Sri-Lankan Greens and Dhal Curry - A taste of SriLanka

The criminally cold wave has finally receded and the Calcutta winter has transformed back into the winter of my childhood - soft,sunny mornings, pleasant,warm afternoons and cold,clear nights. As we count down to 2012, people around me generally seem happier if but a bit pensive,probably reflecting on the days gone by. Irrespective of whether or not our world as we know it ends in 2012,this is a good time to be merry,spend time with family and be thankful for all that we have in our lives.On the cooking front,I am enthusiastically reading cookery books and scouring through food blogs and happily experimenting in my kitchen. Maybe, the joy of having my own food blog  is inspiring me on a regular basis.
I have never cooked or eaten anything remotely SriLankan before,therefore this event seemed like the perfect reason (read: excuse) to change that. For my debut into the world of SriLankan cuisine, I chose two simple,home-style vegetarian dishes for a lazy winter afternoon lunch.
Bengalis traditionally eat leafy greens as the first course of a meal (or second, if a 'bitter' dish is on the menu, in which case,that precedes). I chose this Sri-Lankan Mustard Greens recipe from Nupur's extremely popular blog Onehotstove and made some minor adjustments to it. She found this wonderful style of cooking greens from that culinary treasure trove, Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian.

Sri-Lankan Mustard Greens
(serves 2-3)

Ingredients:
1 bunch of fresh mustard greens
1/2 medium onion,cut into long strips
8-10 curry leaves
2-3 green chillies
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
salt to taste
1 tbsp white oil
2 tbsp milk

Procedure:
1.Wash the greens and then chop them into thin,long strands. Remove tough stems, if any.
2.Heat oil in a skillet/medium sized pan.
3.When the oil is heated, add chopped onions,chillies and the curry leaves.
4.Fry till the onion turns pink and add the greens. If the greens seem too much for the cooking vessel, add as much as the vessel will take and stir around. The leaves will wilt quickly, and then you can add the rest.
5.Add the turmeric and salt to taste,reduce the flame and stir well.
6.Once all the greens have wilted and have started giving out water,cover and cook on medium flame for 10-14 minutes.
7.Add the milk and switch off the flame.

Nupur added grated coconut at the last stage according to Madhur Jaffrey's suggestion. I try to avoid saturated fat like the coconut as much as I can, unless it's absolutely essential to the dish. The greens soak in the milk and it helps to sweeten the sometimes bitter taste of mustard greens. The resultant dish was mellow and flavorful,not to mention filled with the wholesome goodness of greens.What's even better, any kind of greens can be made in the above way.

To go alongside the mustard greens, I chose this Dhal Curry from srilankafood.net. The website has some other interesting Sri-Lankan recipes which I look forward to trying out in the coming days. I followed the recipe closely and didnot make any changes.

The combination of onions and curry leaves (same as in the greens) and generous addition of milk came together to create a silken-textured Dhal that was very different from our Bengali way of cooking Masoor Dal with nigella and onions or the Punjabi Dal-Fry with onions,tomatoes and cilantro, the two ways in which I normally cook Masoor Dal.

I served the Dhal Curry and the Sri-Lankan Mustard Greens with some freshly steamed rice. They will also go well with whole-wheat Rotis.

The Flavours of :Series 2 Asia event  is hosted here at simply.food by Nayna and all through this December, Priya at Mharo Rajasthan's Recipes is hosting the theme for this month - Flavors of Srilanka. Today being the 30th of December, I just about made it in the nick of time to participate in the event. I am looking forward to picking up a lot of recipes and tips when the event round-up is declared. I know I definitely want to cook and eat more of this beautiful island nation's food which I know so less of.

