To market, to market...

Moras Bhajjji seller

The Moras Bhajji

Kantola seller

The Kantolas

Most cookbooks have a buying guide, but for My Mumbai cookbook, even that section has to be a little different. I am going to be writing on some of the markets I have grown up shopping in.

And Vikram's excellent column on Bhajji galli ~

"Mumbai has many good vegetable markets, but Bhaji Gali near Grant Road station is one of the best. Probably because many vegetarian Maharashtrians and Gujaratis live nearby, the veggies always seem extra good and fresh. Another sign that it’s a good market is how sellers specialise."

And it's treasures within including Moras bhajji ~

"A few sellers away I spotted a bag of leaves half hidden under other veggies. They looked odd, long and fleshy ovals that I almost thought were discarded bean pods, but they had the thick stems of a succulent. The vegetable seller called them moras-bhaji and he told me it grew near the sea, coming to them from the beaches at Vasai. "

... finally had me calling him to fix a day to go marketing together. It is something we have been meaning to do but not getting around too. Ignoring pangs of guilt I left the DH with my able housekeeper, Shobha to look after the kids and drove into town. I was really looking forward to this trip since I had been pretty much confines to my colony the last couple of weeks thanks to kids work and the monsoons. The rain gods were also indulgent and held themselves back for me.

We met at the Grant rd. station side. The plan was to walk through to the other side and then drive on to our next destination. Almost immediately we got down to shopping since one of the vendors I especially wanted to visit was right at the corner on which we met. The water chestnut seller.

Water chestnuts come into season at this time of the year, and I had been wanting to get my hands on some for a while now but they are not available near where I live in Powai.

I discovered Water Chestnuts in their fresh form at Mayo girls where we would sometimes get them for tea. Prior to that I had only eaten the cooked salted ones.

Fresh water chestnuts are extremely different from their cooked counterparts and I must say I like them better; tender, crunchy, sweet, juicy and faintly herby, they are great to eat raw and absolutely delicious in curries. A fact I discovered entirely by chance a few years ago when. Anticipating a day of many acquisitions I conservatively bought just half a kg and ended up wishing I'd exercised the judgment to buy more because the were over before I could savor them.

Tucking them into my shopping bag, I moved on with Vikram. We saw a whole lot of other vegetables, identifying them and telling each other how we used them, until we came to the Moras vegetable guy. In fact we almost missed the basket full of Moras he was selling, because it was buried under a bunch of green bananas as you can see in the picture. A little later we happened upon a vendor selling Kantolas. These are prickly little things that my husband confirmed are the Meethe Karele of Uttarakhandi cuisine. All too soon we'd finished with this short stretch of a vegetable wonderland and emerged at the other end.

My Dadi, swore by two markets, Bhulleshwar and Bhajji galli, but Bhuleshwar was further away. Bhajji galli (which literally translates to vegetable lane) was very close and extremely accessible.

Bhajji Gali is a small lane that stretches on a perpendicular from Grant road station. Which makes it a popular stop for commuters to shop for vegetables on their way home. We visited in the lax hours, so vendors were patient with us but try come peak hours and a cacophony of hundreds of voices will greet you selling everything from tomatoes to greens. The fact that it is right in the middle of the vegetarian gujarati populated area makes it a treasure trove for indigenous seasonal vegetables.

It was a great trip so unlike the sanitary supermarket shopping I have access to in Powai. It reminded me what a great experience marketing is and I have every intention of doing more of it!

Making East Indian Bottle Masalla for My Mumbai Cookbook

The East Idian chapter of My Mumbai Cookbook will actually come up much later in my writing schedule but the legendary Bottle masala is only made this time of the year (January to April). It also has a 'secret recipe' so when I found a friend whose mom was ready to share the making of it, I grabbed the chance. I surmounted all odds to get there the stipulated weekend, planning things down to the 'p', prepacking on Friday, borrowing moms car (ours was in the shop). And I am so glad I did because the monsoons arrived in all their glory the very next week!

We'd planned to leave by 10 but I only woke at 8:45 when Bessy, the friend I was supposed to visit called to ask if we had left! A mad rush ensued as I pushed husband and son to get dressed and got baby and myself ready as well.

The Ghildiyal family, with assorted baggage, baby gadgets and actually left home in record time. (Well 11.00 was not bad since we had planned for 10.00 all things considered.) I am coming to a conclusion after Natasha was born that babies come with a Murphy's law chip embedded in them. That is why they will choose to poop the exact minute you step out of the house? Trow up the exact minute you finish buttoning them into their new dress OR and this is a classic.. Poop the moment you've changed them into a fresh diaper.

We arrived at our friends (the Machados) Vasai home in time for lunch and all of a sudden the mad rush seemed to slow down as beer cans were popped open and the men got comfortable in front of the cricket match on TV, while keeping an eye on the kids (my 2 and Bessy's 2) while us women got busy in the kitchen.

Lunch -which I was supposed to help cook... well I did manage to stir the curry before I put it on the table - consisted of pomfret done two ways; in a curry of coconut juice flavoured with the ubisquitious bottle masalla and local cane vinegar, and also two rather large specimens stuffed with coconut chutney and pan fried in banana leaves (a dish I found very reminiscent of Parsi Patra ni machchi, couldn't help wondering if there is a common root to that dish) all eaten with rice. (I have pictures of this bit but bear with me, because they are on my phone and my phone and my computer are not on talking terms currently! )

The seasoning in the food was less than what we eat at home, but that was a good thing because it allowed us to taste the delicate flavours of the fish and the curry it was cooked in. Bessy fried the rest of the chutney she'd stuffed the fish with, in a tempering of Mustard and Curry leaves. Lunch was delicious. Generously seasoned with hunger, the tangy slightly spicy fish curry came together beautifully with the chutney that tasted of fresh coconut. We ate a lot, quickly and with our hands, the next bite being ready to enter our mouths before we'd finished with the last and were still picking morsels of plates and spoons long after our stomachs were full.

After that sumptuous lunch, a nap was on the cards, we were in Vasai after all, where afternoon naps after a big meal of fish curry and rice are de riguer.

At 5 going on 6 (are you surprised?) that evening, Riki, Bessy's husband dropped us off to Bessys moms house while my husband valiantly babysat the kids. Thank god for him, because without his support, the next few hours of idyllic culinary exploration could not have been possible.

It was in the next few hours that Bessy's mom, Mrs Margaret Nunes was going to teach me how to make Bottle Massala, Sorpottel and Vindhaloo.

But before I get into the details let me tell you about East Indian Bottle Masalla. This magical spice mix is a bit like the legendary Ras el hanout, it seems to have every spice in the world in it, only as opposed to being made by merchants it is made by women at home and each home has a separate recipe. It is then used round the year to distinctively flavour East Indian cuisine. It goes into everything!



The making of this Bottle masalla is an annual event amongst the East Indian community. The annual supply is made and put down just prior to the monsoon when hot sunny days are guaranteed and used round the year.

Bottle Masala travels far and wide, with members of the community carrying it with them so they can replicate flavours of home in far off lands.

Like all Indian spice mixes, the spices for this masala are also dried in the hot sun, then each is individually roasted over a slow fire and either in a mortar and pestle or processed like the one I made in Vasai. Once we had roasted everything, it was all mixed up and taken to the local flour mill where it was ground in a special mill reserved for grinding masallas.

The resulting powder was left to cool down completely and then tightly-packed in air-tight, dry bottles (now plastic but beer bottles were once the container of choice which is how the masalla came to be called bottle masalla). The bottle is then properly sealed and will last a long time if kept away from sunlight and moisture.