Sauce (The Food Blog)

Roshopuli II

2012-02-12T22:43:00.000+05:30

Puli :-)

After phulkopir shingara, roshopuli! This is the second -- and last, if the weather doesn't hold -- winter special on Sauce! this year, and a desser I make absolutely no effort to resist if I'm in Calcutta during winter. All my life, I've slurped down hearty, warm bowlfuls of it made by my mother and great aunt, but ever since I mastered this dish last year, I'm the family's Reigning Roshopuli Queen.

And this is my special recipe. Finally, I have a Special Rimi Recipe. Oh, the joy.

First, take five tablespoons of shuji/sooji/semolina. Soak in enough water to just submerge the shuji.

After ten or fifteen, you'll find the indiv. grains of shuji are slightly larger, having absorbed the water.

This is narkel-kora. What would be suitably expressive English for it? Shaved coconut? Excavated coconut?

Anyway, scoop the shuji on it. It'll hold the shape of the bowl, which you can have fun mahsing up.

And then! The star of the show -- khejur guRer patali! Jaggery lumps made from the sap of the date-palm.

Mix it all up! By hand. By freshly-cleaned hands.

Now, pour it all into a wok, on a simmering flame.At first, it'll stick frighteningly to the sides. Let your spatula divorce them, but don't worry too much -- it'll crumble on its own when it's done.

See?

Spread it thin on a plate and let it cool for a while. Then, take a tiny bit in your palm, and roll between both palms till it's a little ball.

Keep at it till you have a platful. Like this. It's utterly yummy. But DON'T eat it right away! We have Plans.

NOTE: If you fancy extra work, you can put little bits of this mixture into rice-flour casings, like dumplings or momos.

Now, take four or five small cardamoms.

Smash 'em open.

Boil about 500 gms of full-cream milk, with the cardamoms AND about four tablespoons of crushed guRer patali. Trust me, don't go overboard with the guR. You can always add some later if you want.

After about twenty minutes, scoop out the green shells and throw them away.

Wait till the milk almost boils over, then simmer the pot. Scrap up the cream-leavings on the side of the pan.

Now, gently add the naru-like little guR-narkel puli. They'll sink straight away. Relax. They're supposed to.

After about ten minutes, they'll slowly rise to the surface. By this time, the milk will have reduced to a lovely, thick, creamy texture.

This is what the pulis look like after that good, long soak.

And this is what it looks like in a warm bow, all ready for your discerning tastebuds. And if you DO have discerning tastebuds, you'll be grateful. Very grateful :-)

Phulkopir Shingara

2012-02-10T22:52:00.001+05:30

Apparently, this weekend is when winter will bid us a final adieu, and we won't miss it one little bit... till March slowly melts into April and we start dissolving into our own little puddles of sweat.

The shape of things to come.

On a more immediate level, winter marching also means lovely fresh yummalicious veggies marching out of the markets, leaving the same old aloo-potol rubbish till next winter. So! I created a little alternate reality where I am NOT simultaneously working on five different projects, and I haven't a care in the world except to keep my tastebuds and tumtum happy. Day 1 of this produced phulkopir shingara -- that lovely, lovely piping-hot golden pastry, stuffed with a lightly, yet piquantly, flavoured cauliflower and potato.

This version of the shingara -- which is the Bangali version of a fried/baked ravioli, momo, dimsum or similar -- is completely 'niramish'. Absolutely vegetarian. There is no onion, no garlic, no hint of scandalous things forbidden in the Hindu household a century back. Prep time's an amazing forty minutes, especially if you're a deft hand at making the little triangles. If you're not, three batches and you will be. So then! Plunge in :-)

First, cauliflowers. Washed and cut into little florets. And I mean little.

Then, two small potatoes. Or one large one. Whatever you've got at hand. Plus, those chilies? If you can handle 'em, chop 'em up.

A teaspoon of oil. Half a teaspoon of jeera, because I like a strong flavour.

Toss in the diced potatoes and cauliflowers, lightly rubbed with turmeric. Then, when it smells fried, toss further with salt and two pinches of sugar. Then, sprinkle a tablespoon of water all over it, simmer, and cover till tender.

When the vegetables are tender and there's no gravy of any description left in the work/pan, take it off the flame. Sprinkle bhaja guro moshla* over it, and mix well.

Now, the shingara! Roll out your average flatbread dough into a circle, then cut it into half.

Fold the semi-circle into half, keeping the top fold slightly larger than the bottom (look at the pic carefully to see how this works). Now, wet the tip of your finger, run it along the longer flap, and carefully make a cone of the semi-circle.

See? Cone.

Which you stuff with stuff. Like, say, that awesome cauliflower filling.

And then, you wet your fingertip again, and seal the bottom of the cone, such that they have a flat(ish) bottom to stand on.

Then, contrary to all laws of flatbread-frying, slowly sink your shingaras into oil you've just put on a medium flame.

Incidentally, if you think the sticky dough is sticky enough to hold shape, and skip the wet-fingertip act, this is what will happen to your shingara: Eet weel kaam aaapaaart.

However, if you've been good, and done as you're told, you will have a platful of crisp, steaming, utterly scrumptious shingaras, with the lovely vegetarian filling.

Happy Bengali snacking, people!

*'Bhaja guro moshla' is an assortment of dry-roasted spices ground to a fine powder in a mortar-and-pestle. In this case, it is jowan (ajwain, carom seeds) and whole jeera (cumin), toasted together on a skillet or tawa till fragrant, then ground in a mixie.

Cinnamon-Almond Chocolate Cake

2012-01-11T21:03:00.000+05:30

This cake is a wonder of midnight-bakery. If you'll recall, this cold, wet, unseasonably stormy weather had put the damper on my newly-minted baking skills, and pushed me firmly back into hearty soups and chilli-noodles territory. However, a tray of desert ingredients can only twinkle at you temptingly for so long before you think, "To hell with the winter rains!", and bake yourself a climate-inappropriate cake.

One of perils of keeping ingredients waiting, however, is that some of them tend to disappear. Especially when one lives with one's parents. And since I have not learned the value of ingred. reconn. even after multiple minor kitchen disasters, I had to resort, once again, to immediate improvisations. In this case, replace the lovely dark chocolate quietly nicked by my mother with garden variety milk-choc.

It's not bad. I'm not saying it's bad. In fact, it's very good. But it's not seventy per cent dark. And you feel the difference.

That's 80gms of sugar, three sticks of cinnamon/daarchini, one 25gm bar of milk chocolate (all I had in the fridge), and three eggs. Plus, there is a little butter, the leftover dark chocolate (about 50gms), and approx. 30gms of sunflower oil in the sidelines.

That's the tiny pat of butter.

Which we melt in a saucepan of bubbling water. In my mephistophelian kitchen.

On top of it, goes the chocolate.

And obligingly melts.

Powdered sugar to beaten eggs. The old drill.

That's the oil.

Add it to the sugary eggs.
That sounds positively revolting, 'sugary eggs'.

In the meanwhile, the chocolate has melted. Yay. Have you ever noticed shop-bought chocolate bars take far longer than cooking chocolate to melt? I wonder why that is.

