Posts

Wattakka Kalu Pol - Pumpkin Curry Sri Lankan style

Image
Well, it is always fun to cook for me. I would in fact say that it is akin to meditation for me, as it gives me immense peace of mind. I had tried a new recipe recently from the gourmet's paradise Sri Lanka, and though it is slightly different from the original, the end result tends to be the same. This time around, I tried cooking pumpkin a bit differently. The need to cook it differently arose from the problem that the cold weather poses - tamarind tends to spoil throats, and everyone is already fighting sore throats and sniffing noses. I recalled something I had seen on television aeons ago, and thought I's try. The end result was wonderful. Wattakka Kalu Pol roughly translates to Pumpkin Curry in Coconut Milk, and the recipe is a must try for it gives you an option of eating pumpkin with rice, something unheard of before. So here goes the recipe. Hope you guys enjoy it. This recipe is for 2-3 people, so just adjust if you want to make it for more people. INGREDIENTS 250

Death, You Have Been an Experience

I was driving the car. Having just dropped my mother and brother, I was turning around a sharp bend when a car came around and hit me hard. It jolted me out of my senses, and I was stunned by its impact. I got out of the car at that moment to see the rear totally mangled, looking like a piece of waste metal that is of no use to the smelting workshops and gets discarded. Anger boiled over as I walked in search of the person responsible for it. There were minor bruises on my forehead luckily, and just thenI saw the man, standing there, inspecting the wreck of the car. "You! How dare you do this to me and my car!" I shouted at the driver, running towards him lest he ran away. He looked at me, surprised, as if he had seen a ghost. "I'm sorry madam, but its not my fault. Believe me, I was just sitting by the side and eating some chocolate cookies." He was scarred on the forehead with a big gash, and yet the man had the gumption to pretend that he wasn't respo

The Intellectual Bankruptcy of India - When Will It Stop????

Today the Delhi based newspaper Hindustan Times reported the news that Nobel laureate Har Gobind Khurana, the man who decoded the RNA sequence, died on Wednesday at the age of 86. His story is little known to today's Indians, and perhaps life prior to the Nobel Prize is forgotten in India. I am raking up a dead man's past because I want to point out  certain things that happened in his life that continue to happen even today, and we should stop and think for a moment what we have 'achieved'. Har Gobind Khurana's story was like any successful Indian emigrant's story with the typically filmy twist. Very few people would know the fact that he had applied for the post of lecturer with both the Delhi University and Punjab University, Jalandhar. As every successful emigrant's story goes, his application was rejected just because he did not have any political affiliation. My point is that the reason we today suffer intellectual bankruptcy in India even today has

Inflation and the Manipulation Behind It

It has been some time now that we have had high inflation rates, and this has been pushed to the extent that for the first time in India we have a situation where housing loans now would perhaps pass on to the children of the lenders post their retirement because of ballooning interest rates spiraling out of control. It does not surprise anyone that this situation of super inflation (as I would call it) does not come under control. There are multiple reasons behind it. I shall talk about a couple of them, and hope others pick the signals up as well. Food prices have gone up across the world. Continuous monitoring by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) has shown that prices have risen five times since 2007, when food was treated as a commodity and future trading was allowed with the blessing of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and big agricultural giants like Cargill, Dow and Monsanto. This has already created havoc across the world which frighteningly led to food riots in

Alahda

हर्फ़ ब हर्फ़ किस्सा लिखा था जो तुमने मैं आज उसे मिटाने आया हूँ तसव्वुफ़ के दरीचों में जो बसर किया था तुमने मैं आज उससे अलहदा करने आया हूँ ताउम्र साथ चलने का वादा जो किया था तुमने उसकी रेशमी डोर को आज मैं तोड़ने आया हूँ मेरी बातें मेरे किस्से मेरी यादें जो चुराईं थीं तुमने मैं उसका सर्मायी चुकता करने आया हूँ जो अंदाज़े बयाँ से कायल किया था तुमने वो अलफ़ाज़ तुम्हें आज लौटाने आया हूँ तुम्हारा वजूद मेरे लिए मायने नहीं रखता अब बस इतना ज़हन कराने तेरे शहर आया हूँ  

Sweet Potato Curry

Image
So I was looking for new recipes to cook the other day, since vegetarian food across India has many many variations and ingredients used in making them. One of the recipes pointed out Sweet Potatoes. Now the four of you may start giggling after reading sweet potato. A humble poor man's snack as a main course dish? Yes of course. In fact, follow the way I made it, and you'd like it a lot. There are many options in the way you can cook it. And now, this is a recipe for three. Hope you guys try it out and like it. INGREDIENTS 2 big sweet potatoes  2 big onions four cloves of garlic one-and-half inch piece of ginger 3 green chillies 3 medium tomatoes 3 sticks curry leaves 1 tsp fenugreek ( methi ) seeds 1 tsp coriander ( dhania ) powder 1 tsp turmeric 1/2 tsp red chilli powder (preferably Kashmiri chillies) Salt to taste 2 tbsp oil (mustard/olive/canola) 1 1/2 cup coconut milk 1 cup water PREPARATION The way to use the sweet potatoes is up to you. You may wish

Pehchaan

आज  मन दर्पण में जो झाँका तो पाया के मेरी पहचान धुंधली हो चली है वो धुंधली आकृति कहीं प्रतिबिम्ब के कोने में उदास दुखी बैठी है  न जाने क्यों ऐसा है के वो कुछ बोलती ही नहीं है बस टकटकी लगाए द्वार की ओर देखती रहती है  न जाने किसकी प्रतीक्षा है मेरी पहचान को शायद मेरे अस्तित्व की