Bhendi Posto (Okra in Poppy Seed Paste)

My daughters favorite veggy is Bhendi or Ladies finger. If she were to choose she chooses Bhendi over mutton, which is pretty weird

So as you can guess we buy tons of Bhendi and make it in different ways. The most common being Bhendi fry with Daal, the next being Bhendi Posto (Okra with Poppy seeds).

Ingredients

• 1lb. okra small sized
• 2 tbsp. poppy seed
• 1 dry red chili
• 1 tsp. kalonji (Kalojeera)
• 1 tsp. sugar
• Salt to taste
• Oil

Procedure

In a grinder make a smooth paste of poppy seed and dry red chili with little water.

Wash okra and pat them dry. Now snip off both ends.

Heat  4-5 tbsp. oil in a pan and temper it with kalonji seeds. When it stops sputtering add okra and sauté them on high heat for a minute. Sprinkle salt and sugar and cook it covered for 2-3 minutes. Remove the lid and do rest of the cooking uncovered. When it is almost done add poppy seed paste and mix with okra gently so that they don’t break.At the end each okra should be coated by poppy seed paste. Add 1 tsp. mustard oil at the end to get an extra zing.

Aam Dal (Lentil with Raw Green Mango)

We are just back from Mexico. The weather there constantly reminded me of sultry Kolkata. The temperature hovered around 35 Celsius and the humidity at 99%. Even though I was having my fill of Taco’s and Tequila’s what I craved was Mango Daal and Alubhaja, the staple summer lunch of Bong’s.

Ingredients

• 1 cup red lentil
• 1 small raw mango peeled and cut into big chunks
• 1/2 tsp. turmeric powder
• 1/2 tsp. sugar
• 1 tsp. black mustard seeds
• 2-3 dry red chilies
• 1 tbsp. mustard oil
• salt to taste

Procedure

Wash lentils till water runs clear and transparent. Add chunks of mango, turmeric powder and a pinch of salt to it. Boil lentil with 2 cups of water in a pressure cooker till 1whistle comes. Turn off the heat and wait till the pressure settles down.

Open the lid and gently stir the mixture once.

Heat mustard oil in a small pan till it starts smoking. Now reduce the heat and temper it with mustard seeds and whole dry red chilies. Once they stop spluttering add the tempered oil into the lentil mixture. Season it with salt and sugar and once again turn on the heat. Let it simmer for a minute or two and then turn the heat off.

Serve with hot rice and alubhaja.

Alubhaja–Extra Crispy Potato Fry

It is hard to explain to someone who has never had daal with crispy potato fry, how good it is. It all sounds very simple until you really give it a try. The cut and fry has to be just perfect.

Digha a beach town close to Kolkata is a regular vacationing spot for most Bongs. We used to also go there for our Zoology field trips. None of those visits were complete without the visit to Parijat and Baluchari restaurants in Digha. They were known for their seafood and more for their crispy potato fries. They were what we used to call “plate system” where you choose the type of meal and they would ensure your plate is never empty. However, they soon imposed the upper limit on the fries as people would go on asking for it.

I had to impose a similar upper limit when I made the same fries. My daughter was unstoppable.

Ingredients

• 4 medium sized potatoes
• 1/2 tsp. turmeric powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt 
• Ice cold water
• Oil for deep frying

Procedure

Peel the potato and cut it into thin round slices. Now with a sharp knife cut them into juliennes. You will have to cut the potato very thinly and evenly. Make sure to dunk them in water as soon as you cut them.

Once you are all done with cutting wash them thoroughly and dunk them in ice cold water for about 15 minutes. Drain the water and again dip the potato juliennes in another set of ice cold water for 20-30 minutes. This time add half a teaspoon of turmeric powder in it.

Drain the water and spread the potatoes on a paper under fan to make them completely dry.

Take enough oil in a deep wok and heat it till it smokes. Add a handful of potato juliennes in hot oil at a time and keep it stirring continuously with a slotted spoon for even cooking. It also prevents formation of any lumps.

Continue frying them in the hot oil. It takes about 3-4 minutes for the potatoes to become crispy. Now reduce the heat and remove them with a slotted spoon. Drain them on a paper towel.

Sprinkle salt just before serving. Alubhaja tastes best with hot rice and plain musur dal. 

Chingri Potol er Jhal

Potol or Parwal was rarely available outside Bengal. However, with the whole world shrinking I do see them now even in the US at the local Indian grocery store. It is one of those veggies which kids (at least mine) hate eating. So I add shrimps to make it more enticing.

The masala used has to be freshly roasted and ground spices without which the dish is incomplete.

