Even Mahavishnu Eats Spinach

But way downriver at Varanasi, there’s a taste of heaven: puri-aloo (no onions or garlic); the sharp taste of methi seeds and hing; thick creamy milk in terracotta cups that sends you into meethi neend.

Puri-aloo-lassi is just as brilliant at Mathura, especially at Shankar Halwai near Hathi Pol (Elephant Gate). Late at night, I bliss out hearing a flute play on Bengali Ghat while a puranmashi moon gilds the Yamuna. Afterwards, I wander vaguely around looking for sustenance. A doodhwala has khurchan (milk scrapings) left and it’s ambrosial!

But my vote for the very best holy handout in North India goes to the karah prasad of gurudwaras—roasted cream-of-wheat, velvety with ghee and melted sugar, which slides like a benediction down your throat. In terms of fullness and fatness, no delicacy is as rich and I permit myself the tiniest morsel. And then, because it’s so delicious, another.

My ‘birthday gurdwara’ where I go to say formal thanks and beg (Saache Sahiba, kya nahi ghar tere? Ghara ta tera sab kuchh hai, jis dey so paavey) is the palatial white-and-gold of New Delhi’s Gurdwara Bangla Sahib. It is where the eighth teacher, Guru Harkrishan, stayed in the 17th century as the guest of Raja Jai Singh of Amber (Jaipur), in his haveli. To walk into Bangla Sahib is to feel a great hush descend on the soul. The prasad is a benevolent send-off, as if to say: “Leave this House of God with a sweet taste in your mouth! May your life be full of sweetness.”

Here’s a domestic value-added version I liked very much from a brand new cookbook, Dadi Maa Ki Rasoi (Aruna Kirpal), which I confess to tinkering slightly with. It’s not karah prasad, so one must simply call it:

SOOJI HALWA

YOU NEED: Sooji (rava/semolina) 1 cup; besan (chickpea flour) 2 tbsp; maida (white flour) 1 tbsp; melted ghee 1/2 cup; sugar 1/2 cup; water 1 cup; green cardamom 4; blanched, slivered almonds 12; a good pinch of saffron, soaked in 4 tsp warm water.

TO MAKE: Sieve sooji, besan and maida together. Dissolve sugar in a saucepan with the water, boiled along with green cardamom. Heat ghee in a kadhai and fry the sooji mixture a rich golden-brown. Turn down heat and pour in the dissolved sugar, stirring well to break up lumps. Add the saffron. Top with almonds and if you’ve got it, silver foil and desi rose leaves. The other flours give the halwa a certain crispness!

When you cross the Narmada into South India, you enter yet another state of grace. Tirupati laddoos are just the delicious beginning, fragrant with camphor, kaju and kishmish. But though it’s more famous for its legendary Palpayasam (kheer), it’s the Panchaamritam or Five Nectars at Kerala’s Ambalapuzha that haunts me still, if I recall right from a childhood trip: Jackfruit, ghee, gur, camphor, sugary midget bananas, squished into a celestial marmalade! Heavenly, too, was the clean satvik taste of vegetarian langar at Udipi Sri Krishna’s temple in Karnataka, eaten off banana leaves. And it’s hard to top the exquisite Srivaishnava prasad at the great temple of Srirangam.

Here are two rare recipes that normally never leave temple kitchens, courtesy Nrisimhapriya, the Srivaishnava magazine authorised by the Sri Ahobila Math, Tamil Nadu.

PERUMAL ROTI

Even Mahavishnu must eat his spinach: along with rotis and sweets, Lord Ranganatha is ritually offered Keerai Kootu, a fab version of spinach dal. But here’s a recipe for sweet roti (halved) from a Srirangam temple cook.

YOU NEED: The best atta (I’d buy Madhya Pradesh) 1/2 kg; high-quality gur 250 gms; rice flour for dusting; ghee, lots!

