Idiot-proof vegetable pulao

August 26, 2014Aneela Mirchandani Rice, Sindhi food Tags: food, food blog, indian cuisine, indian food, indian food blog, pilaf, pulao, step by step vegetable pulao, vegan, vegetable pilaf, vegetable pulao, vegetarian 7 Comments

Vegetable pulao with tomato soup

One of the first dishes I ever tried cooking on my own was flavored rice cooked with a few vegetables. This is known as a vegetable pulao — or pilaf — or pulav, the standard-est and basic-est of Indian home recipes. So why has it taken me this long to blog about it?

Because sometimes the simplest things give you the most trouble. It has taken me years for me to get this right. Sometimes the rice isn’t cooked through. If it is, it is cooked too much. Or the vegetables are cut too big and raw on the inside, or they have turned to mush. If all goes right regarding the timing, the thing is tasteless. Gah.

One way to get around these problems is to cook the rice and vegetables separately then combine them. But while there are many perfectly fine recipes that rely on this method (many from the south — yogurt rice, lemon rice, tomato rice etc.), for vegetable pulao, the flavors must fuse, which means cooking together is a must. They must come out with a flourish, all perfectly done at the same time. They say each grain of rice must be separate, so add that to the list of requirements. It must be gently spiced, but not too much — too much would kick it over into being a biryani. That’s fine, but that’s not what we are after.

So now, finally, I present to you my pulao secrets, recently discovered after many years of trial and error, which should make all doubts vanish under the first whiff aroma that hits you when you open the pot. Here they are.

Secrets of pulao

Be stingy with the water. The vegetables you add will leave off some steam of their own, so I would use about a quarter less water than you would with plain rice.
But if you do that, the danger is that the rice will cook and expand and rise above the water line, leaving the upper layer uncooked. Curses! To get around this problem, we use a pressure cooker. (I believe a tightly closed dutch oven slow-cooked in an oven would work as well, but that is not what I did.)
Do not use vegetables that will turn to mush, like tomatoes or zucchini. The vegetables that you do use must be diced. I use vegetables like green beans, carrots, peas, cauliflower, cabbage, bell peppers, celery, etc.
Rice tends to be a bit bland, so you need to fire on all cylinders where the aromatics are concerned. So that means — garlic, ginger, green chilies, onion, and yogurt for richness.
Now this is the most important — do not caramelize the onions! Cook them till softened, but not browned. A lower flame would help. This is because what we are after is a savory flavor, not a sweet caramel browned flavor (there are other excellent rice dishes that explore this profile, we will go into that at some point).

Armed with these tenets we are ready to begin.

Rice soaking and vegetables diced

Ginger garlic chili paste with yogurt

Onion cooking with bay leaf and cardamom

Paste enters

Paste drying up

Vegetables enter

Rice enters

Done

Vegetable Pulao

Servings: 2
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Ingredients

1 cup long-grained rice
1.25 cup water
4 cups diced vegetables, mix of carrots, peas, beans, cauliflower (cut slightly larger, because it has the tendency to turn to mush if overcooked), bell pepper, celery, potatoes
1 black cardamom
1 bay leaf
1/3 cup diced onion (this will be about half a medium onion)
3-4 cloves garlic
1 inch piece ginger
1-3 fresh green chilies
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons oil

Method

Rinse and soak the rice for about half hour. Dice the vegetables — those that cook quickly (like cauliflower) can be left larger, those that cook slowly (like carrot) can be cut smaller. Blend the yogurt along with ginger, garlic and chilies to make a paste.

Heat oil in the pressure cooker or dutch oven on medium heat. When it shimmers, put in the cardamom and bay leaf. Let them cook until an aroma arises. Then put in the onion. It can cook for a few minutes until softened. Now put in the paste and stir to combine with the oil. In about five minutes of cooking, the paste will have dried up and the oil will show separating from the paste.

