A Layered Stewed Sweetness: Jackfruit Payasam Made Local

Jimmy
What are the sort of festivals that are associated with Malayalees?

Dhershini
Vishu is the new year, but it happens in April, so that’s when our calendar starts. Vishu is a home affair where you can invite your family and friends to come and sit down and have a beautiful Malayalee meal. Every year, my mother-in-law always hosted it. She prided herself on increasing the number of curries. So by the time she passed away, she had about 20 curries.

Jimmy
Oh my goodness. That’s a lot of work. 

Dhershini
It is a lot of work, but it’s fun because there’s so many families coming to eat it, and it’s really nice. So I’ve tried to keep up with her, and I try to do that myself.

Jimmy
What is the maximum number of curries you’ve done?

Dhershini
I think I’ve achieved 20. 

Jimmy
Oh my goodness.

[Music playing] 

Jimmy
You’re listening to BiblioAsia+, a podcast produced by the National Library of Singapore. At BiblioAsia, we tell stories about Singapore’s past, some familiar, others forgotten, all fascinating. 

I love dessert. I love ending my meal with something sweet. Typically, it’s fruit, but I’m not fussy. I’ll eat anything doused in sugar. And while no group has a monopoly on delicious desserts, I think we can all safely say that South Asian desserts are in a league of their own in terms of deliciousness. One popular Indian dessert is payasam, a smooth rice pudding. Payasam is well-known in India, but it is particularly associated with Kerala. Payasam is a must-have at weddings, and also takes pride of place during Onam, the harvest festival. Of course, it is also available as a regular dessert at restaurants as well. My guest today is Dhershini Winodan, who made jackfruit payasam for the NLB cooking show From Book to Cook. Dhershini is a former restaurateur who started the Chat Masala restaurant on Upper East Coast Road. She has contributed to numerous cookbooks and has written three herself. In 2024, she published My Long Table: Memories and Recipes, which features around 130 recipes, Indian classics as well as Singaporean and international favourites. Today, apart from payasam, Dhershini will talk about her Malayalee roots and about growing up in Singapore in the 1950s and ‘60s. Welcome to the BiblioAsia+ podcast, Dhershini. How are you?

Dhershini
I’m very well, thank you.

Jimmy
Tell us about the dish that you cooked during the NLB cooking show, From Book to Cook. You cooked something called jackfruit payasam. Why is that unusual?

Dhershini
We Indians are very familiar with payasams. Ever since I was a kid, I grew up with payasams. That was the only dessert that my mother would make for birthdays, for anniversaries, for good occasions, and prayers to gods. Everything ended with a payasam. Payasam is like a kheer, a milky, sweet payasam with vermicelli.

Jimmy
Maybe for the people who are not familiar with payasam, tell them, what is payasam made of?

Dhershini
There are different types of payasam. My sons call it the brown payasam and the white payasam.

Jimmy
Okay.

Dhershini
One son loves the brown payasam. One son only loves the white payasam. The white payasam is made with just pure milk, and for the brown payasam, we use brown sugar,
or jaggery. Sometimes I use gula melaka for that additional extra kick. So they’re different. These are the two different payasam, and I like them all.

Jimmy
And it is a rice pudding.

Dhershini
Not necessarily a rice pudding. You also add the vermicelli to it. It’s very fine, and you have to roast it a little bit and add it to the payasam. Otherwise, your payasam is going to be very clunky.

Jimmy
And you cook it in coconut milk, or sometimes milk?

Dhershini
In milk, but there are payasam that we cook with coconut milk. The dal payasam are cooked with coconut milk.

Jimmy
Okay. And you made a jackfruit payasam. Is it common?

Dhershini
The jackfruit payasam is common amongst the Malayalees because in Kerala, there’s so much jackfruit during the fruit season between April and May, and they have so much of jackfruit, they have to do something with it.

Jimmy
All right. Yes.

Dhershini
What they normally do is they take this jackfruit and they make it into jackfruit chips, or jackfruit jam. And that’s how the chakka payasam or the jackfruit payasam comes about. Jackfruit jam is actually so smooth, and it’s like a thick cube of cheese. But they keep it in their freezer. They sell it in shops, so people can just buy it and make it into a payasam. 