Scoop and scrape all the scrumptious chocolate into the egg-sugar-oil. Beat, beat!

And then, the best idea I've had all night: roughly-diced almonds. Mmm!

Then, just for fun, add a quarter teaspoon of cayenne/shukno lonkar guro. Because all the cool people eat their chocolate with red chilli powder.

And then, because it's 3AM and you're light-headed with chocolate and the lack of sleep, add a quarter teaspoon of home-ground garam masala (cinnamon, cardamom, cloves). Top with half a teaspoon of baking powder.

And then whisk it all together a few more times, and pour it into a greased and floured baking tin. And notice, too late, the air bubbles.

Not that it harmed the cake any. And the entire place smelt a warm, summery, cinnamony divine right till daybreak.

And we were done with the bowls and forks for the night. Yawn!

And Then, Disgustingly Early The Following Morning...

Surprise, Mamma! There's a cake in the oven! Now hooo could have baked it?

Well, never mind that. Let's have ourselves the first big slice, crunchy with cinnamon-roasted almonds. It smells like a slice of hearty, warm paradise.

That only improves on eating. Especially with a steaming cup of coffee.

Sigh. Winter morning contentment. What is happiness, after all, but the perfect forkful?

Spicy Chicken Noodles

2012-01-03T22:37:00.000+05:30

After the unexpectedly warm Christmas and New Year's day, we had a quiet, peaceful new year's night. A rainy, cold, shivery, quiet and peaceful new year's night. Desserts just don't cut it on nights like these. So I put the ingredients of my second-ever cake away, and made myself a spicy noodle stir-fry. It's not stuff I'd serve to my pal Dea, but for people who are chums with chillies, this dish is absolutely the bees knees, the dog's bleeding unmentionables. If you're freezing from an unstoppable draft in an unheated flat in the middle of winter, there's absolutely nothing else that will shoot little flames of heat through your body better than this dish. So, try it while the season lasts!

Here's the drawing board:

Take dried red chilies, little pieces of ginger, a little sugar, and some vinegar in a bowl (the small grinding-bowl of our mixie, in this case). All quants. depend on personal taste. Paste the lot.

Heat sunflower/canola oil in a wok. When hot, simmer and add chopped green shallots/pNeyaajkoli. I should note, however, that it's a better idea to add them with the onions later.

Then add tiny-diced carrots. If you want larger pieces, blanch, steam or boil them first in salt water.

Add similarly-diced chicken, preferably marinated in lemon juice and salt for an hour. Stir till golden-brown.

Finally, when the chicken is golden-brown and the carrots tender, add a half teaspoon or so of oil if needed, then add chopped red onions. Stir till they change colour and start smelling fried.

Then add the ginger-chilli-vinegar-sugar paste, and fold it in well. Season with a little salt.

When the chicken and vegetables have been cooked well in the spice, add boiled and drained noodles. Mix it all up.

Serve!

Now go make it for yourself while the season lasts! If chicken is off your personal menu, just substitute with more veggies, or small chunks of paneer or tofu. Happy winter eating, people :-)

Chocolate Cake with Nutty Caramel Icing

2012-01-01T20:33:00.000+05:30

This is what I did with my winter break, which I didn't actually have. Christmas was on a Sunday, new year's day was on a Sunday, and I didn't even have Saturdays off this month. Actually, we never have Saturdays off at this place. We're that dedicated. Weekends? What weekends? Phooey.

This cake was first lovingly administered to my tastebuds by P., and it single-handedly salvaged peanuts for me. I can't say I think glowingly of peanuts even now, but put a handful of them in home-made caramel sauce, and I'll take the first bottle off you at double the price. And I'm not that fond of caramel sauce either.

In short, this is a cake you need to try. Now. And you need to particularly bake it for yourself if you've never baked by yourself before. There'll be nothing simpler and more delicious than this basic choc. cake and its nutty caramel icing, and you'll think no end of your baking skills for the rest of your life. Nifty new year's gift to yourself, eh?

Here's the picturebook.

THE CAKE

Take three eggs. Don't just stare at them, break them in a bowl. Go on.

Run 100gms of everyday sugar through the mixie. Et voila!, caster sugar.

Pour it on the stiffly-beaten eggs.

And whisk them together till all of the sugar disappears. Yes, yes, I should get a whisk. Whatever.

Now, pour 50gms of drinking chocolate into the mix. One could substitute with flour, if one prefers, or divvy 50gms into 25 of this and 25 of that. Blend it in.

Then, introduce about 60gms of sunflower/canola oil to the mix. No butter. Oil. And be thorough with it.

And now, for the chocolate.

Take about 170-200gms (depending on your preference) of dark cooking chocolate. Melt it in an improvised double-boiler: one bowl of rough-hewn chunks of chocolate, floating in a saucepan half-full of water.

Chocolate sauce! Well, not quite. But lip-smacking melted chocolate, anyway.

Pour it into the cake mix. Add a pinch of baking powder. Blend blend blend!

Pour it into a greased and flour-dusted cake tin. I borrowed a square from my great-uncle, but I have a predilection for round cakes. Lend me a round tin, someone?

Put this tin in a pre-heated oven (P. says preheat at 180C while you make the batter), and bake for thirty at 180C, then for fifteen at 200C, and then, if it still isn't done, at 180C till it's done. But don't take my word for the timings. I've encountered ovens which take both longer and far shorter to bake this cake, and if you followed my prescription on them, you'd end up with either charred lumps, of gloop.

THE PEANUT-CARAMEL SAUCE

Raw peanuts are bloody hard to peel. So, when you've got yourself 75gms of nuts-in-husk, what do you do?

You put it on a skillet or a tawa, and dry-roast it over a stove.

Which gives you a plateful of fresh-toasted nuts, with crinkly, papery shells.

Which you then separate them from, palmful by rubbing palmful.

And you get this. Which, by the way, is yum! with lemon juice, flavoured salt, and chopped onions, tomatoes, cucumbers and cilantro. Or just lemon juice and salt.

Now, use the day's paper (or the previous day's, I'm not picky) to fold the roasted peanuts in.

Crush the wrapped peanuts with a pestle, or a rolling-pin, or whatever's handy.

Now, caramelise 100gms of sugar with a quarter cup of water. I let it go on for too long -- take it off the flame before the amber of your caramel is this dark. Unless you enjoy a smoky aftertaste of sugary bitterness, of course.

Then, take a standard teacup full of heavy or fresh cream.

Warm it over a low flame.

And pour it into your bowl of caramelised sugar-water.

Whisk whisk whisk, this time with a wooden spatula. (I'm allergic to appropriate kitchen equipment).

And then, because the damn caramel sauce will begin to semi-solidify, put it back on the flame and add 25gms of butter. Fold it in well.

Then, when it's perfectly smooth, liquid, and rescued from bitterness, add the peanuts.

AND FINALLY...

The cake! It's a soft, spongy, melt-in-your-mouth chocolatey cake, with a deliciously smoky caramel icing with crushed roasted peanuts in it.

Can you say "Oh dear god in heaven!!!"?

Well, be my guest.

Off to finish the cake with some vanilla ice-cream, folks. Have yourselves a scrumptious new year!

