Lau Shaager Morich Jhol

I suddenly discovered bottle gourd creepers (lau saak) at the local farmer’s market. I had never imagined that I’d be able to get freshest of lau saak here in US. I tried to ask the Chinese lady selling them how they eat it. However, her English was too limited for me to figure out the recipe.

I brought them home and cooked it following my mom’s traditional lau-saak recipe. I didn’t use bottle gourd itself with the vegetable because my mom used to tell me that you never cook fruit along with it’s plant because cooking mom and kids together isn’t really a good idea. So I used pumpkin instead.

The same recipe can also be used with pumpkin twigs with bottle gourd (remember no same plant and it’s fruit :))

Ingredients

1. 1 lb. bottle gourd twigs cut into 2” pieces
2. 1/2 lb. orange pumpkin cut into cubes
3. 2 medium potatoes cut into cubes
4. 2 green chilies slit lengthwise
5. 1tsp. kalonji ( Nigella ) seeds for tempering
6. 1tsp. whole wheat flour (Atta)
7. 1 tbsp. nigella seeds and 1 green chili grind into fine paste
8. 1 tsp. sugar
9. Salt
10. Oil

Procedure

Start by heating mustard oil in a pan. Drop nigella seeds and slit green chilies. sauté them for 1-2 minutes. Add potato and pumpkin cubes in the midway of your sautéing process. Sprinkle salt and sugar and fry the vegetables for 3-4 minutes on low heat. Add a cup of water and continue cooking till they are half done.

Now add bottle gourd twigs and mix everything well. Continue cooking covered till all the vegetables are tender.

Adjust consistency of the gravy to how you like it Traditionally it is runny. Stir 1 tsp. of whole wheat flour in 1/2 cup of water and pour it over. Gently mix it. It will give a mild thickness to the runny gravy.

Now last but not the least add nigella and green chili paste to it and mix well before you finish.

Enjoy with plain rice.

Chicken Do-Pyaja

During the British Raj a lot of different food started entering the Bengali household. Chicken was one of them which was previously not allowed inside Bengali kitchen. Since the women still refused to cook them at home the rich began employing Bawarchi’s or chefs from other parts of India. The bawarchi bought the nawabi cuisine with them. One of them was Chicken-do-pyaja. With time the ladies of the house started learning from them and added their own twist to the cuisine. The spices became milder and the oil was spared to make it more healthy.

Ingredients

1. 2lb chicken cut into medium sized pieces
2. 2 onions sliced
3. 1 cup plain yogurt
4. 1 tsp. ginger paste
5. 1 tbsp. garlic paste
6. 1 tsp. turmeric powder
7. 1 tbsp. Kashmiri red chili powder
8. 1 tbsp. sugar
9. 1 pinch saffron soaked in 1/4th cup warm milk
10. 5 tbsp. ghee (Clarified Butter)
11. Dry roast and grind it to make a fine powder of the following
1. 1tsp. sahi jeera (Caraway seed)
2. 1tsp. white peppercorn
3. 3 green cardamom
4. 3cloves
5. 1”cinnamon stick
6. 1/4 nutmeg (jaifal)
7. 1 leaf of mace ( javitri)
8. 1/2 tsp. fennel seed (Sauf or mouri)
12. For tempering
    1. 2 bay leaves
    2. 1” cinnamon
    3. 2 cardamom

Procedure

Marinate chicken with yogurt and ginger garlic paste and allow it to rest for at least 2 hours.

Heat 4tbsp. of ghee in a wide pan and temper it with bay leaf, cinnamon and cardamom. When the spices start sizzling add sliced onions to it. You can add little sugar to it to make the dish vibrant. Fry onions on medium heat till it turns golden brown. Remove one tbsp. of fried onions from it for garnishing.

Now take the  chicken pieces and shake off the marinade from it. Gently slide them into the pan and sear it  on high heat. This way you can seal the juice inside the chicken. Sprinkle turmeric and Kashmiri chili powder to it. Keep on frying on medium high heat till oil separates out.

Now add the marinade and sprinkle half of the roasted ground spice powder, salt and sugar over the chicken pieces. Give everything a nice mix and cook it covered till chicken is tender. This gravy will be thick and dry, so If you see  any excess moisture put the heat on high and allow it to dry.

Turn off the heat. and transfer it to the serving dish. Garnish with the fried onions you have reserved.

In a separate small pan heat 1tbsp. of ghee and pour the rest of the dry spice powder. When it sizzles pour it over the cooked chicken and immediately close the lid (this is called the tadka). Keep it covered till you serve.

Serve with fried rice, parantha or naan.