TO MAKE: Powder gur thoroughly. Transfer to a parat and add dry atta. Mix with a wooden spoon. (No water: the gur gets gooey enough to bind). Dust the rice flour on the counter and flatten balls of dough on it thoroughly, with your hands. Fry each disc of flattened dough in hot ghee for a few seconds, so it looks like a puri, but not too brown.

AKKAARA-VADISAL

Aandaal, the beautiful mystery baby found under the tulsi by the saint Vishnuchitta in the seventh century, grew up obsessed with Krishna and merged into the Lord at Srirangam. She’s TN’s little sweetheart even today. Aandaal wanted one hundred vessels of this dish served at her wedding but it didn’t happen. Sri Ramanuja fulfilled the girl-saint’s wish several centuries later and is called her elder brother. Here’s the recipe (modified) from Kalyanavaradan aka Appu Mama, now in his 70s, who joined the kitchens of the Sri Ahobila Math when he was just fourteen.

YOU NEED: Raw rice 200 gms; chana dal 50 gms; moong dal 50 gms; ghee 1 kg; boiled milk 4 litres; soda, a small pinch; gur 1 kg; cashews, a heaped handful; raisins, the same; mace (javitri or red nutmeg skin) 1 1/2 teaspoons; water, enough to cook rice (water:rice = 2:1).

TO MAKE: Fry the rice golden brown in 200 gms pure ghee. Add hot water and boiled milk. In another pan, pour 100 gms ghee and fry both the dals. Add to rice with soda and cook together until all is soft, stirring constantly. After picking the jaggery clean, add to rice and stir. Heat the remaining ghee in a separate kadhai. Fry cashews and raisins. Add the secret ingredient, javitri, and stir well. Tip this seasoning into the rice and mix well. Serve this uber-porridge hot!

MEETHA CHAWAL

Looping back North, the meetha chawal served as prasad at Gharib Nawaz’s shrine in Ajmer Sharief is truly scrumptious. And are you aware that it’s carefully cooked with vegetarian sensibilities in mind? Gharib Nawaz knows how many vegetarian Hindus flock to his shrine and the khadims respect this. I pestered my Maulanaji in Delhi to get hold of this recipe for Sunday Express, but he’s off travelling, so I’m boldly substituting a domestic version that’s more ‘luxe’ than the great Sufi might have approved of. The basic recipe follows Dadi Maa’s in the tradition of Old Delhi, but with an un-kosher fillip. You can actually run a simple dinner menu for two, four or more around it: crunchy green salad in vinaigrette with peanuts and browned mushrooms, elegant kathi rolls/hummus-falafel rolls and—glorious Sweet Rice! Dry white wine goes best with this, the seccer the better.

YOU NEED: Best basmati 1 cup; sugar 4 tbsp (substitute with as many drops of Equal as you can stand); ghee 2 tbsp, cloves 6; green cardamom 10; blanched, slivered almonds 12, raisins 12, magaz (melon seeds) 1 tbsp; khoya (reduced milk, buy from halwai) 1 cup; a good pinch saffron, soaked, as usual, in 4 tsp warm water (some people dunk it for 10 minutes in boiling hot water).

TO MAKE: Wash and soak rice in 2 cups water for 15-20 minutes. Pressure cook/boil until rice is just cooked but not gooey (if pressure-cooked, spread out at once in parat to cool and separate grains). Melt sugar in less than 1 cup water. Heat ghee and fry the spices, seeds and dry fruit. Add boiled rice and sugar syrup, stir well (but delicately) and cook covered on low heat until the rice drinks the water. Transfer to baking dish, spread the khoya thick and pour saffron on top. Grill/bake until khoya turns golden brown. If you want to be utterly decadent and a million miles away from ‘prasad’, invert tinned peach-halves pre-soaked in back-again-now Riesling or Liebfraumilch on top, before you serve (in which case, mix the saffron in before you cap with khoya).

Baikunth, anyone?