Milk Street's My Family Recipe

CHRISTOPHER KIMBALL: Welcome to Milk Street's My Family Recipe.

We help home cooks rediscover and recreate lost family recipes.

- My grandmother Margaret's was the absolute best.

- Don't put any pressure on us or anything!

CHRISTOPHER: We bring home cooks to our Boston studio...

I'm gonna stand back.

...where, along with our host and pastry chef Cheryl Day... - Isn't it great how food can take you back?

CHRISTOPHER: ...we teach them how to make their family recipe from scratch.

- You're gonna be able to bake this cake.

- I can do it.

CHRISTOPHER: Just the way it was made by, say, their grandmother.

- Beautiful!

- Grandma would not tolerate lumps.

CHRISTOPHER: Then we send them home to recreate that recipe for the toughest audience... - There it is.

CHRISTOPHER: ...their own family.

[laughing] CHRISTOPHER: Can our home cooks pull it off?

- Mom, that's really good.

- I think that's a yes.

CHRISTOPHER: Or will the recipe be lost forever?

Right here on Milk Street's My Family Recipe.

- That is delicious.

[upbeat music playing] Funding for this series was provided by the following.

Mowi Salmon comes ready to cook.

Ready to grill, ready to season, or pre-seasoned and ready to eat.

In an assortment of flavors for an assortment of people.

Mowi Salmon.

[inspiring music playing] - Come on over, push, push, push.

Let's go.

My name is Sapna, and I live in Washington, D.C.

I live here with my wife and my kid.

My family migrated to D.C. from India in the '50s.

Growing up, food was extremely important.

We grew up eating a lot of South Asian food.

Food prep was primarily done by my grandmother, but I called her Ba.

My grandparents both spoke Gujarati, and my grandmother... despite not knowing English, she was extremely sociable, friendly, wanting to get to know everybody.

And even though she didn't speak English, she's the one that taught me my alphabet.

Ba also loved food.

She would get really excited about food.

When I got older and I started cooking on my own, even if it was the simplest thing, like just making a dal and a rice, she's like, "Sapna, you did that?"

"You made the dal?

Wow."

Like, "How do you know how to do that?"

But I grew up watching her cook all the time.

[gentle music plays] One of the primary foundations that I have in terms of my connection to India is through food and through primarily Ba's cooking.

And then we need some of this.

This is a Dhana jiru.

Perfect.

So the dish that I'm trying to recreate is what Ba would call crunchy poori... ...which is a really delicious, savory snack.

And we would have them on picnics, we would have them in the car, we would have them just daily with chai.

And it's just one of those recipes that I really connect with her that I used to really enjoy.

You go like that and mix it up?

Nice.

One of the reasons I haven't tried to make this is because I'm simply scared of tarnishing the memory I have and I'm just afraid that if I don't get it quite right, then it's just gonna mess up what I remember it being.

Yeah, good job.

Get it over the bowl.

So I reached out to Milk Street because I thought that maybe they could help me recreate this recipe based on memory.

[upbeat music playing] - So now we're gonna talk to Sapna about poori.

But it's not what you think.

- Wow.

- It's not the little breads that puff up.

It's crispy, it's thin.

So let's chat with her, 'cause I think this is a... - Yeah, I'm excited.

- ...really interesting story.

Hi, Sapna.

How are you?

- Good, good to meet you as well.

- We're so excited to hear about this recipe.

- Good, I'm excited to share about it.

- So if you made the poori that we know, which is the bread... SAPNA: Yeah.

- ...is it basically the same recipe, except you puncture it so it doesn't inflate when you cook it?

- So my grandmother used to take her nails and puncture it with her nails.

- Oh, wow.

- And make holes in it, but you could also do it with a fork.

I mean...

But yeah, basically, the holes make it crunchy when you deep fry it.

- Is it the different spices that make it specific to a family?

- Yeah, I think the different spices would make a difference.

So in my family, my grandmother would use whole cumin seed, and also I remember whole coriander seed as well, and then a little bit of turmeric to make it yellow.

