Holiday-lag and Moong-Puli

Happy New Year to all!!!

Best wishes for a happy and peaceful year ahead.

;-)

They should arrange it in such a way that one can start off with an hour, then two hours , then three, gradually building it up to the grueling eight hours per day!

Coming back to work after the New Year vacation is such a "culture shock" and this is doubled by the fact that the vacation was spent in India.

First of all, the body does not recognize the alarm clock any more. Hence early morning, the noise is unknown and irritating and the search for the "snooze" button is totally futile.

The quilt-force is much stronger than the will-force, hence I am sucked back into the warm quilt for 5 more minutes of sleep.
The five more mins somehow get extended to fifteen which leads to panic at the end of it.

After several attempts, I did manage to get up and walk towards the bathroom. But believe me, the body now works at a different pace. The hands are used to moving the tooth brush back and forth at a normal human speed while the eyes are used to admiring the tiny sparrow sitting on the window sill beside the sink (in India). 
My God! What a change! The electric brush rotated at thousands of rpm while the eyes were fixed on the clock and the mouth shouted "hurry hurry , we will be late" to the little boy who is also going through a similar culture shock.
"But Maaaaaa.......I am hurrying......"

Next the food. The body got used to paratha, upma, noodles, poha, etc as breakfast! My taste buds revolted loudly as the dry tasteless bread touched them. My stomach rumbled with anger, the pancreatic juices gurgled with frustration and my intestines curled up with indignation at the sight of this brown tasteless matter that they were supposed to digest! After all those days of spicy, tasty, mouthwatering stuff!! This is more than just "culture shock"!

Somehow managed to drag the body towards work. Once there, nothing more to complain. Within a few minutes, it started to feel as if I was always there.
Jet lag is taken so seriously. I demand that holiday-lag should get the attention it deserves!

;-)


Moong-Puli
Today's recipe is a difficult one. I tried it out for the first time. 
It is a festive Bengali recipe special for the "Poush Shankranti". These dishes require effort and time. In today's fast world, indeed that time is difficult to make. But I strongly feel we should keep these recipes alive, someway or the other.

Ingredients:

2 cups of yellow lentils (moong)

2 tbsp Rice flour

3 tbsp plain flour
3 tbsp sugar
1 tsp aniseed powder (saunf)

Filling:
1 cup desiccated coconut
1/2 cup milk
1 cup jaggery (palm sugar)

Oil to fry

Ready steady cook:

• In a nonstick pan, put two spoons of water. Add the lumps of jaggery so that they melt completely in medium heat.
• Add the coconut and stir.
• Add the milk, a little at a time so that the mix stays moist.
• Cook for about 20 mins till the whole mix is nice and sticky. This is the filling.
• In a separate pan dry roast the lentils, till they are light brown and the aroma comes out.
• Add water only enough to cook the lentils.
• Strain and let it cool.
• Now add the flour, rice flour, sugar and aniseed powder. Mash them together to make a dough.
• Pinch a ball out of it, flatten it between your palm and add the coconut filling in the center.
• Wrap it up and seal the ends.
• Pull the ends a bit to give it the traditional "puli" shape.
• Deep fry them till golden brown in colour.

Before

After

Serve with liquid jaggery  or sugar syrup.

A very tasty twist is if one adds jeera powder, red chili powder, salt and green coriander  to the dough. The taste is really nice. Salty and sweet , together!!! Try!