saturday lunch

appa and sister

master and dad

sitting at my desk, it's monday morning, and i am not in the mood for work.
i woke up to a grey, miserable day, which didn't improve the feeling that i would much rather be in bed then, tackling accounts and clients, none the less i am here preferring to note this on my blog, then work.

reminds me of my time at university, when i would much rather cook and clean or find any physical activity that would keep me away from the books, :) seems that things haven't much changed over the years.

got a mail from a friend in pakistan, who was thinking of doing a cook book and was looking for some inspiration,it just reminded me that the best food we can ever eat is that prepared by a mothers hand. i have been so disappointed lately by the eateries in johannesburg, meals out have become really pricey (that's not my guji ancestry rearing it's head) just an observation on inflation :), for the most part,the food leaves one with severe indigestion, so why do we do this to ourselves?
just for the sake of going out, and it makes us feel like we have done something fun on the weekend, can indigestion ever be fun?
worse yet,i was at a restaurant in hyde park mall,(where the cream of johannesburg society drop their rands) and needed to use the facilities, while there, a waitress from the restaurant we sat down at walked in to use the loo, having done her business she promptly exited the ladies having conveniently "forgotten" to wash
her hands,that did it for me.i chose not to order anything and so did the rest of my party.it seems eating out is more of a hazard than it's worth.

i am more convinced that the best ratings for food should be from my mothers kitchen.
this saturday, we had my grandfathers wife (second wife) and her sister and brother in law over for lunch,(in-laws were visiting from khator the village opposite our own kholvad in the state of gujarat) since it was a casual family lunch mother opted for chicken curry and rice, which is a family favourite learned from her mother in law and made in her own inimitable way, it never flops and leaves us well satisfied.

the conversation was in guji, interspersed with some english from the younger generation, as we are not conversant in the mother tongue, this left us much amused,
"master" so named as he was a school teacher back in the village (gaam), was saying something which i don't quite recall, addressing himself to my sister in law, he asked : "to indian che ne" african nie? to which she replied no. the rest of us burst into gails of laughter, she realising of course that she had replied incorrectly,..leaving us all with the idea that we had to brush up on our guji.
she being of Indian orign of course not african.i wander how much of the Indian has become muted in us, the third generation, we are really south african, with a part of us in the subcontinent,

this was most evident when we visited India 2 years ago, ripe pickings for con men littering the streets of mumbai and Delhi, :) an adventure in itself. the NRI'S,..with fists full of dollars, and no clue how to operate in unfamiliar territory, and when we left johannesburg international, we firmly believed in our indianness, that we would survive india was unquestionable,it was a fantastic journey i am glad we made, con men and all.as arnie so eloquently puts it "i vil be back".

my mother's chicken curry.
ingredients:
a whole lot of love :)
1 fresh chicken (around 1,3 kilo's cut as you like it)
4 potatoes (peeled and quartered)
1 large onion (sliced thinly)
1 large tomato diced
1 tablespoon tomato puree
boiled water to measure (enough to cover all the ingredients in the pot)
handful of fresh dhania
1 Cinnamon stick
couple of cloves
1 tablespoon of oil
1 table spoon of ginger garlic (mixture is dry red chillies, ginger and garlic)
1,5 teaspoons of salt (salt can be to your taste of course)
1 desert spoon ground red chillies (dry)
1 teaspoon arad
1 desert spoon dry dhana
1 teaspoon dry jeera (cause mum is not too fond of jeera, you could omit it)

method
fry onions in oil until pink in colour. add the chicken pieces, with Cinnamon stick, cloves,arad and salt. allow the chicken to turn white, almost cooked add the potatoes and ginger garlic mixture, allow to cook on slow heat. add tomato and tomato puree together with all the other dry spices.allow the curry to cook slowly until potatoes are soft to touch on the outside and chicken looks cooked, add boiled water just enough to cover the ingredients in your pot, allow to simmer until the potatoes are soft.
add some fresh dhania just before serving.

ps, the ginger garlic mixture is made at home, with fresh ingredients and kept in the fridge or frozen, lasts for months. no ghee and less oil for health reasons :)
fat content obviously minimal. taste rating *****

this is a family favourite, in my month in India, none of what i ate remotely resembled Indian dishes prepared at home, meat and potatoes never featured in the same dish.so i began to believe we had africanised our cuisine. until we visited kholvad and my grandmothers curry was served for lunch.
i realised then that we had not travelled far from home, we were at home in this tiny village with the cows, sheep and goats, khator visible over the all but dried up river. the villagers were all to happy to visit the 'africa se aaya' mehman,
we were introduced to the school headmaster, the kids and anyone who showed a remote interest in the foreign imports. all in all a pleasant experience.

master enjoyed his lunch and we have been invited to visit the gaam, an invitation i intend to keep.