Koraishutir Kochuri

2011-12-23T23:46:00.000+05:30

Really the only difficult part about koraishutir kochuri is handling the stuffing. Stuffing, like free-range children from cannibal farms, should be tasted and not seen. Each portion must be small enough not to pop out of the dough while rolling, yet large enough to dominate the flavour of each mouthful.

And then, admittedly, there is the rolling. There's not trick to rolling out stuffed flatbreads perfectly but practice. If you want them rolled out thinly enough (so there are no uncooked thick lumps), if you want the stuffing to remain invisible, and most importantly, if you want your kochuris to be close approximation of the circular form, you must single make breakfast for your family every single Sunday. That's my prescription.

However, if you're fine with post-structual flatbread, you can skip the practice and dive right in. You will serve yourself kochuris mimicking fractured maps of continents, but they will be utterly deliciously works of art :-)

Grind together sweet green peas, green chilies, as much ginger as you like, some salt, and a teaspoon of sugar.

Cook this minced chilli-pea in a wok with half a tablespoon of oil, over a low flame. It will stick to the sides and base of the wok at first, but will make a little green self-contained ball as the chilli-pea cooks. You'll also smell the divine smell of toasty sweet peas as they approach doneness.

Once the peas are cooked, take them off the flame and add ground black pepper, mixing it well. Do this with a light hand and strictly according to your own taste, because too much black pepper will ruin the dish entirely.

Then make small green balls from the pea-dough. These, I might add, are quite delicious -- absolutely bursting with flavour.

Then make the usual flatbread dough -- a little moyaan, a little salt, a little sugar, and some hot water. Divide them into flattened balls, larger than each green one.

Make a cup of each flattened ball, and put a little green dough in it. Then seal it, flatten again, and roll it out on a flour-dusted rolling board. In any shape you prefer.

And voilà! Perfectly deep-fried in hot sunflower or canola oil, with the green glowing through the crisp golden dough.

Serve in complementary colours. Green-gold kochuri, leftover stuffing, and Bengali mustard, for that extra zing.

Or, you could just eat it wrapped around more stuffing. Yum yum!

Go on, try it while the peas last. You'll regret it if you don't!

Cheese-baked Vegetables

2011-12-18T23:00:00.000+05:30

This is an apology for the mushroom-chicken tetrazzini. I made the afternoon of the evening we had guests, some of whom are vegetarians. They saw and smelled the delicious melted cheese, and the toasty crisp-topped chicken and mushroom, but they couldn't taste it. So, as a way of saying sorry, I made this a few days later. I'm not sure what it is, except that it includes lovely winter veggies, and a perfectly piquant cheese sauce.

Chop mushrooms, capsicum (green bell pepper), a quarter of a small cauliflower, and any other vegetable you might fancy in a casserole. Boil a couple of potatoes. I kept their skins on, but you mighn't want to. Finally, soften some cheese (same old cheddar for me), and chop some shallot stalks for the sauce.

Sauté cauliflower in melted butter, and when they change colour, add the capsicum, then the mushrooms. Add a little salt, and any herb or spice you'd like. I leave out spices altogether on this one.

Add chopped tomatoes as a final touch, for piquant crunchiness. Let them stay on the flame for less than a minute.

Set the vegetables aside.

In the same wok, add a cup and half of water. Bring to a slight boil, scrape up the drippings, and then add some fresh/heavy cream. Simmer.

When the cream is evenly mixed, add the cheese. Fold it in well. Add a little more water if required.

Flavour the sauce with ground black pepper and shallots (plus any herb of your choice).

Remember the boiled potatoes? Grate and mash them, with a little salt and butter. Actually, the grating is an unnecessary complication. Just mash them into a tight, buttery lump.

Line a greased earthenware bowl/baking dish with the mashies.

Pour the veggies into the bowl. And admire the colours. Ah, winter. Such produce you bring.

Top with the cheese sauce.

Seal the top with the remaining mashed potato, and then, on a whim, top with the veggies that wouldn't fit inside the potato-lined pie. Pour some olive oil on top, or pat with softened butter. Bake at 240-50C for about thirty minutes.

And this little pot of deliciousness is what you'll get. Crisp vegetables on top, golden-browned potato beneath, semi-baked cheese-wrapped vegetables under that, and a buttery layer of baked potatoes at the bottom. Perfection!

Eat it hot, scooped out on a plate.

Or on warm toast, as a sandwich filling. It's a perfect steaming winter meal, in way you look at it.

Bon apetit, my vegetarian friends. I promise you won't regret the twenty minutes you invest in this ;-)

Hot Chocolate

2011-12-17T00:38:00.000+05:30

Winter has just kicked in in Calcutta, with temperatures going as low as 13 degrees C. Yes! It will be snowing any minute now -- thirteen degrees centigrade, people!

All right, snigger if you must, you cold-winter types. But temps in the lower teens minus heating is far more miserable than a centrally heated -32F, and I speak from personal experience. And since chills outside are best combated with rugs, blankets and steaming beverages -- and since I lack the resources to make cider or stronger brews -- here's falling back on an old favourite: hot chocolate! Here goes the pictorial:

Morde's 'Dark Chocolate Compound', best served uncooked, in chunks, with whipped cream. No, don't listen to me. This chocolate is meant entirely for cooking. Yes.

Nahoum's chocolate fudge. Made with dark chocolate, fresh cream, vanilla, and a little too much sugar.

This is what it looks like outside the packet.

Fudge and dark chocolate, all chopped up.

Heat water. When it bubbles, lower the heat and add the fudge and chocolate. Stir gently.

Add a teaspoon of coffee. Because why the hell not? It's freezing outside! Your body wants to hibernate, but you know, there bills and chores and a job and things.

Fresh cream. You'll need it to sweeten the dark chocolate and coffee pot. This is also the point at which you add a little more sugar and vanilla if you like (the fudge was all the sugar I needed), and any spice you like to flavour your hot chocolate. I added a dash of cinnamon, and a little nutmeg.

And finally, bliss in a cuppa.

For all you people who want to be shaved imitations of bears this season, but simply can't afford to: Show yourself this little love, and charge ahead. I'll be right behind you, with the leftover in my thermos flask.

Much love,

A cold and overworked me.

Cheese-baked Chicken and Mushroom Noodles

2011-12-11T22:45:00.001+05:30

Or, if you like your names shorter and with a touch of the foreign, "Chicken Tetrazzini". I made this and similar dishes very often while I lived by myself, because they're both absolutely simple, and unfailingly divine. Of course, few things are capable of mediocrity when baked crispy-gold, swimming in hot, melted cheese. Therefore, it is a testment to my culinary genius that I remembered to stock up on cheese every time we had intimations of a snowstorm.

Because this is just perfect for kitchen-lazy souls on chilly, windy, freezing nights. No contest. And so you can try it yourself, here's the picture-book.

First, dice mushrooms of your favourite variety.

Thaw the cheese (this is mild cheddar. My hometown hasn't much variety I can afford).

Toss in tinily-diced chicken (marinated in lemon juice and salt for an hour, if you like) and mushrooms in butter or cooking oil. I usually flavour this with ground black pepper, a touch of sugar, salt, parsely, but feel free to experiment.

