Random Ramblings of a Reluctant Blogger

A chance discussion before the Bogi day had my wife and her sister attempting to locate the Red Diary, and in it a family recipe. Pongal being a big festival certainly calls for an elaborate menu and it was this discussion which reminded them of a Red diary and the special ‘gobbi kuura’ recipe.

While I will let the suspense of the dish linger for the time being, I will bring you up-to-date about the missing diary. While my wife said she has it with her and is unable to locate it, her sister insisted it was with her. Both though were unaware of its whereabouts.

But having embarked on the memory lane, they decided to plunge into experimenting with the dish aided by what they remembered.

Now that wasn’t easy either as just a few ingredients later both were at loggerheads at what to add. While my wife was sure of some, her sister was sure of the other. The making of the dish thus depended on finding this missing Red diary. But that would have been a long process and they gave up the thought and sought answer to their ‘family dish’ on the internet.

While Mr. Google does provide answers, it is a minefield of misleading information as well. More so when you have the new fusionists running rampant even with simple dishes. The search streak stopped once they realised the results sought were far from what they had in mind and their vague memory.

Both by now had more or less got the bigger picture and to fill in the gaps they chose the next best option. Calling their cousins.

That proved tricky as well, with one cousin never having heard of it and the other’s list of vegetables, nor the method of preparations matched the by-now resurrected solely by memory dish. So both decided to go ahead without the aid of the Red diary.

Some mischief, meanwhile, brewed in my mind. I thought I would bring up my grandfather’s diary, incidentally also red, and triumphantly declare it found and later rag them about it. It proved a non-starter. “No it was a bigger diary”, they said without even giving it much of a glance. I then forced my mind to warp around the fact that I will be having the ‘gobbi kuura’.

The vegetables were sought and bought, washed, diced and ready to be cooked. In a fictional world, the real Red diary should have turned up, but anti-climax is more the real world.

So first all those vegetables, which take a longer time to shed their egos and transform, were put to test in the boiling water. Mostly the rooty ones, the softer and malleable ones joined in the fun later. The foodies would by now have figured out what the ‘gobbi kuura’ is all about. It broadly falls into the ‘avial’ category but moves, texture wise, closer to the thiruvadirai kootu and the Gujarati undhiyu. Broadly speaking, a mixed vegetable dish that looks like undhiyu but tastes more like the thiruvadirai kootu. Frankly, though, this discripton does no justice either to aviyal, nor the undhiyu, nor for that matter to the ‘gobbi kuura’.

Having successfully recreated their family ‘gobbi kuura’ dish the sisters’ search for the Red diary has now been put on hold, till they are reminded of another dish.

As to whether the ‘gobbi kuura’ experiment succeeded or not, I shall reserve my comments. After all, you dear readers, need a chronicler safe and sound to bring you more tales, don’t you?