Sada aloo dum

MM calls this the yin to the yang which is the traditional Bengali aloo dum. Posto, coconut, curds- a combination that leaves me salivating, but one which my family doesn't care much for. 

So when I saw baby potatoes, I picked them up, and while making a conventional potato fry for dinner, reserved a few parboiled potatoes to make this dish for myself. Sometimes you deserve to pamper yourself. 

250 gms baby potatoes

3 tbsp grated or dessicated coconut

1 tbsp Khus Khus/ posto/ poppy seeds

3 tbdp curds (at room temperature)

1 tbsp ginger paste

1/2 tsp green chilli paste

1-2 red chillis

1-2 green cardamom

2-3 cloves

1/2 inch piece of cinnamon

1 bay leaf

1/2 tsp cumin powder

Salt and sugar to taste

1/2 cup water

1 tbsp oil

Method:

Soak posto and coconut in 1/4 cup warm water for 30 minutes. Blend to a smooth paste and keep aside. 

Par boil the potatoes in salted water. Peel, prick and keep aside. 

Whip the curds with cumin powder and keep aside. 

Heat half the oil, and toss the baby potatoes till lightly browned. 

Add the remaining oil, sauté the red chillis for 15 seconds. Remove and keep aside.

Add whole spices and let them sizzle. Add posto-coconut paste and sauté on low flame till the oil separates and it turns to a light beige colour. 

Add ginger and chilli paste and sauté for a minute. 

Remove from the flame, add the curds, mix well. Return to the flame, and cook on low heat for a minute. 

Add 1/2 cup water, and let it simmer till the volume reduces by half. 

Add potatoes, salt and sugar, and let it simmer on low heat for 5 minutes. 

Top with ghee, if desired. 

Bengali style hing aloo

On a rainy evening, the thing you crave most is pure unadulterated carbs, and that's a draw I can never resist. Not wanting to make something very elaborate, I had this really simple Bengali dish for dinner with parathas and dahi phulki, and a more satisfying meal I haven't had in a long time!

200 gms baby potatoes, or 2 large potatoes

1 tbsp mustard oil

A pinch of hing

A pinch of haldi powder

1/2 tsp cumin seeds

Salt to taste

Method:

Boil the potatoes till cooked, peel and keep aside. If using large potatoes, cut into eights. 

Heat the mustard oil, splutter the cumin seeds. Add hing and haldi powder, mix, and immediately add the potatoes. On a low flame, fry for 2-3 minutes. Add salt and mix well. 

Serve hot. 

Jhal moori

Anybody who's grown up in Calcutta will swear that jhal is the best dish you can make out of puffed rice. Make no mistake, I do love the Bambaiya bhel with its notes of tamarind and mint, but offer me a choice between that and jhal moori, and I'll pick the comforting taste of mustard oil any day. So though I am trying to go easy on milk and sugar, I pile on the MO when I snack on this dish.

1 cup puffed rice

Onions, chopped fine

Green chillies, chopped fine

Tomatoes, chopped fine

Boiled potatoes, chopped fine

Peanuts

Salt, to taste

Red chilli powder, to taste

1 tsp mustard oil, for ever cup of moori*

Method:

Roast the peanuts, cool

Add peanuts, onions, chillies, tomatoes, potatoes to the moori and mix well

Add salt and red chilli powder, mix

Add mustard oil, cover the container, and shake vigorously to mix well

Serve, preferable in a paper cone

*- you can substitute the MO with the oil floating on top of pickle

Pan fried Chicken with Betel leaves

I was looking for recipes that use betel leaves when I came across this pan fried chicken dish made by the Murshidabad Muslims of Bengal. Though I wasn't sure how it would turn out, I wanted to give it a try and it was finger lickingly good. You couldn't taste the betel leaves at all, but the flavour was so unusual it left you gasping for more. 

500 gms chicken

Juice of 1 lemon

Salt to taste

1/3 cup onion chopped fine

1/4 cup capsicum chopped five

1 tbsp ginger garlic paste

1 tsp red chilli powder

2 tbsp oil

1 tbsp ghee

Method:

Marinate the chicken with lime juice and salt one hour. 

Heat the oil and ghee. Add chopped onions and sauté till they turn transparent. 

Add chopped capsicum, ginger garlic paste, and red chilli powder. Sauté for 2-3 minutes. 

Add the chicken, stir well, lower the flame, cover and let it cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally so sll sides get evenly browned. 

Meanwhile, make a paste of the betel leaves (add a tablespoon of curds if required), and mix with curds and 1 tsp salt, and keep aside. 

