Dudhi Chana Shaak

It's another Sunday and I'm back in Chandler visiting my parents. Throughout my childhood, I would beg my mom, Shilpa, to teach me to cook or at the very least let me help her in the kitchen. But as a working mother, more often then not my eager presence was more of a nuisance while she was cooking dinner for the family. Now in college I try to recreate some of the recipes I watched her make at home, but I always need to call her on the phone for guidance. My family is from India, my dad immigrating here for better education and job opportunity and my mom following him from Mumbai after their marriage in 1988. India, a subcontinent with over 300 living languages has very distinctive ethnic groups, each with their own food, clothing, mannerisms, and traditions. Despite a long history of complex migration patterns and cultural influences, people still tend to marry within their own ethnic group, so I am Gujarati through and through. During my childhood my mother would cook Gujarati food almost every other day since it was considered the healthiest and was the most loved by my parents. The rest of the week was non-Gujarati Indian food, thought to be a step up by me and my sister, and once or twice a week we would eat non-Indian food, a treat my sister and I awaited eagerly. But having grown older, I regret not having fully learned the unique knowledge and skill my mother always had in the kitchen. For once I convinced my mom to really teach me her secrets, so today we made Dudhi Chana Shaak together, a meal we ate at home growing up.
















Dudhi is the Gujarati word for bottle gourd, which literally translates to "milky", although it is known as lauki in Hindi. Chana always refers to some kind of legume, pea, or pulse. In this case the chana used is yellow split peas. Shaak is the Gujarati term for any cooked vegetable dish, of which there are at least a hundred. Gujarati cuisine is almost always vegetarian due to the influences of Jainism and Hinduism in the region and therefore contains lots of legumes and vegetables. It also tends to be on the sweeter side since either sugar or jaggery are added to many dishes. Gujarati food definitely has a unique flavor profile that sets it apart from the cooking of other regions in Indian and I think that may be the reason that it never gained popularity in the United States and never appealed to my Americanized taste buds either. But having grown more mature taste buds, I can now appreciate more of the foods that I initially rejected as a child. Dudhi chana is one of those dishes that everyone likes and I'm glad that I now know how to make it.

The entire dish is only comprised of two main ingredients, but of course it's the aromatics that make something so simple taste amazing. From my mother's masala dabba we are using mustard seeds (rai), turmeric (hardar), cumin-coriander (dhana jeeru), and chili powder (lal marchu). For extra spice, she uses a serrano chili pepper. We will also need curry leaves and since my mom is lucky enough to have a curry plant (kari patta), we have fresh ones. For tartness we use kokum, a dried fruit that gives Gujarati and South Indian dishes a distinctive pucker similar to tamarind, as well as lemon juice (although lime is traditional). We also a bit of sugar to balance out the sour taste and give it a typical Gujarati sweetness. And as always, salt to taste.

Since my mom didn't get the chance to soak the chana for 6 hours like she usually does, she puts the chana in a pressure cooker with 1 and 1/2 cups of water on medium heat for 15 minutes. The dudhi, chana, and all of the spices may be hard to find in mainstream supermarkets but can always be found at your local Indian grocery store. My mom is able to find everything she needs for Indian cooking from Asian grocery stores like Lee Lee's and small shops like Ashoka Indian Groceries for more specific ingredients. I asked her what she thought about grocery stores when she first came here. "I missed the freshness and quality of vegetables in India and certain things that aren't available here. But there's also a lot of produce that I like here that's not available in India. I also think the hygiene is better here and you can worry less about getting sick. One thing I wasn't used to seeing was butchers cutting up meat in front of me."

While the chana is cooking separately, my mom shows me the appropriate size cubes to cut the dudhi into. Then she heats a few table spoons of olive oil and once it gets hot enough, adds the mustard seeds. It's key that the oil is hot so that the mustard seeds pop, but be sure not to stand too close and get burned by sputtering oil. We then add the curry leaves, chili and dudhi and saute them for 5 minutes. I ask my mom how hard it was to cook Indian food when she first came here. "It's easier now than it was before. I used to have to stock up on spices when we went to India or had relatives visiting. There's a lot more availability here nowadays" Another difference is that most middle and upper income families in India hire servants who help with cooking prep work among other things. "I started using more shortcuts and substitutions, like using frozen and canned vegetables instead of fresh ones since it's a lot more time consuming to do it all yourself."

