner with very fashionable people with the chef personally interacting with the guests, when she opened her bag and fished out her favourite bottle. The chef nearly died, the guests were not amused and she was labelled as one from the third world country who had yet to develop finer taste.

   

The oil of all oils!

When it comes to chili, I am not too fond of the dried variety, especially the powdered red chili. My favourite chili story however relates to it. You get off the train early in the morning at Beawar (Rajasthan), then drive all the way to Dungarpur only to be told that social activist Aruna Roy is in another distant village at a Jan Sabha. So you go there - teeth not even brushed, forget a cup of tea. All you have the whole day is a chapati-bhujia roll. Then the drive back to Aruna's small house at Dungarpur. It was quite late at night and everyone was hungry. Except that there were too many people around and the rice and dal cooking on wood fire was clearly not sufficient.  

  

The bubbling dal

When will dinner be ready?

The way out was simple - add more water to the dal.  Then a  small steel bowl was filled more than half way with fiery red chili powder, mixed with water, salt and dunked into the dal.  The meal was just a small share of rice and fiery, watery dal but so delicious.

When the punch of chili is combined with the sweet of sugar, it is a lip smacking beauty of a chili jam. I am not a jam fan, but chili jam is something right up my alley. It is simple to make- assembling a few ingredients and stirring over the gas stove for sometime

Jam-ming it up!

The one I made had 400 g of cherry tomatoes ( I opted for cherry tomatoes and didn't bother to blend it in the mixer and hence the seeds, it added crunch).

For 400g of cherry tomatoes I put in four red peppers, one red bell pepper, one small cup of castor sugar and 3/4 cup of brown sugar. Also required a small cup of red wine  vinegar. I mixed both red wine and apple cider vinegar 

Whirr the chopped peppers ( without de-seeding them, unless of course you not too much a chili fan), a few cloves of garlic and half an inch of ginger. 

If using large tomatoes,cover them with boiling water in a separate bowl and cover. Then remove the skin and coarsely blend. 

Put a thick bottomed pan/saucepan on high heat, put in the blended peppers, sugar and cook on high heat, stirring all the while. Once the sugar dissolves, add the tomatoes. Keep stirring until well blended. Then add a small cup of red wine vinegar ( can mix it with apple cider vinegar) and keep stirring until the mixture begings to clump together and acquires a glaze.  Cool and bottle.

 

A few drops of lemon juice can be added while cooking and also powdered allspice (for the quantity mentioned here, one is potent enough).  

The chili jam can go with anything - on bread, as sandwich paste, baked/steamed fish, with ham and just about anything. It's that finger licking.

What little bit is  left!