Oven Grilled Mackerel

We first had this when my Konkani friend Anita made it for us in Hyderabad. My husband loved the masala and this has turned out to be one of his favorite dinner. I make it for him, but cannot stand the strong sea fish smell. So I make it a point to have my dinner first before cooking this. That and ventilating the home well afterwards :)

Ingredients

1. 1 mackerel ( blue fish about 2’ long )
2. 5-6 cloves of garlic
3. 1/2 cup cilantro or coriander greens
4. 2-3 green chilies
5. 1/4 cup mint leaves
6. Juice of 1 lime
7. Salt
8. 2tbsp. mustard oil + 1tsp. mustard oil (OR any refined oil)

Procedure

Clean and rub the fish with lime juice and salt. Set it aside for 1/2hr. Now wash the fish with cold running water.

In a grinder make a thick paste of garlic, cilantro, mint leaves and green chilies. Add salt and mustard oil to this wet mixture and whisk well.

Make 1” long slits at 2” intervals down middle of the fish on both sides.

Rub the marinade on both sides of the fish including the cavities. Let it rest for 30 minutes.

Pre heat your oven at 375F. Oil a baking dish and place the marinated fish. Drizzle few drops of oil over it. Grill for 25 – 30 minutes in the middle rack.

Serve hot.

Lal Kankrar Jhal (Crab in Red Hot Sauce)

Easy availability of Alaskan crabs has turned crabs from a rare delicacy to a common staple at our household. My daughter never lets us skip it on the grocery trips. I have posted bunch of crab recipes but most were from the other coasts of India. This is a traditional Bengali recipe.

Ingredients

1. 2lb. crab (I got crab claws)
2. 2tbsp. onion paste
3. 1tbsp. garlic paste
4. 1tbsp. dry red chili paste
5. 1/2tsp. turmeric powder
6. 1tbsp. chopped green chilies
7. 1tbsp. ginger cut into thin strips
8. 2tbsp. tamarind pulp
9. 1tsp. yellow mustard paste
10. 5-6 green chilies slit lengthwise
11. 1tsp. Bengali garam masala powder
12. 200gms. mustard oil
13. 1tsp. sugar
14. Salt to taste
15. Whole garam masala for tempering
    1. 2 green cardamom
    2. 1” cinnamon stick
    3. 2-3 cloves

Procedure

Take crab and cut into halves. The legs need to be crushed a bit. This is done so that the spices and salt gets into the juicy flesh.

Now heat mustard oil in a pan and toss the crab pieces. The color of the crab will turn vibrant orange. Remove and set aside.

Temper the same oil with whole garam masala. Wait till the oil becomes fragrant. Lower the heat and add garlic paste to it. Sauté for 2-3 minutes before you add onion and red chili paste to it.Drop chopped green chilies. Fry everything together on low  heat. Now add turmeric powder, salt and sugar one by one. stir continuously till you cook out their raw smell. If required you may sprinkle little water so that the spices don’t get burnt.

Add fried crab pieces to it and mix well so all sides of the crab pieces are nicely coated with spices. Throw the ginger sticks in. Now add a cup of water and simmer it covered for about 10 minutes. Add mustard paste and tamarind pulp to it and crank up the heat to high.

Stir everything together till all the moisture evaporates and the oil oozes out from the gravy. Sprinkle garam masala powder and slit green chilies.

Serve with plain hot rice.

Rui Maacher Sukha (Dry Carp Curry)

At our daughter’s school they get turns in “cafeteria duty”. For a week she gets to serve lunch to the entire school and in return she gets to eat lunch without having to buy that. This serves as a great learning on work and compensation.

Having had “formal training” we thought we’d give her newly learned skills a trial at home. So we asked her to serve lunch. Promptly she headed to the kitchen, washed her hands, patted them dry and asked for gloves :). It took some convincing that gloves are optional at home. After that she did a fantastic job of laying down the table mats and serving us lunch. The food was extra sweet.

Ingredients

1. 4 steak pieces of rui (Any sweet water carp can be used)
2. 1 medium onion thinly sliced
3. 1tsp. ginger juice
4. 2tbsp. tomato paste
5. 1tsp. mustard paste
6. 1tsp. turmeric powder
7. 1tbsp. chili powder
8. 2,3 bay leaves
9. 1/2 tsp. nutmeg (jaifal) powder
10. 1tbsp. ghee (clarified butter)
11. 1tsp. sugar
12. Salt
13. Mustard oil

Procedure

Smear the fish steaks with turmeric powder and salt. Keep it marinated for about 15 minutes.

Heat mustard oil in a wok or kadai and fry fish pieces one by one till both sides take a golden hue. Remove and keep them aside.