- Did you ever make it with her?

- I helped her with the beginning stages.

When I got a little older, I got to do the rolling into a ball also.

- What kind of rolling pin did she use to roll it down?

- She used a long, tapered, thin one.

CHRISTOPHER: Mm-hmm.

- And I actually have it today.

I have her rolling pins,... CHERYL: Oh, wow.

- ...so I should be able to just recreate it.

- Yeah, absolutely.

We need all the help we can get.

I love this... - Why were you looking at me when you said that?

It's like...

I love the history, and it seems like such a great sense memory in every way that reminds you of your grandmother.

- Absolutely, the visual when I would come home from school, I would see the dining table, the floor, the counter... - Wow.

- ...everything just covered with these little pooris.

CHERYL: Production!

- Are you getting nervous yet?

I'm-I'm... Well, I mean, this is a high, you know, high bar.

- Well, let's first ask, who are you most excited to share it with?

- That would be my daughter, is number one, and the other person is my dad, because this is my dad's mom that she passed when she was 95, so she stopped making them probably in her 80s or so.

So, it's been several years since we've actually eaten them.

- No pressure at all.

[laughing] - No big deal.

Stakes are only about this high.

- At least you're straightforward.

That's-- that's really good.

All right, Sapna, thank you.

It was lovely to meet you.

- You, too.

- We'll see you soon in Boston, and we have a lot of work to do before you show up.

- Looking forward.

- Thank you.

CHRISTOPHER: Take care.

- Thank you.

Take care.

I mean, she knows exactly what she wants.

- She gave us some good clues.

- The good news is they sound like something you'd want to put in your repertoire.

- Absolutely.

- I mean, it's a lot of work, but... but they're cool.

- Yeah.

- These are really cool.

- I think this is gonna be a really good one.

- Yeah.

[gentle music playing] CHRISTOPHER: Namkeen is a category of salty snacks, mostly from India, that are part of a street food tradition called chaat.

Farsi poori, or Sapna's grandmother said "crunchy poori" is a good example of namkeen and is a staple in Gujarati households in the western part of India, where Sapna's grandmother is from.

Now, this is made, of course, with spices.

You might use toasted and ground whole seeds in this as well.

Then you roll them out and then fry them.

So there's a lot to master here.

We're gonna start the development now for Sapna's poori or crunchy poori, to see if we can make something that reminds her of her grandmother.

[gentle music playing] - So Sapna poses the real challenge here.

This is a true lost family recipe.

She's been eating them all her life, but no one bothered to write the recipe down.

So we have a little bit of work to do here.

- So, semolina and flour mixed together.

WES: We tried all-purpose flour and we tried melted butter.

They were good, they were tasty, but they weren't crispy.

So Diane tinkered with it a little bit and tried a little semolina flour in there.

And then we also swapped out for ghee, clarified butter.

That made all the difference.

- It adds a nice texture to the... to the poori.

- The really tricky part of this dough is knowing just the right amount of water to use.

If it's too wet, they won't get crisp when they're fried.

If it's too dry, they'll crack apart as you roll.

It's getting, like, hollow in the center.

It's like a little mini pita.

That's not what we want.

- Yeah, that's not what we wanted.

- We want to try to get this right with a shallow fry in a pan so they stay crisp for days.

So Sapna's on her way to Boston.

Can we get this dough texture perfect before she gets here?

It's getting close.

DIANE: They smell amazing.

WES: Yeah.

The dough is working really well, but it was puffing just a little bit, so we decided to put some indentations in there, just like Sapna told us.

- I did a side by side test without poking and with poking.

If you poke them, it prevents them from puffing up.

- Made a big difference.

You can see that... that guy's like... - Like pita bread.

- It's like-- Yeah.

This was such a fun project to work on.

You can't stop eating them.

I'm gonna take a couple for the road.

Awesome.

Delicious.

- Thank you!

- Good job.

Let's hope that she can make them and that they taste just like her grandmother's.

[bouncy music playing] - Hi, Sapna, welcome to our kitchen.

- Thank you.

