BY TARA NARAYAN

FOR SOME time now I’ve been intrigued by the sound of koiloreo, you really have to roll your tongue to get it right in Konkani. What is it? Goa’s quintessential pancake with the mostest! No, not made of refined flour, eggs and sugar Western-style, but made of local curmot red kernel rice, soaked overnight or four hours and ground to a fine batter with freshly grated coconut…let the batter stand for an hour and then make the thick, soft pancakes, a pile of them. See how they disappear! Koiloreo is Goa’s traditional wholesome pancake or “rice bread” I’ve learned and it’s great for mopping up just about any veg or non-veg gravy tangy, spicy or creamy…

So one Sunday morning I found myself making koiloreo with the help of my maid Jenny and they turned out so good that although the hubby said, “Not so much coconut in it next time, please”, Jenny and I loved them so much we were eating up the koiloreo hot and next day cold and thawed out from the fridge! These koiloreo are pale dusky pink and for some reason although they’re supposed to be cooked only on one side - steam cooked - under cover, I found myself flipping them to cook a little more on the other side too. Just a wee bit of oil on the pan before ladling on the koiloreo batter, it smoothens out on its own and soon covered over with teeny weeny holes. I served koiloreo with homemade marmalade and they tasted something divine!

No, these are not sugary sweet pancakes; a wee bit of sea salt is added into the batter at the time of making the koiloreo. Some of the recipes I have in my Goan cookbooks say add a few spoonfuls of sugar too but that’s not koiloreo, okay. Traditional koiloreo acquires this exquisite light sweetness courtesy the quality of your grated coconut…say they have a flavour redolent of rich red rice and soft white naturally sweet milky coconut, truly a superb amalgam I’ve fallen for forever after. Goan eateries and restaurants worth their salt should put Goa’s wholesome sannam and koiloreo on their menu. It’s stupid to serve sliced white bread or tandoori roti or naan and the rest of the north Indian breads, but not Goa’s very own sannam and koiloreo …is anyone listening?

My friend Sharon D’Cruz tells me that in the old days of their youth at home koiloreo would turn up by the piles for breakfast and they eat them hot and laced with coconut syrup or choon (i.e. freshly grated coconut mixed with jaggery crumble). Koiloreo is sometimes referred to as “koyloie” and don’t confuse them with rice chapati which you may find in many Goan Hindu homes…here rice is soaked overnight and the next day ground into a fine tight dough with just enough water so that it may be spread out with deft fingers onto a banana leaf or a clean cloth and slow cooked on a tava on both sides till perfectly roasted.

No toddy, the traditional ingredient for fermenting rice batter for acquiring soft volume and flavour? Yes, grinding rice with toddy is traditional but these quick fix days most Goan homes use yeast or may be even cooking soda or a teaspoon of Eno’s soda! I didn’t grind my koiloreo batter with toddy and nor did I leave it aside to ferment for hours, no fermenting of the batter is required and yet the pancakes turned out superlatively good. Make koiloreo one of these days!

Rice is so staple a food and it’s the key ingredient in so many fascinating traditional recipes that it’s worth re-discovering hand-polished or minimally processed Goa’s red kernel rice, fat or slim, it has more robust flavour and beautiful colour; this rice also makes for a great porridge. Hey, keep the basmati for north Indian biryani! Nowadays if you look you may also get organically grown red basmati and Maharashtra’s fragrant “amba mor” but only in Mumbai-which-was-Bombay…but this is to say, if you’re conscious about what you put in your mouth, don’t quit eating rice, just quit eating pristine white rice…or at least discover or re-discover the primary goodness of eating rice! It’s kind of dumb to stop eating rice just because someone told you it’s bad for health…it’s bad only if you take one of the world’s most popular staple cereal and polish it mechanically till there’s not an iota of natural nutritious colour left in it. When it comes to the good things in life - the more vivid, vibrant colour, the letter! Now you make a note of that. And I’m not thinking of artificial chemical colours but natural in-nature colours, okay. First we remove all natural colour and thn put in unnatural colour - only stupid human species do that and we all know why! Money, money, money and all that. Think about it.