Happy Holi!

Holi is the festival of colours, of joy, of merry-making and prosperity. On a serious note, it is the day when one lets go of old quarrels and fights and bitternesses and brings in a fresh new start to relationships.

One of the most enduring memories of Holi (rather, the day after Holi, which is a holiday) is coming home late in the afternoon drenched to the bone with luridly coloured water (courtesy pichkaris (sprinklers) and water balloons). Of being liberally smeared with gulal and other powdered colours till one could be mistaken for a veritable walking-talking rainbow. Of washing off all the Technicolour splendour under a steaming hot shower and THEN sitting down to a late lunch - a lunch of hot, just-off-the-tawa (griddle) puranpolis generously doused with fragrant, molten tup (ghee/clarified butter) and other 'satvik' delicacies. And finally giving in to the exhuastion brought on by the all the dunkings and water balloon fights and shouting-at-the-top-of-the-voice by sleeping till evening. Bliss!

These days, the only Holi tradition we still follow religiously is making puran polis for lunch. My Mum, being a good cook, and even more important, an enthusiastic one, has been making them since the first year she came to Bombay as a bride. This year, she took on the scary task of teaching me how to make them. Brave woman!

Puran Polis are stuffed dessert rotis - and a nightmare to make. They are fraught with risks and danger of failure at every step. The puran (stuffing) has to be just right, in terms of texture, consistency, sweetness (enough to sweeten the roti covering it) and fragrance (of nutmeg). The covering should ideally be soft, soft, soft and almost translucent in its delicacy - it should be just thick enough to hold the stuffing without being torn - no doughy taste for the purists! The puran poli should melt in the mouth, leaving behind a rich taste of nutmeg and gul (jaggery) and golden ghee. Mmmmmmm.....

So, coming back to our kitchen, Mum had made the puran the day before. So I skipped learning that step (there are limits to how much I can take in, in a day!) She started off my lesson by demonstrating one of the most critical steps of the recipe -kneading the dough for the cover. 'Dough' is a term to be used rather loosely here (pun intended!). The dough is half-maida (refined flour) and half-atta (wholewheat flour) and kneaded (massaged/pounded/pulled/pushed, what have you) with lots of water and gallons of oil. The idea is to work the gluten in the flour to make the dough elastic and stretchy. Its almost liquid, so loose is its consistency. Its even kept submerged in a lake of oil so that it doesn't dry out.

Puran Poli goddesses take a ball of dough which is 1/4th the quantity of the filling and stuff it with the puran. The stretchy dough means it envelops the ball of puran thinly and uniformly without breaking. The end result being a thin, soft, delicate poli with just a whisper of a covering and tasting entirely of the puran. Mere mortals like Mum and I make do with dough which is 1/2 the quantity of the stuffing. Consequently, our polis are sturdier. :)

After watching Mum make a poli from start to finish - stuffing the puran, rolling out the poli (a torturously delicate job, using NO FORCE AT ALL), transferring it to the griddle using a newspaper (a spatula would be too narrow and the poli would break) and flipping it twice during the cooking process (newspaper to the rescue once again!) - I was ready to try my hand at it.





The pictures will tell their own story, but suffice to say that after one triumph, one crushing defeat (again, pun intended!) and 3-4 safe landings, I have learnt that rivulets of ghee hide many a crack and imperfection. :D



AND I have lost my terror of making Puran polis. (I had refused to try, thinking it was a lost cause for a clumsy cook like me). Maybe next time I will make them from scratch. Or maybe not. :P

Restaurant Review : Kobe Sizzlers, Hill Road

Kobe is a chain of restaurants - the original harbingers of sizzlers to the city. (An aside -isn't 'sizzler' an amazingly evocative name? A pity that its become a blind spot and just another name of a dish now. :( ) Though later entrants on the sizzler plate are supposed to be better than Kobe, the word 'sizzler' still brings to mind 'Kobe',like a Pavlovian response.

I have sampled the fare at several Kobe outlets across cities, but the other day it was the turn of the outlet on Bandra's Hill Road. I'd been to lunch with GP, a vegetarian friend with a strong 'stick-to-the-tried-and-tested' philosophy and she placed an order of Vegetable Shashlik and Orange Squash in a matter of moments (I knew what her order would be before we even opened the menu!) On the other hand, faced with so many choices (about 6-7 in chicken 2 in lamb, 4-5 in seafood and 6-7 in vegetarian) I hemmed and hawed and tried the patience of our waiter who admirably answered all my questions about the sauces on offer, the vegetables I could choose etc. :)

Kobe's is one of the few non-fine dining restaurants in Mumbai serving beef, and a plethora of options in that. But since I don't eat beef or mutton, I finally ordered the Sizzling Chicken with Pepper Sauce, swayed by memories of the delicious peppery sauce relished at Ovenfresh (at Dadar) years ago. And in a bid at being virtuous, I asked for mash to replace the french fries, to the approval of my companion. :D

The condiments on offer on every table - kethcup, mustard, Worcestershire and chilli sauces and salt-and-pepper)

Our sizzlers arrived in record time (20 minutes) wreathed in plumes of thick steam/smoke, which made visibility a problem. (Or not a problem, since I took advantage of the invisibility to blow the steam into GP's face till she realised my ploy when the steam started clearing :P) My sizzling chicken plate had a massive cloud of mash, a large-ish chicken steak and steamed veggies (carrots, cabbage, spinach, peas and french beans), all ladled over with a dark brown pepper sauce. Thankfully, my noble intentions of cutting back on the grease were fulfilled as the mash was purely that - boiled potato - and not the usual cream-and-butter-laden indulgence.

My behemoth of a sizzler

While everything was good - crispy, just-cooked vegetables, comfortingly soft mash, well-done chicken - the sauce was nowhere close to the one I remembered from Ovenfresh and was unconsciously expecting. This one was good too - just a tad too salty - but my palate is attuned to a sweet-and-spicy taste and this sauce was simply salty-and-spicy. On the other hand, GP's Shashlik sizzler had a yummy sweet-spicy sauce (how alliterative!) which had me dipping my fork into her plate all too often. :D

GP's Orange Squash and Veg Shashlik- don't miss the pineapple on the top!

While I polished off my sizzler (to reveal a Kobe-branded sizzler plate underneath - nice attention to detail!) GP struggled to finish her's (she loyally said that her sizzler being a carb-overload thanks to the mound of rice AND fries,made it tough for her to finish it and no, it wasn't that my appetite is Goliath-ish. :P ) Obviously when the last 10 minutes of your meal are spent watching your pal finish her's, there is no room (literally and figuratively!) for dessert. Thanks GP, for keeping my dietary resolutions intact! :D

On the whole, Kobe's offered a good dining experience - my failure to love my sizzler was born out of my over-expectations and not a serious shortcoming in Kobe's execution. The price mark is reasonable given that sizzlers, as a dish are expensive (Average price is INR 330) And the comfortable seating, lack of noisy crowds (as would be there at the nearby Elco restaurant) and pleasant interiors made it a good place to earmark for a leisurely lunch with friends.