Next, some deeelicious fresh/heavy/sour cream. Simmer and scrape up the pan-drippings. Scraped drippings are my secret ingredients.

One more step to go! Add some of the softended cheese to the simmering sauce. Fold it in well. Taste for the right salt/pepper/sugar/herb balance.

Pour the sauce over cooked and drained noodles (I just some leftover macaroni).

You can see the base of the baking dish peeking because no one but me would touch a lip-smacking cheese-dripping creamy casserole, so I only make about enough for myself. Because I don't have to share. My life is a living tragedy, I know.

Layer the cheese on the noodle-in-sauce.

In my case, the cheese covered empty bits of the dish in several places, so when I took the steaming cass. out of the oven, there were little pools of pure, unadulterated, melted cheese in between the mushroom and chicken. Don't you feel sad when little imperfects like that mar a dish you took absolutely no trouble over? No? Goodness. We could soul-siblings.

Next, in the absence of shop-bought breadcrumbs (I don't even know if we get them in non-supermarket Calcutta), I crushed a couple of Marie biscuits, and a few salty cumin-flavoured ones. So much better then bland breadcrumbs.

And drizzled it on top of the cheese.

And then, after a thirty minute bake at 200C...

It was ready! You can't make out the bubbling cheese pools, nor smell the divine savoury-baked aroma, but you can take my word for it: Colour, smell, texture -- this was irrestible.

So I wasted no time resisting it.

Yum yum yum!

But enough about my fabulous dinner. Time to go make your own! Shoo!

Tangy Green Sprout Salad

2011-11-15T22:46:00.000+05:30

Normally, I despise salads. Minus the dressing, they're utterly pointless and better suited to moo-cows than bipeds. However, I recently realised that the deliciously dressed sprouted grams sold at street corners -- all the chhola and moog in tangy lime or lemon juice -- can quite easily be called a salad, and for once I'd have a salad I could actually stomach.

So, here's what you do: first, soak green gram (gota moog) or chhola (small, hard chickpeas) overnight, or at least for eight hours. Then wrap them in a thin muslin or cotton cloth -- a large handkerchief should do it -- and hang the cloth in the kitchen, or any other warm place. Maybe your bedroom on a winter's night? Anyway, leave it to sprout for a day.

Whole green gram, post-sprouting.

Add chopped green (and red) chilies.

Then add chopped tomatoes and onions.

At this point, step back. Admire your handiwork. Then squeeze a lime over it. If that isn't tangy enough for you, squeeze two. Then add a little salt. Then add a few drops of mustard oil. This is usually enough dressing for me. However, for that extra kick, you might want to add a little aamchur (dried and powdered green mango), a little red chilli powder, a little dry-roasted, dry-ground coriander and cumin. Maybe a little more oil, if you like.

Then, mix it all up! And if you're really hungry, add a handful of muri or puffed wheaties to the mix, and eat it as masala muri. Yum yum! Not even the pickiest of health-obsessed eaters could possibly complain :-)

Chicken Tikka Masala

2011-11-14T00:45:00.000+05:30

A few years back, there was a tiny piece in The Telegraph about some Scottish chap attempting to trademark chicken tikka masala. It provoked some amused outrage hereabouts, but nobody particularly cared about the crazy caprices of strange foreigners, and the news sank without further trace. We had, of course, no idea how big chicken tikka masala was in the ethnic eating scene of the former Raj. This was probably helped by the fact that 'chicken tikka masala' is a postcolonial, Anglo collage of mangled culinary memories, and not a weal dish from ye olde Nawabi kitchens. People tend not to care about the ownership of things they don't know exists. As long as we had the succulent tandoori kababd and creamy butter-chicken, 'tikka masala' could hunt seals in a tutu in Iceland.

So when I first had tikka masala, it was at a Punjabi 'Indian' takeaway in Somerville, almost midway through my twenties. It was the perfect example of a disappointment. (Just chicken curry with extra tomatoes, in this instance). So, in the interest of humanity that is not native to these tropical parts, this is how one makes the traceable ancestor of 'tikka masala' -- chicken tikias or tikka-kababs in a thick gravy (I've kept the tomatoes because they're in season, but one can make a perfectly serviceable gravy without them):

Marinate the cleaned and washed pieces of de-boned chicken in salt and lemon juice.

Peel and slice ginger and a few cloves of garlic.

Put the garlic and ginger with half a small, peeled onion, cinnamon sticks, two large shelled cardamom, and a couple of cloves, in a mixie/grinder/mortar-and-pestle.

Scoop the mix onto the lemon-marinated chicken. Top with half a level teaspoon of cumin and coriander, ground red chilies, and just a pinch of sugar.

Then add a dollop of yogurt, and just for kicks, minced green chilies. Mix it all up. Let it stand for at least, at least, three hours.

In the absence of skewers (I couldn't find ours), grease a baking dish well with mustard oil. Put the chicken and the marinade in a tight cluster on the dish. Pour some more oil over it all. Be generous, you don't want dried little pieces of charred meat. Now, let them bake in a pre-heated oven for about twenty minutes at 230-240C (450F). Cooking time differs for different ovens, but at such high heat, anything beyond thirty minutes would end in dry, hard meat, esp. since the chicken we're using has no fat to buffer it.

For the gravy, chop a medium red onion, mince a quarter inch of ginger and about five cloves of garlic, grind a few red chilies, and purée two tomatoes.

Heat two teaspoons of mustard oil in a wok. Simmer when hot (but not smoking), and sauté the garlic, followed immediately by the red chilli paste (healthy-minded people can substitute chopped green chilies: Different flavour, but just as delicious). After half a minute of frying this mix, add the ginger, then the onions, and raise the flame to medium. Stir like mad (or the red chilli paste will char).

Then add the puréed tomatoes. Add a pinch of salt, half a teaspoon each of cumin and coriander, and keep stirring gently.

Till it looks lovely and cooked, like this. You should be able to make out the oil separating from the tomato. Taste for salt and spiciness. Add a tiny amount of sugar if the tomatoes taste too tangy.

Now add a cup of water to the gravy. Some prefer adding cream, or whole milk. My doctor tells me I should prefer water. Bring the gravy to a slight boil before simmering again and adding the kababs. Cover and let the flavours blend for a few minutes. Take off the flame, sprinkle a quarter teaspoon of garam masala powder on top, and mix well. Serve with rotis, naans, or parathas.

And there you go! A delicious dish, decoded. Despite the spices, it's healthy, hearty, and perfect for cold winter evenings. Make it! :-)

Aloo Matar Paneer

2011-11-01T21:08:00.000+05:30

The first winter dish, people! Vegetables, colour, protein and warmth -- just what the doctor ordered. (In my case, literally).

Aloo matar paneer, or cottage cheese with pea and potatoes, in a tomato-flavoured gravy. Deeee-licious! And this is how you do it:
Cottage cheese -- home-made, for preference (tutorial soon)
Two small plum tomatoes.
A potato, peeled and diced.
Fresh green peas, popped from the pod.
Whole cumin. Dry-ground cumin and coriander, also preferably at home. Half an inch of ginger, peeled and minced. Salt, sugar. Chopped green chilies and dry-ground red chilies, if you can stand it.

