Tag: bengali food

Food Walk – Part I

Photo Walk.

Sure.

But how many of you have heard of “FOOD WALK”?

Food Walk (definition):

You walk. You go places. You try out different delicacies. You eat, eat and eat.

Your knowledge of food increases tenfold. Your waist-line – not so much, since you are literally walking the whole way and that makes up for all the calories you intake.

Going around the city with my friends from college, I have learnt a great deal about my Kolkata and its food culture. We, more often, hit the old cabins of the yesteryears than the posh Park Street restaurants – because, well, we are students at the end of the day with just enough cash for our endeavors.

One of the very first places we went to was Das Cabin, situated in Gariahat. We googled it’s speciality : Moghlai , Kosha Mangsho( Spiced Chicken/Mutton) with Roti and Kobiraji. And the foodies that we are, we ordered all three. The prices were quite reasonable and the food was impeccable. The Moghlai was small and soft with a considerable amount of filling. I would have to say I have had better – in South Pole, to be precise, which is also in Gariahat(Note: South Pole serves Moghlai only after 3 p.m.). The Kosha Mangsho was delicious and can give good competition to the one in the famous Golabari in Shyambazar. And the Kabiraji – o the kabiraji! – was crisp, made with the right amount of spice in the patty and with each bite, you could literally hear the angels sing.

A try-at-home recipe –

Fish Kobiraji

Ingredients: 10 bhetki fillets, ½ tsp mustard powder, ½ tsp black pepper powder, 1 tsp red chili powder, 1 tsp coriander and mint leaves (chopped), 10 Eggs, 2 tbsp cornflour, 2 tsp Breadcrumbs (optional), Juice of one lemon, Salt

Direction: Wash the bekti fillet under running water, pat them dry and soak in salt and lemon juice for 20 minutes. Mix the mustard powder, red chili powder, black pepper powder, coriander and mint leaves together and apply on the each side of the fillets evenly and refrigerate it for another 20 minutes. Beat the eggs and mix the cornflour, breadcrumbs with salt. Heat some oil in a pan and add two tablespoons of egg mixture. As soon as it becomes fluffy add the marinated fish fillet and quickly cover it with the egg mixture. Fry on low to Medium heat till done. Serve hot with kasundi (Bengali mustard sauce) and salad.

Another day, we decided to walk from Presidency University to New Market, from there to Sudder Street and thereby, in the end, landing up in Park Street. If you walk to the right of Presidency University, a little near College Square, you will find a tiny old cabin reminiscing its old world charms. Favourite Cabin is a cabin which has tales etched in all its nooks and corners; oft frequented by the older generation, it felt amazing to sit there, the only people below 55, sipping 3-rupees-milk-tea, biting into crunchy Cream Roll and observing the theatric conversations buzzing around us.

Sudder Street, however shady it may be, has quite a few good food places – Blue Sky Café and Spanish Café being the most popular ones. I’m yet to visit Blue Sky Café but having chanced upon Spanish Café, I got to say it serves reasonably priced and yummilicious food. Their Café Bombon is a must-have! The Chocolate Pancake is simply a piece of ambrosia. The Mint Tea is refreshing – the way you feel when you hear Richard Stoltzman’s The Maid With Flaxen Hair. In short, you absolutely must try them!

Here are the home-made alternatives –

Chocolate Pancake

Ingredients: 1 cup refined flour (maida), 3 tbsp chocolate grated, 1/3 cup cocoa powder, ½ tsp soda, 1 cup Milk, 2 tbsp butter melted, 1 egg, ¼ cup sugar, ½ tsp salt, Castor sugar (to sprinkle)

Direction: Sieve together flour, baking soda, cocoa powder into a bowl. Add milk, melted butter, egg, sugar, salt and mix well. Heat the skillet and pour a ladleful of batter on the skillet and cook on both sides until brown. Serve hot sprinkled with caster sugar and grated chocolate on top.

Mint Tea

Ingredients: 2 tbsp fresh mint leaves (pudina), 2 tea bags or 2 tsp tea leaves, 2 and half cups of water (each cup being equal to 250 ml), milk, sugar (as per taste)

Direction: Wash the mint leaves in water. In a tea pan or tea maker, add water. Add the mint leaves. Boil the water for 3-4 minutes till the flavors and aroma of the mint starts infusing in the water. The water will start becoming green. Let the quantity of green color in the water increase considerably. Add the tea leaves. Add sugar. Add milk and let the tea come to a boil. Serve the mint tea with light tea-time biscuits. If using tea bags, then put off the burner. In the hot water, dip the tea bags for 2-3 mins. Add sugar and hot milk. Stir and serve.

(To be continued)

July 7, 2014
Four Appetizers from Bangladesh that Will Blow Your Mind!

