Sichuan Sauce - It's very very Hot!

I had gifted myself quite a few cookbooks at the beginning of the new year, an astounding eight of them by celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor. He ofcourse needs no introduction to any Indian. I've always loved his Khana Khazana series on Zee Tv and he is largely responsible for changing the way cooking and eating is perceived in this country, Heck, he made being a chef cool long before India was introduced to MasterChef and Nigella Lawson and Gordon Ramsay. One of the books I bought is simply titled Street Food. It s a small, compact guide to about forty odd popular street-food items from all over India, with beautiful pictures and detailed, well-written, simple to follow recipes. For this upcoming Republic Day (read: Holiday on a Thursday), I have planned to try out a couple of recipes from this book. Both of the recipes will be needing the very hot and delicious Sichuan Sauce, and as we all know, any sauce/relish/chutney made a few days before, really blends in well and imbibes all the various flavours of the core ingredients to become so much more tasty. Also, on a side note, it saves time to make it earlier and have it handy, assembling the dish just gets much more snappy.



SICHUAN SAUCE - Chinese style Hot Sauce
(adapted from a recipe by Sanjeev Kapoor, from the cookbook STREET FOOD)

Ingredients

10 dried red chillies
2 chopped green chillies
10 chopped garlic cloves
2 chopped spring onions
1 inch ginger,grated
1/2 cup of vegetable stock
3 tbsp tomato ketchup
2 tsp vinegar
2 chopped stalks of spring onions
salt
1/3 cup white oil (preferably sesame)
1 cup water

Procedure

Boil the red chillies in the water 1 cup of for 7 minutes.
Let it cool and grind to a fine paste.
In the meantime,heat the oil in a wok, reduce the heat to medium,add the garlic,ginger,green chillies and spring onions and saute for a minute.
Add the red chilli paste and continue to saute.
Add the vegetable stock, tomato ketchup and salt to taste.
Add the vinegar and the chopped stalks of spring onions.
Cover and simmer for a minute.
Take off the heat and let it come to room temperature.
Transfer to an air-tight container and cool in the fridge for a couple of days.

Verdict -

This is a super hot, super delicious sauce. Use in Chinese/Indo-chinese cooking to make Sichuan fish, chicken, paneer ,potatoes, babycorn or mushroom by deep-frying the protein/vegetable in a batter and then cooking them with onions,capsicum,this sauce and cornflour. This sauce goes fabulously with steamed/fried momos as well. I will be putting up two popular Indian snack items using this sauce in my future posts.

Poush-Sankranti Sweets - Patishapta and Dudh-Puli

There are many ways in which we Indians celebrate Makar Sankranti. Astrologically, it is the day when the Sun leaves Capricorn and enters Aquarius. In Bengal, it is the last day of the month of Poush, hence this day is more commonly referred to as Poush-Sankranti or Poush-Parbon (the Poush festival) in my land. Last year, on this day, I was in Pune assisting on a film shoot and celebrated this day by having some delicious Pongal courtesy my TamBram friend and editor-extraordinaire A.Whether one is in Bengal or in Southern India, the basic ingredients of celebrating Sankranti remain the same - molasses,coconut and newly harvested rice. The bounty that mother earth generously offers us during this time remains more or less the same throughout this geographically and culturally diversified land that we call home. Bengalis religiously celebrate this day with Pithe and Payesh  - Pithe (pronounced Pee-Thay, Th as in Thunder, with a strong T) stands for a broad range of steamed,fried,cooked in milk and dunked in syrup sweet goodies and Payesh is a milk based pudding, made with the first Rice crop of the year and flavoured with Notun Gur (fresh Date Palm molasses).
Most of the traditional Bengali cooking that I know comes from my Dida - my grandmother who was an extraordinary cook and an even better human-being.I like to believe that I've inherited my knack and love for cooking from her, although I'll never be as good as her in every which way..Two of my favourite Pithe-s that form a major part of my childhood memories are PatiShapta and Dudh-Puli. Dida made both of them religiously for every Poush Parbon of the ten years that I had with her,and this day remains one of the days of the year when I miss her the most. Not just for the food, but for the incredible amount of love that used to go into her spendng hours and hours over preparing these two goodies that I used to love so much. Wherever You are Dida, please know that I thought of You throughout the day while making them this weekend.

                                   

 PATISHAPTA - Bengali Stuffed Sweet Crepes

PatiShapta (pronounced Paa-Tee-Shaap-Taa) is a sweet crepe stuffed with a crunchy coconut-molasses stuffing. Some households and most sweet shops will add Kheer (here it means cooked and sweetened thickened milk, not payasam/rice pudding) to the stuffing.

