We can pepare any dish under 10 minutes if all the ingredients are available. We work on simple dishes rather than giving it a good presentation and colour. That’s our specialty. We come from a family in Nizamabad and we love our spices and meat. In fact, this is the first time we are travelling outside our place and we are loving it.
Though we both are foodies, we started cooking only when we got married. Our early food memories include eating meat delicacies by our mother, who is a wonderful chef herself. She makes the best Chapala pulusu (crab curry) and Hyderabadi biryani.
We are just home cooks and do not run any restaurants. The owners of Dasapalla Hotels loved our food and gave us a chance to put up a festival and it has been three years since. We are typical Andhrites who love only spicy food. We find all other cuisines bland and look to give our own twist to the dishes. This is our first time in Chennai and we have been having dishes that are native to you. We love pongal; but then again it is a little too bland for us. So if given a choice we would add a dash of chillies and tomatoes to it and make it spicier.
The region we come from is dry, and chillies and pulses are integral to all our dishes. That is probably why you find a lot of dishes made using lentils. We make pappu (daal) using almost all the vegetables especially beerakai (ridge gour) and sorakai (bottle gourd). It is no secret that we use a lot of chillies, green and dry, but we do not use as much masalas as in other cuisines. Our main spices are coriander powder, sesame seeds/powder and bay leaf (for biryani). We also make use of a lot of ginger, garlic (not the paste form), coriander and curry leaves.
The dishes we prepare are native to our region. These include beerakai royalu, gongura chicken/mutton, ulava chaaru, gutti vankaya kura, mamidikai pappu and more. Though most of them are non-veg, we have a fair share of vegetarian dishes too. There are dishes for which we do not use fire. We retain the raw taste and that in itself becomes an amazing dish. One such is the Pacha pulusu in which we grind green chillies, add tamarind juice, sesame powder, dhania powder, a pinch of sugar, raw onions and water.
Our mother has strictly forbidden us from purchasing masalas from outside. We hand grind them and hence, you will find a coarseness in the dishes we prepare. The way we prepare our meat dishes are also different. We dry the meat, add the spice paste (mostly green or red chilli paste), mix everything together and put it in the cooker.
And of course we love our biryani. What makes Hyderabadi biryani different from the rest is the way the meat is prepared. Usually, the rice we add to the biryani is not fully cooked, we let it stay a little raw. The best way to identify a Hyderabadi biryani is to check the layers; first is the meat, then a layer of spice induced rice, then yellow rice and finally plain rice.
RECIPES
Vankaya aaloogadda tamata
Ingredients
Brinjal, Potato and tomato: ¼ kg each, Oil: 1 tsp, Ginger (chopped): 1 tsp, Turmeric powder: 1 tsp, Red chilli powder and salt: as per taste, Grated coconut: 2 tbsp
Method
In a pan, heat oil. Add ginger and cut vegetables and sauté. Add turmeric powder, salt and red chilli powder and let it cook. Add coconut and water for the vegetables to become soft. Once the vegetables come together, take it out and serve.
Beerakai Royulu
Ingredients
Ridge gourd: ¼ kg, Prawns: ½ kg, Green Chillies: 6 nos, Garlic: 10 pods, Cumin seeds: 1 tsp, Onion: 1 nos, Coriander for garnish, Salt, Oil
Method
Make a paste of onion and green chillies. In a pan, add oil and cumin seeds. Add the diced ridge gourd and prawns. Saute it and then add the paste and salt. Put it all together in a cooker and keep for one whistle. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot.
The food festival is on till November 14. For details call: 22314343