Sunday, August 9, 2009

Lazy Sunday Brunch...Naah!

The general concept of a Lazy Sunday Brunch:
  1. Slog all week. Then you can tell yourself that you deserve this indulgence.
  2. Convince people (parents / wife / siblings / friends / colleagues etc) to make the effort.
  3. Find a suitably expensive place. (It's not a Lazy Sunday Brunch if you host it at your home, and worse, cook!)
  4. Arrive at the suitably expensive place, suitably dressed in pyjamas.
  5. Pretend to laze around, hog on sweet stuff, talk, ogle.
  6. Wait for the phones to start ringing, and watch people leave, giving lame excuses.
  7. Leave after an hour or two.
  8. Slog all week.
  9. Get invited to the next Lazy Sunday Brunch, rinse, repeat.
My concept of a Lazy Sunday Brunch:
  1. Get up.
  2. Try and remember whether there is a Badminton and / or brunch invitation.
  3. Read HT Brunch with morning tea.
  4. Check on the laptop, play a round or two of Unreal Tournament.
  5. See if stomach still has memories of the Lazy Saturday Brunch.
  6. Sleep some more.

Yes! I have Saturdays off! Ergo, no Sunday Brunch nonsense for me. The Lazy Saturday Brunch, unlike the aforementioned monstority, is much simpler:

  1. It must be on a Saturday.
  2. Since nobody does Saturday Brunch yet, it has to be at home.
  3. It must taste good.
  4. It must have that 'kick', to fire your memory all week.
  5. It must be simple.

So, here's what I had on a recent Saturday.

(Preparation Time: 10-15 minutes. Serves One. Not possible to translate name to English.)

One onion, diced into eight pieces. Half to three-fourths tomato, similarly diced. One or two green chillis. 6-7 garlic cloves. A little green coriander. Put all of the above in the grinder, in that order, and, well, grind. Put some water and grind some more to achieve consistency. Now, put a kadai on medium fire. Put some oil in it. And a little turmeric powder. Put in the masala from the grinder. Roast a bit. Put a bit of salt, and a bit of coriander powder (This is essential, it somehow counteracts any extra tanginess of the tomato, as well as any bitterness that may have crept in.) Put between three-fourths to one glass of water in it. Boil a bit. Check salt, put more if needed. Slide in a bread slice from the side so that it submerges. Slide in the next slice similarly but under the first one. This proportion will usually take three to four slices only. Move it around to break up the bread, help in absorption, and make a mess. Cook on slow (Actually, for a small portion like this, the entire process will happily work on slow) for a couple more minutes, till it looks like the disaster in the pic below. Done!



This thing also helped me get rid of the leftover bread from Friday! You can also make this with rotis or pav, only varying the quantity of water. I embellished it (the brunch, not the dish!) with half a papaya, a roasted papad, five desi ghee besan laddoos, and a tall glass of thandai in milk. Absolutely un-fine dining, but delicious!

Warning: True to the concept, this preparation is fiery, depending upon the quantity and class of chillies and garlic that are put in it, and the stomach will burn, even if the tongue does not. All the way into Monday. It is not recommended for people with tender tummies, or with stomach or acidity issues. Others, please keep chocolates / milk / water / sweets / fruits / all of it, nearby.

Might share more not-so-secret recipes after the next Lazy Saturday Brunch! Enjoy!

3 comments:

  1. Oh yes ! We used to call this sindhi bread. Cook onions, tomatoes, a little chilli, maybe slice a potato in there, a bit of capsicum and make a watery dish of it. Then slip in the bread and let it soak. It used to be yum. I had quite forgotten about it. Next brunch I will try it out.

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  2. @ava: Hi! Welcome to my blog! Interesting twist to the recipe, with potatoes! Yes, it is a sindhi dish, but it is called something else in the language, which tortuously translates to 'bread-which-has-undergone-X-process', where X is the process in the recipe. Do let me know how it turns out.

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