The very first time I had it, I had gone to this auntie’s house in Singapore actually, and she makes delicious payasam, and she said, “Would you like to have a jackfruit payasam?” And I said, “Oh, yes.” It was so beautiful, so smooth and unctuous, with the right amount of sugar. It was delicious, and I asked her how she did it, and she said she brings these slabs of jackfruit jam from India, and keeps it in the freezer. Whenever she knows she’s going to make a payasam, she will defrost it and add some coconut milk. But it’s already got so much sugar, you don’t even have to add sugar to it. You just add a little bit of cardamom powder. I tried it and of course it didn’t come out as good as hers.

Jimmy
Okay.

Dhershini
And then I had this thing about creating a jackfruit payasam, so I bought some jackfruit and I tried to make jam out of it, but it took such a long time. I just added the rest of my ingredients and when my boys and my husband tasted it, they said that they preferred this because it had texture. There were little bits of jackfruit and nuts and raisins, and they said, “Just stick to your recipe.”

Jimmy
They preferred it.

Dhershini
They didn’t want the Indian recipe. So I said, “Okay. I will stick with mine.” And that’s how it was born.

Jimmy
So if you go to Kerala, the kind of a payasam that you make, you won’t be able to find it?

Dhershini
You will be able to find the smooth…

Jimmy
The smooth kind.

Dhershini
Yeah.

Jimmy
But not the ones with the chunks of jackfruit in it?

Dhershini
No. You won’t. Yeah.

Jimmy
Oh, so that’s unique to you.

Dhershini
Yes.

Dhershini
And I also added a little bit of sago because I love the little bites of sago.

Jimmy
Right.

Dhershini
Yeah. So mine is quite different.

Jimmy
It’s almost a Singapore version.

Dhershini
It is. With the sago, yeah.

Jimmy
And gula melaka.

Dhershini
Yeah. Like a bubur now.

Jimmy
Yeah. So it’s just very interesting because I think it shows how cuisine adapts to different environments.

Jimmy
You can definitely tell that it’s a payasam. You can see its roots in Kerala, India.

Jimmy
But you can also see that it has these influences. The sago, the gula melaka and all.

Dhershini
Yes. So I make a gula melaka syrup, and I add it to the jackfruit so it has a delicious caramelised taste to it. And then I end off, although I use coconut milk, I end off with a little bit of evaporated milk.

Jimmy
Oh, why is it?

Dhershini
Which always rounds off flavors for me. That’s the other addition that I do. And I add these nuts because my sons and my husband love cashew nuts, so tons of that go in.

Jimmy
We were talking about how your version of payasam is different from what you can get probably not just in Kerala, anywhere in Singapore. And we talked about how cuisine in Singapore reflects the history and the environment, where we are in Southeast Asia. So if we take that idea and further expand it a little, how is Malayalee cuisine in Singapore, say, different from Malayalee cuisine in Kerala?

Dhershini
I think it’s not very different because I recently attended a wedding in Kerala, a typical Malayalee wedding, and I was served this banana leaf full of vegetables, curries and payasam. They had three different types of payasam.

Jimmy
Oh, wow.

Dhershini
Yeah. I think it’s just something that people love, and the caterer just happens to love doing payasams. They were all delicious and the vegetables were all quite similar to what we do in Singapore.

Jimmy
So it’s very similar.

Dhershini
Yeah. Quite similar. Very similar, actually.

Jimmy
So if you were to hold a Malayalee wedding in Singapore?

Dhershini
We start off with the papadums and the banana chip.

Dhershini
The sweet chips and the savoury chips, and then we have yogurt, we have salt that’s all on the banana leaf, and then we have all these 20 curries, that’s ranging from sambar to avial and the whole works. Yeah, so it was quite similar.

Jimmy
That’s great to hear. No, I think in Singapore, South Asians are a minority. And within the South Asian community, especially, in Singapore it’s Tamils predominantly.

Dhershini
Yeah.

Jimmy
But there are lots of Malayalees as well, right? I think it is the second largest [group].

Dhershini
About 30,000 Malayalees and, and now with the influx of more Malayalees, we have Onam and Vishu celebrated in such grand style.

Dhershini
And, where once upon a time it was a very small family affair, now it’s become like a very big community affair, and just this year they had an Onam lunch for a thousand people.

Jimmy
Wow. Where? Who organised it?

Dhershini
The Singapore Malayalee Association. It was a big success.

