The Vegan Mysore Pak Story : Aravindan V and the Quest for Cruelty-Free Tradition

So just this past weekend, we finished up Wilderfest, Bangalore's First Annual Vegan Fest at VR Bangalore. As a co- organiser, I was so so grateful for an opportunity to push veganism into the mainstream. Because of it, I had a chance to meet some of those seemingly mythical vegan businesses I'd only heard about on the magical place that is the internet. One of the hottest stalls at the fest? It was Vijay Sweets. 
Wait for it. They are India's first vegan sweets and snacks company. They run out of Coimbatore. The most famous product that had all the vegans buzzing was their Mysore Pak. Ah Mysore Pak. Usually known as that melt-in-your-mouth sweet made out of gram flour, sugar, and ghee. You'd think there was no way to make great tasting Mysore Pak without, gasp, the ghee, right?

Wrong.

Meet the guy behind the most incredible vegan Mysore Pak,  Aravindan V, a vegan from Coimbatore. 

That's him! That's him! 

Aravindan had a simple vision. He wanted to keep all the tradition involved with our foods but ethically challenge the way we thought about familiar tastes and practices. To do it he was aware he had to make a rather sizeable dent on the Indian infatuation with ghee. There was only one thing to do: Make a vegan sweet taste so good that people couldn't even tell the difference between his version and the original. I can legit tell you that non-vegans are raving about this sweet. We're finishing packets of it at my office as I type this. It's delicious and I challenge you to tell me otherwise. Aravindan describes himself as a simple middle class Indian man who has dreams and desires most of the country can relate to. He also collects knives which is compelling given he's a vegan. Aravindan are you secretly a serial killer? :) I was thrilled when he said I could pester him with some questions about his business and his vision in general. So here goes! 

RM: Vegan Mysore Pak! You've hit on not just an amazing local idea but executed it so fabulously. Vegans and non-vegans alike are raving about your sweets. It tastes incredible and most of us can't stop at one piece. Tell us how this idea popped up in your head one fine day.

AV: It's a family business. We have been selling sweets and namkeens for the past 30 years. When I quit my job I knew I wanted to take up my family business. But my ethics came first. I didn't want to earn money by running a business that used animal products. I started experimenting with ingredients. Soon i had a few veganised products. Once all the products were vegan I set myself up for a new challenge. What sweet seemed hardest to master in a vegan way? That's when Mysore Pak popped in my mind. Technically speaking, it was not making a vegan Mysore Pak that was challenging. The challenge was making a version that tasted very close to the dairy version and retailing the same at a cheaper rate when compared to its dairy version.

How they look. Too good to be true. But it's true.

RM: How long did you experiment with the recipe? Did you have different versions over time? Are you happy with the recipe you currently have?

 AV: It took us around 2 months to get the ingredients right. We experimented with lot of plant based milks to get the perfect taste. Finally found the right combination which tasted very similar to the dairy Mysore Pak. Our customers are happy with the current version and that means we are also happy.

RM:You are India's first vegan sweets and snacks company- so tell us what other products are you offering? Can we get a sneak peek into the future?

AV: We offer more than 40 varieties of traditional Namkeen and a few varieties of sweets. Yes, we are planning to come up with a varied range of affordable traditional vegan sweets.

Other things on offer like halwa and namkeens

RM: As a vegan entrepreneur with a vegan product, what are the most important learnings and wisdom you've accumulated? What's important, in your opinion, to consider when trying to make impact on ethical grounds?

 AV:  As a vegan entrepreneur it's extraordinarily important for me to be careful with taste and quality. I am not representing just food here, I am representing a movement. We don't compromise on taste and quality. We have a very simple vision: to provide affordable, tasty, and traditional sweets & snacks in the most ethical way possible. 

Sweet-Sweet Samples at Wilderfest

RM:  Since we live in a time where the cruelty animals endure for us to consume everyday foods is invisible to most, what would you like to tell the people of our country right now about plant-based foods and substitutes? 

AV: I think everybody is a compassionate person on the inside. But most people are taught to believe  that there is no cruelty on their plates. We're taught not to think about it and just accept it.

I want to tell everyone that you don't have to compromise on taste. We just have to make a stronger effort to find cruelty-free versions of what we love most. I believe we can. 

Boxed Mysore Pak from Vijay Sweets

RM: Has there been a kitchen disaster at Vijay Sweets that would make our readers laugh?

AV: Well I remember this one time when we were experimenting with a sweet recipe using different plant-based mylks. Some of the combinations were obviously a bit weird. So we had fights about who would taste them and we just laughed a lot because of the weird expressions we made when we tasted our 'experiment'.


How excited are you to try some vegan Mysore Pak? Hop onto FB and place an order today. Click HERE to get on their page. 

Vegan Blueberry Thumbprint Cookies (No Flour No Oil, Puppies!)

Howdy Caterpillars!

We had a epically sweet Easter this Sunday. It included going to a Kannada Church service in the morning followed by iced black coffee, and then lunch at our favorite Asian restaurant, Nasi and Mee. That left me plenty of time to come home take a nap, do some quick yoga, and then bake.

You might have eaten packaged or home baked thumbprint cookies filled with jam or even chocolate before. I've never made them, and turns out they do need some extra attention, at least more then your average cookie.

You see, the perfect thumbprint cookies have to be slightly crispy outside, slightly chewy inside and have that perfect soft tang of the jam in the centre.

So what's the trick? Well, the trick is in the wet mixture. You have to have a thick, viscous mixture to achieve the right consistency. To do this you can use golden syrup, agave syrup, cashew butter or even peanut butter (although peanut butter gives it a very strong peanut butter flavour and the jam filling might not go with). I used a mix of cashew butter and golden syrup today. I had a bottle of my favorite Salted Cashew Caramel Butter from Jus'Amazin. I also had golden syrup at home. Worry not! If you don't have the cashew butter, you can make some of your own in a blender or just use extra golden syrup.

I put walnuts there for the heck of it. They are not in the cookies.

This recipe has no added oil or flour. I've used oat flour and semolina (rava) but feel free to use flour instead (2.5 cups).


These are super fun and relatively quick to make. It's the perfect cookie really.

Here's What You Need

1.5  cup regular Oats
1 cup semolina (rava)
3 tablespoons Cashew Butter ( I used Jus'Amazin) (optional)
1/4th cup golden syrup (use 1/2 cup if not using cashew butter)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4th cup sugar
1/4th cup coconut mylk
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
Blueberry jam (or any jam of choice)
1 tablespoon ground flaxseeds
Dried Coconut (optional)


How to Make

Grab two bowls.

First take your oats and blend them dry into a fine powder. Tah-dah, you now have oat flour!

In one of the bowls dump your oat flour, semolina (rava), salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Set aside.

In another bowl add your golden syrup, sugar, and cashew butter (if using). Whisk together, it should be thick and viscous. Now add the coconut mylk and flax seed powder and stir it up well. Slowly add this thick wet mixture to the dry mixture. You should get a nice slightly wet crumbly mixture.

Wet and Dry Bowls

Nice and thick wet mixture!

Prepare a baking tray. Make small balls out of the mixture and put on the tray. After you've made balls out of all the batter use your thumb to flatten the centre of each one. That's the thumbprint folks! Now get your preferred jam out. Add 1/4th teaspoon of jam to each centre. You should have about 12-15 cookies depending on your size. You can choose to sprinkle the cookies with dried coconut right before popping them into the oven.

crumbly nice cookie batter

Shaping out well

All ready for the oven!

Pre-heat your oven to 180c. Put your tray in and bake for 12 minutes.  Take out let them cool. The jam might be slightly melty or even bubbly. It will cool into a nice glaze centre, worry not. The cookies should cool for 10 minutes. The smell of them are divine. Grab a plate and share.

Till next time. Happy Easter.

Ready to eat!

The Utter Simplicity of Vazhakkai Poriyal

Hola Cats!


We are (for the most part) what we know. And what I knew growing up was that good South Indian food was best left to the masters. Ordering south Indian thalis at restaurants and gorging my heart out when invited to the homes of South Indians.

 Like many Bangloreans,  I am the hugest fan of idli, dosa,sambar,rasam,poriyals,and kosambari. I am not well versed in the plethora of twists and tricks that summersault and perform acrobatics from state to state or for that matter region of state to region. I am barely know the difference between Mysore Masala Dosa and uh, regular masala dosa. I do know that some parts of Karnataka use more jaggery in their vegetables and sambars than say Tamilnadu.  Some of you are probably just shaking your heads right now and saying, shut up Rheea, you are making a mess of things.

See, I grew up in a household with a Bengali father and Manglorean mother and lots of NRI seasoning thrown in for good measure. Not to mention we had a Bihari cook for many years growing up in Bangalore. The result was something I'd like to call 'generic Indian food'. Meaning garam masala, onions and ginger-garlic paste as the go-to base for literally everything.

Despite this, I loved south Indian food when I ate it from other tiffin boxes, homes and udipi hotels. In fact my go-to lunch is the standard south Indian thali minus the curd.

But I was too frightened to try to make basic poriyals and sambars at home. I mean considering some of the things didn't have onions or ginger garlic paste all mashed into one thing- how could I make it taste good? My upbringing had taught me that making tasty Indian food meant garam masala time!

When trying to create South Indian dishes, I am like that White friend you bring to India  who immediately starts wearing a bindi and bangles.  It's endearing but a little off, you know?

Anyway, I had no idea what to do with raw bananas, but today at the market I picked two up determined to make 'that thing I've seen on thalis'. Turns out one of the names for it is a tamil household recipe, Vazhakkai Poriyal. I might not be able to pronounce, but hell, I'll make it.

Optimism

The best thing about many many south Indian vegetables and sambars is that they are default vegan. There is usually no milk or curd in them and if you don't add any ghee with your rice, TADAH- 100% vegan yo!

So thanks to Youtube, I managed quite well. I figured out how to conquer the raw banana.

For those of you who are in my predicament, I present Rheea'a Vazhakkai Poriyal. Notice how I put my name in front of the name and basically ignored generations of South Indians groaning ' No Rheea, that's really not your recipe at all'. Go ahead and apply my cooking colonisation to the most relevant global reality of your choice.

What You Need

2 peeled raw bananas
1/2 cup grated fresh coconut
1 teaspoon Hing (Asafoetida)
2 teaspoons mustard seeds
2 teaspoon turmeric
10-12 curry leaves
2 tablespoons Urad Daal (White Lentil)
2 tablespoons oil
Salt to taste
4-5 red dried red chilies
2 teaspoons jaggery powder (optional and possibly blasphemous)

How to Make

Peel your raw bananas with the help of a knife. You want to get to the whitish inside, but be careful not to peel too much off or you'll be left with too little of the banana meat. Cut them into small cubes.

Dump them into a pot and cover them with water and your turmeric. Let it boil for about 5 minutes.

Just boiling them bananas (with turmeric)

Meanwhile get pan on the stove. Add oil and let it warm for a few seconds. Add urad daal, mustard seeds and hing (asafoetida) and stir for 15 seconds. Add curry leaves, red chilies and coconut now and stir for a minute till it gets nice and crispy (but not too crispy, lower the fire if it's burning).

Now add salt to the mix. Drain your boiling turmeric raw banana pieces and add to the pan. Stir together well and fry for another 3 minutes or so.

I did it! I did it!

And you're done! So simple, so delicious. This is best had with white rice and sambar. If you want to make sambar you can youtube or be risky and look up my Coconut Sambar HERE.

Ok, I can already hear murmurs of people who want to add their few cents- how some of you would never consider using jaggery or would have added another spice. Or maybe you want to help us learn with alternate names/recipes and history of these foods. Please add your advice/corrections/history/anecdotes in the comments!

Till next time, keep it kind!

Tea Time Vegan (Vanilla Coconut Cake with Walnut + Strawberry Jam Filling)

Hello Kangaroos!

It's been a while but no fear, I am back to my baking experiments. I had to angle my phone to get pretty pictures, because truth be told this baby wasn't the prettiest. But what it lacks in looks it makes up in taste.

We have a fluffy vanilla coconut cake here with a walnut and strawberry jam filling. I also topped of the cake with blended dried berries that I had, but you can just use some jam.

This is a sweet indulgence and can make your friends happy and willing to forgive you for small transgressions of the past. Although I haven't tested that theory out yet, I am willing to put it out there.

Kind of sloppy. Kind of spectacular 

So let's get to it!

What You Need

for the cake

2 cups flour
1 cup castor sugar
1 1/2 cups soya mylk (or any plant based mylk)
1/4th cup vegetable oil
1 cup dried (or fresh) grated coconut
1 tablespoon vinegar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 teaspoons flaxseed powder (optional)

for the walnut-strawberry jam filling

3/4th cup walnuts (ground up)
1 cup strawberry jam ( or any other berry jam)
a splash of water

for the topping

5 tablespoons of  berry jam with a tiny splash of water (use jams with real berries in it not just flavoured)



How To Make

In a bowl combine sugar, oil, vanilla, salt, and vinegar. Add soya mylk and flaxseed powder and stir well. Now add your flour, baking soda+powder, Stir it up. Add coconut. Your mixture should be thick but pourable. Prepare a round baking tin and grease it well. Pour batter in.

All ready to be baked

Pre-heat oven to 180c and bake the cake for 25-30 min. Let the cake cool for at least 30 minutes or it will break.


While your cake is baking start on the filling. Grind up your walnuts. Add this to your jam. Add a splash of water and warm it up in the microwave for 30 seconds so you can stir it together with ease. It won't look amazing but it will taste good.

walnut strawberry jam filling 

Now when your cake is cooled ( please let it COOL completely) go ahead and slice the cake into two parts. It's ok if it gets a little sloppy. Smear the walnut-jam filling and sandwich the two parts together. Top off with jam and spread well. You can add fresh cut strawberries to decorate too or sprinkles. Do whatever makes your heart happy.

Slice them babies up and share.

YUM

Till next time, keep it kind, keep it real.

Vegan Hearty Bites ( And a Spectacular 2018 to All You Pups)

Happy 2018 water bugs! 

I just realised that this would be my first 2018 post (17 days into the new year) I am late, but it's never too late to read a good vegan recipe. One that's healthy (ish) to boot!

This year, I've pledged to write about veganism from multiple perspectives and try to further my goal of being more inclusive when it comes discussing how all of us can work together to acknowledge this huge ethical crises, particularly when it comes to factory farming in the meat, dairy, and egg industry. So stay tuned for content on that in the coming months.

But for right now, we're going to talk about these amazing hearty bites I just made. There ain't no refined sugar in these babies. No flour either. Just oats and semolina (or rava as we call it in India).

These are sweetened with jaggery and have only 2 tablespoons of oil, which you could omit to make them super-super healthy but they might be a little too dry if you ask me. These are GREAT for breakfast on the go. Good with tea, coffee, juice whatever! Also, these are really really fast to make.

Here's What You Need

2 cups oats
3/4th cup semolina (rava)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup jaggery powder (or adjust to you preferred level of sweetness)
1 and half teaspoon vanilla essence
2 tablespoons cinnamon powder
1/4th cup cacao nibs (or be naughty and add broken pieces of vegan dark chocolate instead)
2 tablespoons flaxseed powder (just grind up your flaxseeds if you don't have powder)
3/4th cup soya mylk
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 cup walnuts crushed
1/2 cup crushed or sliced almonds
1 and half teaspoon baking powder




How to Make

In a large bowl add your oil, soya mylk , vanilla,  salt and jaggery and stir. Now add your oats, semolina, walnuts, almonds, cacao nibs, cinnamon, and baking powder.

Get your hands dirty and mix it all up. It should be squishy but mouldable. If it's not wet enough to mould add some more soya mylk till you get the right consistency. Now make small balls ( i got about 20 ).

All of the good stuff about to be mixed

That's the right consistency 

Pre-heat oven to 180c. On a baking tray (preferably lined with baking paper) add your balls and flatted with your hands or a spoon. Pop them in the oven for 10 minutes. That's it!

Let them cool and share with everybody. Even with your not-so-friendly neighbour.

That was super quick, eh? Well, you all have a spectacular year and don't forget to keep checking back for solid recipes and chitter-chatter over here at Messy Cooking Always Vegan.

Rustic Walnut Current Millet Bread (All Vegan, Folks)

Hello Hippos!

Gosh my kitchen was overflowing with millets. I kept buying packets of foxtail millet thinking I was out only to realise I had 2 huge packets at home. Sigh. So I had to use up them millets pronto. I wanted a nice dense, rustic, nutty bread that had just a hint of sweetness. This is perfect for breakfast with some olive oil or even coconut oil drizzled on it hot and toasted. Mmmm. It's also amazing plain.

This happens to be super healthy because of the millets, low sugar, and the flax and chia seeds!

This recipe can be easily made gluten free by omitting the flour I used by using just millets (although it will be super dense) or adding almond flour in place of the regular flour.

Here's what you need


1.5 cup foxtail millets
1/2 cup flour (or almond flour for gluten free)
3 tablespoons chia seeds
4 tablespoons ground flaxseeds
3 teaspoons bakers yeast
2 teaspoons salt
4 tablespoons jaggery powder
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 cup walnuts (yes lots of nuts, it's amazing)
1/2 cup dried currents (or cranberry or a mix of both)
3/4th cup warm water



How to make

In a blender powder your foxtail millet and chia seeds into a fine powder. If you don't have flax seed powder then grind the flax seeds along with the millets and chia seeds.  Add the ground up millets, flax seeds, and chia seeds in the bowl. Add salt, jaggery, walnuts, and currents.

The millets ground up into a flour

Dry ingredients 

Warm up some water. It can't be too hot or it will kill the yeast. It should be a tad warmer than lukewarm. You should be able to deep your fingers in comfortably.

Now add the warm water to the dry mix. Add oil and start to mix. It will be a wet lumpy mixture. Set the bowl somewhere warm for 5 to 10 minutes.

Nice and gooey

Next, on a board sprinkled with 1/4th cup flour start to knead the bread dough. After about 5 minutes it should become sticky but cohesive. Keep massaging the dough with a little dry flour for another 5 to 10 minutes.

In a greased loaf pan add in the bread dough. Set aside somewhere warm for 30 minutes.

let this set for 30 min and then into the oven!

Preheat your oven to 200c. Put the loaded pan in for 25-30 minutes.

Let it cool for 10 minutes. It will be a thick dense bread that is overflowing with nuts in every bite.

Will be great warmed/toasted with some coconut oil and will be a lovely-ass accompaniment to salad. Enjoy your bread. Enjoy your life.

YUM

Keep it kind and get ready for a kick ass 2018!  See you soon.

Holiday Rosemary Raisin Date Crackers (Vegan Obvs)

Hi-hi Dolphins!

It's the most wonderful time of the year. I demand you read this blog with THIS song in the background.

Lots of holiday cooking going around on FB and my brother who is visiting from the U.S brought me a pack of Trader Joes Vegan Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies which are to die for. It reminded me of some of the sweet-savory crackers that are a staple on holiday cracker-cheese plates this time of the year. In my pre-vegan days living in the U.S, I used to LOVE variations of raisin/rosemary/herb crackers that would go with blue cheese. I saw some imported crackers like these in Nature's Basket in Bangalore but they cost half my rent. So of course I decided to make my own.

These crackers are delicious because they have a savoury herb taste with bursts of date and raisin sweetness. Combine it with hummus or cashew cheese and you might spontaneously combust. For real. My version uses whole wheat flour, regular flour, and almond flour (just almonds ground up fine in the blender). So let's make these crackers!


What You Need

1/2 cup flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup whole almonds blended into flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 and half teaspoons salt
6-8 deseeded dates
1/2 cup raisins (you can add more too if you want)
1/2 cup soya mylk or water (depending on getting the right rollable dough)
2.5 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons dried rosemary

Almond flour, dates, rosemary, raisins. Yum yum.

How to Make

Grind up your almonds into a flour in the blender

In a bowl add your flour, whole wheat flour, and almond flour.  Now add the baking powder, salt, and rosemary and blend the dry mix with your hands.

Chop up your dates into bits. Add the chopped dates and raisins to the mix as well. Now add your oil. Get ready to get your hands dirty. Pour water/soyamylk into the batter and start to knead. Keep adding water/mylk until you have a nice dough that can be rolled. The dough will be thick and uneven because of the dates/raisins- that's fine. Chill.

That's the dough we're talking about, lovers. 

Now roll out parts of your dough as thin as you can. It won't get too thin because it's got so many goodies in it. Use a cookie cutter to cut out shapes  or simply cut into cracker- like squares. Repeat will all the remaining dough. This should get you about 30-35 small crackers depending on your thickness.

All ready to be popped into that oven

Add your crackers in batches depending on the size of your oven.  Bake for 20-23 minutes  at 185c.

Take out and let cool. Enjoy with a quick cashew cheese which involves blending 1/4th cup cashews with one tablespoon nutritional yeast (optional), salt, pepper, and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. Or dip them in hummus, or have them with jam. Or just alone with some black tea.

I spy the giant gingerbread man

Let the holidays start! Keep it kind.