Aparita

The Globe and Mail - [07/07/2001]

No Indian kitchen would be complete without homemade yogurt. Its refreshing taste puts out the fires of spicy food, aids digestion and, best of all, borrowing a few scoops of starter is a great way to make new friends

Almost no one buys yogurt in India. The stainless steel container that stood on the narrow counter of my grandmother’s tiny kitchen was a permanent fixture. In winter, it would sit there for the entire day; in summer, it would be taken out of the refrigerator a few hours before lunch or dinner. No meal would be complete without yogurt.

It’s a tradition my family brought from India when we came to Canada three years ago. Twice everyday, once in the morning and once in the evening, my mother boils some milk, allows it to cool to a warm temperature, adds about a spoonful of yogurt, gives it a quick stir, covers it and leaves it to set in a warm place. In the summer, it takes only a few hours. In winter, she resorts to some tricks. The bowl of milk wrapped in a layer of towels appears in different places in the house wherever there is enough warmth — the corner in the kitchen adjacent to the large sunny windows, in the warm oven after I bake brownies, or the basement near the boiler.

The taste of homemade yogurt is definitely better — it has none of the “cultured” taste or the tartness of processed, store-bought yogurt. And the consistency is softer, less gelatinous than commercial brands.

According to one legend, yogurt originated when the goat was first domesticated in Mesopotamia about 5000 BC. Warm goat milk, stored in gourds in the warm climate, naturally soured and formed a curd. Then some very brave person decided to taste it and the rest is history. In India, Ayurvedic writings (from the Hindu science of health and well-being), that date back to more than 5000 years ago, mention the use of yogurt as a curative food.

The substance has long been credited with restorative properties, from contributing to longevity — Kashmiri herdsman were reputed to live into their hundreds thanks to yogurt — to aiding digestion. And indeed, the lactic-acid cultures in yogurt produce substances that actually prevent disease-causing bacteria from multiplying in the digestive tract.

However, yogurt must be eaten regularly to be effective. A steady diet of yogurt means that the yogurt bacteria are present in the intestines where they can benefit the host. Stop eating yogurt and very soon they are eliminated.

Yogurt also helps digest lactose, which means that people with lactose intolerance can eat it. In fact, it’s easier for everyone to digest than other dairy products are, allowing us to benefit from a food that is rich in calcium, phosphorus and vitamin B.

And one reason yogurt is such an integral part of Indian cuisine is its cooling properties. Casein, the main protein in yogurt, binds to the taste buds and literally wipes away the fiery component of hot peppers known as capsaicin. I remember my grandmother standing at the range making chapattis (Indian bread). Nani would plunk hot puffed chapatti onto our plates; we would squeeze between her and the small tabletop and ladle out piping-hot vegetables and dal. Finally, we would scoop out several spoons of fresh yogurt from the stainless steel container, the white mounds were a cool contrast to the spicy vegetables.

Yogurt is also used in Indian cooking as a marinade for meats. The mildly acidic nature of yogurt helps to break down the tissue and adds a pleasing tartness to curries and other dishes. It is also eaten plain after a spicy meal to soothe the stomach and help digest food. And then, of course, there’s lassi — a refreshing cold drink made from yogurt — a summer favourite in India.

My father’s friend Captain Ramu used to reminisce about the best lassi he had ever tasted when he was a student in the Punjab. He described how the local sweetshop vendor would pour thick buffalo milk along with almonds, cashews and pistachios into a large earthen-ware pot every evening and leave it to set overnight. The next day when you lifted the cover off of the pot, the yogurt would be so thick that you could bounce a 50-paise coin — roughly the same size as a quarter — off it. From that yogurt, the vendor would make tall glasses of lassi, and Capt. Ramu and his friends would compete to see who could down their glass in one glorious breath.

But for many Indians, yogurt is more than just an important food. Borrowing a couple of spoonfuls of starter is still the best way to get acquainted with the new neighbours or catch up on the latest gossip — the subcontinental equivalent to a cup of sugar.

Aparita Bhandari is a Toronto writer.

Cool comfort

HOMEMADE YOGURT
The easiest and least expensive way of obtaining a starter culture is to purchase plain yogurt at a grocery store. But you should use yogurt that is unpasteurized or it will not contain a live culture. Failing that, borrow some starter from a yogurt-making friend.