Jimmy
You were there?

Dhershini
Unfortunately, I was away. But I hear from my friends that it was so well attended and so many Malayalee restaurants catered for this occasion.

Jimmy
Oh, that’s wonderful.

Dhershini
The food was delicious. Everything was on time. People enjoyed it. Everybody had this gathering that was so fun. We have Kerala sarees. It is a gold and cream saree, so everybody was dressed to the nines and it was a very fun affair. And then the other exhibition is called Varnam. It’s an art exhibition where they have Malayalee artists displaying their works of art, and that’s another one started by the committee.

Jimmy
Right. Right.

Dhershini
The Singapore Malayalee Association. And they have drama nights. They have Onam night, which has been going on for many, many, many years. I think I took part in one when I was a teenager. It’s become so big now and so much better.

Jimmy
Okay, so that means now, I mean, compared to before, the Malayalee community is much more vibrant.

Dhershini
More vibrant, yes.

Jimmy
And as you say, Onam is a much bigger festival.

Dhershini
Yes.

Jimmy
But for the people who are not so familiar, we have Onam. What are the festivals that are associated with Malayalees?

Dhershini
Vishu is the new year, but it happens in April, so that’s when our calendar starts. Vishu is a home affair where you can invite your family and friends to come and sit down and have a beautiful Malayalee meal. Every year, my mother-in-law always hosted it. She prided herself on increasing the number of curries. So by the time she passed away, she had about 20 curries. 

Jimmy
Oh, my goodness. That’s a lot of work.

Dhershini
It is a lot of work, but it’s fun because there’s so many families coming to eat it, and it’s really nice. I’ve tried to keep up with her, and I try to do that myself.

Jimmy
What is the maximum number of curries you’ve done?

Dhershini
I think I’ve achieved 20.

Jimmy
Oh, my goodness. Just the idea of making 20 curries…

Dhershini
Yeah. But we are not just talking about the curries. We’re also talking about all the little additions, the payasam and the chip.

Jimmy
Yes.

Dhershini
But, yeah, that’s 20 items on the banana leaf, so that’s fun.

Jimmy
Okay, so you have the new year. Which is called what again?

Dhershini
Vishu.

Jimmy
And then you have –

Dhershini
We have Onam, which is a harvest festival. This is around September, and, this is in India, one of the biggest because it’s celebrated by all the Malayalees in Kerala, and it’s really fun because that’s when all the vegetables are on display, and I saw a documentary on the jackfruit and the pumpkin. It’s bigger than the pumpkins you find in America on Halloween, I think. Huge pumpkins. So a village will buy a pumpkin and share it because one family can’t possibly finish one pumpkin. That’s the other festival. And then we have Deepavali, and we have Christmas, so these are also celebrated by Malayalees.

Jimmy
Yeah. Of course. You have the big Syrian Orthodox community in Kerala.

Dhershini
Yeah.

Jimmy
It’s a very rich community.

Dhershini
It is.

Jimmy
You know, rich in a sense. Well, I’m sure you call it…

Dhershini
Yeah, culture.

Jimmy
But culturally also. Tell us a little bit about payasam because it’s not only on special occasions, right? Although on special occasions it is definitely there, it’s not only on special occasions.

Dhershini
No, I would do it if you were coming to my house for dinner.

Jimmy
All right. Okay. I will hold you to that promise. But it’s like, a nice thing you want to do for someone.

Dhershini
Yes. If I wanted to do something for someone, I would make a payasam because it’s not something that’s done in many homes. It takes a little bit of time sometimes to make a payasam, especially, a jackfruit payasam. You have to go and buy the jackfruit, peel it, take out the skin and seeds and stuff like that. But these days, we’re so lucky. We get it on a Styrofoam tray.

Jimmy
That’s right.

Dhershini
All you need to do is remove the seeds.

Jimmy
Yeah.

Dhershini
But you really need to take it out and chop it in finely, because you’re going to now make the payasam and –

Jimmy
Do you chop it or do you blend it?

Dhershini
No. You don’t blend it.

Jimmy
You don’t blend.

Dhershini
I will mince it.

Dhershini
And the seeds of the jackfruit are also very useful. It has a nutty flavour, so we add it to curries.

Dhershini
Dry it a little bit and then add it to curries, so that’s very nice as well.