Not a very long time ago when both the Bengali sisters were conjoined, India witnessed a phenomenon in cuisine from this part of the country. Although Bangladesh today is not physically part of the nation we call our Home, fond memories of togetherness live on in the food enjoyed by West Bengalis. A large part of Bengal houses those Bengalis who had had their roots in East Bengal but have been living in the western counterpart for generations. Bengali Recipes thus include a significant melange of the East and the West. Here’s reliving ten appetizers from the other side of Bengal that will make you want to be a different kind of Bengali 😉

• Fried Fish:

Wash a kilo of surmai fish (if you have a knack towards experimenting, go ahead!) and put half a tablespoon of salt, dill seed, coriander powder, tamarind pulp and ginger garlic paste. Put in an egg, mix it well and marinate for a while. To prepare the batter, mix some corn flour, salt, red chilli flakes, black pepper, gram flour, dill seeds and cumin seeds together. Take a piece of fish, roll it in dry ingredients and deep-fry till golden-brown. This dish is high in nutrients and fish is very good for both brain growth as well as hair. Not only that, this dish is very easy to make and serves to cure all evening-time hunger woes. Do not lose heart if you don’t get it right at the first go. With time and patience, this fish-preparation will become a piece of cake.

• Crispy-fried Cauliflower:

Four tablespoons of rice flour, one tablespoon of corn flour, half teaspoons each of red chilli powder and cumin powder, one-fourth teaspoon of turmeric powder and half teaspoons each of salt and sugar should be mixed well in a container. In another container, beat an egg, add one teaspoon of soya sauce and three tablespoons of water. Mix well.
After a smooth batter is made by mixing these two mixtures, it should be set for around 10 minutes. In the meanwhile, take a saucepan and pour in some water. Add some salt (not more than one teaspoon) and leave it to boil. As the water boils, add 10-15 cauliflower pieces (all cut to an inch in size) and boil them for 5 minutes till the flowers soften. Drain the water. Heat some oil in a pan and keep adding the flowers after slowly dipping them in the batter that you have already made. Fry them, till you get the lovely brown tinge. Be patient with this dish, any hurry might result in loss of crispiness. Take the flowers, keep them on some tissue paper to soak the excess oil and then serve to your amazed guests!

• Eggplant Fry:

This eggplant fry coated in besan is a huge hit on this side of the border too! Known as the infamous “beguni”, this dish can be a wonderful pre-meal snack or even a lovely evening-time munchie. The procedure is as follows: take half a cup of besan or gram flour, half teaspoons each of turmeric powder, red chilli powder and cumin powder, 2 teaspoons of rice flour, 3/4th teaspoons of baking powder and half a teaspoon of salt.
Mix them well in a bowl and make sure the distribution of ingredients is as even as possible. Add water to the mixture and stir well to make a smooth batter. Keep it aside for half an hour to forty-five minutes. Now, the eggplant needs to be washed and sliced into pieces not more than half centimetres thick. Heat the oil on a medium flame, coat both sides of the eggplant pieces with besan and then carefully launch it into the oil. Fry both sides of the pieces till you get a nice golden-brownish tinge. Soak the oil on a paper towel and serve with or without ketchup.

• Vegetable Cutlet:

This is very good news for all the vegetarians out there! It is indeed a stereotype that Bengali food is nothing without meat and fish… and an untrue one at that! This vegetable cutlet will surely win over all, no matter what their preferences. Grate 2 medium-sized boiled potatoes and set them aside. Boil 3-4 cups of water, add two cups of mixed vegetables and a pinch of salt just when the water starts to boil. Boil for 5 minutes. Drain the water and leave the mixture to cool down.
Squeeze the water from the vegetables. Mash the vegetables but do not make a paste. Heat one tablespoon of oil in a pan, add cumin seeds and crushed cashew nuts and fry all a while. Add chopped onion and continue frying till the onion becomes soft. Add half a teaspoon each of chopped green chilli, ginger paste, garlic paste and fry for a few seconds. Add the vegetables (not the mashed potato) fry till the water dries up.
Take the vegetables in a mixing bowl, add the grated potato, and mix all. Add cumin powder, red chilli powder, garam masala powder, chat masala, mango powder, chopped coriander and salt and mix them well. In case the mixture still seems watery, add a few bread crumbs. These will soak up the excess water. Take a part of the vegetable mixture, make the desired shape and coat it with bread crumbs.
Heat some oil in a pan. When the oil is well-heated, carefully put the cutlets in and fry till you achieve the golden-brown colour. Soak the excess oil on a paper towel. Serve with ketchup or chutney.
All these dishes are very easy to prepare and never cease to amaze anyone they are served to! So get the Bengali bit of your Indian identity alive and kicking! 😉