For The Stuffing -

Grate 1 large coconut. If using pre-grated/desiccated coconut, use sweet and succulent version, and not the very dry variety. Add about 150 gms of fresh Date Palm Molasses* to it. Knead into a soft mixture. Transfer to an non-greased frying pan. On very low heat, stir continuously for 10- 12 minutes, till the mixture turns into a sizzling rich brown colour and gives off an amazing aroma.Take off flame and let it come to room temperature. We will use the same stuffing for the other Pithe i.e, Dudh-Puli as well.

* - Notun Khejur Gur, preferably Jhola Gur of the best standard that you can get. If you aren't Bengali, take the help of a Bong to source/procure this item. Any other Jaggery esp Sugarcane will not do at all.

 The Batter for the Crepes -

Make a batter using 1 cup of all purpose flour (Maida), 1/3 cup semolina (sooji/rawa),1 tbsp of molasses and 1 cup of milk.The consistency should be that of a pancake batter, of dripping consistency yet not very thin.
Cover and let it rest for a couple of hours at room temperature. This measurement will yield 8-10 crepes.

Final Stage - Frying the Patishapta -

1.Put a non-stick frying pan on heat. Grease a non-stick pan using the sliced round end of an eggplant (using the stalk intact as a handle) dipped in ghee or white oil . This is specifically the method used in Bengal for greasing the frying pan whilst making this particular Pithe.

2.Stir the previously made batter once to ensure uniform consistency. Lower the heat to medium .Drop a ladle full of batter into the frying pan and spread into a large circle using the back of the ladle..When the batter turns opaque on the side facing upwards, place the stuffing on it like this.

3. Using a spatula, fold over the end of the crepe over the stuffing.

4. Continue to fold till the shape becomes like this.

5 Fry for a couple of minutes till the Patishapta becomes completely opaque and sizzling light golden in colour. Take out and Serve.

DUDH-PULI - fried stuffed pastry dunked in  creamy milk sauce

 For the Pastry Shell -

Knead 1 cup of refined/all purpose flour(maida) with 1 tbsp of shortening (Ghee/white oil) and water. Cover the dough with a damp cloth and let rest for 15-20 minutes.

The Stuffing -

We will use the same stuffing as used in the PatiShapta above. 

Making the Puli-s-

1.Divide the dough into little rounded balls. The above measurement will yield about 12 balls. 

2.Using a lightly greased rolling pin on a clean, flat surface, roll the balls out to circles of about 4 cm diameter (the approx size of a Puri/Luchi).

3.Place 1 tbsp of the stuffing near the centre of the circle.Fold to bring to the shape of a semi-circle.With slightly wet fingers, fold the lower surface of the curve of the semi-circle towards the upper inner side bit by bit and press to join (refer to pic). Do the same with all the balls of the dough.

4. Heat oil in a large frying vessel for deep-frying. Fry the pastries over medium-heat till crispy golden brown on both sides. Remove with a slotted spoon.

N.B.-They can be consumed as it is at this stage.They are called Bhaja-Puli (fried puli) or Chandra-Puli (the crescent shaped Puli). But wait, I am not done yet!

Make the Dunking Sauce -

Bring to boil 1 litre of whole milk.Reduce flame, add a handful of green cardamoms and keep on stirring at regular intervals.Do this for atleast twenty minutes or till the milk reduces to almost half.Add 1/2 a cup of sugar and keep on stirring.After about ten more minutes, switch off the flame, and after a few minutes add 2 tbsp of molasses.The milk mixture will turn beautifully warm-hued. 

The Final Step -

Add the fried pulis to the milk sauce. Make sure they are well-immersed.

Cover and let stay for a couple of hours and then freeze for atleast 5-6 hrs before serving.I prefer leaving them in the fridge overnight or maybe even for 2 days, that is if one can resist the temptation for so long. They taste incredible when they are allowed to soak in all the milky goodness for so long. Serve chilled,

