Narthangai Gojju

At home, along with other pickles we had a stock of salt soaked and sun dried citron pickle, always in store. This was because, the fruit is said to have among many health benefits, high vitamin C content. Citrons are used to treat sickness, nausea and many more minor ailments. A small piece of the dry pickle is given with directions to chew and suck the juice in. This pickled citron pieces were dark brown in colour and leather like in texture. They preserved well as they were dry. So keeping stock of them was easy.

We were home in December when all my paternal uncles and aunts were also with us for ceremonies held at home. One aunty from the extended family had sent a few pickles and preserves for my mother sometime ago. Some powdered curry leaves that were added to other spices and rolled, Indian sarasaparilla root pickle and narthangai gojju/ citron preserve were all in bottles on the table handy. With every meal, I watched my aunts enjoying generous servings of the narthangai gojju. My curiosity was piqued and I tasted a small spoon of it. The blend of tangy tamarind, the slight bitterness from the citron rind, heat from the chillis and the sweet from the jaggery were all quite favourable.

My aunts were asking my sister to fetch the recipe as she was visiting the person who sent it. She relayed the recipe to all of us and I had a mental note of it.
When I returned to Accra, where you can pick citrons from every street vendor, I bought just one, medium fruit to try this recipe. I have used only part of the fruit in this recipe because we rarely consume pickles. I have used mostly the zest and rind having removed most of the pulp and all of the seeds.

Gojju is a dish in which certain vegetables like ladies finger/ okra, capsicum, onions, tomatoes and even green chillis. When I picked up loads of green chillis from my home garden I made the milagai gojju.
Gojju is a sweet-sour and spice blend dish with any of these vegetables and few others too in it. It is often had as a side dish and goes well with kozukkattais, adai, dosais and also steamed hot rice with a generous spoonful of ghee or gingelly oil.

Narthangai Gojju 

Ingredients:
Makes 1 and 1/2 cups gojju

1 cup finely chopped citron
7-11 dry red chillis (depending on the heat and level of spice required)
3 green chillis
1 tablespoon tightly packed tamarind
4-5 teaspoons of powdered jaggery
1 &1/2 teaspoons coarse sea salt (I use Himalayan salt. You may use table salt also.)(adjust to taste)
1/4 teaspoon asafoetida powder
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
5 tablespoons gingelly oil

For tempering:
1 teaspoon gingelly oil reserved from the above
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
10-12 fresh curry leaves

Method:
Wash the citron fruit well and pat it dry. Cut and squeeze out the juice which can be used in other cooking or making a drink. Remove seeds and some of the juice sacs. Chop the rest of the fruit finely to get 1 cup full of zest and rind.
Reserve one teaspoon of gingelly oil for tempering later.
Place a heavy bottomed utensil on heat and add 2 tablespoons of oil. When the oil is hot, drop the citron pieces and cook them, tossing them at regular intervals until they are soft and you are able to crush a piece to almost a pulp between fingers. Add the tturmeric powder and asafoetida powder.
While the narthangai is getting cooked, pulse the tamarind, salt, dry red chillis and the green chillis to a fine powder in a spice blender.When the narthangai is soft, the oil might separate. At this point add the powdered spices blend and top up with another tablespoon of oil. Cook this for a further 7 - 10 minutes in the oil. Then add half a cup of water and cook on low heat allowing it to simmer. The raw taste of the spices should go.

Meanwhile, dissolve the jaggery in little water and strain out the impurities.
Add this jaggery water to the cooking narthangai.
If required, add some more water, just so not to burn the mass.
When the gojju has thickened, add the rest of the oil and cook until oil separates and floats on the top.
Remove from the heat.
In another bowl, heat the reserved one spoon of oil. Add the mustard seeds and when they crack, add the curry leaves. Toss them a bit and transfer this tempering to the gojju.
Allow the gojju to cool down and transfer to a clean storing bottle or bowl.

This gojju stays well outside of refrigeration for a fortnight to 20 days and inside the fridge for longer.
Enjoy this hot, sour and sweet gojju just as you would any chutney or pickle.

Dry Fruits Laddoo for Bhogi

First, let me wish all of you a happy and prosperous new year 2018. Days are quickly passing by and we are almost closing the first month of this year.
We celebrated Thai Pongal after missing celebrations for three years in a row. In these recent years, our celebrations are quite low key; to make ado for just two of us seems pointless. Nonetheless, to not celebrate, will never be my option. I love all the festivals and connected rituals and would not wish to skip.
Nostalgia sets in when between our sisters and cousins we reminisce the elaborate festive arrangements that used to take place in our childhood.
The other day, we were talking about the long hours we spent drawing the kolams for three nights in a row; the back breaking competition like effort we put in to show off our skills. One thing lead to another and we remembered helping arrange the flowers for the kaappu kattu on the Bhogi day and so on. Naturally we were asking each other about their choice of sweets and such.
I decided to move away from my comfort and go to Tirunrlveli halwa that I repeatedly made over years. I wanted to try doing something more healthy and less-on-effort sweet. I zeroed in on this easy and very quick, almost no cooking involved, laddoo with dry fruits. Last year for Ugadi, my friend had made it for us and we spoke about the recipe which goes by eyeball measures. However, I decided to measure in volume so I can keep a staple basic recipe and play around if I fancied. I have been keeping stock of nuts, seeds and dry fruits to snack on. So, it was quick to pull out a few and combine them in a delicious mix. I have used a small list of these. One can always put any nut, seed and dry fruit in any number of combinations. You can make it vegan by using coconut oil in the place of ghee.

Dry Fruits Laddoo

Ingredients:
Makes 20 laddoos , small in size - about 1'' in diameter
2 cups roughly chopped fleshy dates ( packed somewhat tight )
1/3 cup almonds in skin
1/3 cups cashews broken in big pieces
1/3 cups unsalted pistachios
1 tablespoon white sesame seeds
1 tablespoon pumpkin seeds
1/4 teaspoon cardamom powder
A pinch of nutmeg powder
4-5 strands of saffron
1 tablespoon ghee / clarified butter (divided)
1/4 cup desiccated coconut

Method:
Put a heavy and wide pan on heat. Dry roast the almonds until they are nicely warm, not browning quickly.
Add the pistachios and pumpkin seeds to the same pan and toss them around on low heat.
Add half of the ghee into this and drop the cashew nuts. Roast them until the cashews are golden in colour.
Add the saffron and the sesame seeds. Allow the sesame seeds to pop and remove the pan from the heat.
Allow the roasted nuts and seeds to cool down. Transfer them to a blending jar and pulse to a coarse powder that still has bits of the cashews and almonds that are not processed fully.
Transfer this nut mix to a wide bowl.
In the same blender jar pulp the dates roughly. Add to it the rest of the ghee and pulse further until it comes together in a mass. Few chucks of dates also left out in the process add a bite to the sweet.
Transfer the pulp to the nuts mixture, add the cardamom and the nutmeg powders.
Grease your palms, very lightly with ghee or coconut oil and gather the mixture in a slightly stiff dough like mass.
Pinch out small portions and roll them in laddoos/ balls.
Place the desiccated coconut in a flat dish and roll the laddoos in it to coat evenly on them.

Store in containers until need to use.
These have long shelf life. We have only just finished consuming all of them, ten days later.