Now that it's been 15 minutes, we check on the chana. It should be thoroughly cooked, almost mushy. We add the chana (with the water it was cooked in) to the dudhi along with the kokum. Then a few minutes later we add the turmeric, chili powder, and cumin-coriander, sugar, and salt. We stir everything and simmer covered for 15 minutes. In the meantime I ask what she thought about American food upon immigrating to Arizona. "When I first came here, there were a lot fewer vegetarian options than there are now. While I noticed that there was a huge selection of food here, I found it so limited in its variety of vegetarian food especially compared to each regional Indian cuisine. For that reason, I've never tried what is considered 'American' food. But I really liked Mexican food as a change from eating Indian food because it's flavorful and full of spices. In general other ethnic restaurants appealed to me a lot more rather than typical American food. I also noticed how the portions here are super-sized compared to servings in India." I wondered what influence my sister and had on her taste in food. "You both loved Indian food when you were very little. But as you grew up you wanted more spaghetti and quesadillas and pizza. I think it was the melted cheese that was appealing to you. So sometimes I would cook something separate for you. But because of that I started cooking more non-Indian food when you both grew older which was really fun and interesting. I liked trying to make these new foods on my own. Just by living here I've become a lot more open to trying new foods. Things I never heard of before like artichokes and avocados I now enjoy immensely. And I think that I would get bored eating only Gujarati food every single day" I ask her what she thinks about Indian food here in Arizona "There' a huge increase in the number of Indian restaurants locally but they're still only limited to North and South Indian food. There are still no Gujarati restaurants in Phoenix. There's more interest in eating Indian food among non-Indians and more ready made Indian foods in grocery stores, but still not much ethnic variety. But I think you can find more variety in bigger cities in places like California."

After 15 minutes, we add 1/2 cup of chopped tomato to cook for another 5 minutes. Finally I add two good squeezes of lemon juice and top with chopped cilantro to finish it off. Even though the shaak is finished, we still need to make the bread to eat it with. You could eat this with rice or rotli (also known as rotis or chapatis) but thepla is the bread usually eaten with Dudhi Chana. I decide I want to make the thepla on my own using my mom's instruction. I ask her if she learned to cook the same way from her mother. "Since my studies always came first, I never learned that much cooking- if anything I just helped out sometimes. When I came to the US and had to cook for my family, I already knew how to make 40% of the things and 60% I learned on my own. Either I would call my mom or look at Tarla Dalal cookbooks. My mom would spend hours in the kitchen each day. I obviously do a lot less cooking than her and I make less variety of food than she does. I realized I like cooking when I cook for myself and I try something new. but it's usually very tiresome since I'm expected to do it all the time."

I mix whole wheat flour with turmeric, chili powder, salt, oil, and methi leaves. Methi is what we call fenugreek leaves, available dried at most Indian grocery stores. We have to soak them in a bit of water for 5 minutes and then I add a lump of the wet leaves to the dough. You must add water splash by splash until a dough with a good consistency is formed. I roll them into balls with my hands and then roll them out into 6 inch circles using a velan (rolling pin) and a marble patlo (board) with plenty of flour to prevent sticking. Then one by one, I place a thepla on a hot cast iron pan waiting for one side to obtain brown spots, flipping it and brushing it with more oil and doing the same on the other side once done.  Once we have finished making a good pile of theplas, we start assembling each thali with the shaak, 2 theplas, rice, a cucumber-tomato salad, pickle, and mango cubes. I've never been more excited to eat a complete Gujju meal before and I'm proud that I was actually a part of it.

Dudhi Chana Shaak

(serves 4)

1 cup chana dal (yellow split peas)

1 dudhi (bottle gourd)

1/2 tomato, chopped

5 pieces kokum

5 fresh or dried curry leaves

1 small piece serrano chili, chopped

1/2 tsp mustard seeds

1/2 tsp haldi (turmeric)

1/2 tsp  lal mirchi (chili powder)

1 tsp dana jeeru (cumin-coriander powder)

2 tsp sugar

1 tbsp lime or lemon juice

Salt to taste

1. Soak the chana dal in for 6 hours or place in a pressure cooker with 1 and 1/2 cups of water for 15 minutes.

2. Cut the gourd into quarter inch pieces

3. In a large pot, heat 2 tbsp oil. Fry mustard seeds, curry leaves and chili pepper. Then add the gourd and saute for 5 minutes.

4. Add the chana dal and its water to the pot along with the kokum. Then add the turmeric, chili powder, and cumin-coriander powder, sugar, and salt to taste. Simmer for 15 minutes covered.

5. Add the chopped tomato and simmer for another 5 minutes

6. Finish with a squeeze of lime and serve with hot theplas.

Thepla

(serves 4)

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/4 tsp turmeric

Pinch of chili powder

Pinch of salt

1 tbsp finely chopped fresh or reconstituted dried methi leaves (fenugreek)

4 tsp oil

1. Mix all dried ingredients along with methi leaves. Then add 2 tsp oil and add a few spoons of water until you form a dough.

2. Add remaining 2 tsp of oil and kneed into a ball. Let the dough sit for half an hour covered.

3. Roll dough into approximately 6-8 balls. Roll each out into an even 6 inch circle using a rolling pin and extra flour to prevent sticking

4. In a skillet on high heat, cook one thepla until it develops lots of brown spots. Flip it over and brush the cooked side with more oil. Flip again until the other side browns up and brush with oil again. Place on a plate to cool

5. Repeat