Now you can put the vegetables in, and simply toss them around to mix with the oil. Drain the rice and add that in as well, and stir to coat the rice with the oil and spices. Now put in the water and salt, and pressure cook for 15 minutes. If you are using a dutch oven, cover it tightly and cook it in the oven for about 20 minutes at 250ºF.

Let it sit covered for a few minutes after taking it off the heat. Before serving, fluff it up lightly with a fork.

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Talking to a Vidarbha Bt cotton farmer

August 17, 2014Aneela Mirchandani GMO Tags: bt cotton, farmer suicides, gmo, indian agriculture 14 Comments

Cotton at the market (source: Prakash Puppalwar)

I wrote two posts on Bt cotton but I have to admit it left me more confused than before. I went into it expecting to find that Bt cotton had kickstarted an epidemic of farmer suicides. But the closer I looked, the more the claims of Bt cotton devastation seemed to vanish into thin air. What I was left with though, was a list of problems of technology adoption — the kind of list that is very familiar in every industry that tries out something new.

My mistake lay in hoping for an answer to a simple question — is Bt cotton good or bad? But this type of question might confuse matters more than illuminate them. A better question might be — what problems does it solve, what problems does it create? How does it interact with customs and practices in India?

Look, Bt cotton is a technology. It isn’t the devil himself in the form of a seed, nor is it a benediction from the gods. It is a human-made technology. All of us who use computers know what that means. When they work, they are great. But most of us have had the occasional urge to punch a fist through the screen when it doesn’t do what we expect.

Recap

Bt cotton was introduced in India in 2002 by Mahyco in collaboration with Monsanto. The prior three decades had been tough for cotton farmers in India due to yield losses from the bollworm. Farmers had to spend a huge amount in pesticides and many had given up on growing cotton entirely.

Bt cotton comes with an insecticide in it (one that is safe for humans), that allows the cotton bolls to grow without being eaten by the bollworm. This makes it so that farmers don’t have to purchase extra insecticide and be exposed to those sprays. Plus, Bt cotton is a hybrid that seems to make bigger bolls.

It does come with strings attached. It isn’t the wild form of cotton that humans discovered thousands of years ago that belonged to no one and to everyone. This one has been through years of research and tinkering in the lab. It is a corporate product. Therefore, the seeds are more expensive. In addition, you cannot save seeds from your harvest. You have to purchase a new set of seeds each year.

Despite these strings attached, many (most) cotton farmers have made the determination that Bt cotton is worth growing anyway. I interviewed Bt cotton farmer Sudhindra Kulkarni, who gave me a precise breakdown of his profits from Bt cotton and a comparison with red gram. Please note the dramatically lower cost of the seeds for red gram, and yet, the dramatically higher profit for Bt cotton:

	Bt Cotton	Red Gram
Yield per acre	15 quintal	5 quintal
Rate for 1 quintal	Rs. 5,000/=	Rs. 4,650/=
Total for 1 acre	Rs. 75,000/=	Rs. 23,250/=
Total expense for input	Rs. 27,000/=	Rs. 7,000/=
Net profit for 1 acre	Rs. 48,000/=	Rs. 16,520/=

As a matter of fact, the adoption rate of Bt cotton in India is 90%. Farmers are small business owners, and like any other such, they make a business calculation to see if Bt cotton is worth growing for them or not. Sudhindra claims that Bt cotton lifted his family out of poverty. Much as us urban folks would like farmers to remain guardians of India’s halcyon past, they themselves have practical lives to lead in the present.

What’s the problem, then? Clearly the story does not end there or there would be no debate. Where’s the strum und drang here? Why has the Mahyco-Monsanto alliance aroused fears that India is being stealthily colonized again? What about the epidemic of farmers killing themselves?

Farmer distress

Any media consumer who has not investigated this issue deeply themselves gets a constant drumbeat about Bt cotton having devastated Indian farmers. Words like catastrophe, epidemic, even holocaust are thrown around. But upon talking to farmers, Bt cotton appears as a solution to a three-decade-old problem. What gives?

