Blink and miss

Basundi ka Koupon Konnection

The milk delivery system in our house works thus. We have prepaid coupons that we buy before hand from the doodhwala. Every night (or early morning) we hang a bag outside the door with the milk coupons. Jitni zaroorat utne coupons! And poof! the milk bags appear magically in the morning.

The system works fine and the husband and I squabble over who’s turn it is to put the coupons tonight. Yes, we are two very cheap and lazy people. Thank you. So one day, we both happen to be in a nice mood and TADA!!! The next morning we are stuck with double the milk. We could have refrigerated it and used it the next day blah blah, but I went ahead and made this very simple and gratifying dessert - Basundi!

So here goes, for Basundi (Gujarati style), you need:

1. 1 litre of milk (any milk other than the skimmed, low fat one)
2. 7-8 tsps of sugar
3. A handful of almonds (badam)
4. A smaller handful of pistachios
5. 10-12 elaichis (cardamoms)
6. 1 tsp charoli (chironji)

Warm a little water and soak the almonds for about half an hour. While the almonds soak and their peels soften, take the milk in a large thick kadhai or any thick bottomed pan. Heat the milk till it boils and then keep stirring it continuously on minimum till it reduces to about half its volume.^*

Add the sugar and simmer it for a couple more minutes. Peel and cut the soaked almonds and pistachios into slivers. Crush the elaichi into a fine powder.^**

Add the elaichi powder, the chopped nuts and charoli into the milk and you’re done! For a kesar variation, you can add 5-6 strands of saffron, soaked in a tbsp of lukewarm milk for 5 minutes, to the basundi.

I prefer my Basundi to be a little warm, while the husband likes it cold. Whichever way you like to have it, this is one easy to make yet very gratifying dessert.

^*The key to a sure shot perfect basundi is not to run any other parallel errands while the milk is getting reduced. Keep stirring the milk continuously. A lapse second can and will give your hard earned basundi that nasty burnt milk smell and ruin your experience.

^**You can crush the elaichi in the stone mortar with hand, but it takes both time and patience. A short cut way is to mix a little sugar with the peeled elaichi to increase the volume and then grind it in the chutney attachment of the mixie.

Edited to add: There is this porcelain disc sort of thing available, especially to make basundi. It is about 2 cms thick and 7-8 cms in diameter. Strange as it may sound, it is NOT a dish to serve the basundi. This basundi disc is added into the milk while reducing it, so that you do not need to stir it continously. I don’t know how, but it prevents the milk from sticking to the vessel. It makes the cooking such a breeze. Now only if I could find one in Bangalore.

Do I look like Govinda?

After 28 years of existence, I am beginning to accept that maybe just maybe I have a really zero sense of style. That when they say coordinate your dress and shoes and bag they do not mean matching-matching. Actually, I always thought I dressed alright.The thunder struck when last year I got nominated for one of those silly awards under the “flamboyant dresser” category by my colleagues. And I missed the award by a whisker (phew!).

Not one to be bogged down easily, I kept laughing it off as one of those silly things that one should just turn a deaf ear to. Of course, I had nothing to worry. But the words “flamboyant dresser” kept flashing to me in my dreams. I tried to think of other people who might be called flamboyant dressers. I could think of just one person. G.O.V.I.N.D.A. The horror. I tried but I just couldn’t think of anyone else who can be given that award!! Can you??

And that made me start looking a little closer about what I was wearing, especially to work. It didn’t take me more than a week to admit the fact that everyone else was able to see very clearly. I was in severe need of some “Basic Styling 101″ lessons. All I did in the coordination department was matching matching. In the makeup department, it was just kajal. Smoky look and all was what I thought I was donning, but at the end of the day with the kajal smudging and spilling under the eyes, I really looked like a bhoot straight out of an RGV movie. Oh and lets not even get into the shoes department. The
lesser the said the better.

So last weekend, while the husband volunteered to take care of a sleeping baby (duh!), I sprinted to the swanky new Reliance Footprint store next door. And for me who’s always believed in buying cheap shoes, this required some courage. So I was all itching to shell out lots of cash (by my standards) and bag at least one formal pair of shoes that I can wear to work without a thought, all in less than 40 minutes of my hard earned freedom time. Oh and did I forget, I quite resemble a TV tower height-wise (I resemble a drum, proportion-wise, but I won’t admit it, ha!), so it had to be something flat. Plus, even the smallest of heels give me a really bad backache. And then I found this. Must be the tree of my 28 years of punya, finally bearing fruit.

I bought the exact same shoe, but in camel brown colour. And at least I am very proud of myself.

So while looking for an image of the shoe, I landed on this website. Isn’t this super cool? You can browse through different brands, filter the shoes by price, by type and buy it sitting at your desk. And they have some flexible policy on the size. Yes, all these things were always available to them firangs, but I haven’t seen anything like it in India yet. I am surely buying some shoes from this site pretty soon and will let you guys know how it went. And btw, the same shoe is available for full 300 Rs. less at this website. My only consolation is that my size isn’t available on the website.

So here’s the thing. All you well-styled divas of the blog world, please do me a favour and put up a solid list of basic styling tips, focused on urban Indian working women. See I don’t wear a knee length skirt to office, so those fashion mags are pretty useless when it comes to day to day styling. Things like are those Fabindia type kurtas okay in a
formal environment? Does cotton look too cheap and should one just stick to silk? What kind of shoes does one wear to work with salwar kameez? This is one question that I have NEVER found an answer to. As of now, I am reading this in the name of taking styling lessons. A little celeb gossip doesn’t harm anyone, does it?

Clean slate

Ah! I start writing afresh on blinkandmiss. The old posts, old pages, all of it just went down the drain. FYI, I have them all archived. Just in case I change my mind. Yet again. A fresh new template is on its way and I’m all set to write more often. Wish me luck and keep coming back.