Add curds- betel leaves paste to the chicken. Mix well and cook for 2-3 minutes till the gravy is thickened. 

Serve hot with rotis. 

Chena payash- poornima special

I made Chena payash for Sharad Poornima last year, and decided to make it again this year. I improvised slightly, and all of us really loved it.

1 litre milk

1/3 cup sugar
Few drops kewra essence

Method:
Make paneer out of 1/2 litre of milk (paneer recipe here).
While the paneer is draining, take the rest of the milk in a heavy bottomed vessel, and reduce it on a low flame till it is about half the original volume.
Break the paneer into the milk, add the sugar, and cook on a low flame till you achieve the desired consistency.
Add the essence and well.
Chill before serving.

Janmashtami Special- Kesar Rasmalai

Food wise, Janmashtami had been a grand occasion last year.  Grand in conception, grand in preperation, grand in magnitude of disaster of some of the items. Chastened by the experience, I kept it easy this time. Krishna grew up among the dairy farmers of Mathura, he loved milk products of every kind. Ergo, he would have loved rasmalai- one of the few dishes I manage to get right most of the time. This time was no exception.

I stuck to my tried and tested recipe for rasagolla, but since the intention was always to make rasmalai, I flattened the balls before dropping them in sugar syrup.

8-12 rasagollas
1/2 litre milk
1/2 cup sugar syrup
2-4 drops kewra essence
A pinch of saffron (or food colouring)

Method:
In a heavy bottomed pan, heat the milk till it is reduced by a third.
Add the sugar syrup, and mix well.
Soak the saffron strands in water, and add to the milk, along with a few drops of essence.
Squeeze the syrup out of the rasagollas and soak in the sweetened-thickened milk .
Serve chilled.

Mishti doi

It is impossible for someone to have grown up in Calcutta, and not love mishti doi. And I am no exception. Which is why I was in heaven, when a leading milk producer started making mishti doi. It was so popular that it would disappear almost as soon as it came on the shelves, but I learnt the art of hoaring it whenever I saw it. And then, it disappeared from the store, and I was returned to a Universe without mishti doi- one made even more unlivable because I had experienced it for an entire year!
So, when I saw a recipe for mishti doi, I decided to try it out, and it tastes pretty good.

Sugar 8-10 tbsp
Whole Milk - 1 ltr
2 -3 tbsp fresh curd
Butter- 1 tbsp
 
Method:
Heat the butter, and caramelize 7 tbsp sugar till the sugar turns dark brown but not black.
Add the milk and stir till all the caramel melts. Add 3 tbsp of sugar.
Boil the milk for 10-15 min till it thickens to 75% of it's original volume. Cool.
When the milk cools down, but while it is still lukewarm, add 2-3 tbsp of plain curd. Strain. Pour in a ceramic bowl and set overnight.
If the weather is cool, preheat oven for 2-3 mins, put the bowl in, and cover tightly with a lid. After 2-3 hrs, again preheat oven for a minute.(essentially, this wil set well only when kept in a v warm place).take out after 6 -8 hours.

Mango Rasmalai

I've been wanting to make mango rasmalai for a couple of weeks, and I finally did it today. Though the dish was lovely, nobody really liked it too much, so this might just be the last time I make it.

For the rasgollas:
1 litre milk
Lime juice- 3 tbsp
Water - 3 1/2 cups
Icecubes - 4 to 5
Sugar - 1 1/2 cup (I used slightly less)
Cardamom 

For the malai:
1 mango
1/2 litre milk

Method:
Heat milk, and once it comes to a boil add the lime juice to the boiling milk and stir properly. Stir continuosly till the whey water clears and the milk curdles completely. Now switch off the stove, add ice cubes and allow it to melt completely.
Pour the curdled milk into a muslin cloth. Wash it well with running water to remove the lime juice. Squeeze the excess water and hang it aside for 30 mins without disturbing it.  
After 30 mins, the paneer would be crumbly in texture. Knead it well for 10mins. Once everything comes together to a smooth pilable dough, form them into flat discs- I made 12 with the amount of paneer I had.

Heat water in a wide bottomed vessel, then add sugar, cardamom and keep stirring till sugar dissolves completely. Ensure that the vessel is large enough to give the balls enough place to dance around. When the sugar syrup boils and starts bubbling, add the balls slowly one by one, cover, and let it cook on a high flame for 10 minutes. Lower the flame and cook for a further 3 minutes. 
Take it off the fire, and let it cool*

Meanwhile, puree the mango, and keep aside.
Remove the rasgollas, add the milk to the syrup, bring to a boil, and reduce by 25%. Switch off the flame, add the mango puree and mix well. Return the rasgollas to the malai, and chill before serving.