Calcutta is at 10 degrees this Christmas. T-E-N. That's like being under the freezing point in the collective mind of us Calcuttans. The chill in the air however hasn't been able to dampen the spirits of folks of this city who truly believe in livin' it up. Friend S informed me of long queues at the city's old Jewish bakery Nahoum's since the past two days. Their Rum Balls and Yule Logs, amongst other goodies, are to die and kill for. Park Street is all beautifully lit up for Christmas and there was even a three hundred strong 'young at heart' flash mob last Sunday to usher in the holidays. Here's a link to it - KOLKATA FLASHMOB OFFICIAL VIDEO.
I am a terrible baker and much as I want to bake awesome stuff that I have bookmarked over the years from  my favourite blogs, I have to rely on store-bought stuff for this time of the year. A few people always are kind enough to gift us home-baked cakes and they never taste as good as they do these days, even if they are the plain old vanilla/butter/chocolate pound cakes.As I write this post on the Christmas evening, we have already been through a Butter Loaf pound cake and individually portioned fruit cakes from Kathleen. A large Dundee Cake and another 'dandy' cake are still waiting to be opened. Our collective sweet teeth are overjoyed and very pleased.
What I did make on two of these chilly nights was Chicken, a stew with vegetables the first night and then the next day, a simple Bengali style Chicken Curry,with the heat quotient slightly notched up with the addition of whole peppercorns. I adapted the stew from Bong Mom's recipe here, and tweaked it according to our liking by omitting the zucchini and adding whole onions instead. All of us in the family love the taste of steamed sweet whole onions in a stew or soup. I also left out the handful of coriander leaves at the end,but it seems like a nice addition.

Chicken Stew with Seasonal Vegetables

The Chicken curry was a generic Bengali style Murgir Jhol - which roughly translates to Chicken in Gravy - made from freshly roasted and ground spices and flavoured with aromatic herbs.

                                               MURGIR JHOL - Bengali style Chicken Curry

How I did it -


Marinate
400 gms of Chicken + 50 gms of Chicken Liver
with
1 tsp ginger paste
1 tsp garlic paste
1 tsp of turmeric powder
2 tsp of lemon juice
salt
and keep it aside for an hour.

Next, heat 4 tbsp of oil (I prefer mustard,you can use sesame/soy/groundnut/canola/sunflower - whatever you prefer) in a heavy bottomed pan.
Temper the oil with 2 sticks of cinnamon,3-4 green cardamoms, 2-3 cloves and 7-8 whole peppercorns..
Add 4 finely chopped medium sized red onions and fry till onions are soft and translucent.
Add 2 tsp ginger paste + 2 tsp garlic paste. Fry on medium heat for 3-4 minutes.
Next,add 1 tbsp of cumin + coriander powder. I always use freshly roasted and ground spices for an elevated taste.
Add 2-3 slit green chillies
Add 3 peeled and halved potatoes, and fry well with the masala.
After about 4-5 minutes, add the marinated chicken along with all the marinade,increase heat and fry well.
Frying the chicken,i.e the "koshano" part is very important, and this step must be continued for atleast a good 12-15 minutes,till the chicken isn't pink any more and oil starts to separate from the masala.
Add 1 medium tomato chopped and stir a bit.
Add 1 tsp of garam masala powder, 1 tsp of red chilly powder, 1 tsp of turmeric and Salt to taste. Keep in mind the amount of salt you've added at the marination stage. Stir well to combine everything and coat the meat with the spices well.
Add about 3 cups of hot water and bring to boil.
Reduce the flame, cover and cook for 16-18 minutes till the meat is cooked. It should be falling apart from the bones at this stage.
Check seasoning, add little bit of water if needed,sprinkle with chopped fresh parsley and squeeze half a lemon over the curry. Simmer for 2-3 minutes.
Serve hot with plain rice or rotis.

Have a very merry Christmas everyone! For once, let's pay heed to Marie Antoinette's famous saying," If they cannot eat bread, let them eat cake!" Be safe and sound, may You enjoy a wonderful meal and wonderful time with your family and friends, and go to bed well-fed,feeling comforted and loved and blessed tonight! Amen!

