This is a Gujju home-dish made with left over rice. By ‘home-dish’ I mean I cannot find it at any restaurant, even a Gujju one. I have to come back home for it.
Rasiya Muthiya is basically rice dumplings cooked in a Daahi gravy. At Home, we crush khakhra on top of it. It is comfort food for me. Come to think of it, most of my comfort food involves rice and curd. There is another dish: Vaghera Bhaat. Vaghera means tadkafied. It is leftover rice cooked in curd or buttermilk. We have it with Bhaakri, Parathas, Khakhra and a dry, spicy Methi powder.
This, eating of rice with Parathas was amusing to me when I was little. Roti-sabji and Dal-rice are such separate, mutually exclusive combos otherwise. But this particular combo, Vanghera Bhaat with Roti, feels natural now.
I am living with my parents right now in Bombay. I’ve been here for 3-4 months but I am leaving soon. I had Rasiya Muthiya twice in the last 4 months; In August and September, I think. I am going to request to eat it once before I leave and this time I will hopefully take notes.
My experience cooking, eating and feeding Rasiya Muthiya
- This is the kind of food making which makes you feel like a thoughtful kitchen pro, someone who has cooked all their lives, who knows by smell if food is cooked, can make a meal from last night’s left overs. Someone somewhere in a personal Masterchef challenge made Rasiya Muthiya and fed it to people. It’s surreal that a P living in another world can find 15 recipes for it on her phone.
- Kaadhi is magical, don’t you think? Most things Daahi things are.
- I forgot khakras. I bought, stored, hid khakras from family for a month and on the day I made Rasiya Muthiya and I forgot to add them to it.
- Leftover food is a big big deal in my house. Papa and dadi antagonize over it like it’s the start of all things bad in the world. Papa is also an compulsive number’s guy. It took months for me to happen upon left over rice.
- While Dadi is one of the most encouraging people in my famile, she is super particular about food and it’s cooking. Not the taste, but the processes. So she dosen’t like how long I take to cook anything or how much stuff I have on the counter at the same time. But she appreciates my sense of proportions, how I treat all the ingredients like they have feelings and that I carry a bowl to remove my 8193 rings into.
A photo from Dhwani’s Mother’s pandemic cleaning routine. She cleans the vegetables and lays them out a towel.
We had a Sunday vegetable market routine before the pandemic. Mummy would bring home ‘more than check-in weight’ of vegetables for the week. The morning would be spent plucking, washing, packing and storing it. Everyone tried to give their own two cents to the organization of the event. Papa assigned fridge shelves to different items and catalogued the produce on the while board. I offered to buy ziplocks with name tags. Mummy responded by getting agitated. She does not like changes, or suggestions of change in her set ways of doing things. In any case, I tried to be around so I could smell the fresh vegetables.
Goldie had his own ritual.
