Sunday special - kube mutli (cockles in a gravy with mini rice dumplings)

Ingredients

• 250 g boiled rice
• Salt to taste
• 4 long red chillies
• 1 teaspoon coriander seeds
• 4 peppercorns
• 1 teaspoon jeera/cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon mustard
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1/4 teaspoon turmeric/haldi
• 2 handsful grated coconut
• 1/2 coconut to extract milk
• 1 small onion roughly chopped
• 1 small onion finely sliced
• 1 small ball of tamarind

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Preparation

• Drain the soaked rice completely and grind it fine along with salt. While grinding add very little amounts of water only if required or a wet grinder - then consider yourself blessed.
• Place the batter in a thick bottomed vessel or kadai on a slow flame & allow it to roast a bit - this process is called as 'ubzounche' in Konkani which involves partial cooking of the batter by placing freshly ground wet batter over slow flame to help it arrive at a dough ball kind of consistency which then allows you to make small mutlis out of it & then steam them in a 'tondor'.
• Give the batter a stir or two and switch off the flame when you can see that dough looks a little transparentish. Allow to cool for not more than a minute.
• The next step is a little tricky - try & make balls - a little bigger than marble size, without burning your hands, but if you wait for the dough to cool too much, then it becomes hard & you wont be able to make that kind of a 'little dimple' impression on each mutle.
• While you are busy making the mutlis, place sufficient water in a tondor/steamer & bring it to a boil.
• Place the mutlis in a steel bowl and then onto the 'shelf' inside the tondor. Cover the lid & steam for 15 minutes. Switch off the flame & open the cover. Place a thin muslin cloth over the mutli bowl so that the vapour falling off the tondor cover doesnt make the mutlis soggy. Allow them to sit for a while till your gravy is ready.
• Heat a pan & dry roast the following one by one - dry red chillies, sliced onion, coriander seeds & grated coconut. Remove & allow to cool.
• Grind the roasted ingredients with the rest of the ingredients - peppercorns, garlic, jeera, mustard & haldi to a fine consistency. If you have a thin roce extracted out of the coconut you can use that to grind the masala.
• Heat a big pan and add some oil. When the oil is hot, fry the sliced onion to golden brown. Add the ground masala and fry well. Add the masala water and bring it to a boil. Add the roce/coconut milk and boil for 1 minute.
• Add in the mutlis. Cook for 5mins on slow fire. Add the cockles and salt to taste & cook for another 2-3 minutes. Turn off flame and allow it to rest for 5mins. Serve hot!