Jimmy
And jackfruit is also used as a meat substitute, right?

Dhershini
Yes. It is. I was in Austin, walking…

Jimmy
Austin, Texas, you mean.

Dhershini
Yes. Now I sound like a traveller.

Jimmy
You are a traveller.

Dhershini
I was in Austin, and this girl pulled me aside and said, “Try this.” So I said, “Oh, is this a pulled pork burger?” She said, “It’s a pulled jackfruit burger.”

Jimmy
Oh.

Dhershini
I said, “Wow.” It tasted so delicious. It was made with raw jackfruit.

Jimmy
Oh, raw jackfruit.

Dhershini
Raw jackfruit, yes. So raw jackfruit can also be made into a lemak.

Dhershini
Which is a very common Malay dish, and it’s delicious. So now we are so lucky in the markets. We get all this skinned and you just need to buy it and take it home and cook it. You don’t have to actually peel that big jackfruit.

Jimmy
I did that once, and I’d never done it before, and I really regretted it ‘cause there was this sticky sap on my fingers, on the knife, and I had no idea how to. How does one open a jackfruit?

Dhershini
You start by oiling your hand.

Jimmy
Like, just cooking oil?

Dhershini
Cooking oil, and your knife and the chopping board...

Jimmy
Oh, the chopping board.

Dhershini
Yeah. You just oil it so that the oil will wash away more easily than the sticky sap that comes from the jackfruit.

Jimmy
I gave up, you know? I gave up cutting it open because, like, oh, my God, it’s so sticky and so much work.

Dhershini
Oh, I love it. You know, especially when you have a couple of people to do it with, like my mom. And all of us used to take out the jackfruit, and it was fun. There’s this guy in Tekka Market. Every morning, he brings this huge jackfruit, and he actually takes it out and, you know, very patiently packs it. It’s nice to watch. Nice to buy.

Jimmy
And jackfruit is actually an amazing fruit. I’ve seen jackfruits the size of human beings.

Dhershini
Yeah.

Jimmy
They’re enormous. Right?

Dhershini
There was a wedding that I went to once, many years ago. It was an Indian wedding. It was a Malayalee wedding, and the centrepieces were fruits, but the centre of the fruits was this humongous jackfruit. This ripe jackfruit smelled so good, the one at my table. I asked my uncle who was hosting this whole wedding, I said, “What’s going to happen with this jackfruit?” He said, “You can take it home if you want to.” I said, “Really?” He said, “Yes, you can take it home.” I said, “Yes, I’m going to do that.” Do you know, the caterer got a little bit upset because I think he wanted to take it back, but nope, I took it home and I opened it and plucked it, enjoyed it.

Jimmy
It was kilograms of jackfruit.

Dhershini
Delicious. Yes.

Jimmy
I have no idea how a fruit that big can be on a tree, because it looks so heavy.

Dhershini
Yes.

Jimmy
And actually, it doesn’t just look heavy, it is actually very heavy.

Dhershini
It is very heavy, yes.

Jimmy
Jackfruit, you were saying, is very popular in Kerala.

Dhershini
Hmm.

Jimmy
Are there, like, jackfruit farms or?

Dhershini
Yes. There are jackfruit farms, and not like I have seen these jackfruit farms, but the houses that I go to will always have a jackfruit tree in their garden.

Jimmy
I understand that there’s this legend about payasam and Lord Krishna and how that whole dish came about. What is this legend?

Dhershini
The legend is how Lord Krishna came in a different form, the form of a sage, and he challenged the king to a game of chess. And he said, “If I win, I will get my wish, and if you win, you get your wish.” So he said, “Okay.” The king challenged him, and of course, the sage won, and he had to. He told the king that he had to give this much of grains of rice to all the people in this village, and the king was a bit taken aback. He said, “That would be a lot of grains.” And he said, “Yes, it’s a lot of grains,” but he said, “If you know, if you feel you can’t do that, you can actually give them this payasam.” So the king said, “Okay, that is doable.” And, even till today, I have gone to this temple in Kerala, it’s called Guruvayur Temple. Every day, they make this big pot of payasam and they give it to all the devotees who come to the temple.

Jimmy
Okay.

Dhershini
It’s not free, you have to buy it in certain pots…

Jimmy
Oh, you said big. How big is big?

Dhershini
The pot, is it?

