Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Sangu Mandanna

Quote by Sangu Mandanna

“We've been trying to recreate Mum's Coorg pandhi curry." "Is that so?" said Mynah. "How was that supposed to work without the kachampuli?" "The what?" "Kachampuli," she repeated. "What is kachampuli supposed to be?" Dad asked, sounding out the syllables carefully. Mynah let out a shriek of laughter. "Are you telling me you've been trying to make Coorg pandhi curry all this time, and neither of you knows about kachampuli? Which is only the most essential ingredient?" "But surely the pandhi is the most essential ingredient," Anna protested, gesturing in the direction of the pork rind sitting on the counter. "Otherwise it would be called kachampuli curry." Mynah ignored that and wiped tears of laughter from her eyes. "Kachampuli, my sweet ignorant ones, is what gives the pandhi curry its distinct flavor. It's a little vinegar, and it's made from a limey sort of fruit they grow in Coorg." She marched to one of the cupboards, rooted around in the back, and retrieved a dusty bottle with a sealed cap. Inside gleamed a thick, dark liquid. "Behold," she said dramatically, "kachampuli.”

Quote by Sangu Mandanna

Work

Hungry Hearts: 13 Tales of Food & Love

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Sangu Mandanna

Browse famous quotes and profile details for Sangu Mandanna. more

You May Also Like

“Now Janie ordered a drink and glanced at the bar menu, choosing the goat curry because she'd never had it before. "You sure about that?" the barman said. He was a boy, really, no more than twenty, with a slim body and huge, laughing eyes. "It's spicy." "I can take it," she said, smiling at him, wondering if she might pull an adventure out of her hat on her next-to-last night, and what it would be like to touch another body again. But the boy simply nodded and brought her the dish a short time later, not even watching to see how she fared with it. The goat curry roared in her mouth. "I'm impressed. I don't think I could eat that stuff," remarked the man sitting two seats down from her. He was somewhere in the midst of middle age, a bust of a man, all chest and shoulders, with a ring of blond, bristling hair circling his head like the laurels of Julius Caesar and a boxer's nose beneath bold, undefeated eyes. He was the only other guest that wasn't with the wedding party. She'd seen him around the hotel and on the beach and had been uninspired by his business magazines, his wedding ring. She nodded back at him and took an especially large spoonful of curry, feeling the heat oozing from every pore. "Is it good?" "It is, actually," she admitted, "in a crazy, burn-your-mouth-out kind of way." She took a sip of the rum and Coke she'd ordered; it was cold and startling after all that fire. "Yeah?" He looked from her plate to her face. The tops of his cheeks and his head were bright pink, as if he'd flown right up to the sun and gotten away with it. "Mind if I have a taste?" She stared at him, a bit nonplussed, and shrugged. What the hell. "Be my guest." He moved quickly over to the seat next to hers. He picked up her spoon and she watched as it hovered over her plate and then dove down and scooped a mouthful of her curry, depositing between his lips. "Jee-sus," he said. He downed a glass of water. "Jee-sus Christ." But he was laughing as he said it, and his brown eyes were admiring her frankly over the rim of his water glass. He'd probably noticed her smiling at the bar boy and decided she was up for something. But was she? She looked at him and saw it all instantaneously: the interest in his eyes, the smooth, easy way he moved his left hand slightly behind the roti basket, temporarily obscuring the finger with the wedding ring.”

“There are succulent loins of fatty pork fried in scales of thin bread crumbs and served with bowls of thickened Worcestershire and dabs of fiery mustard. Giant pots of curry, dark and brooding as a sudden summer storm, where apples and onions and huge hunks of meat are simmered into submission over hours. Or days. There is okonomiyaki, the great geologic mass of carbs and cabbage and pork fat that would feel more at home on a stoner's coffee table than a Japanese tatami mat.”

“My mouth watered as she laid a serving bowl full of steaming kothu chapati on the table. It was a delicious dish made from sliced and shredded Indian flatbreads, or chapatis, garlic, ginger, vegetables, spices, and tonight, Mom's famous chicken curry. The shredded bread resembled noodles- crispy on the edges and full of flavor from the sauce soaked into them. "Can someone help me bring out the rest?" Henry and I went into the kitchen with Mom and returned with green beans with coconut, lemon rice, and a salad called kosambari, made with cucumbers, tomatoes, and soaked dal. Riya and Jules continued bickering, but they quieted down once Mom came in with a bowl of creamy homemade yogurt.”