*- if the sugar syrup looks very thick, add some milk to dilute it. 

Calcutta style rassa aloo

I am constantly on the lookout for easy recipes with potatoes, because that is one of the few vegetables that everyone in my family relishes. When I read about this recipe, I was transplanted back to my Calcutta days, and I tweaked the ingredients so it matched with what I remember of the rassa aloo that I used to have there.

4 large potatoes
2 green chillis
1/2 tsp jeera
1/2 inch piece ginger, chopped fine
A pinch of hing
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp amchur powder
1 tbsp mustard oil


Method:
Boil potatoes and mash slightly to make small pieces.
Heat the mustard oil, and temper with green chilli, jeera, ginger and hing.
When the jeera stops spluttering and starts browning, add the potatoes and turmeric powder. Mix well and add water and salt.
Bring it to boil, lower heat and keep stirring. The gravy will start thickening, as the potatoes mash and start getting mixed. Add amchur powder and mix well. When the gravy looks nice, take off the fire, and serve with rotis, puris or luchis.

Egg curry with fennel and dil weeds

I had a bunch of boiled eggs and some dill weeds in the fridge, so decided to make the curry that I had fallen in love with more than a month back. It tastes much better as an egg curry than as a potato curry!

 

6 boiled eggs

1/2 tsp fennel seeds
1 bay leaf
Paste of 1 large onion
2 tsp ginger paste
1/2 tsp garlic paste
Haldi powder to taste
Chilli powder to taste
Salt to taste
Cooking oil (about 1 tbsp)
Dil leaves for garnish
1/2 tsp fennel seeds, crushed
1 tsp sugar, crushed

Method:
In a little oil, fry the boiled eggs till lightly browned.

Heat oil and add fennel seeds and bay leaf, fry for a minute till the aroma releases.
Add a mix of fine onion paste, ginger paste and garlic paste, haldi and chilli powder.
Fry the masala well till oil seperates. 

Add eggs. Bring to boil and take off the fire.
Garnish with dil leaves and a pinch of fennel and sugar powder.

Rasmalai

While I love rasgullas, my family likes rasmalai more, so when the rasgullas came out fine, I decided to convert them into rasmalai.

1/2 litre milk
Few drops kewra essence
Food colouring
Rasgulla made using 1 litre milk
Sugar syrup reserved from the rasgulla

Method:
In a thick bottomed pan, heat the milk with the reserved sugar syrup, till it thickens.
Drop the rasgullas in the thickened milk, squeeze to let the syrup ooze out, and cook on a low flame for 3-4 minutes.
Serve chilled

Rasgullas

Rasgullas were always sweets bought from the sweetmeat shop and consumed at home. I never even thought they could be made at home, till I saw a bunch of posts on IFF, and decided to give it a try. The trick, they all seemed to say was in kneading till the wrists hurt, and that's not too difficult for me to do, is it?

While it was on my To Attempt list, I wasn't really planning to make rasgullas today. My mother always stuck to tried and tested recipes on New Years because she didn't want to take a risk with the year turning out disastrous. But I reasoned it out the other way- I would like this to be the year when I take risks. Some pay off, some not, but unless you take risks, how will you ever know. And the results were much better than expected!

Milk - 1 litre
Vinegar- 3 tbsp (I made it in two lots, and used some of the whey to start the process off the second time round)
Water - 3 1/2 cups
Icecubes - 4 to 5
Sugar - 1 1/2 cup (I used slightly less)
Cardamom 


Method:
Heat milk, and once it comes to a boil add the vinegar to the boiling milk and stir properly. Stir continuosly till the whey water clears and the milk curdles completely. Now switch off the stove, add ice cubes and allow it to melt completely.
Pour the curdled milk into a muslin cloth. Wash it well with running water to remove the vinegar. Squeeze the excess water and hang it aside for 30 mins without disturbing it.  
After 30 mins, the paneer would be crumbly in texture. Knead it well for 10mins. Once everything comes together to a smooth pilable dough, form them into smooth mini balls and keep aside. I made 24 mini balls.
Heat water in a wide bottomed vessel, then add sugar, cardamom and keep stirring till sugar dissolves completely. Ensure that the vessel is large enough to give the balls enough place to dance around. When the sugar syrup boils and starts bubbling, add the balls slowly one by one and simmer it for 3 mins. Keep in medium flame, cover, and let it cook for 10 minutes, opening the lid every 3-4 mins to ensure the syrup doesn't ooze out. After 10 mins, the balls would have roughly doubled in size. 
Take it off the fire. Cool and serve. Or make into rasmalais. 

