Madras Mamsam koora

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This is something that Sherry and I share a vivid memory of. Vivid doesn’t quite capture the feeling. It I the smell that pervades the dining room in the Nungambakkam house, coming from the kitchen where Narayanswamy the cook – who used to call me 'nalla papa' (black child in Telugu, good child in Tamil) – stands by the stove stirring something and looking up when I come in, and to the side, near him stands another woman. The kitchen opens out into the back garden, very sandy with some casuarina trees at the boundaries. I don’t know what he put into it – fresh coconut probably,  a juicy lovely reddish brown shorva with little cubes of meat and marrow bones and that delicious taste. Once or twice we have both come close to tasting it. But it eludes us. Let’s see…

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So basically try the recipe for the ordinary kodi koora - but add a lot of fresh (or soaked dessicated) coconut. Don't brown the onions much - so that the dish as a whole is light brown, not dark. Maybe add some cumin seeing as it is from Madras, I mean Chennai. 

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