"Fast" Food My Way: Sago Khichdi
Almost every culture has some days when a "fast" is observed...a days when the intake of regular food and drink is restricted, a day of religious observence and prayer. When I was growing up, there were several days of the year which were thus observed. Luckily for us, the rules were rather relaxed: although a great many everyday foods like rice, onion, turmeric were forbidden, there was an equal number of foods that were "allowed" and they made for many delicious dishes indeed. We kids certainly ended up eating twice as much on "fast" days ;)
Sago (called sabudana in the local language), or the pearls of the sago palm, is one food that is eaten on these fast days. I'm not religious at all but I love eating preparations of sago and often make sago khichdi for breakfast any old day of the year. This is what the pearly white sago looks like:
Looks pretty innocent, but its very easy to mess up sago preparations! All recipes call for soaking the sago to rehydrate it and if this is not done right, you end up with a gummy disaster. In addition, the sago is tasteless almost and needs careful seasoning. Making sago khichdi is an art and I would love to share a couple of tips I have learnt.
*Soak 1 cup of sago by placing it in a bowl, then rinsing once with water, then adding enough water to just cover the sago in the bowl. Cover and leave overnight. This results in perfectly fluffed sago. I was visiting my friend C's lovely lovely place in Goa last December when her mom visited and shared this tip with me.
**Season the fluffed sago by adding 3/4 cup coarsely powdered roasted peanuts, salt to taste and 2 tbsp sugar. I know thats a lot of sugar but its a trick taught to me by a lovely lady known as "tai"...she made a mean sago khichi and shared this tip of bringing out the flavor by adding lots of sugar. Tai passed on last month but her culinary legacy will live on and on.
*** Saute a tsp of cumin seeds in a pan containing {1 tbsp oil + 1 tbsp ghee...or just 2 tbsp oil}. Add 3-4 slit green chillies and one diced potato. Cover and cook till potatoes are tender. Then add the seasoned sago and saute for 5-7 minutes, cover and cook for another couple of minutes and taste for seasoning. Finally, garnish with minced cilantro and sprintz on some lemon juice and you are done! This is fast food in more ways than one!
Sago (called sabudana in the local language), or the pearls of the sago palm, is one food that is eaten on these fast days. I'm not religious at all but I love eating preparations of sago and often make sago khichdi for breakfast any old day of the year. This is what the pearly white sago looks like:
Looks pretty innocent, but its very easy to mess up sago preparations! All recipes call for soaking the sago to rehydrate it and if this is not done right, you end up with a gummy disaster. In addition, the sago is tasteless almost and needs careful seasoning. Making sago khichdi is an art and I would love to share a couple of tips I have learnt.
*Soak 1 cup of sago by placing it in a bowl, then rinsing once with water, then adding enough water to just cover the sago in the bowl. Cover and leave overnight. This results in perfectly fluffed sago. I was visiting my friend C's lovely lovely place in Goa last December when her mom visited and shared this tip with me.
**Season the fluffed sago by adding 3/4 cup coarsely powdered roasted peanuts, salt to taste and 2 tbsp sugar. I know thats a lot of sugar but its a trick taught to me by a lovely lady known as "tai"...she made a mean sago khichi and shared this tip of bringing out the flavor by adding lots of sugar. Tai passed on last month but her culinary legacy will live on and on.
*** Saute a tsp of cumin seeds in a pan containing {1 tbsp oil + 1 tbsp ghee...or just 2 tbsp oil}. Add 3-4 slit green chillies and one diced potato. Cover and cook till potatoes are tender. Then add the seasoned sago and saute for 5-7 minutes, cover and cook for another couple of minutes and taste for seasoning. Finally, garnish with minced cilantro and sprintz on some lemon juice and you are done! This is fast food in more ways than one!
Food starch prepared from carbohydrate material stored in the trunks of several palms, chiefly Metroxylon rumphii and M. sagu, sago palms native to Indonesia. Composed of 88% carbohydrate, sago is a basic food of the South Pacific, where it is used in meal form to prepare soups, cakes, and puddings. Elsewhere its use in cookery is mainly as a pudding and sauce thickener. In industry it is used as a textile stiffener. The thick trunk grows to 30 ft (9 m) tall in low marshy areas. At 15 years the core of the mature trunk is engorged with starchy material. If allowed to form and ripen, the fruit absorbs the starch, leaving the stem hollow and dying. Cultivated plants thus are cut down when the flower spike appears, and the starchy pith is extracted from the stems.
SAY-goh] A starch extracted from the sago (and other tropical) palms that is processed into flour, meal and pearl sago, which is similar to tapioca. South Pacific cooks frequently use sago for baking and for thickening soups, puddings and other desserts. In the Orient and in India it's used as a flour and in the United States it's occasionally used as a thickener.
sago
Dictionary: sa·go (sā'gō)  |
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A powdery starch obtained from the trunks of certain sago palms and used in Asia as a food thickener and textile stiffener.
[Malay sagu, mealy pith.]
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| Food and Nutrition: sago |
Starchy grains prepared from the pith of the swamp sago (Metroxylon sagu) and the sugar palm (Arenga pinnuta); almost pure starch and sugars (sucrose, glucose, and fructose), free from protein.
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| Food Lover's Companion: sago |
[SAY-goh] A starch extracted from the sago (and other tropical) palms that is processed into flour, meal and pearl sago, which is similar to tapioca. South Pacific cooks frequently use sago for baking and for thickening soups, puddings and other desserts. In the Orient and in India it's used as a flour and in the United States it's occasionally used as a thickener.
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| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: sago |
For more information on sago, visit Britannica.com.
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| Archaeology Dictionary: sago |
[Sp]
Palm (Metroxylon sagu) native to Indonesia and Samoa which stores large amounts of starch in its trunk prior to flowering. The starch can be washed out of the chopped pith of felled trees and then cooked as a kind of porridge or in cakes. The antiquity of its exploitation is unknown, but it was widely used in Indonesia and Melanesia.
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| Columbia Encyclopedia: sago |
sago (sā'gō) [Malay], edible starch extracted from the pithlike center of several E Asian palms (chiefly Metroxylon sagu) or sometimes of cycads. The starch is an important item in the diet in some parts of E Asia and is exported for use in foods (e.g., puddings) and for stiffening textiles. Sago is obtained by grinding the stem content of a filled mature sago palm that is beginning to flower into powder and washing the starch free. For local use it is pulverized, but for the market it is usually sieved and then heated to form granules. The florists' sago palm is not a true palm but a cycad of the American genus Zamia. Z. floridana, called wild sago or coontie, yields Florida arrowroot.
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