Wash the peas, chilies and tomatoes. Cut the slab of cottage cheese into pieces roughly an inch thick and close to two inches in length. Smaller pieces than that will crumble while cooking. Not that this is a bad thing; it gives the gravy texture, as people pretentiously say these days. But if you're making cottage cheese-in-gravy, it helps to have some actual discernible cottage cheese in the serving bowl.

Chopped cheese.

Now grate tomatoes and mix it with the minced ginger. Let the juices flow into each other while you do other things.

Our ancient grater.

Grated tomatoes and minced ginger.

Like sauté diced potatoes and cottage cheese, for instance. Be sure to do them separately, for the potatoes can be carelessly done for five to ten minutes on a medium flame, with only an occasional toss, but the paneer needs low heat, one minute tops, and gentle handling.

Now, in a wok, heat two teaspoons of mustard (or sunflower, or rape seed/canola) oil. Never go above a medium flame, or the oil will smoke and char the wok. When the oil loses its rich yellow colour, add whole cumin, and after five seconds the grated tomatoes plus minced ginger. Stir like mad, but gently.

When you can smell the tomatoes frying, add half a teaspoon of ground cumin and coriander each. Toss the mixture for a minute. The oil might begin to separate at this point, but its fine if it doesn't, too. Now, add the peas, then after a couple of minutes, the sautéed potatoes and paneer cubes. Encourage free mixing with a few gentle stirs. Pour two and a half cups of water. Add chopped green chilies, salt and sugar, and let simmer till the potatoes are done.

Adding the spices.

Spicing peas.

Making new friends.

Splashing about.

Cottage cheese with potatoes and peas, in a light tomato gravy :-)

Eat this over steamed rice, or, preferable, with hot rooti or any kind of fried bread. I've even left it soupy and had it with unbuttered toast -- absolutely lip-smacking. Happy winter eating, folks!

French Toast

2011-10-29T19:36:00.006+05:30

Recently, an American friend tried my recipe for 'Indian Toast' -- the colonially-interpreted French toast, which I suspect wasn't French to begin with -- and declared it a thumping success. In celebration, I thought I should recall the original recipe, and make me a stack myself. With a strong cuppa :-)

The child's 'Indian' toast: Minus onions and chilies.

The Indian Toast Post: A Brief History:

Once at a breakfast meeting in a breakfast place with lots of local colour, I ordered french toast with some enthusiasm, and the person I was meeting ordered the same (in fact, I ordered it after hearing him order, not looking at the menu). And then he ordered bacon and scrambled eggs with it. I've always eaten french toasts by themselves, so while I thought the meaty-salty flavour of bacon went well with french toasts, I was definitely surpised at the scrambled eggs. When our food arrived, however, everything became clearer. The man ate through his eggs and grease-dripping bacon with demonic speed, and then his french toasts at leisure, dousing them in sweet syrup.

Yes, that's right, sweet syrup. And if that wasn't shocking enough, the French toasts themselves came with blueberries on and in them. I've seldom eaten a more nauseating meal, but since he obviously relished this bizarre concoction, I couldn't very well tell him how appalling I found it. And not having any other reason to not eat it after ordering it with much enthusiasm, I slowly chewed through the stack. Later, over tea (coffee for him) I tentatively ventured that in India we made french toast with chopped green chilies and onions in the whisked egg, and nothing else. And nothing poured on top, either. He did almost as good a job as I had done of disguising my shock at the strange eating habits of the natives, but I got the message anyway.

And now, for the pics from this lot:

With chopped onions and green chilies.

Slathered with garlicky sour cream.

A steaming cuppa and the morning papers.

Ilish Machh Bhaja

2011-10-25T19:36:00.002+05:30

There is absolutely no artistry to this meal. You boil rice. You pick an ilish machh, preferably one with ilish-caviar, rub it with salt and a little turmeric paste, and deep-fry in mustard oil. Then you pour a generous helping of this rich, golden mustard oil, now flavoured with the rich aroma of ilish, on a steaming helping of boiled white rice. Break a green chili in it. And give yourself over to the flavours and fine bone for the next hour.

Terrible pictures, courtesy a truly awful Sony handycam. But terrible ilish pictures are still better than no ilish-picture at all :-)

Raw, red ilish

Ilish-caviar :-)

Thievery and Sleepy-time

2011-09-30T00:17:00.000+05:30

Dear lovely people,

This food blog is going on a temporary hiatus, because a little ray of sunshine stole my camera today... with my 8GB memory card, and 4GB of pictures on it. It had snaps of two excellent ilish dishes -- the most delicious fish you will ever eat -- and plenty of little things I've been making for myself in between severe bouts of hard work. I might have pictures for one or two of those recipes on my hard drive, but after that, till I buy a new camera, it's the long goodbye, folks.

P.S: all advice re. buying new camera most welcome. Email me!

Much love,

Rimi

Sattu Tikka and Parathas

2011-09-12T19:30:00.000+05:30

For those unfamiliar with the ethnic hierarchy of things north of the Vindhyas and east of the Bihar, a little food-tutorial is in order. Sattu -- chhatu to the urban Bengali -- is the designated food of 'those Biharis'. The phrase conveys, at the same time, a suppressed yearning for the robust constitution of the sattu-eaters -- which the Bengali spectacularly lacks -- and a compensatory feeling of intellectual superiority, in which the Bengali is second to none.

Consequently, the first time I ate sattur was three weeks back, when my boss shared his sattu parathas with me. "What wonder is this?!" I exclaimed, and he gave me the following recipe. Well, not exactly the following recipe, because I've added and subtracted, but he gave the whole, which is greater than the sum of its parts.

Take two cups of chana-sattu (chholar chhatu), or a healthy powdered grain of your choice. Add chopped green chilies and diced red onions.

Add a scoop of subcontinental pickle of your choice (I used green mango), a pinch of red chilli powder, the juice of half a large lemon, a dash of sugar, and salt to your tastes.

Add a little mustard oil and mix it up. At this point, this can be used to stuff flatbreads, although I don't advise it. Sattu has the habit of breaking out of the flour shell.

To wit. And this was the best of the lot, too.

To avoid this very annoying process, you could skip the stuffing and add the flour directly to the seasoned sattu. Then just add water, and mix it like you would mix normal dough. Before doing this, btw, I added chopped tomatoes to the mix. Because I looove tomatoes.

Add half a cup of flour to the mix above, and then mix it with water to make a nice, slightly-sticky dough.

Since this slightly-sticky dough is hard to roll out with a pin, divide them into smaller balls of dough, smooth and flatten them between your palms, and fry the slightly-thick sattu discs on a skillet. When they're done, they will look like tikki/tikkas.

Letting it get some colour.

Stack them like pancakes, and eat with spicy pickled lime and tea :-)

Or, if you had decided to slave for your food and ended up with piping-hot sattu parathas, stack them like pancakes, and eat with spicy pickled lime and tea. See? That's why you should follow the path of least effort in the kitchen.

The green chilly is to placate the people who chose the hard way. An organic consolation prize. Enjoy! :-)

Iced Mint-tea

2011-09-08T13:14:00.000+05:30

It's amazing how easy it is to mess up a simple cup of tea, given that all one needs to do is boil water and drop in some leaves.