Jimmy
Yeah.

Dhershini
The pot, I was so shocked. I think maybe 30 people can be in that pot. I’m just exaggerating maybe, but it is a huge pot. And the amount of payasam that comes out of that pot, oh.

Jimmy
And they do it every day?

Dhershini
And they do that every day.

Jimmy
Oh my goodness. It’s a lot of –

Dhershini
I bought the payasam because I always want to try something new. Oh, it was just so sweet.

Jimmy
Right.

Dhershini
And I bought two bottles of it, and I just donated it. There will be some people who are sitting there waiting for some payasam. So I said, “Okay, have this payasam,” because they love it. It’s just so sweet.

Jimmy
When you make anything with jackfruit, are there different kinds of jackfruit that we use or is it just one kind?

Dhershini
Always a ripe jackfruit for the payasam. I make bubur chacha with a jackfruit, also ripe. So most of the recipes call for ripe jackfruit, but the ripeness, like when you make chips. I don’t know if you’ve had jackfruit chips.

Jimmy
I don’t think I have.

Dhershini
Yeah. They’re sold in Kerala as well, and for that one they use slightly underripe [jackfruit], so that…

Jimmy
So it’s firmer.

Dhershini
It crisps up better.

Jimmy
Oh.

Dhershini
Yeah. And I think they also dehydrate jackfruit now. That’s quite tasty as well.

Jimmy
In From Book to Cook, you use a special bronze pot to make the payasam. I’m always very interested. Does it make a difference that it is made of bronze? 

Dhershini
I think it is the thickness of the pot.

Jimmy
Oh.

Dhershini
I went to India and I saw everybody owning these pots, like my cousins, and they have these beautiful copper, bronze, real heavy-duty metal pots for cooking and I’m quite amazed at how big those pots are in the homes. And so I told my cousin I would like to take one small one. She’s the kind who will go right to the source. She took me to this little shop where the man actually makes these. Urli, they call it. Urli.

Jimmy
Okay. Oh, he makes it?

Dhershini
And he makes it.

Jimmy
He doesn’t just sell it, he makes [it].

Dhershini
He has a factory at the back, and my cousin said, “Okay, she wants to take one to Singapore, so she doesn’t want it too big,” and he got it done. So I brought it back. I’m the owner of a nice urli pot, which I actually did the –

Jimmy
Custom made.

Dhershini
Custom made, which I did the jackfruit payasam for the show in.

Jimmy
And what difference does it make to use it?

Dhershini
It has a nice thickness, because the jackfruit has to be cooked to a jammy texture, it does not burn so easily and, that is the reason for doing these big urli pots.

Jimmy
Right. I sadly was not able to taste your delicious payasam, but the people who have said it was a very layered dish. It has a lot of depth, a lot of texture. So maybe tell us, you know, what – besides jackfruit – are the main ingredients that you put in to make it so special?

Dhershini
Yeah. I told you my secret gula melaka syrup.

Jimmy
Okay. All right.

Dhershini
In India, they also have this molasses, and they have this treacle brown sugar. They have different types of –

Jimmy
Sweetness.

Dhershini
But having grown up in Singapore and having a taste of Malaysian foods, gula melaka is something that I really enjoy having, and I use that for one of the ingredients. Then there is evaporated milk that rounds off the payasam, the nuts and to give a little crunch, and, of course, coconut milk.

Jimmy
You grew up in Singapore, right?

Dhershini
Yeah.

Jimmy
Were you born in Singapore?

Dhershini
Yes.

Jimmy
I think you told me once that you grew up and around you there would always be a market garden almost, as it were, that you could get your vegetables and things, is it?

Dhershini
No.

Jimmy
No. Misunderstood.

Dhershini
I love going to markets. There would be small little gardens with kangkong and that kind of belimbing and stuff. But there’s nothing more enjoyable than going to your garden and plucking all the –

Jimmy
Exactly.

Dhershini
I have a couple of herbs in my garden and they give me absolute pleasure, laksa leaves and lemongrass. And coming from the garden, the fragrance is…

Jimmy
It just adds to your own home, right?

Dhershini
Just adds to, yes.

Jimmy
But you, when you were growing up, where in Singapore did you grow up?

Dhershini
My dad was working with Telecom, so we had a home in Telecom’s quarters.

Jimmy
Which is where?

