Tiruchi-based caterer Ashika Kader makes Dumroot for festive occasions like Deepavali. Photo: M Srinath/The Hindu
Lurking in the alleys of world cuisine are recipes that marry the simplest of ingredients to produce a rich dish. Never written down, these ‘lost recipes’ are known to everyone, yet rarely cooked these days as our palates get more accustomed to globalised menus.
Semolina, rice flour and coconut milk form the base of an interesting set of desserts from the Tamil Muslim community in Kayalpattinam and Rajagiri in the districts of Thoothukudi and Thanjavur respectively.
While Kayalpattinam’s seafaring history has shaped its cuisine (the ancient port had trade links with Egypt, Rome and Greece), Rajagiri’s more modern connections with overseas employment in Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei and West Asia have helped the food here to evolve local variants as well.
Rare delights
Dumroot , a sticky cake, is a Kayalpattinam speciality made for festive occasions like Eid and weddings. From the Arab Basbousa , to the Filipino Bibingka , Dumroot has many doppelgangers in world cuisine, but there is something uniquely south Indian about the Kayalpattinam version.
“The success of the recipe depends on the thickness of the coconut milk,” says Ashika Kader, a Tiruchi-based caterer who is orginally from Kayalpattinam. “Only the first milk of the coconut flesh can be used for Dumroot , and to keep it as thick as possible, we tie up the shavings in a muslin cloth and squeeze out the liquid manually.”
Semolina and maida are soaked for at least four hours in the coconut milk before the rest of the ingredients are added and baked for 40 minutes in a moderately hot oven ( see recipe ).
- The Kayalpattinam Dumroot is often confused with Deccani Muslim sweet Dum-ka-roat , a dense cake mix (minus coconut milk) that is first cooked on flame and then baked in a slow sand-pit oven.
- Dum-ke-roat refers to palm-sized cookies baked in Hyderabad during Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar.
The Dum Adai is another sweetmeat that uses similar ingredients, but again, is not commonly served these days. “While these are very delicious to eat, they require extensive prep work, which is perhaps why many people have stopped making them at home. Snacks like vengaya paniyam (shallot-shaped sweet fritters) and poricha idiyappam (a coconut milk and rice flour dough that is piped onto hot oil with a string-hopper press) used to be prepared by groups of women at home before weddings, but many people now prefer to outsource the cooking to professionals,” says Ashika.
Though she specialises in novelty cakes and snacks, Ashika also undertakes orders for Dumroot and Dum Adai , especially for festivals like Deepavali. “They’re different from the store-bought traditional sweets, and since the recipes can be adapted for vegetarians, they’ve become popular,” says Ashika.
Stirred up
Rajagiri’s quiet environs hold some tasty secrets … most notably as a centre for wedding snack production. Around 81 km from Tiruchi, we are at Raasi Bakery and Sweets, where proprietor and head chef A Abdul Rashid is filling up a cauldron with the ingredients for Dodol — a fudgy sweet made by cooking coconut milk, jaggery and rice flour for over 3 hours on a firewood stove.
Twenty litres of water are mixed with the milk of 10 coconuts, 1.5 kg of jaggery, and 600 grams of rice flour (soaked, partially sun-dried and pounded by hand), with the help of a teak paddle stirrer. “This will give us around 4 to 5 kg of dodol halwa,” says Abdul Rashid, who started cooking at the age of 11.
A. Abdul Rashid ladles out Dodol halwa at his bakery in Rajagiri, Thanjavur district. Photo: Nahla Nainar/The Hindu
As his assistant Banu steps in to continue stirring the pot, we are politely exiled to wait at a neighbouring store-room while the halwa gets ready.
Three hours later, the golden yellow mixture has boiled down to a sticky dark brown gloop with the delicate aroma of coconut oil filling the bakery.
“We have to work quickly once the halwa is cooked, because it will set almost immediately,” says Abdul Rashid, who makes around 10 kg of Dodol per day. “Though it takes so long to make, it has to be sold immediately because Dodol doesn’t last beyond a day without refrigeration.”
Dodol is thought to have been brought by the Portuguese from Indonesia, and there are versions of it in the cuisines of Sri Lanka and the coastal districts of southern India.
Rajagiri’s migrant workers in southeast Asian countries have done their bit to popularise Dodol back home, says Abdul Rashid. “We also pack traditional sweets like surul paniyaram, pathir puri, seeni vadai and adirasam for people returning to work abroad after their vacations here. Dodol sells well during Muslim weddings, because it is a custom to gift platters of halwa from the bride’s side,” says Abdul Rashid.
He pours ghee, and adds a few handfuls of roasted Bengal gram as the Dodol starts rolling off the paddle stirrer. Banu and Abdul Rashid heft the cauldron to the serving area and ladle out the Dodol into small foil packs. Poppy seeds ( khas-khas ) are sprinkled on each helping.
And a little bit of culinary history gets found again.
Dodol halwa. Photo: Nahla Nainar/The Hindu