I'm so happy to be here.

- It looks like you brought a friend.

- I did.

This is a belan, which is a rolling pin, and it's actually one that my grandmother used to use.

- That will give us maybe a little good luck.

- Well, I love tapered rolling pins, and I like small ones... - Yes.

- ...'cause we're rolling out small things.

- Yes.

- And you have not been able to recreate these.

- Right.

Exactly.

- Hopefully, we'll change that today.

- Yeah, I'm super excited.

- All the spices look familiar.

- Yes, yes, absolutely, they do.

Yeah.

CHERYL: So we're off to a good start.

- Great.

[bouncy music playing] - All right, I've got our all-purpose flour here.

SAPNA: Yes.

CHERYL: And then we have some semolina flour.

- Awesome.

- And then we've got our turmeric-- - Although my grandmother would always have it all over her hands.

- Yeah, of course.

- The turmeric.

Yeah.

- That was probably part of the process.

- Yes, yes.

CHERYL: And then I've got some chili spice.

We've got some cumin.

- Smells so good.

- And I love coriander.

SAPNA: Yeah.

Oh, it's already bringing back that-- CHERYL: Is it?

- Oh, my God.

Especially when you put the zeera, which is the cumin.

I thought that maybe there's cumin, there's some coriander in there.

I wasn't sure if Ba used to use chili powder or not, but they're using some chili powder.

I think I want to try that now.

- So then we're going to put salt and pepper.

Just give that a little mix.

SAPNA: Mm-hmm.

- So this is when it starts to feel like making a Southern pie dough, which is familiar to me.

- Right, yeah.

- Adding the ghee... - Awesome.

- ...and then getting in there.

CHRISTOPHER: Have you made pie dough before, Cheryl?

- A thousand times?

- A thousand times.

For me, it's something that's very therapeutic at this stage... - It's so therapeutic.

- ...because I used to make pie dough with my grandmother.

- Yeah, that's awesome.

CHERYL: Then we're gonna add the water next.

So this is really coming together.

Do you want to see what it feels like?

- Yeah.

- Let's get your hands in.

- Oh, yeah.

Perfect.

The color is absolutely bringing back that memory, so-- - So would you watch her make this?

- Oh, yeah, and actually, my job as a kid was after this stage, doing the breaking off and making the little circles.

CHERYL: Oh!

- So, yeah.

- Okay.

- Beautiful.

SAPNA: Yeah.

- So, I usually finish in the bowl... - Right in the bowl, yeah.

- ...but as an alternate, you can put a piece of plastic wrap down, tape it down, so you're not getting your counters stained-- - Everything yellow?

Growing up, there were always yellow stains on the countertops, and it would really frustrate my mom.

I guess if she had known this trick, then they wouldn't have yellow stains all over their white countertops.

- Oh, thanks.

- [laughs] - Now I have to do something?

So we'll just wrap it and let it sit half an hour and come back and roll it out.

- Okay, awesome.

[gentle music playing] - Okay, so it's rested for 30 minutes, and I think we should let you show us how to roll these out.

- Okay, and I'm gonna take one of these, so hopefully I'll get the circle.

I never used to get the shape quite right, but my elders would just say it's about the taste, right?

It doesn't matter what the shape is.

So, if I'm getting it right here...

I am definitely not getting a circle.

They look a lot smaller than what Ba used to roll out.

Maybe I'm thinking about the puffy poori, I'm not sure.

I'm gonna switch out for this one, see if it gives me more luck.

- Yeah, absolutely.

The magic.

- Exactly.

Yeah, see?

it's rolling out better now.

CHERYL: Oh, look at that!

- Mm-hmm.

- These are tricky because they're very sticky.

- Yeah.

- These are a labor of love... - Absolutely.

- ...for your special snack.

- Oh, gosh, yeah.

She would just spend the whole day doing this.

- Oh, my goodness.

- Okay, so I have mine.

I'm gonna start-- I'm gonna poke with my fingers, is that-- - Oh, I love that, let me see.

- So I remember her taking her hands.