Here are some articles about the fears of farmer distress. Ostensibly the stories are about how Bt cotton is inadvisable to grow. But one has to read them a little smartly to see that the point being made is more nuanced than that: Bt cotton is inadvisable to grow when there is no irrigation. This makes sense — Bt cotton needs water. Being a cash crop, it can’t be eaten as a last resort if it can’t be sold. Plus, the farmers are being advised to be prudent and rotate their crops; plant non-Bt crops as buffers to avoid the bollworm becoming resistant; to grow lower-profit crops like sorghum as well for backup. None of it should be controversial. What is left unsaid are the reasons why farmers might not be following best practices. Some of those I alluded to in this article, where I mentioned the difficulty of disseminating information in regions of high illiteracy. The other reason is obvious when you look at Sudhindra’s chart above — cotton is a cash crop and has the potential to make a good profit, if things go right. Is there perhaps some excessive risk-taking going on?

But what do I know — I can speculate plenty but I know little. So I talked to a farmer from Vidarbha, Maharashtra, a that region is said to have been devastated by crop failures, in order to get some inside information.

Talking to a Vidarbha Bt cotton farmer

Prakash Puppalwar farms in Yavatmal district in the Vidarbha region. It is known as ‘Cotton City’ because of its traditional ties to the growing and manufacture of cotton goods. He has an ancestral cotton farming background. He is one of a group of farmers that got an education in agriculture and came back to their village to farm so he has a good understanding of best practices, and also a handle on the problems that smaller, less educated farmers may face. I asked him a few questions on the phone and on email, what follows is a translated compilation of his answers.

Prakash Puppalwar in Yavatmal Bt cotton farm

What problems do farmers face in Yavatmal?

Some farms lack irrigation. We sow cotton in June and expect to harvest in October or November. In June it rains each week, without fail. July too. In August, sometimes there are 15 or 20 dry days at a stretch. During this time, we need some extra water. In addition, sometimes there is power-load-shedding at times when we need electricity for irrigation.
We don’t get good weather reports at the time of sowing.
Everyone knows that the yield of Bt cotton is high. So labor costs have gone up. Out of the cotton cultivation cost 65% goes towards labor. Plus, it is hard to find skilled labor.
As far as good government loans with regulated interest, it is easy enough to get a 15-year loan to build a house. But if you are looking for a 5-year or 10-year loan for farming, it is difficult. You don’t get much and you don’t get it on time. [OP:This is why farmers would have to resort to unauthorized money-lenders.]
The government has fixed the MSP (minimum sale price) of cotton too low. In addition, some years back they had stopped the export of cotton entirely. Now it has restarted but not at the previous levels. They should have an import duty on cotton like they have on sugar. For a while the rate of cotton had gone up to seven thousand. Lately we had to sell it off at three thousand.
We do not have crop insurance in case of crop failures.
Farmers are eager to learn but they lack knowledge about farming with this new technology. They also lack knowledge about marketing.

Do farms in your district follow best practices for growing Bt cotton?
We do rotate crops. We use chemical and organic inputs in the ratio of 60-40. We are also told by the agriculture institute to have a buffer area of non-Bt cotton surrounding the farm and though we try, we cannot always accomplish this.

Beehive in Bt cotton (source: Prakash Puppalwar)

You seem to have some practical problems. Why do people blame only Bt cotton?
I don’t want to speculate on their reasons. But if we farmers are the patients, shouldn’t we be asked first what our disease is? Look, 100% of the farmers here grow Bt cotton. Why would we do that? With Bt cotton we have got freedom from an old enemy — the pests. We have surety. Even the lady farm workers know that with Bt cotton we have higher production. We have gone from four to ten quintals. I don’t understand why the whole blame should go on the seeds. The seeds are a small part of our cost. Out of our total cost of growing, 65% goes towards labor. Then there is fertilization, irrigation, marketing. The seeds are only 5% of our cost. Why would we blame the seeds? There are a lot of factors that go towards a crop succeeding or failing. You might have great production but if you can’t sell it at a good rate you would have a failed crop anyway. This year we have had only 33% rain that we expected so far. Smaller farms who don’t have irrigation could be wiped out. Those who have irrigation will be fine. That is a very important factor.

