Recipes for Change: The Celebration of Nani

When my husband and I lived in Washington, DC, newly married, without children and a lifestyle that felt a lot like an episode of Seinfeld, Indu, the mom of our dear friend, Sujata, and her grandmother, Nani, were in town. As Sujata recalls “Nani, and my mom, wish that I liked to cook or even had an interest in it.” But I suspect Indu and Nani gained as much pleasure knowing how much Sujata enjoyed their home cooked meals. Sujata told Indu and Nani that Richard, our friend Shara and I wanted to learn how to make Indian food. The result was an afternoon cooking lesson led by Indu comfortably assuming the celebrity chef in residence role in a kitchen that had never been used.

The strictly vegetarian menu was an explosion of spice balanced with a little sweet and textures like a creamy black bean dip. Indu patiently described all of the ingredients, let us sniff the spices and showed us some time-saving short-cuts (see tortillas in recipe below). Sujata remembers that Indu “brought her masala tin with all the spices. I wasn’t cooking but hanging out with the dearest people in my life, waiting for food and watching them make it!”

All the while, Nani was sitting on the couch with a shawl over her shoulder, crocheting with a grin on her face and I now wonder what she was thinking. The world had changed drastically since Nani, Indu and the family, who came from the Sindh province in Pakistan, left their home to make their way to India when the British left in 1947 and Pakistan was created. “Most Hindus in Pakistan made their way to India during one of the deadliest migrations in history. My family ended up in Mumbai after a few stops. Once my mom married and moved to the US, Nani would visit us time and again and for the last 20 years of her life, she basically lived full time in the US dividing her time between the homes of her three children.” And here we were, over 50 years later, with her daughter, Indu – an accomplished and well-respected OB/GYN in Memphis (who went bungee jumping in New Zealand but that’s an entirely different story), teaching Indian cooking to her grand-daughter – an equally educated and accomplished woman in her field to Jewish friends who had many common interests in the middle of Washington, DC.

Indu’s cooking skills were taught to her by Nani, who I suspect learned them from the women who surrounded her. Even as Nani got older, she was a great cook and loved to make sure her family was eating enough, eating well, and eating home cooked meals. Towards the end of Nani’s life, she requested the foods of her youth – especially the sweets – that brought her comfort, happiness and memories from her own childhood.

The recipes that Indu sent me actually started with a cooler filled with Sindhi delicacies delivered from Indu’s kitchen in Memphis to my doorstep. She did this so I could “know what the food is supposed to taste like and look like.” Not until Sujata told me that most Westerners are familiar with Indian food from the North, “with a few Southern Indian specialties like dosa – it’s next to impossible to find Sindhi food like Dal Pakvaan anywhere outside of private homes, and even most of my Indian friends have never had it.”

These dishes are special because they are so unique and like all mom cooked meals across every culture and that are passed down, for Sujata, these are comforting when she’s sick, are served at family celebrations, synonymous with home, a connection to her heritage, and a physical reminder of her Nani.

*If you're interested in more of these recipes, that are vegetarian/vegan friendly, check out this blog.

Dal with pakvaan and garnishes

The Recipes

Dal (yellow lentils), Pakvaan (the bread) and

Sehal/Sooka Aloo (fried/spiced potatoes)

By Indu Tejwani

Dal

Serves 4

This recipe looks complicated based on the ingredient list, but it’s actually very simple especially when you consider most of the ingredients are the spices. All of the spices should be roasted first which means buying them whole but if you can't do this, the regular spices would work. Chop the garnishes and mix the spices while the lentils are cooking. This dish is usually served for breakfast but we found it made a wonderful evening meal. The dal is scooped with pakvaan and garnishes are added with chutney’s. Sehal/Sooka Aloo (potatoes) are a side.

Ingredients:

1 cup yellow lentils
2 cups water
¾ tsp salt (to taste)
1 tsp turmeric
½ cube fresh ginger, peeled and diced

Spices:

2 teaspoon Cumin powder
3 teaspoon Coriander powder
3 teaspoon Amchoor powder (Mango powder. If you can’t find this, use ½ lemon)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (this will be used last)

Optional:

½ teaspoon ginger powder
½ teaspoon ground hot red pepper
½ teaspoon Garam masala (mixture of black pepper, cloves, cardamom, cinnamon)

Garnishes:

¼ bunch cilantro finely chopped
½ red onion finely chopped
1 jalapeno finely chopped
Sweet and Sour Tamarind Chutney *
Hot Cilantro Chutney *

* Tamarind chutney is available in a bottle at the Indian grocery store. Water it down with equal amount of chutney and water. We didn’t find it in the Indian grocery store so we used mango chutney. We also found the cilantro chutney at our grocery store.

What to do:

Soak the yellow lentils for 1-2 hours with enough water to cover lentils.
Place lentils in a pot and cook on medium heat with 1 ½ cups water, salt, turmeric, and ginger (remaining spices finish the dish).
The remaining ½ cup of water is used to get the right consistency when heating before serving.
The lentils won’t absorb all of the waters so keep an eye on them. You’ll know when they are done when you can mash the lentils between fingers.
Once cooked, do not drain the lentils. You need that water in order to mash them and you can use a spoon or a wand blender but it doesn’t need to be absolutely smooth, leave some half mashed pieces.
Pour in a flat casserole or pie dish. You can set it aside at this point in time to finish the rest of the meal. If you do this, put it in the oven at very low heat.
Immediately before serving, heat the dal and if needed add water to get correct consistency (like a bean dip).
Sprinkle all of the spices on top of the dal.
Heat oil until it would splatter and ready for frying.
Pour over the spices as evenly as possible.
Garnish with about ½ of the garnishes and leave the rest for serving.

Pakvaan for scooping dal

Pakvaan (bread)

So … this is where you realize that America is truly a melting pot of cultures. Rather than make the pakvaan from scratch, Indu uses … flour tortillas. Oh, or pita chips.

Ingredients: