On Wed, 2008-09-24 at 15:54 -0700, Thaths wrote: > No. She probably meant Avial-able. I.e. A dish made with a hodge lodge > of left over veggies.
of which i forgot to take photos after cooking sunday before last :-( i remember how difficult it used to be to find in delhi the principal ingredient, winter melon / ash gourd (white petha in delhi hindi)[1]. it is similarly hard to find it at indian stores here, since they're a) punjabi and b) pakistani. so south / east indian ingredients are not kept. however, i was surprised and pleased to discover that this south indian vegetable is incredibly common in chinese cooking, and easily available in chinese / south east asian stores that keep fresh vegetables. it is dong-gua in mandarin. this is also true for green papaya, which is used in bengali cooking as a veg, and north indian (but non-punjabi!) non-veg as meat tenderizer; not available at punjabi stores but chinese/south-east-asian ones. and banana flower, though i haven't tried to cook that myself yet. cue discussion of the bay of bengal trade routes and mediaeval tamil sea-faring empires, and how india is not a country. -r
