Sun dry vegetables and get your kitchen monsoon ready

These aren’t instagrammable pictures right? Definitely not as food pictures, black and boring right? Yet, these are things that are pretty useful. One, we are prepared for the rains, stocking up for days vegetable supplies may be low, difficult to get out in the rains and shop and such circumstances. It may also help farmers if we are going to buy up produce when the demand is low, make use of more than abundant sunshine sun dry them and store for the rainy day. I am not saying anything new or not known. These are the annual rituals, seasonal rituals our mothers and grandmothers followed. I am only reiterating it – instead of complaining about high prices of vegetables at times, and about farmers throwing away their produce some other times, these age old practices may help even in urban area with a small balcony or a sunlight window.

I have also  been guilty of not doing much all these years, though occasional dried amlas made for Dwadashi pachadis, pickles in season though I have a terrace. This year I decided to make the easiest of fryums, the pumpkin vathal (vathal literally means the dried stuff). That primarily was to satisfy mom’s nostalgia. Every time a large piece of pumpkin was bought amma would say - “pooshanikkaayap paathaa porum Jayamma ulundu oora vechiduvaa”. (Just at the sight of pumpkin her aunt Jayamma would soak urad dal to make pumpkin vathal. I have assisted my grand mom once in making them and thought it is one of the easiest to make and decided to plunge into it. I asked our regular bhajivali bhai to get me a full pumpkin, and she had delivered it while I wasn’t at home one day. When I got back and decided to make, I was threatened by the unusual overcast weather. I waited and it would get worse, not better with drizzles the next day. Finally, three days later I made it. The measures are just “kannalavu, kaiyalavu” (guesstimate) – soak urad dal in water for four hours, grind them with red chillies, hing, salt and the grated or smashed pumpkin (remove excess water squeezing out the grated pumpkin). The consistency should be thick to the extent of being able to handle in hand, for you scoop out a little atta and spread them on a dry white sheet of cloth of a plastic, the size of an amla. In two days it would be fully dry, but to be safe you can sun dry them a little while for another day or two before packing them up in containers. This is a pretty nutritious things, fry them in oil and have it with your dal, chawal or add them in a karamani kuzhambu (chowli bean sambhar) or any koottu (it is a thick mixture of dal, veggies, and masalas with grated coconut).

I have only a faint image of Jayamma, having seen her once or twice when I had visited her village in my childhood. Was a pretty jovial, talkative lady. She was a young widow, childless and it is only when my mom herself is retired and ageing she recollects more and more the stories of Jayamma, her mamis, mother, grandparents. For the sake of Jayamma’s memory and my mom’s nostalgia I made it twice this year. Though the consistency was perfect when I made the dough, taste wise, I think I got it right.

Encouraged by what he saw, husband got curious and asked what other vegetables can be made into vathals. Unexpectedly I got delivered two kilos of bitter gourd. Not to waste it we made the bitter gourd vathal. Cook them in enough water and salt, and sun dry them. Can be fried in oil, salted and consumed straight. Or, one can use them to make vathal kuzhambu.

Cluster beans (gawar – kothavarangai), raw mango (kilimookku or totapuri variety) and brinjal were the others that were made this summer. While gawar like karela is cooked and dried, mango and brinjal can but cut into small cubes and directly dried. The next time you see a distress sale of any of these veggies buy them in bulk and it doesn’t take much to dry them when the sun is blazing as it is in April & May. Next in line is an experiment trying to make sun dried tomatoes. It is heart wrenching to see farmers throw tomatoes on the roads. I can buy one a kilo or two, but if we all make it a habit to preserve them with the help of a generous sun, we can give the farmers a helping hand.  At the same time our kitchen would also be monsoon ready.

For those who want a way out of fluctuating prices of onion and garlic look up on the net for the way to make vadagams, should come in handy as I had mentioned in one my earlier posts.