A trip down Epicurean Alley

Food touches every sense possible. Its aromas to inhale, its visual appeal to please the eye, its multitude of tastes, its crunch to resonate the ears and the wonderful memories to titillate the senses. Food is complete. Food is life.

In every sense the very aroma or a vision of food can send you back in time to wonderful memories which you so cherish, locked away in one compartment of the cranium afraid to let it unleash least you put on a few calories just by thought. Bringing back with it a tingle to the tongue and growl in the stomach.

Just the other day as I was walking back home and I smelt charcoal being burnt in a pit. It was this aroma, that took me back to the winter days spent in Ahmedabad during Diwali and going to my Nana’s cloth-mill a day before Diwali for Chopda Poojan. Post the ceremony what awaited was a fantastic full-aon Gujarati spread but what was special was the ‘Matla Nu Undhiyu’ , cooked in an earthen pot in a pit with charcoals. 

‘Undhiyu’ is a Gujarati delicacy, mainly cooked in the winters, prepared with mostly winter vegetables and tubers. Undhiyu is cooked with a mixture of green beans like Fava Beans - Hyacinth Beans colloquially known as Vhalor Papdi along with the pods, Green Toor Beans or Pigeon Peas, grated cococnut with lots of corriander leaves, making the mixture very green and pleasing to the eyes. Add to this skinned Sweet Potatoes, Eggplant, Purple Yam and Muthiya and here we have the Undhiya ready. For the uneducated in Gujarati Cuisine,  Muthiyas  fried dumplings made of gram flour and methi  or fenugreek . People love the Muthiya  giving the dish a crunchy yet bitter aftertaste But its not as easy as it seems. Remember to cut the tubers in big cubes. They make the dish look larger than life!. All this seasoned with lots of garlic, green chillies, Dhaniya Powder and Jeera powder and of course loads of vegetable oil makes the  Undhiya  what it is. Put it all in an earthen pot, cover it with dough and cook it underground with charcoals in a pit. The charcoals, the pot and the mud will give it a strong, earthy smell and taste. 

Once nice and cooked,as you open the dough cover, the flavors and aromas will entice you to eat a spoonfull, but don't just yet. The best way to have  Matla Nu Undhiyu , the way my  Mami  would make it was - take a big spoonful, with your bare hands crush everything , add a splash of ‘Koth Ni Chutney’  or  Kothiyu , koth is a wild fruit which has a great sweet-n- sour taste, add to it a topping of sev , coriander chutney, tamarind chutney and its ready to be devoured!

Matla Nu Undhiyu  was the star of the menu to be eaten with  Pooris , this itself made for a fantastic meal but Gujarati meals are never so simple or scarce . You need more - and more there was. 

The buffet started of with a great Basundi  and piping hot Jalebis -  thin and juicy with the right amount of crunch, dripping with the sweetness of saffron, followed by the Undhiyu ( panner butter masala and its variants were unheard of in those days!). Now, no gujju meal is complete without a farsaan , a huge plate full of the softest white dhoklas steamed to perfection with a generous sprinkling of pepper and red chillies to be devoured with a dollop of green chutney - heaven! As if this wasn't enough, the meal would end with Dhakko Daal,  an Amdavadi speciality , toor daal cooked with loads of vegetables, peanuts and thinly sliced dates. If the undhiyu had’nt sent you to heaven, then a bowl of pipping hot Dhakko Daal  would surely do the trick. After this we would need to loosen the string of our pajamas, let out a few loud burps and wait for the Badam-Kesar-Pista (aka BKP) ice cream to be served in little silver bowls with flat-headed spoons, cant ever forget the cream sticking to the palette. Who paid attention to the pooja, we kids only waited for this gastronomic meal. 

Take me back to those days when naan , paneer makhani , methi malai mutter, Dum Aloo Kashmiri were taboo topics in a traditional Gujarati meal, where mithai meant Saffron rich Jalebis not Chocolate Tarts and BKP ice-cream was eaten by the bowl full instead of ramekins of Creme Brulee´. 

Give me a traditional Gujarati meal any day. And for those unfortunate ones who dont know what all the above is, call up a Gujarati friend or family and invite yourself to a lunch, you will be treated like a God and fed like one too! 

We Gujaratis love our food and love to feed.