at 21:27

Til Kumro (Pumpkin cooked in sesame paste) ( Bengali Dish)

I am going through a phase when cooking seems like a real hard work. Well, I did do some cooking in the weekend but the whole idea of clicking snaps and writing recipe seems too much. I just want to eat and sleep and go to work.  

But.. I realised that I have not posted anything on the blog for a long time. Which I should have, now that I have a blog and that I need to try to make it popular. In fact almost wishing that I did not have a blog!!!!!!! Well too late, I guess.

Posting a recipe of Til Kumro or Pumpkin cooked in sesame paste. It is a very ‘everyday’ dish at my home in kolkata. Most likely originated from Bangladesh…. Well I am not sure. However, it does have the flavor of coconut, mustard and sesame mix, which is very typical of my mother.  She also cooks chicken in the same combination.  So do I. I had some drumsticks at home, drying in the fridge. I used them. but, you do not actually need them.

Try this dish for its simplicity and sweetness. Moreover, it is a healthy dish without any compromise on taste

Ingredients:

400g-Pumpkin, diced

2-stick of drumstick, cut length wise (optional)  

3-tablespoon sesame seeds (increase the quantity if you like)

1 ½- tablespoon grated coconut (increases the quantity if you like but then also increase sesame too)

1-teaspoon mustard seeds (I used black) ((increase the quantity if you like and if you have increased the other ingredients)

1/4-teaspoon Nigella/kalo jeera/kalonji

1-long green chili (add more if you like hot)

Salt to taste

Pinch of sugar

1-tablespoon oil

 

Method:

1.    In the blender/ grinder  mix coconut, sesame, mustard and green chili and make a paste, add little water in case needed

2.   Keep the paste aside and add little salt to the whole paste, otherwise it might turn bitter due to mustard

3.   Heat oil in wok or karahi

4.   Add Nigella seed and fry a little

5.   Add the diced pumpkin and drumstick ( if using) and fry until the pumpkin is half done

6.   Add the paste  and combine with pumpkin

7.   Fry for a while, add salt and pinch of sugar

8.   Sprinkle little water in case sticking at the bottom or add water to make thick gravy

9.   Cook until pumpkin is well done and gravy thickened

10.                 Serve with roti or boiled white rice

Enjoy the day and hope to you see you next time when I have more energy than today. Take care!

at 23:23

Narkel Diye Anarosh r Chutney (Pineapple Chutney Cooked with Coconut Milk-Bengali version)

Ingredients

300g-Pineapples cut into small pieces

½- teaspoon Panch Phoron

½-teaspoon turmeric

1/4-chili powder

1-dry red chili

½-ginger paste

½-cup sugar

500ml-coconut milk

Salt to taste

1-teaspoon oil

 Method:

1.    Heat oil in pan

2.    Add panch phoron and dry red chili on the hot oil, fry a little

3.    Add the pineapple

4.    Add turmeric, chili, salt,ginger and cook the pineapple

5.    Add sugar when the pineapple’s have  softened

6.    Then add coconut milk and cook until it has reduced and the chutney has become sticky

  For regular update from my blog, please visit my face book page pet pujo and adda  and click ‘like’. Also, follow me at here. I am featured at Networkedblogs.  You can also leave your comments here. Your comments and suggestions are most welcome. Hope to see you again

 

at 00:01

Sunday Saga: Starting with Potol Posto (Pointed Gourd/Parwal Cooked with Poppy Seed Paste)

Sunday lunch special is not a thing of my house. We always had special food- there was always something new on the menu. We always had elaborated meals. Even now, when we are all away from home, my mother would cook a five-course meal. It always starts with a leafy vegetable and finishes with dal (yes we eat dal at last not at the beginning of a meal). In between there will  be a mix vegetable or a vegetable cooked with fish or fish head, sometime some vegetable bhorta ( mash), fish jhol ( gravy), chicken ( idea is to cook for my brother who does not eat fish but of course she cannot just cook for him. So we all eat it) and then the dal to finish. This is like a regular menu for us. Moreover, my mother can never cook same thing within two weeks time. Therefore, there is always a different fish dish and chicken dish on the table. For many household in Bengal, my husband’s for example, Sunday is associated with eating ‘mutton jhol’ (goat meat gravy) and other special dishes. But not in my house. Despite of being very busy, both my parents took interest in food- they would cook ‘special food’ every night and store them as well for later use.  Mutton was never something we eat very often due to health reason.