Dhershini
Yio Chu Kang.

Jimmy
Yio Chu Kang.

Dhershini
Yes. And that was my favourite community.

Jimmy
How come?

Dhershini
There were Indians, Malays, Eurasians and Chinese. We all grew up as one kampung, and we had so much fun growing up.

Jimmy
Okay.

Dhershini
Every day we would just wait for 5 am when all the kids can go down and play rounders or badminton. And even all the mothers would gather to have their little gossip sessions. Fathers would play badminton. It was such a beautiful community. And we still keep in touch with some of the Telecom’s quarters [residents]. 

Jimmy
Kampung Telecom.

Dhershini
Kampung. We talk about those memories. During Christmas, we’re invited to all the Christian homes. For Deepavali, they came over to my home, sometimes other Indian homes, and it just went on like this for so many years.

Jimmy
Oh, it sounds lovely.

Dhershini
Yeah.

Jimmy
It’s a very different feeling growing up. This was a small apartment, was it?

Dhershini
Yeah, it’s like a HDB flat. Three rooms, and a kitchen with a balcony, where you can go calling out to all your friends.

Jimmy
Time to come down and play. 

Dhershini
Yeah.

Jimmy
And was that where you learned how to cook?

Dhershini
No. Actually, my mom and my grandma, they are all very good cooks.

Jimmy
I’m sure.

Dhershini
So we’d gather with aunties and cook some big meals for Onam and Vishu. My interest, was piqued at that point, but I started cooking at 13, and my very first dish I remember was a simple mee goreng.

Jimmy
How come you wanted it? Do you like eating mee goreng? You wanted to make it for yourself? Why?

Dhershini
I just wanted to impress a few of my aunties and uncles who came over.

Jimmy
All right.

Dhershini
And I told my mother, I said, “Why don’t you just take a break and I will try and make this mee goreng?” And my mother was like, “Okay, try it.” And I got my dad to go with me to the market. My dad always went to the market with me. It was always the men in the house that went to the market. 

The ladies never went to the market, but I used to go to the market with my dad because I just loved the market thing, and we would’ bring back all this stuff and clean it. And then I told him, I said, “Let me do this mee goreng.” And yeah, I got all the ingredients for mee goreng and I made it.

Jimmy
Was it successful?

Dhershini
Yes, and my auntie said, “Are you sure you made it?” I said, “Yes, I am very sure I made it.” It was good.

Jimmy
So that was the very first.

Dhershini
Very first, at 13.

Jimmy
Wonderful. So that got you interested in cooking.

Dhershini
Yes, yes.

Jimmy
And then eventually you set up your own restaurant, right?

Dhershini
I did. Chat Masala in 2003.

Jimmy
And it was suddenly almost, the first Malayalee restaurant in Singapore.

Dhershini
It’s still around. So, I had a number of Malayalee dishes, because whenever you go and eat in an Indian restaurant, you don’t find Malayalee curries like Manga Kaalan. Manga Kaalan is a mango curry.

Jimmy
Ooh, mango curry.

Dhershini
So I put that in. I put thoran, which is a stir-fried vegetable of cabbage and carrots with shredded coconut. I put all these recipes into the menu, and when folks came to the restaurant, they will say, “Okay, can I order your thoran, and can I order your manga Kaalan?” And, I will say, “Yes.” And they got used to these curries, and they were very popular because apart from the butter chicken that was the most popular or the Mysore mutton and the mutton biryani, we had a selection of biryani. These vegetable items, they were not very familiar with until they came to Chat Masala and they really enjoyed it. Yes.

Jimmy
So you really helped bring these dishes to a wider audience.

Dhershini
Very much, yes.

Jimmy
And I think I asked you earlier, but your restaurant is called… I always pronounce it as Chaat Masala, but I’m wrong.

Dhershini
Yes. I punned on the word.

Jimmy
Okay.

Dhershini
Yeah. I wanted to call it a chat place.

Jimmy
With chat.

Dhershini
Chaat masala, so “spicy chat”, and then people thought it was a chaat place because in India, they have all these different chaats, right? Everybody came to ask me what the chaats we were going to sell. That triggered my interest in looking out for some chaat recipes and then I also thought I would add a local flavour, so I came up with a tofu chaat.

Jimmy
A tofu chaat?