Mauve-hued Macaroni - An Ode to the Beetroot

A few days back, neighbour girl M's mom Aunty A faced a strange dilemma.Her husband who stays in Darjeeling, a beautiful hill-station at  the foothills of the Himalayas had couriered over a huge carton of fresh vegetables. Now Aunty A is proud grand-mommy to the cutest and naughtiest two year old boy who keeps her on her toes 24x7,running,playing,falling from all sorts of places imaginable, occassionally stopping to blow flying kisses at me from his balcony,which is directly opposite to mine.Now as much as that is very very nice and adorable in my opinion, poor aunty A does not take running around so much after the kid in quite the right spirit,especially at her age. She is left with little time or energy or desire to cook or experiment in the kitchen,and as much as she was glad to receive the gift from Uncle A, she was only too glad to offer me my pick from the array of vegetables that was too much for their little family. I exercised restraint and only chose some crisp french beans and a beautiful large beetroot that when peeled, revealed a glossy,red body and appeared so juicy that I wanted to cook it then and there.
It took me only a couple of minutes to decide on making a red/pink sauce with the vegetable and cook some pasta in it for a filling evening snack/an early dinner. There was spaghetti and macaroni in the pantry,I decided on using the latter.A quick search through the bookmark folder and some blogs I read gave me a basic idea about how to go about it, and I went about cooking with pantry staples to create a tasty pasta dish that highlighted the beautiful vegetable.

Here's what I did -

In a small kadhai, I heated 2 tbsp of Olive Oil on medium heat. Olive Oil should not be smoked on high heat.
Added 3 cloves of finely chopped garlic.
Next,I added half a large green capsicum,julienned and fried.
After around 3-4 minutes, I added cubed pieces of one large Beetroot and fried.
I chopped a small tomato and added it .
After 2 minutes,I added  a cup of milk and some warm water.
At this point the vegetable will start bleeding a gorgeous red colour into the liquid and a pinkish sauce will slowly start to form.
Lowering the heat,I added a teeny blob of butter and gave the mixture one final stir and let the beet cook in the sauce. This will take around 12-15 minutes.
Meanwhile,I cooked about 3 cups of macaroni till al dente according to the instructions on the packet and then drained it and kept aside.
If the sauce seems to stick meanwhile,You can always add more milk. so that there is enough sauce to coat all the pasta. Add salt and pepper and check for seasoning.
When the beet seems just cooked,i.e. is cooked but still has a bite to it,add the pasta to the sauce and stir well to coat the pasta in the sauce.
Sprinkle your choice of herbs - I used Oregano and Red Chilli Flakes.Give it a final stir.
Top with grated cheese, switch off the flame and cover for a while to let the cheese melt.
Serve Hot.

 

This Pasta was wonderful,to say the least. The sauce was delicious, just the right amount of sweet and spicy.I normally always cook macaroni in a white sauce, this was such a wonderful deviance from that. The whole thing came together just perfectly, each element working together in complete harmony to create a creamy textured pasta dish that's packed with all the nutritious goodness of the beetroot. Betaine, found naturally in beets, helps reduce blood pressure and hypertension and is very effective in maintaining the wellness of the heart and the liver. Oh, and did I mention that the dish looks oh so stunningly mauve and pink and burgundy - all at the same time! It is a riot of colours on the plate and an explosion of taste on the palate and leaves one cook and a couple of eaters very,very happy indeed!

Begun Bhaaja - A fried slice of heaven!

So winter has truly set in Calcutta in all it's might and even as I'm typing this post in, I'm shivering under multiple layers of fabric.The particular locality that I stay in is a very busy part of the city,pretty chaotic and choc-a-bloc with traffic well upto midnight. As a result,alongside the cold,we also have to get through thick fog (sometimes even smog) these days. The balcony with it's warm winter afternoon sun is the place to be now,one simply wants to curl up on a chair with a good book wrapped in a snuggly blanket and snooze off. But one also has to eat, and simple items like a crispy fried slice of a vegetable with hot rotis or even with the simple dal and rice is a treat these days. They seem to warm up the body and soul and we all could do with some fried stuff in winter, the body stores up the 'wee bit' of fat as a protection mechanism against the cold weather and it's many accompanying ailments.
I am perennially in love with vegetables, especially the beautiful looking ones, and even though I'm a non-vegetarian, there are vegetables I'd kill for, especially the winter bounty.I am a true December baby and I love every single vegetable that this season offers - creamy cauliflowers, crunchy cabbages,tender turnips, brilliant beets, crispy carrots and gorgeous green peas.So much of colour, so much of beauty. The best part of it is  that a vegetable that I find so mundane in the summer,when it's all purple and skinny and worm-infested and tasteless (to my palate), all of a sudden transforms into this pale green,thick, juicy, delicious avatar!

