Petpujo and Adda

Drums of Heaven- Chicken Drumsticks/Chicken Lollipop tossed in Schezwan Sauce/ Kolkata Street food-Chicken Drum Stick / Must Eat Festive Bites during Durga Puja #2

We celebrated Durga Puja a bit early this year. Rumi, from Basingstoke left a message for me on my Magic in the Oven (https://www.facebook.com/Magic-in-the-Oven-1712207279067424/) page asking if I wanted do the sweets for their Durga Puja which was on Sunday, 2^nd Oct. She wanted Baked Rasogolla for 100 people!!! My first response was ‘No way, how is that possible’ ‘100 people’ ‘on Sunday’ ‘in 2 days’ and how am I going to travel from London to Basingstoke!

Well, that scepticism didn’t last long! One call from Rumi and she made it sound so easy! She encouraged me to take that leap of faith and take up the challenge. And I am ever so happy that I did.

I not only made the sweets for their bhog but also could give a small stall with Kolkata street food - fish fry, vegetable chop, mutton ghugni and misti doi. And what an outstanding response I received…the fish fry was polished off before we could blink!

But, what I took away from that day is how hospitable the entire team of Basingstoke Durga Puja was! Everyone in the team took effort to come and engage with us and made us feel at home. We had great ‘mangso bhat’ for bhog and we were also given a nice little packet of mangso to take back home. Overall a great start to the festive season.

My post is dedicated to the wonderful people of Basingstoke who made us feel so special - special thanks to Rumi without whom we would have not met such a lovely bunch of people.

Thank you all. You all rock!

Please check their website http://www.basingstokedurgapuja.com/

Now about the recipe. Drums of Heaven is actually Chicken Lollipop tossed in Schezwan sauce. Hence the recipe has two part: 1. making of the chicken lollipops and 2. Making Drum of heave by cooking the chicken lollipops in schezwan Sauce

You can just make the chicken lollipops and eat on their own as well.

Ingredients for Chicken Lollipop Recipe

· 8 Chicken legs

· 1 tpsp Ginger-garlic paste

· 1 Egg

· 2 tbsp Cornflour

· Salt – to taste

· ½ black Pepper

· 1 tsp Chilli sauce

· 2 tsp Soy sauce

· 1 tsp Vinegar

· Oil deep frying depending in frying pan

Method:

· Clean the chicken legs/drumsticks and keep aside.

· In a different bowl whisk the egg and then add all the other ingredients to it, except oil and whisk again.

· Marinate the chicken drumsticks in this prepared batter for at least 1 hour.

· Once the chicken is well marinated deep fry the pieces till golden brown. Chicken lollipop is ready to be served with ketchup if you want

Ingredient for Schezwan sauce:

· 4-5 Garlic chopped

· 1inch Ginger chopped

· 1 large Onion chopped

· 3 Green chillies cut into small pieces (optional, I used them only to decorate so that my toddler could eat my food)

· 1 tsp Chilli sauce (or less/more, depending on taste, I used less again so that my toddler could eat)

· 2/3 tsp Soya sauce

· 1 tsp Vinegar

· 1 tbsp Tomato sauce

· Salt – to taste

· Spring onions – chopped (for garnishing)

· 2 tsp Oil

Method for preparing Drums of Heaven in Schezwan sauce

· Heat oil in pan

· Add the chopped garlic and ginger and sauté for a minute.

· Add the onion and green chillies (if using

· ) and sauté for another minute till the onion becomes pink.

· Add the chili sauce, soya sauce, tomato sauce and again sauté for another minute.

· Add salt and very little water to prepare the sauce.

· Once the right consistency is reached toss the chicken lollipops in the sauce.

· Garnish with spring onion.

at 23:27

Bengali Vegetable Chop / Beetroot Croquette /Healthy snacks for toddler/Kolkata Street food-Vegetable Chop /Kolkata Veg Chop: Must Eat Festive Bites during Durga Puja 1

Pujo is almost here. In just a couple of days, Bengalis across the globe will be celebrating Durga Puja a five-day festival worshiping of Goddess Durga and celebrates her win against the evil demon ‘Asur’. Durga Puja is all about getting dressed in new puja look , ‘adda’ and visiting Puja pandals across the town with friends and family and most importantly, gorging on splendid food…

In London too, I can feel Durga puja. Today in the office all I could think about is coming home to open the suitcases to bring out the new sarees that I got from Kolkata to wear during the puja. Bringing out the cute little festive cloths that I got N and show them off to her.