Paneer Maggi

For a lot of us growing up in the late 80's/early 90's India, a bowl of Maggi noodles was equivalent to restaurant goodness at home. It certainly was not made many times in my household,with the kitchen being the domain of  Dida (my Grandmother) - a fabulous cook who prided herself on her repertoire of traditional Bengali recipes and practically scoffed at the idea of 2 minute instant noodles. Mom has always been a full-time working woman (she's a lawyer) and hence never had much of a say in the day to day culinary decisions. I remember when I was in the second standard, it was the year 1992, we were given free promotional samples of Maggi noodles at school, and all through the return journey on the school bus, all of us little excited giggly girls discussed about the upcoming delicious treat that awaited us at home,tightly clenching our individual Maggi packets in our little fists. Dida did grudgingly make the Maggi for me (her logic - processed food not good for kids) and to a seven year old me, that was at that time the best thing I'd ever eaten,even though now twenty years later, at age twenty-seven, I know for a fact that it is her time-consuming and painfully 'recreated from scratch' traditional dishes that I miss the most.
I still make Maggi quite a lot ,after all, it is one of the fastest short-cuts to take in the kitchen when one is tired/has no time/is feeling lazy/stressed/over-worked /is plain bored like our modern lives leave many of us quite often. But I've never been the one to do regular things in the regular way, and making Maggi is no exception. I am an incorrigible experimenter when it comes to food, and cannot even leave instant noodles in peace. A lot of us probably add vegetables to instant noodles to up their nutritional value, I've added all sorts of spices and temperings, cooked them in pasta sauces,cooked them in soups/broths and served them raw smeared with the masala that comes alongside in my cooking lifetime. A lot of college canteen cooks evidently come from the same school as me, our college canteen served Maggi with peas and carrots,spiced with a lot of red chilly powder which was a big time crowd pleaser! The IIT-KGP canteen's Egg Maggi is of legendary stature, a lot of alumni will tell you fondly about how they survived for months on it. I fondly recalled these stories as I read this post on a blog called Healthy Home Cooking some time back, the author mentions Paneer Maggi being a mass-favourite at the BITS, Pilani canteen. It is not an active blog anymore, but has a few very interesting recipes, and earlier this week, for a weeknight dinner, I re-created the Paneer Maggi based on the recipe provided.





                                                              PANEER MAGGI
                                                (adapted from this recipe here, serves 2)

The Cooking Part -
Finely chop 1 carrot, a handful of green beans and cook them on boiling water on stove-top till tender but firm.
Shell about half a cup of green peas.
Cube 200 gms of Paneer and shallow fry on a non-stick pan with 2 tbsp of white oil till the sides acquire a lovely golden brown colour.
In a deep bottomed vessel, heat 1 tbsp of white oil.
Add 2 medium chopped onions and saute till pink.
Add 1/2 a medium chopped capsicum and fry.
Add the peas and carrots and beans.
Lower the heat to medium, add the tastemaker from 2 Maggi masala packets and a tsp of Red chilly powder. Stir well to mix the spices with the vegetables.Fry for 2 minutes.
Add the fried Paneer pieces.
Add about 1 tbsp of tomato ketchup and 1/2 tbsp of chilly sauce (optional).
Add 4-5 cups of water, stir around, check for seasoning, if you need, add some salt to taste at this stage.
Add the 2 noodle cakes,break them with the tip of a spatula, cover and let simmer in the water for 2-3 minutes.
Remove cover and cook for a couple of minutes if all the water hasn't been absorbed as yet.
Serve Hot.

The Eating Part -
I made this on a night when everyone at home was over-worked and over-stressed. There is something sinfully comforting about a hot bowl of Maggi noodles and this was no exception. It was slurpily delicious, and the addition of creamy paneer and crunchy vegetables only upped the taste quotient. Verdict - Too good, and is a keeper recipe! We all need some loving and hugging once in a while, and this is just the food equivalent of that on a cold,tired night.

A Closer Look - :)

