Verkadalai-Vepampoo Urundai [Neem flower-Peanut chutney podi balls]

I’ve always thought that, really, April and May are the peak of our “winter,” when so many trees shed leaves, tomatoes refuse to set, herbs shrivel unless they’re babied, and plants go into stasis. What’s a season, after all, but an alignment of stars that produce the conditions for something, and not something else. Winters in any hemisphere are periods of hibernation and pause, an acknowledgement of the challenges of extremes, always a touch bittersweet. This is ours.

Some plants have the heat figured out, of course, and they forge on, undaunted. We understand this when we recognize the mango to be a fruit which contains the summer’s heat—so much so that it is customary to soak them in water not so much to clean as to cool. The jackfruit, consumed too vigorously, produces indigestion in this season. Konrai (amaltas, Cassia Fistula) blazes.

The panampazham goes another route, more insular, hiding its ice apples [“nungu” in Tamil] in a thick, nearly impenetrable outer husk.

Then there is neem, Azadirachta indica, which uses the stress of rising external temperatures in something of the way the bougainvillea uses the stress of dehydration. It flowers. Profusely, intensely, medicinally. It showers flowers to the point that we have a snowfall.

Not every year, mind. Every year is different because the rains are different and the heat is different and neem, for all its bitter medicinal properties, is also susceptible to termite attacks and disease–particularly a fungal infestation known as “dieback” which causes branches to dry and die, literally. But most trees survive even this, and it is a strange year indeed when the neem doesn’t flower at all.

Ice apples and white neem flowers. That’s the “winter” here for you, and Shakespeare knew it, too, in a manner: “Now is the winter of our discontent,” he said in the voice of Gloucester at the opening of Richard III, “made glorious summer by this sun…”

Now you can choose to harness the power of this extreme like the mango and the jackfruit and the toddy palm, you can use the push of its stresses to produce a creative refulgence like the neem, or you can wait it out the way most of us do, in the company of those who have figured out just how.

There’re metaphors in the plant world for the present, should we choose to search them out. Animals move and run as defense mechanisms, the biologists tell us, while plants produce. Think about that for a moment, that ingenuity that we call “adaptation,” that ability to chemically alter ones very being in response to external threats. I watch my neem trees showering, refusing to stop, and asking me always: what will you produce? And how?

Neem flowers are the necessary, distinguishing ingredient of ugadi pacchadis and Tamil new year chutneys, which combine two seasonal favorites: mangoes, just arriving, still a bit raw and green and sour, and neem flowers. The flowers also make a classic “vepampoo” rasam. But why stop there, I thought? If the idea is to weave together six tastes and foreground the bittersweet of neem flowers, there are many ways.

So, here’s another.

Something between a chutney podi and a spiced laddoo, these are verkadalai or roasted peanut urundais brought together with the stickiness of tamarind and jaggery and easily stored and apportioned at mealtimes. They pep a bland meal with a simple dal or they are a treat unto themselves with hot rice and ghee. Your pick.

The hard part is collecting and cleaning the falling neem flowers. In old homes, the practice was to spread an old cotton sari to catch falling blossoms (of pavazhamalli/parijat and neem) and keep them clean enough to use. They come halfway to dried when they’re collected this way. Or, pull branches and pick the inflorescences, and then sit with each and pick the flowers from the stems, and then the stems from the flowers.

It is a long, tedious process. I have, at times, had barely a handful of flowers every day, added to a drying plate and set in the sun. At other times, we’ve been showered with plenty and it’s been hard to keep up.

But the neem flowers dry easily and impart just a very light bitterness to whatever dish they’re added to–so we use them often in tempering, while they’re in season. The rest get stored in airtight jars to use for as long as they last, until the next season.

After all that, making the peanut chutney balls is simple and quick. Fry the neem flowers in minimal oil, then roast all ingredients together. Pulse them quickly into a coarse powder, and “catch” them by hand in small balls–kai-pidi, as we say in Tamil, which means something like the hold of a hand–or urundais while the mixture is still hot so that the oils in the nuts and that used to fry the flowers can mix well and allow adhesion.

The balls will store well at room temperatures (even ours!) for a week or more. To keep them longer, refrigerate.

Wishing you all beauty where you can find it and wellness.

Verkadalai Vepampoo Urundai

These are spicy peanut and neem flower balls, something between a chutney podi and a laddoo, but best served with a savory meal and not as dessert! These combine the peppy sweet-sour-fiery ingredients that might otherwise be used to make beloved Andhra peanut chutneys with the slight medicinal bitterness of neem flowers. A healing, protective summer seasonal special.

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Ingredients

  

• 2 tablespoons peanut oil
• ¼ cup Neem flowers, fresh or dried, plus more to roll the urundais in if you want
• 2-3 red chillies
• 2-3 cloves of sliced garlic, optional
• ½ cup roasted peanuts
• A small lime-sized ball of tamarind, fibres and seeds removed
• 1 tablespoon jaggery
• Salt, to taste

Instructions

 

• Heat the peanut oil in a roasting pan on a medium flame and add the neem flowers. Mix and roast until they are barely browning, and follow at once with the red chillies, and garlic (if using). Reduce the flame to ensure the flowers don’t burn but the garlic does brown.
• Now add the roasted peanuts. Roast until fragrant.
• Add the tamarind, pulling segments apart to allow it to soften in the heat just a little.
• After a minute or so, switch off the flame. Transfer the mixture to a blender or food processor.
• Add salt and jaggery.
• Pulse into a coarse paste, holding the mixie jar lid down as the peanut mixture will still be hot. Adjust taste—add more salt or more jaggery if you wish. Pulse again.
• If you want to roll the urundais in more neem flowers, roast them in the same roasting pan with a little oil and transfer to a plate.
• Next, transfer the peanut mixture from the mixie jar back to the same roasting pan. As soon as the mixture can be handled, start “catching” it into large marble-sized balls. If you’re rolling these in more neem flowers, do so now and press to make them adhere.
• Repeat until all the mixture is used up. If it cools too fast and catching the urundais becomes hard, heat it gently until it’s just hot enough to allow adhesion.
• Store the urundais in an airtight jar for about a week or 10 days at room temperature. If you want to keep them longer—refrigerate!