Now of course things are different. I make mutton occasionally when R wants to eat and when I am inviting A and D who love mutton. In addition, I try to cook for 3 to 4 days lunches at one go on Sunday afternoon so that both of us can take food to office. Dinner is mostly cooked fresh as we have salads or soups. Today is Sunday and I am cooking in bulk- to eat today and in the hope that some will last for another 3 to 4 days office lunch (which never really happens).

Today I cooked Potol Posto (Pointed Gourd/Parwal Cooked with Poppy Seed Paste), Shorshe Ilish (Hilsa cooked with mustard paste in Bengali style), capsicum, motorshuti, sweet corn diye paneer ( Paneer cooked with capsicum, peas and sweet corn), Mutton Jhol (goat meat gravy), tomato Chutney (Bengali Tomato Chutney) and musuri r dal ( Red lentil cooked in Bengali style)  . I am giving the recipes one by one in separate posts starting with Potol Posto.

For Shorshe Ilish (Hilsa cooked with mustard paste in Bengali style), Click here 

For Mutton Jhol (goat meat gravy) click here

For Tomato Chutney (Bengali Tomato Chutney) click here

 

 

Potol Posto Ingredients:

10- Potol (pointed gourd), de skinned and cut lengthwise in four sections or maybe two

½- teaspoon of Nigella seed/kalo jeera

1-small onion cut into thin and fine slices

1 -teaspoon Turmeric powder

3-small green chili, cut lengthwise

5-tablespoon poppy seed/Posto

2-tablepoon oil (vegetable or mustard)

Salt to taste

Method:

1.    Heat oil in a pan

2.   Marinate the Potol with turmeric and salt and fry them. Keep them aside

3.   Make a paste of the Posto and 1 green chili using blender or shil nora

4.   Heat more oil in the pan

5.   Add kalo jeera and let it fry for a while

6.   Add the cut onions and fry them until soft

7.   Add the Potol and salt. Fry for 5 mins

8.   Add the Posto paste and add green chili

9.   Cook until Posto is cooked and water have dried down

10.                Serve with hot white/boiled rice

For regular update from my blog, please visit my face book page pet pujo and adda and click ‘like’. Also, follow me at my blog . I am featured at Networkedblogs.  You can also leave your comments here. Your comments and suggestions are most welcome. Hope to see you again!

 

at 23:21

Sunday Saga Yet Continues: Last but not the least THE Tomato Chutney

Ingredients

5-ripe and sweet tomatoes cut into small pieces

½-teaspoon panch phoron

1-green chili

½-teaspoon grated/paste ginger

¼-teaspoon turmeric powder

5-tablespoon sugar (or as per taste of sweetness)

Pinch of Bhaja masala (dry roasted masala dust. See my spice section for details)

Salt to taste

1-tablespoon oil

 Method:

1.    Heat oil

2.   Add panch phoron and green chili and fry until spatters

3.   Add the cut tomatoes

4.   Add turmeric, ginger and salt

5.   Cook until tomatoes have become almost mash

6.   Add sugar and cook until melted and gravy thickened

7.   Take out in a bowl and Sprinkle the bhaja masala before serving

For regular update from my blog, please visit my face book page pet pujo and adda  and click ‘like’. Also, follow me at my blog. I am featured at Networkedblogs.  You can also leave your comments here. Your comments and suggestions are most welcome. Hope to see you again!

 

at 22:36

Chitrangada’s ‘Guilt Free Muchmuche Alu Bhaja’ with little bit of Simon twist (Baked Potato Fries/ Fingers)

I have been meaning to cook something from Chitrangada’s Blog ‘Color and Spices’. Her Recipe coupled with her day light photograph entices me entirely. I wish I could take some day light snaps like her or cook like her really. Day light photograph on sunny day is not possible as I am in office when sun god shows mercy (if at all) on us Londoners. And on weekend, by some conspiracy it is always raining in London.