Take some more mustard oil and heat it up. Add bay leaves and sliced onions to it. Fry them on medium heat till the sides of the onions turn light brown. Add tomatoe puree and mustard paste to it. Mix everything well and fry them together in low heat.

Now add turmeric and chili powder to the fried spices and season it with salt and sugar.

Add fried fish steaks to it and pour half cup of water to it. Let it simmer on high flame till all the  fish pieces are well coated with the spices. This is a dry dish, so dry up any excess moisture.

Add ghee and one tsp. ginger juice to it. Wait for a minute before you turn off the heat. Finish it off with a pinch of nutmeg powder.

Enjoy with steaming white rice or pulao.

Kosha Mangsho, Thakurbari Style (Dry Mutton Curry)

Last couple of days I had been watching a bunch of movies based on Rabindranath Tagore’s novels on Youtube like Naukadubi. Watching all of these movies reminded me of this spicy curry from the Tagore family which I hadn’t made for some time. I read about it in a book by Purnima Devi from the Tagore family (or Thakurbari) who was a renowned cook. I had one of her books many years ago. This recipe is different from the regular Kosha Mangsho in the spices that is used. Today is Bhai phota and I made it for this special day. It goes great with basanti pulao.

Ingredients

1. 1 kg mutton (goat meat)
2. 2 medium onions
3. 1”ginger
4. 6-8 cloves garlic
5. 8 whole red chilies
6. 1/2tsp. turmeric powder
7. 4tsp. coriander powder
8. 4tbsp. plain yogurt
9. 1tsp. sugar
10. Salt to taste 
11. 4-5 green chilies
12. Mustard oil
13. 2-3 tsp. ghee(Clarified butter)
14. Dry roast and make a powder of

1. 4-5 green cardamoms
2. 1” cinnamon stick

Procedure

Grind together onion, ginger, garlic and red chilies. Now in a bowl transfer the ground wet spices and add yogurt, turmeric powder, coriander powder to it. Mix everything well.  Marinate the meat pieces in this paste. If you can marinate it overnight, nothing like it. But it should be marinated for at least couple of hours.

Heat mustard oil in a pressure cooker or heavy bottom pan. Add marinated mutton pieces and cook on high flame for about 5 minutes. Add salt and sugar to it. Now lower the heat and cook till the oil separates. Add half cup warm water.

Pressure cook on medium flame for 15 minutes. Turn off the heat and allow some time for the steam to release on its own. In case you want to reduce the amount of gravy continue to heat on high flame.

In a separate pan heat ghee and add roasted and powdered cinnamon and cardamom to it. Give them a quick stir and pour it over the meat curry. Garnish with green chilies and serve with hot rice or Bengali mishti pulao.

Happy Diwali with Spicy Chicken Kebab Sliders

In our childhood in Kolkata the day before Diwali was celebrated as Kali Puja. We would light up the house with diya and then burst noisy fireworks (pataka). This was rooted in the traditional custom of bursting crackers to scare off evil demons. After couple of hours of doing it we’d be ready for the dinner, which used to be a special affair. Now in Kolkata sound pollution control has resulted in the ban of sounds-crackers, but thankfully the special dinner remains.

Here in the US our plans is to head to the local temple which organizes spectacular fireworks and then come home to have some easy to fry chicken kebab.

Ingredients

1. 250gms. chicken paste
2. 2 heaped tbsp. of plain yogurt 
3. 2tbsp. finely chopped ginger
4. 2tbsp. finely chopped garlic
5. 1 medium onion finely chopped
6. 2 tbsp. chopped green chilies
7. 1 tbsp. chopped coriander greens (cilantro)
8. 1tsp. chopped mint leaves ( I have used crushed dried mint leaves )
9. 1tsp. turmeric powder
10. 1tsp. chicken tandoori masala
11. 1 tsp. bengali garam masala
12. 1tsp. bhaaja masala. Dry roast and grind to a powder the following
1. 1tbsp. whole cumin seeds
2. 1 tbsp.coriander seeds
3. 4 dry red chilly
13. 1 egg beaten
14. 3-4 tbsp. chickpea flour (Besan)
15. 1tbsp. sugar
16. Salt to taste
17. 2-3tbsp. clarified butter (Ghee)

Procedure

In a large mixing bowl take the chicken paste and one by one add all the ingredients other than ghee. Pound everything together with your hand and mix them really well.

Now take lime sized portions from the chicken mixture and flatten them between your palms to give a shape.

Grease a non stick tawa with ghee and arrange the kabab patty on it. Shallow fry both the sides on low heat till  the meat is cooked enough. Once done increase the heat and let the kababs turn golden brown on each sides.

Serve with green chutney or ketchup.