Hope

Green Peas Masala

We ate out five times a year. Our birthdays. And our parents’ anniversary. And when we were in India, back from Yemen, our meal of choice was always Chinese. Indian Chinese, of course. And during my high school years, the Chinese restaurant was always the Continental, on Brigade Road, next to Band Box the drycleaners. Sure there were others, but this is where my dad had gone as a young person in Bangalore, during his bachelor days, when it was the only Chinese restaurant in town. So this is where we went. Our invariable food selection: a veg fried rice, a veg fried noodles, a chilli or garlic or ginger chicken, a bright red sweet and sour vegetables, an only slightly-less-red gobi manchurian. And a green peas masala.

Huh? Yup. Green peas masala. At our favorite Chinese restaurant in those days.

Bandbox still exists, but sadly, the Continental does not. A KFC stood in its place for a while.

Continental Restaurant on Brigade Road

Old Brigade Road circa 1970.

My dad spoke very fondly (actually still does) of his monthly meals to the Continental in the 1960s. Pay day. He and his fellow bachelor housemates would pool their money together, enabling them to go share a meal, which even included a treasured bottle of beer. Each, I think. And the meal always included green peas masala. Now green peas masala doesn’t resemble anything even remotely Chinese (even Indian Chinese). And my dad isn’t a garlic fan, and he absolutely hates fennel seeds. And this particular version of green peas masala contains both. But it was Continental’s green peas masala. And not an ill word was, or could be, spoken about it.

I think my fondness for childhood meals out, had much to do (in addition to their infrequency) with my dad’s old, extremely fond memories.  And then coming home from said meals and trying to recreate a recipe with my mum. We’d try, even as we ate, to figure out what was in a dish, and think about how to recreate it.

And my mum and I still do this.

And my dad still loves green peas masala.

I have now been working on this project for 17 weeks, I think. And to say I am enjoying it would be an understatement. And in the 17 or so weeks, I have gone on linguistic explorations, social explorations, cultural explorations, and they have all been spurred by memories. And all of them have been tied to food, and have shown me how important my relationship to food is. And how intricately connected to food my relationship with India is. And the deeper I delve into this, the more complex it gets.

And I have spent a good amount of time bemoaning the tendency of urban Indians to ignore the local and go global; the ushering in of the new and the rapid disappearance of the old. But today, I am choosing to try and present a slightly more positive account of globalization, at least of gastronomic globalization, in urban India…I think the optimist in me is rearing her head…it is almost the New Year.  And hope springs eternal and all that.

Plus, India is a contradiction. In every way.

Brigade Road today

Brigade Road at night

So. To say dining out habits have changed, particularly in urban India, would be an understatement. When I was growing up, we were very much the norm as far as our eating out habits went. Today, various sources of statistics say that among millennials, who make up 65% of India’s population, eating out is as frequent as two or three times a week. Or more. Reasons for a change as drastic as this (granted, over a period of 30-40 years) are obvious: increased disposable income, and much more insidious, a work-life imbalance accompanying busier work schedules and extra pressures on parents because of children’s busier schedules.

So accompanying this work-life imbalance has been an enormous increase in dining out. Naturally. So why is this good? Well, because in urban India, gastronomic globalization is evidenced not just by an increased demand for international cuisines (as I have pointed out before), but also a hugely increased demand for diverse cuisines from other parts of India. A more local globalization, if you will. Because the populations of urban cities like Bangalore (same with Mumbai, Calcutta, Delhi) constantly see migration from other parts of India. And when there are peoples, there are foods. Because, of course, there is money to be made by appealing to one’s emotional soft spots which, of course, are often culinary (ok, ok, I’ll stop with the cynicism now). So there are restaurants specializing in regional fare, as diverse as coastal cuisine from Karnataka with its fish and meat-based food, to those catering to the staunch vegetarian. And these regional restaurants seem to have a far greater focus on seasonality. And that is nothing but good.

So accompanying pish-posh, high end restaurants serving pumpkin tortellini with four cheeses  served with a brown butter sauce flavored with sage, there are also eateries serving ragi mudde (balls made of a millet flour) with a country chicken curry, or a meat gravy. Or a Coorg pork curry. Or jolada rotti (a flatbread made of sorghum flour) or akki rotti (a flatbread made of rice flour) or a Mangalore bajji or a tatte idly (a flat version of an idly). And these are just foods from different parts of Karnataka. The kinds of foods that induce in one a certain nostalgia for tradition.  

