A tale of two floods sweetened with some Karkandu Vadai
Continuing on with our series of Diwali recipes, this week we make Karkandu Vadai – the rock sugar (karkandu / kalkandu) sweetened vadai. Hang on – did I just say sweet vadai? How can that crisp on the outside, fluffy on the inside savoury morsel of deliciousness be sweet? Isn’t that blasphemy? Apparently my Chettiar ancestors didn’t think so when they created the subtly sweet version, akin to a doughnut. Hmmm, doughnut? Sacrilege, you say! Well, blame it on the Kitchen Master because that’s what she made me believe when we were growing up.
The darling daughters were brought up in a rather sugar deprived household – sweets were reserved only for special occasions; fruit was usually the dessert of the day. This is not to say that Aiyah and Ayah did not have a sweet tooth – Aiyah’s vice of choice was dark chocolate, but he was also partial to Sri Lankan and western desserts; Ayah loved her chocolate too, particularly in the form of a Chocobar (chocolate coated vanilla ice cream on a stick, for the uninitiated). The Kitchen Master, strange being that she was, scoffed at anything sugary – the only sweet she would deign to have was her ‘doughnut’ Karkandu Vadai, which Ayah rolled out every Diwali.
Talking of Diwali, the celebration brings back not just fond memories of the food and the festivities but also bittersweet memories of the Madras monsoons, prevalent in November / December. A recent post by a friend brought back memories of an unforgettable boat journey that we undertook the night of Diwali 1985, enforced by the monsoons. Usually the monsoons are a boon for the water starved Madrasvasis, but not in this instance. We had recently moved into the then newly redeveloped suburb of Kotturpuram, into the ground floor of a three storey house. The family, exhausted by the labours of a busy Diwali and replete after a feast of vadais, paniyarams and karkandu vadais, was fast asleep, oblivious to the deluge around us. A concerned neighbour’s call had us scrambling – what followed was a blur, but I remember the hurried exit from the ground floor to Ayah and Aiyah’s room in the first floor as water started seeping through the doorway. I also remember Ayah sorrowfully abandoning her efforts to haul the furniture and electronics to the safety of the first floor and finally agreeing to take refuge in the top floor apartment where our kindly neighbours took us in, Mickey, our dog and all.
The news the next day wasn’t so good either and so we decided to take up the offer to evacuate – if we hadn’t been so terrified, the prospect of a rescue by boat might have actually been exciting! We walked the length of our backyard to the sight of our treasured fiat car floating in unison with a huge rosewood bench adorned by a single rather scary looking green snake (trust me, to a panicked child, even an innocuous water snake appeared scary!). I had to be hoisted on the shoulders of our rescuer because the rising water level was already above mine... A few more snakes and a flooded well later, we were boosted over the wall and into the waiting boat and so began the rather wet ride up the creek, alongside wading men and animals, and on to the house of Aiyah’s good friend, a good samaritan who graciously hosted nearly half the neighbourhood for the duration of the flood and the recovery thereafter. Blame it on the innocence of childhood and the safety provided by the good samaritan’s family that the children of the neighbourhood actually managed to sleep that night, oblivious to the fears of their parents... As the water levels threatened to rise even higher, we were shipped off to the safety of a relative’s house and when we returned, the watermarks on the walls, nearly three times my petite height (12 feet, I was later told), proved to us that hell hath no fury as nature scorned!
Roll forward 30 years and Aiyah, now in T. Nagar, was once again faced with the 2015 floods, one of the most devastating that Madras had faced, one that brought the spirit of Chennai alive. Ayah had passed on a few years earlier; the darling daughters were overseas; and Aiyah and his helpers were left to fend on their own. Once again, refuge was in his first-floor bedroom with little food and water – the car lost in the pursuit of some elusive candles that never made their way home, the telephone lines cut off, cell phones either out of battery or lost in the waters, the entire ground floor abandoned to the mercies of nature. The darling daughters meanwhile were in a panic, helpless and cursing Ayah who had married them off to husbands overseas. Faced with the prospect of another boat rescue, the obstinate 85-year-old refused to get into the boat that arrived! He was finally rescued by a beloved niece who braved the waters in her 4-wheel drive and managed to bully him into leaving and staying the course with his sister. Obstinate as he was, to give credit where it is due, he actually managed the recovery of the house rather brilliantly – therein lay the strength of the man in adversity. The highlight of the story – asking the computer serviceman to take a hike rather than pay the exorbitant amount he was being quoted for data recovery because “I have hard copies of all my work in the storage room upstairs”! His suspicion of new-fangled technology had held him in good stead, which, of course, we techno-dependents heard about for weeks to come!
As I leave you to ponder on nature’s fury, we bring you sweeter thoughts with our recipe for Karkandu Vadai, a post dedicated to all the folks out there to whom we owe our flood rescues. Oh, and if you do try this recipe, send us some pictures and let us know whether the Kitchen Master got it right when she compared it to a doughnut.
