Introduction:

Well now people would think I never cook as I have a kitchen the size of a pigeon hole. But it is big enough to fit a whole Double Door Refrigerator of a popular German Brand, a Twin exhaust oven, a four stove top end glass-top cooking range with a range-hood connected to a heat disperser. Okay, its the classic case of Size doesn’t Matter as I do cook when I want to and pastries are one of my best alongside improvised fusion recipes (but that is a different story altogether). I got the handy tips from grandma and mum who are decent cooks and me, I only looked and observed them cooking, never lifted the finger till I went to the UK and came home conjuring food at my behest and got the whole family to taste heaven but with health.

The Grandmother:

Now my grandmother is crazy about health food and will clobber anyone’s head if they feed themselves or their kids  unhealthy food. Cannot help it she lived in Africa from the age of sixteen, bought a huge handbag, which I called the Mercedes Benz, because of the size and it was darn hard too, if you got it to give you a one time hit. You won’t want to be in her line of fire trust me you get it good for 2-3 hours and each time she sees you she will inspect your lunch box and snoop around the house and come and carry tales to me (who else). I am everyone’s Mother of Sorrow pray for me and listen to each and everyone and learn their way of working too. So one day she found a recipe titled the Egyptian Mummy Pudding. So here she was ready to start cooking to feed the family and yes, all of us were kitty hawks standing there like Moose Miller is it ready yet??? And got Baba wait Baba!!! Any way, Just what does it take to make the Egyptian Mummy Pudding.

The Recipe:

100 Grams Figs

100 Grams Dates

200 Grams Maize Flour

500 ML Milk or water which ever you feel would give better taste

Cream or Ice Cream (Prefer Strawberry as I love Strawberries)

Almonds/nuts grated to sprinkle (optional)

Now that is simple, but its not ready yet. The calculations are approximate (as this is written from memory) but I generally like to put more fruits into mine as it makes it a little more sweeter.

Method:

Dice the Dates and Figs and keep them aside.

Mix the milk or water into the Maize flour and put it to boil, stirring constantly (Don’t stop stirring as maize has a bad habit of sticking to the vessel and then getting burnt — no one wants a burnt mummy pudding do we??)

Slowly add the fruits into it and keep stirring.

Add milk to keep the texture even, or you would end up getting the whole thing lumpy.

Now I slowly let the whole thing thicken before taking it off flame.

Serving:

I normally put the whole thing out in small bowls and put ice cream/cream as a topping and if you wish sprinkle Almonds on it.

I can guarantee you there is no sugar and I use the ice cream to have the hot-cold effect of eating.

Other Uses:

This particular dish can also be eaten as regular porridge and it keeps you full throughout the day depending on quantity of consumption. I usually take two 300ml glasses full and semi-fluid (for that I make sure that the fruits are softer– soak them in water to soften them).

A Little Background:

This is a dish that we grew up with and it kept us healthy and energetic as I was a person who always woke up at 4am to practice piano (yep!! woke the neighbourhood playing 4 octaves of scales on every key for an hour before doing anything else), going to athletic practice at 6am and University by 8am. The evening was a little relaxed with getting taught (in the literal sense), teaching students and then coming home completing studies and practising pianoforte and trumpet and turning for the day.

The thing that kept me going was the diet I was brought up with and this was one of them.

Enjoy and have fun, and yes, there is no weight gain as I ate this even during my brief stint in modelling and was a constant 54kgs till I had my baby (real one).

By Anisha Achankunju (C) 8th June 2011