I didn’t still bring my suitcase out, but decided instead to cook some festive food, some gorgeous festive food from the streets Kolkata without which Puja is incomplete.

First of the series is Vegetable chop!

Ingredients:

2 Beetroots

2 Carrots

2 Potatoes

1/2 tsp Chili Powder (optional)

1/2 tsp Cumin Powder

1 tsp Ginger Paste

1 cup Bread Crumbs

2 tbsp Roasted Peanuts (chopped)

2 tbsp grated coconut

1 teaspoon Bengali Bhaja Masala

1 Egg

Salt to taste

Oil to deep fry

Ingredient for Bhaja Masala: You can store this spice mix for later use as well

1teaspoon cumin seed

1 teaspoon fennel seed

1 teaspoon coriander seed

2 Bay leaf

1inch cinnamon stick

2/3 cardamom

Method of making Bhaja Masala

· Dry roast all the ingredient on frying pan

· Let them cool down a bit

· Grind dry roasted in blender or coffee grinder

· Store in air tight container for long term use

Method for making the vegetable Chop:

· Wash and Pill the vegetable

· Boil all the vegetables and let them cool, Smash the vegetables and add salt.

· Add ginger paste, cumin powder, chili powder, grated coconut, Bhaja Masala

· Fry the peanuts

· Now turn off the flame and add fried peanuts to the above mashed vegetable.

· Make oblong shaped chop out of this mixture.

Frying Method One: Toddler friendly healthy snack:

· Heat little oil in a frying pan

· Beat an egg

· Take a vegetable chop and dunk it in the beaten egg

· Now fry

· This method takes very little oil hence very healthy. The taste is not like the chop one might be used to eating. But the main taste remains the same.

Frying Method Two: Again a healthier option which takes very little oil but somewhat taste the same:

· Heat oil in a deep bottom pan

· Take a vegetable chop and coat with the bread crumbs and place onto a plate

· Now dunk the bread crumb coated vegetable chop in beaten egg

· Fry them

· In this method the bread crumb is somewhat washed by the egg hence takes less oil then usual but still retains original taste. also it is healthier than the original option

Frying method three: The actual method used in shops or the taste most of us are accustomed with

· Beat the egg

· Now dip each of the above-made balls in the beaten egg

· Afterwards coat each ball with the bread crumbs and place onto a plate

· Repeat the process for all the balls and then place them in the refrigerator for 1 hour or longer.

· Heat the oil in a pan and deep fry each ball till golden brown.

· Serve the vegetable chop with some Kasundi ( Bengali Mustard sauce) and onion or vegetable chop and muri

at 20:59

Rava Upma/Rawa Upma / Suji Upma/ Semolina Upma-Quick and healthy Breakfast Recipes/Healthy Breakfast recipe for children

According to Wiki “ Upma or Uppuma or Uppittu is a common South Indian, Maharashtrian and Sri Lankan Tamils breakfast dish, cooked as a thick porridge from dry roasted semolina or coarse rice flour. Various seasonings and/or vegetables are often added during the cooking, depending on individual preferences. These days, it is popular in most parts of India and is prepared in various ways”

However I must add that it is also cooked in Bengali household with a little variation in the cooking method. It also brings back memories of Delhi University PGW hostel days when we used to eagerly wait for weekend for some good food and Upma was one of them in the breakfast.

I usually cook this almost every second weekend for my daughter as she can easily self-feed this breakfast. It is healthy, easy to make without much fuss, adults can eat it too. I don’t know why I didn’t think about sharing the recipe before till someone requested the recipe.

Without much ado, the recipe.