I'm very good at messing up tea.

However, one easy way to avoid making a complete fool of oneself over a cuppa is to load it with flavours. A simple cup of delicate Darjeeling or Assam strong is hard to brew, but sweet, minty, fruity, desserty teas are the easiest thing on the planet. And, given how coddled with over-stimulation our tastebuds are these days, they're bound to go down better with most people than a plain old cup of second-flush.

While I absolutely draw the line at peach teas and mango teas and the like, I'm actually rather fond of iced mint tea. It's sweet, has that slight bite of the minty after-taste, and it's very, very soothing (the latter probably has everything to do with its temperature and nothing to do with either mint or tea, but I'm not willing to substitute a tall glass of minty-sweet caffeine with ice-water just to test the theory).

Here's how to make it. In pictures!

Drop washed mint leaves in a saucepan and bring it to boil. Boil for about seven to ten minutes.

Watch the water change colour to a curious shade of green.

Missing pictures: while the water is boiling, either pour it into a warm pot with three teaspoons of strong black tea (there's eight cups of water here, but since we're not making regular tea, we can skimp on leaves). Or, you could skip that traditional ceremony dump the tea leaves into the saucepan. Turn off the heat immediately and cover with a lid or plate, preferably of earthenware.

After soaking it for seven minutes, strain it into a cool metal container. Mix in as much sugar as you like (I need three teaspoons for this much -- and this strongly brewed -- tea). Then put the container in the fridge for three or so hours.

Glorious colour, isn't it?

Pour yourself a glass.

Drop in a little decoration.

And a little more.

And then take the perfect still-life watercolour picture.

For tea addicts like me, who'd love to prefer all kinds of things flavoured with it, try this slushie-dessert version. Take some of the minty tea in a bowl. Pop it in the deep fridge (freezer). Take it out after an hour. Crush the newly-formed ice and make it all rough and broken. Pop it back in. After two or so hours, this is what you get:

Mint-tea slushie, slightly melted.

Save it for after lunch :-) Enjoy this while the ridiculous heat lasts, people! Autumn is almost upon us.

Goan Fried Potatoes

2011-08-31T21:30:00.000+05:30

It's amazing how one's culinary culture blinds one to perfectly obvious uses of perfectly common ingredients. I've had shooji (sooji, semolina) in our kitchen all my life, and never before have I thought of using it to coat deep-fried things. Astonishingly stupid, right? If I'd only thought for a minute, I'd see how shooji would absorb less oil than breadcrumbs or ground arrowroot biscuits (crackers, to you lot across the Atlantic), and make a delicious crunchy shell for the tender, moist potato within. But, like I said, having our own coating-agent at hand, I never even looked for alternatives. Even when I complained about breadcrumbs absorbing to much oil.

Actually, that's not true. I did consider corn flakes once (which also absorb too much oil, btw). But then, considering how even our mundane daily choices are influenced by our constant consumption of western cultural norms, I don't really consider considering corn flakes a broadening of my culinary horizons. I'm actually surprised I've stuck to grinding salty biscuits or crisply-toasted stale bread for this long, instead of buying vitamin-enriched oregano-flavoured breadcrumbs from the fancy supermarkets. I definitely missed the bus on being an empowered global consumer taking advantage of an expanded spectrum of choices.

Anyway, this is how you make wonderfully delicious, and beautifully textured fried potatoes, Goan-style.

First, peel and slice a few potatoes in roundels about 1/3rd a cm thick. Slicing them thicker would leave the centres hard and uncooked, or the edges charred. Then marinate them in lime juice/vinegar, salt, garlic powder if you fancy it, and red chilli powder, if you can stand it. Let it stand for ten minutes, at least. I don't know if this actually helps the flavour seep in deeper, but I stab the potato slices with a fork before marinating them.

Then place each slice on a bed of semolina, coating each side. Shake off the extra semolina.

Slices after coating.

It's a flower!

Now put them on a skillet, and pour a quarter teaspoon of oil around each slice. You'll need to add more when you flip sides. Sometimes, if you flip carelessly, the semolina coating will come off. To wit, potato slice in the middle. Let each side stand on a middle-low flame for about ten minutes. The potato will take time to cook, and the semolina will take time to toast.

Finally, as an award to yourself for the excruciatingly hard labour required by this complex recipe, pour the potato-marinade in the remaining semolina. Then take a few inch-thick slices of room-temp sharp cheddar (or hard cheese of your choice), coat them in the crunchy, tangy, spicy batter, and fry them on the now-well-greased skillet. Keep them on the flame for a little less than three minutes, for fear of the delicious melted cheese oozing out and drawing patterns on your skillet.

Rush!

2011-08-06T23:22:00.001+05:30

There are breakfasts, and then there are breakfasts. This is what I had today. Hot buttered toast with sugar on it, chased with a steaming cup of tea.

Caffeine? Check.
Sugar? Check.
Carbs? Check.

Proteins will have to wait till lunch.

Humble? Sure. Modest? Certainly. Welcome burst of buttery warmth within your sleepy soul? Hell yes! Plus, easy on the purse and body.

You couldn't do better in five minutes, people. The eating takes longer than the prep. So the next time you're rushing out sans brekkers because oh, you're SO late and the doughnut shop is right next to bus stop -- stop! Home-made toast and tea, folks, that's the ticket.

Break That Fast!

2011-08-04T23:06:00.023+05:30

This is one of the most scrumptious and elaborate breakfasts I have had in ages! That is, not counting family Sundays, breakfasts with my ex, and that one time at Flury's.

Let me rephrase that. This is absolutely, totally, no-holds-barred, one of the most scrumptious and elaborate breakfasts I have made for myself in ages. And it's easy. Break an egg here, cut a few slices off a loaf there, chop some veggies, soften a pat of butter, and you're ready to face a lunch-less hyperactive day with all guns blazing.

Try it sometime, with fruits on the side. It's a fantastic incentive for early mornings.

Sautéed red onions and capsicum (bell pepper).

Plus tomatoes.

And sausages sliced down the middle.
Plus a dash of flavoured salt and your favourite kinds of chopped herb (fine without, too).

A piping-hot dish of sautéed sausage with vegetables.
Perfect for a hotdog, really.

Fried egg, sunny-side up. Hot buttered toast.

One baked potato (two minutes in the microwave).
With butter.

The spread.

The eating.

The drinking (image filched off the internet)

Aaaand, off to work! Break that fast in style, people!

Hinger Kochuri

2011-07-22T00:47:00.001+05:30

Do you love kochuri? I love kochuri. Unequivocally.There isn't a decent kochuri place between my home and Amherst Street that I haven't patronised, despite the ever-present danger of severe diarrhoea or the cook's sweat garnishing the potato curry. I'm brave like that.

But even an ardent fan like me has preferences. If anything, perhaps more sharply etched preferences than most. I love korashutir kochuri and daalpuri, and machher kochuri and hinger kochuri, but I can't say I love them equally, in a spirit of disinterested fairness. If it's winter, the peas are in season, fresh and sweet, and I'll have to say koraishutir kochuri leaves the competition far behind. If we're entertaining and there's really good freshwater rui (carp) in the market that day, the deliciously savoury machher kochuri would be a staple for tea. Daalpuri doesn't have a season, but it's easy availability is probably what makes it less special.

