Passport & Plate - Pathrade (Path-Ra-Day) with Meet Mirsang
India | Monday, March 2, 2015 | 5 photos
Ingredients
For Pathrade
• 12 medium sized collocasia leaves
• 5-6 teak tree leaves to steam pathrade
• 2 cups of raw rice
• ½ cup of stripped black gram
• 2 tablespoons of coriander seeds
• 1 heaped teaspoon of cumin seeds
• 6 dried red chillies
• 1 tablespoon of tamarind pulp
• ¼ tsp of turmeric powder
• Salt to taste
For Meet Mirsang
• 100gms of red chilli powder
• 2 teaspoons of turmeric powder
• 2 teaspoons of cumin seed powder
• 5 heaped teaspoons of salt
• ½ bottle of synthetic vinegar
How to prepare this recipeFor Pathrade
• Soak the rice and black gram overnight
• Wash both sets of leaves and let them dry
• Drain the rice and gram of water and blend it along with the coriander seeds, cumin seeds, chillies, tamarind pulp, turmeric powder and salt to taste
• Use very little water while blending to ensure you have a coarse mix that is not watery.
• Shred the collocasia leaves finely
• Mix together the rice-gram mix with the shredded collocasia leaves
• Take one teak tree leaf and place it with the coarse side facing you. Place a ladleful of the mixture in the centre and pat down to a slab of 1 inch thickness
• Fold the outer edges in on all sides to form a firm packet and turn the pack right side up
• Do this with all the leaves and mixture
• Place in a steamer for an hour
• Wait till it has completely cooled to room temperature before peeling off the leaf cover and slicing it
For Meet Mirsang (Literally translated to salt-chilli, a common marinade for frying seafood and just about anything in Mangalore)
• Blend all ingredients to a smooth paste. This may be refrigerated for a month approximately. Depending on your tolerance for spice, use small amounts to coat the pathrade and then shallow fry the slices till crisp.
The story behind this recipeI have had a dish follow me all my life! Growing up in a Catholic household in the coastal town of Mangalore, massive compounds, with an assortment of trees was common. Often mom would yell out from the kitchen and ask for some curry leaves or tamarind to be plucked, depending on which tree I was sitting on.
The task I loved the most came during the monsoons, when collocasia leaves would spring up randomly all over the compound. This meant that Pathrade was going to be cooked. I would be sent off to pick as many leaves as I could – “the medium-sized ones!” being the only instruction. Large leaves brought on scratchy throats you see.
Marching my way through rain soaked soil, flicking away the occasional bug that snuggled in those leaves; I would bring armfuls home. The rice and pulses would be soaked overnight in anticipation and the grey grinding stone would be pressed into service. My grown-up girl task was shredding the leaves to tiny bits.
As a teenager, I befriended a Parsi girl. Her family made pathrade too, but differently. Her mom would spread a paste of spiced gram flour onto whole collocasia leaves and ask us both to layer them. Instinct told her when the stack was high enough to roll them into a tight, jam roll-like bundle before putting them into the steamer.
When I went away for my Master’s Degree, home sickness overcame me one day. A Gujarathi friend tried to cheer me up with, lo and behold, her mother’s version of Pathrade! The stuffing here was of rice flour, tamarind and jaggery. Instantly, we bonded over that little box swapping stories of homes.
When I fell in love and got married, what do you think helped me bond with my new family? Working on pathrade of course! The women from this Hindu Konkani community sat together to de-vein the collacasia leaves before stuffing them, and I was soon welcome to this inner circle of gossip, which always ended on a delicious note.
Now, didn't I tell you I was followed by a dish all my life?
