Udupi delights

I had gone to savour some red-hot fried meat, tempered with curry leaves and mustard seeds, and, much to my surprise, went vegetarian instead. Who would have thought that a bowl of avil — fresh vegetables cooked with coconut, yoghurt, green chillies and cumin — would floor me?

I had eaten Udupi food on many other occasions, but never really given it much thought. In fact, when I did drop in to a tiny Udupi restaurant in Delhi, it was mostly because I was in a hurry, and that was the closest eatery around. I would quickly go through a masala dosa — that, by the way, is originally from Udupi — and be out of the restaurant before you could say Karnataka.

But a well-endowed thaali — eaten leisurely over dinner the other night — has turned me into a staunch Udupi food votary. The credit goes to C.B. Shank-aran, the mild-mannered but clearly passionate senior chef, who has been the ITC-Welcomgroup hotels’ south Indian food expert for a long time. The chef had organised a wonderful Udupi food festival at Dakshin, the south Indian restaurant at Sheraton New Delhi Hotel. It was so good that I actually ignored the non-vegetarian delicacies and focused on the vegetarian delights instead.

The food stresses on grains — and I am told there are more rice dishes in this southwest Karnataka region than possibly anywhere else. Take something called the sihi guliappa, which is a fried dumpling of tempered rice and lentils, or the neeru dosa, a crispy dosa made with powdered rice. And don’t forget the bisi bela huliana, a mouth-watering khichri of rice, lentils and vegetables. The diet originates from the Ashta Mathas or monasteries of Udupi, founded by the Vaishnavite saint Shri Madhavacharya in the 13th century. And that explains why the food is strictly vegetarian.

Udupi food is in a class by itself. Like good Jain food, it’s cooked without onion and garlic. I fell in love with Jain food at a friend’s house many years ago. Her mother had turned the dullest of vegetables into exotica with just a bit of asafoetida here and some cumin seeds there.

But though I was reminded of that meal when I tasted chef Shankaran’s majjige huli, okra cooked with curd, chillies and tomatoes, the food of Udupi is vastly different because the flavours are stronger, enhanced by the use of coconut milk, grated coconut, tamarind and yoghurt. The ambat, for instance, is a typical Udupi Brahmin preparation of lentils and spinach leaves, where the taste of the otherwise bland lentil has been sharpened with tamarind and coconut.

I think the trick also lies in banishing garlic and onions. And at the cost of shocking card-holding members of the garlic-and-onion club, of which I am actually a life member, I have to say that food cooked without these bulbs can be outstanding too. Garlic and onions add taste to a dish, no doubt, but they can also overwhelm the original flavours of the food, especially of vegetables. That’s why when I ate my avil, I got the full flavours of the vegetables, complemented but not overawed by the zest of coconut and yoghurt.

I enjoyed my interaction with chef Shankaran, who knows everything that you’d wish to know about the cuisine of the four southern states. The chef, who has been with Dakshin since it opened shop in Delhi in 2001, talked about the vegetables that the Udupi region revels in. The white pumpkin is somewhere right on top — and I knew why when I ate the kasi halwa, which was grated white pumpkin cooked with milk and saffron.

Like in many parts of Bengal and Kerala, jackfruit and green bananas are much loved vegetables. You’ll find gourds of all kinds in most kitchens. My avil, for instance, had batons of uniformly cut ash gourd, yam, drumstick, carrots and runner beans, all lightly sautéed and then mixed with coconut and other spices. And there is always the saaru to be served with a meal — a light rasam or spicy pepper water (see recipe).

Udupi food has been quite a discovery. The vegetable lover in me (deep inside, but it’s there somewhere) has been awakened.

Tomato Saaru

Ingredients (serves 2-3)

• 200ml lentil water • 50g coriander roots • 100g tomato • 25g curry leaves • 50ml tamarind water • 10g red chilli powder • 5g tur-meric powder • 15g coriander powder • 10g peppercorns or 5g cumin seeds • salt to taste

For the tempering:

• 50ml oil • 2g mustard seeds • 3 whole red chillies

Method

Boil all the ingredients (barring those for tempering) together. Remove and strain the extract. Season. Heat oil in a pan. Add mustard seeds, curry leaves and whole red chilli. Temper for a while till they crackle. Now add the stock and mix well. Serve hot, after garnishing it with chopped tomatoes and coriander or curry leaves.



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