The Kitchen Sisters Come Out Swingin

Events On
Our Radar

The 2008 Presidential Election,
Tuesday,
November 4.
VOTE.

Public Radio Fund Drives happening nationwide this month. Support your local station. Keep the airwaves public and vibrant.




The Naked Truth: The Katie Lee Exhibit
at the Cline Library, Northern Arizona University.
Katie is one of the pioneering river activists we chronicled in “Cry Me a River.” She fought the
damming of Glen Canyon in the 1950's and at 88
still works unrelentingly for the environment.

Books We're Reading:

Girls: Ordinary Girls and Their Extraordinary Pursuits by Jenny,
Laura & Martha McPhee. Three of John McPhee's daughters create a collection
of photographs and life stories.

A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes by David Tanis. When we first began the Hidden Kitchens series we ate at a secret, twelve-seat, one-table, one-night-of-the-month restaurant tucked into an apartment in Paris. That elusive ritual dinner that David Tanis & Randal Breski created helped inspire our NPR series. This is a collection of some of David's recipes and stories. David is also the chef at Chez Panisse.

Evening is the Whole Day by Preeta Samrasan
Our intern Deena Prichep recommends this lovely novel.

Alabama Stitch Book by Natalie Chanin. We have been following the saga of Project Alabama for years now. Natalie is a clothing designer from Florence, Alabama, home of Sam and Becky Phillips of Sun Studios and WHER fame. Her commitment to hand-made textiles and local artisans is part of what we are watching as we explore the secret life of girls around the world.

Radio We're Making:

Chocolate Town: A Hidden Kitchens story-in-progress about the chocolate company towns and the candy factory “sweetie towns” of England.

Kitchen Sisters Recording & Interviewing Workshop - Friday, September 26, San Francisco.

The Blonde in the Village: We travel to the mountains of Korea near the DMZ for the secret saga of an outcast girl.

Favorite Things: The Kitchen Sisters session at the Third Coast International Audio Festival - October 11, Chicago.

Music We're Spinning:

WWOZ FM in New Orleans, "Guardians of the Groove."

Sincerely Jane by Janelle Monae. We heard this song on KCRW when we were in LA for the gathering of Public Radio Program Directors from all over the nation. We're looking for music for our new girls series and something about this song stuck.

Papa Was a Rollin' Stone by The Temptations, co-written by Norman Whitfield, who died last week. He also co-wrote Ain't Too Proud To Beg, Just My Imagination and I Heard it Through the Grapevine and so much more.

Earl Palmer's drumming. A beautiful lost and found sound. Palmer, who also died last week, played drums on La Bamba, Lucille, Donna, Tutti Frutti and so many songs with a rhythm that lives. He worked with Fats Domino, Little Richard, Frank Sinatra, Tom Waits and on and on. Beat in peace.

Paintings We're Admiring:

Kitchen Brother, Charles Prentiss (Nikki's husband) exhibits his paintings at Open Studios in Santa Cruz the 1st and 3rd weekend in October. You're invited to visit the commune where Nikki and Charles live, tour his studio and take a behind-the-scenes look at The Kitchen Sisters' production studio there. October 4-5 & 18-19, 11am - 6 pm. See some of Charles' artwork and get directions at charlesprentiss.com.

Okra & Pearl Onion Curry

I am sending this recipe to Sunshinemom's FIC Green event.

I love Okra. I also love pearl/baby Onions. Somehow it did not strike my mind to combine these two lovely veges together. Of course I have made Okra subji with big onions. After looking at Bhawana's "Okra with baby onion" recipe, I was too tempted to try this combination in my own way. Needless to say, it was great and I enjoyed every bite of it with Rice and Sambar.

Ingredients: Okra-1 pound
Baby Onions-1 cup(peeled)
Salt
Chilli powder-1/2 tsp
Turmeric powder-1/2 tsp

To Tamper:
Mustard seeds-1/2 tsp
Jeera-1/2 tsp
Oil-2 tbsp

Method: Heat oil in a pan. Tamper with mustard seeds and jeera.
When they crackle, add baby onions. Fry for a couple of minutes.
Then add chopped okra, salt, turmeric powder, chilli powder and fry till okra gets roasted.
Yummy curry is ready to go with rice or roti.

Keerai Molagootal and Nellikkai Archukalakki ~ Lunch Series #1

I have been planning a lunch series featuring the ordinary lunch menu at my home, which most of the time is traditional dishes. I took few pictures also. It ends there. I kept on procastinating the posting part. Finally I have come around to posting stage.I didnot want to stop it after 2/3 posts and leave it there. I wish to feature atleast the most common recipes in this series. Hope I will do minimum justice to it. A normal lunch consists of a gravy/kootan as referred in Palakkad Iyer lingo, upperi/dry curry, rasam(not everyday), mor/buttermilk and pickle. I had not doubt to what will be my first post in this series. What else other than Molagootal, the signature dish of Palakkad Iyers, to kick start the series.

Keerai molagootal (Spinach in dal and coconut gravy)

Arakeerai/Amaranth leaves (the one with small leaves) is the best variety for molagootal. Palak/Spinach is also good. Most of the times I end up buying palak since it is easy clean, where arakeerai takes quite some time to separate the leaves and tender stem.

Roughly chopped keerai - 3 cupssaltturmeric
Tuvar dal - 1/2 cup
Cumin Seeds/Jeers - 1 tspn
Grated coconut - 1/2 cup
For roastingUrad dal - 1 tspnRed chilly - 1 no

Seasoning

Oil - 2 tspn

Mustard seeds - 1 tspn

Method
Ccook the spinach leaves in 1 cup of water till the leaves are withered. Alternatively Mw for 3 minutes. Leave it to cool . Pressure cook tuvar dal till soft. Mash the dal well. Roast urad dal and red chilly in a tspn of oil till dal turns light brown.

Pulse the keerai in the mixer for few seconds. It should be pureed but not too smooth.Grind the coconut,roasted dal and chilly and jeera to a fine paste.
Coimbine spinach puree, mashed dal and ground paste. Bring to a boil. Season with mustard seeds.

The preferred sides for molagootal is puli pachadi (tamarind based), thayir pachadi(with yogurt base) thogayals (chutney) or arachukalakki.

Now I am posting the recipe for nellikkai arachukalakki. Arachukalakki literally translates as Ground and Mixed.Here it is grounded gooseberry and coconut with chilly mixed with yogurt. Chenai/yam, kanni manga (salt pickled small mangoes ) are generally used for preparing arachukalakki.

Gooseberries pickled in salt - 10 nos.

(Usually these berries would have turn soft on soaking in salt water. If you find them firm, u can steam cook/MW for few minutes to make them soft. )
Grated coconut - 1/2 cup

green chilly - 3 nos

whipped curd - 1/2 cup

Seasoning

oil - 2 tspn

mustard seeds - 1 tspn

red chilly - 1 no

methi seeds - 1/4 tspn
Remove the seeds from the berries. Grind together GB, coconut and green chillies.
Heat oil in a pan. Add mustard seeds, followed by red chilly broken into two. Finally add methi seeds. When methi starts turning brown, add to the ground mixture. While the pan is hot, add the whipped curd to the pan and pour over the seasoning. Mix well. Since salt in the gooseberries will be enough, additional salt will not be required. Though check if needed.

Keerai molagootal is going Sunshinemom's FIC: Green

Nellikkai Arachukalakki is my entry for AFAM:Gooseberry hosted by Illatharasi.