Food

Meat curry ( read any red meat )

Red meat – 1 kilo
Coconut – 1/2
Kashmiri chillies – 8
Onion – 1 sliced
Tomato – 1
Garlic cloves – 8 with skin on
Cinnamon – 1 inch stick
Cardamom – 1
Cloves – 2
Coriander seeds – 11/2 tablespoon
Cumin seeds – 1 teaspoon
Pepper corns – 1/2 teaspoon
Poppy seeds – 1 teaspoon
Fenugreek seeds 1/4 teaspoon
Turmeric powder – 1/4 teaspoon

Carrot – 1 diced
Potato – one large diced
French beans – 100 grams cut into one inch size pieces

To cook the meat

Clean and wash the red meat. Cut it into one inch cubes. In a pressure cooker, add the meat, salt, six pepper corns and two bay leaves. Pressure cook this till the first whistle on a high flame and then drop the flame to minimum while you continue to cook the meat for twenty minutes. You will be left with cooked meat and stock which you need to strain and retain

For the gravy
In a pan, roast (dry, no oil) the following ingredients separately; coconut, red chillies, onions and garlic with skin on. Now roast the remaining dry ingredients together. Please don’t burn the ingredients the idea is to lightly crisp the ingredients which heightens the flavours and gives this dish it’s distinct flavour.

Grind all the ingredients above (garlic with the skin)  with the tomato into a fine paste. In a pot add oil and when heated add the ground masala. Stir this for three minutes on a medium flame adding the stock of the pressurized red meat of your choice to avoid the masala from burning . Now add the remaining stock and the meat along with the potatoes. Let this cook for fifteen minutes on low flame and finally add the carrots and french beans and turn off the gas. Cover the dish and allow the carrots and french beans to cook in the heat of the gravy.

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Art/ Heritage

OBJECTS AND STORIES – A Chalice and a Memoir of Dr. Leo Meurin, Archbishop of Bombay (1867 – 1886)

September 1, 1886 was a watershed in the history of the Archdiocese of Bombay. H.H. Pope Leo XIII issued a bull titled ‘Humanae Salutis’ by which Bombay was raised from the status of a Vicariate to that of an Archdiocese.

While this news served as an occasion of jubilation, the Catholics of Bombay were apprehensive. Their beloved Archbishop – Dr. Leo Meurin – who was summoned to Rome by Pope Leo XIII in July 1886 had not returned since. The Padroadists believed it was because of the two pamphlets the Archbishop had written against the patronage of the Portuguese kings while others surmised that the Pope would honour the Archbishop by conferring upon him the title of Cardinal.

Whatsoever the case, it was soon clear that Dr. Leo Meurin was not returning to back to the island city.  Instead, in 1887 he was nominated titular Archbishop of Nisibis and took charge of the diocese of Port Louis in Mauritius where he fought the good-fight against freemasonry and published a book titled ‘Freemasonry: Synagogue of Satan.’

 But who was Dr. Leo Meurin and why was his service so significant to our Archdiocese?

Johann Gabriel Leon Louis Meurin was born on January 23, 1825 in Berlin, Germany. He entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus and was ordained priest on September 23, 1848. Shortly after his ordination he was chosen secretary to Cardinal Johannes von Geissel, the Archbishop of Cologne. After nearly a decade, Dr. Meurin, along with other German Jesuits, set sail to India and landed in Bombay on October 27, 1858. Here, he served as a military chaplain in Pune and as a parish priest in Candolim, Goa.  However amidst the uncertainties of looming epidemics, a virulent attack of cholera left this enthusiastic priest handicapped among the lonely hills of Khandala. 