1 quart 2-per-cent milk
{ cup non-fat dry milk powder
1/4 cup starter culture

Mix the liquid and dry milk. Bring to a boil and cool immediately to approximately 110 F. Discard any skin that may have formed on the milk. Add warmed starter culture and mix well but gently. Take care not to incorporate too much air.

Pour mixture into a clean container and cover and let set for three to six hours in a warm place.
Yogurt containers can be kept warm in a gas oven with pilot light, or an electric oven with 110-watt light bulb. Wide-mouth thermos bottles, heating pads and sunny windows will also work.

Remember to set aside a small amount of the yogurt to use as a starter for your next batch.

CUCUMBER SALAD

3 English cucumbers, sliced thinly
11/2 cups plain yogurt
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh mint
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Salt and pepper

Mix together the cucumbers, yogurt, mint, cumin and lemon juice. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

LASSI

The amount of sugar and liquid in this recipe can be varied to suit your taste. Rose essence is available in Indian food stores.

2 cups yogurt
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup water
4 teaspoons sugar
Few drops of rose essence

Put all the ingredient in a blender and beat until frothy. Pour into tall glasses and serve over crushed ice.
– For a savoury version, replace the sugar and rose essence with 1 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon ground roasted cumin seeds.

– For a fruit version, stir in 1/2 cup of crushed strawberries, mangoes or papaya.

Saturday Night Magazine

In India, where I grew up, we cooled off in the summer by heating things up.

SUMMERS IN DELHI WERE ALWAYS SCORCHING. BETWEEN NOONTIME AND dusk, temperatures soared above forty degrees. Air conditioners were a must in households that could afford them, while people with lesser means had to make do with water coolers - large, metal, computer-box-sized machines that sucked and pumped water over straw mats held inside, then sent air fanning out over the mats. These contraptions helped to chill rooms slightly for a few hours before turning them into tropical hotbeds of humidity. Other households still less fortunate had to make do with fans, which whirred constantly only to scoop and return gusts of the same warm air.

With the climate more or less out of everyone’s control, we had other means of surviving the heat. Some of the best ways were drinks called summer coolers, or sharbats in Hindi. Traditional blended fruit and spice beverages, they are prepared with fresh summer ingredients that, according to Ayurveda, the Hindu science of health and medicine, have antiseptic and diuretic properties besides being refreshing.

I have never seen summer coolers prepared in restaurants or sold in stores in Canada, despite the current trend for things South Asian. The fusion that now goes on in upscale eateries here often yields sumptuous results, but as with the most recent efforts to bring East and West together - such as the ubiquity in fashion last year of denim accessorized with zari thread, only one of a plethora of pretty South Asian textiles - no one seems to have clued in to the immense variety of flavours offered by Indian food. And most traditional Indian restaurants here still yield the usual beverage options - lassi, a yogurt drink, and pop.

It may be just as well that summer coolers remain in the domain of home cooking, however, because that is where the best flavours in Indian food are often found. In home cooking, the ingredients are simple, but used very fresh, and there is usually none of the extravagance restaurants often fall into, where dishes taste good but are too rich to finish. Innovation is usually a twist on an age-old recipe, and is informed by years of experience. The most important part of the cooking lies in the tradition - stories that accompany every recipe, subtleties of preparation that are picked out by watching someone prepare a dish, and banter that takes place in the kitchen.

The recipes here are from my grandmother, who used to whip up one of these for me nearly every summer afternoon in Delhi, when, overcome by the heat that practically knocked your breath out, I used to make my way through the lanes to her house. As I would step across her threshold, she often scolded me for being outside at all (`Don’t you know people can die of heatstroke? You should carry an umbrella. . . .’) before turning to create relief with the ingredients in her refrigerator. I had favourites: lassi, thandai (an almond-milk drink), spiced buttermilk, and Roohafza (a commercial rosepetal drink we mixed with water), as well as raw mango shakes, but on the hottest days, my grandmother especially relied on the cooling properties of panna, a cooked drink made from green mangoes.

I like panna the best of all for its tangy, minty taste. It is said that the sweet version is remedial forheat strokes, while salt used with raw mango replenishes the sodium chloride and iron lost through dehydration. And while it is not necessary to grind the condiments, as we did, on a sil-batta - a large, pock-marked slab of stone, with a smaller stone used to grind the spices - for me, adding each new ingredient this way brings out the best qualities of summer in small bursts: the luxury of cardamom, the sharp heat of a hint of pepper, the indolence of rose.

