Of Keerai, Google, Upma.......

My son came home loaded with a big pack of leaves. He told me the leaves were a kind of keerai[spinach] given to him by a colleague. I had never seen this particular keerai. I admired the fancy shape of the leaves-spear shaped tips, looked quite ornamental! The next dilemma was how to cook it. I’m no culinary expert so that was a dilemma to me. Anyway, I just sautéed it with onions and chillies and garnished it with coconut gratings. Then came the time to taste the cooked leaves. O my gosh, how my sons and I winced and screwed up our faces! It tasted as sour as ever, nearly acidic.
That evening my son’s colleague educated him and me that that spinach was called Pullicha keerai in Tamil. I exclaimed that it sure did live up to its name[Pulli means sour in Tamil] !
Enlightened now, I entered Pullicha keerai recipes in Google Search. I briefly had a quick glance at the sites that showed up and learnt that it was called Gongura in Telugu and Sorrel leaves in English. Most of the recipes were for chutney and so I just clicked on a couple of the sites. For one not fond of cooking I didn’t like the tedious methods of preparation in those particular recipes so I just rehashed what I read and pressure cooked, for five minutes, all the ingredients along with the leaves.
While the cooker whistled away merrily, I was awe-struck at the lovely smell which delighted all my senses, emanating from my kitchen. When cooked and cooled, I blended it in the mixer. Presto! The outcome was a creamy, rich green puree. As if to prove the saying, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, that afternoon we slurped it up with steaming hot rice!
I thought of the humble,unpretentious rava upma which was the winning entry in a cookery contest in the USA. The chef won $ 100,000 and the dish was stylishly called Semolina Pudding! Just for fun, I mused that may be some day, some time, somewhere Dame Fortune may smile on me too through my exotically labelled Whipped Sorrel Sauce! A wishful and over-optimistic musing, indeed, by one who has no culinary skills and whose forte is certainly not cooking!!!