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

at 23:54

Kolkata styled Eid walla Mutton Biriyani/ Mutton Biryani –a little healthy but no compromise on taste recipe (Trust me on this!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Eid walla Biriyani for my dearest friend SS

Growing up in North Africa, celebrating Eid was part of my childhood. My brother and I got new dresses, my mother cooked lovely food and family friends visited our home.  We went to visit L aunty, Y and S’s house ritually for all Eid. Durga Puja, Lakshmi Puja, Saraswati Puja etc were part of our life even then, but it was only after moving to Kolkata we realised what Durga Puja was and what being in Kolkata meant around that time.  Durga Puja, Kali Puja governs our life now but we still celebrate Eid and my mother still cooks lovely Eid food for us.  

Both my parents are religious. As for me, I am not sure. I automatically close my eyes when I go to Belur Math but I also automatically close my eyes when I go near sea or smell the first raindrop on parched land. I hate the temple near my house in UK as the ‘pujari’ (priest in a Hindu temple) is irritating and believe that it is through R that all my prayers can be heard. How much more stupid can he be?!!  I hate temple, which has water everywhere, dirty and too many people.  What does that make me? Religious or non-religious? Well, I am not too bothered about knowing it too.  When I close my eyes in front sea, or when it rains or seeing  the peacocks of Leads Castle or in front of a temple that is clean,  all I know is, I  thank the universes for being so beautiful,  for being alive, happy, independent and having the ability to appreciate the beauty in my own way. When we celebrated Eid as children or celebrate Durga Puja now, none of this choices/celebration was/are religious for us. We celebrated what everyone near us and our friends celebrated. We celebrated the spirit of the festival. We celebrate the beautiful life.

My friend SS requested “Eid walla Biriyani” in my blog.  This is for her. My kolkata style Eid walla Biriyani: for the spirit of Eid and to beautiful life around us.

Eid Mubarak!

Mutton Biriyani Recipe:

Serves: 4 Adults foodies and 2 kiddo foodies

Preparation Time: 15 mins for Biriyani Masala, at least 1 hour marinating (longer the better, they say. I believe too. However, some time I make without marinating and it does not make much difference to be honest. So adjust the timing depending upon how much time you have and the occasion you are cooking for. I am cooking for Eid. So it is going to be elaborate).  2 hours for cooking.  

Ingredients that I use for Biriyani/Biryani Masala: 10- Cardamoms 2-inch Cinnamon 10- Cloves 2- Bay Leafs 1-Tablespoon cumin seed 1-Tablespoon Caraway seed (Shah Jeera) 4- barks of Mace (Javetri) ½ teaspoon of Nutmeg powder 10- Black pepper corn ½-teaspoon fennel 1 teaspoon of red chili powder

   

My Biriyani Masala

Making my Biriyani masala:

1.  Dry roast cardamoms, cinnamon, cloves, Bay leafs, cumin seed, caraway seed, mace, fennel, black pepper corn on a low heat until the spice gives a aroma and also starts to spatter.

2.  Grind all the dry roasted spices  until smooth powder

3.   Mix chili powder and nutmeg powder and grind again to mix well

4.   Store in a air tight jar ( I used my little jam jar that I brought back from my hotel  in Venice )

Ingredient for Biriyani/Biryani 700gm Basmati Rice (I used Kohinoor that was not good by the way) 1kg mutton  fat free shoulder, cut in to small pieces 6 -Eggs 6 -Potatoes  ( small to medium) 4- Onions   (Optional: Add 1- more Onion for deep-frying and spreading over the Biriyani as final touch) 2 Bay leafs 8/10 Black Paper corns 2inch Cinnamon 5/6 Cardamom 5/6 Clove 1-tablespoon ginger paste 1-tablespoon garlic paste 1-cup milk 1-cup yogurt 2- Tablespoon Kewra Water (When I cook for my mother I do not use it. She hates the smell) 1- Pinch Saffron ( soaked in little warm water) 8- tablespoon oil 2 tablespoon low fat spread Salt to taste

Methods for making the Biriyani/Biryani

Step 1: Preparing the Mutton

1.       Wash the mutton properly and cut away all the remaining fats

2.       Marinate the mutton with yogurt and 3-tablespoon of my Biriyani/Biryani Masala

3.       Add little salt and keep in fridge for 30 mins

Step 2:

1.       Slice 4 onions

2.       Heat 2 tablespoon oil in a non stick Karahi and add the onions

3.       Fry the onions until golden brown

4.       Let the fried Onions cool down

5.       Once cool, make a paste of the fried onion in a grinder

Step 3:

1.       Add the fried onion paste, ginger paste and garlic paste to the marinated mutton

2.       Fridge for another 30 mins

Fried Potatoes

Step 4:

1.       Boil the eggs, de-shell the boiled eggs.

2.       Boil the potatoes until they are 70% done. Heat 2 tablespoon of oil in a non stick pan and fry the boiled potatoes until they are golden brown and well done. Mine was a little dark in color as I used just 1 tablespoon of oil.

