Sweet , Sour and Spicy Pineapple Chutney (relish)

DH rearely gives advice for the blog more like he does not read it . On the rare occasion he does read, it is for the recipes. His opinion being that there are many like him and that there should be an option to jump to the recipe instead of reading the gyaan I seem to come up with for every post. I hear a big YAY from all of you too. So here goes. From now on you should be able to jump right to the recipe like so.

Jump to the Recipe >>>

If you haven't jumped yet, here is the topic of discussion for today. I read this article Two families choose different paths to academic excellence discussing something I wrestle with all the time. The comments offer a lot of insight as well. The Tiger Mother battlelines seem drawn once again. It is relevant one for me as I struggle with what I do is excessive or not enough all the time.

I am not convinced that having kids spend every second of their waking hours studying or playing music is necessarily a good thing . Having a happy childhood should also be part of the picture Yes? Playing outside watching the birds sing rather than just learn about how they sing from books and tutoring should definitely have some value?

Anyway an involved parent is more important than a parent who does not care about what his/her child is doing at school thereby putting enormous pressure on teachers and schools which is what the American school system is all about. It indirectly penalizes kids who do well in school because the teachers get rewarded for small incremental improvements from failing kids.

I think more of our energy should be spent in arguing how parents ought to be more involved in their children's education and not about what style of involved parenting is better don't you think?

Don't get me wrong, setting clear expectations for what is acceptable is an important step in helping a child to succeed. A parent who does not care what grades a child brings home is sowing the seeds of failure in the child. I see in the school that DD goes to how low expectations can wreak havoc.

What kind of parenting style is yours?

Now on to the recipe,
Pineapples are in season now and they are plentiful and cheap now. DH seems to pick at least one every week. Besides eating fresh pineapples there is not much I do with them. I am not a baker by instinct so baking an upside down pineapple cake is out of the question or maybe not. Never say never right? This post on ecurry.com for Pineapple chutney was just what I was looking for. The Bengali cooking series started with much fanfare would also get a boost and an equally good oportunity to use up my panch phoran.

I made the recipe a tad spicer and reducing the sugar making it a bit more suitable for the South Indian (Tamilian) tongue perhaps? I made it with Turbinado sugar but jaggery or cane sugar would be good substitutions.

Recipe Source: Pineapple chutney

Sweet, Sour and Spicy Pineapple Chutney
Ingredients
1. 5-6 cups of chopped pineapple (pieces as big or as small as you want)
2. 1/3 cups of sugar + 3/4 cups of water
3. 1/2 tbsp red chili powder
4. 1 tsp panch phoran
5. 3 dried red chilies split and seeds removed
6. salt to taste
7. Juice from one lime
8. 1/2 tbsp grated ginger
9. 1 tsp of oil

Spice powder
1. 1 tsp of coriander seeds
2. 1/4 tsp of cumin seeds
3. a few methi seeds
4. 1 tsp pepper corn

Roast for a few minutes and blend to a powder

Method
1. In a wide mouthed pan heat oil and when hot add the panch phoran and red chilies, when they start to brown
2. Add in the sugar mixed in water and let it come to a boil
3. Now add in the pineapple pieces, grated ginger, salt and lemon juice and let it continue to cook till the sugar syrup gets thick (it took about 40 minutes)
4. Now add in the powdered spices, the chili powder and more salt if required and mix it in gently
5. At this stage the pineapple pieces are still together (depending on the size of the pieces)
6. Turn off the heat, cool and store in a jar.

Serve as a side for upma, idli, dosai, chapathis or by itself.

Green Bell Pepper Gothsu (sour and spicy sauce)

The recipe is again one from my lunch room. Not from the friend who has provided the most recipes for the lunch room series. The friend is in India now trying to get what is called a H1B visa stamping.

From what I understand the H1B visa is issued here in the US but the stamping apparently has to happen in the person's country of birth. The exploitation by employers who sponsor someone a H1B visa are numerous. These employers are the bottom feeders who don't create any jobs but make money supplying the cheapest labor to employers who do not want to sponsor these visas. Don't for a minute think these are small businesses these are huge multinational companies who want to be able to hire and fire people generally called contractors. Hiring these kind of workers frees them from some of the legal requirements of having permanently employed workers.

As the number of years it takes to get a Green Card getting longer and longer a lot of these H1B visa holders are pretty much slaves to these employers who have found weaknesses and latched on to a system where the people who they employ don't have any easy legal recourse. It almost seems that illegal immigrants are much better off in this system than H1B workers. Failing to pay proper wages, having one amount listed in the papers and paying partial or incomplete payments are just common practices.

The sad part is what enables these employers to get away with these abuses is the employees themselves are willing to bend rules and do whatever it takes to get employed. From inflating the years of experience, cooking up projects and companies that exist only on paper, having someone else take the interview to get a job - the array of abuses are sometimes too hard to believe.

So here is the relationship. It is a hard one to keep track of. There is the company that has the employee(person on a visa doing work) on its payroll. The employer and employee in most cases have never met face to face. This company is selling the skills of its employee to a vendor who in turn sells it to another vendor. At the end of this chain is the preferred vendor who has the contract with the end client - the business which actually has the requirement for a worker. Most times the client is unaware of the treacherous route the worker took to get there. They do not care in most cases, they just want a body to do the work for a short period and get the heck out.

While in most states of India the obsession to work in the US has subsided greatly, Andhra being the only exception it seems to me. There is enough blame to go around. These kind of workers do bring down the rates of native born workers as well as those workers who are unwilling to inflate their resume or work for peanuts.

Now that I have totally digressed I will rein myself back and give you the recipe. I have cooked with bell peppers sliced lengthwise, larger cubes but never chopped into tiny cubes. And so the curry that I saw and tasted with these tiny chopped cubes intrigued me. The friend who shared the curry did not cook it, was cooked for her by her cousin. Anyway I tried to recreate it from taste. It was also very similar to the brinjal curry my grandma and mom make for ven pongal. Recipe here. I added tomatoes for the recipe but it is not required.

Green Bell Pepper Gothsu
Ingredients
1. 2 green bell peppers innards removed and chopped into tiny cubes (about 2 cups)
2. 2 cups onions chopped fine
3. 1/2 cup of finely chopped tomatoes or 1 1/2 tbsp tomatoes (optional)
4. 1 1/2 cups of tamarind pulp from a small lime sized piece of tamarind
5. 1/2 tbsp of chili powder or 1 tbsp of sambhar powder
6. 1/2 tsp of roasted methi powder
7. salt to taste
8. seasonings: split urad dal, cumin seeds, mustard seeds and curry leaves
9. 1 tsp of oil

Method
1. In a wide mouthed pan heat oil add urad dal and when it starts to brown add the cumin seeds and mustard seeds and when it starts to splutter add curry leaves
2. Now add the onions and let it brown nicely
3. Add the chopped bell peppers and saute for about 8 minutes or so
4. Add the sambhar powder and salt and mix it in well followed by the tomatoes if using
5. Saute for about 4-5 minutes. Add the tamarind pulp
6. Add salt close the lid and let it cook till everything comes together and most of the moisture has evaporated

Serve with white rice.