And neither kind of restaurant was common while I was growing up. So gastronomic globalization is embracing multiculturalism, both global and local, and adventurousness in exploring new cuisines. And that is nothing but good.

And what is immediately obvious when one visits a city like Bangalore is the sheer number of eating establishments – ranging from the pish-posh ones to the very antithesis of pish-posh, the street carts (remind me to tell you about my early pani poori experiences with from a bandi wallah when I was 13...), and even entire streets specializing in food, food streets. Eat Streets. And here, a recurring question when I visit India is whether food has become a leveler of sorts…street food and the humble food cart attract everyone, from the hoity-toity to the street dweller. And that is nothing but good.

So yes, perhaps people are cooking far less. And perhaps children in a city like Bangalore are growing up without the kind of appreciation for ingredients that I had. But perhaps they are also growing up more open-minded, more appreciative of difference.

For my family, our eating habits today are not vastly different from what they were when I was growing up. We eat out far less frequently than many people I know – not because we can’t, but because we prefer cooking; I am fortunate to be married to someone who shares my passion for good food. And the best food is at home. And when we do eat out, I still do what my mum and I did – try and figure out what is in what I am eating so I can recreate it at home. And today, one of my five-year-old’s favorite things to do is to help me in the kitchen. From turning on the blender or the food processor, to gathering up chopped veg on a plate, to peeling crushed garlic cloves (I jest not), to making dough. This gives me immeasurable joy, even as it creates messes I have little time to clean up. And perhaps she will, one day, have the same indescribable feeling of exhilaration, peace, joy, that I feel on entering a kitchen to cook a meal. Or perhaps she’ll remember the fun times we had in the kitchen together. I will be grateful for either.

And my mum did figure out a recipe for Continental’s Green Peas Masala, a recipe I have adapted over the years. So here, now, is my mum’s and my version of Green Peas Masala.

Green Peas Masala

Ingredients

1.     1 cup pureed onion (this is about 2 medium to large onions)

2.     2 Tbsp pureed garlic (this is about 5 large cloves of garlic)

3.     1 Tbsp pureed ginger (which is about 2 Tbsp chopped ginger)

4.     1-2 green chillies or more as per your taste

5.     3 Tbsp vegetable oil

6.     1 Tbsp cumin seeds

7.     1 tsp turmeric

8.     1 ½ cups ripe tomatoes

9.     ½ Tbsp fennel seed

10.  ½ cup of unsweetened, grated coconut; if you don’t have fresh coconut, you could certainly use desiccated coconut, as long as it is unsweetened

11.  ½ cup raw cashew nuts

12.  3 ½ cups of shelled peas, fresh or frozen.

13.  2 ½ tsp salt

14.  ½ Tbsp ground coriander

15.  1 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder or ½ tsp cayenne pepper

16.  1 ½ tsp sugar

17.  ½ cup chopped cilantro to garnish

Method

1.     Puree the onions, garlic, ginger, and green chillies together with as little water as possible. Make into a fine paste.

2.     Separately, puree the tomatoes, fennel seed, coconut, and cashews together, again, with as little water as possible.

3.     Heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed pan.  When the oil is hot, add the cumin seeds and turmeric. Allow the cumin seeds to splutter for a few seconds – they should brown but not go black. If they burn, toss them out and start again.

4.     Now put in the ground onion mixture, add 1 tsp of the salt, and cook together on medium-low heat till all the liquid cooks off and the oil separates. This should take about 15 minutes. Stir occasionally, and cook with a lid partially on to avoid too much spluttering.

5.     Now add the pureed tomato mixture to the cooked onion mixture. Add 1 tsp salt, the Kashmiri chilli powder, the ground coriander, and the sugar. Cook all this together, again with a lid partially on, on low to medium heat, till the oil separates again. This should take another 15 minutes or so.

6.     Now add the peas and the remaining ½ tsp of salt. If you are using fresh shucked peas, cook this all together for about 15-20 minutes on low heat. If you are using frozen peas, cook for about 10 minutes.

Garnish with cilantro and enjoy with a bread or rice of your choice.