Comments on: Gunpowder

By: The Indian Vegetarian 100 meme! « anubhAva

The Indian Vegetarian 100 meme! « anubhAva — Tue, 26 May 2009 14:21:46 +0000

[...] leaf 71. Falooda 72. Moong khichdi 73. Bebinca 74. Daal baati 75. Methi greens 76. Basundi 77. Gunpowder – the lazy wife’s savior – chutney-pudi! 78. Appam-stew 79. Sweet lemon pickle 80. [...]

By: The Indian Vegetarian 100 Meme « The Road Taken

The Indian Vegetarian 100 Meme « The Road Taken — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:13:09 +0000

[...] leaf 71. Falooda 72. Moong khichdi 73. Bebinca 74. Daal baati 75. Methi greens 76. Basundi 77. Gunpowder 78. Appam-stew 79. Sweet lemon pickle 80. Ridge gourd 81. Bisi bele bhath 82. Coconut burfi 83. [...]

By: orata

orata — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 04:57:22 +0000

desiknitter, Mary brought a jar of this for me and it was so delicious I ran out and made my own batch today! Mine didn’t come out quite as well, but in ten years or so when I finally finish eating all the gunpowder from this batch, I’ll try again… I made some substitutions that probably negatively affected it, like turbinado sugar for the jaggery, and ground cumin for cumin seeds. Rahul’s mom recognized it as “molaga podi” but said she didn’t eat it much and felt like it was more of a Marathi thing. Thanks for sharing the recipe!

By: Mary

Mary — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 18:07:09 +0000

Okay, I did it! I have made gunpowder ala chez desiknitter. It is really good. Thank you for the pictures they helped me a great deal. Yum!!!! Although I have to fess up. As a person raised on northern US food, I only put in 2 tablespoons of chili powder and it is enough to give me a mighty bang. And I may have put in too many curry leaves… I’ll take some over to orata’s house for dinner and get her SO to check it out… But it is good! yum. Food. Heaven. Time to knit.

By: Mary

Mary — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:40:35 +0000

Eee ya, I mean “desiknitter”

By: Mary

Mary — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:38:25 +0000

Thank you Desoknitter and Gautam!!!! I’m off to the kitchen.

By: Magpie Ima

Magpie Ima — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 02:43:28 +0000

I did indeed eat at Saravan Bhavan. So yummy. I can’t believe how many times I’ve talked about that meal! That was also memorable as the night I tried my first paan. Quite an experience!

By: Adventures of a Desi Knitter » Stone and flesh

Adventures of a Desi Knitter » Stone and flesh — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 12:04:23 +0000

[...] (Thanks so much for the comments on the gunpowder, friends – in the next few months, rather than reply individually to comments, I’m going to respond here on the blog, so do check back in the comments; if you asked a question to the last one, the answer is here.) [...]

By: desiknitter

desiknitter — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 13:18:28 +0000

Gautam-da, so wonderful to see you here, and thanks so much for the detailed response to Mary. Mary: what Gautam-da said!

Thanks for the responses everyone! If anyone makes it do let me know how you liked it. For the next few months, I’m going to try and respond to comments and questions here on the blog instead of by individual email – so if you asked a question, please do check back here.

Spudsayshi: There is no ‘official’ line as such, but geographically, historically and culturally, the Vindhya mountains have been a natural marker, producing and perpetuating differences between northern and southern ways of life. Linguistically, the dividing line is language-families – north Indian languages are Indo-Aryan, ie mostly Sanskrit-derived, while south Indian ones are Dravidian, ie Tamil-derived. But here too, there has historically been lots of exchange of vocabulary. My own region, Maharashtra, has also historically been a link region between north and south: we see features of both north and south in food, language, kinship patterns, historical institutions, etc. Our family is mixed with Marathi (Indo-Aryan) and Kannada (Dravidian) sides, so it’s all very complicated!

Rima, let me know when you land in Bangalore, I’ll post you some! Mel, next time you’re in California…

Sepoy: let’s have some together next time with PDCS’s dosa so everyone wins, what say? Although, Dak has already said the stuff makes you revolt, so maybe we should approach it with caution.

Magpie Ima, yes, it is most likely what you had with dosas – did you eat at Saravana Bhavan?

Megan, although this uses two dals (lentils), this is not like dal (soupy), but a dry spicy condiment – if you try it out do let me know how it turns out.

By: gautam

gautam — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 07:32:22 +0000

Mary,

A taste of jaggery may be reproduced by molasses, the Grandma “something” Unsulfured brand but NOT the Brer Rabbit Blackstrap Molasses. The former can be dribbled into granulated white sugar to produce a dark brown sugar that resembles jaggery, for the purpose of this dish and for several other preparations as well. Not the ideal, but will do in a pinch.

Also, dark grades of maple syrup, B or C, when avaiable cheaply from a health food coop, coul be tried springly mixed in [sparingly] with above ersatz jaggery to create another type of “palm” sugar.

Experiment with this and come up with a dark sugar that is pleasng to your taste. The cane jaggery and the palm sugar [Gula Java] sold in Indian and Thai groceries are neither very fres nor very favorful.

Your home-made versons wil not be inferior. Even the straight molassses is good (not Brer Rabbit though), nd I hve heard high prase lavished on Steen’s molaes produced in Louisana.