- She would do each one like that?

- Each one like this, and making the indentations there.

You want to try that, too?

- Sure.

Oh, wow.

- See?

And she had short nails, too.

- Look at that, it works!

- Mm-hmm.

- It works.

- So these poori do look a little bit different.

I remember my grandmother's being a bit more yellow, so I am feeling like, is this gonna actually taste the way that I remember or not?

But I have to try it and see.

- So we're going to let these set aside to dry out for a little bit before we pop 'em into the fryer and, hopefully, create more memories that you can pass on.

- I can't wait.

[mellow music playing] - Okay, so it's crunchy poori time.

- Yay, I can't wait.

Awesome.

- He's getting our oil to 350.

- It's getting ready.

You want 350, yeah.

- Cool.

CHRISTOPHER: When you put something in hot oil, go like this, starting and put it away from you.

CHERYL: Oh, yeah, looks like he'll be able to get about five in.

SAPNA: Okay.

- Oh, look at that already.

SAPNA: Yeah, it's looking legit, really.

- Looking legit!

CHRISTOPHER: Is that a Gujarat term?

Legit.

- Of course, yeah.

Definitely, yeah.

I think in Gujarati you would say pakka.

Pakka means legit.

CHRISTOPHER: Ooh, I like that.

CHERYL: So, Chris, how long will those fry?

- Just a couple minutes a side.

You want it, you know, just to get nice and brown a side.

CHERYL: Beautiful.

- Awesome.

I also like that we're using a frying pan.

CHERYL: Yeah!

- Because, um... - Do you have, like, a skillet?

- I do.

Yeah.

- That would be good.

- Okay, I'll do that.

My grandmother would always fry in something called a karahi, which is a deep kind of a wok-ish, almost, dish.

But Chris is just using this low pan to fry in, and I just never thought about being able to fry pooris in that, but it's working perfectly fine.

- All right, so we've got our crunchy poori all cooled... - Yay!

- ...and we're gonna come back and see how they measure up to Ba's.

- Awesome.

Thank you.

[gentle music playing] - So, Sapna, here we are.

- Yeah, yay!

We have our crunchy poori, and a little surprise for you.

We made chai.

- I smell it, that's amazing.

- So we want you to be the first... - Yay.

- ...to try the crunchy poori.

- Oh, my gosh.

Thank you.

I have to do this first, I have to snap it.

Oh, yeah.

It's got that-- it's got that break.

- Wait, wait.

What does that mean, "It's got the break?"

- Well, it's supposed to have a-- - [poori snaps softly] - There you go.

Did you hear that?

CHRISTOPOHER: Yeah.

- Wow.

- The little-- yeah.

- You have to taste first.

- Okay.

- Are you ready?

- I'm ready.

Yeah.

That's it.

Yeah.

[gentle music playing] These are delicious.

[soft chuckle] They taste just like Ba's.

I have no idea how they did it.

- Mmm.

- Yeah.

- Those are incredible.

It's crunchy enough, and it's also got the right taste.

- I can see that you-- - Yeah.

- You're taken back.

- Uh-huh.

My grandmother passed away, um, before my kid was born, And I think they would have loved each other.

CHERYL: Mm-hmm.

SAPNA: To get this so right...

It's, um...

It just all brought tears to my eyes, and it also just immediately made me think of Ba.

I think she would be just in disbelief, really, that everyone here did this and made these pooris.

- So do you have more confidence to make these at home?

- There's a lot of pressure, I think, you know?

You're holding generations... - On your shoulders.

- ...of memory and tradition.

Yeah.

And, um, I definitely have more confidence now that I may be able to do it.

So thank you for that.

- I think you've got this.

- I know you're gonna make your grandmother proud.

- Thank you so much.

I can't wait to try.

[upbeat music playing] Going to make the pooris.

Need my flour, okay.

So today is the day that I'm gonna share this recipe with my family.

I'm gonna prepare it here at home, go over to my parents' house and have them try it as well.

So, need one and a half.

I have been able to do it now with Chris and Cheryl, so I think I can do it.