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Food

Poha – A dish that can be eaten from breakfast to tea time

Poha – 100 grams
Groundnuts – 10 grams
Potato – one very large cut into dices
Onions – two medium sized
Tomato one large
Curry leaves – two sprigs
Turmeric – 1/2 teaspoon
Mustard seeds – one teaspoon
Green chillies – 2 or 3
Ginger garlic paste – one teaspoon
Fresh coriander
Salt to taste


I took two medium sized onion and chopped it fine along with a tomato and two green chillies. I then diced one large potato which I fried in a little oil. I set the fried potato aside

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Art/ Heritage

A VOICE, A CHOICE: ‘Le Bon Pasteur’ by Jaques James Tissot (1886 – 1894); Brooklyn Museum

 Jacques Joseph Tissot, later anglicised as James Tissot, was born in 1836 near the busy port of Nantes, France to a prosperous draper. At the age of 17, he embarked upon his artistic mission which spanned three successful periods. In the first phase in Paris (1859-1870), he enjoyed great success as a high-society painter. He lived among rich aristocrats near the Arc De Triomphe in Paris. His leisured, well-secured life was soon skewered by the struggles of the French Revolution.

The fall of the Second Empire in 1870 and the bloody Franco Prussian war in 1871 compelled him to flee to London. Here, from 1871 to 1882, his career soared for the second time. However his successful eleven year sojourn ended in an emotional disaster. In 1882, his dearly loved mistress, Kathleen Newton died of consumption.

While working on a series of paintings themed, ‘The Woman of Paris’, James Tissot visited the Church of St. Sulpice in order to sketch the portrait of a choir singer. Amidst the patterns of brush and paint, he was drawn into a vision where he encountered Christ; Christ the Good Shepherd tending to the broken-hearted and the down trodden. This was his route to Damascus; his Metanoia! Deeply renewed in faith, Tissot now renewed his artistic vision.

He took off on a research trip to Holy Land, beginning his ten year campaign to illustrate the New Testament. The result of this endeavour was the magnanimous ‘Life of Christ’ popularly also known as ‘the Tissot Bible.’ It consists of a series of 350 water coloured paintings brimmed with profuse observations of the first century Jerusalem.

The painting in consideration is titled ‘The Good Shepherd’ and forms a part of the representations in the ‘Life of Christ.’ With lucid realism it elucidates the Gospel of John, chapter ten. The composition is visually divided into three significant segments – the background, the foreground and the protagonists.

The narrative unfolds amidst the dry and rugged terrain. The landscape is not bound by the monumental and exquisite architecture of the Renaissance. Rather it is swooped with stones and rocks. It introduces us to the wilderness of Jerusalem, a city that rests on a limestone plateau 2000 feet above sea level.

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Food

Cluster beans (gawar) cooked with prawns

Cluster beans is a bit of a put off for many because it has a slightly bitterish after taste. Cooked with the right combination of ingredients this humble vegetable can be taken to another level of flavour. Humbly, it marries well with masoor dal and is a great source of protein. Cluster beans are low in calories and is known to lower blood sugar and cholesterol levels. Cooked with prawns the cholesterol levels go out of the window.

Gawar/Cluster beans – 400 grams after cleaning
Prawns – 20 large
Tomatoes – 2 large diced evenly
Onion – one large minced fine
Potato – one large diced evenly to match the size of the tomatoes
Capsicum – one large diced evenly

Garlic – 7 cloves minced
Ginger – one inch minced
Green chillies – 3 minced
Curry leaves – 2 sprigs
Fresh coriander- half a hand full

Chilli powder- 3/4 teaspoon
Turmeric powder- 1/2 teaspoon
Cumin powder- 1 teaspoon
Coriander powder- 11/2 teaspoon

Oil as required
Salt to taste

If you want this dish to look presentable as all food should, then I recommend that you cut the cluster beans thumb nail size and maintain the same size cut for all vegetables except the onions.

Clean the prawns removing the central vein. Wash and marinate in a little turmeric and lime juice. Set aside for ten minutes and shallow fry in oil for not more than a minute on each side. Don’t overcook the prawns as we have to introduce it to the dish later.

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