The Kitchen Religion: Bread Bites

The Kitchen Religion

The Kitchen Religion is dedicated to my beloved spiritual master A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, who taught his disciples by his personal example how to cook and offer delicious vegetarian food to Lord Shri Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Dear Friends, Welcome to The Kitchen Religion. I love to cook, and am a follower of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, whose disciples taught me how to cook "Krishna prasadam" back in the early 70's. Krishna prasadam (or "God's mercy") is vegetarian food that's offered to Krishna (Krishna, or Lord Shri Krishna, is a name of God the Father which means "the all-attractive person who attracts the hearts of all living beings").

Ever wonder why the Hare Krishnas are called "The Kitchen Religion?" Because for us, cooking is a meditation. Everything we eat, we first cook with love for Lord Sri Krishna, then offer it to Him, then eat (or "honor") His remnants. The Hare Krishna Movement has become known as "The Kitchen Religion" because so much of what we are as a group has to do with cooking for Lord Krishna and then honoring and sharing His holy remnants, or prasadam, with others. We call eating prasadam "honoring" prasadam, because we understand that after we have offered the food to God and He has kindly accepted our loving offering, the food has become spiritualized. So it's like accepting a treasured gift from the Lord when we eat His remnants. Spiritual food is uplifting to the heart and purifying to the soul. Krishna prasadam is meant to be honored.

Srila Prabhupada taught us that because all things come from God, they are meant to be used in His service. He explained that we should lovingly cook vegetarian dishes for Krishna and offer them to Him with devotion. Krishna then accepts and blesses our offerings so that when we partake of His remnants, we become purified of all kinds of unwanted, sinful desires within our hearts. I was happy to learn this, as I had always wanted to know of practical ways to serve God, and I had never thought about cooking for God. But this idea made so much sense to me that I took it up immediately and have been enjoying the pleasure of cooking for God for the last 40 years! After all, God is a person. Granted, He is the Supreme Person, but a person nonetheless. And God eats. He doesn't need to eat, but He eats what His devotees lovingly cook for Him, just to give them pleasure.

By the way, did you know that God likes cows? His supreme abode, Goloka Vrndavana, is named after cows. Gau, or go, means cow, and loka means place or abode or planet. So Goloka means the abode of the cows. Because God puts so much importance on cows, we should understand that cows are very, very important for human society. We humans are given the responsibility to protect cows, and in turn, we are blessed with milk, the miracle food.

Although a lot of my recipes are influenced by my American upbringing, they are all pure vegetarian. Not all are vegan, but they're all vegetarian. We humans are given a diet just like all the other creatures on earth, and our diet is supposed to include milk and milk products. Cow's milk and milk products are beneficial and very important for human consumption. But they must be prepared properly and offered with love to Lord Krishna to provide the greatest benefit to human society.

Of course, using milk and other products from the cow necessitates treating the cow humanely. How ungrateful some people are, that they consume milk, yogurt, cream, sour cream, ice cream, butter and cheese from the cow and then turn around and slap the cow in her face by killing her and eating her slaughtered carcass! How can those people be so cruel, heartless and ungrateful?

Srila Prabhupada explained that we humans have more than one mother. Not only is our birth mother our mother, but the earth is one of our mothers as well as the cow, because the earth gives us food and the cow gives us her milk. Therefore, it behooves us to treat both Mother Earth and the cow with respect and love, just as we would our birth mother.

Speaking of mothers, my love of cooking awakened in my early childhood as I watched my mother cook and bake. From her guidance as well as the tutoring of my Hare Krishna friends, combined with years of cooking and baking for my family, trying out new recipes and repeating old ones, making up some of my own recipes and adjusting many that I have found on the internet and in cookbooks, I feel inspired to share with you some of my cooking experiences and favorite recipes.

In the recipes below, "c" means "cup," "T" means "Tablespoon," and "t" means "teaspoon."

Thanks for being here! Hare Krishna!

Phalini devi dasi

PS Srila Prabhupada demonstrated a high standard for his disciples by always using fresh ingredients. Because I almost always seem to be in a hurry, I have adopted the use of canned goods on occasion. I apologize for this aberration, and hope to switch to using all fresh (uncanned, unfrozen) ingredients in the near future.

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Bread Bites

Bread bites are small fried biscuits that are quick to make and great for travel or just a handy, after-school snack.

Bread Bites

4 c capati flour (atta, or finely ground whole wheat pastry flour)
3 t (1 T) baking powder
1 t baking soda (aka "cooking soda" in India)
5-6 t sesame seeds
1 t salt
1/4 c jaggery or date sugar (gur), or 2 T granulated sugar
100 g butter softened at room temperature (about 1 stick US)
415 g yogurt (curds) (approx. 1 3/4 c) (if you don't have yogurt, you can use sour milk)
water if needed to make soft, non-sticky dough (I find that water is totally unnecessary)

Preheat a karai (wok) of ghee on a medium-low flame while you're mixing your dough.

Mix the dry ingredients, including the jaggery, together until blended well. Add the butter and mix it with your fingers until butter is fully incorporated into the dry ingredients. Add yogurt, and if necessary, water, to make a soft dough. Mix quickly and thoroughly with your hands just until all ingredients are nicely blended together. Knead for a few seconds until everything's well-incorporated.

Immediately pinch off a two-inch piece of dough. Quickly roll it into a ball, then flatten it between your palms to a thickness of about 1/2 inch. Quickly work it into a flat round, smoothing the edges as you turn it in your palm. Set aside. Keep molding these rounds until you have about seven to nine. You should not crowd them in the ghee. They should have room to cook on all sides. So decide how many you are going to put in, depending on the volume of ghee you have in your wok (karai). Slide them one by one into the hot ghee. Once they are all in, they should quickly rise to the surface. As soon as they rise to the surface, turn up the heat to medium. Make sure the bread bites are all separated. You can do this with a fork or a slotted spoon.

Frying bread bites

When you see that the edges are starting to turn golden brown, gently turn the bread bites over with a fork or slotted spoon. The ghee will be more calm now, and you will see your bread bites are turning a lovely, toasty color.

After they're turned

After about two minutes, you can turn one again, just to check and see if it's evenly browned on both sides. When they are uniformly browned on both sides, and a little puffed up, remove them from the ghee. You can set them aside in a bowl lined with cotton cloth that's big enough to fold over the top of the finished bread bites to keep them warm and absorb the steam. No need to drain on paper.

Offer to Krishna and enjoy!

Finished bread bites

Note: If you're making a big quantity, cook them in small batches. A while back, I made 80 bread bites for some friends who were traveling on the train. I made them in small batches of about 27 each (I fried 9 at a time), and they turned out good. We heard later that they loved them! Yay!

A mountain of bread bites!

The Kitchen Religion