Onam Sadya

Happy Onam!  Onam is a holiday in Kerala - traditionally celebrated by Keralites of every faith and denomination, but only in Kerala or amongst those Keralites scattered around the world. Of the multitudinous holidays on the Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh and Buddhist calendars of India, Onam is a celebration pertaining to the "all of the above" of Kerala; but of Kerala alone.

Being a "person of Indian origin" by marriage and wife of a Malayalee (Keralite) by choice, each passing year I've become slightly more aware of Onam's passing. I try to make an effort to celebrate, if even just the tiniest effort.

The most authentic Onam we've had was before we were married, up in Detroit; a Malayalee couple we knew invited us to a family celebration complete with set-saris, lungis, and Surya network on the TV.  We ate a colorful array of vegetarian curries on real banana leaves.  Sebastian arrived late with some other friends direct from a cricket match, looking sweaty and especially Mallu :-) 

Since then, it's always somewhere between completely forgetting and that.  Usually much towards forgetting.

Last year? If memory serves me, I think I emailed some cousins and asked for recipes which I did not in fact cook, and took pictures of my daughter in a traditional dress that did not fit.

This year? Ohhhhh... it's late, but I'm making the sadya.

A sadya is a vegetarian feast. Perhaps even just a feast... I don't know. But perhaps because of the Hindu origins of this festival, Onam food is traditionally vegetarian. And served on a banana leaf.

Alas, we'll be eating it on plates. Baby steps, chechi. Baby steps.

Does Sebastian know much about Onam? I'm sure he does, but I haven't bothered to ask. Having never been a native Keralite other than during summer vacations, I think he probably missed the Onam boat growing up. (which is "punny", because one characteristic of Onam is the boat races) I do know for a fact that he's not a fan of the food. Perhaps it's the whole vegetarian aspect :-)

So this year, our Onam sadya will include the following:

Mixed Vegetable Curry Avial
Ripe Mango Curry Pazha Manga Karri
Cabbage with Crushed Coconut Thoran
Mummy's Egg Curry
Basmati Rice
Lace-rimmed Rice Flour Pancakes Appam (provided we get around to making it tomorrow morning!)

I've never done a whole "hey look what I'm cooking" sort of blog, so today, beginning at the ripe hour of 10pm, I thought I'd give it a try. My sidekicks in this endeavor are both my trusty Canon camera and a bottle of 2009 Starborough Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand that I bought purely on it's bottle-y beauty and affordability. (God bless you, seven buck chuck!) Both have been trusty companions all night long, and the wine may survive to see the sunrise... maybe :-)

So. Egg curry and thoran are old hat for me, both being previous winners of the Sebastian George "Oh My God It's Better Than My Mom's" Award. This manga thing sounded delicious, but was uncharted territory, both in eating and preparation. Once I skinned four ripe mangos and settled them into a big pot of coconut milk, I realized that this particular dish was probably destined for failure. We'll see tomorrow when I, hopefully, pull the giant non-Indian mangos (the size alone made the recipe unrealistic) out and cut them away from their massive seeds and into digestible pieces, that this will become a dish worthy of a banana leaf after all.

Now avial... this is a better story. With photo documentation.

Avial is a vegetarian dish that pertains to especially Hindus of all southern India. It's preparation is laborious because of the vegetables that require chopping... beans, carrots, potatoes, bananas/plantains, yams, and then crazy local vegetables that I can neither remember, pronounce or procure when back in the midwest.

I say Hindus especially, because it's a Hindu friend who justified the purchase of a $200 chefs knife because, "it's a pain in the ass to make all of our food, especially avial."

My variety tonight, includes carrots, beans, potatoes, yams and a plantain...

Ye olde avial vegetables

Then, like Kermit the Frog used to sing... "You put the lime in de coconut, and drank 'em both up."  Actually not like that at all.  You put all the veggies into a big ol' skillet of water, which of course I had measured incorrectly due to the odd and irritating variance between the size of Indian and American cups.

*side note:  An Indian cup is approximately 150ml, whereas the American measure of a cup is upwards of some 240ml.  When we go to India, "a cup of coffee" is often served in the same variety of paper cups that your dentist gives you when you have to swish mouthwash - or in homes, in what seems like it's actually a child's tea set cups.   My clever and accommodating mother-in-law has a stash of three Wal-Mart variety mugs that she calls her "American coffee mugs" and brings them out on occasions where us super-sized folks, including Sebastian, are around.  God bless that thoughtful woman!

So in go the vegetables to a pot filled with 7 cups of water... which I quickly realize is way too much.  Nevertheless, let's cook 'em.

Now while those cook to an al dente sort of doneness, make a thick mixture of fresh ground coconut, onions (preferably shallots, which I cannot afford), green chilis, mustard seeds, ground cumin, salt, and... well, maybe some other things, I don't necessarily remember. (Oh, seven buck chuck... I'm still feeling your effects two days later!) 




Ah! TURMERIC. That's what else. See the lovely yellow color? That stuff will turn your fingers yellow, but it'll give your insides the lovely pink of health. (har har har) Anyway the mixture wasn't the right consistency, so I added some off the mismeasured water from the vegetable pan, resulting in this:



Yaaaaay! Much better. Now somewhere along the way, throw in a handful of green, unripe mango into the vegetables and then sit back and enjoy your wine for a spell. Then mix the coconut grind in with the vegetables.


At this point, I continued to fret over the watery-ness of the avial. The wine told me I should order a pizza, but common sense said to just remove some of the water. So I used a tea strainer to pour water out while keeping coconut in.

Mucho mejor, amigos!!

So... your cooked vegetables are cooling, they've got their ground coconut mixture gently mixed in (as not to break up the vegetables), and now you toss in some thick plain yogurt.  Finally, and this is one of those exotic touches that make Indian cooking exciting and rewarding, heat coconut oil in a tiny frying pan on high, throw in some mustard seeds, and when they splutter, drop in a handful of curry leaves.  Continue to fry them until crisp and arromatic, and then ceremoniously dump the entire contents of tiny frying pan into the avial. The satisfying crackle of hot oil hitting cool yogurt and vegetables makes me think I should have taken chemistry in high school after all.

The finished result looks something like this. 

Yes, the finished product was perhaps a little on the juicy side of traditional, but it still tasted straight out of Kanjirappally. Here it is (perhaps yet unstrained?), paired with the bottle of wine that helped me through my night of cooking that ended at 3am.  Not sure whether it was the completion hour or the wine, but something made me feel pretty lousy for the majority of the next day.

And other completed sadya components...

Cabbage thoran

Mummy's Egg Curry - although it may look like vomit to the untrained eye, it tastes like heaven 

Cookbook by the cousin of a friend who is from the same town as Sebastian's family.  Despite the name, she's no relation.  But her book is very helpful.

Now the end of this story is that we haven't yet made any appams, and most of this food has gone into the freezer because our Onam sadya guests had to cancel at the last minute. Last year's Onam dress hangs on a hook but will probably fit whenever we get around to officially celebrating.