3.       Keep both eggs and fried potatoes aside

Step 5: Cooking the mutton

1.       Heat 2 tablespoon of oil in a non- stick pan (I used my pressure cooker). Add 2 cardamom, bay leaf and fry until it leaves faint aroma

2.       Add the marinated mutton and cook for 15 mins

3.       Add   1 more tablespoon of Biriyani Masala. Adjust salt to taste. Add this stage you can add more chili in case you like hot food.

4.       Cook the mutton on slow heat until well done and the gravy has dried up. I cooked in pressure cooker. Careful not to make the consistency of the gravy to too dry or too watery.

Cooked Mutton

Step 6: Cooking the Rice and deep-frying Onion

1.       While cooking the mutton, soak the rice in water

2.       Dain water from the rice

3.       In a deep vessel heat water. I use rice to water in 1:2 ratio. As I have 700gm of rice, I used almost 1.5 liter of water, if not more. Do not worry about water as you are going to throw it anyway. So a little extra will not harm.

4.       Make a cloth pouch-containing bay leaf, cinnamon, cardamom, black pepper and clove. Add the pouch the boiling water. This will give a nice aroma to the rice.

5.       Add the rice. Add salt and 2 tablespoon of oil

6.       When the rice is 70% done, drain the rice.

7.       Place the rice in plates/white paper (not news paper please) and let them air dry.

8.       Take a little bit of rice and add to the soaked Saffron to make yellow/orange rice

9.       While the rice is being cooked, thinly slice 1 onion. Deep-fry them until brown and crisp. You will need half a cup of oil for this process. I did not do it, as I wanted my Biriyani to be light.

Drying the cooked  rice

Step 7: Layering the Biriyani/Biryani

1.       Take a deep bottom vessel. Rub the low fat spread all over the vessel.

2.       Make a layer of rice. Top it up with a layer of cooked mutton. Sprinkle some milk and Kewra water.  Sprinkle some of your orange/yellow rice as well.

3.       Then on top of the layered mutton, add another layer of rice. Repeat the process. Remember you last layer or the top layer should be rice not mutton.

4.       Remember: do not make too thick layer as this will interrupt with cooking the rice. Remember to sprinkle milk, which will prevent the rice from sticking at the bottom as well as help in cooking with vapor from milk. Add Kewra water in all layers in case you want your Biriyani to smell like the shop Biriyani. Otherwise, do not add this at all.

5.       On the top layer of rice arrange the fried potato and sprinkle the deep fried onions  ( if you are using)

The final Layered Biriyani

Step 8: Final Cooking

1.       Close the vessel. I used a sealed vessel. If you do not have a sealed vessel, seal the vessel with a flour dough so that the vapor remain trapped in the vessel which will induce pressure cooking

2.       Oven Method:  Add water to the oven tray. Heat the oven in 200c and heat the water. Place the sealed vessel on the hot water. Cook for 45 mins. Bring the vessel out. Give a proper shake. Real good shake so that rice, mutton and spices mix well and they are fluffy. You can use spoon to fluff them up. But careful not to break the rice.  Close the vessel again and cook for another 20 mins.

3.       Gas method: Place a big tawa on the lowest flame and add water. Place the vessel on the water-filled tawa. In case you cannot add water to tawa, you can place the vessel directly to heated tawa. However, this will mean that some rice will stick at the bottom. Give a proper shake. Real good shake so that rice, mutton and spices mix well and remain fluffy. You can use spoon to fluff them up. But careful not to break the rice.  Close the vessel again and cook for another 10 mins.

Step 9: Serve NOW!

1.       Serve with raita. Put fat free yoghurt in a bowl. Add chopped cucumber, tomato, onion, rock salt and cumin power. And mix well and serve with your Biriyani

at 15:17

Cheering for Olympics 2012, Protesting Dow’s Involvement.And my usual -sharing recipe for Libyan Chicken Shorba

Olympic fever has finally caught me. I am glued to the TV watching swimming, boxing and of course Usain Bolt. We went for the women’s tennis final on Saturday, watched Serena William play for gold, Andy Murray at mixed double, and cheered to the heart’s content for Sania Mirza and Leander Paes. And of course one can never get bored of the beautiful Wimbledon stadium on a sunny day.

I intended to boycott the London Olympics 2012 for its association with Dow Company. But I guess sports events like Olympic has the power to bring people together positively and it also bring a sense of positive nationalism (this only get confirmed when you see how people all over world have cheered for Usain Bolt or Michael Phelp).  Moreover, it has the power to attract someone like me who has no interest in sport whatsoever, to be glued to watching swimming, boxing, archery and cheering for

However with great power comes great responsibility. I cannot shake away the discomfort I am feeling with Olympics’ association with Dow and Bhopal gas tragedy.

I would have like to believe that no one needs a reminder of that day .People will be aware of the  plight of the people ,how victims were treated back in 1984, how little or no compensation were given to them until today, how thousand continued to get effected and will continue to get effected by the toxic legacy of the disaster and how Indian state and corporate like  Union Carbide & Dow, attached to the gas leak have shaken all responsibility and people’s voices have been ignored.  