I hope that they can see that this is something I really tried to work hard on getting right so that we could enjoy these pooris again.

I hope this is the right kind.

Might be kind of coarse.

What... [jar clacking] See what that does to the poori.

I love cooking for my family.

I love especially making stuff that they remember, that they have some kind of connection and memory to.

The masala dabba that I was using has my maternal grandmother's name etched onto it.

All my masalas.

There we go.

I think it's really important for us, especially as immigrant communities, to hold on to our recipes.

I don't want these things to get lost or forgotten.

It says a tablespoon, but I don't really measure, so... let's just maybe go for it, I guess that's like a teaspoon?

In Milk Street, they use some teaspoon measurements to measure everything out.

I am not used to doing that, using teaspoons when I'm cooking South Asian food, I'm just gonna do it by... by sort of figuring it out, uh, how it feels in terms of how much I should be putting in.

Let me do a little and see how that goes.

I feel like there's something still missing.

I feel like Ba maybe put ajwain in there too.

So after leaving Milk Street, I was thinking about it, and it's kind of sparking new memories now for me and ajwain, which is caraway, we didn't use in Boston, but I want to try that today and see if it's gonna make it taste even closer to what I think Ba used to make.

More ghee, just a tad.

Okay, if there are dry bits, which there are, add more water.

So I'm struggling a little bit with the consistency of the dough.

I know it's supposed to feel a particular way, and I'm trying to get to that.

As long as I can take out a ball and roll it.

Mm, still too dry.

That is the downside of not using exact measurements, is that you really do have to feel it out to make sure that it feels right.

And maybe more ghee.

But I keep adding more ghee and then more water.

And then I'm struggling a bit, but I think I'm gonna get the texture right.

I think that looks good.

You sit there 30 minutes.

The ball of dough looks amazing now.

It's feeling the way that it's supposed to feel and to roll out.

That's a good consistency, perfect.

So that I can get those nice, flat pooris.

Eight, nine, 10, 11.

Perfect.

I think I'm gonna roll these out a little bit thinner.

It's the moment of truth time.

Okay, looking good.

Staying together.

The more I think about it, the more I remember them being really small and really thin, and so I want to roll them out even thinner than we did in Boston.

It's definitely not gonna be a circle at all.

And then, the part of piercing, I have that memory of the pooris being rolled out and spread out all over the countertops at my parents' house.

And so I'm just excited about the whole idea of going over and giving these to them.

And a flip... Oops.

The first ones are never great, so I'm gonna give myself that.

I'm a little nervous about how they're gonna react and what they're gonna say.

They're going to have a certain memory of their own about what these pooris are supposed to taste like.

Okay, that looks much better.

Getting them more brown now.

And they may say that they don't taste like Ba's, so trying these pooris for the first time in a long time is gonna be an interesting connection to a dish that she used to make very often.

Okay, done.

[gentle music playing] PUJA: Daddy, are you excited that Sapna made crunchy pooris?

- Yes, yes.

Oh, I'm very excited to eat crunchy poori.

I remember that my daughters used to love those-- uh, eating pooris.

PUJA: They'll go perfectly with the chai.

I don't experiment quite as much, so it's exciting to have some of those things from our childhood come back into our lives.

PUJA: Oh, there they are!

DILIP: Hello, there you are!

[overlapping chatter] SAPNA: We're here!

- Hi!

- Hello, welcome!

- Crunchy pooris.

- Yeah!

PUJA: Crunchy pooris!

- We got crunchy pooris.

– PUJA: Look at that!

- We got crunchy pooris.

SAPNA: They look good.

I hope that you like them.

So here, let's see.

- They're all puffed up.

SAPNA: These came out so great and I'm super excited to share with all of them.

I tried to recreate Ba's crunchy pooris, please take some.

So I hope that they came out tasting something like Ba's.

- I'm sure they are.

- They look good.

SAPNA: I think the thing that was most special to me was to be able to bring a little bit of Ba to my dad.

I know how much he misses her, and so I'm really excited to share with him.

