Bisi Bengaluru: Celebrate Ugadi - A Bevu Bella bounty

Ugadi habbada shubhashayagalu. Not only because of the festivities of the new year, with chants of prosperity and good tidings but in delicious anticipation of the Balele Oota!  Your plantain leaf will come piled on with delicacies and Bengaluru is renowned for its traditional oota trail.

Where it comes full circle is Karavalli, at the Gateway Hotel, where Chef Naren Thimmaish has dished out regional gems for over 26 years. Karavalli’s festive Balele Oota spread, the Ugadi lunch on March 18 this year, is bursting with soul food. The freshest seasonal ingredients, sourced directly from farms, organic in essence and traditional in spirit, make up your meal. And Naren, who is an expert at sourcing the best homemade recipes from across the state has unearthed ways a number of authentic ways of preparation, too. However, it is his mother’s cooking that set the benchmark he continues to follow. The home body chef recalls those years, saying, “For all of us in Karnataka, bringing in Ugadi was the ringing in of the New Year. For me, the earliest memory was always mom giving us the bevu and bella concoction, which signifies the acceptance of bitter and sweet in equal measure. Mom was smart enough to make a concoction instead of neem leaves with jaggery chunks, so we coudn’t pick out the jiggery,” smiles the executive chef.

Karavalli’s offering of Bevu Bella starts the desi-curean meal, which includes tangy Tomato Rasam, Majjige, Butter Milk, and then enters veggie territory - Kaalu Usli, sprouts tempered with Mangalorean masala, Aloo Gadde Palya, Ennegai, baby brinjal cooked with freshly ground coconut masala, southekai pachadi, delicious ananas madduli, sour pineapple curry with mustard tempering. There is Dal Thovve with poori, bisi belebath, bagalabath, curd rice made with pomegranate and grapes, kadlebele payasa, kadubu and Obbattu. Surely a meal to have.

The other hub of regional cuisine is Dakshin at the ITC Windsor Manor, dressed up in plantain leaves, flowers and neem leaves for Ugadi. Master Chef George Jayasurya has taken his indelible experience in serving the most local fare, a melange of flavours, celebrating yuga(age) and âdi (beginning), the beginning of a new age. What better manner to delight in the seasonal best than to bite into obbattu or Holige, prepared with bevu bella — neem leaves and jaggery mix, Kadale Gojju, Soppu Kootu of fresh greens, Tomato Erekkai, a tomato and ridge gourd preparation accompanied with variety of annam. From the famed Hallu Obbatu, jaggery stuffed sweet pancakes served with hot milk and elaneer payasam, tender coconut kernels in coconut milk, it is only apt to dig in happily. Kaalu Usli, Southekai Pachdi, Ananas Madduli, Gatti Saaru, Dal Thovve, Kadubu and Kadlebele Payasam, not sure a true local foodie can resist! “Thadi is celebrated as the New Year in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh,” says Chef Jayasurya. “It’s about welcoming the new year with a bit of sweet and bitter, the bevu-bella concoction is served at the start of the Thadi meal. During Ivaru, the mango season begins, so there is always mavinakkai chitranna in the Ivaru meal.”

Executive chef Naren ‘recalls his favourites, “Southekai Pachdi and Kadlebele Payasa, two dishes which are his favourites and find pride of place on the Karavalli menu. “Mom makes them brilliantly, and we have incorporated those in Karavalli Balele Oota,” he adds. For regular Ooreans, the Bangalore Club’s Ugadi oota is soul food that sees many takers. The humble chef Jayaraj’s cooking, who has been helming these traditional flavours for 26 years… is something many old Bengalureans relish, year after year. From the totally lipsmacking mavinakai or sour mango rice, mango pickle that he makes from scratch, to the melt in the mouth obattu with ghee that takes you into food heaven, or the puliogare, it is among the popular and easy on the pocket Ugadi spreads in the city. The nuggkayi and mavinakayi sambhar is lipsmacking and the kayi hollige and gasagase payasam is a must-have. There, you have it, this Ugadi, rejoice in the festivities with true belele oota… and siesta like a satiated soul.