Dhershini
Yeah, because who doesn’t like tofu, right? And it became so popular.

Jimmy
Really?

Dhershini
Yeah. It became popular, I must say, with the locals. The Indians from India did not appreciate the tofu.

Jimmy
Oh, okay. That’s interesting. They want their more traditional things that they were familiar with.

Dhershini
Yeah.

Jimmy
Locals are a bit more… 

Dhershini
We are very happy with tofu.

Jimmy
Yeah. We eat a lot of tofu. Tell us about your new book, My Long Table. Why is your table very long? Tell us about the recipes in this book.

Dhershini
Okay. I do have a long table.

Jimmy
Oh, really? How long is it?

Dhershini
It can sit about 10 to 12 people.

Jimmy
Really?

Dhershini
But squeezy.

Jimmy
This is not a round table, but a long table.

Dhershini
Long table, yeah. I’ve had this table for almost 20 years now.

Jimmy
Okay.

Dhershini
 I carried it from one house to my present house, so it’s very special. I like it when everybody gathers around the table, and everybody is just eating and talking and chatting and the meal never ends. We sometimes have a Sunday meal starting at lunch, and it goes on to tea and goes on to dinner. And then people are wondering, “Should we be going home now?” I love that. I love days like that, so that’s why I decided to call my book My Long Table.

Jimmy
How did you choose recipes for this book?

Dhershini
I chose the recipes that I thought would be applicable to many homes, and it’s not difficult to do. I always have to bear in mind that if I give you a recipe, it has to be doable. Because if I’m watching television, I can get a recipe from a professional chef, and that’s going to be difficult because he’ll tell you how to make a broth, how to boil this, and it’s so long-winded. But if it’s a home chef, I find it so easy to understand the recipe. So I had to bear in mind that these recipes will work for you.

Jimmy
At home, for idiots like me who can barely boil an egg.

Dhershini
Yeah. So I was very mindful of that.

Jimmy
So these are all recipes that are relatively easy to make.

Dhershini
Yes. They range from very, very easy to some that are a little bit elaborate, but it’s not difficult to do. Like a paella. You know, I just went to Barcelona, and I said, “I think my paella works.”

Jimmy
Oh, I see. So you went to the home of paella.

Dhershini
Yeah.

Jimmy
Mine has a standard.

Dhershini
Mine also got standard. But it is something that you can actually do at home.

Dhershini
It’s not difficult, and that’s in the book. So that’s why I wanted to do this book, because I had so many other recipes apart from the Indian recipes that are featured in my first two books, Indian Food Today and Step by Step Indian Cooking, and some of those recipes are also in this book because they are so good and people have been talking about it and telling me how it worked for them.

Jimmy
Oh, what has the reception been? Have people been buying it?

Dhershini
Yes. I think I’ve already sold more than 1,000 copies.

Jimmy
Oh my goodness.

Dhershini
Yes. I’m very happy with it, and people are rebuying it, which means they’ve introduced it to their friends.

Jimmy
Or they gave it away or something.

Dhershini
Yeah.

Jimmy
Buying it for friends.

Dhershini
Yes.

Jimmy
Oh, that’s wonderful.

Dhershini
It is. I’m so proud of this book, yes.

Jimmy
What is a relatively easy dish that we can make from your book besides payasam?

Dhershini
Besides payasam? There’s something called the vegetable stew, which you can have with bread, like a French loaf.

Jimmy
Hmm.

Dhershini
We usually have it with dosha and idli. It’s so easy to make. You boil your potatoes. Can I give you the recipe for it?

Jimmy
Yes, absolutely.

Dhershini
And I’ll tell you how easy it is.

Jimmy
It’s okay. Give it to us.

Dhershini
You boil a couple of potatoes until you can prick it with a fork and it’ll break open. And then you slice two onions, maybe two green chilies, have some curry leaves, and slices of ginger.

Jimmy
Oh, okay.

Dhershini
As you peel your boiled potatoes, mash it up. Not mash it up, but break it up a little bit and put in all the onions, the green chilies, the curry leaves, and the ginger. Add a bit of salt, and you bring it to a little boil, and there will be this fragrance that’ll just go all over your house. And after you’ve done that, you have some coconut milk, maybe a cup of coconut milk, and you add that to it. And I like to round off some of my curries with evaporated milk, so a dash of evaporated milk. You just give it a good stir, and you taste it, and just add some black pepper. Crush black pepper and a drizzle of coconut oil, and your dish is done.