But is it the case that conventional cotton is not as dependent on water as is Bt cotton?
It is all about the boll. Conventional cotton did not grow bolls as big as Bt cotton. Plus the quality of the cotton was not as good. Since the bolls are bigger with Bt cotton, naturally it will need more nutrition, and in turn, more water. Specially in the boll-formation stage. This is not surprising.

Have their been a lot of suicides by farmers in your region?
No doubt, there have been some. But, one has to keep in mind that the government gives one lakh rupees to the families of the bereaved in case of a suicide. People can be asked to provide any kind of statement to the police. One has to keep this fact in mind. [OP: it was not clear to me what exactly he was suggesting here but I didn’t want to probe too much, as the conversation was getting a little too macabre for me.]

Swadeshi fever

Indians have always had a persistent phobia about being swallowed up by the west (clearly certain events in our history have had something to do with this). I don’t think anyone believes that we will literally be colonized again, but each new cultural encroachment by the west arouses fears of soft-colonization — the kind where we lose our cultural soul; where we become addicts who can’t do much but wait for the next cola-fizzed hit from western corporations.

Gandhi promoted this notion as self-reliance or Swadeshi. I have more than a smidgen of this phobia myself. The sheer psychic disturbance I feel when I see a McDonalds franchise in a place where a vada-pav stall used to be is hard to put in words. I believe that GMO seeds arouse this fear in a visceral way because it is our very food production cycle that would now involve a reliance on products that are Videshi, not Swadeshi. I understand this fear and I feel it too. The blogger from Curry Leaf, one who I admire for her stories and her passion, expresses this fear in the comments on this post.

As this is an emotional reaction, it isn’t wrong or right, and there is no arguing against it. But let me give you a little glimpse of my own inner dialog around this subject.

Ground being prepared for sowing (source: Prakash Puppalwar)

I feel like the cultural influences we have already absorbed become invisible to us, and we fear the cultural influences that might occur in the future. Gandhi himself was educated in England and wrote books in impeccable English. We are debating this subject mostly in this foreign language as well, on the Internet created mostly by America. When one’s livelihood is involved, like for the farmers I have talked to, it becomes difficult to give primacy to an abstract principle above one’s own flight from poverty. It is often: Swadeshi for thee, but not for me.

And, one has to remember that cultural influence goes both ways. If Indian cities are now heavily dependent on computers, cell phones, software and the rest, mostly from American companies, one has to think about the legions of Indian engineers they hire too. Where GMO seeds are concerned, the enterprise from the beginning was a collaboration of an Indian company with an American company, and, now there are Indian companies doing the research and production themselves.

GMO is not the first interdependence we have with the west and it won’t be the last.

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References:
1. http://www.indianjpsychiatry.org/article.asp?issn=0019-5545;year=2008;volume=50;issue=2;spage=124;epage=127;aulast=Behere
2. http://artsci.wustl.edu/~anthro/research/stone/stone-wd-largerquestions.pdf
3. http://sap.einaudi.cornell.edu/sites/sap.einaudi.cornell.edu/files/Failure%20of%20Bt%20Cotton%20Herring%20Rao.pdf

My slimy old pal, stuffed

August 3, 2014August 4, 2014Aneela Mirchandani Okra Tags: bharela bhindi, bharwan bhindi, bhindi recipes, food, Food Blogs, how to stuff okra, indian food, indian food blogs, indian recipes, okra recipes, vegan, vegetarian 11 Comments

Stuffed

Here is a riddle for all you wonderful folks. Two cousins. One is hairy, one is slimy. I have talked about the hairy one quite a bit recently. The slimy one doesn’t get much love because many people object to its sliminess. Fear not! There are many ways to make it unobjectionable.

Here is the hairy one. And here is the slimy one. Both from the mallow family.

