The year isn’t even half over, and most parts of the country, particularly Mumbai, is hot and sweltering. It’s unbearable! The temperature is brutal and the humidity is clammy, muggy and covers you like a warm damp blanket. The mind shuts down the minute I walk out of the air-conditioned indoors and I don’t feel like eating, especially, a heavy meal, which feels excessively punitive in this weather. All I can do is let my mind wander to chilled, sweet, crunchy salads and coolers. But this time, pure indigenous and Indian ones. By Indian salads I mean, Kachumber, Koshimbir, Poriyal, Pachali and the likes.
One of the more unique things about the Indian salads is that unlike west, we don’t necessarily use oil in the dressing. For example, in our most underrated salad — the Kachumber — there is absolutely no oil. All you need is, a very simple dressing, a combination of freshly squeezed lemon juice, salt, and pepper, occasionally with tamarind paste, green chilies or often curd.
Let me start with what I make at home nearly every other day — Khamang Kakdi, which is as Maharashtrian as Sachin Tendulkar. It is a traditional Maharashtrian salad made with cucumbers. The term ‘Khamang’ in Marathi means tempered and ‘Kakdi’ means cucumber. The dish is made by tempering the cucumber with a few spices and garnishing it with grated coconut and roasted peanuts. Basically, chop a cucumber into tiny pieces. Mix together the chopped cucumber, with grated coconut, and roasted peanuts. Heat a tiny bit of oil and temper mustard seeds, cumin seeds and asafoetida and a chopped green chilly. When done, mix everything with the cucumber, coconut and peanut mix, and squeeze generous amounts of lemon juice, half a spoon of sugar, and chopped coriander leaves. My advice. Let it rest in the fridge for a good couple of hours and you could actually eat a bowlful of this without a worry.
Since I have started with Maharashtrian salads, let me stay with my home food. The market in summer is abundant with mango, both sweet and raw. And there is no better cooler than a small bowl of tangy Ambe Dal.
Ambe Dal is a time honoured, Maharashtrian lentil salad made with chana dal (split chickpeas) and raw mango. Ambe Dal is made by tossing together coarsely grounded soaked raw chana dal and fresh grated sour and raw mango. You wash and soak chana dal for three to four hours and then coarsely grind it. To that, add green chili and blend a little more without adding water. Once the mixture has sat there, soaking it all in perfectly balance flavours of sugar, lemon juice, grated coconut, grated ginger and fresh coriander leaves, add a tempering of oil, a single dry red chilli, mustard seeds, curry leaves and asafoetida. You can let it cool in the refrigerator and then either eat it as a chutney with your food, or just take a bowlful and eat it by itself.
Another salad, similar to the Ambe Dal and Koshimbir, primarily, because they use a similar kind of tempering, comes from Karnataka. A moong dal carrot salad also called as ‘Hesaru Bele Kosambari’. Soak moong dal in water for half an hour, and then and mixed with grated cucumber, coconut, thinly sliced raw mango, coriander leaves, you may want to add pomegranate seeds, sprouts or any healthy vegetables you want to conjure up, and are willing to eat raw.
Again, temper with oil, a single dry red chlili, mustard seeds, curry leaves and asafoetida. Remember always add salt and lemon juice just before serving, otherwise the salad will turn watery.
If those salads help you beat the heat, then these, homemade, traditional drinks will help you cool down in these really sultry summer days. I have a huge list of my favourite Indian drinks for summer because I has a soft spot for sweet drinks on tonnes of ice. I’m starting with freshly squeezed, sugarcane juice with ginger and lemon, which ranks as my number one. Of course, adding ginger and lime makes its soul purely Indian. Kala Khatta, originally conceived with fresh, tangy blackberries and spicy chaat masala, nowadays comes straight out of a concentrate. I don’t even want to venture a guess about what goes into the concentrate, but I promise you, when on the rocks, with tonnes of black salt, nothing cools you down better.
For the uninitiated, Shikanji is fresh lemon juice, with sugar, black salt and cold water and ice. What makes it different from plain old Nimbu paani is a dash of roasted cumin powder or chaat masala. If you are in Pune, you must try their Mastani, which is named after Peshwa Bajirao famed lover. It was first created in Pune with fresh Ratnagiri Mangoes, and is a thick milkshake that is topped with huge scoops of ice cream, dry fruits, syrup and, today, with any fresh fruit of your choice. And finally, Mohabbat-ka-Sharbat, made famous by a street shop opposite Jama Masjid, run by Nawab Qureshi. Even the ITC Hotels have used it on some menus. We used to make a similar version at home, and called it ‘Doodh Cold Drink’.
It was a Sherbet, made with half a glass of water, rose syrup, and half a glass of milk and tonnes of ice. Mohabbat-ka-Sharbat is similar. A combination of fresh watermelon, rose syrup, milk, sugar, ice cubes, and rose petals. Because it’s quite light and not so creamy you can actually consume a couple of glasses quite easily in this heat. Maybe I should quickly run to the kitchen and make myself a jug full of this.
Kunal Vijayakar is a food writer based in Mumbai. He tweets @kunalvijayakar and can be followed on Instagram @kunalvijayakar. His YouTube channel is called Khaane Mein Kya Hai. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication.
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