Adhi Potoba

Most of my friends through my twenties were big rum & coke drinkers. And great thing about having a solid 'pettad' as a friend is that whenever you go out, there are always great appetizers on the table. One of the more popular watering holes in Pune back in the early 90's was Pinnacle in Chandani Chowk. If one can remember that far back, Chandani Chowk was a place people went to get out of the city, stand at the pinnacle, enjoy some fresh air and a great view of the city from the top of the hill. At that point, Pinnacle was still trying to attract customers with low prices and a sit-as-long-as-you-want policy for drinkers. As a result, the average young drinker on a shoestring budget could manage to go beyond the masala peanuts for drinking snacks. Some drinking snacks like Chicken Manchurian Dry , Fish Koliwada and Masala Papad continue to be the favourites. My favourite was the Tawa Prawns. Fresh jumbo prawns spiced and stir-fried to perfection. Today, the city of P...

No trip to Pune is complete without a visit to Marzorin . It is situated on Main Street in Camp in a tiny little shop three steps above everyone else. Back in the 80s when I used to frequent Marzorin, they had a very short menu. 4 types of sandwiches. 5 types of drinks and a few pastries here and there. Today, Marzorin is a huge 2 story restaurant with a fairly complex menu. My favourite food at Marzorin is still by far the little triangular chicken sandwich. I have tried every possible combination of chicken, spreads and bread to make it taste like the Marzorin. I have come up with many recipes in the process, but the Marzorin combination still eludes me. Here's one of my favourites. Ingredients 1 cup Grilled Chicken, very finely chopped 8 slices Whole Wheat Bread 1/2 cup Butter 1/4 cup Cream Cheese 1/4 tsp Black Pepper Salt to taste Method Saute grilled chicken with pepper and salt with little oil Whisk cream cheese and butter till they are completely mixed Apply mixture generou...

By the time I was in the 7th standard, I along with a few neighbourhood kids had perfected the art of making a good potato chip. Known in this country as the French Fry or in the fly over states as Freedom Fries (sad, isn't it?). In India young boys are always discouraged from carrying experiments in the kitchen. As a children of parents who were busy and away from home most of the day, my friends and I found the kitchens at our disposal during the afternoons. We would have potato chip parties between games of 'galli' cricket . It involved everyone stealing 2 potatoes from home and maybe some oil. Stealing oil from the oil dispenser on the kitchen counter was a rookie mistake that would get caught. Only the seasoned potato chipper knew to steal directly from the 15 litre Postman dabba as a few missing cups wouldn't be detected. The loot would then be gathered at one of the kitchens where peeling and cutting began. As a measure to increase the number of chips per potato,...

Varan Bhat is to a Maharashtrian what rice and beans are to our Mexican friends. This is the one dish that for some reason never tastes as good in a restaurant as it does at home. More so for lunch than diner. And if you nail the combination of the dal, salt, lemon and ghee at the first helping, just stop. The second helping will never taste as good. A good batch of dal is probably the second yardstick for judgement that the mother-in-law uses against the new bride after the roundness of a chapati . Here's to a start to a good finger licking lunch. Ingredients 1 cup Toor Dal (pigeon peas) 2 tsp Oil 1 tsp Turmeric 1/2 tsp Cumin Powder 1/2 tsp Asafoetida 2 cups water Salt to taste Lemon, sliced 1 tsp Ghee Method In a pressure cooker cook the pigeon peas till they are completely soft and almost dissolved. (If you don't have a pressure cooker, boil in a pot till cooked.) Set aside. In a pot, heat the oil. Add cumin and asafoetida and allow to cook in the oil. Add turmeric and then...

I have always associated corn with the monsoon season. Before the weather patterns on the Deccan plateau shifted the first showers would show up by mid-May. It was just around the time when we would be busy putting brown paper covers on new text books for school and enjoying that new book smell. It also meant that summer vacation was in its last three weeks. As the rains started drenching the parched earth, children in my neighbourhood would run out to collect mangoes that would've fallen as a result of the rains . As the victorious returned with shirts full of muddy bounty, aayi would have hot cups of chai waiting for us. Along with Glucose biscuits and roasted corn or stir-fried corn. The 4'o clock chai on a rainy afternoon is something I miss dearly. Ingredients 2 cups of Corn kernels 1/2 tsp Mustard Seeds 1/2 tsp Sugar 1/2 tsp Turmeric 1/2 tsp Chili powder 1 tbsp Butter Salt to taste Method Heat butter in a pot and add mustard seeds Add corn and saute Add sugar, turmeric...

Back in the early 90's, when my friends were at the peak of their drinking form, Green Park on Baner Road was a popular watering hole. Although it was designed and advertised as a family restaurant, most of it's patrons were young and middle-aged men who were used to drinking Old Monk by the quarter. Even though the food at Green Park was extremely delicious, it was always secondary as most of their customers weren't sober enough to appreciate the food or for that matter remember it the next day. Having been a non-drinker all my life, I had the pleasure of sampling almost everything on the Green Park menu and remembering it long enough to write about it. One of their lesser known dishes (and one of my favourites) was mutton roast. A succulent piece of lamb shank breaded and grilled to perfection in a tandoor oven and served with 3 wedges of roasted potatoes and a mint dipping sauce. From what I hear, Green Park has been completely renovated with a swimming pool, a kids play...

Our convent school was never really equipped for taking large number or students on trips and whenever an attempt was made it was an utter disaster that made for some really great memories. One of the great features of these overnight trips was that the food would be prepared by the students themselves. A great idea in theory. But not when the cooks in question have barely mastered long division. Never a great selling point, but looking back the trips were fun. The destination was always a small sea side village or one of Shivaji's many forts. Or in some cases both. When I was in high school, we went on one such trip to Sindhudurg . Sindhudurg was Shivaji's invincible fort in the Arabian Sea a couple of miles from land. We set camp on the beach right opposite the fort. We attempted to cook on kerosene stoves , but it was a disaster. The chapatis were rock hard, the fish was burnt and everything has a strong aroma of kerosene. Eating this food was mandatory or you'd face th...