It is a glorious makeover crafted by the greatest craftsman, Mother Nature and it is such a treat to eat this beautiful,juicy and tender vegetable. Or even look at it and admire it for a long, long time before cutting it up.


Many weekday winter nights, we roast this tender eggplant over a hot tawa on the flame to make a Punjabi style spicy Baingan Bharta (recipe here and an exotic version here), but for a leisurely winter afternoon lunch, I love to cook them into the Begun Bhaaja - Begun(pronounced Bay-Goon) is the Bengali word for eggplants, and Bhaaja stands for fried. It is a simple as can be,fast to cook dish that pairs very well with a plate of  hot steamed Rice and Dal. Many Bengalis  will have it with Roti or Luchi for Sunday/special day breakfast, with a green chilly by the side.A lot of Bengali kids I've known while growing up would bring it to school in their lunch boxes.


To make the Begun Bhaaja, I simply cut the above eggplant into about 1.5-2 inches thick roundels and then halved them and marinated them for about 10 minutes with 1 tsp of turmeric powder, 1/2 tsp of red chilly powder and salt to taste. 

Meanwhile, I heated a frying pan with mustard oil for deep-frying. You could also use your preferred white oil but then Bong food and mustard oil go hand in hand.The taste will be markedly different. Once the oil is heated, reduce the flame to medium and deep fry the slices till they are cooked to crispy golden brown, lightly charred on the sides perfection. It takes hardly 5-6 mins for each slice to cook on medium heat. For a healthier version, shallow fry on a non-stick pan , like you'd fry a patty/tikia, just that this will seem like a very big piece of patty/tikia. You will also have to do them one by one or two together at most.Serve hot with roti/luchi/puri/paratha or eat with rice and dal. You will be addicted to it, I believe.

One of these days,I'm planning to cook this beautiful vegetable into this fantastic looking Shorshe Begun - eggplant cooked in a mustard gravy. Something similar called Begun Basanti is served by some Bengali caterers especially in vegetarian feasts, but they are mostly very generic fried eggplants slathered with ill-seasoned mustard pastes and taste pretty much bland. This may just be the perfect answer to all those plain-jane eggplant concoctions that I've eaten over the years.

Happy Birthday Maa - a mini feast!

For most of the past week, an ear infection and resulting complications had me in discomfort and agony.Even though I went about the necessary work and chores,this post took an unfortunate backseat even though I had meant to blog about it asap.6th of this month was the birthday of the most important person in my life- my Maa. She is a succesful criminal lawyer here in Calcutta and even though now she's well into her sixties,she's going as strong as ever. She is the bravest and nicest person I know, and I firmly believe that I am a very lucky girl to have her as my mother. Now 6th was also Muharram this year and hence a holiday, so I decided to cook her a little feast all by myself (okay,my maid helped a lot with grounding the spice paste and Dad did all the shopping).My mom loves fish,she doesn't care much about any other kind of meat,and she also loves her rice. Rice and Fish make a true Bengali as they say. I settled on these divine looking dishes from my bookmarks, and after long hours of hard work in the kitchen, managed to produce the following.

For the Rice dish - I chose this sublime Peas Pulao from Jugalbandi. I omitted the saffron as I didn't have any at hand,but it tasted great even without.A great quality Basmati rice goes a long way in making this dish of stellar quality.