Rava Upma/ Suji Upma/ Semolina Upma-Quick and healthy Breakfast Recipes/Healthy Breakfast recipe for children

Preparation Time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 25 minutes

Serve: 4

Level Of Cooking: Moderate

Ingredients for Vegetable Upma Recipe

1 1/2 cups Semolina (rava/suji)

1 medium Carrot cut into ¼ inch cubes

6-8 French beans, cut into ¼ inch cubes

1/2 cup Green peas

1 medium Green capsicum

1 medium Onion (optional)

2 Green chillies (optional)

1 inch piece Ginger

2 tablespoons olive oil (or less if you do not fry the veggies or the cashew nut)

1/2 teaspoon Mustard seeds

10 Curry leaves

1 teaspoons Split black gram skinless (dhuli urad dal)

1 tea spoon split Bengal gram

1 tablespoon coconut

10 cashew nut (optional)

2 cup water

Salt to taste

Method:

1. Dry roast the Suji/rava in a fry pan till they are slightly goldish (not too much not too much) and there is a nutty flavour. Then keep them aside

2. Wash and cut all the vegetables. You can actually use as many and as much veggie as you want

3. Give oil in the fry pan and warm

4. Add mustard seed

5. When it starts popping add the Urad dal and Bengal gram, fry till they are lightly golden (1mins maybe or less!!)

6. Add curry leave, onion and the cashew nut and fry till onions are translucent, by this time nuts should be fried too.

7. Add veggies and sauté a little

8. Add warm water

9. Add the rava or suji.

10. Add salt as per taste and add green chili ( if using)

11. Cook till water is reduced and the upma is thick in consistency

12. Garnish with coconut and serve with coconut chutney or coconut tomato chutney

at 12:23

Bengali Macher Chop/Maacher Chop or Fish Croquette and a week with my daughter

I made this chops two weeks back and have been meaning to upload them. Well I was on holiday this whole week and I had made this huge to do list. Uploading this one on the blog was one of them. I didn’t achieve much from the lists. No regrets as I got to spend a lot of time with my daughter whom I don’t get to see much during the weeks. She has a very busy life.

Being two and half is not easy. It is a hard life.

Her usual day start with getting up 6 am in the morning, getting dressed and then going to her child minders. It doesn’t stop at that. They she goes for school drops, then to children centre, have lunch, go to sleep and then school pick up. In between lots of running around after a cat named chocolate and dinner. From five her wait starts; waiting for mumma to pick her up at 6.30ish. Then she comes back home, take a bath, play with mumma, and maybe eat something. Then its bed time with some story.

That’s a lot of work for a day. That is also lots of time without mumma!!!!!!!!!!

This week was about being with my favourite person in the world. My heart outside by body. Neelormi Bhuiyan Chatterjee. We call her Neemi apart from many other names.

Our day started with some ‘gyada gyadi’ (a Bengali term with no English translation) in bed. I have taught her butterfly kiss (a kiss where you flutter your eye lids on the cheek). We keep kissing each other and my dotty breaks into such giggle that it melts my heart (by the way a mother’s heart’s melting point is very low). This is the time I cherish the most as she voluntarily spends so much time so close to me. Rest of the time she is like a fish, constantly moving around.

We make my tea together. She is an expert in making tea. She knows when to give water, tea and milk. ‘ no more water bas bas’ ‘get milk now’ ‘I do it’ and ‘here you go’ ‘tea’ and my tea is ready. I am set for the day. She makes her tea too but it’s from the blue bottle. ‘waterrrrrr please’ no more bas bas. Mumma I told you bas bas!

We sit in our balcony with our tea. Now it’s time to play with some bubbles. We make bubbles and look at them flying to the sky together. ‘Mummy look’ and I look at her proudly for making the biggest bubble in the wholestttt world! I can see the rainbow on my daughter’s face. As I keep looking for the ninth wonder my daughter is making with simple soapy water, my face lights up with pride. And my daughter seems brighter then the sun. We exchange our secret look and break into giggle.

Ahhh life is bliss!

Without much ado, the recipe for the Bengali Macher Chop/Maacher Chop or Fish Chop Croquette. There are several variety for the process. Most of the chop available in market have very thick coat of breadcrumb and very little fish. I will give that recipe for that some other day. This one taste little different as it has light coat of bread crumb and more of fish and needs less oil to fry. I personally like this one more as it’s fishier in taste, healthier without compromise on the taste. But of course it is not up to the mark to meet nostalgia for many who grew up in Kolkata.

Give it a try and I am sure you will not be disappointed.