“Jeremy and Karl and Elizabeth have known each other since the first day of kindergarten. Amy and Talis are a year younger...Now the five are inseparable; invincible. They imagine that life will always be like this--like a television show in eternal syndication--that they will always have each other. They use the same vocabulary. They borrow each other's books and music. They share lunches, and they never say anything when Jeremy comes over and takes a shower. They all know Jeremy's father is eccentric. He's supposed to be eccentric. He's a novelist.”

“It is a shame that Mama doesn't use the hundreds of other fruits and vegetables and spices available from around the world. If it isn't Indian, according to her, it isn't good. I think she stared so long at the blueberries that they shriveled. The butcher gave me three whole breasts of fresh free-range chicken. All of a sudden I have become very particular about ecological vegetables and free-range chickens. If they've petted the chicken and played with it before cutting it open for my eating pleasure, I'll be happy to purchase its body parts. Even if I have a tough time understanding this ecological nonsense, I feel better for buying carrots that were grown without chemicals, and I can't come up with a good reason to deny myself that happiness. I marinated the chicken breasts in white wine and salt and pepper for a while and then grilled them on the barbecue outside. The blueberry sauce was ridiculously simple. Fry some onions in butter, add the regular green chili, ginger, garlic, and fry a while longer. Add just a touch of tomato paste along with white wine vinegar. In the end add the blueberries. Cook until everything becomes soft. Blend in a blender. Put it in a saucepan and heat it until it bubbles. In the end because G'ma wouldn't shut up about going back right away, I added, in anger and therefore in too much quantity: cayenne pepper. I felt the sauce needed a little bite... but I think I bit off more than the others could swallow. I took the grilled chicken, cut the breasts in long slices, and poured the sauce over them. I made some regularbasmatiwith fried cardamoms and some regular tomato and onion raita.I put too much green chili in the raitaas well.”

“Durban has the largest Indian population outside of India! The Afro-Indian Culture that ensued has become a strong influence on the people of South Africa who have adopted many of the Indian traditions. This is especially true of how food is prepared! Of course rice is the preferred carb and considered a stable with most meals. An Indian curry stew is an exciting taste treat. Relatively simple to make, fresh garlic and ginger pulp are lightly fried along with chilies, onions and a zesty curry powder. Added to this are chopped tomatoes and finally the meat, seafood or vegetable of your choice. After slow simmering, the spicy stew is served with steamed rice and perhaps a hot and spicy chili sauce condiment called a sambal. Sweet and sour condiments called chutney are made of unripe mangoes, raisins, limes, sliced bananas and other fruit.. Of course Major Grey's Chutney can be bought ready-made and is considered by many as the best of all chutneys. Many of the curried foods thought of as Indian are actually of Indonesian origin and are also popular on the Malaysian Peninsular and in many other eastern countries.”

“Tender poached egg. Creamy mashed potatoes. And the thick layer of hot, melted cheese! Those are all incredibly delicious, but what takes the cake is the roux! It's been made in a VICHYSSOISE style!" VICHYSSOISE Boiled potatoes, onions, leeks and other ingredients are pureed with cream and soup stock to make this potage. It's often served chilled. Its creation is generally credited to Louis Diat, a French chef at the Ritz Carlton in New York, who first put it on the hotel's menu in 1917. "Amazing! It looks like a thick, heavy dish that would sit in the stomach like lead, but it's so easy to eat!" "The noodles! It's the udon noodles, along with the coriander powder, that makes it feel so much lighter! Coriander is known for its fresh, almost citrusy scent and its mildly spicy bite. It goes exceptionally well with the cumin kneaded into the noodles, each spice working to heighten the other's fragrance. AAAH! It's immensely satisfying!" "I have also included dill, vichyssoise's traditional topping. Dry roasting the dill seeds together with the cumin seeds made a spice mix that gave a strong aroma to the roux." "Hm! Fat noodles in a thick, creamy roux. Eating them is much the same experience as having dipping noodles. What an amazing concept to arrive at from a century-old French soup recipe!”