For the 'fish' course - I chose this exotic sounding Prawn Paatia from Bong Mom aka Sandeepa. Technically,prawn isn't fish,but I had wanted to make this for as long as I can remember,and it turned out so utterly delicious,that everyone were licking their fingers off by the end of it. I followed Sandeepa's recipe meticulously,however,my dish came out slightly darker in colour than her's. Here is a close look at this rich and decadent dish,made with fresh Tiger prawns.

And lastly, what is a birthday without Paayesh? And with flavourful Notun Gur in the pantry, it would be sacrilege on my part not to make it for the birthday girl. So here is a bowl of Paayesh flavoured with Khejur Gur (Date Palm Jaggery - the sugarcane variety can never come close in taste).

All families have their own recipe for Rice Kheer/Payasam/Paayesh - in a nutshell, I cooked 1/2 a cup of Kamini Aatop (a short-grained rice variety used in Bengal specifically for Paayesh) in 1.5 litres of whole milk scented with 3 green cardamoms and 2 bay leaves.The rice is added when the milk has started to boil and cooked till done.It takes about 45-50 minutes on medium heat.Once the rice is done, I added a cup of sugar,stirred the thickened milk mixture till the sugar was fully dissolved(about 5-10 mins).Once the vessel is taken off heat,about half a cup of date palm jaggery is added and stirred slowly - the jaggery melts and dissolves within the Paayesh to lend it a beautiful,warm shade of brown and unbelievable taste. This Paayesh tastes best when a little chilled,all the sweetness and creaminess magically melts into one mouthful of sinful goodness!

The birthday girl was happy and felt pampered by the end of the meal and I was happy at having made the effort. Here's looking at many more wonderful birthdays for my parents!

Paneer Matar with lots of Butter!

I have been in love with Sandeepa's blog - Bong Mom's Cookbook for as long as I can remember. Her writing is warm and funny and her recipes are fabulous. They actually turn out to be much better than what the photos/recipe promise and I have never been unhappy about trying out any of her posts as of today.My bookmark folder is overflowing with must-cook-asap posts and her posts take up a major chunk of that folder. To put it simply,I want to cook and eat her whole blog. Everything in it just appears incredibly warm and nice and honest to me.Here is a fabulous paneer recipe from her's that I have been meaning to try out for some time now. It just so happened that last Monday, the pantry had almost everything that this recipe called for, and I jumped at the opportunity of cooking some delicious hot buttery Paneer for dinner. I tweaked in a few things here and there, made an addition of fresh green peas to the curry and omitted the cashew paste that the original recipe called for, plus controlled the butter and cream part as best as I could. It didn't really  make any difference to the taste part - the resulting dish was as buttery and flavorful as any good Butter Paneer I'd ever eaten.

PANEER MATAR BUTTER MASALA
(serves 2-3)

Heat 2 tbsp of white oil in a nonstick pan. Sprinkle some salt and rub some kasoori methi over cubed 300 gms of Paneer. Lightly fry the pieces till they acquire a light golden colour. Take out and keep aside.
Cook half a cup of shelled green peas in salted water till done, about 6-8 mins. They should be cooked but yet have a bite to them.Take out and keep aside.
Heat 1 tbsp oil + 1 tbsp butter/ghee in a kadhai.
Temper with 1/2 tsp of methi seeds and 2 big,black cardamoms. I used the small green ones as I didn't have the black ones. When the spices splutter, add 2 medium sized finely chopped red onions. Fry till the onions change colour to a light brownish golden.
Add 2-3 tbsp of ginger-garlic paste. Stir and cook on medium heat for 4 minutes.
Add about a cup of tomato puree. Stir and cook till the water dries up, about 7-8 minutes.*
(see note below)
Sprinkle 1 tbsp of Kasoori Methi,1-2tsp of Red chilli powder/Kashmiri mirch and 1 tsp of Garam Masala Powder. 
Fry till the raw smell is gone, and at the stage when you will find the oil separating from the mixture, add about   1.5-2 cups of milk, and salt to taste. stir well to combine in the gravy. Taste and add 1 tbsp of sugar if you feel the need.Let the gravy come to a boil,add the green peas, cover and simmer till it thickens a bit.
Add the fried paneer pieces a few minutes before serving and let it absorb the gravy for some time. You can add more milk if you want a lighter gravy at this stage.Check for seasoning and Serve hot with Rotis/Naan and a fresh salad on the side.It even tastes fabulous the next day on a thick slice of toast for a midday brunch.