But even when hing floods the market and biulir daal drowns the competition, hinger kochuri -- puris stuffed with asafoetida-flavoured ground daal -- rules the roost. It's appeal is not in rarity, but in the sheer punch of its assertive flavour. Plus, you can eat it by itself, or with a potato curry, or with a hing-flavoured pumpkin stir-fry. You can serve it for breakfast or for tea, or at any time in between. It never gets old, and it's wonderful.

And yes, like all stuffed flatbreads, it takes a bit of effort, but like stuffed flatbreads, it's also completely worth it. Plus, the process gets easier and quicker the oftener you make it. These days, I can start from scratch and make a stack of aloo paratha in thirty minutes.

So, here's what you need:

Biulir daal, ground with a little water (or buy powdered daal, and mix water to make a really thick batter).

Whole jeera.

Fresh hing, which you need only about half an inch of, diced.

Plus you also need moida and aata (all-purpose/refined flour and whole-wheat flour) to make the puris with. You can skip the refined flour completely, but if you can't, add it in a 1:3 ratio to whole-wheat. Mix a little salt and sugar to this, add slightly warm water, and make a stretchy dough. Keep it aside.

After grinding the whole daal with a little water, or mixing powdered daal with water to make a paste, heat a tablespoon of sunflower/canola oil (I've never tried this with olive, and since both hing and olive have strong flavours, I wouldn't risk an experiment. Braver souls than I may try, and get back to me).When the oil is hot, lower the flame completely and roll it around the wok, to coat the surfaces. Non-greased surface will make the daal char.

Toss the diced hing into the oil. Don't let it fry for too long, or it'll get inedibly bitter. Give it about twenty seconds, then add half a teaspoon of jeera. Raise the flame to medium-low, and toss this about for another twenty seconds. You should be able to smell the rather strong aroma of fried hing at this point. Defuse it by pouring in the thick daal-batter.

Mix it all up, and keep stirring as the mixture absorbs oil and cooks. It will sick to the bottom and sides of the pan like a leech. Worry not! Most of it comes off, like a crispy sheet of edible paper, when the batter's all done. For proof, peer into the picture below. See how I'm using the stickiness of the glob of daal to roll up the papery layer sticking to the wok?

When it reaches this stage, and is a nice shade between deep cream and light brown, your work is done. Take it off the hot wok and dump it into a cooler dish.

Now, proceed to make little balls of the dough, stuff them with this cooked filling, roll them out and fry them, as shown in the detailed how-to here. Serve either by itself, or with a basic potato-and-pumpkin curry, the recipe for which may follow at later :-)

One.

Many =)

Versatile Bean Soup

2011-06-26T20:01:00.002+05:30

What with the rain, floods and the sudden chill, I decided to shelve the momos in sweet-and-sour sauce. Wait. I decided to shelve them... in favour of this thick, hearty, garlicky meat-and-bean soup that is just purr-fect for this weather.

Not that spicy fried dumplings aren't wonderful for the wet chill, but what with wobbly health and other pesky things, I'm trying to walk the gastronomic straight and narrow. Temporarily. And you can't marry flavour, heartiness and health better than in this soup, especially when the cold has seeped into your bones. Especially, if the blasted rain has cut off supplies to the local market, leaving you with bits and pieces from last week's shopping. And particularly especially, if you're a vegetarian and have had enough with the meat-monopoly on savoury goodness.

If none of those sell this soup to you, try this for garnish: It's easy. Sample the summary: sauté rajma (and chicken) with chopped onions, garlic, chilies and root vegetables. Add stock and water. Season with salt, sugar, cumin and chopped cilantro. Simmer. Done!

Wash about two handfuls of rajma thoroughly. Then soak them in room-temp. water for at least a day. People and cookbooks will tell you eight hours, but take it from me: eight hours is nowhere close for softening these rock-hard beans. You might change the water in between if you like, giving the beans another quick scrub in the process. If you're cooking the vegetarian version, skip right ahead to the actual cooking.

If you're open to meaty goodness, thaw a chicken leg (or any other meat-on-bone piece, but legs are best) about an hour or so before cooking. Rub it with lemon or lime juice and a little salt, and keep it aside. My father helpfully intervened to crack the juicy bone a little, because "More juices, more flavour". The soup did taste remarkably delicious, so he was probably right.

Chop quite a bit of garlic, one large red onion, and a couple of green chilies for flavour. Feel free to substitute local varieties of chilies for our kNachalonka. In the US I used to add chopped jalapeños, which gives the dish a distinctly different taste. Also, feel free to add carrots, broccoli florets, beet, and whatever else you like in your steaming pot of cold-weather soup.

Armed with everything you need, put your choice of kitchenware on a low flame. Heat half a tablespoon of oil. Take your pick from olive, sunflower, or canola. Of course, I use mustard, because I'm nothing if not predictable. Add the chopped vegetables, stir, and generally let cook over a low flame till the onions turn translucent and the garlic smells toasted. Then, for the meaty soup, toss in the chicken and let it brown.

Meaty version.

Add the rajma. Fold it in and keep stirring for a couple of minutes, then let it toast for another five. It's going to ooze juices and stain your pot. This is a good thing. Encourage it with gentle stirring.

The vegetarian version.

Proof of the cooking (also the vegetarian version).

Give it a few final stirs, then pour in a tin of chicken or vegetable broth, or plain water.You'll need water even if you're using broth, because rajma needs a LOT of water to cook in. Skimping will probably char your pot. I speak from experience.

Now for the final touches: add salt, half a teaspoon of sugar (yes, I insist), and less than half a teaspoon of ground or powdered jeera/cumin. Mix it thoroughly with gentle stirs. When it's all mixed, add a handful of chopped coriander leaves and stalks, put the lid on, and let it simmer for about forty minutes.

Then turn up the flame so the whistle releases the steam inside, open the lid, and fish out the chicken. Most of the meat will have melted off the bone by now, but pick whatever is left, add it back to the pot, and throw the bone away.

Now reduce the soup to your preferred consistency. Some people like it quite thick, but I prefer it a little thinner during the monsoons (for me, the only heavy-soup season is a snowy winter). Had I been making this in winter, however, I would certainly have considered adding a dollop of soup cream to thicken it up :-) And the best part? This is fabulous with bread, rice, flatbreads, and by itself. You can big a big pot of it, and eat it in different ways over the week. A perfect dish for grad students, in other words.

Try it before the wet spell is over, folks!

Veg Momo

2011-06-13T17:49:00.010+05:30

Given a choice, I'd never eat vegetarian dumplings if I could have ones with meat in it, but as it happened, I wasn't given a choice. We were having a few people over and they were vegetarian. Of course, I need not have made momos at all, but I've been itching to try them at home in Calcutta -- my first attempt here -- and this was a perfect opp. to test my skills on a captive audience. No, captive tasters. An actual employed food taster might quit and thus escape, but guests, once served, have little choice but to stuff their faces.

And if you catch their expression during the narrow window between tasting and expressing polite delight, you'll know what they really think of your cooking.