Aloo dum with Fennel Tempering

When I saw this recipe, I knew I just had to try it out, specially since I so seldom use saunf in daily cooking. The original recipe was for an egg curry, but it worked just as well with baby potatoes.

250 gms baby potatoes, boiled and peeled
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
1 bay leaf
Paste of 1 large onion
2 tsp ginger paste
1/2 tsp garlic paste
Haldi powder to taste
Chilli powder to taste
Salt to taste
Cooking oil (about 1 tbsp)
Dil leaves for garnish
1/2 tsp fennel seeds, crushed
1 tsp sugar

Method:
Heat oil and add fennel seeds and bay leaf, fry for a minute till the aroma releases.
Add a mix of fine onion paste, ginger paste and garlic paste, haldi and chilli powder.
Fry the masala well till oil seperates. I added sugar, because the masala seemed to spicy, and it added a nice taste to the dish.
Add boiled potatoes.
Cook on low heat with a minimum of water.
Take off fire. Garnish with dil leaves and a pinch of fennel powder.

Niramish Aloo Dum

Growing up in Calcutta as I did, one of my favourite street snacks had to be aloo dum. Half a dozen pieces of divine goodness, in a leaf 'dona'. I've come a long way since them, and prefer pairing my aloo dum with a roti than with a toothpick, but the desire to drown in the taste still remains. This recipe, like most others, is sourced from the internet.

Ingredients:

Small size potato: 500 gms, boiled and peeled
Tomatoes: 2-3 (large, ripe) or Tomato Puree: 2-3 tbsp
Warm water: 2 cups
Coriander leaves: for decoration
Red chilli powder: 2 tsp
Turmeric powder: 1 ½ tsp
Cumin powder: 1 tsp
Coriander powder: 1 tsp
Salt to taste
Sugar to balance

For tempering:
Oil or ghee: 4-5 tbsp
Cinnamon stick: 2”
Green cardamom: handful
Cloves: handful
Sugar: ½ tsp
Asafetida/ hing: 1 pinch

Method:
Boil and peel the baby potatoes and keep aside.
Heat the oil or ghee, add the ingredients for tempering, and fry on a low fire till the raw smell goes.
Add the potatoes and fry till lightly golden.
Toss in the dry ingredients, and stir till the potatoes are well coated.
Add tomato puree (puree the tomatoes if you don't have puree), and fry on a low flame till well done.
Garnish with coriander leaves and serve with parathas or puris. It can also be enjoyed as a stand alone snack.

Posto and lal saag

This dish, like many others, has a story. When we were in Calcutta, we would often find this (very imaginatively named) "laal saag" in the market. My mother's Tam Bram sensibilities couldn't make head or tail of it, but since greens (even if they were red in colour) were hard to come by in Calcutta, she was reluctant to let these leaves pass. So she asked around, and got this recipe from one of her colleagues, and started making it.
At that time, I didn't even know something called khas khas/ posto existed, much less know what it tasted like, but many years later, that thing called Nostalgia crawled out of the recesses of my mind, and made me pick up some khus khus during a trip to Delhi. I then asked my mother for recipes other than that of aloo-posto, and got this one.
Love it, because it combines two of my favourites- khus khus and peanuts!

1 bunch lal saag, destemmed and chopped fine

2 green chillis

2-3 pods garlic

2 tbsp roasted peanuts

2 tbsp khus khus

1/2 tsp kala jeera

1/2 tsp haldi powder

salt and sugar to taste

cooking oil

Method

Season the oil with kala jeera, green chilli, garlic and haldi powder. 

Once the jeera starts spluttering, add finely chopped lal saag, salt and sugar (be careful with the salt).

Cover and cook, without adding additional water.

When it is nearly done, sprinkle the khus khus, mix well, and cook till nearly dry.

Garnish with roasted peanuts (optional)

Sandesh

My younger one is the most fussy eater in the whole world, so when he likes something, you can be sure I make it often.
In the few weeks since I first tried making Bhappa Sandesh, I've made it twice more.

On Diwali with a dash of cardamon powder-

On Bhai Dooj with orange flavour and colouring-

Bengali aloo bhajans

I love Bengali food, and when I saw this aloo bhaja, my mouth started salivating. Will my family eat something that doesn't have jeera, I wondered, but unless you try, how will you know. Went down so well, I had to make it again after two days!