So I am trying to be happy to cook from one of her recipes (not like her though as she is way too good). There is a little bit of twist in the recipe to give it my signature. I used garlic pickle instead of the garlic oil. Hope it tastes as good as hers

Ingredients:

4-small potatoes (any would do, at least did for me) thin cut like fries

2-tablespoon of oil

1-teaspoon of garlic pickle with oil ( it has full garlic cloves)

½-teapsoon chili flake

Salt to taste

 Method:

1.     Wash the potatoes with skin

2.    Cut them to thin finger or sticks. Do not make them too thin or too thick

 

3.    Now in a bowl add oil, garlic pickle with oil and chili flake and mix well

 

Oil from garlic pickle droped on white oil

 

 

4.    Line a baking tray with foil

5.    Place the potatoes on the tray and pour the oil

 

6.    Mix the oil properly with the potatoes

7.    Layer the potatoes on the tray so that each one is separate from other ( if you are doing lots you might have to do them in batches)

8.    Heat the oven at 200c ( fan oven)

9.    Place the tray in the middle  and bake for 5/8 mins ( or until little brown)

10. Take the tray out and toss the potatoes so that each side gets the brown color

11.  Take it out when brown and crispy

12. Serve like snack with dip or serve with white rice and dal

Please visit me at my face book page  Pet Pujo and Adda and click like button  to get regular updates from me. Follow me at my bog Pet Pujo and Adda  and I am there at Network bloggers as well.

 

at 23:24

Begun Alu Diye Palong Saak (Spinach cook with aubergine and potatoes): Recipe from the Jaminder's of Savar, Dhaka, Bangladesh

I have known this family for years. In fact I have been part of them since I started to walk. My father after teaching in Kolkata got tired and took up a teaching position in one of the universities in Dhaka.  To be honest it was my thakuma (paternal grandmother), who wanted to go back to Bangladesh and her only option was to blackmail my father emotionally.

And that’s how I came to know savar er( savar which is a name of a place)  dadu( grandfather) and didon( grandmother).  Elder son of the family was my father’s student and he offered that we stay in their home as they have plenty of room .They would able to offer my father one section of the ‘jaminder Bari (House of the Jaminder)’.  They were very respectful towards my father. However, it was my mother who became the apple of their eyes and remains so till date. She is always their ‘Boro Bou ma’ (eldest daughter in law). And me…. the special one always! Their ‘buri’ and remain so very proudly.

I have learnt to speak there; I have learnt to believe that entire Savar bazaar would give me any sweets that I wanted and that dadu is a horse and only didon can feed me. This is the house where I still have Lychee tree, which was a gift from dadu on my birthday. They sell fruits from all other tree but mine. After all these years, it still is mine.

My father, who almost scared the hell out of every one including all his students, was scared of didon. I used to hate eating. My mother who I guess gave up on me by then would wait until my father came back from department. Then he would close the doors and feed me forcefully. I used to store food on one side of the mouth for hours and he would go on screaming ‘potla bhang’. And I would not.

I would wait for didon to rescue me. Every day she would come screaming at my father. I would by then have the glee of winning war against my father. Then didon and dadu together would feed me for hours at night, one trying to be a horse, the other trying different foods and what not. Didon smelled of milk as she used to spend so much time in kitchen boiling milk (they had cows at home). I would be tired from eating or trying to eat and sleep on didon’s lap.

I guess, my first cooking was in their kitchen. They had this huge mug made ‘Chula’. On one of them a karahi of milk would remain.. boiling. I being the most spontaneous child of the house went to cook the milk and in the process cooked my feet. Burnt and marked. For months I stayed on didon’s lap, for months my father did not have permission to feed me and for months I blackmailed my father  to take me to Savar bazaar every evening to buy rosogolla and misti doi which I would not mostly eat. I look at it with so much loving memories now.  I was such a pampered child and remain so for all these people.