Ingredients

• 10-12 potol or parwal
• 3 medium sized potato peeled and cut into quarters
• 20 medium sized prawns deveined and cleaned
• 1 small knob ginger
• 2-3 green chilies slit lengthwise
• 1 tbsp. + 1 tsp. whole cumin
• 1 tbsp. whole coriander seeds
• 1 dry red chili
• 2 green cardamom
• 2 cloves
• 1” cinnamon stick
• 3 bay leaves
• 2 tsp. turmeric powder
• 1 tsp. red chili powder
• 1 tsp. sugar
• Salt to taste
• 1 tbsp. ghee (Clarified butter)
• Mustard oil

Procedure

Scrape off the skin of parwals and cut them into halves.

Marinate the prawns with 1 tsp. turmeric powder and salt. Keep them aside.

Now dry roast 1 tbsp. cumin seeds, coriander seed, dry red chili, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon and 1 bay leaf. Roast till you just starting to get their aroma. Immediately remove them from the hot pan and allow them to cool down.

First dry grind the roasted spices into a powder. Add ginger to it and make a paste with all of these by adding little water.

Heat mustard oil in a pan and fry the marinated prawns on low heat for a minute. Remove and save them for later use.

Temper the same oil with 1 tsp. cumin seeds and 2 bay leaves. Let the sizzle. Add parwal halves and potato quarters to it. Fry on medium heat till the edges of the vegetables take a brownish hue.

Add the spice paste you made and reduce the heat to low. Keep sautéing till the raw smell goes off. You may need to sprinkle some water if the spices tend to burn.

Pour about a cup of water. sprinkle sugar and salt to your taste and mix well.

Cook it covered on medium heat till the veggies are done. Add the fried prawns and let it simmer foe another two minutes.

Add a dollop of ghee along with the green chilies and keep it covered till you serve with plain hot rice.

Railway Mutton Curry

[Updated]

Railway mutton curry takes you back to the colonial era when travelling by first class train was for the privileged. This not too spicy  mutton dish used to be served in the railway refreshment room and long distance train to cater the British palate. This curry was generally served with bread or dinner rolls. The vinegar used in the curry used to extend the shelf life for the long haul train rides.

There are many variants of this recipe which clearly indicates the train route they were served on. The usage of tamarind and curry leaves are tell-tale sign of Southern Railways. Eastern recipes omitted these. I chose the one which is more close to my choices.

Ingredients

1. 1lb. goat meat cut into medium pieces
2. 2 medium onions finely chopped
3. 3 potatoes peeled and cut into  halves  ( I used 5 whole baby potatoes )
4. 4-5 cloves of garlic
5. 1” ginger finely minced
6. 1/2 tsp. dry roasted whole cumin seeds
7. 1/2 tsp. dry roasted whole coriander seeds
8. 1 tsp. turmeric powder
9. 2tbsp. vinegar (Original recipe suggests half a cup of tamarind juice)
10. 5-6tbsp. oil
11. 1tsp. sugar(This one is added by me. The original one doesn’t have sugar )
12. Salt
13. Tempering
    1. 1” cinnamon stick
    2. 2 cloves
    3. 4 black peppercorn
    4. 5-6 curry leaves ( I didn’t use )
    5. 2 dry red chilies broken into pieces

Procedure

Take half oil in a pan and temper with the ingredients listed under tempering. Let them sizzle and add whole garlic cloves, chopped onion and mince ginger to it. Fry on medium heat till they turn golden brown.

In a grinder take all the fried spices along with roasted whole coriander and cumin seeds and grind them to a fine paste by using little water.

In a mixing bowl take mutton and mix it with the ground spices. Let it rest for 15 minutes.

In a pressure cooker take the rest of the oil and fry the potatoes on medium heat till they take a light yellow hue. Remove and reserve for later use.

Add the marinated mutton pieces to the oil and fry on high heat for 5 minutes. Add vinegar or tamarind juice to it and season it with salt and sugar. Pour sufficient warm water and pressure cook it till 1 whistle on high heat. Turn off the heat and let the pressure release on its own. Now throw the fried potato pieces to the gravy and give a nice mix. Do the rest of the cooking covered but without the pressure on low heat till the meat is tender and the potatoes are done.

Serve with rice or bread. 

Chicken Cutlet

My first choice in cutlets is braised cutlet. While growing up I used to regularly visit Ashoka Restaurant in Behala, Kolkata for their sumptuous cutlets. On Thursdays in Kolkata we have “no meat day” which weirdly boils down to restaurants not selling mutton. Chicken and fish is apparently not meat. On those days my fall back option was chicken cutlet. I present here my second choice, hope it might become someone’s first :)

Ingredients

• 1lb. minced chicken
• 1 large potato boiled and grated
• 1 large onion minced
• 2” ginger minced
• 8-10 fat cloves of garlic minced
• 2 green chilies finely chopped
• 2 tbsp. finely chopped cilantro
• 1 tsp. black pepper powder
• 1 lime juice
• Salt
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups bread crumbs
• Oil for deep frying

Procedure

In a large mixing bowl take minced chicken and add chopped onion, ginger, garlic, green chilies to it. Sprinkle salt and add lime juice. Mix well and let it rest for at least an hour.

