Skip to main content

Beef fry and a Health Tradition called "Touchings"

Hello People,

Those of you who do not eat beef as part of your diet, tread carefully. Once through with this article, you might wanna start. So if you want to hang on to your dietary shenanigans, this is where you stop reading. You've been duly warned.

A brief side note to put things in perspective. The exemplary Malayali finds it hard to think beyond the beef fry when it comes to "touchings". I would call that "great taste". But then, there is such a thing called tradition, right? These poor guys and girls haven't seen anything else in their lifetime. Their fathers, forefathers and anybody that was worth their lungi only had beef fry as touchings. Anything else was usually treated with disdain. This kind of thing tends to get etched into your psyche. Yup! It’s damaging. For the uninitiated, "touchings" are the side dishes you have when downing peg after peg of alcohol. You have to agree that all of a sudden this got way more interesting. Read on.

Okay, so what makes a killer beef fry? Isn’t that the pressing question of our times? So in my opinion; because I am a bonafide greedy glutton, let me try and explain. By the way, The Millennials call me "foodie". Really? I mean, Is that even a word?

First the visual; How should it look? Dark brownish-black, peppery darkness covers it. It should glisten with coconut oil awesomeness all over because it was flash-fried in all its peppery goodness. The garnish is Green curry leaves; slit green chillies and fresh ginger juliennes tossed in coconut oil, the aroma of which makes your mouth worthy of water sports. A health heap of this in a big bowl for “one” person is what I am talking about; "touchings".

Beef is usually pressure cooked for 35 to 40 minutes to make it tender. The cooked beef is then flash-fried with the required masala. This should render a slightly crisp exterior and a tender inner bite. Perfect!

Traditions have a reason.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Any meat stew - Malabar style

Here is a simple recipe to make stew. Any meat of your choice. cinamon and cloves, pepper, onion, green chillies, oil to sautte the onion, spices and chillies and salt to taste Heat oil, throw in the cinamon and cloves ( how much cinnamon and cloves you need is something you will have to figure out after a few attempts. there is no fun in telling you that you need 10 grms of cinamon andf 10 florets of cloves. ) when the aroma fills the room, throw in the onions, green chillies and sautte for some more time. when the onions become pale , throw in the meat and pepper an salt. Do all this in a pressure cooker if the meat is a bit tough. when its cooking, make a cup of coconut milk. there are diffrent ways of doing this. the easiest way is to run to the nearest supermarket and get a packet of coconut milk powder. follow instructions on the packet and you should get some coconuit milk without too much hassles. after the meat is cooked, open the pressure cooker and turn the heat to low/sim ...

Anecdotes from Sainik School, Kazhakootam - "Simple Mistake".

When I was in School, I was very weak in Mathamatics. I don't understand this, because most of the IQ test which I had taken up on the Net said I have a "rare mathematical ability". I badly want to believe that this is the truth. Who else other than me, with this rare mathematical ability would say that SineA/SineB = A/B. Guess how I got that. No prizes for guessing, Sine and Sine were cut away and now you have a "rare mathematical ability". We had a teacher in school who made this remarkable comparison when we went to him with the corrected answer sheets and begged for one more mark to make the total for the passing score. We used to say things like--scratching our heads--the works, to look ur most pitiable self "sir, sir, sir ,simple mistake sir, steps are correct sir, one mark sir, please sir--" its a bad scene, Believe me, you don't wanna be there. He in turn said this story about simple mistakes. Simple mistake ?, I'll tell u a story. A tr...

Production Support - What it means to be 24/7

I used work in - what is called in corporate parlance, a 24/7 Company. I used to feel perfectly normal. My friends and wife thought I was a zombie. This I had dismissed as a subjective observation but lately, I have been thinking that there might have been some truth in that observation. Let me explain why I feel that way I used to drive to my office on a motorbike. Its a 20 kms drive one way. So very complex rocket science math will tell the cautious reader that I drive 40 kms at the least everyday (tadaaa). I used to do night shifts or again in Corporate parlance; "the graveyard shift". My wife asks me one day if I remember anything that I saw on the roads that was worth mentioning when driving. I thought she had gone crazy. Why would I remember anything that i saw and what was the poin........Hey, hold on, wait a minute. jees, I don't actually remember anything nor can I recall which way I came. 'Holy Pulsar' what is happening ? I drove on auto-pilo...