If you’d like to try some of our other Diwali recipes, click here.
Note:
1. This recipe is best made with rock sugar, powdered. However, in a pinch you could use powdered diamond rock candy (the ones offered as prasadam during prayers) or powdered regular sugar. Do not use icing sugar as it contains cornflour.
2. This recipe makes about 30 vadais. You could store the undiluted batter in the fridge for about 2-3 days and make as required. You could also freeze the leftover batter and store for upto 3 months. Alternatively, you can also halve the recipe.
3. The consistency of the batter and the shaping method are slightly complicated, so I recommend that, before you attempt the recipe, you watch this video.
Ingredients:
1 cup whole urad dal
¼ cup raw rice
~ 200 ml water to soak
1 ½ cups finely powdered karkandu / rock sugar, sieved
A pinch of salt to taste
~500 ml vegetable oil to fry (or any oil like sunflower oil)
Method:
1. Wash the urad dal and the rice well, and soak together for about two hours. The soaking water should be about ½ an inch above the dal and rice.
2. While the dal is soaking, powder the karkandu – you can use a mortar and pestle to coarsely powder and then finish the powdering in the blender.
3. Once the dal and rice soaked, drain the water completely and reserve about 50 ml of the water to use while grinding.
Note: The general rule for Karkandu Vadai is to grind with as little water as you can without stalling the grinder / blender. The reason you need to be careful about adding too much water because you will be adding the karkandu at a later stage, which will add moisture as well and result in a batter that is difficult to shape.
4. Grind the dal and rice to a thick, smooth batter:
Grinder method:
Add the dal and rice mix to the wet grinder and start grinding with no water.
Once the mixture is coarsely ground, about five minutes into the grinding, sprinkle some water in it to loosen the mixture. You can sprinkle water a couple more times, but sparingly. I used about 20 ml of water, but the exact amount will depend on your grinder and the type of dal and rice you are using.
Grind until you have a fine smooth consistency, albeit a bit thick. This should take about 30 minutes.
Blender method:
Add the dal and rice mix to the wet grinder and start grinding with about 10 ml of ice cold water.
Start blending – if the blender sputters, sprinkle a bit more cold water. Blend in short spurts so that the blender does not overheat.
5. Once you have a smooth batter, you are ready to add the powdered karkandu. Add a ¼ of the powdered karkandu and a pinch of salt and continue to blend / grind. You will see the batter beginning to loosen up. Add another ¼ of the powdered karkandu and blend / grind again.
6. Once blended in, continue to add the karkandu a tablespoonful at a time until the desired consistency is reached – the consistency should be such that it is shapeable but not too dense. A good test is to add a dollop of the batter into a bowl of water – if it floats, it’s ready; if it sinks, add some more karkandu to loosen the batter some more.
7. Once the batter is ready, transfer to a bowl and chill in the refrigerator for about at least one hour.
8. To make the vadais, heat oil in a deep-frying pan and take out the batter from the refrigerator. While the oil is heating, keep a bowl of water, a sandwich sized plastic bag and a frying spoon ready. Pinch a bit of the batter and put into the oil – if it floats up the oil is hot enough for frying.
9. To fry the vadais (watch video for the detailed process):
I am right-handed, so I’m going to explain this for a right-handed person. If you’re left-handed, reverse the hands.
Use the Ziploc bag like a glove on your left hand, palm face up, fingers together, slightly cupped.
With the right hand, wet the surface of the bag with water, and using the same hand pinch off some batter (about the size of a small lime) from the side of the bowl and put it on the open surface of the Ziploc bag, on the palm.
Scrape of any excess batter sticking to your fingers on the side of the bowl of batter and dip the fingers in the bowl of water.
Use the fingers of right hand to pat and flatten the vadai on the ziploc bag and, using your forefinger, make a hole in the centre like a donut.
Tip the vadai from the ziploc bag onto the fingertips of your right hand (make sure the hand is free of any batter and the fingertips are held together) and then slide it into the hot oil.
Repeat the process again and add the next vadai to the frying pan – depending on the size of the frying pan, 5-6 vadais can be fried at a time.
Note: There are various ways to make the vadais depending on levels of expertise but this is one that has worked for me.
Makes: ~30 small vadais
Apprentice rating: The apprentice did not attempt this but I would rate it difficult. The consistency of the batter is difficult to achieve because of grinding with minimal water. It also takes a few tries to get the shape right.
Notes:
1. If the vadai soaks in too much oil while frying, add a tablespoon of cornflour or cornstarch and mix in. Similarly, if the batter is too watery and hard to shape, cornflour does the trick again.
2. Any leftover batter can be frozen for up to two months. To use again, defrost by leaving out for a couple of hours. The batter may become more watery on defrosting - if it does, add up to a tablespoon of cornflour to thicken again and then shape and fry as normal.
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