*(Note : Sandeepa adds almost double the amount of puree, but since I decided to skip the sweet fatty stuff like heavy cream and cashew that she adds later,this is the right amount else the resulting dish will be too sour)

This post goes to Vardhini of Zesty Palette's brainchild event 'Dish it Out'. This blog event celebrates the pairing of two fabulous culinary ingredients, and this month the theme is 'Tomato and Cheese'. Anamika at Taste Junction is hosting it. This is also my first participation in a blog event ever and I'm mighty excited.

Warm Noodle Love

My favourite season of the year is here and it certainly is here in all its glory. Mornings are chilly, I don't feel like leaving the comfort of my snuggly blanket at all, a warm soup seems like the best thing ever and there are times I wish I had a furry dog to cuddle with, they are always so warm and loving You know! Also, been facing thinker's block for a couple of days now, what with this sudden dip in the mercury, and general sneezing and coughing all around, maybe my favourite time of the year does have quite a few, er, hiccups. But then again, my birthday and mom's birthday both will arrive in a few days, and it will be Christmas soon. Christmas lights on Park street and Rum Balls from Nahoum alone make up for all the not nice things about winter.Oh, and then there will be Home Alone on the TV for sure one of these days! Totally Looking forward :-)

In the general pursuit of warm, soul-heating, simple food items to feed me and a friend on such a cold afternoon, a simple stir-fried noodles with seasonal vegetables seemed like the ideal choice. Chop, chop chop the veggies while watching a re-run of MasterChef, boil the noodles, stir fry in a wok and add your favourite sauce(s), stir some more on high heat and Voila!it's done.

STIR-FRIED NOODLES WITH SEASONAL VEGETABLES
(or,what Bengalis/Indochinese Experimenters call, Vegetable Chowmein)

INGREDIENTS-
Any thin noodles - 300 gms (I used Egg noodle)
Seasonal Vegetables - I used -
Potatoes - 1 medium, diced
Onions - 2 medium, julienned
Carrots - 1 medium - diced
Cucumbers - 1 medium - diced
Garlic - 4 cloves - finely diced
Green Chillies- 2, finely chopped
Assortment of Sauces - I used -
Fresh Tomato Sauce - 2 heaped tbsp
Dark Soy Sauce - 2 tsp
Red Chilli Sauce/Your preferred hot sauce - 2 tsp
Salt and Black Pepper Powder to taste
White Oil - (I used Peanut) 2 tbsp

PROCEDURE -
1.Cook the noodles in boiling salted water till al dente, (firm to the bite.)Drain the water and spread on a flat dish to dry.
2.Parboil the tougher vegetables(here, carrots and potatoes) in boiling water for 5-7 minutes. Drain the water and make sure to take them out before getting cooked completely
3.Heat oil in a wok and add chopped onions and garlic. Saute.
4. Add parboiled vegetables and cucumber.Continue frying.
5.Add the noodles to the wok,add green chillies, salt,pepper and mix.
6.Add the sauces.Soy sauce is salty so add carefully. Go easy on the hot sauce or go all out, depending on how much heat you can take.Mix well.
7.Continue stir-frying for 3-5 minutes till the noodle is evenly coated with the sauce and the veggies are cooked just right. Serve hot.


Stir-fried Noodles are ready for me and friend M. Now for tucking into the warm goodness and some dishy girl-talk!

p.s..I also made some Aviyal, that classic Kerala favourite, last week. I more or less went with Shammi's classic recipe here that was passed down to her by her Mom, with a few minute changes depending on what I had in hand. More on that coming up in the next post!