OK I have dragged this one out enough. Of course, the hairy one is cotton. But the slimy one is the subject of today’s recipe — okra. The slime is a form of soluble fiber that has many benefits, from slowing absorption of glucose (diabetics take note) to capturing toxic bile and helping with constipation.

Now okra is often not popular. When I mentioned to my husband that okra and cotton were from the same plant family, he said, ‘no wonder okra tastes like cotton’. Funny guy.

But here’s the thing. You can do one of several things. You can use okra in recipes that absolutely thrive on its sliminess and use it to give cohesion to soups and stews. Like gumbo. Or, you can fry and crisp it up. Once you do that, no one would guess at the great gobs of sticky runny goo that normally erupts out of okra pods.

Or, you could do this.

Okra stuffed with spices (Bharela bhindi)

For this dish, the okra pods are left whole. A slit is made along the length of the pod with a paring knife, taking care to leave a pocket, not bust through to the other side. Stuff the pocket full of spices. Fry it. This process seems to dissolve the sliminess as well and makes it a delicious meal with some roti or rice and dal on the side.

While picking okra one has to be careful to pick the very young pods, where the ribs have not turned fibrous and woody (once that happens, there is no going back, and you will not enjoy eating them). A gentle squeeze while selecting them at the market will tell you if the pods are still young. The pods I found at the farmers market are from a variety that has been bred to have minimal ribs, and can be left on the plant longer without risk of turning woody. Nevertheless, I did find one or two that had, and I discarded them.

Pound of okra pods

Whole spices

Roasting spices

All spices mixed in a bowl

Pocket

Stuffing the pocket

Stuffed and ready to go

Frying

Add onion

Done

Stuffed okra/bharela bhindi

Servings: 2-3
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Ingredients for the spice mix:

2 teaspoons whole coriander
2 teaspoons whole cumin
1/2 teaspoon whole fenugreek seeds
1/2 teaspoon whole fennel seeds
2 whole red chilies, more if you like
1 teaspoon dry mango powder (aamchur)
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
1/4 teaspoon asafetida
1/2 teaspoon red chili (if you want more heat) or paprika (for color and flavor)
1 teaspoon salt

Ingredients for okra

1 pound okra pods
3 tablespoons oil
1/4 onion, sliced (optional)

Method

Roast the whole spices from coriander to red chilies in a thick-bottomed pan, just until an aroma arises. Take it off the heat, wait a few minutes for them to cool and grind in a clean coffee grinder. Now mix in the powdered spices from the dry mango powder to the salt.

Wash and completely dry the okra. Take off the very top, the hat that looks like a beanie where the okra is attached to the stem. Using a sharp paring knife, make a slit along the length of the pod, stopping a little short on both ends, to make a pocket. Fill each okra with the spice mixture. A small spoon is very helpful for this. Then using your fingertips, spread spices nicely inside the pocket.

Once all the okra pods have been stuffed, heat the oil in a wide, thick-bottomed pan. When it shimmers, lay the okra pods flat in a single layer. Let them cook on medium-high heat for 10 to 15 minutes until each side is browned. Once in a while give them a turn with tongs or a spoon. Mostly just leave them be.

When they look pretty much browned, squished and done, throw in the onions. The onions only need to cook for a minute or two, the hot pan will soften them quickly. They do not need to brown. Turn off and cover the pan for a few minutes to allow the steam to finish the job.

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Star-studded raisin-pecan bread

August 1, 2014Aneela Mirchandani Risen breads Tags: bread, bread baking, food, Food Blogs, homemeade bread, rose levy berenbaum 6 Comments

Star-studded bread

A lot of what I know about bread-baking I learnt at the home of Rose Levy Berenbaum. No, she is not my favorite aunt or neighbor (though how I wish she were) — she was in her home, on TV, and I was in my home, watching TV and earnestly taking notes.

I have made several of the breads in her book The Bread Bible, and this one is one of my favorites. Of course breads with raisins and nuts are quite common. But the standard configuration they come in is the sliced bread with a square shape, sprinkled with cinnamon and a swirl in the middle. Now that is wonderful, but there’s more to raisin-nut breads than the cinnamon swirl.

