Avial is a specialty of Kerala, Tamil and Udipi cuisine. Rich with nutrients of fresh seasonal vegetables, this stew has added flavors of coconut, curry leaves and spices. The dish is usually eaten with steamed rice. One can make it either dry or with slight gravy. Avial is made in a variety of ways with a range of ingredients and is considered essential part of OnamSadya.
I used local seasonal veggies available in North India. It turned out to be delicious.
Ingredients :
Vegetables :
Ash Gourd – 100 gms
Pumpkin – 100 gms
French Beans - 10
plantain- 2
Snake Gourd – 1/2
Potato – 1, small
Brinjal – 1, small
Drumstick - 1
Yam – 1/2 cup
Don’t use veggies that contain excess water or get mushy when cooked.
For the paste :
Grated Coconut – 1/2 cup
cumin seeds – 1 teaspoon
Garlic clove- 4
Green chilies - 4
Onion- I small
Other ingredients :
Turmeric powder- 1 teaspoon
Salt – according to taste
Sour Curd- 3-4 tablespoon
Fresh Curry leaves – a few (1 spring)
Method :
Prepare the paste :
Add all the ingredients listed above for making the paste in a mixer and coarsely grind them to a thick paste. Add just a little water if you find it difficult to grind. Keep aside.
Prepare the veggies :
In a heavy bottom pan put all the listed veggies which are peeled and cut into 1 1/2 inch long pieces. Add green chilies slit in half. Also add enough water to cover the vegetables. Add salt and turmeric powder and simmer on slow heat till half cooked. Make sure the vegetables do not get overcooked. I use a fork to check if they are done. The fork should easily go in but veggies should remain intact and crisp.
Make a well in the middle of vegetables and add the already prepared coconut paste.
Stir well and cook on low heat for another five minutes. Keep it covered.
Take a teaspoon of coconut oil or any other cooking oil. Heat it a little and add curry leaves to it till they crackle. Pour those curry leaves in the mixture and cover.
Take beaten curd and add this too to the vegetable stew and remove from heat. Do not cook after adding curd as it may curdle and ruin the dish.
Watch the colorful carnival come alive with exotic aromas as an added bonus. I kept a little with gravy and rest without it so that it caters to everyone’s wants.
In Indian Ayurvedic medical system Bottle Gourd/ doodhi/ lauki holds a special place due to its health benefits. This is a recipe perfected by me over the years. Traditional Indian sweets require a lot of love and patience. They are time consuming but the end result is delicious. I usually avoid using Khoa which is base for many Indian sweets. I prefer to use full cream milk and reduce it on slow flame to get the same texture and the taste is much better than khoa.
Bottle Gourd is used for making kheer, halwa and barfi and here we will learn to make Bottle gourd barfi or fudge.
Ingredients :
Bottle Gourd – 2 cup grated. Choose fresh lime green bottle gourd with a round bottom and no blemishes.
Sugar- 200 grams
Milk- 1 liter
Green cardamon powder – 1teaspoon
Almonds- Blanched and finely chopped 1/4 cup
Clarified Butter – 1/3 cup
Method :
Wash peel and grate the bottle gourd. Keep aside. Some people remove the pulp and seeds but I keep it all. One needs to take tender bottle gourd.
Heat full cream milk. Add the grated bottle gourd to it. I don’t fry the vegetable before adding milk. I feel all the juices should remain in the dish.
Keep the heavy bottom pan full of milk and bottle gourd mixture on low flame and let it simmer till the milk completely evaporates.
Add the clarified butter and keep the flame on medium. Keep stirring to avoid burning.
Let the mixture leave sides and turn a beautiful golden brown.
A this point add sugar. I usually add sugar at later stage.
Dry up the water content after adding sugar.
Stir it till it gets a nice shade of brown.
Add almonds and remove from heat. Add cardamon powder. This should always be added in the end.
Grease a high edged plate covered with foil paper.
Pour the mixture and flatten it to form a smooth texture.
Let it cool. Once cool cut into squares or diamonds.
Garnish with almond shredding. I have skipped the garnish as mom doesn’t like it much.
I like the way you say “we will find a way”. I like the word “we”. It feels like a warm hug even from such a distance. I have lived a life fractured into “You” and “I”. It never became “we” until you came in it.