Our guests thought really highly of my cooking, or their shelves are missing a few well-deserved Oscars.

Ingredients:

Flour shell -- make a stretchy, soft, well-kneaded dough with flour, a touch of salt, and warm water.
4 or 5 scallions/pNeyaajkoli -- chopped tiny.
Half a red or white onion -- minced or diced miniscule.
Half a large carrot -- grated or minced. Or diced really small.
Half a cup of shredded cabbage.
3 or 4 green beans, 'cause what the heck. 8 or 9 soya bean/nuggets, for the same reason.
Garlic, ginger -- minced.
Soya sauce, salt, sugar, sunflower/canola oil.
An egg.

Shobhadi, bless her, saw the carrots and beans I had set aside and helpfully chopped them for me, because I think she imagined I'd be making fried rice or some such. I could take a knife to these and dice them, but you know hard it is cut already chopped veggies? So I just put everything in the mixie -- including a few dry soya nuggets -- and gave it a whirl.

Whirled veggies :-)

Splashed with a couple of tablespoons of soya sauce, some salt, a little sugar, and the pieces of water-soaked, softened soya nuggets

Added eggs. All right, so I added two instead of one.

The filling was ready. Then, I made small balls from the dough, rolled them out, didn't care enough to make them perfect circles. Then...

Scooped a little filling in the centre of the imperfect disc.

Cabbage because I like cabbage in momos.

Tied them up like a putuli. What is a good English word for a putuli?

A whole set of putulis.

Then, I bough a wokful of water to boil. A proper rolling boil. The momos were dropped in with minimum splash, because splashing boiling water is not fun. The boiling continued till the momos grew plump and slightly translucent, and the water reduced considerably. More water was promptly added, keeping the flame on high.

Each batch of momos (say, eight each) needs three boilings, and the whole process should take between half hour to forty minutes. After half an hour, they were lifted off with a slotted spoon, draining the extra water off them.

At this stage, the momos were delicious, and I ate about three just standing there next to the stove, but my father insisted that "just boiled" food could not be served with tea. So I fried them lightly in sunflower oil, but had my revenge by not making the red-chillies-in-vinegar dipping sauce. Hah! Take that!

Then again, this deprived ME of the slightly sour-edged chilli sauce too, so perhaps this wasn't the right revenge after all. But, Pou Chong brothers' chilli sauce saved the day. Thank you, sirs.

Presenting, first ever made-in-Cal vegetarian momos by Rimi. Ta daaa!

Up next: veg momos in sweet-and-sour sauce, inspired by Blue Poppy :-)

Cheese Toast

2011-06-10T22:12:00.001+05:30

Although this blog is written primarily for people who lack the skills, talent or inclination to be ecstatic in the kitchen, I sometimes forget just how alien cooking is to some of them. Forget, that is, till they pop up in my inbox demanding 'recipes' that, in my opinion, cannot even remotely be called 'recipes'.

The word conjures, for me, a sense of the exotic, the mysterious, the tantalising 'secret ingredient' The orange peel softened in fish-blood, the pasted nuts marinated in grape juice, the liver chopped with a knife made by blind virgins in the Appalachians. "Boil potatoes and mash with butter" is NOT my idea of a 'recipe'.

Cheese toast is a non-recipe. It's bread, butter, cheese, melted together like meeting souls, on an old, scratchy griddle. Or saucepan. Or tawa. Or skillet. It really doesn't matter which. What matters is that the cheese, butter and bread meld together like meeting souls. And that is easy to do.

Liberally butter toasts hot off the griddle. The crusts are off because they bruise my mouth. I'm delicate like that.

Topped with mild cheddar sliced from a 3-inch-sqaure cube.

Topped with another piece of liberally buttered toast. And put back on the griddle at medium-low, three minutes each side.

One sandwich cleverly made into TWO sandwiches by slicing through the centre. I'm pure genius.

And shown off. Melty, chewy, and warm inside, with an oozing, golden, creamy, semi-liquid butter.

Served with a steaming cup of Assam strong. Keep your wispy Darjeelings for the afternoon. I like my morning cuppa to knock sleepiness into the next galaxy :-)

Dahi Vada

2011-05-30T21:07:00.001+05:30

This dish is not indigenous to the coastal Bengali platter... or so I thought. Apparently, biulir daaler bora is pretty big in some parts of Bengal, and a precious ass I'd have looked had I not been enlightened at the nick of time.

Well, it's not my fault if my education has been left incomplete by parents who withheld this traditional snack from me. A girl learns what she eats, and I most certainly haven't eaten biulir daaler bora at home. Till last week, that is, when my mother celebrated the onset of her summer hols by making this lovely sweet n' tangy snack on a Sunday morning. And informed me condescendingly that of course biulir daaler bora is eaten in Bengali households. Just not in hers, because isn't biuli just so bland when compared to, say, the crunchy sweetness of mushur?

Hmph. Anyway, here's what you need:
For the vada -- biulir daal (split urad), hing (asafoetida), salt, chopped green chilies, onions if you like.
For the yogurt sauce:
Thick unsweetended yogurt.
Sugar, flavoured salt.
Tamarind -- whole or paste -- dissolved in a little water.
Whole jeera/cumin -- dry-roasted and ground into a powder.
Coriander leaves/cilantro -- washed and chopped.
Clove and cinnamon powder -- optional.
Aamchur powder -- optional.
Sheu/jhuri bhaja -- little sticks of fried spicy besan batter. Also optional, but highly recommended.

First, soak the biulir daal overnight in cold water. In the morning, drain the water, wash the daal a couple of times, then grind it, either manually or in a mixie with a little warm water. Some people bypass all this trouble and toil by buying powdered biulir daal and making a thick batter with it by mixing in warm water. Feel free if this suits you better.

After the daal has been ground (or the powder batter-ed), cover and keep in a warm place for at least three hours for the daal to foment. I should add here that my very impatient mother frequently forgoes this step, and she hasn't been arrested by the food police yet.

Now add the chopped onions, green chilies, a pinch of hing made crumbly by rolling between your thumb and forefinger, and salt. Substituting flavoured salt (locally, beet-noon) for white salt is a very good idea. I've also seen some people add other seasoning to this batter (a friend used to add chopped tomatoes, but she ate it without the yogurt sauce) because, as my mum contemptuously pointed out, biulir daal is rather bland.

Whisk the batter briskly for a few minutes, then drop teaspoonfuls of it in bubbling oil, making between one to four vadas at a go, depending on your expertise. And oh, always use a wok for this. Your batter will lie spinelessly at the bottom and drink oil if you use a flat skillet.

Drain the vadas, and soak them for at least an hour in salt water. This makes them soft and pliable. Also eases out oil.

Now, the yogurt sauce. Here are the notes and pictures from the last time I made it. Since that turned out really, really well, I've stuck to the recipe like leech to limb.

Disgusting, aren't I? :-)

Anyway, make a slightly thinner version of that tangy-sweet yogurt sauce, and pour it over the vadas. Garnish with dark green coriander leaves and bright yellow sheu/jhuri bhaja. Dahi vada, ready for gobbling! Enjoy it while this hideous summer lasts, folks.