Jimmy
Wow.

Jimmy
Okay, that does sound very easy.

Dhershini
It’s very easy, right? And it’s so amazing.

Dhershini
It’s so delicious.

Jimmy
And what is it called again?

Dhershini
It’s called vegetable stew.

Jimmy
Okay, now you have convinced me that I will have to be more adventurous in my cooking.

Dhershini
Yes.

Jimmy
How would Malayalee food, say, differ from food from other regions?

Dhershini
I think every region in India has something special. The Tamils do a different type of vegetables. Their vegetables are a little more curried or a little more masala-fied. They add a lot of spices, curry powders. That’s the kind of dishes that I’ve had. Malayalee dishes, on the other hand, are actually not hot at all.

Jimmy
Oh.

Dhershini
They’re not spicy unless you want to make it spicy. I have a potato masala. That’s something that’s spicy, and I love it because it goes very well with all my other non-spicy hot dishes. So, North Indian dishes are also very different. They’re all creamy and they’ve got a lot of additions of cumin seeds and different masala. So we all have different masala that go into our vegetables. I don’t see them as different in a bad way. I think it’s very good that all of India can boast about all the different…

Jimmy
Different regional variations.

Dhershini
Yes.

Jimmy
That’s one of the great things about India, but also one of the challenging things because it’s like, “Wow, what am I going to eat today?” Because there’s just so many possibilities.

Dhershini
Exactly, yeah.

Jimmy
I want to ask you to complete this sentence. Malayalee food is…

Dhershini
Is my definite go-to food.

Jimmy
Okay. All right. But obviously you would say that, right?

Dhershini
I would. But also because if I’m very hungry and I’m sitting and thinking about food, I will go back to the time when my mother made her delicious Malayalee food. My mother was one of those cooks who always believed in combinations. By combinations, I mean she would just not make one dal curry and keep it on the table and eat it with some rice. She will have this dal curry, and that’ll go with a fried fish and some other vegetables. So she had these combinations, like puris, you know? It’s this puffed bread. They must go with this potato masala and maybe some chili tomatoes or something. Or she will have a mango curry, and that one, because it’s made with yogurt, has to go with some chilli chicken. So she had these combinations. So sometimes when I’m hungry, I’m thinking, “Oh, maybe I should go and cook this,” and then I cannot stop at one dish, too. I must have a combination. That’s Malayalee food for me.

Jimmy
What is your comfort food?

Dhershini
Malayalee food?

Jimmy
Yeah. What is your comfort Malayalee food?

Dhershini
Actually, I really love this upma.

Dhershini
Upma is a breakfast dish made with semolina. But it’s also one of those dishes that you can find in different parts of India, but we Malayalees do that for breakfast as well, and I really like it.

Jimmy
Is that in your recipe book?

Dhershini
Yes.

Jimmy
Okay. Another recipe I need to look up.

Dhershini
Yeah.

Jimmy
Dhershini, thank you very much for joining us on the BiblioAsia+ podcast. Don’t miss watching Dhershini make jackfruit payasam on YouTube in From Book to Cook. All links and information can be found in the show notes or on the BiblioAsia website at biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg. 

Dhershini, thank you very much. Now, I’m sorry, but I’m very, very hungry because of all these amazing descriptions you’ve given me. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

Dhershini
Okay. Make Malayalee food.

Jimmy
I will be adventurous and try it. Thank you, Dhershini.

Dhershini
Thank you so much. 

[Music playing] 

Jimmy
If you’ve enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast and the BiblioAsia newsletter. Thanks for joining us on BiblioAsia+.

Dhershini Govin Winodan, My Long Table: Recipes & Memories (Singapore: Food Lingo, 2023).

Dhershini Govin Winodan, Indian Food Today (Singapore: Landmark Books, 1990).

This episode of BiblioAsia Podcast was hosted by Jimmy Yap and produced by Soh Gek Han. Sound engineering was done by Nookcha Films. The background music "Di Tanjong Katong" was composed by Ahmad Patek and performed by Chords Haven. Special thanks to Dhershini for coming on the show.

Produced by the National Library Singapore, the BiblioAsia Podcast tells stories about Singapore history.