It is true that every time I think of you it is like getting a hug from inside out but sometimes the want for a real hug consumes me like a wild-fire. I wonder if the love we put into words will ever transform into hugs - real hugs not virtual.
I have forgotten how a real hug feels like, the warmth of a human body against yours, nothing sexual or romantic but just a need to be held. I can’t remember even if I go back looking through my youth or even my childhood. Just simple hug, that cocaine high , that surge in the blood, that solace of being desired, that shamanistic, trance like feeling of ecstasy which strangely illuminates from within. I desire you in the simplest way, simpler than you can think of and this desire is constellation of wants and needs, hopes and dreams exploding inside me yearning for that one hug. The warmth of your arms around me.
I get that warmth from the words you say and write and the yearning increases with each day.
Sometimes I sit and wonder, why do we feel so uncomfortable giving a hug as we grow up? We don’t teach our children importance of non-sexual touch. They grow up without that knowledge and don’t know what to do when someone wants to hug them. They freeze. They feel confused when a sudden voice from inside tells them to go embrace someone. They burn but can’t bring themselves to give a simple hug. It surprises me how my own boys somehow lack in this especially when I instilled it in them. I guess society has a lot to do with this inhibition we have. These simple gestures of holding hands, hugging are lost in the rigid norms society enforces on us. It is surprising that two girls hanging out, hugging , walking hand in hand, giving a friendly peck on the cheek is acceptable but when boys do it becomes a matter of concern and ridicule, something abnormal, out-of-place. What kind of world are we living in? Aren’t we depriving our children of basic human needs? What will they become when they grow up, if not skewed up, frustrated adults fighting with their basic instincts?
We grow up to be icons of romance, fulfil those slush fantasies but so lack in these simple things. It is strange that sometimes those in a relationship/ marriage too lack these simple pleasures just like we, the lonely ones do. It is not gender or age based either. We connect with each other at many levels but not on this one. There are times when one wants to give a hug and restrains and if one gets a hug one freezes and shrugs it off. Either way we lose, curl up, and go into a shell yearning for a hug.
Empty hearts give empty hugs, even the pleasure of sex quickly goes cold in cold arms. I have been there so I know. They are just physical motions one goes through, a routine, devoid of love, desire, care or longing empty arms which may feel warm but leave your cold and drained. Slowly that dies too leaving a void, a starved body longing for human touch. Nothing is more bitter than to be forced to submit to the falseness of love. To endure the cage of arms that suck life out of you instead of nurturing it.
I long for those arms, those arms that can end the growing longing; arms that would wrap me in the comfort of loving energy that matches mine. Arms that would make me feel safe, cared, understood for who I am. Not possessed, owned or used as an object, not holding me as an obligation to dead vows .
I sometimes feel like hugging random people on streets but I notice how suspicious we are of each other. We restrain ourselves and lock ourselves afraid that the floodgates of human emotions may overflow. Unsure if we can handle the deluge. We give virtual hugs freely but a real hug is a herculean task. I have felt the flow of energy even when touched accidently but it just ends in a surprised reaction. Hardly anyone gives a real hug these days. It has been reduced to a social gesture. We hug our animal companions more than we hug our fellow human beings. Isn’t it something to think about? Have you ever wondered “why”? Why is there such a social disconnect?
I sometime ..no, actually all the time … feel the need to put my head in someone’s lap or shoulder and cry or open my arms to someone who needs it, to stroke someone’s hair, to simply hold someone’s hands, simple things that words can never express.
You have to be in this place to feel the emptiness of the feeling of having someone who can change this forever and yet being a distant dream. This feeling is beyond the loneliness of any sort.
To be held in true love is a rare experience these days, be it from children, parents, friends, lovers, be it in any relationship even marriage.
I am looking for those arms, those arms which would hold me and true love, compassion of human heart, comfort and understanding.
Would you hold me? Would you turn those words into real hugs?
Would you?
You know
I would
If you choose so
Till then I will just desire. Feel your words wrap me in their warmth and make my fragmented state of ordinary life a little coherent. No longer scattered like autumn leaves through time and space but contained at one place. In You.
When was the last time you gave or got a real hug?