So go ahead and try it and see.

- Let's try it.

- Mmm.

- What do you think?

- Hmm!

I'm not so sure about the texture.

- I know.

- These are super crumbly.

- Yeah.

- But otherwise, I mean-- the flavor you did a really great job with.

- Thank you.

- The taste is there.

SAPNA: Yeah.

Could be a little more crunchier... - Yeah.

- Then perfect, you know?

- Well, halfway there.

- Halfway there.

This is-- this is a good start.

So I-- I do think that she got really close to Ba's flavor, but the texture has a bit of work to do.

- It's good.

- Yeah?

Does it taste like that?

You know, they were-- They used to be crunchier.

They need to dry more.

- Yeah.

So the feedback from my family was very clear.

We need crunchy pooris.

So I gotta work on the crunch and dry them out so they get there.

Are they good?

- Yummy.

- Yeah?

- Two thumbs up.

I think it went pretty well.

It went better than I thought.

I'm really glad, actually, that my family enjoyed the taste.

So does it bring back memories of Ba's pooris?

- Yeah, definitely, yeah.

They do bring memory back.

That... the way of my mother used to make crunchy pooris.

I didn't have these pooris for a long, long time, and it does bring back the memories of my mother and I get emotional talking about her.

I wish she was here.

Look who you have picture-- SAPNA: Who is that?

DILIP: Show it to the camera.

SAPNA: I so wish that Ba could be here right now to try these-- She'd be so excited just that I tried.

[sniffles] - Who is that?

- Ba!

SAPNA: So I wear this always on special days, this necklace.

I just happened to be wearing this, um-- the last day that I saw her.

And she took this, the Ganesha, and she went like this to her eyes with it.

And so she blessed it.

And so I keep this with me as a memory.

I wish she was here today.

I wish I could taste the pooris.

I'm so happy that I could share this, you know, like a little piece of Ba that we have still.

- Yeah.

- That we can, you know, enjoy through her food.

- Thank you for sharing this with us.

I am proud of Sapna for bringing those crunchy pooris back into our lives.

It's been too long since we've had one of those.

- And thank you for your feedback, because you're being honest, and now I can make it better.

- Yeah!

- Right, right.

- I look forward to walking into your kitchen completely covered in pooris.

[laughter] SAPNA: I do believe in this idea of ancestors living on in current generation, and so I feel like my kid has a piece of both my grandmothers, actually.

And pushing them down?

- Hey, how's it going?

- Good.

- You want to tell Baba what we're making?

- Pooris.

- Pooris?

- Crunchy pooris!

It means a lot to me to be able to share this recipe with her and to have her be able to make something that I feel like is a soul connection to her great-grandma.

- How do I describe the cooking in Dishoom?

I would say Dishoom is from Bombay with love.

Parsi cafes, street food, it will all come from Bombay and the love for Bombay we have.

The dish gunpowder potato, actually we... it's kind of a innovation.

Our inspiration was we use "gunpowder" in South Indian cuisine.

We just used the blend of our own spices and mix it with lovely roasted potatoes and with lots of love.

It's just, uh, delicious.

So we're gonna roast the potatoes first.

The process is really simple.

We always use new potatoes, which are small, tiny, lovely, cute little potatoes.

You take out in the bowl, crush them and put masala, we use kebab masala in it, which is a Dishoom signature.

Every chef in India have their own spice mix, which they call a "secret masala."

So whenever you ask an Indian chef, they say, "Oh, we have secret spices."

We put the spices in, some lime juice, and the friend of potato, which is butter.

Spring onion, coriander, and green chilies, which we're gonna add it, give it a nice green color to it.

It's tangy, spicy.

In Hindi we call it chatpata.

Chatpata means something which have all flavors, which have a bit of tangy, spicy, sour, and salty, obviously.

And it's ready to serve.

Who doesn't like potatoes?

Recipes and episodes from this season of My Family Recipe are available at MilkStreetTV.com/MFR Access our content any time to change the way you cook.

Funding for this series was provided by the following.

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