3 potatoes

2 red chilli

1 tbsp mustard oil

salt and haldi to taste

Wash the potatoes well, and dice them (do not peel)

Heat the mustard oil, and when it starts giving off a smoky smell, add the potatoes, haldi and salt. Stir well, then let it fry (stirring constantly) till done.

Chana payash

I first heard about Sharat Poornima last year, and since I had two bananas that were ready to be consigned to the dustbin, made a banana payasam instead. That obviously set a precedent, and this year too, I decided to make a white sweet to commemorate the festival. Since I have just learnt to make paneer, this recipe of Uma Chinkaru was right up my street.

1 litre milk
1/3 cup sugar
cardamon powder for garnish

Method:
Make paneer out of 1/2 litre of milk (paneer recipe here).
While the paneer is draining, take the rest of the milk in a heavy bottomed vessel, and reduce it on a low flame till it is about half the original volume.
Grate the paneer into the milk, add the sugar, and cook on a low flame till you achieve the desired consistency.
Add cardamon powder.
Chill before serving.

Bhappa sandesh

Growing up in Calcutta as I did, Sandesh has always been a favourite sweet of mine. There was an outlet of Sweet Bengal near our previous house, so it was easy for me to indulge myself. Somewhere along the line, the kids developed a taste for Sandesh too, and we ended up buying it once or twice a month. You do not get milk sweets near our new house, but to be honest, we are so busy exploring what we do have, that none of us has got a chance to really miss it.
I would not have made sandesh today, if not for a combination of events. I almost always make a sweet on Dussera day, but was just not able to get my act together yesterday. When I came to know that in some parts of the country, they were continuing to celebrate the festival today, I wondered if I should sneak a sweet in. At the same time, the milkman hadn't seen my "No Milk" note this morning, and had delivered the milk. Since I wasn't expecting it, the milk had been out for nearly five hours before I got it in, and I thought it sensible to make paneer or channa out of it. A half-forgotten memory of a step-by-step recipe by Jayanta Das on Indian Food Freak stirred in my mind, and before I knew it, I was committed to making Bhappa Sandesh.
It is a really simple recipe, and the results are fantastic. Definitely something I am going to make more often.
PS- this was a promise I kept- more pictures here

1 litre milk
2 tbsp curds, beaten
juice of 1 lime
100 gms powdered sugar
couple of drops rosewater
couple of drops red food colouring

Boil the milk, with the beaten curds. Just when it starts to boil, add the juice of one full lime. Once the whey separates, hang the cheese in a cloth for about half an hour. Wash it in cold water for the aroma of lemon to go away. Leave it like this for another 30 minutes.
Knead the powdered sugar well with the cheese for around 10 minutes. Add the rosewater and the colouring, and mix so it is well incorporated.
Take a steel box, grease it with ghee and place in the cheese covering the edges nicely. Place the box in a pressure cooker, pour water till half the level of the tiffin box upper edge. Cover the lid without the whistle and leave the cooker at mid flame for 20 minutes.
Take the box and overturn it on a plate. Leave it to cool at room temperature and then refrigerate it for an hour.
Cut into nice square shapes, and garnish with rose petals if you have them.

Aloo posto

Growing up in Calcutta, it is hard for you not to develop a taste for aloo posto. But once you move out of the city, and no longer have access to Bong food, it is hard not to forget many of the dishes you loved so much when you were young. And then, suddenly, you are reminded of them, and you want them, but there is nobody around to make it for you :-(
I got one filling of aloo posto when I visited Delhi, and my father-in-law's maid made it for me. But if I though it would satiate me, I was mistaken. It just left me panting for more. And I had to learn to make it myself. This was my first attempt- I followed the verbal instructions given by the maid- but I was later told to make changes to make it more authentic. Some of those changes I liked, some I didn't, and I am sticking to my version, even if it is not the authentic aloo posto.

 

3 medium potatos, peeled and cubed

4 tbsp khus khus/ posto

1 green chilli

1/2 tsp jeera/ kalonji/ panch poran (depending on personal preference)

A pinch of haldi powder (not used in the original version)

Salt to taste

Mustard Oil

Method

Soak about posto in warm water for 20 mins, then grind with green chillies. You can do it in a mixer, but I prefer the mortar and pestle- basically pound it till the chillis disintegrate.
Splutter jeera in a kadhai, add potato chunks and fry on a low flame till potatoes are done. Add the posto paste, salt to taste and haldi powder, mix well, cover the dish and let it cook for 5 minutes.

Top with some MO and serve.