Betel Leaf Parcels

WANDERING aimlessly through the wild and untended garden at my parents' home near Mangalore earlier this month, I came upon a betel leaf vine that had spread expansively on the ground like a leafy carpet, clung tenaciously to a tree trunk and had even stretched itself further to gain a stranglehold on the outer walls of the water tank! No wonder it's called Nagvalli in Sanskrit, which means "serpentine creeper".

The green profusion refreshed my memory of an article I had read about a betel leaf

wine, one of the concoctions of Coorg housewives who have a knack for making wine out of any fruit, including grapefruit! In comparison to a wide variety of fruity wines that I've sipped - [more recently an apricot by Lindisfarne Winery that we picked up along with a crumbly Cheshire cheese at The Cheese Shop in Chester, UK] - and even a vegetable wine such as beetroot, a "leafy" wine seemed quite a novelty.

Not new to making a few mean wines myself and with the leaves available in abundance for free, I thought it would be worth a try. It would be easy enough to source a recipe from the Internet, I reckoned, and proceeded to gather a thick wad of betel leaves that I brought back with me.

The search for the wine recipe, however, drew a blank but led to other interesting discoveries, such as the use of betel leaf as a food wrap in cooking!

Cabbage, pandan, turmeric, colocasia, banana, grape, jack fruit and even teak leaves are widely used in ethnic cuisines. Think patrani machi, cabbage leaf rolls, pathrode, patholeo and dolmas, but betel leaves seemed a bit offbeat.

From the dozens of recipes on the Net, I chose the Vietnamese Betel Wrapped Beef because it didn't sound too daunting for a first attempt. Moreover, my mother-in-law used to add a couple of betel leaves when making ghee from home-churned butter, which enveloped the entire house and beyond with a delicious aroma. If betel leaves could make a more fragrant ghee, then shouldn't it be the same with meat? I wasn't sure if such assumptions worked, but was brave enough to try.

Making a few changes to suit our tastes, I replaced cornstarch as the binding agent with ground Bengal gram dal and the Madras curry powder with *baffad powder besides fortifying it further with some green chilli, ginger and garlic, in addition to the scallion, black pepper, fish sauce and salt listed in the original recipe.

For 15 betel leaves I used:

400 gms minced beef
1/2 cup scallion, finely chopped
3 teaspoons fish sauce
3/4 teaspoon black pepper powder
1 1/2 tablespoons baffad powder
2 tablespoons ginger-garlic paste
3 green chillies
3 tablespoons Bengal gram dal, soaked for about an hour to soften
Salt to taste
2 tablespoons cooking oil

Grind the dal together with the green chillies, ginger-garlic paste and the baffad powder and mix well together with all the other ingredients (except oil). Form into sausage-like shapes, about 2-3 inches long. Place them on the back of the leaf, about half an inch below the pointed tip and roll downwards towards the stem. Secure with toothpicks. In a foil lined baking tray, drizzle some oil and arrange the parcels, drizzle some more oil on top and grill in a microwave oven (which is what I did) or bake in a preheated oven for about 25 minutes, turning them over and basting them in between.

*baffad powder: a curry powder commonly used
in Mangalorean and Goan cooking

PS: We unwrapped the 'parcels' and discarded the leaves before tucking in. The meat had well and truly imbibed the betel leaf  flavour - sharp and smoky with a slightly bitter tinge. Although it was a nice change from the usual and everyone ate it happily, deep down I know it will remain a one-off attempt. Try it once if you're brave enough like me!