July 1, 2014
Secrets of the Bengali Kitchen

The best part about cooking, as every enthusiast would agree, are the little additions and subtractions here and there that can make-or-break your dish. All those who have tried their hand at cooking Bengali cuisine know how particularly tiring it can be to get the dish “just right”. Bengali cuisine, like every other cuisine, has a feel unique to it. For a true Bong foodie, distinguishing between authentic and ‘almost-authentic’ Bong food in a matter of a few seconds is a skill picked up quite early. Then how DOES one get it right? Here’s bringing you five delicious secrets from the Bengali kitchen that will add that extra zing to your maachh, mishti and more 😉

 Kosha Mangsho: One of the most popular and well-loved dishes in Bengal is definitely the “Kosha Mangsho”, translated to English as Red Mutton Curry. Along with great taste, Kosha Mangsho comes with high health benefits and has always been a favourite in Bengali kitchens. What tends to go wrong with it most of the time is the correct, and rather hard-to-achieve, balance of spices. The easiest trick in the book to get this one right is to go easy on the chillies. I would suggest avoiding chillies altogether, but if unavoidable, try getting hold of Kashmiri Degi Mirch. Degi Mirch refers to the dried fruit of chilli peppers and powdered Degi Mirch has been made easily-available in stores under various brand-names. To get the brilliant reddish-brown colour that defines the curry, add a spoonful of sugar in the oil and wait for it to caramelise before frying the spices.

 Maachher Tawk: This sweet-and-sour dish is a fish-based preparation, very popular with traditional Bengalis even today. The most important step to get right here is, of course, the choice of fish. Machher Tawk is prepared using large pieces of rohu or ‘katla machh’, an easily available sweet-water fish bred in Bengal’s numerous ponds but may also be prepared using the ‘mourala’ fish that can be eaten whole. The ‘tawk’ is often compared to the rasam of South India and helps cool the body and also helps in digestion, thus making it a popular summer favourite. The fish used has to be very fresh and devoid of any smell. The fish must be lightly fried; remember, it comes towards the end of the meal and must not be a heavy curry. Use a little jaggery instead of sugar, raw mangoes instead of tamarind and maybe one or two green chillies for the zing and voila! You have perfected the traditional fish curry!

 Garam Masala: Although this is one of the oldest tricks in the book, I deem it quite necessary to mention it here. A blend of ground spices common in Asian cuisine, the word garam refers to intensity of the spices used. A typical Indian version of garam masala contains turmeric, black and white peppercorns, cloves, cinnamon, black and white cumin seeds and black, brown, and green cardamom pods. Garam masala contains several micronutrients and is considered good for health. One important commandment of Bengali Cuisine that one must remember is : toil brings rewards (in this case, flavour.) Instead of choosing the readymade garam masala available in the market, opt for making a powder of crushed small cardamom, clove and cinnamon. Do not go for badi ilaichi as it will ruin the authentic Bengali taste of your dish, no matter what you choose to cook.

 Fish in Mustard Sauce: The health benefits of mustard are innumerable; high in selenium and magnesium, it is recommended to patients of asthma, arthritis and high cholesterol. It also slows ageing and helps one to lose weight. The world knows about the Bengali love for fish, and ‘Bhetki machher paturi’ is a gem in the crown. The trick to getting this very tricky dish right is making a good mustard paste, making sure that it doesn’t taste bitter. Heads up: this could be a major challenge, especially if you’re not comfortable with this dish. Professionals often fail while trying to get this one right and it is unlikely that those attempting it for the first time will hit the bull’s eye. However, that is no reason to lose hope as long as time and practice accompany it! One little tip: instead of sticking to only black mustard, try to use equal portions of black as well as white mustard. Soak the mustard seeds overnight and when crushing it in the mixer, add small ice-cubes instead of water. The magic of mustard will soon reveal itself!

 Sweet Tooth: No Bengali meal is complete without the sweet dish at the end! No matter how wonderful your meal is, the true Bengali will always look at you expectantly at the end of the meal for that heavenly offering of mishti doi, sandesh or pantua. You have to get a little strict here; keep the calorie counter running! Although Bengali sweets are delightful to eat, they aren’t recommended in large amounts. A little tip here: when making mishti doi, make sure you use cow’s milk and never buffalo’s milk. Curd made from buffalo’s milk, although very common in East India, is not recommended at all for its high fat content. The best bit about Bengali desserts is the variety: cham-chams, rosogullas, payesh…the list is endless!

So what are you waiting for? Grab that apron, and you’re all set to win that Bong heart! A word of advice: serve it with a winning smile and a lot of love. Fondness is a dish best served smiling!

June 26, 2014