Farmers Market at Littlearth Square, Ooty

Lovely winter day.

Delightful way to spend a Sunday.

The Farmers Market at Littlearth Square had food, music and stalls selling home made pickles jams, spices and handicrafts.

Toda embroidery. 

Tables to eat a snack or meal. 

Lazer cut ref magnets, coasters, and lapel pins. 

A young girl selling dream catcher's and painted bottles.

Connie Hereford who made Bilberry jam when we were in school.

She had a whole array of jams, jellies and pickles. No Bilberry jam, because the trees are being cut down.

Love the fact that she recycles bottles.

Our haul from the Farmers Market.

Pear preserve, Guava Jelly,  Guava Cheese, Rhubarb preserve, Fish with Brinjal pickle and Mushroom and Prawn pickle and dalle kursani.
 

Seeds

On a roadtrip last month we bought custard apples. 

We choose to buy fruit which is locally grown and we like to support small businesses.

Back home we quarantined ourselves for a week and that gave a lot of time to do everything at leisure. The husband decided to count the seeds of the custard apple he ate for breakfast. An even number of seeds.

All the custard apples that we ate had an even number of seeds. Most intriguing. 

A few weeks later we bought a couple of custard apples. These were larger, the skin was leathery and there was a lot more of the custardy fruit than seeds. 

Had to count the seeds. This variety had an odd number of seeds.

I had to compare notes with my friends and I discovered the smaller custard apple always has an even number of seeds. Someones mother has counted the number of kernels on corn cobs and she found that it's always an even number. Chikoos or Sapota have three seeds.

Have you ever been intrigued enough to count the seeds in a fruit or vegetable? What did you discover?

I wonder why certain fruit have an even number of seeds while some others have an odd number.

Food experiments with the Panniyaram patra.

It's been too long that Take Diversion has been neglected.

I intend to pay more attention and record my experiments and discoveries about food in this space. For the moment there will be no travel or restaurants to visit.

 

An interesting outcome of lockdowns and quaratines because of Covid19 has been the need to make changes, take diversions  in our lives and lifestyles. I for one have started taking a keen interest in the ingredients I use, trying out new recipes. Listening to talks about food on Insta live and using cookware which I have had with me and haven't used.      

One such is this heavy brass paniyaram patra. This was bought about five years ago and kept in a cupboard.   

During the lockdown it happened to be jackfruit season and we got a couple of fruit which were delicious. We ate the fruit for breakfast and after lunch and as a snack but I wanted to make something with the fruit so I looked online for recipes which use ripe jackfruit. There were payasam recipes which I had made the previous year, then I came across a recipe for jackfruit panniyaram.

Here was a chance to break out the brass panniyaram patram too.

Here's the recipe I followed

Ingredients

Idli rice – 1 cup

Jackfruit pieces – 3

Jaggery – 3/4 cup

Cardamom – 1

Grated coconut – 3 tbsp

Salt – 1/4 tsp

Ghee – As needed

Instructions

Remove the seeds and the thin skin around it and collect the edible flesh of the jackfruit pieces. Chop roughly.

Wash and soak idli rice for 3 hrs minimum. Drain water completely and grind it in a mixer, with jaggery, jack fruit and cardamom, to a smooth batter.

Transfer to a mixing bowl, add salt and grated coconut and mix well.

Heat paniyaram pan and grease with few drops of ghee and pour the batter. Cook on a medium or low flame. After 2 mins, flip and cook with more ghee drizzled over. When both sides are golden and cooked from inside, transfer to serving bowl.

Next time pieces of the jackfruit should be added to the batter so there's more fruit to bite into.

Since making the jackfruit panniyarams the panniyaram patram is being used regularly. 

Omlette curry is made atleast once a week.

Since the easing of lockdown restrictions we have been socialising with our neighbours. 

One such evening when we decided to meet for drinks, I made these bacon and corn panniyarams. 

There was dosa batter in the fridge, a large packet of bacon in the freezer as was a packet of corn.

Fried the bacon in it's own fat, chopped it up into pieces and added it to the dosa batter along with the corn and a pinch of salt and some peri peri sauce.

The bacon and corn panniyarams were a hit. Makes for a great snack or as finger food with drinks.

Next to try are little pannicakes. Pancake batter with a dollop of homemade strawberry or plum jam. 

Quickly made because all the ingredients are usually there in the pantry and it will be great with a hot cup of tea on a cold day when the unexpected guest drops in.

A friend makes vadas in the panniyaram patram and uses the vadas to make dahi vadas.

Do you have a panniyaram patram? Is it a heirloom and does it have food memories associated with it? What do you make in it besides panniyarams?

Covid 19 has me delving into food traditions and history. So many interesting facts and stories.