I have not been to the house since 1994 when most people of the house left for India after Babri Masjid incident in India and its repercussion on Hindu’s of Bangladesh. Dadu Dida remained along with Ratan sadhu ( my uncle.. he had bread so I called him sadhu). Half of people are in UK now, the family still fights over property that has been taken over by Muslims as Hindu and enemy property ( I am sure same happened in India.. so do not take it as religion bias.. I am just telling an experience, which is part of me)

A aunty -the daughter of the family stays in UK and I keep visiting her very often. Last week when I went to stay over the weekend, she cooked me this spinach recipe asI am very fond of and  it reminds me of my childhood. This is very much Dhakaiya Hindu cuisine which is very close to Ghoti cuisine of West Bengal.
 

Ingredients

½ kg Palong Saak or Spinach, washed and cut thinly

¼ -of an aubergine, small diced

2-small potatoes, clean and small diced

2-clove garlic, smashed

2-green chili, cut into fat slices

½-teaspoon turmeric

½-teaspoon cumin powder

4-tablespoon oil

Salt to taste

Method:

1.     Heat oil in a pan

2.    Add potatoes and aubergine.

3.    Add salt and little bit of turmeric and fry properly until golden

4.    Keep them aside
 

5.    Give little more oil and heat

6.    Fry the garlic until golden, then add green chili slices and fry

7.    Then add the spinach

8.    Add turmeric, salt and cumin and cook until water comes out

9.    Add the fried potatoes and aubergine
 

10. Cook until dry and fried

11.  Serve as first course with white rice and a deep fried red chili

Hope you like the recipe. Why don’t you cook and send your recipe and snap to me which I can upload as guest post. Also have look at my Facebook pagePet Pujo and Adda    and click ‘like’ . Follow me at Pet Pujo and Adda 

 

at 22:04

Couscous Khichdi

Between packing ‘n’ number of bags /boxes/suitcases and shifting home, I did manage to do some cooking for Eid. I made Kosha Mangsho (spicy Bengali Mutton Preparation) and chicken meatball Pulao. However, as of now, I am too tired to write the recipes, watermark the photos and upload them. Instead, I am posting the recipe for couscous Khichdi that I made some time back.  By the way, if you use rice instead of couscous, then this khichdi will  be called ‘patla khichuri’ as mentioned in my earlier post on khichuri ( Bhoger Khichuri version 1) and also the rice version of this one will be Bhoger Khichuri version 2. I will post the recipe for rice version later. For now, it is couscous. After all these festivals and gluttony, I think our tummy deserves a bit of rest.

Ingredients:

50gm couscous

50gm mung or masoor Dal (yellow or red lentil)

1-carrot, diced

1-potato, diced

½-cup peas

6/7-floret of broccoli (you can use cauliflower to have more authentic Bengali taste)

6/7-dices of sweet pumpkin

1-teaspoon of Panch Phoron

2-dry red chili

2-Bay leaves

1-teaspoon turmeric

1-teaspoon cumin seed powder

1-teaspoon of ginger paste/powder

2-green chili            

Salt to taste

1-tablespoon oil

Method:

1.    Wash the lentils and keep aside

2.    Heat oil in a deep bottom pan

3.    Add bay leaves, red chili and panch phoron (mix of five seeds, very essential to Bengali cooking)

4.    When the seeds start to sputter and you can smell the fried red chili, add hot water. ( Have your extractor fan on or be ready to sneeze for a while J)

5.    Add lentil in the hot water

6.    Add salt. Add the potatoes and carrots so that they get boiled along with the lentil

7.    Method if using couscous: let the lentils be 1/2 cooked. Add turmeric, cumin and ginger and cook

8.     Then add other vegetables

9.     Cook the lentil and vegetable until well done

10.  When everything is cooked, just add couscous to the pan and green chili and cover for 10 minutes. And it is ready. If you want it runny, add little more hot water and cover for another couple of minuets

11. Serve with raita, fried aubergine/potato/ pointed gourd etc. I eat with omelet and mango achar

12. Method if using rice: wash the rice and keep aside

13. Let the lentil be 1/2 cooked.  Add cumin, turmeric and ginger and cook

14. Add rest of the vegetable. You can also fry the broccoli or cauliflower or even all the vegetable before adding for better taste. However, I did not fry.

15. Add the rice and cook together until rice is well cooked as well as vegetables and mixed well with lentil

16. Add green chili and cook for another 5 mins for the smell of green chili

17.  The consistency varies but usually this khichuri is not very dry

18. Serve as suggested above