Soya Chilly - Quizzing,Reading and Cooking on New Year's Night

A lot of what we end up cooking on a day to day basis as home cooks results from what the pantry holds for us as compared to what we really want to be cooking. In my mind, I  had planned for exotic,international,five star standard dishes to magically appear on our dining table on the New Year's Night. In reality,work and partying the previous night meant lack of adequate sleep and a late start to the New Year's day. Lunch was a simple homely affair of rice,dal and a chicken curry. However I was hoping to make up for it at night, inviting over some friends for dinner and planning out and cooking up a long and festive dinner menu.
The good thing (or bad) with me is that I wear too many hats for one sane person. I have too many interests, and I want to actively pursue all of them. One of those passions is quizzing, and has been since I was a toddler, boosted by my inborn Sagittarian trait of curiosity.I am a fairly active quizzer, and the city of Calcutta is well known for it's tradition of organising school, college and open quizzes on almost every other weekend, where a group of curious souls gather in fairly large numbers and spend away evening after evening in the pursuit of knowledge. It is an elitist group to belong to, where intelligence,knowledge and IQ sets you apart from the rest and the best minds of the city are to be found here, and over the years, I have become a small but regular part of this circle that I feel very privileged to be a part of. I have made some great friends here thanks to this perennial hobby of mine and quizzing is such an integral part of my life that I plan to continue it for as long as possible. Thanks to social networking sites, quizzing is reaching greater heights and finding interested takers even in small towns of India nowadays. Now, the point of saying all this is that when friends and fellow quizzers T and S who both live outside Calcutta (T works in Bangalore and S studies in USA) and were in town for the New Year's, decided to jointly organise an open quiz on New Year's evening - I just had to go, even if it meant drastically cutting down the festive new year dinner menu to just One main course and Roti and not inviting any guests over at all.
The quiz was fun - it was on Films,Entertainment,Sports and Technology, and me and my teammates R and V  had a gala time trying to figure out answers to varied questions on topics like why contemporary white rapper girl Ke$sha uses a dollar sign in her name instead of the mundane S to exactly which Hindi film connects Pele the footballer with a hindi film called Jurmana starring Amitabh Bachchan to how the very first electric chair executionist had commented that using an axe would have been an easier method to how a lot of people worldover feel that the Harry Potter character Dobby, bears an uncanny resemblance to famous chap Vladimir Putin. We eventually came 7th amongst about 25 odd teams, which was not so bad after all, and meeting and spending the New Year's evening with the best brains in my city was a wonderful way to start off 2012. In any case we all will die with so many brain cells left unused, might as well use them to play a fun evening of quizzing!
The best part of the evening was that SG, friend and another quizzing enthusiast and one of the few active women on the circuit apart from me, gifted me two fabulous books as a belated birthday gift that was back in December.I've already started reading through Tarquin Hall's The Case of the Missing Servant at the moment, it features India's Most Private Investigator Vish Puri - whom the Financial Times dubs the Indian Poirot and India Today calls a mixture of Holmes, Rumpole and Jeeves. I'm thoroughly enjoying curling up in my bed at night with this wonderfully written,charming detective story set in today's very real, modern northern India. The other book SG gifted me is Aron Ralston's Between a Rock and a Hard Place - which everyone knows by now as the source of inspiration for Danny Boyle's 127 Hours. It will be an emotionally taxing, gritty read that I'm just saving for some other time, I'm still very much in the holiday mood to face harsh realities and grim scenarios like described in this book.But I love the gift nevertheless, any book remotely connected with Cinema grabs my attention fast, and when I'm prepared for it, I will certainly take to it and take to it with utmost sincerity.
But this is primarily a food blog, and coming back home close to ten at night after the quiz and socialising evening,I had to make something quick and yet something not the daily run of the mill. A quick look at the pantry and a quicker glance through my bookmarks decided for me the M.O. for the night - it was going to be Soya Chilly.

Soya Chilly
(adapted from Indrani's recipe here, from the Recipe Junction)
(serves 2-3)

The Prep:-
Soya Chunks - the Nutrela/Mealmaker variety - 1 cup
Onion - 1 large, cubed
Capsicum - 1 medium, cubed
Cucumber -1 medium,sliced
Green Peas - 1/2 cup
Ginger-Garlic Paste - 2 tbsp
Tomato Ketchup - 3 tbsp
Red Chilly Sauce - 1 tbsp
Dark Soy Sauce - 1 tbsp
White Vinegar - 1 tsp
Spring Onions - 1 cup, finely chopped
White Oil - 2 tbsp
Instant Soup Powder* - 2 tbsp
Salt to taste

(* The actual recipe calls for cornflour, which I had run out of. Instant soup powder was a clever addition, it helped the dish achieve exactly the same consistency that cornflour would have. I used Knorr Hot and sour Veg Soup Powder)

The Cooking -
Cook the soya chunks in salted water for 3-4 minutes.Take off the flame and keep them soaking in the hot water for 10-15 minutes.
Heat the oil in a Kadhai/Wok/Sauce Pan. Add onions,cucumber and capsicum and fry till onions turn transparent.
Add ginger-garlic paste and fry for a couple of minutes.
Add the soya chunks(store the soaking water) and peas.Add salt  Stir fry on high heat for about 5 minutes.
Add all the sauces,reduce flame to medium,mix well, add the previously kept aside water and some more, amounting to about two cups.
Mix the soup powder (or cornflour) in some water and add to the pan. Take care to stir well so that no lumps are formed.
Add the vinegar, check for seasoning, add more salt or water if required, lower the flame and cook for 2-3 minutes.
Sprinkle the spring onions all over, cover and simmer for 3-4 minutes.
Serve hot with Rice or Roti or Veg Fried Rice for a special meal.

The Consequence -
This turned out to be such a delightful and delicious meal paired with some hot Rotis that I'm in a way really glad that I made this instead of the fancy menu I had in mind earlier.It was universally acclaimed (okay,just by mom and dad but both of them are fussy eaters and my dad always calls a spade, a spade) and enjoyed by all of us. Dad actually went for third helpings even though he's not much fond of anything vegetarian and Maa who's perennially on a diet licked her fingers and plate clean and then wanted some more.As for me, I think this is a fabulous recipe and a sure shot keeper in the Mukherjee household. It was made from start to finish within thirty odd minutes, that's all it took! It is going to be made many more times in our kitchen,maybe served with a Chinese style Rice the next time. Thank You Indrani for this recipe and I'm surely going to try out more such gems from your blog. Till I return the next time, a very happy 2012 to all of You!