Now add cilantro and black pepper powder. You will notice that after an hour of marination the mixture has released some water. To help in the binding this is the time to add grated boiled potato to it. Mix it once again.

In a bowl take two eggs and add half teaspoon salt to it. Beat it well to make the egg wash. In a flat tray take enough quantity of bread crumbs and spread it to cover each cutlet.

Take a handful of chicken mixture and give them a shape of rectangle by pressing it gently in between your palms. Now dip each of them in the egg mixture and roll them on the breadcrumb. Arrange them on a tray and keep it refrigerated for at least half an hour.

Take out half an hour before you want to fry them. Heat enough oil in a wok. Gently slide each cutlet in medium hot oil and fry them till they turn brown and crispy. Take it out with a slotted spoon and drain on a paper towel. Serve hot with some onion rings and mustard sauce. 

Rum Ball

Each time we go home to Kolkata we make it a point to visit Nahoum’s in New Market. This store has been at this place from 1916. Rulers have come and gone, the country has changed it’s boundaries, cities have changed name around it, but Nahoum has stuck to it’s origins. My favorite at Nahoum is their rum-balls. It is an European delicacy that had reached the shores of Kolkata via the British. It is generally made in the bakery with the left over cake/cookie crumbs bound together with chocolate and flavored with rum. Rum-balls taste the best after a few days of making them when the taste of Rum matures.

It had been some time since I last sent some goodies with my husband for his team-mates. Generally I send some Bengali sweets like Rasgulla/Sondesh but this time I thought of making a fresh batch of Rum-ball. Even though the rum-ball has it’s roots in Europe, it takes me back to my roots in Kolkata.

Ingredients

• 500 gms. chocolate cake
• 100 ml. golden rum
• 4 tbsp. dark raisin
• 4 dried plums
• 4 candied cherry
• 10 roasted almonds broken roughly
• 3-4 tbsp. powdered sugar or honey
• 1 tbsp. cocoa powder ( plain or Dutch processed)
• 1/2 + 1 cups semi sweet cooking chocolate bar ( instead you can use 2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips)
• 1 cup white chocolate chips or white cooking chocolate
• 2 tbsp. unsalted butter

Procedure

If you are making chocolate cake don’t use it on the same day. Use after a day or two so that the cake becomes a bit dry.

Cut all dry fruits into tiny pieces and soak them in 30 ml. of rum.  Best if you can soak it overnight.

Cut cake into small pieces and put it in a blender. Give them a very quick pulse to make coarse crumbs. Put all the crumbs in a big mixing bowl.

Now take the soaked dry fruits in the blender and give a very quick run of a second or two to just crush them. Just make sure you do not process the nuts into a paste.

Add the crushed dry fruit mixture to it along with powdered sugar,cocoa powder and rum. mix thoroughly with a spoon.

Now take half a cup of semi sweet cooking chocolate or chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl and warm it up for 30 seconds. Give it a stir and heat it up for another 30 seconds. Take it out and mix it with a spoon. If it is already melted fine, else you can again heat it up for another 10 or 20 second. Remember to take it out and stir it every 30 seconds, else the chocolate will burn and become unusable.

Add the melted chocolate to the cake mixture little at a time and keep mixing. You will notice that after mixing the ingredients together, the batter is quite sticky. To prevent your hands from becoming a mess and to ease the process of making balls chill the mix for at least 30-45 minutes.

Cover the bowl with a cling wrap and let the mixture cool in the refrigerator for about 30- 45 minutes till it hardens a little.

Take it out and shape them into 1 inch balls with your hands. Place them on a cookie tray lined with butter paper.

Once you are done, then comes the glazing. Take 1 and 1/2 cup of dark chocolate and 1 tsp. of unsalted butter in a microwave safe bowl and heat them up for 30 seconds. Stir it and again heat it for another 30 seconds. Take it out and mix well to make a lump free chocolate glaze.

Dip each ball in the glaze of melted chocolate, making sure that the entire ball is coated with chocolate. Using a fork remove the ball from the glaze allowing any excess glaze to drip back in the bowl.

Place the glazed ball on the cookie tray lined with butter paper. when you are done place the tray in the refrigerator to allow the chocolate to harden.

By this time mix 1 tsp. of unsalted butter with white chocolate chips and make a white chocolate sauce following the same procedure as described before. Let it cool down a bit then pour it into a pastry bag. Cut a small hole in the corner and drizzle it over the rum balls.