“Fresh seafood stock made from shrimp and crab... It's hot and spicy- and at the same time, mellow and savory! Visions of lush mountains, cool springs and the vast ocean instantly come to mind! She brought out the very best flavors of each and every ingredient she used! "I started with the fresh fish and veggies you had on hand... ... and then simmered them in a stock I made from seafood trimmings until they were tender. Then I added fresh shrimp and let it simmer... seasoning it with a special blend I made from spices, herbs like thyme and bay leaves, and a base of Worcestershire sauce. I snuck in a dash of soy sauce, too, to tie the Japanese ingredients together with the European spices I used. Overall, I think I managed to make a curry sauce that is mellow enough for children to enjoy and yet flavorful enough for adults to love!" "Yum! Good stuff!" "What a surprise! To take the ingredients we use here every day and to create something out of left field like this!" "You got that right! This is a really delicious dish, no two ways about it. But what's got me confused... ... is why it seems to have hit him way harder than any of us! What on earth is going on?!" This... this dish. It... it tastes just like home! It looks like curry, but it ain't! It's gumbo!" Gumbo is a family dish famously served in the American South along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. A thick and spicy stew, it's generally served over steamed rice. At first glance, it closely resembles Japan's take on curry... but the gumbo recipe doesn't call for curry powder. Its defining characteristic is that it uses okra as its thickener. *A possible origin for the word "gumbo" is the Bantu word for okra-Ngombu.*”

“The typical smell from skin-on pork belly is completely erased by the spices used. All that reaches the tongue... are the mild sweetness of the fats and the zesty richness of the curry!" "It's amazingly delicious!" "After I parboiled, seasoned and pan seared the pork belly... I braised it in a mixture of oyster sauce, soy sauce, Shaoxing wine and other seasonings. I gave it its fragrance with star anise, ginger and Sichuan pepper." Strange. The meat is incredibly heavy and filling... yet this dish is so easy to eat! Why? "IT'S THE RICE! Now I see! She mixed a dash of rock salt and Sichuan-peppercorn oil into the rice! The refreshing scent and tongue-tingling flavor of the peppercorn oil ameliorates the oiliness of the fats... ... but its spiciness makes you want another bite of the sweet meat... it's a chain reaction!”

“I see bacon, green peppers, mushrooms... those are all found in Napolitan Spaghetti. I guess instead of the standard ketchup, he's used curry roux for the sauce? The noodles look similar to fettuccini." "Hm. I'm not seeing anything else that stands out about it. Given how fun and amusing the calzone a minute ago was... ... the impact of this one's a lot more bland and boring..." W-what the heck? Where did this heavy richness come from? It hits like a shockwave straight to the brain! "Chicken and beef stocks for the base... with fennel and green cardamom for fragrance! What an excellent, tongue-tingling curry sauce! It clings well to the broad fettuccini noodles too!" "For extra flavor is that... soy sauce?" "No, it's tamari soy sauce! Tamari soy sauce is richer and less salty than standard soy sauce, with a more full-bodied sweetness to it. Most tamari is made on Japan's eastern seaboard. " "That's not all either! I'm picking up the mellow hints of cheese! But I'm not seeing a single shred of any kind of cheese in here. Where's it hiding?" "Allow me to tell you, sir. First, look at the short edge of a noodle, please." ?! What on earth?! This noodle's got three layers!" "For the outer layers, I kneaded turmeric into the pasta dough. But for the inner layer, I added Parmesan cheese!" "I see! It's the combination of the tamari soy sauce and the parmesan cheese that gives this dish its incredible richness!" "Yeah, but wait a minute! If you go kneading cheese right into the noodles, wouldn't it just melt back out when you boiled them?" No... that's why they're in three layers! With the cheese in the middle, the outer layers prevented it from melting out! The deep, rich curry sauce, underscored with the flavor of tamari soy sauce... ... and the chewy noodles, which hit you with the mellow, robust taste of parmesan cheese with every bite! Many people are familiar with the idea of coating cream cheese in soy sauce... ... but who would have thought parmesan cheese would match this well with tamari soy sauce!”