People within system, corporate and states surprise me- not because they don’t know but because they don’t care. The difference between knowing and caring seems to be increasing every day. No wonder Dow gets to sponsor a world class even like Olympic despite of protest from Indian people at large, people all over the world, survivors, academia, NGO, Indian Olympic association, people UK.

The Bhopal Death Toll:

Initial deaths (3-6 December): more than 3,000 - official toll
Unofficial initial toll: 7,000-8,000
Total deaths to date: over 15,000
Number affected Nearly 600,000
Compensation: Union Carbide pays $470m in 1989

Source: Indian Supreme Court, Madhya Pradesh government, Indian Council of Medical Research.(Source : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-17054672)

In 1989, Union Carbide reached an out of court settlement with government of India and the company agreed to pay $470 million. The money built a hospital for those who suffered ill health and the survivor got $ 1000 each in compensation.  The agreement stand for a full and final settlement of Union Carbide of any Civil and Criminal Liabilities. Dow have merged with Union Carbide Corporation whose subsidiary Union Carbide Indian ran the Bhopal pesticide Plant in 1999. However Dow denies any liability of the leak and argues that $ 470 million as settlement is fair. This surely is a sponsor whose lack of appropriate action runs entirely counter to the Ethical Sourcing Code, says Peter Boocock an activist with https://www.change.org/en-GB/members/3040019. DOW Chemical, currently declared revenue for 2010 53.647 billion (2010), declared operating income 4.238 billion (2010, declared Profit 2.310 billion (2010). Cost of cleaning up Bhopal estimated at 135 Rs.crores = £16,735,304.804 or $26,230,145.237 cost approximation, however you measure the billions of profit that DOW makes [1,000 million US $ to a billion US $], that still leaves a substantial sum available for the directors, shareholders and DOW's day to day running costs yet they cannot clean the site or compensate the people.

Mr.Sarangi who runs Sambhavna Trust says, "what we find is a very high incidence of diseases: damage to the kidneys, the liver, the brain, the skin. The incidence of birth defects in these areas is at least 10 times what you would find in similar socio-economic populations." In a neighborhood just north of the Union Carbide plant, we found people drawing groundwater from a pump. We took a sample and had it tested at a laboratory in the United Kingdom. The test found that it contained nearly 4,000 micrograms per litre of carbon tetrachloride - nearly 1,000 times the World Health Organisation's safe limit. "Carbon tet", as it is known, is a highly toxic pollutant which is known to cause cancer and liver damage” (source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8390156.stm).

In 25 years no one has been successfully persecuted for the leak or ground water contamination. On June 7, 2010, nearly 26 years after world's worst industrial disaster left over 15,000 dead, former Union Carbide India Chairman Keshub Mahindra and six others were sentenced to two years imprisonment. 89-year-old Anderson, the then Chairman of Union Carbide Corporation of USA, who lives in the United States, appeared to have gone scot-free for the present as he is still an absconder and did not subject himself to trial. Almost thirty years after the horrific Bhopal chemical disaster, the factory site has still not been cleared up and the survivors and their families continue to fight for compensation. If it is not Dow responsibility then whose it is?

“Speaking on Indian TV Mr Cameron said Dow was a "reputable" firm and the Games should not be used for industrial or political purposes. He said his heart went out to those who had suffered in the incident but that it happened before Dow was involved” (Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17340658). If an event which has participation of over 200 countries does not included voices of the unheard, then what is the point of having such an event whose ideology is to bring nations together.  If this is not political, then what is? What would have UK said had the tragedy been in here?  

For Union Carbide or Dow the matter is legally and officially closed. For people of Bhopal it is far from close.

And for me, I continue to cheer for the spirit of the sport and continue to protest Dow’s involvement with Olympics

Recipe for Libyan Chicken Shorba (Libyan Styled chicken Stew)

Serves:  2 as main course on its own
Preparation Time: 15 mins
Cooking Time:  1Hr

 Ingredients:

1. 4 chicken leg pieces (approximately 250g) washed and cleaned
2. 1 big finely chopped red onion
3. 50g Canned Chickpeas (rinsed and drained)
4. 50g Orzo (Rice shaped pasta)
5. 3-tablespoon tomato puree
6. ¼-teaspoon cumin powder
7. ¼-teaspoon coriander seed powder
8. ¼-teaspoon red chili powder
9. ¼-teaspoon dried mint
10. 1 cup finely chopped coriander/cilantro
11. 1200ml water
12. 1-tablespoon oil
13. Salt to taste
14. 2 lemon wedges to serve

 Method:

1. Heat oil in a large heavy bottom stockpot. Fry the onion until translucent, pale golden and soft
2. Add the chicken and fry for 3/4 mins. Add cumin powder, coriander seed powder, chili powder. Fry for another 5 mins. If it sticks at the bottom sprinkle little water.
3. Add tomato puree and chickpeas and cook for another few minute until the puree mixes well with other ingredients
4. Add the water to the pot and cover. Simmer over a medium heat for 30mins
5. Add the orzo, coriander and cook for another 15 mins or until the Shorba have reduced to 1000ml in total and is flavorful. Adjust seasoning.
6. Add little dried mint, lemon and serve in a bowl