The Bread Bible

This particular bread (called the Raisin Pecan bread in the book) is a free-form loaf that is baked ‘naked’ in the oven, outside of any pans. Those are my favorite kinds of breads because of their crustiness. There is no cinnamon — that is the other difference. There is no swirl, instead the raisins and pecans are nicely spread throughout the loaf, hence the name that I gave it — star-studded. There is no added sweetness, making it less of a confection and more of an adult dinner bread. Spread with something creamy like clotted cream or a nice white cheddar it is one of the most popular snacks in our home.

She uses some ingenious tricks to enhance the flavor. A sponge is mixed hours ahead or the previous day. Raisins are soaked for 30 minutes, no more; and the soaking water is used in the bread. Some of the pecans are ground fine to be mixed in with the dough, some are just broken bits and add a delightful crunchiness to many bites. The nut and raisins are mixed in in a very delicate procedure, after all the heavy kneading is done, to avoid a mess of runny raisin juice. Simple, small tricks, but they make a big difference.

I made one more modification — I substituted quite a bit of the flour with whole wheat, because we like that in our household.

Star-studded Raisin-Nut Bread

Mixing the sponge

Soaked raisins

Pecans with some pistachio thrown in

Straining ground pecans

Ground pecans and bits

Sponge risen

Mixing the dough

Spreading pecans

Adding raisins

Rolling it up

Ready for first rise

Shaped ready for second rise

Risen

Scored

Done

Star-studded bread (adapted from Rose Levy Berenbaum's raisin-pecan bread)

Servings: 2 pound loaf
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Ingredients for soaking raisins:

1 cup raisins or currants
1/3 cup water

Method for soaking raisins:

Soak the raisins in hot water for half an hour. At this point, drain the raisins and you will be left with 1/4 cup water, that you can use to make the sponge below.

Ingredients for sponge:

1 cup bread flour
1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
1 cup water (including raisin soaking water)
1 tablespoon demerara sugar

Method for sponge:

Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl, then pour in the water (remember to use 1/4 cup of the raisin water for added flavor), and stir stir stir with a wooden spoon or chopstick, almost like you are whisking it. The sponge will look like batter with some air incorporated into it. Cover with a plastic wrap and keep aside at room temperature for at least 1.5 hours, at most a whole day.

Ingredients for dough:

1.5 cups plus couple teaspoons more of whole wheat flour
3/4 teaspoon instant yeast
1.25 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup finely ground pecans
1.5 cups coarsely broken pecans (I substituted some with pistachios)
1 tablespoon oil
All the sponge from above
All the raisins from above

Method for dough:

Stir together the flour, the yeast, the salt. Add in the sponge and the oil and the ground pecans, stir with a chopstick or the dough hook to moisten fully. Cover with plastic wrap and leave it aside for 10 minutes. Come back to it and knead it properly into a dough. Let it rest for 10 more minutes.

Now flatten the dough and spread it out into a rough rectangle about 10 inches by 15 inches. Spread the broken pecans bits all over the rectangle leaving an inch border on all sides. Then spread the raisins over the same area evenly. Start rolling up the dough from a short end, also taking care to tuck in the edges. All the nuts and raisins will be hidden inside.

You do need to knead it lightly after, just to get it all to combine. At this point nuts and raisins might start falling out of your dough ball, just do your best to tuck them back in.

Cover with oil and allow the first rise until it is doubled, which will take about 2 hours. Shape it into a loaf and allow the second rise till doubled, covered with plastic wrap or a damp towel. This will take about 1 hour.

Heat the oven to 400ºF. Score the bread with a sharp, serrated knife. Each cut should go about half an inch deep. Mist the bread and put into the oven on a middle rack. In the first 5 minutes, mist inside the oven with a water spray bottle and quickly close the oven, about 3 or 4 times. After the first 5 minutes bring the temperature down to 375ºF. Continue baking for 40 to 50 minutes until it is golden brown.

The Odd Pantry

Essays on food

Month: August 2014