SALTY PANNA

Green mango and black salt (also known as rock salt) are available in Indian grocery stores. Black salt contributes a smoky flavour, but you can use white salt if necessary. o 3 medium-sized green mangoes

1 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. black salt o 8 tsp. sugar
1 1/2 tsp. roasted and ground cumin seeds
1 1/2 tsp. dried mint powder or a few finely chopped mint leaves
4 cups water

Wash the mangoes and boil them in water until tender, then drain them and let them cool. Remove their skins and extract the pulp, mashing it with your hands until the flesh is still slightly pulpy. Add condiments and mix.

Add 4 cups of water to the mixture to get a slightly thick drink. Stir it well and ‘ chill it for an hour. The sourness of the mangoes may vary, so you can add salt and sugar to your taste.

SWEET PANNA
2 medium-sized green mangoes
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 tsp. freshly crushed cardamom seeds
1 1/2 tsp. saffron strands o pinch nutmeg

Prepare mangoes as described above, but blend the pulp to a fine paste and strain it through a sieve. Put the paste in a pan, add condiments, and bring the mixture to a boil. Stir continuously so that the paste does not stick to the pan. Take from the heat and allow to cool. Add 2 to 3 teaspoons of paste to each glass of water, chilled, as required. The paste can be stored in the refrigerator for about a week.

THANDAI

This almond and milk drink is mildly sweet. You can get ground cardamom in the store, but I prefer to use it fresh.

1 1/2 litres water
1 cup sugar
1 cup milk
7-8 blanched almonds
1 tbsp dried watermelon or cantaloupe seeds (optional)
1 1/2 tbsp poppy seeds
1 1/2 tbsp aniseed
15 pods cardamom
1 1/2 tsp. rose water or a few drops of rose essence (available at Indian grocery stores)
1 tsp. peppercorns

Peel the cardamom pods, crush the seeds, and set them aside. Dissolve sugar in 1/2
litre of water and set aside. Soak the rest of the dry ingredients, except for the cardamom seeds, in two cups of water and let sit for at least two hours. Grind the soaked ingredients to a fine paste. Mix the paste in the rest of the plain water in a vessel. Place a muslin strainer or tie a muslin cloth over another vessel and strain the liquid. Pass this through the strainer 4 to 5 times, pressing the residue each time until it is dry and husky, then discard it. To the liquid mixture, add the sugar water, milk, cardamom, and rose water. Chill for an hour or two before serving.

ROSE-WATER TONIC (ROOHAFZA)

This drink carries the taste of rose, screwpine essence, poppy, and sandalwood. It also replaces lost electrolytes when the body is dehydrated.

1 1/2 cups freshly picked rose petals
3 1/4 cup boiling water
1 1/4 tsp. cardamom seeds o 1 112 cups sugar
1 1/4 cup lemon juice
2 /13 cup pomegranate juice o 5 cups cold water

Crush the rose petals with a mortar and pestle. Mix the petal paste, boiling water, and cardamom seeds in a large metal container and set aside for eight hours or overnight. Strain the mixture through a strainer, a muslin cloth, or cheesecloth. Dissolve sugar in the mixture. Add the lemon juice, pomegranate juice, and cold water, stirring well. Serve over crushed ice.

SPICED BUTTERMILK

This mild drink is a great thirst quencher when served chilled.

1 cup buttermilk diluted with 2 CUPS water (or vary according to the consistency desired)
7-8 curry leaves (available in Indian stores)
1 inch whole or chopped ginger o 1 green chili (optional)
Pinch asafetida (a spice available in Indian grocery stores)
1 1/2 tsp. mustard seeds
1 1/2 tsp. cumin seeds
2 tbsp oil
salt to taste

Grind the curry leaves, ginger, green chili, and asafetida together. In a small pan, heat the oil; when it is hot, add mustard seeds, and cook them until they pop. Then add the cumin and wait for a few seconds. Carefully add this mixture to the diluted buttermilk. It will sizzle briefly. Add ground spices and salt to taste. Chill for an hour in the refrigerator and serve.